All this posting in relation to the Atheist Convention in Melbourne is finally getting to me. There’s only so much you can do when you aren’t there – I’m limited to meta-analysis, picking apart terms and form of argument of people actually in attendance.

The flip side is that not being there, I’m relatively free from group polarizing effects. But that’s not good enough, really. Will have to wait from some empirical content before continuing. I haven’t found any suitable YouTube videos yet.

What I did see on YouTube, a couple of weeks ago thanks to Shane, was a nice clip from our childhoods. So without much ado, I’ll just post it so you can have a break from my usual waffle.

If this doesn’t make you feel guilty for laughing at Ronnie James Dio, then you have no heart.

~ Bruce

The people over at ABC’s religion website have a blog running to cover the Atheist Convention called Questions of Faith. If I’m too scary, bigoted and angry for your tastes, you can head over there and talk shop with the nice people.

There was a post by one Chris Mulherin that got up my nose somewhat, over here. Here’s something I posted in the comments thread (albeit corrected for a couple of mistakes I’m slapping myself for at the moment).

Chris, before you start throwing the ‘New Atheism’ term around, you may just wish to know that the term first gained prominence in 1986 (hardly new), and was like now, used to smear atheists who spoke out of turn, alleging intolerance (where none was demonstrated), declaring dubious, totalitarian motives and so on. The author of the book first publicising the term, ‘The New Atheism’, Robert A. Morey, went on to brag about his advice to the Bush administration that they should nuke Mecca and Medina – and he was serious.

The contemporary usage of the term doesn’t seem to vary much in recent times either, as Tina Beattie’s ‘The New Atheists’ (2007) demonstrates – Just read the claim she makes about Daniel Dennett trying to keep the religious out of discussion of religion – by way of misquoting the opening chapters of his book ‘Breaking The Spell’. (Ostentatious in that properly quoted, she’d be forced to admit the contrary – that Dennett is engaging and encouraging religious people to participate in an exploration of religion as a natural phenomena). At least she isn’t asking anyone to nuke people, which I guess is something.

Madeleine Bunting used the term in a controversial article in The Guardian, where she used Sam Harris as an example of a ‘New Atheist’, misquoting his ethical speculations on torture and ethnic profiling to make it look like he supported torture and ethnic profiling. This rubbish is par for the course with critics of the so-called ‘New Atheism’.

And Chris, Dawkins is skeptical of the term ‘New Atheist’ himself, calling it ’so-called’ on several occasions. He did not, as you wrongly claim, use it to deliberately do anything – it’s not his device at all.

Here’s a hint for your stay at the convention – people at the convention will probably tend not to like being called a ‘New Atheist’, except perhaps ironically, subversively or tongue-in-cheek by in-group members. Think of it as kind of like another ‘N’ word that you probably wouldn’t want to yell out in Harlem, except not quite so extreme.

Furthermore, in future could you please give us some meaningful examples of where ‘…proponents of the new atheism often seem to turn to ridicule and belittling of those who they disagree with rather than respecting them’? And no, I don’t mean ridiculing ideas – a reductio ad absurdum does that necessarily, and we wouldn’t equate that with a lack of respect.

(And I don’t mean friendly jabs either.)

The atheist as angry, disrespectful and intolerant is a stereotype, so you’re going to have to be more specific and give specific examples if you want to come across as trustworthy, much less avoid propagating animus.

And for pity’s sake, when you talk about being throw to the lions when you’ve been invited by a bunch of friendly people, it makes you look like the kind of person who feels guilty for crossing the street to avoid someone who’s black – something that can be avoided by throwing out prejudicial assumptions and not crossing the street in the first place.

I’d wish you luck at the convention if I were a wish-thinker, so I’ll just hope you take some of this on-board instead.

(Me, Over Here, 2010)

Apparently Chris thinks that ‘New Atheism’ is a term that Richard Dawkins uses to activate and polarise the troops. Yeah, I know. Next “White Trash” will be a phrase that poor, white folk use to agitate themselves into class warfare against the fair and proper middle and upper class. Go figure.

There are other goodies I didn’t address. There’s the whole shifting the burden of proof, atheists being believers in the same sense as believers, atheist fundamentalism and other talking points that have been put to rest long ago. 1980s apologetics tropes that were the playthings of people on alt.atheism in the 1990s. You get the idea.

At least he didn’t call Dawkins a social Darwinist.

They’re getting less comments on their blog than I am, which is saying something, so why don’t you go and participate. Apparently Margaret is complaining about a lot of derision at the convention – no quotes of course – so continue to play nice (as I know you already do).

~ Bruce

Given that I’m likely to give some commentary on the media response to the ‘Rise of Atheism’ convention (and in some ways I’ve already done that in the last two posts) I should make a disclosure.

I’ve been a member of The Atheist Foundation of Australia since January of this year (the crowd getting this convention together alongside Atheist Alliance International). And while we’re on the topic, I’ve had another affiliation change since leaving the ALP last year (over Conroy’s duplicitous and underhanded pushing of his ludicrous Internet Filter). Nothing political. I’ve just joined the SA Writers’ Centre.

So yes, I’ve joined two disparate herds of cats this year. No political parties. Nothing with a central dogma.

