International Brigades

I had sort of guessed that this "war on Christmas" business was one of those only in America things, but according to Polly Toynbee you've got the same BS over in the UK, where the Rev Jules Gomes explains that:

Here is the good chaplain's Christmas message: "More Christians have been martyred for their faith in the last century than in any other period of church history. Yesterday's Herod is today's Richard Dawkins and Polly Toynbee, seeking the total extermination of all forms of Christianity. The great irony is that the greatest opposition to Christ comes from so-called broad-minded people who seek to ban Christmas so that people of other faiths are not offended."

As I've said, I'm not a huge fan of Dawkins' work in this field but the difference between writing mean books and killing people is pretty clear. And, of course, nobody's seeking to ban Christmas! It's weird how so many people want to use this holiday to work themselves and their constituents into fits of anger over nothing. Hardly seems to be in keeping with the spirit of the event.

Photo by Flickr user laffy4k used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Well, I do personally do think there is really something of a "War on Christmas," but it's certainly not absolute.

For example, each year the biggest music radio station in the SF Bay Area switches to a 100% Christmas music program for the Holidays...and does so earlier and earlier and earlier.

This year, they went "all Christmas" two weeks *before* Thanksgiving, and at this stage I'm pretty much ready to pay a visit to my local "War Against Christmas" enlistment office.

Given the secular-liberal complexion of the region, maybe it's all actually part of a deliberate anti-Christmas plot...

Posted by RKU | December 23, 2007 10:41 AM

Matt, you couldn't be more off-base about Dawkins. He is committed to rationalism and free thought. To say he is "mean" is like saying scientists are "mean" for teaching evolution and not creationism. You may think you are being a big, inclusive liberal by attacking those who are so mean as to point out facts, but you are just letting the fringiest of the nutcases dictate the debate.

Posted by Gore/Edwards 08 | December 23, 2007 10:50 AM

the good thing is that the UK is FAR more secular than we are, and that this nonsense will be treated as nonsense in short order.

(actually, it's fascinating to me to look at how the UK views christianity via its popular culture...I really love the BBC's "QI" show, and on the occasions it comes up, it's almost dismissed as being a thing of the past...just another quaint thing we used to do.)

Posted by Anna Granfors | December 23, 2007 10:51 AM

the good thing is that the UK is FAR more secular than we are, and that this nonsense will be treated as nonsense in short order.

(actually, it's fascinating to me to look at how the UK views christianity via its popular culture...I really love the BBC's "QI" show, and on the occasions it comes up, it's almost dismissed as being a thing of the past...just another quaint thing we used to do.)

Posted by Anna Granfors | December 23, 2007 10:51 AM

"We actually misnamed the War on Christmas. It ought to be the Struggle Against Ideological Extremists Who Do Not Believe in Yuletide Greetings Who Happen to Use Secularism as a Weapon To Try To Remove The Christmas Spirit From The Free World."

Posted by afferent input | December 23, 2007 10:57 AM

I don't know that "meanness" is the best indictment of Dawkins' discussions of religion. I am an atheist and apologize to no one for being one, but Dawkins' familiarity with the conceptual and practical diversity within Christianity is a little weak. In some ways, I think he takes pissant potshots when he should be throwing uppercuts and haymakers, which he cannot throw without greater familiarity with his subject matter. Hitchens is a little better in this regard, though he too needs a better grounding in what he is attacking.

Posted by Bruce | December 23, 2007 10:57 AM

In all these terrible evil stores where people say "Happy Holidays" you can still hear "Oh Holy Night" and "Hark the Herald Angel Sings" piped through the loudspeakers on a permanent loop.

If these evil business owners really wanted to erase Christmas I doubt they'd be slipping all this subliminal Christian music into our heads.

Posted by Nathan | December 23, 2007 11:01 AM

Yeah, what do you have against Dawkins? Why do you feel compelled to issue the disclaimer? Dawkins doesn't want to ban anything, he just wants to persuade people by means of reason. Religious people get offended when atheists dare to point out the absurdity of religious belief, but they think it's perfectly okay to for them to proselytize.

I don't know if you're religious or not, but show some courage -- you don't have to distance yourself from Richard Dawkins in order to decry the idiocy of the "Reverend" Gomes (who I do not revere).

Posted by cervantes | December 23, 2007 11:05 AM

And consider Luke 6:22: "Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man." Shouldn't the War on Christmas be a good thing for Christians? ( If such a war actually existed, that is.)

Worldly esteem is a contrary indicator for the Jesus of the Gospels, so it is odd that some of his followers dream of bullying people into acknowledging their holidays.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | December 23, 2007 11:05 AM

Considering how ridiculous and far away from it's original message Christmas has become these days, maybe there should be a war. . . heh. In my opinion, it's the insecurity of belief that drives people to think Christmas is being assaulted. When really, the only ones assaulting Christmas are not the non-Christians, but the Christians that have forgotten it's meaning.

Posted by jack fate | December 23, 2007 11:08 AM

I think people are getting increasingly disgusted with the emptiness and prolong period of formulaic, desperate purchases throughout this sad holiday of obligatory stuff buying. It isn't the Christmas we used to know. The "War on Christmas" people smell this and it triggers an exaggerated lashing out. I think they're also pretty disgusted by the whole affair gone wrong, so you get a kind of repression-projection thing going on...

