Author: Ophelia Benson

Michael Shermer replies, or retorts, to Jerry Coyne.

What is the right way to respond to theists and/or theism? That is the question asked at every atheism/humanism conference I’ve attended the past several years. The answer is simple: there is no one “right way”. There are multiple ways, all of which work, depending on the context.

He expands on the point, but without bothering to say what he means by ‘works.’ It’s a rather silly way to put it, frankly, because one doesn’t always expect one’s responses to ‘work’ – one sometimes simply wants to say what is true to the best of one’s ability, not to do what ‘works.’ This is a big part of the issue between accommodationists and critics of accommodationism, and it’s one of the most irritating things about accommodationists that they almost never seem to get that. Accommodationists always talk about what works, what wins more allies, what is least likely to offend the moderates, and similar calculating issues. Critics of accommodationism on the other hand tend to dislike manipulative rhetoric and tactical evasion, and want to try to tell the truth instead of trying to shape a message for fragile listeners.

Shermer’s apparent unawareness of that disagreement leads him, predictably, into the usual strawman overstatement and sneering.

If you insist that people of faith renounce every last ounce of their beliefs before they are allowed to join the common fight against these scourges of humanity, then you have just alienated the vast majority of the world’s population from your project. To what end? So you can stand up tall and proud and proclaim “…but I never gave an inch to those faith heads!”? Well good for you! Just keep on playing “Nearer my Atheism to Thee” while the ship of humanity slips further into the depths of disaster.

We don’t insist that. That is a strawman. What we insist is that we shouldn’t be expected to say things that we do not think are true on the flimsy grounds that some observers think that not doing so will ‘alienate the vast majority of the world’s population from your project’ (and what if we don’t have a project apart from telling the truth as we see it?). There is a difference between insisting ‘that people of faith renounce every last ounce of their beliefs,’ and refusing to tailor everything we say to suit some vague idea of what will not threaten other people. There is a big, serious, important difference between those two things. It is irritating that accommodationists so often insist on framing the matter the first way. It is irritating and it does not increase our respect for their probity.

The rest of the quoted passage is of course just snotty jeering. That doesn’t do much for the respect for probity either.

I wondered as soon as I read or heard (I forget which) that the coma guy was communicating by typing with the help of his caregiver. Uh oh, I thought. No he isn’t. If he’s doing it with someone else’s ‘help,’ then he’s not doing it. This has been tested. It’s the clever Hans effect. The ‘helper’ or ‘facilitator’ does the typing.

James Randi had the same thought, and he saw some video which further gave the game away. He finds it all very irritating.

From the Frontline documentary:

NARRATOR: The facilitator and autistic individual sat side by side, with a screen dividing their visual field. Sometimes they were shown the same picture, sometimes different ones. They tested 12 clients facilitating with 9 staff members, many who were trained in Syracuse. They ran dozens of trials. The results were shocking.

Not one correct answer. Not one. It was Clever Hans.

Doesn’t the BBC ever want to puke on itself? Seriously. Doesn’t its gorge ever rise until it can’t stand it any more and it has to shout rude words in a hoarse voice and pour beer over its head and kick the table over? Doesn’t it ever get sick of talking babyish cant?

Secondary schools run by faith groups are better than non-religious schools at building community relations, research in England suggests. A study funded by the Church of England found faith schools were rated higher than others by Ofsted inspectors on what is called “community cohesion”. The church says its schools take all faiths seriously and look for common ground while respecting difference.

What is called by whom ‘community cohesion’? And what’s it supposed to mean? Cohesion of communities, or cohesion between communities? The first makes sense but is a decidedly mixed blessing, the second is ludicrously oxymoronic. Maybe it’s supposed to mean both, without any thought about either one, but just a brainless pious hope that we can all have everything: cohesion and commmunity and tolerance and everybody loves everybody else. Let’s train people to think they all belong to a particular ‘community,’ for preference a religious excuse me I mean ‘faith’ community, but that’s not absolutely required unless of course the people are Muslims in which case it is absolutely required; then when we’ve done that let’s train them to aim at cohesion, without ever quite explaining what we mean by that; then let’s send them all to ‘faith’ schools; then let’s urge them to look for common ground while respecting difference. Let’s give them mixed messages! Let’s make no sense at all and then look around with an air of pleased expectancy at the peaceable kingdom we have created!

The Reverend Janina Ainsworth, chief education officer for the Church of England, says schools with a religious foundation have a particular role “in modelling how faith and belief can be explored and expressed in ways that bring communities together, rather than driving them apart. In Church of England schools that means taking all faith seriously and placing a high premium on dialogue, seeking the common ground as well as understanding and respecting difference.”

Yes take all ‘faith’ seriously because of course it is crucial to take seriously all brands of evidence-free belief, and at the same time do the impossible by squaring common ground with difference. That’s the advantage of people who take faith seriously of course – they don’t have to notice troublesome difficulties of that kind, they can just have ‘faith’ that the impossible can be done. They can talk woolly fluffy feel-good mush, and be pleased with themselves afterwards.

Not surprisingly, Keith Porteous Wood is the one person quoted in the article who makes any sense, by pointing out the obvious –

“The very existence of minority faith schools is a major impediment to cohesion, especially where members tend also to be from ethnic and cultural minorities. Such schools tend to be mono-religious, mono-ethnic and mono-cultural, quite often of children from communities that are already separate from mainstream society.”

Yes but if everyone just keeps saying faith and cohesion and community over and over and over again, it will all work out in the end, surely.

Greta Christina puts it well.

Religion is a hypothesis about how the world works, and why it is the way it is. Religion is the hypothesis that the world is the way it is, at least in part, because of immaterial beings or forces that act on the material world.

It’s other things too, but the significant bit is this hypothesis of an immaterial world acting on the material one. ‘The hypothesis that there is a supernatural world, and that the natural world is the way it is because of the supernatural one.’

Quite so. And a hypothesis of that kind makes a difference to how people think and act, and it does have to be open to discussion and dispute. It should not must not cannot be walled off from discussion and dispute.