At the very least, I haven’t signed up to anything that would obligate me not to bag the ‘Rise of Atheism’ convention. It’s a free-thought organisation and I’m a free-thinker.

Free-thought whingeing

For example, I think ‘Rise of Atheism’, as conference title go, is a pretty crass and poorly thought out piece of triumphal wank. I think ‘Global Atheist Convention 2010′ is good enough on its own, and frankly, better on its own period. It draws unfavourable comparisons to B-Movie titles. ‘Global Atheist Convention 2011: Return of The Thing That Wouldn’t Die After Being Killed, After Being Given A Proper Burial, After Being Killed Twice Before, After Becoming Undead, After Being Killed By An Angry Mob The First Time Around – The Prequel’, isn’t a title I’d look forward to.

Don’t get the impression that I wouldn’t have liked to have been free to go along. I’m particularly interested in what Leslie Cannold, Russell Blackford, A.C. Grayling, Tamas Pataki, Taslima Nasrin, Peter Singer and Kylie Sturgess have to say, and wouldn’t have minded catching Julian Morrow and Craig Reucassel, but there are others that I’ve heard enough of for my own good, and others who I think don’t necessarily warrant a hearing.

As much of a mouthpiece as Dan Barker is, and high as his IQ may be, I think his greatest contribution is either in giving others a voice, or in telling us tales of life-as-a-Christian which would be better told by the more disadvantaged ex-Christian. The voice he can buy with the royalties he makes off of the material he created to indoctrinate children in the ways of evangelical Christianity, are privilege enough without giving him an additional soapbox. Freedom of Religion Foundation not withstanding.

And Catherine Deveny? She doesn’t have anything new or particularly bright to bring to the discussion – anecdotes of recent disillusionment going out cheap by the dozen. She’s there as a comedian, which is problematic considering that she’s not particularly good at it. Sure, she shouldn’t be outcast on the grounds of prejudice, but that doesn’t mean she should be sought out to begin with. Getting to speak at this convention is a privilege that warrants merit.

You can be confident that my independence of thought, as a freethinker, is not compromised by my affiliation. Not that being a member of the ALP ever stopped me from expressing my opinions either.

And now there’s that plug to consider.

Blatant plug

For $30, as a non-member you can obtain a subscription to ‘The Australian Atheist’ from The Atheist Foundation of Australia. Or of course, you can join for one year for $25 ($15 student/pensioner/unwaged) and sign up for electronic versions to be emailed to you, but then you’d have to sign off as accepting the constitution. In either case, you can look here for more details.

What reason would you possibly have for doing that? Well the next issue has me in it for one! (Cue embarrassing silence).

Okay. Well it’s an exclusive article I’ve written for ‘The Australian Atheist’ that I’ll never blog-post, nor will I consider seeing it published anywhere else before AA has squeezed it for all it’s worth.

(Just don’t tell them the article isn’t about atheism or religion – I kind of snuck it past them. Sshhh!)

~ Bruce

First of all, let’s get the elephant out of the room. That moment.

I’ll paraphrase because it’s so soon afterward, and checking would cause a few logistical problems. That and my memory is still up to the task.

Sometimes I cringe at some of the things Dawkins says. Dan Dennett cringes at some of the things Dawkins says (religious memes = disease). And Hitchens cringes at some of the things Dennett says (“Brights”). And so on and so forth. Contrary to some of the stereotypes being peddled, this kind of disagreement is normal amongst “New Atheists”.

So with this in mind, a part of me cringes each time that Dawkins talks about “The Christian Position^tm“, or “if you are a…” then you believe X. It’s especially problematic when talking about the whole birth, death and resurrection business. If only because there are so many Christian takes on the position, and so many Christian takes on how to approach the issue.

I like clarity of terms more than most, but I don’t believe in reducing accuracy and/or precision in the name of clarity. There’s nothing “The” about “The Christian Position^tm” in relation to the birth, death and resurrection of Christ.

But this, while relevant, is just a pet peeve of mine, so I’ll get to the meat of it.

The charge levelled against Dawkins by other panelists wasn’t a lack of accuracy, but a lack of respect for other people’s beliefs – first by Julie Bishop, and then by Tony Burke, with the added charge of intolerance – which Dawkins didn’t get to respond to.

Given that Tony Jones, after re-affirming Dawkins’ above point, was spared a dressing down from Burke, this point isn’t what caused the inflammation. (Or maybe it’s not the point at all, but the person making it that matters – Tony Burke seemed unduly intimidated by Dawkins in the lead-up).

It was the “you can keep it!” phrase – in response to the value of the tale of the resurrection. It’s this I presume that Tony Burke called “ridicule”.

Okay, fine. It’s ridicule. (I think one could mount a defence that is isn’t, but that’d sidetrack this post).

So what? The tale of the resurrection has been proselytized in one form or another for 1800 years. You can’t reasonably expect that something that’s been so in people’s face for so long is beyond scrutiny, rejection or ridicule. There is nothing inherently wrong with ridiculing religious ideas.

And lets not forget that Dawkins was being questioned. There is something about the way his rejection was handled by Bishop and Burke that seems disturbingly similar to a spurned lover. Or disturbingly close to particular Orwellian interpretations of “secular” and “freedom” (HT: Liam Fox).

