British appeasers: Still wrong, but abundantly classier

Yes; she makes no reference, direct or oblique, to Professor Dawkins' hair, for example.

In Purves' rebuttal, she quotes the director of a faith "think-tank" who says that "... both the creationists/IDers and the militant atheists are wrong, that Darwinian evolution is compatible with Christianity, and that we need to treat Darwin as a supremely gifted scientist and not the mascot (or demon) for one anti/religious cause or another"

The atheists are not arguing that Darwinian evolution isn't "compatible" with Christianity, if by compatible all that's meant is you can carry along both, under separate arms. The argument is that evolution does not indicate the truth of religion, and the two ways of seeing the world are not consistent with each other. You have to put them under separate arms.

You can derive atheism from the theory of evolution. You don't have to, but you can, as long as you keep following the science all the way down, and treat God like any other hypothesis. But it doesn't work that way for religious belief. You can keep your belief in God AND accept evolution -- if that's where you're starting from.

I was happy, albeit not completely so, with the first episode of Dawkins's programme. Given that you can always find somebody who will opine that teaching science is equivalent to proselytizing for atheism, I didn't even particularly care about the knowledge-versus-faith clash the TV show presented. I get more irritated by "textbook cardboard" in history lessons than I am by forthright acknowledgements like, "It's one reason why I don't believe in God."

Funny enough the Times just made my podcast, Skepticality, the podcast of the week. But the idiot reporter thought that being a 'skeptic' was an 'American' only thing because English don't 'need' us skeptics...

Ummm, did he THINK about what he wrote? Dawkins, Hitchen, etc, etc....

Gotta love Journalists, they are so apt to get stuff wrong. ;)

Polite and wrong is still wrong, just like atheist and nice is still going to hell according to the Catholic League.

But it's one less layer to cut through.

Evolution and the Biblical account are incompatible - there's no two ways around that. The problem with any of the apologists ('it's poetry', 'it's a metaphor', 'it's just what scientists say, only filtered through the idiom of the bronze age') is that ... it isn't. Evolution is the opposite of the Biblical account.

Evolution is a godless process. It doesn't involve any of the gods. Christianity teaches that one of the gods was involved. Evolution doesn't disprove the existence of gods ... it does show that the Christian God lied on his CV.

Oh, and BTW:
....vituperative smugness....

Wonderful phrase; I am so stealing that....

Derek Colanduno #3 wrote:

But the idiot reporter thought that being a 'skeptic' was an 'American' only thing because English don't 'need' us skeptics...

Yeah, right. Bring up 'homeopathy.'

I love the smell of atheist bloggers bashing each other in the morning! LOL!

Libby Purves is NOT an appeaser. She is an opponent (a fairly moderate one, but certainly not someone I would put on the side of atheism - not even Nisbet style atheism!).

Hi all, as a slightly off topic comment/request, I'm hosting a survey on my blog to collect data about people's use of religious labels -- and I'd really sure appreciate your input! Thanks in advance. http://truthisawoman.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/religious-labels-an-onlin…

If you guys go over to read her rebuttal, make sure you check out the comments. I don't know if any of you have already posted comments there, but so far it looks like Dawkins won't have to reply to her anymore, they are tearing her apart! some of those brits have got some gall!

Libby Purves is NOT an appeaser. She is an opponent (a fairly moderate one, but certainly not someone I would put on the side of atheism - not even Nisbet style atheism!).

I know Libby's speaking up for the believer side in this scenario, but she does seem to be walking a bit of a tightrope between endorsing--even celebrating--evolution and allaying the fears of those who might possibly believe the 'Expelled' style propaganda. Sounds a teensy bit like appeasement to me, no matter which side she's on.

Not vituperative? Really? How about this section;

'he offered them a choice as stark as any bonkers tin-hut preacher from the Quivering Brethren shouting: "Repent or burn!"

Evolution or God - take your choice, kid! The moment one of them found an ammonite on the beach, Professor Dawkins demanded instant atheism.'

Now apart from being factually incorrect (did she watch a different version of the programme from the rest of humanity?) that sounds quite splenetic to me. Luckily Richard replied with a nicely acid skewering of this ladies parochial, blinkered and ignorant viewpoint.

Tyson - glad to oblige. But if you will allow me to put on my Grammar Nazi hat for a second, I think the word you want on the intro is "throes"!

Amar @ #11; you are correct that the comments section is heavily against her at the moment (maybe her friends are busy today?) but don't be so down about the ability of your side of the pond to contribute. The best post is by an RDF.ner poster labelled aegis and s/he is registered in the States.

