j a c k *

Theologians and Atheists Agree...

When professional theologians denounce Dawkins’ The God Delusion their first inevitable move is to call him unscholarly.  Dawkins, they argue, doesn’t appreciate the modern, enlightened, sophisticated arguments for God.  He’s only attacking some kind of base, popular idea of God, not the coolest and brightest.  Naturally, they continue, if Dawkins fails to address every possible apology we can dream up we can just say he’s not serious enough and dismiss him.  Via Pharyngula, for example:

[…] the God that he's debunking is not one that most of the people I study would recognize. I mean, is there some great big person up there who made the universe out of dirt? Probably not.

Before we go any farther, can we get that in writing?  And without the caveat if you please.  It seems that “sophisticated theologians” and atheists both agree that there was not a great big person that made the universe out of dirt.  That’s going to be big news to some people – perhaps we should issue a press release.

WASINGTON D.C.  The STAPHUG Society – Sophisticated Theologians and Atheists Promoting an Honest Understanding of God – issued a joint statement today placing limits on the nature of God.  “God is not some kind of large man,” said a spokesperson for the group.  “He (if he exists at all) probably doesn’t have anything resembling a gender,” said another echoing the consensus of the oddly disparate alliance.  “Pretty much anything that would provide measurable attributes could constitute a serious problem,” agreed Elaine Pagels, a founding member of the group, adding that “if God could be comprehended in those terms than he/she/it would be subject to falsification.  People have to accept that.”

A rival group GASSBAG – Group of Atheists Standing for Sound Beliefs with Apologists Generally – was pleased with the announcement but was critical that it said anything new.  “Anyone who has seriously examined theology any time in the last five hundred years has already known all that,” said the group’s spokesman Alister McGrath.  “The real problem is that so many lay people continue to believe in some kind of bearded patriarch in the sky.  That’s why we have to persist in our efforts to clear away those old myths so that the best arguments for God can be heard in a clear and unbiased manner.”

Scientists from the most bitter of internal debates would band together against errant nonsense in a heartbeat, and yet that does not seem to be the case for theologians.  Those who study God, no matter how sophisticated, never seem to be interested in establishing the floor for their discipline.  They never seem to realize that nothing has been learned as long as everything is still possible.  (Same with alternative medicine, but that’s a different posting.)

Interestingly, in his book Dawkins never really attempts to take on the God of the Philosophers.  He quotes a few of the more spectacular arguments, rhetorically rolls his eyes and quickly waves them away as the absurdities they are.  As a practical and realistic biologist he has no interest in such sophistry.  Instead Dawkins attacks the God of the creationists.  His “Ultimate 747” argument is a direct response to the Tornado in a Junkyard, an analogy commonly used by intelligent design creationists to convince ignorant people of the impossibility of abiogenesis, evolution, or blood clots without some kind of supernatural Bob the Builder to make it all happen.  Dawkins counter-analogy tries to demonstrate that anything complex enough to design life would be at least as complex as life itself.

While this is fairly intuitive to anyone with a passable understanding of biology or neurology, it is sadly not convincing to the lay audience.  What Dawkins has failed to realize is that most people don’t understand how complex their own brains are, and indeed barely realize that their biology is involved in what they consider their own “selves” at all.  Consciousness is considered by many to be a homogeneous, simple substance residing in the biological machine – a soul, if you will.  And if a mechanistic human body can have a soul, why not the universe itself?

It is this eternal, supernatural homunculus that must be slain before the idea of God can be attacked from this angle.  This is a ripe project for science, and one that is well past due.

- jack*

Crock of Shock Jock Schlock...

Always behind the media curve, I have a few words about the Imus resignation.  Actually I’ve been very busy.  I’ve had barely enough time to read blogs let alone write one.  Or I had better things to do – I don’t know.  Why are you asking me?

So, radio “shock jock” Don Imus resigns over something he said.  In some ways this shouldn’t surprise people.  He had a history of saying very, very offensive things, especially racist, ethnic, misogynist and homophobic slurs.  And yet people are surprised.  They assumed that with a resume like that he should have a long and lucrative radio career.  After the luxury of a few weeks to think about it, let me address a couple of common misconceptions.

1) It’s not about free speech.  Yes, we all have the right in this country to set up a soap box or publish a newsletter or host a blog that espouses whatever opinions we might happen to hold.  The First Amendment guarantees that the government cannot arrest us or sanction us or force us to shut down because they disagree with what we say.  And that’s as it should be; but that’s not what happened here.  There was no government pressure at all.  The pressure came from the public a large.  After all, an individual’s right of free speech doesn’t mean that everyone else has to suffer in silence.  Anyone who dislikes what we say for any reason has just as much right to complain, catcall, throw metaphorical tomatoes or otherwise try to belittle us in the public square.  Free speech demands no less.