Australia (along with Canada) only just rejected the notion of the defamation of religion that was peddled at Durban-II, by boycotting the whole anti-Semitic farce. You should expect when you start defending ideas against defamation instead of protecting people, thereby trivialising actual intolerance, you’re going to leave yourself open to the adherents of actual intolerance.

Dawkins rejection of an idea was directed at the idea, not a group of people and not an individual. It’s not intolerance in any meaningful sense. Burke and Bishop need to stop pretending that disagreement on religion that’s in the public arena, is in any way significantly different from disagreement on points of politics.

But that’s just Qanda giving you your 8 cents worth.

More serious is a problem put to me by Dr. Jason Wilson. And in writing the book I’m trying to write at the moment, it’s something I’m going to have to address, albeit in more detail in the book than I will here.

“I guess my point is that it seems like a calculated attempt to limit the range of legitimate belief… that would seem to be the opposite of functional secularism – which is secure in Australia, and embraced by most religious ppl. You see what I’m saying? That open hostility to faith positions might weaken a particular form of secularism?”

(Jason Wilson, 2010)

I didn’t catch the start of Qanda, and thanks to a domestic communications monopoly, Jason missed out on a first viewing. I can’t confirm or deny from what I saw that Dawkins had called religious people deluded, although Jason was under the impression he had (or may have). After some semantic discussion, Jason his point down to the above.

I wouldn’t agree that there was a “calculated attempt”, on several grounds. First, it would be in stark contradiction to the dribs and drabs of Dawkins’ civics that you can pick up here and there. Second, it would be in explicit contradiction to the very permissive secular liberalism that the team of Dawkins and A.C. Grayling to to a public debate recently. And third, Dawkins is no political mastermind and Dawkins knows it – which is why premeditation is unlikely (and explains some of the obvious political mistakes Dawkins didn’t see coming from a mile away).

I don’t know how familiar Jason is with Dawkins et. el., but I’d like to think that after investigation, Jason would agree with me on this.

All the same, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that Dawkins’ rhetoric could inadvertently “limit the range of legitimate belief”. I’m not sure this is a problem either.

First of all, we don’t regard paedophilia and ritual homicide as legitimate beliefs, which tells us at least that we are willing to limit the range of legitimate belief if it robs people of their liberty – i.e. we are intolerant of intolerance. I’ll assume that Jason means the limiting of positions of belief ranging from apparently pointless but harmless, to defensible.

I think that according to what I can grasp of his tweeted logic, Jason may be forced to admit that there is a capacity for the likes of GrodsCorp, New Matilda and fake Twitter accounts do much the same with the range of legitimate belief – albeit at the differing levels of influence. In light of Jason’s notion above, I’m curious on his view in general of Scott Bridge’s comments on Fielding’s Pentecostalism over the years, or perhaps Ben Pobjie’s satire of Scientology.

The point I’m making isn’t intended to tie Jason to the “intolerance” of GrodsCorp, New Matilda and the fake Twitter accounts that he has an interest in. Rather, I suspect that Jason accepts that the satire and criticism put out by these authors are made in general in good faith. With allowances for acceptable human error of course.

I’d extend this to Dawkins, and the other “New Atheists” including Christopher Hitchens – the recognition of good faith in general, with allowances for acceptable human error.

I used to rail against Christopher Hitchens in stereotypical form. Only a couple of times in blogging but more often in real life. And I have to confess that this was undertaken in bad faith. I still have disagreements with many of Hitchens’ opinions – mostly involving the Iraq War and some of his more poorly thought out rhetoric. But, this narrative of Hitchens being a genocidal lap-dog of the neo-conservatives under the Bush administration, I’ve come to the conclusion, is phony.

The more you delve into the context of the man’s life, the more you find alternative motivations as more credible. And the more you delve into what he was actually writing during the years following 9/11, the more the lap-dog narrative finds explicit contradiction – his Slate article about Daniel Pipes in August of 2003 is particularly challenging to the myth. Lap-dogs for neo-cons don’t write off the likes of Daniel Pipes while at the same time talking up the likes of Edward Said. But Hitchens did – well after switching to an interventionist view of foreign policy. (Something Hitchens had adopted prior to 9/11 – from which he then criticised the Bush administration).

Hitchens is a more complicated individual, with more complicated ideas than may first be apparent. The myth surrounding him is misleading.

Tony Burke received Dawkins in prejudicial, bad faith similar to the way I once received Hitchens. And this I guess is my point.

Criticism and ridicule of an idea may push it outside the legitimate. But not accepting criticism in good faith (even if it’s made by way of ridicule from occasionally tetchy academics) has the effect of putting a range of criticisms outside “the range of legitimate belief” as well. The very notion that people should automatically respect ideas does just that – explicitly.

In good faith, I find racism and a host of other stupid notions to be stupid. I’m not going to respect them because some racist individual is made to feel uncomfortable. I’m not having my belief that racism is stupid (and I don’t mean just wrong – I mean stupid – let me emphasise my lack of respect for the idea) pushed outside “the range of legitimate belief” via a mandate of respect.

