Recently I quit all of the atheist Facebook groups I was in, and for a while I didn't miss them at all. Then I started looking around again for interesting groups, and I joined one because it explicitly said in the group description that they were interested in atheists and religious believers listening to each other and giving respect and all that.
But sometimes it looks more like just another atheist group, with a few believers sprinkled into the mix for the purpose of being verbally abused.
And then there are the memes. And it appears that "meme" has accrued another definition since Richard Dawkins coined the term back in the 1970's, when he meant a characteristic or feature passed on within a group by non-genetic means, such as imitation. When I started using the word, I meant by it something close to "slogan;" ironically, I was very critical of New Atheist memes, and I didn't yet realize that not only was the term "meme" coined by The Head New Atheist Himself, but that some of the New Atheist memes which annoyed me most, such as referring to the authors of the Bible as "Bronze Age goat herders," also originated with Dawkins.
But now of course all and sundry -- or at least all and sundry in the irreputable circles in which I groove -- use the term "meme" to refer to captioned pictures used in comments, or very often in lieu of comments, in Internet discussion in places such as Facebook. For example, a meme may consist of a picture of A with a quote by A, or a caption mocking A, or a caption mocking someone else, or, for example, it may consist of a cute animal with a cute caption making it appear that the animal said that cute thing. The very popular lolcat pictures are an example of this recent definition of "memes."
So anyway, in this group which allegedly exists in order to build harmony between people who don't see eye to eye on the subject of religion there is a meme, serving as the OP of a thread, which consists of a crudely-drawn picture of the Earth and the caption:
If you were born in Israel, you’d probably be Jewish.
If you were born in Saudi Arabia, you’d probably be Muslim.
If you were born in India, you’d probably be Hindu.
But because you were born in North America, you’re Christian…
Your faith is not inspired by some divine, constant truth.
It’s simply geography.
And of course, being who I am, my first impulse was to point out that a lot of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Taoists, adherents of religions of indigenous peoples and other non-Christians were born in North America, and a lot of non-Jews in Israel, and what percentage of India is Hindu exactly? I wanted to look that up so I could contribute it to the discussion. Appears it's around 80%. Wow I thought it was much lower; I thought that between Muslims and Buddhists and Sikhs and Jains and others in India, Hindus might actually be less than 50% of the population, making the meme factually incorrect about India.
And of course the meme is factually incorrect inasmuch as it says "because you were born in North America, you’re Christian" instead of "because you were born in North America, you’re probably Christian" --
but as far as I can see, nobody in the thread wants to celebrate cultural diversity; it's just one more stupid backwoods-fundie-Christinas-vs-their-backwoods-New-Atheist-cousins Religion-is-stoopid- Is-not- Is-too Yuh-HUH Nuh-UH dealy.
I didn't notice anyone pointing out that a meme saying "because you were born in North America, you’re Christian" to all of its readers was posted on the World Wide Web, ignoring not only non-Christian Amurrkins but also all non-Amurrkins.
Or, to sum up this post in 9 words: An awful lot of New Atheists are friggin' hicks.
Showing posts with label bronze age goat herders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bronze age goat herders. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Friday, May 29, 2015
Atheists Need To Stand Up To New Atheists
If you don't know who I mean by New Atheists, if you read this post all the way through, you will.
Hundreds of years ago, some of the people who didn't believe that God or any gods existed were afraid to call themselves atheists, and so they called themselves skeptics instead. Sadly, it's happening again.
Today, there are atheists who are choosing not to publicly refer to themselves as atheists, because they're afraid that if they do, people will assume that they agree with Richard Dawkins when he compares Trinity College in Cambridge to "the Muslim world" and tacitly assumes that Nobel Prizes are an objective measure of a culture's achievements; or with the late Christopher Hitchens' assertion, important enough to him that he made it a subtitle of one of his books, that "religion poisons everything;" or with Sam Harris when he says -- just about anything; or admire PZ Myers for covering a copy of Koran with garbage and feces. Or maybe they're afraid that people will assume that they share the Islamophobia or the large gaps in the education in history of all four of the above... They choose not to call themselves atheists, to behave as if the word does not mean what it meant when the big atheist superstars were Russell and Sartre instead of Dawkins and Harris, because they're afraid.
And so they're hiding behind less clear labels like "skeptic" or "non-believer" or, if they're even a little bit more cowardly than that, they just keep going to church, and claim on Facebook they if they come out of the atheist closet they'll be lynched. In the last instance I'm not talking about atheists living in countries where atheists actually have been killed, sometimes by the authorities. I'm talking about the cowardly atheists in the US who claim that if they publicly acknowledge that they're atheists, they will be risking their lives.
But back to the "skeptics" and "non-believers" : the thing is that "atheist" does -- for the time being, anyway -- still mean what it meant back when Bertie and Jean-Paul were kicking ass and taking names and winning Nobel Prizes in Literature (Ai kan also haz??) "Atheist" still refers, for the vast majority of the population, to anyone and everyone who thinks that God and gods and miracles and resurrections and so forth are all make-believe.
But even beyond that -- what has ever been the point of anyone calling him- or herself an atheist? Outside of the Communist bloc, it hasn't ever been done in order to increase one's chances of winning political office. It's been done for the sake of honesty. For the sake of clarity. For the sake of good sense. (I've stopped using the phrase "common sense," because as time goes on it becomes more and more clear to me how uncommon good sense is.)
