Thanks

Not an endorsement, just an appreciation:



Here's the mood I'm really going for today:



Just trying to keep my eyes open:

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?
-- Richard Dawkins, excerpt from Chapter I, "The Anaesthetic of Familiarity," of Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1998)

the lucky ones

The serious version of Douglas Adams' whale (another of my favorite metaphors for philosophy):

"The Blind Watchmaker"

I'm brushing up on the canonical texts, in anticipation of Darwin Day.

In The Blind Watchmaker Richard Dawkins says he and a philosopher friend disagreed about whether a godless universe would require special explanation. "I said I could not imagine being an atheist at any time before 1859, when Darwin's Origin of Species was published." The philosopher mentioned David Hume and asked "Why does the universe need any special explanation?"



I don't know about a "special explanation," but Dawkins should read the history of Doubt. Rational atheism doesn't seem to have been that hard for countless pre-Darwinians. Margaret Rose, for instance, may or may not have read her Darwin but she spoke for centuries of faithless skeptics when she disputed a fundamentalist's insistence that the discovery of "an eyeless fish living in a cave in Kentucky proved that there was a creator":

He forgot the demonstrable fact that the element of light is indispensable in the formation of the organ of sight, without which it could not be formed.

Jennifer Hecht remarks: "Rose had a notion of how some doubters have always understood the world... nature suffices as explanation."

 

Evolutionary biology for beginners

For students in search of a good science primer, Richard Dawkins' Magic of Reality lays it out straight, simple, and pretty. "Neither supernatural or a trick, quite simply wonderful and real. Wonderful because real."

Here are others. Here's the great PBS Evolution series, and here's the BBC's Darwin. Here's an old post on theistic evolution.

Like it or not, it's everybody's story.

creationists know not what they do

Thinking about departed friend and colleague Niall Shanks today, and looking into his excellent God, the devil, & Darwin. Richard Dawkins wrote the foreword.

In Blind Watchmaker Dawkins notes something Shanks came to understand, though he didn't really get it yet back when he and I taught together at East Tennessee State University in the early '90s: creationists in our classrooms often mean well, but are simply uninformed about evolution. They know not what they do. Forgive them, teachers. Educate them.

only a theory?

During Bo & Ashley's Ipod & Philosophy presentation yesterday, the old "evolution is only a theory" canard snuck into the discussion. Once again, the popular equivocation between scientific, philosophical, and colloquial senses of "theory" created a muddle. Fact is, evolution's as factually solid as tables & chairs & trees & stones & gravity & the sunrise. Bishop Berkeley and David Hume notwithstanding, that seems pretty solid to me. And to Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Ken Miller...

lucky

So much to be thankful for, this and every day. Happy Thanksgiving.

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here...

We have woken after hundreds of millions of years asleep, defying astronomical odds. Admittedly we didn't arrive by spaceship, we arrived by being born, and we didn't burst conscious into the world but accumulated awareness gradually through babyhood. The fact that we slowly apprehend our world, rather than suddenly discover it, should not subtract from its wonder...

Isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it? Unweaving the Rainbow

childhood indoctrination

Very interesting discussion in class yesterday about where to draw the line between parental guidance and childhood indoctrination, when discussing speculative religion with children. Some worried that refraining from specific instruction in "what we believe" would encourage children to embrace a pernicious moral relativism. I'm more trusting of them than that, and more inclined to worry that terrorizing them with primitive superstition, hellfire, and the threat of eternal damnation will scar them for life.

Richard Dawkins has been beating this drum for awhile.

lucky us

Christopher Hitchens was on the Daily Show last night. He gave a good and positive accounting of himself, I thought, much in keeping with the epigraph he chose for his memoir-- We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born...-- read here by its author.

"Age of Wonder"

Happy Earth Day!


One of the things I really like about my daily 50-minute commute to school (and it's at least that long back again!) is, most days, the opportunity to hear a terrific Bob Edwards interview on XM satellite radio. Day before last, for instance, Richard Holmes spoke of The Age of Wonder. Sounds like Dawkins was right in Unweaving the Rainbow, to insist there's no need to fear science as a source of disenchantment with the world's natural poetry.


Holmes concludes:  "We need a wider, more generous, more imaginative perspective. Above all, perhaps, we need the three things that a scientific culture can sustain: the sense of individual wonder, the power of hope, and the vivid but questing belief in a future for the globe." 