In good faith, I find team sports to be stupid – not just wrong but stupid. They’re training for the outgroup biases that are intrinsic to the game – team versus team and the assignment of superfluous gender roles. I’m not going to have my beliefs about team sports being stupid pushed outside “the range of legitimate belief” via some policy of mandatory respect. Maybe I’m wrong – I’ll gladly cede that a counter argument may be defensible, but I’m still going to call team sports a stupid idea in the meantime.

Criticism in good faith, even if wrong, isn’t the problem. It’s criticism in bad faith, and receiving criticism in bad faith that are the problems.

The problem isn’t the rhetoric of Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens, or Scott Bridges or Ben Pobjie, when made in good faith, that’s the kind of problem. If you want an example of critics who operate in bad faith, look to anti-liberal Geert Wilders*, or bogan-basher Catherine Deveny**. (I suspect that someone’s going to be unhappy with the comparison’s I’ve just made, but there you go.)

People need to get over their hurt feelings over the idea that someone may disagree with them – even think their ideas crazy. When there is public discussion, people need to get over the fact that their cherished ideas are open to ridicule if found ridiculous by others with an equal say in the public sphere. Qanda is such a public forum.

It’s attacking people for their ideas, and attacking people for their criticisms that’s intolerant. Alan Jones does it when he attacks people of Middle Eastern decent. And people do it each time they make a bogey-man out of Dawkins and/or the “New Atheists”.

What a liberal, secular society needs more of is not a notion of sacred ideas. What it needs is a greater acceptance of robust disagreement, criticism and ridicule of ideas***, and for people to find it in themselves to maintain good relations in spite of what ever hurt feelings this may cause.

I think the absurdity of all this boils down to one simple question; what needs your respect more, an idea or a person?

~ Bruce

P.S. It’s 3:40am. I’ll edit this rambling mess tomorrow.

* If you want “calculated attempts”, Wilders is your man. Makes my flesh crawl.

** I make no representation about Deveny’s criticism of religion, because after reading her classist vitriol attacking the disadvantaged and working class, I’m not sufficiently confident in her ability to consider her worthy of consideration.

*** Indeed, the reductio ad absurdum is an excellent tool for whittling away at bad ideas in good faith, but always has the effect of producing something that can be construed as ridicule of the idea it critiques. Are we to just throw it out because of the offence it may cause, in spite of the good advice it gives?

Anyone who really knows me, or at least knows how I think on the matter, knows that I don’t rush to override other people’s self-identification.

“Muslim? You’re not a Muslim! Where’s your beard?”

Self-identification is something that is an important part of everyone’s psychological make-up. A human without a concept of self, even if a selfless member of a collective, is missing something.

As an atheist, it’s particularly annoying when someone (in disingenuous, self-serving fashion) tells me that I’m really a religious person who is in a state of rebellion. Naturally following upon this that I need to submit to God’s will, which strangely enough involves me doing exactly what the religious person wants me to do.

The religious people who make this kind of argument, at least those making it to my face, never do so in good faith. I’d be much happier if they’d just cut to the chase.

“There probably is a God, so start worrying and get on with doing what I tell you to!”

I’m not in the habit of going around telling people that they aren’t a “True Christian”, or a “True Muslim” or a “True” whatever else, at the very least because it often involves the No True Scotsman fallacy. Furthermore, I don’t do it because I know that in addition to being a bit logically flaky, it pisses me off so it’s likely to piss others off. I can appreciate something truthful and honest pissing people off, and I don’t care too much about that, but when it’s poorly thought out argumentation that offends, then I’m prone to take issue. I assume other reasonable people do the same.

Even further still, there’s the matter of what is essential to being Christian et. al. – you can draw the line anywhere, and people often do so for the sake of convenience. But what is essential to a True Christian? Belief in a literal Christ? Belief in the message of Christ, if Christ is only metaphorical? Depending how you define Christianity, you can exclude all sorts of people from being True Christians.

If you believe that St Peter was the recipient of divine revelation, and that the acceptance of this divine mandate defines Christianity, then Eastern Christians – the first Christians – aren’t True Christians. If you believe that St Peter had no divine mandate, and that this is essential to Christianity, then Western Christianity is an oxymoron. Both outcomes are absurd.

It’s clear that one can pick and chose with the greatest of ease, the essential qualities of any group in order to generate a convenient definition of group members. It follows that as absurd as these definitions may be, they do allow people to be selective with their samples. And when equivocation on these definitions occur, it allows people to apply conclusions derived from one population, to be applied surreptitiously to another – even if unintentionally.

(And don’t get me started on skin colour and race – I’ll get back to that in good time.)

The alternative, is not to engage in essentialism in the first place. Instead to just assume that any given cultural identity has inherent diversity, and that membership is something negotiated between self-identification and general group-acceptance. A role in which out-group members have little, if any, say.

Still, being able to self-identify is one thing. Having your own group-identity deferred to in a civil sense is another. And having other individuals accept the definitions of your own identity in is another again.

I think it fair enough to expect society and other individuals not to run rough-shod over your cultural membership/identification, but after some preponderance on the matter, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is different from expecting other individuals to accept your identity. After all I can’t just call myself Catholic, get my friends to accept that I’m Catholic, then rock up to a Catholic church and expect to be given communion. That would be an imposture upon the Catholic church – a coercion of its clergy. I’m entitled to no such thing.