And so, in order to be as clear and precise as possible, if you're an atheist who realizes that a phenomenon that has included billions of people over tens of thousands of years is far, far too complex to be referred to as all bad, an atheist who's noticed both all of the Muslims being killed by majority-Christian nations and all the Muslims fighting ISIS and fighting extremism in general and just can't go along with the fearmongering Islamophobic bullshit of Dawkins and Harris and Hitch, an atheist who finds it disgusting and counter-productive when someone literally craps on books, or who knows several things wrong about describing authors of the Bible as "Bronze-Age goat herders" -- if you're all or any of those kinds of an atheist, the thing to do is to say so. And not to surrender the label "atheist" to the fans of Dawkins, Hitch, Harris, Myers, Dennett, Coyne & Co.
It occurs to me that the situation may already have grown so ridiculously confused that not only some atheists, but also many religious people may agree with Hitchens' slogan "religion poisons everything." without agreeing with Hitchens or me or any other atheists (or skeptics or non-believers, po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to) in any particulars whatsoever. I'm talking about the so-called "spiritual but not religious." Like the "skeptics" and "non-believers" who are actually atheists but prefer to be obscure, to hide from the danger of association with the barbarian New Atheist hordes, the "spiritual but not religious" have differences with people who share certain metaphysical beliefs with them (the set of beliefs known as "religion"), and instead of directly confronting those specific differences, whether they have to do with hierarchy in religious organizations, or corruption in religious hierarchies, or with politics -- instead of dealing with those specific issues, the "spiritual but not religious" have preferred to pretend that the term "religious" suddenly does not mean what it means. There are a lot of Buddhists who suddenly are pretending that Buddhism is not a religion and never was, and that Buddhism who think or thought it is or was a religion are or were doin' it wrong.
I think that we atheists should leave this sort of semantic nonsense to religious people, along with their metaphysical nonsense. If you don't believe God exists and you do believe Dawkins has become a huge jackass since he stopped studying biology a decade ago, or you have differences with Harris or Hitch or Myers -- or with Russell or Sartre or Nietzsche or Twain, or with me, or with anyone else who identifies as an atheist -- I think you should call yourself an atheist and talk directly and clearly about your specific differences with those other atheists.
Why? Because if you correctly identify yourself as an atheist, there's a greater chance that others will understand what you're talking about. Abandoning the term will only lead to confusion -- it has only led to confusion. Simple and plain as that. And again, what ever has been the point of any of us (outside of the Communist bloc) opposing religion and exposing ourselves to so much aggravation, if it has not been for the sake of greater understanding and greater clarity, and for the sake making more sense and speaking more plainly than those others in their churches and temples and mosques, and for the sake of striving to be better than those who know better but would thrive on the confusion of others?
Hundreds of years ago, some of the people who didn't believe that God or any gods existed were afraid to call themselves atheists, and so they called themselves skeptics instead. Sadly, it's happening again.
Today, there are atheists who are choosing not to publicly refer to themselves as atheists, because they're afraid that if they do, people will assume that they agree with Richard Dawkins when he compares Trinity College in Cambridge to "the Muslim world" and tacitly assumes that Nobel Prizes are an objective measure of a culture's achievements; or with the late Christopher Hitchens' assertion, important enough to him that he made it a subtitle of one of his books, that "religion poisons everything;" or with Sam Harris when he says -- just about anything; or admire PZ Myers for covering a copy of Koran with garbage and feces. Or maybe they're afraid that people will assume that they share the Islamophobia or the large gaps in the education in history of all four of the above... They choose not to call themselves atheists, to behave as if the word does not mean what it meant when the big atheist superstars were Russell and Sartre instead of Dawkins and Harris, because they're afraid.
And so they're hiding behind less clear labels like "skeptic" or "non-believer" or, if they're even a little bit more cowardly than that, they just keep going to church, and claim on Facebook they if they come out of the atheist closet they'll be lynched. In the last instance I'm not talking about atheists living in countries where atheists actually have been killed, sometimes by the authorities. I'm talking about the cowardly atheists in the US who claim that if they publicly acknowledge that they're atheists, they will be risking their lives.
But back to the "skeptics" and "non-believers" : the thing is that "atheist" does -- for the time being, anyway -- still mean what it meant back when Bertie and Jean-Paul were kicking ass and taking names and winning Nobel Prizes in Literature (Ai kan also haz??) "Atheist" still refers, for the vast majority of the population, to anyone and everyone who thinks that God and gods and miracles and resurrections and so forth are all make-believe.
But even beyond that -- what has ever been the point of anyone calling him- or herself an atheist? Outside of the Communist bloc, it hasn't ever been done in order to increase one's chances of winning political office. It's been done for the sake of honesty. For the sake of clarity. For the sake of good sense. (I've stopped using the phrase "common sense," because as time goes on it becomes more and more clear to me how uncommon good sense is.)
And so, in order to be as clear and precise as possible, if you're an atheist who realizes that a phenomenon that has included billions of people over tens of thousands of years is far, far too complex to be referred to as all bad, an atheist who's noticed both all of the Muslims being killed by majority-Christian nations and all the Muslims fighting ISIS and fighting extremism in general and just can't go along with the fearmongering Islamophobic bullshit of Dawkins and Harris and Hitch, an atheist who finds it disgusting and counter-productive when someone literally craps on books, or who knows several things wrong about describing authors of the Bible as "Bronze-Age goat herders" -- if you're all or any of those kinds of an atheist, the thing to do is to say so. And not to surrender the label "atheist" to the fans of Dawkins, Hitch, Harris, Myers, Dennett, Coyne & Co.
