…and this is a 
Look, Ma, I'm a "secular whackjob"!
Category: Godlessness • Politics
Posted on: April 23, 2006 5:24 PM, by PZ Myers
I think The Raw Story is supposed to be a progressive political web site…which, unfortunately, means I now have to be greatly embarrassed by my fellow travelers along the great liberal path. Melinda Barton has written a bizarre and poorly supported screed against atheism, or as she'd prefer to call it, secular whackjobbery, as opposed to her preferred position, which I will call theistic wank-offery.
She starts by making up a novel definition, always a bad sign. To Barton, the term "secular" refers to "those who disbelieve all religious and spiritual claims, not to those who merely support a separation of church and state." That's an interesting position for a progressive to take, since there are a great many liberal religious people who believe that a secular government is the best government, yet because they hold private beliefs about God, she gets to sweep them completely off the table in any consideration of the promotion of secularism. Sweet. It also means she gets to accuse those few remaining godless promoters of a non-religous government "whackjobs" and extremists. Not all the atheists, she is quick to note—just the evil ones who hold the outrageous claims she then lists. Strangely enough, when she lists these claims, she isn't able to provide any evidence that anyone actually holds any of these positions.
You know, I'm a fairly extremist atheist myself, and I just find her assertions daffy.
Outrageous claim number 1: Atheism is based on evidence and reason and is philosophically provable or proven. Atheism is a matter of thought not belief. In other words, atheism is true; religion is false.
Well, yes, I believe religion is false; that's no more a damning trait than the fact that Melinda Barton believes religion is true. But this claim that atheism is proven is bizarre; who says such things? She tries to quote a writer for the Atheist Foundation of Australia who defines atheism as "the acceptance that there is no credible, scientific or factually reliable evidence for the existence of a God, god/s or the supernatural"…tell me, where is the claim of provability there? She goes on to argue that both the presence and absence of a deity are matters of belief, setting up a false equivalence in which she tries to argue that both are therefore matters of faith. What nonsense; the absence of faith is not faith, any more than the absence of a sandwich is also a kind of tasty snack between two slices of bread.
Outrageous claim number 2: Since the natural is all that we have or can scientifically observe and/or measure, it is all that exists.
Now we get into some real craziness. This basic claim of metaphysical naturalism, which is a reasonable interpretation of the absence of evidence, is called a blatant logical fallacy and scientifically inaccurate by Ms Barton.
She claims it is a logical fallacy because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That's an extravagant misuse of the aphorism, I'm afraid. Absence of evidence is a legitimate argument for the absence of a phenomenon. If I claim there is a unicorn living in my backyard, but repeated attempts to observe and record it, or to find indirect evidence such as footprints or unicorn scat all fail, it is perfectly reasonable to provisionally suggest that the claim is false, and to insist that any further consideration of the idea will require positive evidence from the claimant.
As for her claim that metaphysical naturalism is scientifically inaccurate…her defense consists of abusing quantum physics. I'm thinking there ought to be an exam and some kind of licensing requirement before people are allowed to use The Argument From Quantum Physics in public.
Outrageous claim number 3: All religion is oppressive.
I'm more sympathetic to this one. I think it's true that most religion is oppressive, and I agree with The International Manifesto for Atheistic Humanism that she quotes:
Religion is oppressive. The act of subjugating human will to "divine will" is oppressive. The practice of obeying clergy, of letting them make our decisions for us, is oppressive and irresponsible.
The onus is on Ms Barton to show that this is false and only believable by whackjobs. She fails. She cites examples of commendable behavior by religious individuals, which I don't disagree with at all—people are quite capable of transcending the limitations of their dogma. As we've come to expect, she has to ignore the actual words of her atheist targets to make her case. She doesn't even try to address the issue of surrendering autonomy to an authority based on "faith" as oppressive.
Outrageous claim number 4: The eradication of religion in favor of secularism will bring about utopia.
Again, a straw man, and she has got to know it. She reaches for the usual extremist examples with which atheists are typically beaten, the anarchists and communists, and says that they believe "the total eradication of religion is an essential but not sufficient step in the creation of an atheist utopia." The statement of her religious claim and her recitation of an example follow one after another; are we to believe that she doesn't understand what the phrase "but not sufficient" means? Possibly. She's not exactly dazzling us with her clarity of thought here.
Outrageous claim number 5: All religious people want to force you or convince you or coerce you to believe as they do.
Just a rhetorical tip to Ms Barton: it's a bad idea to end a list of arguments for your position with the weakest, lamest, most pathetic claim you can think of, and also to immediately admit that it's unsupportable. You know, like this:
I tried to find an "official" source for this hasty generalization with no luck, but chose to include it here based on personal experience.
Jebus. Never mind. Do we even need to try to rebut this kind of nonsense?
Fresh off that flabby reasoning, her conclusions stoops even lower. Why should we oppose these "secular whackjobs" on the left? Pogroms, baby, we're all about persecuting you for what you do in your home and church. Step into my classroom or onto the sidewalk wearing a crucifix, and I might just rip it off and stomp on it. (Do I have to add, "not really"? Probably. The fevered imaginations of the Melinda Bartons of the world no doubt see sarcasm as a personal slight.)