(I’m unsure as to why I’d want a Catholic communion – to have communion with the Catholics in attendance who are my fellow human beings?)

So while not forcing my definition of “Christian”, what I accept as Christian is as I’ve detailed above; no essential qualities, just self-identification and a reasonable level (allowing for a degree of dissent) of group-acceptance amongst one of the denominations. This by-and-large leaves me deferring to Christian self-identification, and leaves me out of politics such as “Catholics aren’t real Christians”.

However…

I don’t see defining Christianity as a question of religiosity. I see defining Christianity as a question of culture. A very messy question.

Religiosity is another thing altogether. It’s an acceptance of a particular ontological persuasion. So the question in my mind is not “do you identify as religious?”, but “do you accept the ontological acceptance of a deity with an interest in human affairs?”

If you identify as religious, and you don’t accept the ontology of an interested deity, then I won’t accept your religiosity. You can self-identify as much as you like, and I won’t stop you. I won’t try to push to have culture exclude your perspective. But I won’t, I can’t, see you as religious.

I can’t see “religiously deistic” as anything other than an oxymoron.

I can’t even see the census question of selecting a religion as meaningful. “Are you religious?”, with “Yes” or “No” as answers, perhaps with another question for the tradition(s) one identifies as belonging to*.

And I see religious and theistic as synonymous. So when John Shelby Spong calls his approach “non-theistic”, I call it non-religious and atheistic.

Importantly, I still defer to Spong’s self-identification as Christian. I don’t think “atheist Christian” is oxymoronic. Dawkins refers to himself as a culturally Christian atheist with a fondness for the Church of England – in this respect I don’t actually see him as that different to Spong, although what they both take from the culture probably differs considerably.

Religious identity is something that I can no longer personally accept in deference to self-identification. I have an objective test for that – which is I think acceptable, considering that were are dealing with a priori concepts.

There is a meaningful consequence to this.

When I critique religion, I’m not going to be talking about the recognition of a deistic intelligence, or a metaphorical god, or The-Universe-renamed-as-God or God-infintely-beyond-any-term-we-can-apply-to-it. I’m talking about the observance of old-grey-beard-and-genocide.

There’s a penchant for some people to complain that “My God isn’t like that! You’re not addressing me! You’re attributing the wrong belief to me!”

This is true of responses to Dawkins’ writing, where over and over and over (ad nauseum), people self-identifying as religious complain that Dawkins is dealing with a caricature of religion as a strawman tactic against actual religion.

Of course, he’s doing nothing of the sort. Dear aggrieved; he’s not talking about your “God” because your “God”, being metaphorical, disinterested, beyond-ontological-comprehension, or whatever, is not an object of religious worship. Why would Dawkins consider your perspective as representative of religion if he couldn’t in good faith, define it as religious? That’d be dishonest!

Consider the following, typical complaint.

“Professor Dawkins is a good scientist but a poor theologian. His book quotes exclusively the views of fundamentalist preachers, many from the United States.

He ignores the significant range of alternative theological perspectives that understand God not in terms of “old man in the sky” caricatures but in such concepts as spirit, life, love, and mystery – concepts that have an ancient pedigree, being found, for example, in Celtic expressions of religion and many others.”**

(Richard Randerson, 2010)

But if you can’t define “spirit, life, love, and mystery” (and all the other empirical things re-branded as God) as theistic, one can’t claim that Dawkins “ignores the significant range of alternative theological perspectives…” (emphasis added), because these perspectives are in these terms, not theological. Or in other words, not-religious.

I’ve put my cards on table in this post. Although I don’t think that Dawkins did quite a good enough job of defining religion in The God Delusion (2006) and I think this may be a problem for some readers. However, for the book reviewers, and theologians and assorted critics who make a living out of their opinion, there is a responsibility to go deeper when critiquing Dawkins’ views.

A careful consideration by critics should at least speculate on what Dawkins means by “religious” and how that influences the examples he selects. An ideal consideration would look at his past works to try to elucidate further.

I’d recommend that the critics read Dawkins’ essay, ‘The Great Convergence’, wherein Dawkins addresses what he sees as “neo-deistic pseudo-religion”, and goes on to ask…

“But if ‘religion’ is allowed such a flabbily elastic definition, what word is left for real religion, religion as the ordinary person in the pew or on the prayer-mat understands it today; religion, indeed, as any intellectual would have understood it in previous centuries, when intellectuals were religious like everybody else?”

(Richard Dawkins, ‘The Creat Convergence’ in A Devil’s Chaplain, 2003, formerly ‘Snake Oil and Holy Water’ in Forbes, 1999)

The quote is in relation to the scientific awe of scientists like Goodenough, Davies, Hawking, Sagan, and atheist priests like Don Cupitt, being redefined as a religious experience. I would argue that this extends to any experience that Dawkins would define as natural; emotional spirit, life, love and mystery. I would argue that Randerson’s “alternative theological perspectives” would not in fact qualify as religious for Dawkins (I missed the opportunity to ask him in person this morning – although it seems like a bit of a Dorothy Dixer).

