Happy 68th birthday, Dr. Dawkins!
The good Dr. is 68 today, and all we can say is thank you for your tireless work in the name of reason. May you have 68 more!
Topic Agnostic Illustrated daily news, salacious gossip, opinion & discussion on religion & atheism.
Archive for the ‘Authors/Books’ Category
Andrew Brown tries to herd the atheist cats
Andrew Brown gives you the chance to quiz yourself to find out if you’re a new atheist! Asserting that ‘new atheism’ (what I’m pretty sure was a handy marketing phrase developed by the book industry a few years ago, and not a movement) is political as opposed to intellectual, the Guardian blogger raises a few hackles both on his own blog and on Richard Dawkin’s.
Commenter Steve Mading on Dawkins points out:
He’s right that “New Atheists” are primarily about social and political concerns, rather than the philosophical argument. He just fails to see why that’s the case. It’s because philosophers in the past have already won that argument If he wants to talk about that sort of argument - go check the philosphers of the 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s. We won that argument already in the philosophy world - it’s just that the world is full of dishonest people who don’t admit it. The point of the “new” atheists is - what are we going to DO about it now?
The newness surrounding atheism is surely the internet, which spreads ideas at a pace unimagined in Inquisition days. We now know that the world is explainable; dedicated scientists are working on those explanations daily. We also suspect, if we don’t already know, that religions were made up by people (and awfully ignorant people, at that); as such we are realizing aloud more and more that the special dispensations we’ve granted them aren’t deserved and should be revoked. That’s all.
Knowledge is the little hammer that chips away at the religious worldview
There’s a reason religious folks try to keep their kids away from pop culture, whether it’s music, video games, the internet, movies, books or tv. Getting children to buy in to a religious worldview requires creating the illusion that a particular way of thinking is the right way. Repetition and authority help indoctrinate kids, and you don’t want anything that contradicts or interrupts your message getting through. The differing lifestyles and opinions presented by pop culture compete with the dogma you’re marketing.
Say you’re selling a Christian mythology and its proscribed moral code as the one true system. It doesn’t do you any good to have Harry Potter poking his wand in there and telling kids there’s magic and it’s fun. Neither do you want Hannah Montana jiggling her milkshakes and suggesting there’s sex and it’s fun. You certainly don’t need science being taught to your kids, with its sticky attachments to falsifiability, reasoning, and critical thinking.
Every piece of knowledge kids are exposed to is a little bit of evidence on the pile that says ‘Hey, my parent’s “truth” isn’t the only one out there’. The smarter kids will follow that up with ‘What does that mean?’
That’s why the Golden Compass gets panned as atheist (it totally is) and Narnia gets the moral thumbs up for Aslan the Christ. Speaking of that, did you know Twilight is a Mormon sexual frustration fantasty? Abstinence message approved!
Everywhere in the nonbelieving universe, the religious worldview paint is cracking and peeling. Two to ponder:
1) New Scientist recently wrestled over whether 2009 - the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the telescope, and the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth - should celebrate the original recanter or the original speciator? Who rocked the religious worldview the most? Galileo let us in on the fact that the earth isn’t the centre of, well, anything. Darwin shed light on the fact that we’re freakin’ animals, about which many of us conclude God’s image is a pretty confusing likeness in which to be made. Both of these contributions are wonderful examples of the fallout of science’s quest for truth melting the bomb shelters of religion.
2) Friendly Atheist hosted a passionate discussion about what to do if an in-law starts getting their Christianity all over your kids. A number of comments suggested exposing the kid in question to even more fables and mythologies from other religions, thereby showing this one worldview in the context of many other equally fantastic ones. It will occur that there is no more proof or reason to believe one idea over any other, and the effect of the attempted inculcation will be diminished, if not nullified.
In sociology, the accepted norms and ‘common sense’ that makes up your world is called the nomos.
In order to be at its most effective the nomos must be taken for granted. The structure of the world which has been created by human and social activity is treated, not as contingent, but as self-evident. ‘Whenever the socially established nomos attains the quality of being taken for granted, there occurs a merging of its meanings with what are considered to be the fundamental meanings inherent in the universe.’