Libby Purves is a religious wonk. RC, I think.

Derek Colanduno | August 9, 2008 4:32 PM, #3

I agree with The Times, really. We British don't really need skeptics. We've got more than enough to spare, and in effect our main skeptics are acting as missionaries in the US! :)

To be British is to be sceptical. And to spell it with a "c" (still got my GZ hat on)!

Duh - "GN" as in Grammar Nazi. Didn't catch it in time...

You can derive atheism from the theory of evolution. You don't have to, but you can, as long as you keep following the science all the way down, and treat God like any other hypothesis. But it doesn't work that way for religious belief. You can keep your belief in God AND accept evolution -- if that's where you're starting from.

Many creationists say evolution = no god. I agree with them. That's the only thing they ever got right. In my opinion Darwin killed God. Perhaps there's still some gaps to hide the god-of-the-gaps, but why bother with it? I can't imagine anything more complicated than life, and it's pretty darn obvious Mr. God had nothing to do with it.

I often see atheists, who wouldn't believe in a god in a million years, tell creationists they can have both their Mr. God and evolution. Of course the creationists know the atheist is lying.

I suggest don't worry about creationists rejecting evolution because they think it kills their Christian death cult. They're never going to accept evolution anyway. I prefer to tell creationists they are right to fear evolution because it most definitely is going to make their religion extinct eventually. Perhaps there's some creationists who aren't completely brain-dead who will be able to figure out their religion is preventing them from understanding anything, and they will throw their religion out. In any case, being honest is much better than lying. Claiming evolution does not conflict with the god idea is lying.

BobC: It's nice to think that, but there's still that niggling question as to how life started (and how the universe started too), and evolution can never answer those two fundamental questions. Evolution deals with everything else, but if the creationists only have that last fraying thread to cling on to, of course they'll cling on to it for all they're worth rather than admit they're wrong. I don't think we'll never get rid of the "so how did it all get going if god didn't do it" canard.

Yeah, right. Bring up 'homeopathy.'

It still boggles me to think that british taxpayers actually fund those quacks through their national health services.

I've heard that prince Charles is a proponent of homeopathy.

-jcr

BobC #20 wrote:

Many creationists say evolution = no god. I agree with them. That's the only thing they ever got right. In my opinion Darwin killed God.

Depends on the definition of "God." Your views are very heavily influenced by your exposure to Christianity, particularly Fundamentalism. The Eastern religions -- and some variations of Western religions like process theology -- don't necessarily come into direct conflict. Not all versions of God created the universe.

I still think all the gods dim when placed under the light of modern science -- but only a few wink out completely.

Yes; she makes no reference, direct or oblique, to Professor Dawkins' hair, for example.

Well, that's cuz Dawk's got great hair. But he talks like a priss. Therefore God exists.

The argument is that evolution does not indicate the truth of religion, and the two ways of seeing the world are not consistent with each other.

It is quite possible to come up with religions, including variants of Christianity, that are perfectly compatible with natural selection. Science does not conflict with religion in the facts, because the "sophisticated" theist will just change the truth claims his religion espouses. Science is inconsistent with religion with respect to methodology. In that making shit up is not really a fantastic methodology.

Polite and wrong is still wrong

Ah, but someone who is polite and wrong deserves to be politely corrected. Someone like Nisbet deserves nothing but contempt.

I love the smell of atheist bloggers bashing each other in the morning!

Well, the thing is, bashing people like you gets so tiresome, and, well, easy, that we need to switch it up a bit. Not that Nisbet is really any better than many Christians. He's just a different type of idiot.

Duh - "GN" as in Grammar Nazi. Didn't catch it in time...

If you were a True Grammar Nazi, you would know the difference between spelling and grammar...

Perhaps there's still some gaps to hide the god-of-the-gaps, but why bother with it?

There are still big gaps. Most notably, abiogenesis and the unification of physics. Religionists are wrong about a lot of things, but they're right when they say we've got a lot of work to do to figure out the universe (that's precisely why science is the awesome). But to say that "Darwin killed God" is to insult all of science that isn't evolutionary biology.

I've heard that prince Charles is a proponent of homeopathy.

Personal anecdote: the above fact actually led me indirectly to my atheism. I was a member of a Canadian republican (=anti-monarchist) message board about three years ago. Some guy posted about Charles' quackery and linked to Randi's site. Although I was very science-minded, I hadn't heard of Randi until then. But I started reading him every week, and although he rarely criticized the fuzzy moderate religion from which I suffered, the message that human beings are very good at fooling themselves gets hammered into your brain. I was able to see the similarities between people who get suckered by John Edward, and myself, who really really wanted to believe in an afterlife. And within a few months, and with the help of Bertrand and Weinberg, I finally let go.