While most who believe in the separation of church and state hold that only government support of religion in the public sphere should be forbidden, the secular extremist may take it one step further to forbid the private display of religious symbols in public places.
I hereby promise that if you want to wear a yamulke in public, or want to dab ashes on your forehead on some incomprehensible holy day, I won't sic the cops on you. OK? There's a difference between accusing all people with certain religious beliefs of conspiring to lock you up in prison, and insisting that government should be entirely secular, granting no preference to one religious belief or another. When you target the latter under the pretext of protecting us from the former, you're promoting theocracy.
Just for the slow and witless who have difficulty figuring out the obvious, Ms Barton, theocracy is not a progressive value.
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Comments
Do not forget to read the comments on that article - there are some excellent rebuttals there and her attempts at responding are feeble and disingenious.
Posted by: coturnix | April 23, 2006 5:34 PM
"Religion is oppressive. The act of subjugating human will to "divine will" is oppressive. The practice of obeying clergy, of letting them make our decisions for us, is oppressive and irresponsible."
And that's incorrect HOW?
Posted by: Terry C, Coldplayer | April 23, 2006 5:45 PM
Thanks for actually doing a reasoned dissection of Ms. Barton's ham handed attacks PZ. It's the kind of rebuttal I wish I had written. I'd like to encourage all liberal/progressive atheists to blog about this gross mischaracterization of so many on the left.
Posted by: tng | April 23, 2006 5:49 PM
PZ, did you realise that the link to you in the left column links to pharyngula.org? Maybe that should be updated?
Posted by: Brett | April 23, 2006 5:54 PM
PZ, I just so happened to see Bill Maher in concert last night. He was talking about the religious right and said something like, "They tell me I don't respect their religion. Well, I don't. But I don't have to. I tolerate it, which is all that's required of me as an American. It'd be nice if they'd return the favor."
Posted by: nate-dogg | April 23, 2006 6:06 PM
Nice take-down. I think I'm as extreme an atheist as you'll ever find but I don't see myself in anything she has written. Puts me in mind of Amy Sulivan's bleating about liberals not being sufficiently pro-theocracy.
Posted by: Gaffer | April 23, 2006 6:10 PM
I don't understand why you even care what Melissa Barton even thinks. The idea of spending one's time deconstructing her is just a waste. Do you really not have anything better to do, or do you just like disagreeing with people?
Posted by: Tom | April 23, 2006 6:16 PM
I'd say "nutjob" is more accurate.
Posted by: Ron McElroy | April 23, 2006 6:16 PM
I found point that her point 4 strawman was even more painful when she used the book of Genesis to rebut it. Oh the agony, to be told that we can't have a secular paradise because the bible says that people are too evil to live with god in eden. I wish I could comment more on it, but as I attempt to write more, I am taken by its deep penetration into the realm of absolute nonsense and my mind spirals down into a vortex of confusion.
Posted by: Bob Nigh | April 23, 2006 6:27 PM
"Remember the laws forbidding the wearing of yarmulkes, crosses, hijabs, and the like in France."
I don't remember those laws. I remember a law banning the wearing of religious symbols in State Schools and similar institutions. Mostly to enforce school uniform and to prevent bullying and prejudice.
Posted by: James Orpin | April 23, 2006 6:30 PM
"absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"
So Michelson and Morley should have just kept looking for that ether, huh?
PZ, any idea who made this one up? Sounds like one of those CS Lewis half-witticisms that seem to impress religious people so much.
Posted by: Dan Koffler | April 23, 2006 6:37 PM
You know it's a good day when so many come to the defense of atheists. But hey, if someone wishes to call me an extreme atheist so be it, but I'm not the one out there causing trouble or wanting to interfer with what goes on in your bedroom.
Posted by: Angie | April 23, 2006 6:40 PM
Exactly why on that old thread I wanted to be clear about the different meanings of "belief" and "faith." Atheism and theism are both beliefs, but only one is a belief based on faith.
Posted by: AndyS | April 23, 2006 6:54 PM
Wow. She really believes that "secular whackjobs" pose a threat to this nation? How about considering the real extremists who are threatening our democracy...
Twenty percent of this country believes that Armageddon as described in the Book of Revelation will occur during their lifetime. These people would be happy to see President Bush lob a few nukes into Iran. They would support any "holy war" foreign policy in order to jump start the rapture.
When was the last time you saw an atheist suicide bomber? Or an atheist who advocates war and genocide? It's the religious extremists who are pushing the oppression on this world, not the atheists.
Posted by: Comandante Agi | April 23, 2006 6:55 PM
Crooks and Liars links to a video that will cure that atheism (click URL). Just scroll down to the guy holding the banana (4/18/06 @ 9:27:15AM). Really, if the banana argument doesn't work there's no hope.
Posted by: jimmiraybob | April 23, 2006 6:57 PM
From the article:
"The whackjob is a special sort of atheist, one so absolutely certain of the inerrancy of atheism and so virulently opposed to religion that he will latch on to any and all outrageous claims in defense of the former and against the latter."