You can only take your worldview for granted if you’re not exposed to anything else. That’s the methodology of religion: to keep you in the dark. You’re meant to think the Bible contains all you need to know.
Worldviews can be cracked. Knowledge is the little hammer that chips away at ignorance. Read, travel, and teach children how to reason. And if your worldview needs a little shaking up, blow your mind with this.
Reason and religion have a chat
A very civil and thought provoking debate between new atheist author Sam Harris and Rabbi David Wolpe.
This is part 1 of 7, and there’s also a Q&A after. You can watch the whole thing uninterrupted here.
The Book: A sexy coffee table Bible to show off your historical savoir-faire
The Book is a new spin on an old best-seller.
“The concept originated with a general philosophical dinner table discussion between Michel Gyring and Mats Rabe in Stockholm, Sweden. The conversation asked the question “Why people don’t read historical texts” and they began pondering if the traditional format or design turned people off. They realized there was a huge opportunity to re-design or illuminate these types of old texts. This was the beginning of Illuminated World”.
The first project Illuminated World took on was a sexy, glossy magazine format version of the formerly-holy Bible, with shots of Angelina Jolie, monks on fire, polar bears and brand-name beverages. The “illuminators“, partnered with The American Bible Society, offer “to introduce today’s audience to a…contemporary Bible”, with the “realizing” of the “huge opportunity” being the niche-creating idea that a well-designed, sexy Bible would sell like hotcakes—a page out of fellow Swedish design-dealers IKEA’s book.
From the ‘about us’ page of the so-brilliant-it’s-just-a-crime masterminds behind “The Illuminated Bible: The Book - New Testament”:
Dag Söderberg [Founder & CEO] is a spiritual but not particularly religious individual and his mission is simple; make the Bible accessible and readable.
Previous to publishing The Book, Dag was CEO of one of the largest advertising firms in Scandinavia.
What did we learn in the above paragraphs? The idea man doesn’t believe in the Bible, but he’s a great marketer.
Never ever buy an idea from someone who’s admitted background is in marketing. As much as you practice and are expert in your daily work, marketers spend all their professional time thinking about how to manipulate you out of your money.
We have no religious agenda nor do we support a specific faith.
—Illuminated World’s Mission
.
Illuminated World doesn’t even believe in the idea they’re selling—Christianity. They just want…to…get paid…
Ok, now that I’ve figured them out, I must congratulate these canny businessmen! This equal-opportunity swindle targets not only the believer market, but also…everyone else! That’s the genius twist—don’t just take Christian’s money, everyone should check this book out as a historical text. It’s cool to have this by the couch. It’s “smarter, more sensitive to [your] surroundings” to read this book, suggests Larry Norton, Illuminated’s president, whether you’re “religious or not”.
Sam Harris (atheist) blasts Sarah Palin (religious nutjob)
Atheist Sam Harris goes off in a 4-page Newsweek opus on Sarah Palin’s God-fuelled certitude that she’s somehow ready to lead the free world.
Sam’s been doing work lately in the neuroscience of belief.
Effectively focus both personal and corporate prayer. This guarantee not guaranteed.
Speaking of absolute freaking snake oil salesmen, check out this book (but don’t buy it, for God’s sake. Vote with your money). Strategic Prayer: Applying the Power of Targeted Prayer offers hope for all those whose prayers are going unanswered—no doubt an enormous market. Maybe it’s not that God doesn’t exist….maybe you’re doing it wrong!
“Learn to pray targeted, specific, result-oriented prayers. Prayer practitioners Eddie Smith and Michael L. Hennen identify 27 principles that will equip you to pray more purposefully and effectively.”
God likes bullet points. God doesn’t have all day to figure out what’s best for you. Do your research ahead of time and only contact God when your whole presentation is in order. A “goal-based, proactive approach to prayer” will aid your quest to win the lottery, sleep with hot chicks, or anything else for which you need a divine favor.
You’ll be delighted to know “this title is eligible for Amazon Fall Textbook promotions”.
