Books like yours balkanize the world
Robert Winston says the Templeton Prize is just fine, no problem, what’s the big deal, relax, take a chill pill, don’t get your knickers in a twist, why do you have such an attitude. Sam Harris says religious language is unscientific in its claims for what is true. Winston says there’s no such thing as “the truth.” Harris says we can still recognise falsehood. Winston says
I suppose I really wonder why you’re so angry.
Whut?
Yes really; he says that. Maybe not that abruptly and inconsequentially – that may be editing – but those are the words. Harris attempts to laugh off this sudden rudeness, but Winston isn’t having it. “You write angrily, too,” he says. Furthermore,
books like yours and [Richard Dawkins’s] God Delusion balkanise the world a good deal more, because they polarise views. The God Delusion has caused very aggressive reactions from [people who] previously weren’t aggressive.
Got that? The books of Dawkins and Harris caused very aggressive reactions – just as Salman Rushdie’s Naughty Book caused other very aggressive reactions and Theo Van Gogh’s movie caused others and Lars Vilks’s cartoon caused others and the Motoons caused others and so on. We people who offend religious believers in their organs of religiosity are at fault for being so offensive and we are the cause of any aggressive reactions that ensue. It’s not that religious believers are Spoiled by the longstanding custom of treating religion as special and taboo so they now feel entitled to permanent deference; it’s not Privilege; no, it’s that people who try to discuss the subject openly are creators of aggression.
Although this has been said many times, I thought Harris brought it into the conversation with perfect timing:
To which, of course, there was no consideration. Going there would be very disruptive of accommodation.
Funny to hear this coming from a bloke working in IVF – something that pisses off the RCC immensely.
(Me, too, for that matter.)
Even before you get to the reversal of humility you read this:
What nerve, to accuse scientists of absolutism for deriving truth empirically! Then he wants to doubt that truth exists because….we develop our knowledge. Boy, that’s some knowledge, being not true but so helpful in altering the not-true truths we had before. What a tragedy it is to have a mind filled with junk like this!
This is a lot like saying rape victims are at fault for dressing provocatively, isn’t it? Victim-blaming is a reliable strategy used by the privileged and powerful everywhere.
Even before you get to the reversal of humility you read this:
What nerve, to accuse scientists of absolutism for deriving truth empirically! Then he wants to doubt that truth exists because….we develop our knowledge. Boy, that’s some knowledge, being not true but so helpful in altering the not-true truths we had before. What a tragedy it is to have a mind filled with junk like this!
If people are unable to control their violent reactions then it’s hard to see how they qualify as moral agents. Indeed, in this respect it’s hard to see how they differ from many non-human animals.
I think Winston is clearly being obstinate and wrong headed here, but I read his quote about making people angry as applying to atheist, not religionists. Which is to say, it read to me that Winston is mad at Dawkins for riling up atheists, who back in the good old just kept quiet and didn’t stir things up. I think that’s a terrible position, but maybe not the same as accusing Dawkins of being guilty of making religionists angrynand violent.
I could be wrong though. I think it’s unclear.
I read it the same way Rick did.
Sam Harris’s morality project leaves me uneasy, but when it comes to rational confrontation with believers, he’s as sharp as a toothpick. The overly respected Robert Winston comes across as rather a weasel.
I don’t know. In his next sentence, he’s talking about scientists’ framing, making his argument seem like good old YNH.
Amazing how people like Winston all say the same silly things, but they infuriate me each in their own special way.
And yes, I do get a kick out of Harris’ reaction to being called “angry,” though. Sam—who even at his most animated seems barely to have a pulse—just laughs. I laughed, too.
It’s not a fair fight. Winston accuses Harris of railing against what people believe by railing against what Harris believes. It appears that Winston is operating under the theory that all beliefs are correct except the belief that this is wrong.
If someone who says this sort of thing could explain why they aren’t being discriminatory by denying the religious an important degree of agency and responsibility that would be lovely.
Ebonmuse
I read it more the way Rick did, which means I see the analogy more as blaming the rape victim for going to the cops and the police investigation that followed.
Winston is very much the sort that has ‘faith in faith’. He sees ‘moderate’ religion as being an unquestionably positive thing. This is a very common viewpoint – particularly amongst those who promote the interfaith agenda.
Which is just why we need to jostle the idea until they catch on that it’s not unquestionable.
We may not always know what’s true, but we can know certain things are false. (Trivial example: I cannot tell you the temperature in this room to the nearest .001 Kelvin, lacking a thermometer, but I can tell you that it is neither 250K nor 400K.) Some statements clearly contradict demonstrable facts about the world (Earth is not flat) and others are self-contradictory. The three-omni god requires a redefinition of “benevolence” at Humpty-Dumpty “There’s glory for you” levels. (An omnipotent deity who cares only about the organisms living in the atmospheres of gas giants, or who is not at all benevolent, may be logically possible, but that’s not what they’re trying to sell me. They’re trying to convince me that Tay-Sachs disease is consistent with an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity.) If I can refute a claim using basic logic of the sort I learned in eighth grade, I feel no need to respect it.
I should point out that when they do something that can be labeled as ‘causing’ they’re more than happy to argue they’re not responsible for the choices of others… Like Tiller’s murder, for example…
Everyone’s picked up on the denial of responsibility, as is right and proper. But when I first read this, it the sentence as a whole that struck me.
According to Winston, then, there are a bunch of people out there who are normally peaceable and lovely. But when they read a book that upsets them, they Turn.
Now, to my no doubt naive way of thinking, if someone reacts very aggressively to reading ideas they don’t like in a book, then, actually, they ARE aggressive.
What would we think if Winston had said this:
Dan