How to respond...?

[dj357]

Hi all, I'm hoping this is in the relevant topic area, but I'm speaking with a friend of mine, and while she strikes me as an intelligent person, she seems to have some funny ideas about science, rationality and atheism etc... the following is an excerpt of an email she recently sent me, and for some reason my brain is failing me so I'd like your help with responding to certain bits of it. I sent her the link to my blog and as you can see from the below she took a bit of an exception to some of it: (I've bolded sections I'd dearly love to respond to properly)

Oh super, I love meandering writings. How did I guess it would have something about atheism in the title...?
...
ON THE OTHER HAND that could be (more like: is) read as an incredibly offensive sidebar. Exactly how much better do you think such an emotive atheist rant is than a sermon? There's nothing inherently rational about secularism. Take Sarkozy and his projects to ban the national dress customs of about 7 immigrant woman in France (who're now likely to be confined to their houses rather than being able to move in the community).

I disapprove of evidence for every reason you'll find in an elementary philosophy text. Rather than messing around with evidence *or* stories I think we should learn to get on without them, in a blissful state of agnosticism and openmindedness. (Openmindedness is something science is never, ever going to achieve until it gets over this infantile obsession with proof.) Effect: both evidence and stories lose their influence over the movements of huge populations, and revert to the effects of art, injecting beauty and interest into the minds of people who may find such things enlightening. And please note that stories are more easily appealing than raw 'evidence'. Stories are a good way of transmitting information, and they don't get all self-righteous about it. Facts go: 'oh, way, look at me, I'm so right!' Stories say: 'someone happened to do something, and wasn't that an interesting decision! I do wonder why she did that.'

You have to find a way to separate religion from the behaviour of people who claim to subscribe to it before you can counteract it in a constructive way. If religious people feel attacked -- even if you say you're not attacking them but specific behaviours or indoctrination -- they're never going to listen to anything you have to say. It would be better for the militant atheist agenda to woo the religious -- the weak who're probably quite happy being religious in the first place -- and I'm sure Jehovah's Witnesses/Mormons/blah would be only too happy to train you in the art of supposedly-sympathetic pointless persuasion. Except I'm quite happy they'll never bother, because egotistic proselytising atheists are far too much of a bore to have interfering with the life of a community.

Religion's not divisive any more than it is uniting. The Israelite story is one of the most inspiring in literature. The animated film 'The Prince of Egypt' makes me cry, okay? So if you haven't seen it please download and watch and then you can go on about the lack of evidence for animated whales in the Red Sea.

Most people don't care about their religions ... they follow their community's trend. (Within a community, religion's always uniting: that's what it's *for*.) If Anthropology weren't so ridiculously lost I'd tell you to go and study it, but try this experiment: read an article or two by say Evans-Pritchard on the Azande: is there anything particularly harmful in that belief system? (Apart from the stuff he doesn't mention, but anyway.) It works. J-C-I has worked for lots of people for lots of time. Atheists tend to be biased against the particular strain they've rebelled against. Most people who've never spent their childhood being told 'you must believe! and by the way come and listen to boring old people talking for three hours with a non child-friendly vocabulary' don't become atheists, they become agnostics. That's why they can stop obsessing over an issue and get on with their lives. Agnostics pick up religion when they think it's useful or interesting to them. That's a good use of a phenomenon. Give me a list of supposedly-religious wars that weren't actually about land/resources, please. (Modern 'Islamic' terrorism doesn't count: 1. it has only a vague provenance in religion, 2. it doesn't directly affect many people, 3. its wider effects aren't caused by its proponents but by unethical power-seeking idiots like George Bush.)

The other thing is: most atheists don't go around trying to do good, in the constructive social sense pretty much everyone approves of. You can't go to an atheist temple and get food because atheists don't have temples, just propaganda machines. That's because they're too self-centred to think about other people's points of view.

Atheists muddle up the idea 'we need religion because it explains our scary universe!' with 'ooh, isn't religion cool? I do like having goddesses to write poetry about, and base fun social gatherings around.'

So I didn't read any more of your blog because when someone puts something random and offensive in its design: I don't.

Also, my favourite prevaricator on the Muslim-atheist divide: Irshad Manji.