All of which is to say that the real wackos sometimes allow the benighted, but ultimately reasonable, folks who get suckered into religion for family/emotional reasons, to see the silliness in the whole sham.

Science took away the explanatory power of mysticism in steps. It explains motion, forces, weather, chemical reactions, life, how life got that way, and seems on the verge of a good explanation of the subjective experience of consciousness. A well educated, unbiased individual who still believes in a god must now admit that they do so for no particular reason outside of personal preference.

Yes, I know that someone will say that religion answers questions that science can't, but I submit that those questions are only meaningful if one assumes that the supernatural exists.

The world can seem like a hostile, scary place. We struggle all our lives against entropy, and in the end entropy wins. To me, that's just the way it is and I can't do anything about it. If you need to make up stories to help you sleep at night, fine. Just leave me out of it.

Friendo #24 wrote:

Science does not conflict with religion in the facts, because the "sophisticated" theist will just change the truth claims his religion espouses. Science is inconsistent with religion with respect to methodology. In that making shit up is not really a fantastic methodology.

But if the theist changes God too much, he loses God. The more sophisticated versions try to divest God of anthropomorphic qualities. But you can only push that so far before what you're calling 'God' starts to look suspiciously like another name for nature, or reality, or human feelings about nature and reality.

"Mental things, brains, minds, consciousnesses, things that are capable of comprehending anything -- these come late in evolution, they are a product of evolution. They don't come at the beginning. So whatever lies behind the universe will not be an intellect. Intellects are things that come as the result of a long period of evolution." (Richard Dawkins)

I think this is a version of one of the major scientific arguments against the existence of God, in that any god which is somehow conscious or aware is going against what we've discovered about what mind is, and following pre-scientific intuitions.

One can make an exception just in the case of God, of course, but that's ad hoc special pleading.

Friendo #24:

But to say that "Darwin killed God" is to insult all of science that isn't evolutionary biology.

Oh, whoops. I didn't intend to insult all of science. I meant to be critical of the God invention, also known as magic. Here's my logic: If magic isn't necessary to explain the diversity of life, then it's fair to say magic isn't necessary for anything else, including problems that haven't been solved yet.

But if the theist changes God too much, he loses God. The more sophisticated versions try to divest God of anthropomorphic qualities. But you can only push that so far before what you're calling 'God' starts to look suspiciously like another name for nature, or reality, or human feelings about nature and reality.

I've got nothing against Pantheism, myself. As far as I can tell, it's just a tautologically true religion based on a redundant definition, but it's a fun gimmick which, like most philosophy, I can kind of look at it and see how the combinations of words make me feel and not waste effort worrying whether it's actually "true" or anything.

As far as I can tell, pantheism is probably formally indistinguishable from atheism, but more fun.

BobC,

I suspect the field of psychology is more responsible for 'killing god' than evolutionary biology - it certainly was for me; the concept of projection in particular.

It might have been different if the god they invented hadn't been an amalgamation of nearly every human quality there is - including the worst: rage, jealousy, hatred and a need to be worshiped; the hallmarks of a megalomaniac.

That a 'perfect being' could possess such weaknesses is a contradiction I can't accept.

Wowbagger,
I suspect that the "common" person becoming literate is what is killing theism. In the beginning they could only read religious texts, but look at all the trouble that caused. Further reading lead to rudimentary education, and a diversity of ideas-all of which could be written and read about.
Towards the end of theism, philosophies have been open to examination and testing, and the sciences have been able to increase actual knowledge about how things probably work. As long as this continues, most theistic philosophies become untenable for the fuctionally literate people of the world.

Reading is fundamental (not fundamentalist).

Autumn,

I agree - though I think literacy and access to materials with contrasting viewpoints needs the application of critical thinking to be effective. There are volumes of apologetics out there in which the uncritical reader is going to drown in.

People still offer up Pascal's Wager and the CS Lewis trilemma as sophisticated, irrefutable arguments to justify belief in god and jesus respectively. It doesn't take too much critical thinking to spot the flaws - but it still takes some.

Obviously, the internet is going to have an impact in terms of access to information that will help people think more about religion - and I don't mean just information for and against christianity.

The thing about somewhere like the US is that the atheism is mostly achristianism (with a little aislam and ajudaism thrown in) - at least that's what the christians like to think anyway; they don't realise disbelief is equal opportunity and we're just as dismissive of Thor and Osiris as we are of Yahweh and Jesus. But if christians go on-line and read about other religions, and the arguments for and against them, they might well start thinking more and accepting less.