Dawkins isn’t ridiculing these perspectives by way of caricature, because he’s not pretending to represent them at all. Frankly, it looks increasingly egocentric each time that I see people complaining that “Dawkins isn’t addressing my beliefs”; he’s not talking about you at all buddy.

Now I’ve been mulling this over for quite a while. At first, in 2006, I simply didn’t accept Dawkins’ terms, and perhaps in some very specific cases, I still don’t.

I still accept that there is a diversity of religious belief, and that it ultimately needs to be addressed as a natural phenomena in full recognition of that diversity. But in my opinion, this diversity is over-inflated by the critics who add the views of ersatz religion, the views of spiritual-but-not-religious life stances – human experiences we have been told time and time again that you can’t have without God.

Perhaps if The West were more accepting of the notion that you can be good without God, there would be more recognition that there was no God in these good experiences.

At any rate, I’ve made my position clear. Take it or leave it, I’m not coercing you. Just as I won’t be coerced into accepting others’ terms; I’ll either take or leave them as well.

Self-identified-religious people…

If I don’t recognise you as religious, try not to take offence. Even if I don’t think  much of your ideas, I don’t think any less of them because I don’t think them religious. And much less do I think that it reflects on your character.

Perhaps you should indulge me, and others like me, in the same way that I tolerate the people who compliment me that I’m “doing God’s work” whenever I do something charitable.

Perhaps you should view my including you in the club-of-the-Godless as a welcome sign to my in-group; take it that I’m not going to discriminate against you just because you’re culturally Muslim, or culturally Christian, or culturally whatever. (Not that’d I’d discriminate against the religiously Muslim, Christian or whatever, either – it’s just an added guarantee).

Those are the terms of my perspective, so please include them in any consideration of my views on religion!

~ Bruce

Update: I read The God Delusion three times between 2006 and 2008. I’ve just checked some of the above against a reading of the relevant part and it seems to me my issue with the way Dawkins defines religion is overstated. Dawkins seems to have defined religion quite clearly. The change from my prior position not withstanding, could it be a reader-effect due to having more contextual understanding than I did in 2008?

* Perhaps this could put to rest the dubious practice of the state denying religious status to religions based on their numbers – granting tax breaks and consideration to the big ones, while discriminating against the small.

** It has to be said that while Randerson’s triumphalism is unfounded, his civics on the matter of the New Zealand atheist bus campaign is to be commended.

My old economics teacher at High School had a reoccurring* error that plagued their writing at University. Specifically, whenever they though “union”, they wrote “onion”.

I’ve identified as similar thing happening with my use of the word “dearth”. Specifically, that where I’ve intended to use the word to indicate a lack, I’ve written it as if it means “plenty”. Usually though the omission of a negative – e.g. “no dearth” meaning “no shortage” becomes “dearth”.

I was only aware of having done this once, but reading back through my blog after catching myself almost doing it again, I found a total of three instances. Argh!

There is a silver lining on this cloud though. Upon catching myself I became explicitly aware of the steps my mind went through in recalling the definition of dearth on-the-fly.

If you asked me flat-out what “dearth” meant, I’d tell you that it meant a lack, or a shortage or a scarcity or whatnot. But when I’m tack-tack-tacking away on the keyboard, my thought process is a little different. When this word comes along in this context, I go through a mnemonic – and a false one at that.

Here’s how it works.

1. Dearth.
2. David Dearth.
3. There’s no shortage of David Dearth.
4. No shortage = plenty.

Given that I used to be into bodybuilding in the 90s, and probably will get back into it at some point, whenever I hear “dearth” I probably think of the ironically named bodybuilder. Or at least I probably, often go through this false mnemonic.

Now the problem is, if I remember this mnemonic explicitly, will it reinforce the problem or make it go away?

Maybe if I just remember “David Dearth is ironic”, it’ll be alright.

I wonder what was going though my (conservative) economics teacher’s mind. Unions make me cry?

~ Bruce

* Should be “recurring” as pointed out in the comments a while back. I’ve left it for the ironic value. Oddly enough, neither the spell-checker in my browser, nor in WordPress, is detecting the error. Curious if this is the same for other WordPress bloggers.

I’ve been away from the blogosphere a bit because Uncle Sean has me working on something. I’ll be back to regular scheduled blogging, which is to say totally disorganised, by Thursday.

Even if I do post a post before then.

~ Bruce

Okay. It’s yet again time to trim back the tabs on my browser.

It’s looking like a long list, so I’ll get to it.

Censorship, cybersafety and the Internet Filter

Read a takedown of polls surrounding Conroy’s intended Internet Filter at MKG – ‘Hungry Beast: 80% of Australians Want Mandatory Internet Censorship? Really?‘

Larry Magid explains why he thinks that the current approach to online safety is misguided (in a rare good post at HuffPo) – ‘We Need to Rethink Online Safety‘ (Thanks to Mark Newton for this link.)

The Pirate Party Australia publishes a letter from their Finnish counterparts, on what their experience in Internet Filtering has been like – ‘A Message From Finland’ (Again, thanks to Mark Newton.)

More on the RC rating for videos depicting female ejaculation here at Hungry Beast in ‘Your Orgasm Is Classified‘, and apparently, on a related note, Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett are big-tit men, pushing a similar ban on the depiction of small breasts as detailed in ‘Australia Bans Small Breasts‘. What about small cocks? Guys?