I like J-C-I. (And most other religions, along with anything else that tends towards the epic.) I think most versions which take more than two sentences to explain are a bit wonky, but who cares? Most followers only know two sentences. If you stressed to them: oh, and don't forget YOUR GOD IS SERIOUSLY NICE AND LOVING, AND BY THE WAY I'VE CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT EVANGELISM* you'd get a much better result than: your entire belief system is COMPLETE RUBBISH BECAUSE THE PARENTS OF A FEW PEOPLE I THINK ARE EVIL FOLLOWED IT, AND IT MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE HA HA HA.
*I'm not certain there even is anything in the NT which asks this.

Apologies for being so seemingly lazy about this, but I'm truly astounded by how badly she seems to have misunderstood and misrepresented so much of what I've come to accept as rational and reasonable in the atheist 'movement' and I can't seem to verbalise any intelligent responses to a lot of it.

thanks in advance,
dj357

[Rum]

Well it *is* lazy as you suggest, expecting people to wade through all that! Started to read but lost the will to live..

I suggest you tell your friend to fuck off and be done with it.

[dj357]

Well it *is* lazy as you suggest, expecting people to wade through all that! Started to read but lost the will to live..

I suggest you tell your friend to fuck off and be done with it.

haha, nice to know I'm not the only one so! the problem is she is clearly intelligent and she's not being dense or facetious in her opinions, so I'm really trying to deal with them in an intelligent manner, but I'm wrestling terribly with the urge to tell her to fuck right off....

[ScholasticSpastic]

Just the bold bits I'd like to respond to:
Openmindedness is something science is never, ever going to achieve until it gets over this infantile obsession with proof.

There is no proof in science. Anyone who thinks there is proof in science needs to learn more science. Anyone who understands that there is no proof in science needs to learn more science. Laypeople who talk about science, or who imagine what scientists sound like when they talk to each other, tend to use the word 'proof' a LOT. Only in mathematics will you hear that word, and it means something a bit different there. Whenever a scientist says they've 'proven' something, that's the signal to pay attention: it means they're about to be torn apart, emotionally and professionally, by other scientists.

because egotistic proselytising atheists are far too much of a bore to have interfering with the life of a community.

Cool. Let's eliminate proselytizing from our communities.

Religion's not divisive any more than it is uniting.

This is true. Trouble is, those in charge of doctrine tend to really want as many followers as they can get. So they wind up keeping stuff vague. I say if you're going to pull stupid stories out of your ass, then at least be specific about your claims. The very fact that religion divides and unifies in equal measure is a condemnation of religion. If it is equivocal we can take it or leave it, yet people insist we can't live without it. If that is true, they need to demonstrate some efficacy of religion better than chance. This is an anthropological problem, though: There is no group of people we can study which hasn't been exposed to religion and so there is no way to demonstrate that we are better or worse off without religion... unless we try going without it on a global basis for a couple of generations, which I'm in favor of.

Within a community, religion's always uniting: that's what it's *for*.

Absolute claims are always wrong.

Atheists tend to be biased against the particular strain they've rebelled against.

Yep, I prefer picking on Mormons. But I'm also willing to pick on any other denomination you like, especially if it's yours. I am biased against any truth claim which is forwarded without unequivocal evidence (which is not the same as proof).

most atheists don't go around trying to do good, in the constructive social sense pretty much everyone approves of.

This is an interesting test of efficacy. Unfortunately, most members of religious systems also fail to go around trying to do good in a way which is explicit enough for people to notice that's what's going on. Given that this is so, how can we conclude that religion is better? Are there any numbers to back this up? Can there possibly be such numbers as atheists aren't organized as such and thus cannot be tracked alongside the efforts of religions?

Atheists muddle up the idea 'we need religion because it explains our scary universe!' with 'ooh, isn't religion cool? I do like having goddesses to write poetry about, and base fun social gatherings around.'

I don't know what this means.

[dj357]

Just the bold bits I'd like to respond to:
Openmindedness is something science is never, ever going to achieve until it gets over this infantile obsession with proof.

There is no proof in science. Anyone who thinks there is proof in science needs to learn more science. Anyone who understands that there is no proof in science needs to learn more science. Laypeople who talk about science, or who imagine what scientists sound like when they talk to each other, tend to use the word 'proof' a LOT. Only in mathematics will you hear that word, and it means something a bit different there. Whenever a scientist says they've 'proven' something, that's the signal to pay attention: it means they're about to be torn apart, emotionally and professionally, by other scientists.

because egotistic proselytising atheists are far too much of a bore to have interfering with the life of a community.