Replace atheist with 'blogger', atheism with 'her opinions' replace religion with 'atheism', and that would be a correct defintion!
Posted by: Tiax | April 23, 2006 7:03 PM
You know what this is? This is the result of the "new" way of doing things in the Democratic party. You know, the one where we're supposed to get religion? The pundits and strategists have spoken and, forthwith, we are the party of the religious, we have always been the party of the religous, and there never were any secular whackjobs in our ranks.
My chocolate rations just went up too. Doubleplus good, that.
Posted by: Dustin | April 23, 2006 7:09 PM
Tom: Do you really need an answer for that?
People say stupid things in a position for many people to read it.
Other people, who are not idiots, respond, and take apart their weak arguements, and make sure they're exposed for the jerks they are.
Seriously. Come on now.
Posted by: garth | April 23, 2006 7:09 PM
I have seen the fruity light and been saved. Who knew I could be so wrong for so long, only to be unseated by such sound reasoning as that. We can hold a banana, we can eat that banana, therefore God, QED. Eat your heart out, Qalam!
Posted by: Dustin | April 23, 2006 7:12 PM
I have to say I'm quite heartened by the response to that asinine article, though I don't know anything about the site...is it just some kind of atheistic hangout?
Posted by: D | April 23, 2006 7:20 PM
ARGH! When will people stop bastardizing Quantum Mechanics and the problem of physical measurement. Yes the Indeterminacy principle states that one cannot measure two non-commuting operators (observables) like position and momentum with infinite precision. Ms. Barton also needs to learn that physicists work in a (3+1) space-time, ala General Relativity, not 3-space.
So QM states we can't know things to Laplacian like infinite precision and GR/SR means we have to wait a while for certain signals to get to us. These triumphs of early twentieth century physics in explaining purely physical phenomena should caution us from accepting strident atheism. HA! The "Warning: Technobabble ahead!" comment is recognized as an overt admission of being way over ones head but being to stupid to turn around.
Little history lesson. The Michelson-Morley interferometry experiment of 1887 did not disprove the existence of the ether, it merely stated that there were no first order perturbations in the speed of light due to ether drift. Einstein in 1905, recognizing that second order effects in any ether theory (there were a few) was unlikely, he disregarded the ether hypothesis as unnecessary for explaining electromagnetic phenomena. Michelson to his grave held onto the ether drag hypothesis, for he and many others kept looking well into the 1930s.
As is often said here, please know what your talking about before you open your mouth.
Posted by: Doran | April 23, 2006 7:22 PM
Very good, Doran. And the question remains, at what point do you stop looking for the ether?
Posted by: Dan Koffler | April 23, 2006 7:28 PM
Right on PZ. Its even more annoying in some ways when alleged progressives write such annoying tripe. Aren't we supposed to be the reality-based community?
Here is a question: Why are there so few atheists/non-believers? One poll I saw put the number of atheists/non-believers in the US at around 15%. Are only 15% of us capable of critical thought?
Posted by: Raindog | April 23, 2006 7:39 PM
"absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"
...
PZ, any idea who made this one up? Sounds like one of those CS Lewis half-witticisms that seem to impress religious people so much.
Actually, that was Carl Sagan.
Posted by: dorkafork | April 23, 2006 7:40 PM
While it is a side issue to the religious left's reflexive fear of atheists as destroying their cause for political dominance by existing, i'll bite. The most common reason for giving up on a particular hypothesis or even well tested theory is that something better has come along. By better, and I am being rather vague here, I mean that it explains the phenomena of the previous theory under different suppositions and makes novel predictions as well.
Now to be perfectly honest there is nothing stopping an individual from doing research on ether drag per se, though funding may be a bit hard to come by. PZ has already dealt with the Rumsfeldian phrasing of absent evidence, but as most of us here will recognize, the lack of such effidence wont deter the faithful. Especially if funding (oh blessed funding) is readily available.
Posted by: Doran | April 23, 2006 7:48 PM
Liberal organizations don't card people at the door, PZ, so a few of these misfiled humans will turn up now and then. You gave this person a more thorough reading than anyone else would have bothered to provide. You at least have a clear motive.
Posted by: greensmile | April 23, 2006 7:54 PM
When Ms. Barton cites Soviet communism as an example of what happens when atheists are in charge, she is conveniently forgetting the 2,000 years of torture, oppression, war and murder committed in the name of Jeebus and God. That's a pretty black pot you've got there, Melinda, I'll take the atheist kettle thank you very much.
I could go into great detail, too, about the atrocities committed by supposedly godly people who had no compunction about uniting the powers of church and state, but it's not necessary here.
There's a reason that Europeans turned their backs on the Church. They have first-hand experience with living under a theocracy and they've rightfully rejected it.
I hope we don't have to learn that lesson ourselves.
Posted by: renato | April 23, 2006 7:55 PM
Are only 15% of us capable of critical thought?
Sounds about right to me.
Posted by: renato | April 23, 2006 7:57 PM
I love the sandwich analogy. Another good one is "if atheism is a religion, 'off' is a TV channel".