For me one of the key problems with believing in god is the vast number of competing (and mutually incompatible) belief systems. They can't all be right - but they can all be wrong. If people can be encouraged to critically analyse and think about religion - rather than just being told to answer 'jesus christ is my lord and saviour' if anyone asks - then I suspect a lot of them will be moving in the direction of atheism.

I do not think that atheism = belief in evolution. One can be an atheist and believe all kinds of silly, ridiculous garbage. An atheist can deny reality as easy as any theist.

The idea of evolution does not demand atheism. They are not the same thing. Atheists tend to use evolutionary models to explain the world around them because very few have pre-supposed ideas about how life came to be as it is, and instead are looking for the best possible explanation for the evidence they see all around them.

I was an atheist long before I was capable of understanding evolution beyond it's most basic, simple explanations. I was not an atheist because of evolution, and I do not believe in evolution because of my atheism. I do not begin a question with a particular conclusion in mind. Like most scientifically minded people, I simply start with: "Wow, that's weird/interesting/fascinating..." and I find out about it. I observe, gather evidence, and attempt to draw a conclusion that can (and will) be refined as new evidence comes to light. That I am not hobbled by the need to fit a deity into the picture is simply an intellectual advantage and not a requirement for my positions on scientific matters.

Sastra,

You can derive atheism from the theory of evolution.

I'd like to see that done.

#33 see The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Chapter 4, for an example.

Acceptance of the theory of evolution does not kill the idea of God. It doesn't even destroy any particular doctrinal religion - such as the major faith groups of the world. What it does, however, is render many of their critical points non-literal and as much based in empirical facts as every other religion, both past and present. Christianity DOES explain more things than current science knows but HOW it explains many of them is no better than any supernatural theory you or I could make up on the spot. For instance I can claim a magic chicken created the universe and everything in it, has existed forever, will look after us when we die and is too complicated for our limited intellect to grasp. That explains more things than science but is clearly untrue. Anyone can make up similar supernatural magic explanations in a second and yet, despite the fact that these are untrue, there is just as much evidence that backs them up as supports the real existence of Zeus, Thor, Allah and Yawhe.
The major monotheisms REQUIRE historical truth to underlie their 'faith'. They realize that treating it ALL as metaphor is not enough for the masses. To do so will lead to the obvious point that if its all just a story that has some good points then why not also look to other stories for additional guidance. Why shouldn't a Catholic priest not discuss the sayings of Confucius or Buddha as part of his sermon? Why shouldn't he discuss parts of Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens or even JK Rowling if the main aim of services is to help people think about the way to live the good life?

Darwin related.

Perhaps you are all already aware of it, but I just discovered:
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF CHARLES DARWIN ONLINE
http://darwin-online.org.uk/

Incredible site and the illustrations are phenomenal.

Tony,

thx, already rereading it...

'The major monotheisms REQUIRE historical truth to underlie their 'faith'.'

And all brands of Christianity also stress that Christianity is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Jesus doesn't say 'what I say to you is a metaphor, meant to be understood non-literally, poetically'. The Bible does start 'In the beginning, there might have been a word and if so that word could well have been something a bit like God'.

Christianity says it's the truth. Therefore, it's absolutely fair game to point out where it's false and where it might be.

#38, sorry, Steve, but the Church of England certainly doesn't fit that description nowadays. So it's not true of "all brands of Christianity".

The CofE thinks coming to church is good and anything more is a bonus. It likes members of its congregations to believe in God but even that's not a problem as long as they try to sing vaguely in tune and buy some jam at the Bring and Buy Sale. The Bible? Yes, it's a good read in parts, but not to be taken too seriously! Study it? Er, if you want to, but why not just read the best bits, or listen to them being read out in church?

Ask about consubstantiation or transubstantiation of the wafers and wine at communion and the most probable response is either (a) is that the time?, or (b) is there any more tea in the pot?

Because the CofE wears its dogma lightly, it can accommodate scientific and technological progress (that's one of the effects of the Enlightenment). This might seem like fudging the issue, but it works. And for many people it's fine: they like the communal aspects of church, they like the warm feeling of a some sort of supernatural explanation, they have a moral code of sorts to live by (the CofE just has "be nice to others", only Sermon on the Mount stuff, none of the Leviticus nonsense). Woolly but warm.

I'm an atheist, but that doesn't mean I feel that all Christians must be rabid Bible bashers, nor that their churches must be dogmatic overlords. It simply isn't true.