Posted by Ty Lookwell | December 23, 2007 11:09 AM

"he just wants to persuade people by means of reason."

My problem with Dawkins is that his logic is a little weak. Both he and Hitchens make the argument that because horrible things are done in the name of religion we can conclude that religion is bad. One assumes that Dawkins would take exception to that same "logic" being applied to evolutionary biology. Because evolution was used to rationalize segregation we can conclude that biologists are...?

Rationalists who don't understand basic logic are interesting...

Posted by justaguy | December 23, 2007 11:15 AM

The "I don't like Dawkins either, but..." construct is the classic spineless Democratic response to the assault on reason by the right wing.

Posted by puppethead | December 23, 2007 11:15 AM

Agreed. The real War against Christmas arises from how boring - not to speak of how commercial - it has become. Christmas was drown in its own tedium.

Posted by montanaheadcold | December 23, 2007 11:17 AM

My favorite of all of the "War on Christmas" bullshit was when someone put quotes side-by-side from Bill O'Reilly and an excerpt from Henry Ford's "On the International Zionist Conspiracy" from c. 1920 and noted how much they said the same thing about how Christmas seemed to be driven away by the "secularists," "the Left," etc. I recently caught someone who two years ago was big on the whole anti-"Happy Holidays" train signing e-mails with that. I wonder of the wingers are starting to realize they seemed a little silly.

Posted by Reality Man | December 23, 2007 11:21 AM

I'm always amazed that Christians, having made the decision to usurp pagan holidays, are so outraged that the old practices refuse to die. They are the ones that chose to make war on ancient holidays and in typical hypocritical fashion they accuse the victims of being the aggressors.

Posted by GPS | December 23, 2007 11:24 AM

justaguy -- have you read God Delusion? Dawkins points out what the bible actually says, and then he constructs a logical, rational argument for whether the evidence supports the existence of a god. He doesn't even say there isn't a god! He says the evidence doesn't support it (his 1-7 scale).

Look -- the fundamentalists in this country do real harm, cause real suffering -- stem cells, persecution of gays, damage to the environment, etc. And because those folk consider Dawkins "mean," MY and the spineless others have to preface everything with agreement that Dawkins is mean?

Posted by Gore/Edwards 08 | December 23, 2007 11:24 AM

I've never known any other Christmas. There were laments about the commercialization of Christmas in Miracle on 34th Street (1947).

Oh, and "Happy Holidays" has been a staple of department stores for a long time now; it's just recently that Fox News decided to cynically trump up a controversy. Ignore it.

In addition to the God Delusion, I recommend Dawkins's Unweaving the Rainbow, where he tells how scientific discovery adds to our sense of wonder, and the belief that everything can be explained by some mysterious, supernatural being is a cramped way of looking at the world.

Posted by Davis | December 23, 2007 11:30 AM

justaguy, way to be a douchebag.

They don't attack the large religions because they "do bad things" (nice strawman you got there), but because what these religions teach just isn't true.

Dawkins argues that what they teach about our origin in the cosmos isn't true; Hitchens argues that the practical effects of teaching their dogmas to people causes a retardation in human progress; and Harris argues that religion is just something we have left over from our evolution.

Personally, I ditched my imaginary friend at the age of 6.

Posted by JFD | December 23, 2007 11:30 AM

Nope, I haven't read Dawkins' book, I'm basing my understanding of it from reading reviews. My understanding is that he criticizes religion for being used to support slavery, homophobia, and for the crusades, etc. It struck me as an absurd argument for an evolutionary biologist to make - biology has been used to rationalize genocide. I see that as reflecting poorly on Nazis, not biologists in general.

Using science to refute religious claims is problematic. Science only examines naturalistic phenomena. Because of that, by definition it cannot be used to refute the supernatural. I don't believe in intelligent design, but I don't see how it can be scientifically refuted. That's because it isn't science.

Sure, science can refute specific claims made by Biblical literalists that are observable - the Earth was not made in 7 days, species are not fixed, etc. But refuting the existence of God is beyond the realm of the scientific in a way that should be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of the philosophy of science.

Posted by justaguy | December 23, 2007 11:59 AM

Dawkins points out what the bible actually says, and then he constructs a logical, rational argument for whether the evidence supports the existence of a god.

What does the bible actually say? What the bible says about God has been a matter of debate for thousands of years. Anyone who's taken the most rudimentary class on literature or religion knows that meaning overflows from texts, that the notion that there is one reading a book - let alone a collection of books placed together in different ways by different people over a thousand years - is completely ludicrous. Further, the notion that a religion - the combined practices and dispositions of millions of poeple in varying places - is in any way reducible to a reading of a book is just as bad sociologically as his reading of the Bible is literarily or theologically.

Dawkins begins with a bad interpretive strategy, and he ends up with a bad interpretation.

What's ironic is that Dawkins uses almost the exact same hermeneutical strategy as the most conservative fundamentalists - he believes that he can isolate one "clear meaning" through the massive volume of the texts. They both think that the text is the religion, to the exclusion of real lived practice. They're both equally wrong, and equally amateurish in their reading strategies.

What Dawkins proposes to do with his reading - shout that he's smarter than other people - is far less destructive to human flourishing than the work of the religious right - who seek to enforce a violent normalizing regime on sexual minorities while allying with imperialists and capitalists to support existing hierarchies.