But here's another interesting thing: think outside the box and one quickly realises that it's all relative - the word "atheism" only exists because theists did first. Notice that folks who don't believe in hobgoblins are not called "a-hobgoblinists". The fact that people who don't believe in something are vilified and patronised in such a way demonstrates the tenacity of the beliefs. Perhaps if theists reverted to deism things would be better overall?
America is close to turning into a mirror image of Islamic Iran, necessitating its being renamed "UCFSA" - United Christian Fascist States of America...
Posted by: Pete K | April 23, 2006 8:01 PM
For some reason, by trackbacks still don't seem to be getting through here - despite the fact that About is using all new software. Anyway, I posted about Barton's article as well.
Saying "in a nation comprised predominantly of those who believe in some sort of supreme being, our success as a movement depends on disavowing the secular extremist as a legitimate voice of the left" is no less bigoted than saying "in a nation comprised predominantly of whites, our success as a movement depends on disavowing the black extremist as a legitimate voice of the left" or "in a nation comprised predominantly of heterosexuals, our success as a movement depends on disavowing the homosexual extremist as a legitimate voice of the left" or "in a nation comprised predominantly of Christians, our success as a movement depends on disavowing the non-Christian extremist as a legitimate voice of the left" (remembering that "extremist" is a parody or straw man of what the groups in question really believe and say).
Posted by: Austin Cline | April 23, 2006 8:25 PM
Shorter Melinda Barton
"You know who I can't stand? Those stuck-up atheists. They totally think they're better than everyone else. Ohmigod, you're an atheist? I was so totally not talking about you! I meant, like, those totally extreme atheists!"
Posted by: Mel | April 23, 2006 8:46 PM
When Ms. Barton cites Soviet communism as an example of what happens when atheists are in charge, she is conveniently forgetting the 2,000 years of torture, oppression, war and murder committed in the name of Jeebus and God. That's a pretty black pot you've got there, Melinda, I'll take the atheist kettle thank you very much.
She also ignores the fact that Marx stated repeatedly that Communism can only succeed in a culture that has first been prepped with a few hundred years of capitalism and democracy. That's why it worked out much better in places like Sweden and the UK than in Eastern Europe and Asia, which were feudal societies less than a century ago.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | April 23, 2006 8:54 PM
Well, dorkafork got me good. The interesting thing about the "absence of evidence" remark is that, taken on its own, it's true. The trouble arises when religiously inclined folks take a perfectly innocuous characterization of the problem of the verifiability of atheism as if it were any less a problem for their own views. In suitably sophistic hands, it becomes, in effect "absence of evidence of absence is evidence of presence," which is bollocks.
Posted by: Dan Koffler | April 23, 2006 8:59 PM
Reminds me: The one major nation I know of that has successfully managed to go from feudalism to something resembling democracy in less than five hundred years is Japan, and that only because their leadership realized that Something Had To Be Done, And Fast.
It took a while (and a disastrous effort to emulate the Western world's efforts at empire-building), but they jettisoned most of the feudal structures that held them back, emphasized education and working for the common good, while retaining a solid work ethic.
Now, the Japanese, in addition to having a higher standard of living, better education, and better life overall than most "first-world" nations, are also among the least religious of the major nations of the world. I don't think that this is a coincidence.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | April 23, 2006 9:04 PM
I work for a progressive religious school. I tolerate the faith of those with whom I work, I even respect it. I believe people should be able to believe and worship the way they want.
But I really don't respect or tolerate attacks on people who believe in God differently or not at all. I've encountered strident athiests who I readily classify as horses' asses. But overall, if there's any sense that Progressives (or liberals) as a whole are hostile to religion it comes from a overly defensive posture from those who take anyone else's refusal to believe in the same God they do as a tacit attack. There are lots of people like that.
In fact, it's my main problem with most of the fundamentalists, evangelicals or pentecostalists I meet. They are defensive and it makes them offensive.
Posted by: PopeRatzo | April 23, 2006 9:05 PM
"in a nation comprised predominantly of heterosexuals, our success as a movement depends on disavowing the homosexual extremist as a legitimate voice of the left"
Unfortunately, there are Democrats who go around saying exactly this.
Posted by: Sportin' Life | April 23, 2006 9:13 PM
i have no idea if the folks who created "apocamon" are atheists but they have one hell of a talent for religious interpretation. i'd call this the "infidel's guide to revelations" and it has to be the finest works of parody i've seen in a long time, considering the challenging nature of the source material. enjoy!
http://www.e-sheep.com/apocamon
(flash required)
Posted by: aarrgghh | April 23, 2006 9:15 PM
I have to say, I think your presentation of the alternatives is incomplete. It's one thing to be an atheist, and I respect one's choice and right to follow the path of his or her choice. It's another to be a member of an organized relgion, and again, I respect that choice.
Those do not have to be diametrically opposed. Note that there are liberal threads in religions, and even beyond that, there's a pagan or Gnostic sense of spirituality where people recognize that we are all of a common source. This worldview renders all inter-faith arguments obsolete, as they come from ignorance of our common nature.