Cool. Let's eliminate proselytizing from our communities.

Religion's not divisive any more than it is uniting.

This is true. Trouble is, those in charge of doctrine tend to really want as many followers as they can get. So they wind up keeping stuff vague. I say if you're going to pull stupid stories out of your ass, then at least be specific about your claims. The very fact that religion divides and unifies in equal measure is a condemnation of religion. If it is equivocal we can take it or leave it, yet people insist we can't live without it. If that is true, they need to demonstrate some efficacy of religion better than chance. This is an anthropological problem, though: There is no group of people we can study which hasn't been exposed to religion and so there is no way to demonstrate that we are better or worse off without religion... unless we try going without it on a global basis for a couple of generations, which I'm in favor of.

Within a community, religion's always uniting: that's what it's *for*.

Absolute claims are always wrong.

Atheists tend to be biased against the particular strain they've rebelled against.

Yep, I prefer picking on Mormons. But I'm also willing to pick on any other denomination you like, especially if it's yours. I am biased against any truth claim which is forwarded without unequivocal evidence (which is not the same as proof).

most atheists don't go around trying to do good, in the constructive social sense pretty much everyone approves of.

This is an interesting test of efficacy. Unfortunately, most members of religious systems also fail to go around trying to do good in a way which is explicit enough for people to notice that's what's going on. Given that this is so, how can we conclude that religion is better? Are there any numbers to back this up? Can there possibly be such numbers as atheists aren't organized as such and thus cannot be tracked alongside the efforts of religions?

Atheists muddle up the idea 'we need religion because it explains our scary universe!' with 'ooh, isn't religion cool? I do like having goddesses to write poetry about, and base fun social gatherings around.'

I don't know what this means.

thanks for all that SS. I'll include some of that in our further discussions. And don't worry about the last comment, I found it rather perplexing also.

[Mysturji]

Just the bold...

There's nothing inherently rational about secularism.

Perhaps not. But there IS something inherently IRRATIONAL about theism.

Take Sarkozy and his projects to ban the national dress customs of about 7 immigrant woman in France (who're now likely to be confined to their houses rather than being able to move in the community).

Or they could just take off their veils.

most atheists people don't go around trying to do good, in the constructive social sense pretty much everyone approves of.That's because they're too self-centred to think about other people's points of view.

I do like having goddesses to write poetry about, and base fun social gatherings around.'

I like Winnie The Pooh. I don't beleive he exists, nor do I pay heed or money to those who do.

So I didn't read any more of your blog because when someone puts something random and offensive in its design: I don't.

(My emphasis) Liar.

[dj357]

So I didn't read any more of your blog because when someone puts something random and offensive in its design: I don't.

(My emphasis) Liar.

yeah, I had to pull her up on that one immediately too

[hiyymer]

Just the bold...

There's nothing inherently rational about secularism.

Perhaps not. But there IS something inherently IRRATIONAL about theism.

That's because life IS irrational. Life is in our heads, not out there in the physical objective reality that we think looks this way now. When we use science to criticize experience we ARE being bores, and just getting into an irrational pissing contest with supers. Nobody cares whether "God exists" except atheists, because if you experience God it doesn't matter. Believers are by definition a community. God must be shared to have meaning. And yes supers give more money to charity than atheists or "secularists". The study has been done.

As CS "Jack" Lewis opined, there must be a God because we know right from wrong. His God is in our heads, but so is right and wrong. There is no right and wrong out there. Life is irrational. It's about what we feel and what we desire, and all that stuff is rummaging around in the back of our brain where we can't get to it. That's what science actually tells us. You can't decide what you want, and having good reasons won't change anything because they are just rationalizations. Stand for everyone being an atheist if that's what you want. But don't pretend you have good reasons.

But wait. Doesn't it matter that God doesn't actually exist? Look at it this way. God is a representation in our experience, a thing called a moral agent, that the brain is in the habit of creating. It represents something, like at least the shared agency of our innate social drives. "God told me to do it", and "God wants us to love each other", are statements which are perfectly valid as representations of our irrational compulsions. "God actually physically created everything 10,000 years ago in 6 days" is a statement that has nothing to do with anything but someone being on a power trip. So when someone tells you God loves you, then if you smile sweetly and say "I know" and resist being right and having your reasons, you will have some credibility when you ask innocently, "do you mean he actually created everything in 6 days, or is that just a story?".