So they're not the same. But they read texts, religious texts in the same terrible way, and they reduce religion to the reading of texts in the same sociologically illiterate way.

Posted by DivGuy | December 23, 2007 12:01 PM

Sure, science can refute specific claims made by Biblical literalists that are observable - the Earth was not made in 7 days, species are not fixed, etc. But refuting the existence of God is beyond the realm of the scientific in a way that should be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of the philosophy of science.

True, but that doesn't mean people can't point out the unlikeliness of God as a means of discrediting religion. Remember, all those things you say science can now refute, it couldn't even 150 years ago. At this point the only evidence of God is that someone wrote it down in a book ~2000 years ago (for christians at least). It's important to keep this fact in focus to prevent self-proclaimed religious leaders from claiming extra legitimacy when discussing morality or public policy.

Posted by Col Bat Guano | December 23, 2007 12:11 PM

Re Dawkiins

Having read Prof. Dawkins' book and listened to a number of interviews with him and lectures by him, it is obvious that most of the commentors on this thread don't know what they are talking about. Prof. Dawkins position on religion and the existence of god is actually quite simple.

1. Prof. Dawkins claims that the existence of god is a scientific question. He sees no scientific evidence for the existence of god. Therefore, his tentative conclusion is that god does not exist, always pending, of course the possibility that scientific evidence of such existence may emerge in the future. This is a perfectly scientific approach to any hypothesis. In fairness, he considers the possibility of such evidence emerging to be quite remote.

2. Prof. Dawkins claims that the various religious texts (e.g. the Hebrew and Christian bibles) make scientific claims that have been falsified. For instance, the notion that Joshua caused the Sun to stand still in the sky violates a number of scientific theories. In particular, the Sun does not go around the earth as implied by the notion that the Sun stood still and the alternative position that the earth stopped rotating and revolving around the Sun violates all the known laws of physics.

Posted by SLC | December 23, 2007 12:23 PM

Nope, I haven't read Dawkins' book, I'm basing my understanding of it from reading reviews. My understanding is that he criticizes religion for being used to support slavery, homophobia, and for the crusades, etc. It struck me as an absurd argument for an evolutionary biologist to make - biology has been used to rationalize genocide.

OK, I haven't read Dawkins either, but to me the specific claim that is being refuted when a non-believer brings up slavery, inquisitions, etc., is that religion is a moral force. Many if not most of the hard-core Christians argue that religion is the only route to morality. Biologists don't claim that their studies lead to moral behavior. Science is amoral. It certainly doesn't insist that nobody can be moral without believing in evolution.

Posted by Lolly | December 23, 2007 12:26 PM

I'll admit that I've never read Dawkins or Hitchens books, but I definitely get the impression that they're both just trying to be dicks about all this. Because that's who their audience is. They've decided to tap into a market segment of people who dislike religion, and that's fine, I guess. But I've seen nothing in them to suggest that this is simply unemotional logic guiding their arguments. Dawkins and Hitchens are both trying to stir up controversy, and are not trying to open a discussion or win converts.

Take for example what Gore/Edwards 08 just wrote about Dawkins "He says the evidence doesn't support it". Evidence? What does faith have to do with evidence? To demand evidence of a god who insists upon faith is like a scientist demanding to hear more myths about the sun. And for as much as G/E 08 suggests that Fundies do "real harm," the Fundies say the same thing about us. And then we just get into the exact pissing match they want us to be in.

And who knows, it's possible there really IS a god. It's possible the bible is somehow 100% correct, or even 35% correct. I don't know and I don't care. That's why I'm agnostic. I think people should just live their lives the way they think is best, and that's exactly what people do anyway. They may create external justifications to explain what they're doing, but it still comes down to it being their decision. If someone wants to stick their nose into your bedroom or oppose stem-cell research, they'd be doing that even if they were atheist.

And I see no reason to be rude or inflammatory about that, even if they're religious. If you don't like someone's behavior, blame the behavior. But leave their faith out of it. Particularly as most of them have very little faith to begin with (as evidenced by their fear of death) and are clearly not following their bible's teachings. So why bother attacking the religion, when they're not really following it anyway?

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | December 23, 2007 12:28 PM

Please, the bible makes plenty of factual claims. People took these as fact until science proved otherwise. That doesn't even count the blatant homophobia and misogyny.

The idea that it’s really an incredibly complex and subtle book that all these dumb atheists just aren’t smart enough to figure out is absurd. It’s a way to hide from criticism by providing cover to constantly shift their views and allow one to feel that their own beliefs are more profound than they really are.

Posted by DJ | December 23, 2007 12:28 PM

"True, but that doesn't mean people can't point out the unlikeliness of God as a means of discrediting religion."
Yes, that is true. But Dawkin's argument that a materialist understanding of where the world comes from is more satisfying to him than a religious one is not a scientific claim, it is a claim about science.

"Remember, all those things you say science can now refute, it couldn't even 150 years ago."

Sure, but those are problems of data collections and analysis. Science closes itself off from the examination of non-naturalistic causes and phenomena. So, unless scientists decide to overhaul their epistemology that will never change.

Propositions can either be true (supported by the weight of evidence) false (not supported by the weight of evidence) indeterminate (lacking enough evidence to evaluate them) or meaningless (outside the realm which science considers). The fixity of species went from being indeterminate to being false. I don't see how the existence of god could make a similar journey.