I agree with the comment above that suggests that people on the right have a hard time with the elements of the Left that are unable to find anything in common with people of faith. I don't even think it's a question of whether someone validates or approves of an atheist's viewpoint--whether they think it is rational or not. Agree to disagree.. but don't ostracize, and don't treat every person of faith as "out to get you" because they're not.
Posted by: JP | April 23, 2006 9:16 PM
JP said:
I agree with the comment above that suggests that people on the right have a hard time with the elements of the Left that are unable to find anything in common with people of faith. I don't even think it's a question of whether someone validates or approves of an atheist's viewpoint--whether they think it is rational or not. Agree to disagree.. but don't ostracize, and don't treat every person of faith as "out to get you" because they're not."
Who does this? I have never once heard an atheist state "all people of faith are out to get me," or anything remotely like that. I also don't know any atheists who cannot find things in common with theists. We'd all be in pretty bad shape if that were true. Most of the people I know are theists and I have good relationships with almost all of them. We all have to go to work and mow the lawn and take care of our kids, etc and have lots in common in these areas. As with Ms. Barton's absurd article, just who are these "whackjobs"? I'd like to know the name of one atheist who is like this.
Posted by: Raindog | April 23, 2006 9:56 PM
Phoenix Woman wrote:
Communism worked out better in the UK? All those years and I never noticed...
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | April 23, 2006 10:05 PM
I no longer call myself an atheist, nor even an agnostic, which merely invites endless sermons and abuse from the ignorant.
NOW, I tell anyone who asks, that YES - I DO believe in GOD- in fact, I believe in them ALL equally - Jehovah, Zeus, Jupiter, Brahma, Zoroaster, Baal, Hadad, Allah, Yaw, etc.
Drives'em crazy!!! (And- it's TRUE!)
Posted by: Paidi | April 23, 2006 10:08 PM
What a whackjob! Is Melinda Barton a pseudonym for Amy Sullivan?
This was a timely post. I nearly lost my stack today when another academic told me that scientists cannot be atheists if they are true to the principles of science.
Grrr..
Posted by: marky | April 23, 2006 10:09 PM
Just because a faith isn't one of the traditional religions doesn't mean it can't be a religion.
Soviet Russia and Communist China obviously had state religions -- essentially cults of personality around party leaders. They had ritual, they had doctrines, they had an emphasis on accepting the religion on faith... what they didn't have was supernaturalism, and even that is open to debate if you examine some of their more bizarre claims about human nature and economics.
They were certainly atheistic, though.
Posted by: Caledonian | April 23, 2006 10:12 PM
The funny thing about Communism as originally presented by Marx and Engels is the similarity of its supposed future to Christianity's. Specifically both claim that a final showdown between "good" and "evil" will occur at some unspecified, but hopefully soon point. This final conflict is inevitable, the "good guys" will win, and the final result will be the ushering in of the perfect world in which no strife or want exists. Communism replace the Devil with Capitalism, and it posited no Messiah, but the parallels are there.
Posted by: tim gueguen | April 23, 2006 10:12 PM
One poll I saw put the number of atheists/non-believers in the US at around 15%. Are only 15% of us capable of critical thought?
That's a bit harsh. Natural caution probably prevents a lot of folks from admitting (perhaps even to themselves) that they are "non-believers" (whatever that bizarre word means). I know here in the South one does NOT causually disclose such information. I've been asked if "I've been saved" or "Are you a Christian" walking around my neighborhood. I just chirp "Sure!" and walk on - it neither "breaks my nose nor picks my pocket" to say so; it makes the questioner feel better and keeps me from being hit with wooden objects (or nailed to them). To quote a former governor of my home state, Orval Faubus (yes, THAT Orval Faubus): "Just because I said it doesn't make it so".
Lots of folks here in the South (and probably elsewhere in the U.S.) say they are a Methodist or Baptist or whatever just because of social inertia: their parents were a Whatever, so they are a Whatever. Most of them mind their own business and don't make a big deal about it. In those occaisions I talk about such things with them, I often find I know the Bible better than they do. They are not militant about it - and that's the deal here, only the militant Theists are the problem, not all people that won't acknowledge a particular stand.
Part of it too is the "definiton" of "atheism" in the larger world. It's formulated both as weak and strong, i.e. "There is no evidence for God" (which I agree with) or "There CANNOT be a God" (which I disagree with on epistemlogoical grounds). So I could truthfully answer Yes or No to the poll question and still remain in what I find to be common usage of the word (note, folks, "common usage" - a lot of the problem is that the Fundies get to write the dictionary of the public square way, way too often these days).
So don't get all self-righteous about being a "15% percenter". Self-righteousness is a bad thing whether one is an atheist or a hard-shell Baptist.
Posted by: LittlePig | April 23, 2006 10:40 PM
One Nation Under Law
Posted by: WPB | April 23, 2006 10:47 PM
Communism worked out better in the UK? All those years and I never noticed...
Heh! Well, the application of Communist/Socialist principles worked out better there than it did in places like Russia and China, which were still steeped in feudalism and had no experience with democracy or capitalism.