It occurs to me that the situation may already have grown so ridiculously confused that not only some atheists, but also many religious people may agree with Hitchens' slogan "religion poisons everything." without agreeing with Hitchens or me or any other atheists (or skeptics or non-believers, po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to) in any particulars whatsoever. I'm talking about the so-called "spiritual but not religious." Like the "skeptics" and "non-believers" who are actually atheists but prefer to be obscure, to hide from the danger of association with the barbarian New Atheist hordes, the "spiritual but not religious" have differences with people who share certain metaphysical beliefs with them (the set of beliefs known as "religion"), and instead of directly confronting those specific differences, whether they have to do with hierarchy in religious organizations, or corruption in religious hierarchies, or with politics -- instead of dealing with those specific issues, the "spiritual but not religious" have preferred to pretend that the term "religious" suddenly does not mean what it means. There are a lot of Buddhists who suddenly are pretending that Buddhism is not a religion and never was, and that Buddhism who think or thought it is or was a religion are or were doin' it wrong.
I think that we atheists should leave this sort of semantic nonsense to religious people, along with their metaphysical nonsense. If you don't believe God exists and you do believe Dawkins has become a huge jackass since he stopped studying biology a decade ago, or you have differences with Harris or Hitch or Myers -- or with Russell or Sartre or Nietzsche or Twain, or with me, or with anyone else who identifies as an atheist -- I think you should call yourself an atheist and talk directly and clearly about your specific differences with those other atheists.
Why? Because if you correctly identify yourself as an atheist, there's a greater chance that others will understand what you're talking about. Abandoning the term will only lead to confusion -- it has only led to confusion. Simple and plain as that. And again, what ever has been the point of any of us (outside of the Communist bloc) opposing religion and exposing ourselves to so much aggravation, if it has not been for the sake of greater understanding and greater clarity, and for the sake making more sense and speaking more plainly than those others in their churches and temples and mosques, and for the sake of striving to be better than those who know better but would thrive on the confusion of others?
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Review Of "ATHEISTS: INSIDE THE WORLD OF NON-BELIEVERS" On CNN
6 atheists were featured: Richard Dawkins; Dave Silverman, president of American Aheists, the people who stir so much shit and accomplish so little by putting up nya-nya-nya-nya-nyaaaaa-nyaaa atheist billboards and litigating to have expressions of religious sentiment removed from public places (Imagine: one day they may succeed in removing "IN GOD WE TRUST" from our money. Whoop-dee-frekin-doo!); and 2 other people, one a young man who leads an atheist group at a university in northern Alabama or Georgia; and the other a young woman who's studying at Harvard Divinity School while simultaneously being an atheist.
Oh, and I almost forgot: also a Christian clergyman who is a closeted atheist. CNN deliberately hid his identity. They are undeliberately but just as effectively hiding the names of the 2 students in the South and at the Harvard Divinity School; their names seem to be written down nowhere on the CNN website or anywhere else on the WWW. The only way I can think of at this point to retrieve their names, and whether the young Southern man is studying in northern Georgia or northern Alabama -- could just possibly be northern Mississippi too -- would be to watch the show again, and frankly, it wasn't that good. If you can retrieve their names you're a better man than I, or maybe just a man with less on his schedule.
Kyra Phillips hosted the show and interviewed all 6 of the featured atheists, and a few other atheists, and some more people.
Richard Dawkins didn't get much airtime, which means he said relatively little on the show with which I disagree. Phillips referred to Dawkins at one point as "the father of atheism," which certainly made me wince, as other people must have winced who were hoping that the show would comment at least a little on the history of atheism, which, believe it or not, Dawkins did not actually invent. Dawkins said that he got a "warm feeling" from the Church of England, and that "nobody" in the Church of England "really believes any of it." Which of course is bullshit, the sort of bullshit we're getting used to hearing from Dawkins. And of course, in the eyes of many present-day atheists, Dawkins actually is something like "the father of atheism," a figure of such immense unearned respect that any and every stupid thing he says is treated like received wisdom. I had been wondering just exactly why some English twits it has been my misfortune to meet insist that Christianity is dead and gone and over with in England; the answer may be just as simple as the explanation of why so any people think that the bible was written by Bronze Age goat herders and that most Muslims support terrorism: Dawkins said so. I know that Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England until 2002, said while in office that he didn't believe in God. I've also noticed how strenuously Williams has backpedaled from that position since he said it, which he hardly would have needed to have done had not so many theist members of the C of E become so very angry at him for saying such a thing. I've also wondered just exactly how much William's public statement of disbelief had to do with his ceasing to be head of the Church of England in 2002.
One of the atheists on the show, I think it may have been Silverman, said that "skeptic," "freethinker" and other terms mean nothing more or less than "atheist," and that atheists who call themselves skeptics or freethinkers instead of atheists are "lying." I almost agree with that. I would say that they're atheists who are still partway in the closet. Very interestingly, Dawkins said that the term "atheist" has acquired so many negative connotations that it may be necessary to come up with another term for us. If he has the faintest clue that he is directly responsible for a large part of those negative connotations, he gave no sign of it on the CNN show. I don't think that we need to replace the term "atheist." I think that a lot of the current stigma attaching to the label will go away if we can get to a state of affairs where no one will find it odd that a person is an atheist, and thinks that almost everything said about religion and atheism by Dawkins, or Sam Harris or PZ Myers, is idiotic -- including, for example, this recent statement by Dawkins that the term "atheist" might have to be replaced. Unfortunately, Richard the Great, if not in fact the father of atheism, is currently still its King.