One of the surprise stars of this story is Charles Darwin's grandpa Erasmus, who was already defending a sophisticated multiverse cosmology in the 18th century. And he was not a bad poet.

Happy Easter

I've tried to lay claim to this pagan holiday myself, as symbolic (in secular terms) of the "return to life." Richard Dawkins would give me a hard time for this. Bad poetry, he'd call it. But I still embrace the Spring and its promise of a new purchase on life... soon as I can shake this "pointless" virus. Officially, after all, this is Opening Day.

(Russell Blackford on Easter, and on the disturbing new rancor in the atheism vs. faith debate.)

your brain on "god"

We wrapped up midterm presentations in A&S yesterday, first with Callie's virtual round-table report demonstrating that atheism is diverse, not monolithic. "Atheism is a broad church," with not much of an orthodoxy. That's the point, right? Like Unitarians, but without even a symbolic nod to god. 


Then Marie's discussion of materialist spirituality, Michael Persinger's "God machine,"* and Andrew Newberg's contention that "God is great-for your mental, physical, and spiritual health." (His new book: How God Changes Your Brain.) In an interview Newberg says, in effect, that agnosticism can be a spiritual quest too: 

Why won't God go away? 

The main reason God won't go away is because our brains won't allow God to leave. Our brains are set up in such a way that God and religion become among the most powerful tools for helping the brain do its thing—self-maintenance and self-transcendence. Unless there is a fundamental change in how our brain works, God will be around for a very long time.

Are you personally a religious or spiritual person? Do you meditate?

I have long pursued answers to many of the profound questions that human beings have faced. My initial attempts to find answers arose from the Western traditions, with an emphasis on science and philosophy. Over the years, my personal search evolved into a more meditative approach, which appeared similar to some of the Eastern traditions. However, although my approach is in many ways is a form of meditation, I have never practiced a specific religious or meditative technique for any period of time. In order to continue my search, I have had to learn about many disciplines and traditions. This typically was to enhance my own approach, which I do consider a spiritual journey.

*Richard Dawkins tries Persinger's "God machine":

as if

bright kids

I'm always climbing up on my soap-box to rail about the reprehensible mental and emotional crippling of children through religious-ideological indoctrination. But what is to be done about it? Miso's question yesterday in A&S, followed by Lauren's & Matt's & Dean's reports, all underscore the urgency of freeing children from this persistent, insidious virus.

Here's important new video on empowering the next generations of free-thinkers, featuring Dan Dennett and others, at The Brights site. Let's give kids the tools they need to break out of unreflective conformism, and watch what happens. The rippling effects of a relatively few enlightened parents, nurturers, and educators taking the simple initiative of speaking honestly and plainly on this subject in public, in schools, and in our homes could be astonishing and game-changing. Why don't we try it and find out? The Parenting Beyond Belief movement, too, is making impressive strides in this direction. (PBB video)

I used to think Richard Dawkins was over the top with his "child abuse" charge, but no more. Dean described being led by his "youth minister" to draw images of himself in Hell, at age 10. If I learned that any adult had attempted to implant such horrific ideas in my daughters' minds, at that or any age, I'm very sure "abuse" would be one of the mildest epithets to come immediately to mind.

special dust

To the new atheists, the material world of physical beauty and the wonders of science are all the spiritual fulfilment they need. Dawkins writes that a ''proper understanding of the magnificence of the real world … can fill the inspirational role that religion has historically - and inadequately - usurped''.

Joel Kilgour refuses to describe himself as a spiritual person, but, ''if you ask if I have transcending moments, absolutely''. ''Sunset over the ocean, holding the hands of families or friends, looking into the face of my newborn niece … A lot of people claim spirituality for those moments … but I think people just like to feel they are special, that the universe was created specifically for them when, really, we're just a speck of dust.'' Michael Bachelard

Well, are we "just a speck of dust" any more than our planet is a speck of dust, or from a more distant vantage our sun or our galaxy or even our universe? The whole astonishing glorious spectacle of natural existence is wondrous, inspiring, magnificent, humbling, exalting... words do, really, pale.  Our own existence is a natural  miracle, and source of more "spiritual fulfillment" than any of us can adequately absorb.  Of course we're special.  Isn't that what Philip Pullman was talking about, with his "dust"? And Carl Sagan, with his "star-stuff"? And, with their clumsier way of re-branding, isn't that what the "Brights" are talking about too?

Forget Iceland!-

I'd still like to visit Reykjavik, but I'm retiring to Costa Rica.