So of course, Iron Maggie had to work on destroying it, and Thatcher-in-Drag Tony is selling off what's left of it to the qwangos, who are taking over formerly nationalized functions and doing them far worse and for far more money. (The infamous pension-plan privatization is a prime example. The privatization of energy utilities is another.)
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | April 23, 2006 10:49 PM
I nearly lost my stack today when another academic told me that scientists cannot be atheists if they are true to the principles of science.
marky
Always ask for definitions. Natural language is a slippery thing. If "atheist" means to the questioner what I think you think it means, then being annoyed is a very reasonable response. If the questioner takes "atheism" to mean "PROOF there is no God", then I'd tend to agree with the questioner on grounds of insufficient evidence (and from there we'd have to get into the questioner's definition of "God').
Posted by: LittlePig | April 23, 2006 10:58 PM
Natural caution probably prevents a lot of folks from admitting (perhaps even to themselves) that they are "non-believers" (whatever that bizarre word means). I know here in the South one does NOT causually disclose such information. I've been asked if "I've been saved" or "Are you a Christian" walking around my neighborhood. I just chirp "Sure!" and walk on - it neither "breaks my nose nor picks my pocket" to say so; it makes the questioner feel better and keeps me from being hit with wooden objects (or nailed to them). To quote a former governor of my home state, Orval Faubus (yes, THAT Orval Faubus): "Just because I said it doesn't make it so".
Henri of Navarre, the best king (and one of the better rulers overall) that France ever had, operated in much the same way. Though reared as a Protestant, he was for all intents and purposes unchurched. He's the guy who gave us the saying "Paris is worth a Mass" because he, though of a Protestant family, converted to Catholicism so he could be recognized as King of France. He passed the Edict of Nantes, guaranteeing religious freedom to Protestants and members of other faiths, and generally encouraged people to mind their own business instead of indulging in piety-driven warfare. Unfortunately, his wives weren't as broadminded as he was, and upon his death his second wife set about undoing much of his good work. What she didn't undo, Louis XIV did, thus setting the stage for the Revolution.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | April 23, 2006 11:04 PM
I nearly lost my stack today when another academic told me that scientists cannot be atheists if they are true to the principles of science.
marky
---------------
Always ask for definitions. Natural language is a slippery thing. If "atheist" means to the questioner what I think you think it means, then being annoyed is a very reasonable response. If the questioner takes "atheism" to mean "PROOF there is no God", then I'd tend to agree with the questioner on grounds of insufficient evidence (and from there we'd have to get into the questioner's definition of "God').
Posted by: LittlePig | April 23, 2006 10:58 PM
Oh yes, the old atheist/agnostic confusion. What the fellow academic doesn't realize is that the agnostic's position isn't just "I don't know if there is a god", but "I don't know if there is a god, and you don't, either". In other words, the theists have yet to prove much of anything besides a willingness to kill people who don't agree with them.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | April 23, 2006 11:15 PM
I think in the first part of the post you equate atheism to agnosticism. When I hear atheism, I think strong atheism, which says that there definitely is no god(s). This does indeed require faith to believe wholeheartedly.
What is being defined here: "the acceptance that there is no credible, scientific or factually reliable evidence for the existence of a God, god/s or the supernatural" is agnosticism. There's no reason to believe it because of the lack of evidence, but there is also a lack of evidence to totally discount it, which would require faith to do so.
Posted by: beervolcano | April 23, 2006 11:20 PM
Absence of evidence may not be evidence of absence,
but it sure-as-heck ain't evidence of presence either!
Posted by: breadbox | April 23, 2006 11:24 PM
Raindog, here's an example from a few years ago.. look at the proposal in France of prohibiting Muslim girls from wearing their traditional chadors (head scarves) in class. That scarf doesn't imply that they believe others should be Muslim, but it does identify their faith. I liked this comparison, written in the Hoya, which contrasted this action with the posting of the 10 Commandments in Alabama. The 10 Commandments at a government site, I agree, is tacit endorsement. An individual wearing a certain type of attire (oustide of that which is revealing, for example) is not a matter for public consideration.
The struggle is not allowing the right to confuse one with the other. They believe that 'freedom of religion' does not mean 'freedom from religion,' and it doesn't--in a private sense, as in what one wears. No-one is asking them to not wear crosses on their attire, but the question is whether that display in a government institution is appropriate.
Perception is reality, in a way, and when people consider that expression at a government site representative of the "majority" and consider attempts to prohibit it an infringement on their rights, it comes down to reframing the debate to illustrate that private expression and public expression are two totally different things.
Posted by: JP | April 23, 2006 11:37 PM
"When was the last time you saw .... an atheist who advocates war and genocide?"
Comandante Agi, I knew at least two atheist RW professors (philosophy and Englsih) who liked to strike that pose, though I wondered about the philosopher's sincerity. But I don't at all doubt Sam Harris's sincerity in condoning torture, which gives him the same
moral standing as defenders of rape or slavery, or predatory war and genocide. It's Harris fault, nobody else's, and atheism was no help. You cannot blame his public defense of naked evil on religion (or on a totalitarian atheist ideology like Pol Pot's that you equate with religion), so his example nicely punctures Steven Weinberg's fatuous pronouncement
that "for good people to do evil-- that takes religion." Atheists who imagine that they are morally better than the common run of believing humanity either don't know themselves and their religious neighbors, or flee the insight by flattering themselves. The reason human beings, believers and non-believers alike, cannot make a paradise is that we are only human, with the shortcomings as well as the glories our humanity entails.