Definitely the most heart-wrenching parts of the CNN show were from the interview with the parents of the student in the South: while he runs an Ask an Atheist program at the local university, his parents remain fundamentalists who are convinced that their son is going to Hell. It's not a matter of debate, they say: Scripture says that anyone who rejects Christ is going to Hell. I wonder if these people eat pork, or shellfish, or beef cooked with dairy products. It's not a matter of debate that Scripture says those things and a whole long list of other harmless things are abominations.
Jerry Dewitt lives in Louisiana and used to be an evangelical pastor; now he leads atheist church services. As he says, his church now is just like his church was then except that he leaves out Jesus. At one point in his sermon he actually said, "Can I get a 'Darwin'?!" Res ipse loquitur. Dewitt strikes me as a bit of a -- a smooth-talking, self-serving snake-oil salesman, very much indeed like an evangelical pastor.
Silverman: billboards crudely, unkindly mocking religion, and campaigns to take the 10 Commandments off of courthouse walls. He heads the largest atheist organization in the US, and this is what they accomplish. No competing with churches, synagogues and mosques in terms of relief for the poor, or for that matter with more progressive religious institutions in fighting for social justice. No, nothing like that can be addressed as long as "IN GOD WE TRUST" is still on our money. What a bunch of worse-than-useless assholes. Determined to sink to the level of the worst of the theists, cause -- "Hey, they started it!"
As I said, I don't remember the name of the atheist Harvard Divinity School student featured on the show. But I do remember shots of her sitting next to Greg Epstein, Harvard's Humanist Chaplain. And the student has recently been appointed to some sort of Assistant Chaplain office.
And then there's the anonymous clergyman in the atheist closet.
A whole bunch of atheists on this show who still want to be clergy people of some kind or other. If someone had just come from Mars and watched this show, he or she might get the impression that "atheist" is a kind of preacher. I really don't think that that's representative of most atheists. I don't think most of us miss church or temple so much that we want to form some weird atheist version of it. Although I do applaud Epstein's expressed sentiment of unity and acceptance for Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Christians, atheists and etc, his championing of tolerance for people of all beliefs or lack of beliefs. I just don't see the need for atheists to retain so very many of the trappings of religion.
The Harvard Divinity School student may end up actually knowing a lot about religion, studying it full-time as she is. And knowledge is a good thing. Knowledge is what separates the marvelous, awe-inspiring biologist Richard Dawkins
from the zany, out-of-touch crackpot and horrible islamophobic bigot Richard Dawkins.
As for the clergyman who's secretly an atheist, and all the other people who are secretly atheists, I see no need to pretty it up or tone it down: I've got no sympathy for you. Not for closet atheists in the US, whining about your anguish and isolation while you perpetuate the institutions and customs which you claim are oppressing you. In plain fact, you are oppressing those of us who are out. And you want me to feel sorry for you? In some other countries being an atheist can actually be dangerous, but in the US, if you actually want to do something for atheists, you need to come out. And that includes calling yourself an atheist and not some synonym like a skeptic or a freethinker.
Oh, and I almost forgot: also a Christian clergyman who is a closeted atheist. CNN deliberately hid his identity. They are undeliberately but just as effectively hiding the names of the 2 students in the South and at the Harvard Divinity School; their names seem to be written down nowhere on the CNN website or anywhere else on the WWW. The only way I can think of at this point to retrieve their names, and whether the young Southern man is studying in northern Georgia or northern Alabama -- could just possibly be northern Mississippi too -- would be to watch the show again, and frankly, it wasn't that good. If you can retrieve their names you're a better man than I, or maybe just a man with less on his schedule.
Kyra Phillips hosted the show and interviewed all 6 of the featured atheists, and a few other atheists, and some more people.
Richard Dawkins didn't get much airtime, which means he said relatively little on the show with which I disagree. Phillips referred to Dawkins at one point as "the father of atheism," which certainly made me wince, as other people must have winced who were hoping that the show would comment at least a little on the history of atheism, which, believe it or not, Dawkins did not actually invent. Dawkins said that he got a "warm feeling" from the Church of England, and that "nobody" in the Church of England "really believes any of it." Which of course is bullshit, the sort of bullshit we're getting used to hearing from Dawkins. And of course, in the eyes of many present-day atheists, Dawkins actually is something like "the father of atheism," a figure of such immense unearned respect that any and every stupid thing he says is treated like received wisdom. I had been wondering just exactly why some English twits it has been my misfortune to meet insist that Christianity is dead and gone and over with in England; the answer may be just as simple as the explanation of why so any people think that the bible was written by Bronze Age goat herders and that most Muslims support terrorism: Dawkins said so. I know that Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England until 2002, said while in office that he didn't believe in God. I've also noticed how strenuously Williams has backpedaled from that position since he said it, which he hardly would have needed to have done had not so many theist members of the C of E become so very angry at him for saying such a thing. I've also wondered just exactly how much William's public statement of disbelief had to do with his ceasing to be head of the Church of England in 2002.