[Feck]

The figures for "giving to charity" include Churches as charities ?

[hiyymer]

The figures for "giving to charity" include Churches as charities ?

I wish I had the reference for you. I can't even remember why, but years ago I attended a presentation given by a guy who was doing research on this very subject. By the end of the meeting I was quite convinced by his methodology and his conclusions (and I am skeptical of everyone). It kind of makes sense. Of course giving money is only half the story. I don't know if there is a study showing what proportion of their actual time various people invest in helping their fellow man, or for that matter what they are actually paying for when they "give".

[Coito ergo sum]

Just the bold bits I'd like to respond to:
Openmindedness is something science is never, ever going to achieve until it gets over this infantile obsession with proof.

Infantile obsession with proof? If you don't have proof for something, then it is what? Baseless? We should be adults and just accept things without proof or reason? Just believe them? You need to ask her that if we are to believe things without proof, on what basis are we to disbelieve anything?

because egotistic proselytising atheists are far too much of a bore to have interfering with the life of a community.

Atheists are part of the community, not "interfering" with the community.

Religion's not divisive any more than it is uniting.

Religion is divisive because the are generally exclusive. You either believe or do X, Y and Z, or you are not part of our religion. That's divisive.
\


Within a community, religion's always uniting: that's what it's *for*.

Only if everyone toes the line.



Atheists tend to be biased against the particular strain they've rebelled against.

Some are against believing things for no reason. Referring to her point above about proof, apparently, she has no problem with "just believing."



most atheists don't go around trying to do good, in the constructive social sense pretty much everyone approves of.

I'd like to see the statistics.



Atheists muddle up the idea 'we need religion because it explains our scary universe!' with 'ooh, isn't religion cool? I do like having goddesses to write poetry about, and base fun social gatherings around.'

What she likes or dislikes has nothing to do with what is real. If Allah exists, I wouldn't like it very much. Allah is a tool. But, whether I would like it or not, is irrelevant. Similarly, if there exists a peaceful, beautiful goddess who will care for me and make me happy forever and ever, then I would like that. But, again, my likes and dislikes don't make things real.

[hiyymer]

my likes and dislikes don't make things real.

But they are about all that is real. Everything else is induction.

[drl2]

(Openmindedness is something science is never, ever going to achieve until it gets over this infantile obsession with proof.

How I usually deal with the open mind question is something like this:

My mind is open enough that I can think of a wide variety of ways that a deity of some sort could prove his or her existence. I list a few - things like prophecy that is specific, direct, and non-self-fulfilling (i.e. it can't be couched in some kind of poetic metaphor or numerological nonsense that can twisted to cover just about anything, and it can't be something that can be brought about by believers who think it's their duty to fulfill it - think "an earthquake of richter scale <whatever> will strike LA on <date and time>, damaging the Golden Gate bridge and postponing the World Series" vs. "There's probably gonna be some fighting in the Holy Land".) Maybe some information stuffed into one of those holy books that its writers couldn't possibly have known - ".. and the Lord sayeth, the stable isotope of Strontium shall have 38 protons in its nucleus, and to just trust him on this one, as it will make sense later." And couldn't an all-powerful entity do something cool like carving his name or the ten commandments into the surface of a planet for our probes to find?

Anyway, after using this tactic to point out that there are in fact a myriad of ways in which my mind could be changed on the god question, I simply ask: If you're so much more open-minded than I am, surely you can come up with a long list of situations which would cause you to renounce your faith?

The couple of times I've tried this, they've immediately changed the subject.

[hiyymer]

(Openmindedness is something science is never, ever going to achieve until it gets over this infantile obsession with proof.

Personally, I thought the comment was meant in a kind of jesting way. What it's pointing out is that science may be the arbiter of what's really out there; that objective physical reality that we think exists independent of our experience, but it is not the arbiter of our experience. "God doesn't exist" in the sense of scientifically exist out there, is a close-minded comment, and irrelevant to science. It's really rationalism, not science, and it gives science a bad name.