2) It’s not about the free market.  It’s absolutely true that Imus was paid to do what he did for the purpose of profit.  When the advertisers started to turn away after his shameful incident it’s easy to think “the system works; capitalism solves all problems.”  But that screw turns both ways.  All the previous times that Imus used slurs on air were just as wrong even though he remained profitable.  The market was not and does not respond to moral value; it does respond to public sentiment.

3) It’s not about being “P.C.”  Political Correctness is rightly ridiculed when it’s about outlawing specific words regardless of context.  (My daughter was shocked for a while about how foul-mouthed her parents were after learning at school that “stupid” was a bad word.  We had to constantly explain that calling someone stupid was bad, not the word itself.)  What Imus said could be recast using PC words and would still be offensive.  “Did you see that basketball game?  Those young women were aggressive and tenacious in a manner I found to be most unladylike.”  “Yes, I agree.  They were African-American as well, which everyone knows makes them thugs or prostitutes, possibly a mix of both.”  “Indeed that’s true, old chum.”  Cast in street slang or BBC English, that’s never funny.

It’s about common decency.  As a community we maintain a fluid set of standards for acceptable public conduct, and we expect that public figures will stay well within those parameters.  As a “shock jock” (still not sure exactly what that means) Imus was allowed to stray closer to the boundaries, but as the tide of community standards rises some relics of bygone ages will be trapped on a shrinking island of popular support.  It was that rising standard of discourse that removed Imus from the airwaves, and good riddance.  If he had persisted he may well have sunk so low that even the mantle of free speech couldn’t protect him.  While the government has no right to censor our ideas, they do have a duty to restrict the use of the public airwaves for certain specific content, such as incitement to violence, threats, assault (which may be no more than speech) and indecency.  Imus and bigots like him are treading very close to that limit.

I’ll write about more timely topics later, once they’re less timely.

- jack*

Thinking the un-Solution...

At a party the other day a kind and well-meaning friend of mine argued strongly that since we destroyed Iraq we need to stay to fix it.  The wrong we have done the Iraqis should be paid for by making it right, he said, not just leaving them high and dry.  This is a very common and genuinely compassionate position, but political reality and the American psyche make it impossible.

First of all the so-called Pottery Barn, “you broke it you bought it” rule is pretty childish.  It’s OK if you’re talking about knickknacks that a vendor has arrayed for you to browse.  If you bump one off the shelf accidentally you should probably pay for it.  But not when we’re talking about nations.  The Iraqis don’t want us to “buy” their country, and we didn’t “break” it by accident.  Remember Shock and Awe?  The neo-cons would like nothing more than to own Iraq and all that lovely oil.  If you want a playground analogy this affair was more like the greedy kid who licks the whole bowl of jell-o so no one else will want it.

Second, regardless of our good-intentions what makes us think we are capable of fixing Iraq at all?  Every indication is that our actions are making things worse.  It’s like a well-meaning but rather dim-witted relative crashes your car.  Lacking insurance, he promises that he’ll fix it for you.  Do you stand idly by for month after month as he bumbles around, smashing and cutting things that weren’t even broken in his vain attempt at repair?  Of course not.  You’d ask him to pay for the repairs and then you’d take the car to a mechanic.  While our military is exceptionally good at wrecking things and defeating standing armies, I think it’s fair to say that at counterinsurgency operations and nationbuilding they are poor at best.  But where are we going to find professionals in those fields?

Allow me to present your United Nations.

This organization (for which we already pay membership dues) is chock full of some of the best and brightest experts in the world who have dedicated their lives to these very issues.  They also have almost by definition some of the most experienced veterans in diplomacy and international relations.  Except for the odd John Bolton here and there, they are committed to solving common problems through negotiation and the proper application of practical problem-solving techniques and empirical, scientific knowledge.  In other words, the exact opposite of our current civilian military leadership.

We should leave and put the U.N. in charge.  Or, more practically, give the coalition and Iraqi forces the blue U.N. helmets and task them with the U.N. mission.  This could be done immediately to instant benefits.  First and foremost it would legitimize the occupation.  The regional players would have a say in the future of Iraq rather than just the suspect motives of the Bush administration.  It would allow other nations to participate as partners, and relief troops would soon arrive in real numbers.  There would be transparency and accountability; no more billions down the Haliburton hole.  And finally we’d have all those experts working on the problem – professionals actually competent in the kinds of tasks that will be essential for this to succeed.