More recently, Senator Conroy’s proposed Internet filter has received more criticism, this time being unanimously, and unequivocally opposed by the Computer Research and Education Association (CORE) – ‘Filter unanimously opposed by Australasian Computer science academics‘.

Further to this, Electronic Frontiers Australia has set up a petition to oppose Senator Conroy’s Internet filtration plans. There is code there for bloggers and webmasters to add a button and link to the petition, which I’ll have to do in short order.

Those Ugandan Gay Genocide Laws

Over at Waking Up Now, in response to US President Obama’s (rather late) criticism of Uganda’s proposed anti-gay laws, read about how the wording of the legislation allows the friends of gay people to be executed as well – ‘Uganda’s Kill-the-Straight-Friends-of-Gays Bill‘

Religion

In an astounding act of religious discrimination, Cherie Booth QC, wife of former UK Prime Minister and alleged war-criminal Tony Blair, has decided to hand down a lenient sentence to a man found guilty of breaking another’s jaw, because he was religious and therefore could be expected to “…know this is not acceptable behaviour.” I guess without God, anything is permitted? Give me a break – ‘Complaint after Cherie Booth spares religious man from jail‘

Commenting on the necessary logical implication, and thus precedent set by this discriminatory sentencing, AC Grayling writes for RichardDawkins.net – ‘A religious but not righteous Judge: Cherie Blair‘

Courtesy of Rod Benson’s twitter account, I was directed to this article in the UK’s Tele – ‘Atheists ‘just as moral as churchgoers’‘, which I’ve seen around the tubes has caused a bit of anger amongst a few atheists (I’m looking at someone from the Think Atheist crew). First of all let me say it wasn’t a population study. Second, it was about the psychology of ethical reasoning, not the sociology of organised religion. Nor did the article pretend to be any more than that. Existing studies showing atheists to outperform the religious in moral behaviour are by and large correlatory (and correlation isn’t causation – Dawkins warns against this The God Delusion), and subject to influence from other variables (education, other socio-economic factors).

Keeping these things in mind, a null hypothesis of no difference between religious and non-religious morality, in a psychological study showing the religious weren’t overly influenced by religious dogma, isn’t something to get in a stink about. In context (which for once the tele seems to have actually managed) it’s nothing for atheists to feel cheated by, and indeed it challenges common bigoted stereotypes about atheists.

If you are up for some extended video viewing, the IQ squared debates have been published online with more regularity/accessibility of late. I recommend the ‘Atheism is the new fundamentalism debate‘ with Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling pairing off against Richard Harries and Charles Moore. (Given past discussions, I think this would be good viewing for Bron!)

Science

Some time back, there was a brief flare up about the firing of Susan Greenfield from her directorial role at The Royal Institution. After reading some of the bad science she had put out in public, and considering Greenfield’s misguided development that brought about a massive state of debt for the Institution, and vastly overpriced drinks at its new and largely unwanted bar, I really can’t see Greenfield’s complaint of discrimination holding up. For more on the junk science, Susan Blackmore writes ‘Goodbye to a not-so-good scientist‘.

Politics

Paul Sims writes for The New Humanist, that Geert Wilders is not champion of free speech, owing to his own censorious policies. ‘Geert Wilders: martyr of truth?‘ For those atheists opposed to religious censorship and blasphemy laws, this is a must read. And a good read for anyone else. A pity that Pat Condell couldn’t get this through his thick head.

Nature

If you like a good bit of ethology twee, and it doesn’t make you anthropomorphise when you shouldn’t (i.e. when doing ethology), here’s some kitties and a chimp – ‘A Mom is a Mom no matter what the species‘ – I don’t know about the title though. Makes my contrarian mind dredge up images of black widows and mantises.

Blogosphere

I’ll have to make a few additions to my blogroll. Torque Control, PodBlack Cat, Hope For Pandora, Unreasonable Faith, Atheist Revolution, Stupid Evil Bastard, Skepchick and The New Humanist Blog will join the blogroll soon. And if Beep Beep It’s Me gets back up and active again, after her 2 year-plus hiatus, I’ll put her back on as well! (Again, welcome back!)

A couple of bloggers I’d like to see return to the ’sphere are Arthur Vandelay of Five Public Opinions, and Don Quixote of Silently Speaking. Art’s been out of the game since April of last year, and DQ has been AWOL since July of 2006. I miss these guys. DQ was my first regular commenter back in the second half of 2005 on Bruce’s Rave and Rant. I was reading Five Public Opinions for almost as long. Some good stuff if you look back through the archives.

~ Bruce

There has been an argument in theological/cosmological circles for a while now that I’ve seen from time to time but haven’t addressed, surrounding the existence of a singularity at the beginning of the Universe. Why?

For some reason that I honestly can’t fathom beyond some possible act of desperation, from time to time I’ve seen the singularity being called “God”. I want to have this post in place for the next time I see an example because I think it’s a really problematic argument.

Personally, I think that Coca Cola would make a better deity; the drink not the corporation. It has about the same capacity to give moral and spiritual guidance as a singularity, but with the added benefit of empirical evidence to buttress any ontological assertions. Although maybe a Coke bottle isn’t enough to hang The Infinite off of.