John C. Randolph (#22):

It still boggles me to think that british taxpayers actually fund those quacks through their national health services.

If it's any consolation, last time I heard there was a movement afoot within the NHS to discourage Trusts (the local NHS administrative/funding units) from wasting money by referring patients for homeopathic treatment. (The NHS is fairly decentralised, with a fair amount of local discretion about how budgets are spent.)

Don't have a reference to hand, I'm afraid, but I seem to recall the Royal Homeopathic Hospital getting all huffy because several Trusts weren't referring patients to them anymore.

So not all is lost. Yet.

But the idiot reporter thought that being a 'skeptic' was an 'American' only thing because English don't 'need' us skeptics...

"We don't need no steenkin' sceptics!"

You're right about the parochial complacency. The problem we British face is that many educated middle-class honestly believe the essential battles have been won and think that because we are not like those crazy Americans we can feel safe and somewhat smug in our secular superiority.

And yet homeopathy, astrology and new age bollocks still do good business here. (I enjoyed Stephen Fry whaling into New Ageyness and anti-science on Room 101. If you haven't seen this, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hnABeM2I7c and wait until about a minute and a half in.)

While we have all been patting ourselves on the back for Channel 4's The Genius of Darwin, the same channel 'balances' this with Make Me A Christian, a reality show in which a bunch of priests hole up with unchurched sinners and try to convert them. A sort of 'Survivor' for souls, a 'Big Brother' for the god-bothering set.

No, somehow I think we've a ways to go until the battle for secularism is truly won. The forces of unreason are still extant and still very powerful.

Saint Charlie of Brooker reviews Make Me A Christian here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/09/television.television

Friendo #24:

If you were a True Grammar Nazi, you would know the difference between spelling and grammar...

Meaning perhaps I should have said '"GN" as in Spelling Nazi'?

Honestly, that was just a dig at me for the sake of making a dig.
Let's stick to the topic please. I'm on your side after all.

I remember Libby Purves as a news reporter and news show host on BBC Radio 4. She was calm, competent, straightforward and professional in the tradition of BBC reporting without any of the narcissism that afflicts so many of her American equivalents. She kept her religious views to herself and I was entirely unaware of them until she moved on to doing religious spots on radio and now for the Times.

I haven't seen Dawkins's latest show about Darwin yet so I don't know what comments were made about atheism and whether they were an unnecessary intrusion. What I would ask those who have seen it is, if David Attenborough had made the documentary, would he have made the same sort of remarks?

@Sastra:

But if the theist changes God too much, he loses God. The more sophisticated versions try to divest God of anthropomorphic qualities. But you can only push that so far before what you're calling 'God' starts to look suspiciously like another name for nature, or reality, or human feelings about nature and reality.

Oh, I agree that allowing for non-sentient gods is being a little slippery - but the g-word is very ambiguous in that respect. At least in English, "god" can mean a sentient being, or it can mean anything that is venerated.

I've started self-identifying as a "naturalistic pantheist" recently, not because my beliefs have changed, and not because I'm afraid of the term "atheist". All it means is that I have a deep sense of reverence towards the universe as a whole, and I consider discovering its nature to be one of my central purposes. The modifier "naturalistic" annuls the notion of a sentient creator, so that no completely non-trivial truth claims are being made.

I feel the term includes what most people consider to be atheism, but it's a positive signifier rather than a negative one. It also trips up the dodos to whom "atheist" means you're a mustache away from being Josef Stalin.

Meaning perhaps I should have said '"GN" as in Spelling Nazi'?

Honestly, that was just a dig at me for the sake of making a dig.
Let's stick to the topic please. I'm on your side after all.

Ah, but I'm a Vocabulary Nazi...

Lee B-W @42

I've seen the trailers for that despicable programme all week. I did not watch it, mostly because I forgot it was on (I think it was my subconscious saving my braincells) and partly because I really did not want to witness such burning stupidity.

This has not stopped me from going to www.tvguide.co.uk and leaving it a rank of 0/10.

Ian H Spedding FCD #44:

if David Attenborough had made the documentary, would he have made the same sort of remarks?

No, Attenborough wouldn't have made them, but as Richard has pointed out himself somewhere on PZ's blog, he was advised to say certain things by a lawyer!

And to maxi - rating a programme you haven't seen is simply dishonest. Anyway, how do you know it's "despicable" if you haven't seen it? I'd love to hear your justifications for your comments.

Here's the comment in question:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/08/the_genius_of_charles_darwin…

Yes; she makes no reference, direct or oblique, to Professor Dawkins' hair, for example.

Although, since you mention it, he does have nice hair.