One of the atheists on the show, I think it may have been Silverman, said that "skeptic," "freethinker" and other terms mean nothing more or less than "atheist," and that atheists who call themselves skeptics or freethinkers instead of atheists are "lying." I almost agree with that. I would say that they're atheists who are still partway in the closet. Very interestingly, Dawkins said that the term "atheist" has acquired so many negative connotations that it may be necessary to come up with another term for us. If he has the faintest clue that he is directly responsible for a large part of those negative connotations, he gave no sign of it on the CNN show. I don't think that we need to replace the term "atheist." I think that a lot of the current stigma attaching to the label will go away if we can get to a state of affairs where no one will find it odd that a person is an atheist, and thinks that almost everything said about religion and atheism by Dawkins, or Sam Harris or PZ Myers, is idiotic -- including, for example, this recent statement by Dawkins that the term "atheist" might have to be replaced. Unfortunately, Richard the Great, if not in fact the father of atheism, is currently still its King.
Definitely the most heart-wrenching parts of the CNN show were from the interview with the parents of the student in the South: while he runs an Ask an Atheist program at the local university, his parents remain fundamentalists who are convinced that their son is going to Hell. It's not a matter of debate, they say: Scripture says that anyone who rejects Christ is going to Hell. I wonder if these people eat pork, or shellfish, or beef cooked with dairy products. It's not a matter of debate that Scripture says those things and a whole long list of other harmless things are abominations.
Jerry Dewitt lives in Louisiana and used to be an evangelical pastor; now he leads atheist church services. As he says, his church now is just like his church was then except that he leaves out Jesus. At one point in his sermon he actually said, "Can I get a 'Darwin'?!" Res ipse loquitur. Dewitt strikes me as a bit of a -- a smooth-talking, self-serving snake-oil salesman, very much indeed like an evangelical pastor.
Silverman: billboards crudely, unkindly mocking religion, and campaigns to take the 10 Commandments off of courthouse walls. He heads the largest atheist organization in the US, and this is what they accomplish. No competing with churches, synagogues and mosques in terms of relief for the poor, or for that matter with more progressive religious institutions in fighting for social justice. No, nothing like that can be addressed as long as "IN GOD WE TRUST" is still on our money. What a bunch of worse-than-useless assholes. Determined to sink to the level of the worst of the theists, cause -- "Hey, they started it!"
As I said, I don't remember the name of the atheist Harvard Divinity School student featured on the show. But I do remember shots of her sitting next to Greg Epstein, Harvard's Humanist Chaplain. And the student has recently been appointed to some sort of Assistant Chaplain office.
And then there's the anonymous clergyman in the atheist closet.
A whole bunch of atheists on this show who still want to be clergy people of some kind or other. If someone had just come from Mars and watched this show, he or she might get the impression that "atheist" is a kind of preacher. I really don't think that that's representative of most atheists. I don't think most of us miss church or temple so much that we want to form some weird atheist version of it. Although I do applaud Epstein's expressed sentiment of unity and acceptance for Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Christians, atheists and etc, his championing of tolerance for people of all beliefs or lack of beliefs. I just don't see the need for atheists to retain so very many of the trappings of religion.
The Harvard Divinity School student may end up actually knowing a lot about religion, studying it full-time as she is. And knowledge is a good thing. Knowledge is what separates the marvelous, awe-inspiring biologist Richard Dawkins
from the zany, out-of-touch crackpot and horrible islamophobic bigot Richard Dawkins.
As for the clergyman who's secretly an atheist, and all the other people who are secretly atheists, I see no need to pretty it up or tone it down: I've got no sympathy for you. Not for closet atheists in the US, whining about your anguish and isolation while you perpetuate the institutions and customs which you claim are oppressing you. In plain fact, you are oppressing those of us who are out. And you want me to feel sorry for you? In some other countries being an atheist can actually be dangerous, but in the US, if you actually want to do something for atheists, you need to come out. And that includes calling yourself an atheist and not some synonym like a skeptic or a freethinker.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Historians And Scientists Shouldn't Be In Conflict
Some languages don't even make a distinction between the two. In German, for example, history is one of the Wissenschaften, one of the sciences. But back here in the English-speaking world, there is this tension between the sciences and the humanities. I don't know whether this tension flares up and then cools down again from time to time, or whether I've just been more aware of it at some times than at others.
The tension which is making me tense at the moment is between some New Atheists who are also scientists on the one hand, and anyone with a passing familiarity with ancient history on the other. The main bone of contention is Jesus and his historicity, and a prime example of the problem has popped up in the work of Michael Paulkovich, which I have discussed in 2 previous blog posts, here and here. Paulkovich is presenting a thesis which wouldn't get a passing grade from any competent high-school history teacher: that 126 ancient writers, who should've been expected to mention Jesus if he existed, do not mention him. More than 1/3 of those 126 people actually left no writing behind. Although Aulus Gellius and Dio Cassius are often very useful to historians in that they quote or mention so many other writers whose works have vanished, if a chapter in Gellius quotes 10 writers, a serious writer counts that as the writing of 1 writer, Gellius, not 11, 10 plus Gellius.
And I'm giving Paulkovich the benefit of the doubt in assuming he knows Gellius or Dio from a hole in the ground, because, although more than a few of the 126 names are known to us today only via those two authors, most of the 126 who are known to us as authors would've had no reason whatsoever to mention Jesus: they're physicians or geographers or poets whose subject matter happened centuries BC or epigrammatists or grammarians, or what remains of their writing is a few lines with no connection to anything east of Athens... In short, the list of 126 names is a really spectacular mess, and you don't have to be an expert in ancient history to suspect that it is.