We’d pay for it of course.  We’d have to authorize the billions we were going to waste anyway and give the U.N. the discretion to spend it.  Certainly we’d want oversight, but to be a true international effort – the only way this could work – the money would be under international control.  The other cost, of course, would be American pride.  We’d have to admit to the world and to ourselves that we aren’t invincible.  We can’t do everything on our own.  It’s not just the stubbornness of George Bush that makes this option literally unthinkable, but the myth of American exceptionalism.

When people say there are no good solutions, they really mean that there are no solutions where America comes out on top.  It is assumed that a good outcome will leave us feeling good, not the more practical sense that leaves the world as a whole better off.  The political consequence is that precipitous withdrawal is the only conceivable solution.  We should do it now rather than sending good soldiers to their deaths in the hopes of redeeming those who have already died.

- jack*

Freedom of Parody Religions...

PZ Myers reacts to the kid suspended from school for refusing to remove the eyepatch he was wearing as part of a pirate costume.  Myers has the eminently sensible reaction that school officials should enforce dress codes and prevent disruptions regardless of any claimed religious significance.

If the school lets kids wear special religious garments or jewelry, or doesn't tell them to wash their face when they daub themselves with grime on Ash Wednesday, or any of the other pointless rituals of faith, then they shouldn't be punishing a kid for wearing an eyepatch — the pirate silliness is no more absurd than the crap the other kids are doing.

If this seems confusing, the religious connection is that the kid claims to be a Pastafarian, a devotee of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (often FSM), and dressing like a pirate is one of their sacraments.  School officials have decided that parody religions don’t deserve the same deference as “real” religions.  And I suspect that the ACLU won’t be picking up this case anytime soon.

I’d mostly let the issue drop except for this one comment:

Unless you seriously believe that the kid who came to school dressed as a pirate actually believes in the FSM, you should admit that the principal is exactly right to say that the kid wasn't being disciplined for his religious beliefs -- because the kid doesn't have any religious beliefs (at least none that he was expressing by dressing up as he did). Rather, the kid was making an anti-religious joke. […] Until there are pastafarian assembly halls where people actually attend regularly, donate a large portion of their income to support the activities of the religion, support various charitable activities, participate in initiation ceremonies, care deeply about the FSM, etc, etc, it is simply silly to claim that pastafarianism is a religion.

I think this rather misses the point.  Some things can be parodies and still retain the important essence of the original.  A parody of a painting is still a painting; a parody of a song is still a song.  While a parody of science isn’t science and a parody of a textbook isn’t a textbook (although it is still a book), a parody of a news show can still be a news show.  I think religion, dealing more with aesthetics and emotion, might retain its character as religion even in parody form.

An underlying meta-doctrine of Pastafarianism is to highlight that only a strictly religiously neutral stance can allow us to treat religions equally in the public sphere.  This means that followers of the FSM must perform their sacraments in public, and that the most faithful will ridicule through their actions the deference that “real” religions regularly enjoy.  By this standard the kid with the eyepatch is indeed a true Pastafarian.

The commenter also complains that the kid doesn’t really “believe” in the FSM.  Perhaps not, but there are also many Christians who go to church and sing the psalms because they love the sense of community rather than actually believing in the tenants of their creed.  One also wonders how school administrators should determine if people genuinely believe in their deity before granting them religious deference.  As for the act of worship being a joke – well yes, but as we’ve seen that’s the character of the Pastafarian faith.  Assembly halls and initiations are likewise meaningless because they would not require deference from public officials or institutions.  Many religions also don’t having tithing or charities, and again this would not be in line with FSM doctrine.

Basically the complaint is that the religion lacks gravitas.  If we’re going to mete out public respect for religion based on this test I’d be all for it, provided that people take a sober look at all the other faiths too.  If we as a society could withdraw official deference from any religion that makes ludicrous claims that would indeed be a glorious day, but I think we’re going to need a more objective measure.

This is really all about indoctrination.  It’s the parents who care about instilling their children with the fear that if they dress wrong they’ll go to hell, or if they wear the proper magic talisman they will be protected from evil.  It’s the parents who become indignant if even sensible school rules interfere with their indoctrination.  And it’s to this right of dominion over child minds – which Dawkins perhaps rightly calls child abuse – which school administrators defer.  If someone were to bring their child up as a Pastafarian and insist that the school allows them to dress as a pirate, then we would have a parody with teeth.  Perhaps it’s fortunate that no Pastafarian parent would be that cruel.

Too bad people of other faiths don’t feel that way as well.  RAmen.

- jack*