Costa Rica is one of the very few countries to have abolished its army, and it’s also arguably the happiest nation on earth... Costa Ricans, asked to rate their own happiness on a 10-point scale, average 8.5. Denmark is next at 8.3, the United States ranks 20th at 7.4... Maybe Costa Rican contentment has something to do with the chance to explore dazzling beaches on both sides of the country... Maybe the lesson for the United States is that we should devote fewer resources to shoring up foreign armies and more to bolstering schools both at home and abroad... Nick Kristof


Trouble is, we're all up against a deep ancestral tendency to "coalitional" conflict, especially us guys. But Andy Thomson agrees: education is our only hope:
 

 
I'm ready to get back to school!
 
And then, eventually, to Costa Rica.
 
In our dreams.

send $

Protesters of Ireland's new crackdown on free speech have assembled 25 favorite blasphemies, including two of mine:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” Richard Dawkins

And
"Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money!" George Carlin

obnoxious crowd

J&M

Speaking of bloody new atheists: Dawkins still insists "I'm not the least bit strident or shrill." But is it just inherently shrill to ask for the extraordinary evidence that would support the extraordinary claims of ordinary believers? I don't think so. Neither, I'll bet, did his ten-year old when Dawkins wrote to her:

"Dear Juliet," he began. "Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the sun and are really far away? And how do we know that Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the sun? The answer to these questions is 'evidence.' "

How to Do It (again)

Today on How to Do It, Michael Shermer explains how religion and evolution can live side by side in peace and harmony. It's easy: accept evolution, theists, and accept theism, evolutionists.

(Much depends, of course, on what "accept" means.)

If one is a theist, it should not matter when God made the universe -- 10,000 years ago or 10 billion years ago. The difference of six zeros is meaningless to an omniscient and omnipotent being, and the glory of divine creation cries out for praise regardless of when it happened.

Likewise, it should not matter how God created life, whether it was through a miraculous spoken word or through the natural forces of the universe that He created. The grandeur of God's works commands awe regardless of what processes He used.

As for meanings and morals, it is here where our humanity arises from our biology. We evolved as a social primate species with the tendency of being cooperative and altruistic within our own groups, but competitive and bellicose between groups. The purpose of civilization is to help us rise above our hearts of darkness and to accentuate the better angels of our nature.

Believers should embrace science, especially evolutionary theory, for what it has done to reveal the magnificence of the divinity in a depth never dreamed by our ancient ancestors. We have learned a lot in 4,000 years, and that knowledge should never be dreaded or denied. Instead, science should be welcomed by all who cherish human understanding and wisdom.

This piece drew a sharp reaction from Jerry Coyne, who calls Shermer an "accommodationist" and insists that the only religion not at war with science is Deism. (And here's Shermer's reply to Coyne.)

That's the Dawkins line (though he cares little for Deism either). Karen Armstrong, on the other hand, sees no grounds for conflict and hostilities at all. That comes (she says) when we confuse "mythos" and "logos," and mistake religion to be making factual claims about what actually exists in the world. On her view, no reputable theologian ever really claimed that "God exists" (or that any of us really has a clue what it would mean to say so).

Interesting. But won't that come as a big shock to roughly 99.9% of the religiously devout?

thoughtful

Nick Kristof likes Robert Wright and Karen Armstrong, allegedly "less combative and more thoughtful" than the New Atheists. (Stay tuned for future discussions of Wright and Armstrong.)

Kristof's little grenade is mostly intended for Richard Dawkins, who insists-- not entirely persuasively, but wittily and entertainingly-- that he's not strident at all, just gently satiric.

He's plenty thoughtful here, and funny. And he's right on target with his critique of the unconscionable indoctrination of young children into traditions they cannot begin to understand. It really does border (at best) on intellectual abuse.

And I can corroborate the claim that more attention, if not always more "raised consciousness," accrues to those who care less about being nice than being noticed and taken seriously. Humanists and most atheists have been "nice" and marginal forever. They've been sitting and chilling (as Marcus Brigstocke advises the religious extremists) and getting nobody's attention.

So yes, Mr. Kristof, an armistice in the religion wars-- a move away from intolerance by all-- is a great idea. Its time will finally arrive when the extremists stop persecuting and killing the people they deem immoral, and when "thoughtful" religious moderates in every Abrahamic tradition stop forgiving them for it... not when atheists and humanists shut up.