If the 126 names were in a random reader's comment on the Internet, it'd be bad enough, but too common to warrant my going on about it for several blog posts. But Paulkovich published this mess in Free Inquiry, where prominent scientists like Richard Dawkins -- who's absolutely brilliant when the subject is biology, in case you hadn't heard -- have been published lately, but not, one suspects, respectable historians. "Free" here apparently means "free from fact-checking" on historical subjects, although the New Atheists are always, quite rightly, pointing out the benefits of things like peer review in the natural sciences.
Are they aware that peer review is also in place in disciplines such as history, even when the historical subject is Jeebus? If they're aware that such historiographical peer-review exists, they're sure not acting like it. They're definitely not interested in benefiting from it.
They don't want to learn about ancient history. And yet they feel perfectly well-qualified to discuss it. And so we get things like this list of 126 names, and Dawkins' description of the authors of the Old Testament as "Bronze-age goat herders" (they're referred to as "goatherds," Richard, you simp), and Dawkins making all sorts of ignorant statements about 1 billion Muslims as if all 1 billion were the same in any way, without having felt any need to have read the Koran first, and apparently without feeling any embarrassment over saying publicly that he has no plans either to read the Koran or to stop making blanket condemnations of billions of individuals.
I don't know how widespread this gulf of historical ignorance is. I can only hope that the ignorance on historical topics of New Atheists like these is so obvious that most of the general public who hear Dawkins & Co shooting their mouths off will be able to spot it without my help, and draw appropriate conclusions about New Atheism, and rags like Free Inquiry..
If they're not able, well then, that's what I'm here for. And you, too, if you've been able to follow me this far.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
This Is Priceless
Sometimes something simply leaves you breathless. Sometimes because it's brilliant or beautiful, but not always. Sometimes something is so thoroughly stubbornly stupid that it takes your breath away. It's beautiful in own utterly ugly way. It's a negative sort of perfection: stupidity perfected.
I've been going back and forth with a person who's not hopelessly stupid in all things, but stubbornly, proudly sticks to the "Bronze-Age goat herders" meme. Coming toward the end of my rope with him on the subject, I sarcastically remarked: "I see: you can't think of anything else at all to call them [the authors of the Bible] besides 'Bronze-Age goat herders' and 'donkey hucksters.' And that's my fault."
His priceless reply:
"Actually, yes, it is. Bronze Age goat herders is slang and may be a bit dubious, but I and everybody else knows what I mean by it, so it's doing its job, which is to communicate meaning, meaning that maybe it ain't really broke, so why fix it? Donkey hucksters has the advantage of strict cultural and historical accuracy, but you haven't said whether it passes muster with you, or if not why not. In any case, nobody seems to have a problem with any of this stuff but you; why? Well, you haven't really said, in any way that makes sense to me, despite my having read your blog entries. Maybe you were raised in a cave by wolves and don't really understand how the rest of us process these things? I should think some Christians might have a problem with it, but not because of its weakness re historical accuracy. In other words, the only person in the world who has an issue with this would appear to be you, so yes indeed, it is entirely upon you to think up something else to call them."
I haven't looked into the phrase "donkey hucksters" yet, so I don't know whether it has wide currency outside of places like jesusneverexisted.com and Stormfront. I'll look into it and get back to you. To you. Not to this other guy. As far as he's concerned, I give up. I can only assume that his blind spot here comes from some deep-seated childhood trauma. I hope he gets the help he needs someday. I, unfortunately, am not a therapist.
PS, 11:49 AM: I just googled "donkey hucksters" and got 3 hits, one to this post, one in fact to Stormfront, the third to a PDF of a newspaper page from 1961.
I've been going back and forth with a person who's not hopelessly stupid in all things, but stubbornly, proudly sticks to the "Bronze-Age goat herders" meme. Coming toward the end of my rope with him on the subject, I sarcastically remarked: "I see: you can't think of anything else at all to call them [the authors of the Bible] besides 'Bronze-Age goat herders' and 'donkey hucksters.' And that's my fault."
His priceless reply:
"Actually, yes, it is. Bronze Age goat herders is slang and may be a bit dubious, but I and everybody else knows what I mean by it, so it's doing its job, which is to communicate meaning, meaning that maybe it ain't really broke, so why fix it? Donkey hucksters has the advantage of strict cultural and historical accuracy, but you haven't said whether it passes muster with you, or if not why not. In any case, nobody seems to have a problem with any of this stuff but you; why? Well, you haven't really said, in any way that makes sense to me, despite my having read your blog entries. Maybe you were raised in a cave by wolves and don't really understand how the rest of us process these things? I should think some Christians might have a problem with it, but not because of its weakness re historical accuracy. In other words, the only person in the world who has an issue with this would appear to be you, so yes indeed, it is entirely upon you to think up something else to call them."
I haven't looked into the phrase "donkey hucksters" yet, so I don't know whether it has wide currency outside of places like jesusneverexisted.com and Stormfront. I'll look into it and get back to you. To you. Not to this other guy. As far as he's concerned, I give up. I can only assume that his blind spot here comes from some deep-seated childhood trauma. I hope he gets the help he needs someday. I, unfortunately, am not a therapist.