Christopher diCarlo named ‘Humanist of the Year’ by Humanist Association of Canada
The devilishly handsome University of Ontario Institute of Technology professor Christopher diCarlo has been honoured as Humanist of the Year by the Humanist Association of Canada. Dr. diCarlo “teaches both bioethics and critical thinking at Oshawa’s UOIT, where he pushes students to recognize the cultural and religious underpinnings of their opinions. Such self-awareness, he says, is essential to constructing a strong argument”, reports the Guelph Mercury.
Commitment to reason is what garnered the good doctor the award; he relates the realization that only 1 religious group - the one you belong to - is welcome in Heaven as a turning point for his rejection of inherited superstitious beliefs. You can check out the “best critical thinking book ever”, according to comments, “‘How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass: A Practical Guide to Critical Thinking” on Chapters; here’s his lecture The Relations of Natural Systems: A Synthetic Understanding of Causality.
Dr. diCarlo is noted for having been ousted from Wilfrid Laurier University for denying creationist myths and teaching the commonly accepted theory that early North Americans migrated across the Bering Strait.
The Guelph Merucry adds that Statistics Canada reports that atheism is now the second-largest belief system in Canada, at 16.3% (or 19%, depending where you’re reading), second only to Catholicism. Go Canada, and congratulations Dr. diCarlo!
Dawkins reads his email
Can you imagine wading through the mountains of curse-word-laden email this man must get? Between missives of hate (from loving Christians, mainly) and limited-time offers on wiener supplements, I wonder that the good doctor even opens his Outlook.
And what the heck, Hitchens on religion:
via videosift.com
Dawkins message may be obscured by the fact that he’s smarter than the rest of us
In an August 2nd story, we reported on Channel 4’s The Genius of Charles Darwin series, featuring Richard Dawkins. Having aired this week, there are some criticisms of the documentary.
Justin Thacker for the Guardian takes the position that Dawkins’ thinking has become simplified (something I’d argue is necessary for conveying his viewpoint in 10-second soundbites) and that the atheist position is ultimately confounded by the existence of people who believe both in a creator god and subsequent evolution. “Believing that two rodents are related isn’t difficult – it’s believing that humans and mice are that is more problematic,” Thacker suggests. In the scale of logical fallacies this is called an “argument from incredulity”, which means that because it’s tough to conceive of something, it must not be true. Thacker’s limited imagination and inability to appreciate massive timescale notwithstanding, I hear what Thacker’s saying when he distills Dawkins’ brand down to effectively suggesting ‘you must embrace atheism if you understand evolution’. Ultimately true or not, that suggestion may need to be buried or at least toned down in the interest of marketing the idea of evolution to the masses. Perhaps Dawkins has been forced by the modern attention span to round up all his ideas in too simple a group of bullet points.
Michael Deacon also writes about the series on the Telegraph: despite his own professed atheism, Deacon too is annoyed by Dawkins’ assertions that seem to “rule out the possibility that billions of years ago, God – or a god, or gods – created the world and populated it with bacteria capable of evolving.”
Evolution, or “Darwinism”, as Ben Stein calls it, is factual, but is still largely rejected among average Americans. Olivia Judson - wisely, I think - remarked in her New York Times blog last month as part of another 4-part series celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin that:
“Obsessively focusing on Darwin, perpetually asking whether he was right about this or that, implies that the discovery of something he didn’t think of or know about somehow undermines or threatens the whole enterprise of evolutionary biology today.”
Dawkins, in the age of the 10-second/300 frame soundbite, is perhaps too closely associating Darwin, evolution, and atheism at the risk of alienating the very people we’re trying to enlighten. His Oxford Chair is the Public Understanding of Science. While I personally find his delivery amusing and accurate, I hope he’s considering the voices of his detractors in the evolution of his communication style. Dr. Dawkins is an intelligent, educated man and may be able to reach conclusions himself that take longer for the public to reach on their own.
The comments on his own site dismiss the Deacon review as facile, and IMO the clips from Channel 4 showed Dawkins’ real love of spreading knowledge to the ignorant, which those teenagers certainly were. What do you think? Should Dr. Dawkins simmer down on the atheism, in the hopes that more people will be accepting of the science that led him there?
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