Posted by justaguy | December 23, 2007 12:29 PM

You know who's behind this? The jehovah Witnesses. They think that Christmas is a pagan festival shoehorned into the story of Jesus. They also refuse to serve in the military, refuse to salute the flag, and won't even say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sure, Jews and atheists are a problem in this country. But they're just screens. Behind them is the secret JW Mafia.

Posted by john Emerson | December 23, 2007 12:31 PM

A couple of things - firstly, on the tangential topic of Dawkins, even a stray negative remark about whom brings out the atheist hordes, I fully endorse DivGuy. Also, based on SLC's comments, what seems absurd about Dawkins's argument is the basic premise that the question of the existence of God is a scientific question, since it's a straw man. There are certainly a fair number of fundies who think this, but the more sophisticated sort of religious people accept that God's existence cannot be determined by science. If you're going to "prove" atheism, it's surely necessary to prove that the smartest theists are wrong, not that the stupidest ones are. This goes even more strongly for the "disproving miracles in the Bible" stuff - all that does is prove that Biblical inerrantists are wrong, not that there is no God.

On the original issue of the war on Christmas, the whole thing is ridiculous. Christmas was a pagan festival, and well into the modern period it bore only the most distant hints of Christianity. For a long time conservative protestants didn't celebrate Christmas, on the rather reasonable grounds that there is absolutely nothing in the Bible to suggest when Jesus was born, or that it should be a holiday. The original "war on Christmas" was one waged by the spiritual ancestors of all these current whiners against the normal people who celebrated the old Saturnalia.

Posted by John | December 23, 2007 12:39 PM

Please, the bible makes plenty of factual claims. People took these as fact until science proved otherwise.

That is untrue.

In the third century, Origen identified a long list of passages in the bible which were either mutually contradictory or impossible. He argued that this proved that the bible was not meant to be read literally, but figuratively, and exegetes needed to learn the complex hermeneutical skills to determine the best ways of reading complex passages.

The idea that all Christians were fundamentalists until science came is utterly incorrect.

Once again, ironically, it's the same claim the fundamentalists make, that their way of reading is not historically peculiar. Evangelicalism and fundamentalism grew out of particular anti-modern movements in the 19th and 20th centuries, and developed very new modes of reading based on scientific orthodoxies. It wasn't until the last century or two that people started saying that all claims in the bible were factual and testable in the way you imply.

Posted by DivGuy | December 23, 2007 12:40 PM

What's ironic is that Dawkins uses almost the exact same hermeneutical strategy as the most conservative fundamentalists - he believes that he can isolate one "clear meaning" through the massive volume of the texts. They both think that the text is the religion, to the exclusion of real lived practice. They're both equally wrong, and equally amateurish in their reading strategies.

Hear, hear. I HAVE read Dawkins (and Hitchens, and Harris) and find a great deal to criticize in their approaches. In my view, they all want to argue against all theistic religion, and they want to do so by using examples from Christianism (to borrow Andrew Sullivan's term) to support their views. As far as they're concerned, all theistic religion is the same, so if they knock the legs out from under Christianity, they've won. The trouble is that equating Christianity with Christianist fundamentalism is intellectually sloppy; Hitchens even goes so far as to say (in another piece) that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence," which is hardly rational. It's lazy to say that fundamentalist Christians are the only ones who matter to the discussion, and we've proven them wrong, so the discussion is over.

"Mean" isn't the best word to us to describe Dawkins' approach, but it was very clear to me from reading his book that he has his own biases...he is a proponent of scientism who doesn't believe that anything can exist that isn't explicable through rational processes. Plenty of what's wrong with the world can be blamed on the way particular religions have been practiced, but that falls short of any sort of demonstration that religion itself, per se, is inherently bad or wrong.

These arguments assume that reason...or perhaps scientism...must be the highest human value; it sounds vaguely religious to me either way.

Posted by Rufus | December 23, 2007 12:41 PM

Justaguy, do you have evidence for the existence of this supernatural realm you seem to take as a given? This is what's often infuriating when talking with believers. A positive assertion isn't legitimate just because there's no evidence against it; there has to be some evidence for it. Otherwise what's stopping you from believing in the magical gas fairy who lives on Jupiter (that I just made up)?

Posted by Cain | December 23, 2007 12:48 PM

Once again, a bunch of fools who haven't even read Dawkins' book feel empowered to toss off on he subject of his arguments on the basis of negative reviews of his book.

Well, duh, some dipshit Marxist like Terry Eagleton or columnist from First Things ain't exactly going to paint an accurate picture for you....

Posted by soma | December 23, 2007 12:53 PM

Re: I'm always amazed that Christians, having made the decision to usurp pagan holidays, are so outraged that the old practices refuse to die.

What ancient practices? I'm not aware of any ancient pagan feast that featured frantic, mindless consumerism and runaway greed and ostentation. No, we moderns can be credited with that invention. The old pagans just liked a good party.

Re: Dawkins points out what the bible actually says, and then he constructs a logical, rational argument for whether the evidence supports the existence of a god.

One cannot refute fundamentalism by proving that the Bible cannot be literally true (and sadly that needs to be done) but not all Christianity argues for a literal understanding of scripture. Historically, the Christian churches generally did not.

