Oh the tedious predictability and smugness of the middlebrow mind.

Traditionally, religious wars were fought with swords and sieges; today, they often are fought with books. And in literary circles, these battles have usually been fought at the extremes.

It’s smug and predictable to pretend books are the equivalent of swords; it’s smug and predictable to cast anything one wants to sneer at as (somehow, and self-evidently) ‘extreme’; it’s smug and predictable to pretend that religion and atheism are really equivalent and each as bad as the other. It ought to be possible even to disagree with atheism without making that stupid stale untrue move, but apparently it isn’t, at least not for hacks. I would like Kristof not … Read the rest

I’ve been going back and forth with Josh Rosenau, at his blog and also now via email, and I think we’ve pinned down (for the moment) our basic disagreement – which is about what one writes or talks for. Josh says, perfectly reasonably, that we surely write or talk in order to get some result, however broadly we construe ‘result.’ I say…yes, if we construe ‘result’ really broadly…but I think that may be where the difference is: how broadly we construe it.

At any rate, my goal, if any, when writing is not really to get people to do something. It’s certainly not to avoid disturbing people in any way. My goal is to say what I’m trying to … Read the rest

I had a funny experience this afternoon. I was at the University bookstore, and I went to take a look at the atheist shelf, just to see if there was anything new – after I looked to see if Does God Hate Women? is still on its shelf (it is, next to Why Truth Matters), and noticing as I picked my way through the maze of shelves what a lot of shelves there were with ‘Spirituality’ as their label, especially compared to the one short shelf that holds the atheist books. So I got to the (tiny) atheist shelf and behold – there was another human being there. Aha, thought I; it is spreading! I snickered inwardly, and looked … Read the rest

I’ve had occasion to notice it before, and I daresay I will again – some people just seem to be unable to disagree with, or even mention, a woman without breaking out the Special Insulting language. That’s especially noticeable when there are men being disagreed with or mentioned too, and they don’t get the Special Insulting language.

Look at Science and Religion Today.

Jerry Coyne is disappointed. Michael Shermer responds. Josh Rosenau jumps in, and sides, and calls. But I – I don’t do anything as quiet and reasonable as that. Well naturally not: I don’t have the balls.

It’s not as if the tone of what I say, or the part of it quoted there, is wildly … Read the rest