PS, 11:49 AM: I just googled "donkey hucksters" and got 3 hits, one to this post, one in fact to Stormfront, the third to a PDF of a newspaper page from 1961.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
It's Interesting That The Phrase "Bronze-Age Goat Herders" Was Coined By A Highly-Respected Scientist
That phrase, which has become a hugely-popular meme, was coined to describe the authors of the Bible by Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most highly-respected biologists, perhaps the single most highly-respected biologist in the world. (Or perhaps he still was before he started devoting more time to religion than to biology.) It's interesting because when the subject is biology, Dawkins, like any competent scientist, is at great pains to be as accurate as possible. For example, he has devoted more than a little energy to combating the popular meme that "humans are descended from apes." He points out that humans and apes share common ancestors, and that the most recent of those shared ancestors, several million years ago, were neither humans nor apes, but rather species which have a great deal in common with both. The inaccurate "humans are descended from apes" meme leads to all sorts of other inaccurate notions, such as that some creatures evolve to a certain state and then stop evolving. The false conception here would be that, millions of years ago, apes existed, and stopped evolving, except for those apes who were our ancestors, who continued to evolve. But the truth is that those primates millions of years ago had some descendants who evolved into apes while, at the same time, other of their descendants were evolving into humans, and also that apes, humans and other species are continuing to evolve. The "humans are descended from apes" meme and others like it tend to distract from the fact that evolution is continuing.
The difference between the popular meme: "humans are descended from apes," and the truth, that humans and apes descended from common ancestors and are continuing to evolve, may seem small to someone who knows very little about biology. The more one knows, however, the bigger the mistake looms which is contained within the popular meme. The more one cares about the study of biology, the more interested one is in sharing the excitement of that study with the broadest possible audience, the more intolerable such popular memes will become, and the more urgent it will be to remove such misunderstandings from the collective consciousness.
The term "science" is defined differently in English than the closest corresponding term in some other languages, and in English, some people define "science" much more narrowly than others. In German, history is a "Wissenschaft" as much as biology is. Perhaps such matters of linguistics sometimes lead English-speaking scientists (in the more narrowly-defined sense) to regard other academic disciplines such as history with an undue lack of respect.
Perhaps some biologists don't realize that strict accuracy is every bit as crucial to the competent study of history as it is to biology or physics. The Bible wasn't written by Bronze-Age goat herders, it was written by urban people in the Iron Age, and even among rural ancient Israelites, many more sheep were raised than goats. To believe that the bible was written by Bronze-Age goat herders requires a very profound ignorance of the dates of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Middle East, of the dates of the earliest-known writing in Hebrew, of the distribution of the rates of literacy among urban and rural ancient Israelites, and of the types of animals domesticated and raised by those ancient Israelites. It's actually harder to imagine any 4-word phrase which could betray a more complete ignorance of the history of ancient Israel than referring to the authors of the Bible as "Bronze-Age goat herders."
It's odd, it's just so damned odd that so many of the people leading the way in the spread of this spectacularly-inaccurate "Bronze-Age goat herders" meme are scientists, scientists who constantly -- and accurately -- are pointing out that science advances by constantly correcting itself and changing its views in the light of new information, and that this gives science a huge advantage over religion, which clings to revealed "truths." Very damned odd indeed, because of their own approach to a certain segment of ancient history, where it seems they're deaf to some information which would cause them, for instance, to modify their outlook and refer to the authors of Genesis as "Iron-Age temple scribes." Instead, regarding this area of history, they're just as deaf as any fundamentalist Christian is to information about evolution -- and/or they simply don't care about being accurate. It's just downright odd. And as the study of history, it sucks. But maybe we don't even need to call it the study of history. Maybe it's much more accurate to describe it as a stubborn resistance to studying history.
Oh well, the anger and disgust these people arouse in me with their "Bronze-Age goat herders" meme gives me lots of energy and incentive to write. Thanks, you schmucks!
PS, 31. January 2015: I'm sure I've mentioned it somewhere on this blog already, but since writing this post I've found out that the term "meme" was invented, ironically, by Richard Dawkins.
The difference between the popular meme: "humans are descended from apes," and the truth, that humans and apes descended from common ancestors and are continuing to evolve, may seem small to someone who knows very little about biology. The more one knows, however, the bigger the mistake looms which is contained within the popular meme. The more one cares about the study of biology, the more interested one is in sharing the excitement of that study with the broadest possible audience, the more intolerable such popular memes will become, and the more urgent it will be to remove such misunderstandings from the collective consciousness.
The term "science" is defined differently in English than the closest corresponding term in some other languages, and in English, some people define "science" much more narrowly than others. In German, history is a "Wissenschaft" as much as biology is. Perhaps such matters of linguistics sometimes lead English-speaking scientists (in the more narrowly-defined sense) to regard other academic disciplines such as history with an undue lack of respect.
Perhaps some biologists don't realize that strict accuracy is every bit as crucial to the competent study of history as it is to biology or physics. The Bible wasn't written by Bronze-Age goat herders, it was written by urban people in the Iron Age, and even among rural ancient Israelites, many more sheep were raised than goats. To believe that the bible was written by Bronze-Age goat herders requires a very profound ignorance of the dates of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Middle East, of the dates of the earliest-known writing in Hebrew, of the distribution of the rates of literacy among urban and rural ancient Israelites, and of the types of animals domesticated and raised by those ancient Israelites. It's actually harder to imagine any 4-word phrase which could betray a more complete ignorance of the history of ancient Israel than referring to the authors of the Bible as "Bronze-Age goat herders."