Re: Hitchens argues that the practical effects of teaching their dogmas to people causes a retardation in human progress

Which explains why European civilization founded modern science and pretty much conquered the world. Yep, religion retards progress all rioght!

Re: True, but that doesn't mean people can't point out the unlikeliness of God as a means of discrediting religion.

God is unlikely only if you start out from a set of definitions and axioms that make God unlikely. And that yields circular logic. And in any event our whole universe is astonishingly unlikely unless there's something we don't know about the fundamental constants and forces of nature. And yet, we are nonetheless here.

Re: True, but that doesn't mean people can't point out the unlikeliness of God as a means of discrediting religion.

Hardly. People also claim direct empircal experience of God. It's not just a matter of what someone wrote in a book a long time ago.

Re: Please, the bible makes plenty of factual claims. People took these as fact until science proved otherwise.

Um, no. Until the rise of Protestant Fundamentalism, mainly in the USA in the late 19th century, total scriptural literalism was unknown.

Re: For a long time conservative protestants didn't celebrate Christmas, on the rather reasonable grounds that there is absolutely nothing in the Bible to suggest when Jesus was born, or that it should be a holiday.

It's rather more the case that those Christmas-less Churches simply didn't like people celebrating and being merry. As the old cliche says, a Puritan is someone desperately afraid that someone, somewhere is having fun. Medieval Christianity was very sensual and included a certain amount of church-approved partying.After all, if Jesus is the Savior of the World then his birth and Resurrection should be occasions of unbounded joy. The Calvinists took a very dim view of that, deciding that since we are sinful we have no business being glad about anything. Besides, having to suspend normal business every so often for a big old public party was costing the mnerchant classes a lot of money.

Posted by JonF | December 23, 2007 12:55 PM

This thread has devolved into so many straymen arguments - the best argument against the traditional religions is that the shit just isn't true.

There are social, economic, political factors for explaining the dogmas and the beliefs of every religion. Every religions claims about our origins in the cosmos can be debunked. And every religions belief system can be shown to be a relic of a past that should not be clinged on to.

Let's talk about Jesus, or Mohammed, or Buddha, or King David or whatever. You can tear apart the stories behind these figures easily - because the religions that sprout from them are utter rubbish.

Posted by JFD | December 23, 2007 12:55 PM

In the third century, Origen identified a long list of passages in the bible which were either mutually contradictory or impossible.

Mmm hmmn, I can follow this ....

He argued that this proved that the bible was not meant to be read literally, but figuratively, and exegetes needed to learn the complex hermeneutical skills to determine the best ways of reading complex passages.

Lost you here.

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 12:56 PM

"Justaguy, do you have evidence for the existence of this supernatural realm you seem to take as a given?"

I never said that I believe in the supernatural, I said that science doesn't examine supernatural causation or phenomena. There are two consequences to that.

1. There can be no scientific evidence for the supernatural.
2. There can be no scientific refutation of the supernatural.

I don't know what you're inferring my religious beliefs from - I'm criticizing Dawkins because he doesn't seem to understand science.

Posted by justaguy | December 23, 2007 12:57 PM

People also claim direct empircal experience of God.

People claim lots of things. People claim to have seen Elvis resurrected too.

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 1:00 PM

As far as they're concerned, all theistic religion is the same, so if they knock the legs out from under Christianity, they've won.

Really? So they're helping to perpetuate the myth that atheists are just anti-Christian, rather than non-religious? Great. Of course, part of the trouble with this whole discussion is that there are as many specific Christian beliefs as there are Christians, and no two are exactly alike. In fact, Christianity's ability to adapt is one of the reasons it's lasted as long as it has. It has something for everyone.

On a side note, I've really started to think that perhaps we label atheism a religion. Absence of religion is one thing, but when people take an active stance that no gods exist, they've taken that leap into the world of faith. For me, the only correct position is agnosticism: IE, I don't know and don't care.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | December 23, 2007 1:01 PM

"Re: Hitchens argues that the practical effects of teaching their dogmas to people causes a retardation in human progress

Which explains why European civilization founded modern science and pretty much conquered the world. Yep, religion retards progress all rioght!"

1.) The rest of the world was being held back by their own religions - contrary to your world view, Jesus the Semenless Carpenter was not the only guy on the block in ancient times.

2.) Most scientific progress WAS retarded during the time of church hegmony in Europe - it was only after this declined, and the "protestant reformation" occured (which was a great help in shutting off religion into the private sphere) that the modern age of science begun.

3.) Almost all famous scientists in world history generally were non-believers - because if you know how the world works, there's no need to conform to the beliefs that basically originate with tribal jewish scavengers.

Posted by JFD | December 23, 2007 1:01 PM

I said that science doesn't examine supernatural causation or phenomena.

Why not?

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 1:02 PM

when people take an active stance that no pink lesbian unicorns exist, they've taken that leap into the world of faith

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 1:05 PM

"You know who's behind this? The jehovah Witnesses. They think that Christmas is a pagan festival shoehorned into the story of Jesus. They also refuse to serve in the military, refuse to salute the flag, and won't even say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sure, Jews and atheists are a problem in this country. But they're just screens. Behind them is the secret JW Mafia."

