It goes like this:
[Item] or [practice] nullifies or negates the effects, presence, activity or consequences of [entity], [energy], or [phenomenon]. How can you tell? Because absolutely nothing is happening, and so the [item] or [practice] is a legitimate success. This stone keeps away bears. You can tell because you don’t see any bears around here . . . yes, this stone IS for sale. How expensive? Completely. (more…)
One question that frequently confronts the New Atheists (especially those with a science background) is whether a religion and science are incompatible. The stock answer is that many religious leaders accept science as a good way to understand the natural world and conversely, many scientists have a religious faith (Ken Miller and Francis Collins come to mind). In a previous blog post I talked about how sociological research had revealed that about half of American scientists are able to both perform cutting-edge science and maintain a religious identity. An even larger proportion is still interested in matters of spirituality despite daily engaging in rational, empirical inquiry.
These facts show there is, at least, a kind of ‘brute compatibility’ between science and religion; a single person can hold both ideas simultaneously. However, the obvious counter to ‘brute compatibility’ is to point out that in certain cases the findings of science conflict with specific religious claims about the nature of the world. For example, if you claim that the world is 6,000 years old, science says you are wrong. According to empirical data, the world is more like 4.5 billion years old and anyone who says the scientific evidence shows otherwise is simply mistaken. Because science can only conflict with specifically defined religious claims, I call this ‘specific incompatibility’. Although this type of incompatibility is important, and probably accounts for a large proportion of science’s moderating impact on religion, it does not completely contradict all types of religious claims. Again, this answer is too superficial; the original question is asking something more fundamental – are religion and science incompatible at the deeper, philosophical level?
So in case you don’t know today is Everyone Draw Mohammed Day, a day one which everyone is encouraged to draw a picture of the Muslim prophet Mohammed as a way of calling the bluff of the extremists that threaten violence against those that do just that. Now I have to admit that I am still in two minds about this. On the one hand I do think it is important to stand up to these people and show that threatening violence against people for drawing a picture will not be accepted and will not stop us from doing so. Freedom of expression baby. On the other hand I find the whole thing slightly off putting for reasons I can’t really put into words. I’m generally not a confrontational person and this all seems a bit too much like getting up in someone’s face for my liking.
Fundamentalism. Not a word I ever expected to hear in connection with atheism, other than by those who don’t know any better or by those who do know better but wish to be provocative. Atheism can’t lead to fundamentalism as it has no doctrine. Atheism has no principles, no practices, no rituals and no dogma. It is simply the absense of theistic belief.
Unfortunately I have now revised my opinion, I think it is now correct to refer to atheist fundamentalism. It might not be strictly accurate, all the above applies, but I do think it is descriptive. I say this in light of a video I have just watched from Coughlan666. I’m not generally a Coughlan fan, his videos are not my cup of tea and I am not subbed to him. In fact I stumbled across his blogtv on one occasion and got booted out by him. So, credentials established, I’m not a Coughlan groupie.
In the video Coughlan reads out a number of messages he has received from atheists since he posted this video attacking Pat Condell, and quite frankly it’s disgusting. I’ll just quote a couple:
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Following on from AndromedasWake’s excellent post the other day and my own recent research/thinking on the issue of teaching skepticism I have found myself thinking a lot about science knowledge and the general public. As I am sure you are all way too painfully aware when it comes to good scientific understanding the general public have something of an antagonistic relationship with reality.
For every person who applies good skeptical thinking and basic scientific understanding in their everyday lives there are at least three people who religiously check their horoscopes on the way to visit their local homeopath. In the recent election for example I discovered that my local MP supported making homeopathy available on the NHS and one of the smaller parties had climate change denialism as part of its manifesto. Something is seriously wrong with that.
So what can we, as hardened and, if I may say so, devilishly attractive skeptics, do about it? How can we help to make the general public more skeptical and more science literate? Well I am sorry to say that I don’t have an answer. I’ve been trying to do my small part by working on a “beginners guide” style book about skepticism but it is not as though that has never been done before. As such my thoughts have recently turned to smaller things, which brings me to the point of this post. I have a question for you.