To head off a possible misunderstanding, I wholly agree with Dr. Myers about the civic necessity of defending our secular public sphere from e.g. teaching "Intelligent Design" in public schools and erecting 10 Commandments idols in public places. That institution of secularism has proved an effective and indispensable means of protecting individual consciences and communities religious and irreligious in our non-paradise. We couldn't hope for anything better -- and humanly possible.
Posted by: Dabodius | April 24, 2006 12:03 AM
This post is really misleading.
The piece this is about isn't well writte, but the author makes a huge deal of saying that she isn't talking about all atheists. This is a really hateful straw man you've erected. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Posted by: James | April 24, 2006 12:31 AM
Heh, did you guys catch that editor's addition at the end of the article? I think all of the attention from PZ and the others made the Raw Story wet itself.
For my part, I think everything that's been said here is a pretty fair portrayal of that article.
Posted by: Dustin | April 24, 2006 12:38 AM
James seems to have missed this post:
Posted by: Dustin | April 24, 2006 12:40 AM
"I know here in the South one does NOT causually disclose such information."
LittlePig, I'm a Southerner who lived about half his atheist years, now long over, in Southern states. I professed atheism whenever the subject came up, argued for it when it was discussed, and nobody punched my jaw or ran to get their children in behind locked doors. The worst reaction I ever got was at the San Francisco airport in 1976 when an ISKCON devotee I brushed off shoved me and called me names. Maybe now I garner more respect from my Christian neighbors as a believing Jew, I don't know; but you can't lose that much respect if you speak your mind with tact and conviction. Consider that your neighbors might benefit from knowing that atheists are as mundane and quotidian as they -- unless you share the clueless vanity of Steven Weinberg^, for then you would bring atheism into disrepute.
Posted by: Dabodius | April 24, 2006 1:16 AM
"Religion is oppressive. The act of subjugating human will to "divine will" is oppressive. The practice of obeying clergy, of letting them make our decisions for us, is oppressive and irresponsible."
And that's incorrect HOW?
It isn't incorrect at all. In fact, it doesn't go far enough. The practice of obeying *at all* is oppresive and irresponsible. Religion is only one aspect of this.
absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
That's right, and I have an absence of evidence for unicorns.
Posted by: AoT | April 24, 2006 1:23 AM
Wankers... each and every one!
Posted by: Kiwi | April 24, 2006 1:39 AM
It also means she gets to accuse those few remaining godless promoters of a non-religous government "whackjobs" and extremists.
You know, I'm a fairly extremist atheist myself...
i'm confused here. it appears that you take offense with barton calling you an extremist, but it's okay for you to characterize yourself as one? (or "fairly" extremist)
whatever. small point. i found barton's piece somewhat silly, and yes, you did deconstruct each of her "outrageous" claims in a way that makes them seem irrelevant/totally off the mark, but her primary claim is still seems to remain true for me: that there are still extremist athiests who seem to be quite intolerant of religious belief. and here lies the issue i have with your post: what is so progressive about a the vicious denial and belittling of someone's else's beliefs? there is nothing about the supernatural that can be proved or disproved, so atheism is thus also a belief. i think barton is just fed up with athiests shitting on god believers so much. and while i'm actually more sympathetic to your view of religion, i have to say that your post was a little unfair. adherents of positive atheism can often grow as militant in their rhetoric as a reflexive move against theists, allowing extremism to foster among the godless as well as the god freaks.
-someone from the "middle"
Posted by: neal | April 24, 2006 1:57 AM
This idea that reason is just another kind of faith is the most insidious, corrosive idea ever to threaten the American way of life.
Posted by: Max Udargo | April 24, 2006 1:58 AM
Yeah, what is going on with RAW STORY? They had a very insulting piece a while back on women waiting to have children until they are financially able to care for them...calling it, let's see, short-sighted and selfish, among other things, and telling us that we have exceeded our "expiration date"...it is almost asthough RAW STORY hopes to beef up readership by being CONTROVERSIAL, and are only succeeding at being offensive to their base (you know, us atheistic baby hating feminist progressives).
Posted by: Kathy McCarty | April 24, 2006 2:00 AM
I think barton is just fed up with athiests shitting on god believers so much. - neal
Yeah, how do the "god believers" deal with it, the relentless, ubiquitous cacophony of atheist voices, shouting at them from every direction. There's no escape from the assualt, what with atheists dominating politics, culture, media and society the way they do. I'm glad the poor, weak, scattered enclaves of the religious downtrodden are finally taking a stand and doing something to combat this great scourge. Perhaps, if liberals will wake up and divert their attention from less important matters and focus on breaking the tyrannical grip of atheism, we will someday live in a country where people are free to openly worship god. We can only hope it's not too late.