Hee. I just got back from going to church with my parents (which was part of my Christmas present to them -- I only go to church on Christmas, Mother's Day and Father's Day). In the middle of a sermon about the birth of Baby J, the Southern Baptist preacher, appropo of absolutely nothing, inserted a snide comment about "cults" like the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses. Quite jarring and a reminder of why I haven't considered myself a Christian in many years.

Posted by atalex | December 23, 2007 1:06 PM

Last year, I listened to a CBC podcast with Dawkins. His ideas are not necessarily harmless - he called religious instruction for children child abuse. Now, what does the State do with children who are abused? Child Services removes them from the home.

Dawkins is a fanatic - he's every bit as dangerous in his fanaticism as the religious fanatics he rails against.

Posted by James Robertson | December 23, 2007 1:07 PM

It may take a while, but in the end Hannukah will defeat Christmas, and then resources can be directed to Passover, which should easily defeat Easter. Victory is assured!

Posted by Mooser | December 23, 2007 1:08 PM

Now, what does the State do with children who are abused? Child Services removes them from the home.

Spanking children is considered child abuse in many countries. What happened in the Nordic countries? Did the State cart away spanked children en masse from their homes, or mount public education campaigns to reduce the incidence and usage of spankings by parents in these countries?

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 1:13 PM

A positive assertion isn't legitimate just because there's no evidence against it; there has to be some evidence for it. Otherwise what's stopping you from believing in the magical gas fairy who lives on Jupiter (that I just made up)?

Exactly which part of the word "faith" don't you understand? And there is nothing stopping anyone from believing in the magical gas fairy on Jupiter that you just made up. Does that mean that it's not true? Perhaps you're some sort of god and by mentioning the gas fairy, you've now accidentally conjured it into existence. You can't prove otherwise, so what's the point?

Look, any of the more intelligent Christians understand that this is a faith-based thing. That's the whole point. That their god set-up some sort of test in which he wouldn't provide us with evidence of his existence and we're expected to believe anyway. I think that's pretty twisted, but I find it impossible to refute. So why bother? I find it odd that your big argument against their religion is one of its basic tenets. That's like attacking science because it demands evidence.

In the end, we can't use our system to refute theirs and they can't use their system to refute us. And if you don't understand enough of their system to refute it, then you really shouldn't bother.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | December 23, 2007 1:17 PM

"Dawkins is a fanatic - he's every bit as dangerous in his fanaticism as the religious fanatics he rails against."

I agree that he is a fundamentalist, but doubt that he will do too much harm in and of himself. Who is he or his readers going to kill? And is he advocating persecuting anyone for their religious views? Even if he is, I doubt very much will come of it - at least in the short term.

Hitchen's fanaticism has a body count in the Iraq war. Not that Hitchens caused or even figured very highly in the reasons why it came about - but nationalism is a secular fundamentalism that - together with Fascism, Communism and Imperialism - has a death toll in the past century that is a lot more impressive than religion.

Posted by justaguy | December 23, 2007 1:19 PM

"Almost all famous scientists in world history generally were non-believers - because if you know how the world works, there's no need to conform to the beliefs that basically originate with tribal jewish scavengers."

That is just simply not true - where are you getting that from?

Stephen Gould said, of surveys that showed half of all scientists to be religious, "Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs—and equally compatible with atheism."

Posted by justaguy | December 23, 2007 1:23 PM

a humbug is a humbug is a humbug.

Posted by mdhatter | December 23, 2007 1:25 PM

Re James Robertson

For the information of Mr Robertson, Prof. Dawkins has made it clear on several occasions since making the child abuse statement that he in no way, shape, form or regard does he endorse the removal of children from religious homes.

Posted by SLC | December 23, 2007 1:26 PM

I think that's pretty twisted, but I find it impossible to refute.

Then you're not trying very hard. Unlike the believers in magical gas fairies on Jupiter, the believers in mainstream Deism believe their God has a direct tangible impact on the world, both now and in the past.

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 1:26 PM

back to Matt's actual point, as a Christian I cannot tell you how insulting it is to hear other Christians in America talk about how they are being "persecuted." 1) It's intellectually dishonest--a society that seeks to acknowledge and respect other creeds, be it Buddhism, Islam, or Atheism, is not persecution. 2) It cheapens the term; there are real persecutions happening all over the world right now. People are dying on the basis of their beliefs or membership in a particular faith community.

Really, these people need to just grow up and learn to follow the Apostle Paul's edict: "Live peaceably with all, as far as it concerns you."

Posted by handy | December 23, 2007 1:26 PM

Dawkins points out what the bible actually says, and then he constructs a logical, rational argument for whether the evidence supports the existence of a god. He doesn't even say there isn't a god! He says the evidence doesn't support it (his 1-7 scale).

Which is like using a sledgehammer to perform a vasectomy.

the best argument against the traditional religions is that the shit just isn't true.

Which, curiously, doesn't make Chartres cathedral or Paradise Lost vanish in a puff of logic. Nor does it surgically remove what William James described as 'religious experience'. All that shit exists, regardless of its underlying epistemological value.

Which makes this kind of logical-positivist approach to religion so damn frustrating, because it's possible to do so much better than Dawkins playing the village atheist.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | December 23, 2007 1:26 PM

when people take an active stance that no pink lesbian unicorns exist, they've taken that leap into the world of faith

That is exactly correct. Faith-based people can believe what they choose to believe, but science-based people demand evidence. And if these pink lesbian unicorns actively defend against our ability to prove their existence, then we cannot make any determination on whether or not they exist. You can act as if they don't exist, but you cannot definitively say they don't exist.