If you could give one bit of advice, drop one bit of knowledge or just make one suggestion to the general public or someone new to skepticism then what would it be?*
Maybe we can’t influence the world as a whole, but perhaps we can start sowing little seeds of logical and rational thinking. I like to think of this as bulletpoint skepticism. Little catchy easy to remember pieces of information that can change the way people thing. For example simply knowing about something like pareidolia makes it less likely that you will be convinced that you’re really are seeing the virgin Mary in your breakfast cereal.
Anyway it is just an idea that I had, not sure if it is a good one or not or even if I have explained it at all well, but I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with. Plus I haven’t posted anything in ages and felt that I really should put something up. All these newbies are starting to make me look bad. 
* Be warned, if you come up with something great I am so stealing it for my book.
No good can come from not having the heart to write a blog, and for this reason I found myself plundering my hard drive for material that might sort of work.
Fortunately, anything relating to WLC – the lord of untruth – is worth a gander. I, along with Theo Warner and AndromedasWake and others, have recently been the bemused victims of our very own Craig fantroll; I would link but the nugatory traffic that such an action would result in seems too generous.”Victim” is, of course, subjective. Being a victim implies some sort of damage or loss, and I can detect neither, though in reality I say this only to numb the hurts. The trolling typically takes the form of either a) a short out of context clip of a video titled to inspire ridicule or b) a marginally longer but still often out of context clip of a video conjoined with a longer clip of William Craig apparently schooling us. I’m informed that Theo is reduced to a shambling mass of jelly by this stern treatment; AndromedasWake has resorted to watching videos of cats falling into boxes in order to counteract the vicious pwn, and as for myself . . . well, I’m eating a lot of chocolate and weeping into net curtains. We are pain. (more…)
Seen this? A few days late with it, but I’m blithely unconcerned.
A Muslim woman has been fined for wearing a burka in a post office in Novara, Italy, after the mayor passed a law forbidding face-covering garb inside public buildings. Mayor Massimo Giordano could maybe be described as an Islamophobe, but as far as I’m concerned that’s like calling someone a murderophobe or a rapistophobe. It’s entirely rational to dislike or fear Islam, which makes it not a phobia but a very sensible intellectual stance.
Long gone are the days when YouTube stars like djarm67 and AndromedasWake would broadcast their thoughts to our humble league. With the web log lying dormant (what, we have a blog!?) it was time for a rag-tag team of forum mods and chat ops to pick up the flag of reason and march bravely forward into the blogosphere. *My idea*
Most of you probably know me already, or have at least argued with me over some trivial detail in an unimportant thread. I’ve been here since the earliest days of the League of Reason and it’s become one of my favourite online communities. I hail from New Zealand which is a nicely sized nation in the South Pacific. I consider myself very lucky to have been born surrounded by all this natural beauty – see Lord of the Rings for your walk in the local park. I’m still finishing my university education but have so far completed a degree in biotechnology.
I’m a lifelong atheist but it wasn’t until the final years of college that I got into scepticism. I’m a member of the NZ skeptics and do what I can to help out on worthy causes. I might as well pimp the new sceptical podcast: The CUSP . If I have to choose a label I’d go with freethinker because I think that best sums up the way I (want to) approach new information and ideas. I’d also like to consider myself a fierce proponent of all things scientific and have done my best to inform people on matters involving evolution, global warming, vaccines, homeopathy, and other alternative medicines.
Enough of what you agree with me about, where can we have an argument? I think objective morality exists, GM agriculture is a good idea, and support the wars on Iraq and Christmas. Threads can be found around the LoR and other sites in which I (attempt to) defend these positions. I love to read and would probably class myself as a bit of a bibliophile. Whether you agree with my positions or not, I hope my blog posts will make you think about current issues facing atheists, freethinkers, and sceptics and that you get something out of them.
Before I came to this site I had never heard of Carl Sagan so I’ll finish with a quote from him that goes right to the heart of my philosophy: “It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” I think that’s exactly right.
Blog: Indoctrinating Freethought
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Aught3 and http://www.youtube.com/user/Belikescopes