[AnInconvenientScotsman]

To your friend,

There's nothing inherently rational about secularism. Take Sarkozy and his projects to ban the national dress customs of about 7 immigrant woman in France (who're now likely to be confined to their houses rather than being able to move in the community).

There is plenty about secularism that is rational. It's rational to separate baseless assumption and the legislating process that affects everybody in a community (especially when not every member of the community believes the same baseless assumption to be true), in order to prevent someone else’s opinions and lifestyle from being thrust upon others against their will - a clear violation of their civil liberties. Thus it could be argued that secularism is an important safeguard of personal liberties.

Also, regarding the Bhurka ban in France: secularism is not inherently anti-religious. There is a difference between preventing religious beliefs from being forced on others, and actively preventing the religious from practising their faith.

I disapprove of evidence for every reason you'll find in an elementary philosophy text. Rather than messing around with evidence *or* stories I think we should learn to get on without them, in a blissful state of agnosticism and openmindedness. (Openmindedness is something science is never, ever going to achieve until it gets over this infantile obsession with proof.) Effect: both evidence and stories lose their influence over the movements of huge populations, and revert to the effects of art, injecting beauty and interest into the minds of people who may find such things enlightening. And please note that stories are more easily appealing than raw 'evidence'. Stories are a good way of transmitting information, and they don't get all self-righteous about it. Facts go: 'oh, way, look at me, I'm so right!' Stories say: 'someone happened to do something, and wasn't that an interesting decision! I do wonder why she did that.

Erm...sorry, what? That part there made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Facts can't be self-righteous, they aren't people. Seriously, what the fuck are you talking about? Also note: open mindedness is not one word damn it!

You have to find a way to separate religion from the behaviour of people who claim to subscribe to it before you can counteract it in a constructive way.

I agree, however it is necessary when examining behaviour to take into account the motivations behind it, which may be religious.

egotistic proselytising atheists are far too much of a bore to have interfering with the life of a community

Do you think people find it interesting listening to someone ramble on about the Budget? Because something bores you has no bearing on it's truth or it's importance.

Religion's not divisive any more than it is uniting. The Israelite story is one of the most inspiring in literature. The animated film 'The Prince of Egypt' makes me cry, okay? So if you haven't seen it please download and watch and then you can go on about the lack of evidence for animated whales in the Red Sea.

Northern Ireland; Islamic infighting in the Middle-East; witch hunts in Africa; repeated ethnic cleansing around the world justified by resorting to gods...need I go on. Also, the Israelite story is just that, a story, fictional. Even Jewish scholars readily admit that there were no Jewish slaves in Egypt. Even if there were, the Egyptians never used slaves in the construction of pyramids or temples. Learn your history from the people who know it, not films.

Within a community, religion's always uniting: that's what it's *for*.

That's why homosexuals are demonised? It all makes sense now...

Atheists tend to be biased against the particular strain they've rebelled against

What are you talking about? Bias? Atheism is a lack of belief in any god, not just one system.

they become agnostics. That's why they can stop obsessing over an issue and get on with their lives

Yes, because all atheists obsess over religion? I'm an atheist and I'm not obsessed by religion, I'll only discuss it when someone else brings it up or if someone tries to force their brand of unjustifiable faith upon me or anyone else.

most atheists don't go around trying to do good, in the constructive social sense pretty much everyone approves of

What evidence do you have for this? I volunteer and donate to charity, but I'm not doing any good? What a bigoted thing to say. There are plenty of non-religious charities in the world. You don't have to be religious to be good.

That's because they're too self-centred to think about other people's points of view.

Oh, really? All atheists are self-centred? No atheist ever engages in rational debate over points of view? That is an idiotic claim and you know it: not just because it assumes all atheists are the same (bigotry, again) but it also ignores dozens of pieces of secular literature, thousands of debates and hundreds of secular scholars, within all walks of life and areas of study.

your entire belief system is COMPLETE RUBBISH BECAUSE THE PARENTS OF A FEW PEOPLE I THINK ARE EVIL FOLLOWED IT, AND IT MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE HA HA HA

Actually, beliefs systems tend to be total rubbish because they are completely untrue.

Finally, you appear to me to be bigoted, uninformed and very immature; that isn't an insult, it's an honest assessment – based on your writing here – that may or may not be true but which appears very much to be accurate.