And if you don't like it, tough. Being science-based is a double-edged sword. If you demand evidence, then you must accept that you can only make claims based upon things that provide evidence. But if something occurs outside the realm of evidence, then you don't get to make that claim. We have proof that the earth circles the sun. We cannot have any determination on whether there's a giant dragon who lives inside of it. And I see no reason to argue that it's not there.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | December 23, 2007 1:28 PM

Which, curiously, doesn't make Chartres cathedral or Paradise Lost vanish in a puff of logic. Nor does it surgically remove what William James described as 'religious experience'. All that shit exists, regardless of its underlying epistemological value.

Dawkins denies the existence of cathedrals or Paradise Lost?

Nice strawman.

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 1:29 PM

Dawkins is "mean" if popping a kid's balloon to demonstrate to the kid that it is filled with invisible air particles is "mean."

Is it still mean, though, if the kid in question is a 40 year old multi-millioinaire running around claiming that the balloon controls the world and if anyone pops it the sky will fall down?

Most of all the other crap that people upthread wrote about Dawkins is simply false, either intentionally so or it's just more lying for Jesus.

Dawkins has never "equated" Christianity with fundamentalism as several commenters claim. Perhaps Dawkins has pointed out that, at the end of the day, both religions rely on the irrational self-serving beliefs about omniscent invisible sky captains who control the fate of the universe but -- let's be perfectly clear -- that' just pointing out an indisputable fact.

It happens to be the fact that most religionists of all stripes hate to hear atheists snickering about. That's because religionists love and need their balloons (or is it granfalloon?).

In America, we have this thing called freedom of speech which allows people to criticize baloney and hogwash freely -- in theory. Religious people historically have had a hard time with this concept. It's just another reason why we atheists think that religion sucks.

Merry Christmas!

Posted by Frank | December 23, 2007 1:29 PM

You can act as if they don't exist, but you cannot definitively say they don't exist.

Yes I can. It's easy. "They don't exist". Prove me wrong.

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 1:33 PM

"For the information of Mr Robertson, Prof. Dawkins has made it clear on several occasions since making the child abuse statement that he in no way, shape, form or regard does he endorse the removal of children from religious homes."

Sure, when called to extend his argument to its logical end, he pulled back for marketing reasons. When I heard the podcast, it was pretty clear what he thought should happen - he believed that the State should do something to protect children from religious instruction.

30 years ago, the anti-smoking people said "of course we don't want to ban smoking in your own home" - and yet that's the current frontier on the matter. Dawkins and his ilk want to start small, but they'll end up taking every inch they can get.

Posted by James Robertson | December 23, 2007 1:36 PM

30 years ago, the anti-smoking people said "of course we don't want to ban smoking in your own home"

But Dawkins has explicitly said he does want to end religious instructions at home.

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 1:39 PM

Exactly which part of the word "faith" don't you understand? And there is nothing stopping anyone from believing in the magical gas fairy on Jupiter that you just made up. Does that mean that it's not true? Perhaps you're some sort of god and by mentioning the gas fairy, you've now accidentally conjured it into existence. You can't prove otherwise, so what's the point?

Intelligent people, Christian or otherwise, don't call that "faith" -- they call it "crazy."

One of the most saddening trends in Christian thought lately has been taking the term "faith" and its biblical connotations of "trust" and "security" and twisting it into a word that now means -- in the fundie lexicon -- "believing in something." Or specifically, "believing in something illogical."

People in the bible who had "faith" (in the original sense) were not those people who told themselves despite all evidence that G-d really existed. (For starters, nearly all people in those societies did believe in G-d, and had no reason to doubt G-d's existence.) Biblical "faith" was about living boldly and courageously, and that was what was reckoned as righteousness -- not what kind of intellectual beliefs you managed to hold despite mounting evidence against them.

The indoctrination of the new "faith" definition is disheartening.

--Kynn, who is a Christian, BTW

Posted by Kynn | December 23, 2007 1:40 PM

the believers in mainstream Deism believe their God has a direct tangible impact on the world, both now and in the past.

Some do, some don't. That's part of the problem. There are as many religious beliefs in the world as their are religious people. No two are alike.

And while some of the less intelligent Christians insist that they have proof of their god, even their arguments amount to a leap of faith. Because their "proof" is their belief that it's true. That's the whole point. Even the ones who think that their god actively changes the weather understand that they have no proof of this. And again, attacking them for relying on faith is like them attacking us for requiring evidence. It's beyond pointless and gets into the realm of arguing for arguments sake.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | December 23, 2007 1:40 PM

Some do, some don't. That's part of the problem.

No.

No one has a problem with those people who believe in an inchoateness that has, by their own definition, no possible discernible or detectable impact on the natural world.

Such people are by no definition of the word religious.

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 1:47 PM

We have proof that the earth circles the sun. We cannot have any determination on whether there's a giant dragon who lives inside of it.

Parody or ignorance?

It's hard to tell with our defenders of faith.

The problem with the idea of "science should mind its own business" is that many religious people have historically believed and continue to believe that they are entitled to tell scientists what scientists can and cannot study.