Posted by: Max Udargo | April 24, 2006 2:18 AM
How about debating these instead ...
I know you've seen them before, but so what ...
1. God is not detectable
2. All religions have been made by men.
3. Prayer has no effect on third parties.
Corollary: 3a ] There is no such thing as "Psi".
4. All religions are blackmail, and are based on fear and superstition.
Corollary: 4a ] Marxism is a religion.
5. All religions kill, or enslave, or torture.
Corollary: 5a ] The bigots are the true believers.
Posted by: G. Tingey | April 24, 2006 2:41 AM
Max,
The reason the whispers of a few thousand atheists annoy the millions of theists so much is...the truth hurts.
Try pouring cold water on an urban myth one day, after a friend has just finished reciting it as fact. The looks you'll get could melt steel.
Posted by: Pastor Maker | April 24, 2006 3:33 AM
Tingey,
#5 is wrong: no Pastafarian has ever killed, enslaved, or tortured another person for religious reasons.
-jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph | April 24, 2006 3:47 AM
Neal-
The problem with this article is mostly that these sorts of atheists DON'T exist or at least are very, very rare. That's why people are saying things like "I'm a fairly extremist atheist myself...", because even those of us who define ourselves as extremist atheists don't make these ridiculous assertions. She's arguing against a straw atheist that doesn't exist or barely exists, and then telling us that she's only targetting this very small minority of the atheist population.
The problem is that when authors target a very small population like this, the reader's don't say to themselves "Well, I don't know any atheists like that, so obviously she's totally off her rocker," they tend instead to think "Well, I don't know any atheists period, so most of them must act and think exactly like this." It's a smear campaign and nothing more.
Again, even the most extreme atheists on the web, many of whom you'll find on this site, don't hold the ideas she says we hold. How many atheists, then, do you suppose do hold these views?
Posted by: Andrew | April 24, 2006 4:09 AM
I nearly lost my stack today when another academic told me that scientists cannot be atheists if they are true to the principles of science.
marky, I'm usually "yeah, whatever" with such twits too, unless they keep at it enough to piss me off, then I can make their day really interesting:
"So, since the resistance is V/A..."
"Wait, how can you say that as if it were a fact?"
"Oh, for Pete's sake, it's half past four, we have got to get some work done today!"
"No, no, you've shown me the light, we can't be true to the principles of science if we go around treating unproven statements as a fact. So about this Ohms thing..."
Posted by: derek | April 24, 2006 4:24 AM
The more freedom in any society, the less censorship promoted.
The less freedom in any society, the more censorship promoted.
Now, which one describes a liberal democracy and which describes a totalitarian police state?
Thus, Communist Red China and Saudi Arabia are really run by people with the same mindset, even though the former society is controlled by Maoist atheists and the latter society is controlled by Islamic Wahhibists. How do I know this? The leaders of both countries censor the same things. The only difference is in the degree of censorship practiced.
This has led me to conclude that the real split we see in this world is between control-freak conservatives and "live and let live" liberals, with a bunch of moderates sandwiched in between. And these moderates can swing either way depending on the societal issue involved.
The key to recognizing if one is looking at a liberal democracy or a totalitarian police state is to study the "public square" in any society. In other words, if someone is monopolizing the "public square," then it is not a liberal democracy. And the people doing this will butt into the private lives of individuals, too. Freedom? What freedom? The people pulling this stunt only care about their freedom, and could care less about the freedom of others, no matter what they might claim...or promise.
Anyway, I'm a secularist liberal Christian who has much in common with secularist liberal atheists and secularist liberals of other religions, even though we might have dissimilar surface beliefs. Why? Forcing people, and their offspring, into certain belief patterns is the hallmark of control-freak conservatives.
"Live and let live" liberals do not do this. Their view is that there is plenty of room in the "public square" and the marketplace of ideas for everyone, including the control-freak conservatives. Unfortunately, this is not the view held by the control-freak conservatives. Being righteous (and never wrong), they feel compelled to censor, and censor, and censor.
This is why I value our liberal democracy and why I am aghast at what some control-freak Republicans, and even some control-freak Democrats, are trying to do to our liberal democracy. We are being pushed down the path to a totalitarian police state, freedom in the "public square" is under constant attack, and I, for one, don't like it.
And this should be the message of the Democratic Party, and even among more moderate Republicans. Do we want to maintain the freedom promised us and our children in our liberal democracy, or do we want to let the hounds of censorship tear apart our liberal democracy so they can replace it with their totalitarian police state?
In other words, I see who's calling for increased censorship of freedom-loving U.S. citizens in both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Often the control-freak members of both national parties join together to censor when certain issues get their attention. And freedom suffers another death blow. Our democracy, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, are subverted little by little, piece by piece, until eventually all our freedoms will be so undermined that a totalitarian police state will replace our liberal democracy.
Sorry, folks, that's where we're headed, unless we stop the control-freak conservative censors of both major national parties right now. Our nation's children deserve our undivided attention to make sure a totalitarian police state is not what we bequeath them. Our liberal democracy literally hangs in the balance.
Posted by: The Oracle | April 24, 2006 4:51 AM