Author: Ophelia Benson

George H Smith remarks in his book Why Atheism? that salvation religion includes the belief that “at least some knowledge necessary for salvation requires faith in divine revelation, knowledge that cannot otherwise be justified through reason alone.” [p. 28 n. 1] That’s an interesting idea. It means that salvation religion believes in a god who is a terrible cheat and bully – one who makes “salvation” dependent on voluntary stupidity.

It also requires us (if we want “salvation”) to divide our thinking and functioning in two – because for ordinary purposes, faith is not the right way to go, it’s the wrong way. It’s wrong and we know it’s wrong. We don’t claim to use faith for purposes of ordinary inquiry. We may use it of vague guessworky subjective matters – the future, people, results of actions – in combination with more rationally-based knowledge, but we don’t use it of empirical subjects. On the contrary, we use maps and schedules and recipes and blueprints and we expect the people who make them to use something other than faith. Yet in this other area, the rules are completely different. Well why? Why do that? Why make different rules? Why give us a reliable way of finding out things, and then make it a condition of “salvation” that we not use it in this one important area? What kind of arrangement is that? A perverse, unfair, backasswards, unreasonable one, that’s what. If faith isn’t good enough for ordinary inquiry, why is it good enough for any kind of inquiry? Even in the more guessworky subjects, blind faith is no good. Blind faith in a person you have abundant reason to know is a malicious enemy is a bad idea. So what kind of god would make faith the right way to get knowledge in one area but not the other? A trickster? A demon? What?

In a way that doesn’t matter, because of course the real reason “faith” is necessary is the fact that there is no evidence. But in another way it does matter, because it means that people believe in a god who plays wicked games with human cognition.

Andrew Coyne’s running blog of the Macleans-BC Human Rights tribunal hearing is fascinating and horrifying. He keeps pointing out that the chair is deciding this or that but that it’s hard to know what the basis of the decision is when there are no rules of evidence. Ponder that. Macleans is up before a tribunal but the rules are made up on the spot.

1:59 PM: [W]e’re walking through another passage—which Faisal Joseph notes is particularly significant—in which Steyn particulalry disavows any suggestion that his concerns attach to all Muslims, but rather that the trends he observes prevail in “enough” of the Muslim population of Europe to be worrisome. This strikes me as eminently arguable—but whether it is or not, it is just surreal in a free and democratic society to be calling in a government panel to decide it. Instead of, you know, arguing it.

A couple of hours later –

3: 50 PM: Back from a break, as the tribunal members wrestle with yet another ruling on admissibility in the absence of rules of evidence. They’ve decided again to sort-of admit questioning about the “impact,” not of Steyn’s article, but of various, mostly obscure blogs who were allegedly “inspired” by Steyn’s piece. Understand: we’re now to be subjected to the state’s inquisition, not for anything that appeared in the magazine, but for whatever lunatic ramblings might appear anywhere in the blogosphere! 4:10 PM: Now we’re into, not even blogs, but comments left on a YouTube post. Is bathroom grafitti next?

Inspiring, isn’t it?

The Freethinker has an atheist blog challenge in which it tapped me, so I’ve obliged.

How would you define “atheism”?

Non-theism; no belief in any gods.

Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

Very vaguely and nominally, and less and less so over time. And it never took.

How would you describe “Intelligent Design”, using only one word?

Infiniteregress.

What scientific endeavour really excites you?

Several do – but I’ll go with cognitive science. But there’s astronomy, too. So I’m a cheater.

If you could change one thing about the “atheist community”, what would it be and why?

Well to start with I would never call it a community! I feel fully entitled to be an atheist without being a member of any poxy community – which is not to deny that I feel a certain commonality with other atheists, especially vocal ones. But I still don’t think of atheists as enough of a community for it to be meaningful to want to change something about that community. All I know about atheists as such is that they are atheists, and I have no desire to change that.

If your child came up to you and said “I’m joining the clergy”, what would be your first response?

It was nice knowing you.

What’s your favourite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

Oh, there are so many…One fave is the ‘science can’t explain why we are here’ type. I don’t exactly refute it, I just say neither can religion.

What’s your most “controversial” (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

Er, er, er. I’m not sure I have one – possibly because I’m not sure what general attitudes among other atheists are. There are a lot of other atheists! The only general attitude I’m confident they have (excuse repetition) is non-belief in gods, and I uncontroversially share that one. Come on, try. Er, er. Well I’m not a humanist (except in the minimal sense of not being theist); that will have to do.

Of the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?

I don’t have a favourite. They’re all fine upstanding members of the atheist community.

If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

The Saudi king.

Now name three other atheist blogs that you’d like to see take up the Atheist Thirteen gauntlet.

The New Humanist. Um…that will have to do; I’m too shy to name anyone else.

You Can’t Say That.

A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article’s tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States do not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.

Sigh – not just conservative magazines and blogs. Why is this so hard to grasp? Islam is not left-wing or liberal. Islam itself is far, far more conservative than most of the conservative magazines and blogs in the US. Islam is reactionary; Islam is in many ways medieval. It is not, repeat not, just conservatives who have strong reservations about ‘the rise of Islam.’ You don’t have to be a conservative to argue that the rise of Islam threatens liberal values – although being a conservative may tend to cause you to call liberal values ‘Western’ values, which is silly and wrong. (Newsflash: one of the values in question is universalism, which means that the values can’t be purely Western ones, and they’re not; they done spread.)

Things are different here. The magazine is on trial. Two members of the Canadian Islamic Congress say the magazine, Maclean’s, Canada’s leading newsweekly, violated a provincial hate speech law by stirring up hatred against Muslims. They say the magazine should be forbidden [to say] similar things, forced to publish a rebuttal and made to compensate Muslims for injuring their “dignity, feelings and self-respect.”

But what if the rise of Islam does in fact threaten liberal values? What then?

[T]he lawyer for Maclean’s, Roger D. McConchie, all but called the proceeding a sham. “Innocent intent is not a defense,” Mr. McConchie said in a bitter criticism of the British Columbia law on hate speech. “Nor is truth. Nor is fair comment on true facts. Publication in the public interest and for the public benefit is not a defense. Opinion expressed in good faith is not a defense. Responsible journalism is not a defense.”

Oh. You can’t say it even if it’s true. That’s interesting.