Yes, yes. Very clever. Grow up. Etc. Blah, blah, blah… It’s a reductio. Give a counter argument to show why it’s invalid, or live with it. I suspect most readers here will do the latter.

In case some of you reading this don’t know, there is no empirical evidence that singularities actually exist. They are simply inferred by our current, limited understanding of the Universe. Particularly the general theory of relativity.

Singularities are inferred in general in two (or more) places – in black holes and at the beginning of the Universe (and at the end in some inflationary models, and at the bounce points of some rebounding Universe models).

Get enough mass in a small enough area, and gravitational collapse will, according to the general theory of relativity, become intractable – down to a single, finite point of infinite density and zero width, height or depth. Time comes to an end (or a boundary) as well.

Why is this a problem? Why are singularities a bad thing to hang God (or anything else) off of?

General relativity, a theory which makes a host of testable predictions (including black holes),  provides an extremely accurate account of the way gravity works in the Universe. Quantum mechanics, which deals with the very small in a similarly successful way, doesn’t deal with gravity at all (at least not yet); gravity which is a very weak force, at the scale of the extremely small, isn’t particularly amenable to study. It’s like trying to study the smallest volume of the most diffuse gas – you don’t have enough to work with.

There is of course one glaring exception where gravity is significant on a quantum scale – the alleged singularity, or at least, the confined conditions at the heart of a runaway gravitational collapse. So what if it’s a weak force? Under these conditions you’ve got a lot of it, so much so that in a black hole, it should dominate the other, stronger forces.

The singularity should ideally be the place for general relativity and quantum mechanics to cross over. Indeed, necessarily if the two theories were to maintain logical self-consistency; by definition, both theories have the singularity within their domain and hence both need to explain it seamlessly.

But this isn’t the case. The situation is far from ideal. All those infinites get in the way of being able to tie one theory to the other. The math doesn’t work. The two theories as they stand, are irreconcilable. One or both has to change. And that’s before considering the fact that quantum mechanics normally deals with matter, while general relativity deals with space-time.

Hence the singularity isn’t something that can be reasonably asserted as actually existing. The singularity is a mathematical product of our current deficient understanding of the Universe, at precisely the point that our understanding fails. The part of theory that predicts singularities is the part that is broken. The singularity isn’t a thing, it’s a place-holder for a gap in our knowlege.

I use the word “gap” advisedly. As in “God of the gaps“.

Although maybe it’s even worse than that.

Traditionally, a God-of-the-gaps argument states that “where there is a gap in human scientific knowledge, God did it”. But this singularity mumbo-jumbo is different. This is a case of “there is a gap in human scientific knowledge, and God is it”.

God of the gaps theology traditionally reduce God’s role in the Universe as human understanding advances. God’s agency being squeezed out like the cream in a Monte Carlo.

However, if the singularity is ever done away with, if a theory of quantum gravity is developed that reconciles general relativity with quantum mechanics and doesn’t posit a singularity as a mathematical product, then that gap is gone. But instead of God’s agency being the cream in the Monte Carlo being squeezed out, it’s God itself.

It should be obvious that the rejection of the concept of the cosmological singularity is a possible, reasonable outcome of honest scientific conduct. Or even just a part of responsible speculation in an attempt to develop the first hint of a solution to a very difficult scientific problem.

The Hartle-Hawking theory is just such a speculation (see Hawking’s A Brief History of Time for an in-depth explanation). At least in as far as the Big Bang is concerned. By applying the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle to space-time, specifically to the state of a given dimension (uncertainty of space-or-time) – Hartle and Hawking demonstrated in theory that it is possible that space time as we know it emerged from a region of uncertain space-time on the Planck scale.

Which is to say a region of space-time that is very, very small, but not infinitesimal.

Singularities are discrete, infinitesimal points (or rings in the case of a rotating black hole) of infinite density and zero volume, but when space-time is itself subject to the Uncertainty Principle as in the Hartle-Hawking theory, there aren’t any discrete, singular points in space-time in order for singularities to be possible. I’ll avoid using the phrase “impossible initial conditions” because even “initial” is in this scheme is by definition impossible.

At such a small scale, according to the Hartle-Hawking theory, quantum effects would hold sway allowing for time to emerge from a fourth dimension of space, and thus allowing the Universe as we know it to follow.

Still, it’s a speculative theory; testable predictions haven’t emerged from it.

It is useful speculation all the same, because it provides logical refutation against assumptions held to be a priori truths that restrict the way the Universe is theorised about. For example, the assumption that a finite Universe must have a beginning (a reoccurring theme in cosmological arguments for the existence of God) is ruined by the logical possibility of the Hartle-Hawking theory.

It may not cure our ignorance about what may actually lay at the heart of a black hole, but what this reasonable speculation and speculation like it does tell us, is that the singularity (and the “first cause” in general) is an ambiguous and unsafe place to park your cherished ideas!

Maybe somebody should put up a sign.

~ Bruce

Afterword: Aside from being a pre-prepared rebuttal, I’m writing this in anticipation of singularity-dogma, and the casting of singularity-rebuttals as alleged atheist propaganda, rather than responsible inquiry.