It's odd, it's just so damned odd that so many of the people leading the way in the spread of this spectacularly-inaccurate "Bronze-Age goat herders" meme are scientists, scientists who constantly -- and accurately -- are pointing out that science advances by constantly correcting itself and changing its views in the light of new information, and that this gives science a huge advantage over religion, which clings to revealed "truths." Very damned odd indeed, because of their own approach to a certain segment of ancient history, where it seems they're deaf to some information which would cause them, for instance, to modify their outlook and refer to the authors of Genesis as "Iron-Age temple scribes." Instead, regarding this area of history, they're just as deaf as any fundamentalist Christian is to information about evolution -- and/or they simply don't care about being accurate. It's just downright odd. And as the study of history, it sucks. But maybe we don't even need to call it the study of history. Maybe it's much more accurate to describe it as a stubborn resistance to studying history.
Oh well, the anger and disgust these people arouse in me with their "Bronze-Age goat herders" meme gives me lots of energy and incentive to write. Thanks, you schmucks!
PS, 31. January 2015: I'm sure I've mentioned it somewhere on this blog already, but since writing this post I've found out that the term "meme" was invented, ironically, by Richard Dawkins.
To Someone Who Claims To See My Point About Saying "Bronze-Age Goat Herders," But To See No Satisfactory Alternative To The Phrase
No, you don't see my point at all, which is about how insisting on reciting Dawkins' Holy Scripture and repeating "Bronze Age goat herders," word for word, time after time after time, makes YOU sound: namely, like someone who either hasn't heard that the oldest parts of the Old Testament were written by Iron Age city dwellers or doesn't care about describing things accurately, but still somehow wants to come across as someone with scathing critiques to offer. Historians who are unconcerned with describing things accurately? Outside of the Bizarro-World of places like the History Channel (about your speed, perhaps) such people generally aren't called historians. People who intentionally are inaccurate for rhetorical effect? They're generally called liars. That's certainly what I call them. If I belonged to a group who called some 20th-century Americans who weren't farmers "Iron Age soybean farmers" and insisted that they had "stolen science from the Renaissance" and then stood there high-fiving each other with smug looks on our faces like we thought we'd really ripped them a new one, it wouldn't make anyone look bad except us. We wouldn't be impressing anybody except each other. And we'd probably vanish from history fairly promptly, apart from historians of the absurd.
If you think it's essential to offer negative criticism of someone, and accurate description of them doesn't do the trick, doesn't cast them in a sufficiently negative light, and you see yourself compelled to be inaccurate in order to be "effective," something is drastically, and very obviously, wrong with your situation. It may be time to pause and consider whether you have your head way, way up your ass. Perhaps people like Ehrman are 100% correct to compare people like you to climate-change deniers and Holocaust deniers, if you feel you're on a mission too important for you to be bothered with things like the truth.
If you think it's essential to offer negative criticism of someone, and accurate description of them doesn't do the trick, doesn't cast them in a sufficiently negative light, and you see yourself compelled to be inaccurate in order to be "effective," something is drastically, and very obviously, wrong with your situation. It may be time to pause and consider whether you have your head way, way up your ass. Perhaps people like Ehrman are 100% correct to compare people like you to climate-change deniers and Holocaust deniers, if you feel you're on a mission too important for you to be bothered with things like the truth.
Monday, October 28, 2013
It's Time To Drop The Phrase "Bronze-Age Goat Herders" Like A Hot Rock
In case you've been lucky enough not to have encountered it yet: "Bronze-Age goat herders" is a doubly unfortunate meme used to describe the authors of the Old Testament. The phrase was coined by Richard Dawkins. It's unfortunate one time because it's completely inaccurate, and a second time because it's become wildly popular, passed along by countless people who've never read Dawkins, neither his brilliant work on biology nor his less-brilliant, wildly-popular books on religion, nor the Bible.
We possess some Bronze-Age writing in Sumerian and some other languages written in cuneiform, and also in Egyptian, but we have not yet encountered one little bit of Bronze-Age writing in Hebrew. The very oldest examples of Hebrew of which we know originate well after the spread of the Iron Age throughout the Middle East. Their possible connections to Bronze-Age writing, or more probably Bronze-Age oral storytelling, are matters of speculation. They were written by city dwellers, not by people who herded animals. And as far as that goes, the rural Israelites who did herd animals herded many more sheep than goats.
If you want to make it crystal-clear that your intention is not to have a sensible conversation about the Old Testament and the people who made it, but just to express contempt for people and things about which you don't have a clue -- then by all means, keep on referring to the Old Testament as the work of "Bronze-Age goat herders." But just know: I'm done talking to you about it. I've had enough, I've had it up to way, way past here.
We possess some Bronze-Age writing in Sumerian and some other languages written in cuneiform, and also in Egyptian, but we have not yet encountered one little bit of Bronze-Age writing in Hebrew. The very oldest examples of Hebrew of which we know originate well after the spread of the Iron Age throughout the Middle East. Their possible connections to Bronze-Age writing, or more probably Bronze-Age oral storytelling, are matters of speculation. They were written by city dwellers, not by people who herded animals. And as far as that goes, the rural Israelites who did herd animals herded many more sheep than goats.
If you want to make it crystal-clear that your intention is not to have a sensible conversation about the Old Testament and the people who made it, but just to express contempt for people and things about which you don't have a clue -- then by all means, keep on referring to the Old Testament as the work of "Bronze-Age goat herders." But just know: I'm done talking to you about it. I've had enough, I've had it up to way, way past here.
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