When scientists say that they have determined a way to transplant a liver to save your life, all but the most ignorant and anti-scientific religious people line up. When scientists say that have determined a way to purify and clean water so you won't die from worms eating out your insides, all but the most ignorant and anti-scientific religious people line up.

But when scientists say that gay families are not detectably less dysfunctional than non-gay families, a lot of those otherwise amenable religious folk get all whacked out of shape.

On what planet could such behavior possibly be considered respectable? It's idiocy and hypocracy, plain and simple. If there were so many "people of faith" who felt strongly that such behavior was wrong, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The fact is that -- in the US at least -- this is not the case.

Religious people, by and large, demand respect for their bogus "beliefs" simply because those "beliefs" are "religious." That's insanity and becomes obviously so as soon as I profer my own contradictory "religious" beliefs which not only nullify your beliefs but decree that anyone who holds your beliefs must be destroyed to please my deity.

Happy Hannukah!

Posted by Frank | December 23, 2007 1:48 PM

Agree with above poster about Dawkins - he's the heir to Carl Sagan's version of straightforward, common-sense rationalism. As a scientist, if he sees something proven to be not true, he - unlike many others - sees no need to tiptoe around the fact that people willfully deceive themselves about something that has a perfectly good explanation. He continually points out the 'tyranny of the discontinuous mind' in modern society, and regularly shines the light on statistical nonsense and ignorance that passes for 'evidence' by various people.

Like Sagan, I don't always WANT to agree with him but he's damn persuasive.

Posted by ssdagg | December 23, 2007 1:48 PM

Yes I can. It's easy. "They don't exist". Prove me wrong.

But the burden of proof is on the one making the claim, and I'm not making a claim. You are. You are claiming that pink lesbian unicorns don't exist. But it is impossible to prove a negative, so you can't prove your claim. That's why you shouldn't make it.

Similarly, it is impossible to prove that gods don't exist, so if you rely upon fact-based claims, you can't make that claim. Of course, if you think faith-based claims are acceptable, then you can claim anything you like. But then you're no better than the people you're denouncing. That's why the only rational position on all this is agnosticism. If you don't have evidence, then you just don't know.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | December 23, 2007 1:52 PM

And while some of the less intelligent Christians insist that they have proof of their god, even their arguments amount to a leap of faith. Because their "proof" is their belief that it's true. That's the whole point. Even the ones who think that their god actively changes the weather understand that they have no proof of this. And again, attacking them for relying on faith is like them attacking us for requiring evidence. It's beyond pointless and gets into the realm of arguing for arguments sake.

You lost me here.

When some less intelligent person insists he has a proof which turns out to be no proof at all, it's arguing for arguments sake to point this out?

If the DA says, sans evidence, that Mr Brown is a drug dealer are we allowed to ask for proof or should we accept this on faith? What if the pastor says Mrs Brown is a witch?

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 1:55 PM

Yes I can. It's easy. "They don't exist". Prove me wrong.

*sigh* OK if those of us on the agnostic/atheist side are going to insist on logic and rational thinking, then your statement is not correct. If one makes an assertion, then the burden is on that person to provide proof.

If I were to say, 'There is a God,' it is up to me to provide proof (if I don't wish to rely on the pure faith argument). If I were to say, 'There is no God,' likewise it's up to me to provide arguments supporting that (though, as we all know, it's awfully hard to definitively prove a negative).

The best one can say is, 'it's highly unlikely there's a God.' or 'it's highly unlikely there's pink lesbian unicorns.' To flat-out claim there's no god or no pink lesbian unicorns, would require perfect knowledge of the universe (or multiverse, as the case may be).

Doc Biobrain is displaying the clearest thinking here, IMHO.

Posted by r€nato | December 23, 2007 1:58 PM

Christianity and violence:

"According to Gibbon [Decline and Fall], Romans were far more tolerant of Christians than Christians were of one another, especially once Christianity gained the upper hand. Christians inflicted far greater casualties on other Christians than were ever inflicted by the Roman Empire. Gibbon extrapolated that the number of Christians executed by other Christian factions far exceeded all the Christian martyrs who died during the three centuries of Christianity under Roman rule. This was in stark contrast to orthodox Church history, which insisted that Christianity won the hearts and minds of people largely because of the inspirational example set by its martyrs. Gibbon demonstrated that the early Church's custom of bestowing the title of martyr on all confessors of faith grossly inflated the actual numbers.

Gibbon compares how insubstantial that number was, by comparing it to more modern terms. He compared both the reigns of Diocletian (284-305), and Charles V (1519-1556) and the electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, making the argument that both were remarkably similar. Both emperors were plagued by continuous war and compelled to excessive taxation; both chose to abdicate as Emperors at roughly the same age; and both chose to lead a quiet life upon their retirement.= --Summary from Wikipedia (don't remember what chapter this came from, but it is a famous passage.)

Gibbon also remarks that Christians were happy to consign the majority of mankind to be eternally tortured:

"The condemnation of the wisest and most virtuous of the Pagans, on account of their ignorance or disbelief of the divine truth, seems to offend the reason and the humanity of the present age. But the primitive church, whose faith was of a much firmer consistence, delivered over, without hesitation, to eternal torture, the far greater part of the human species. A charitable hope might perhaps be indulged in favor of Socrates, or some other sages of antiquity, who had consulted the light of reason before that of the gospel had arisen. But it was unanimously affirmed, that those who, since the birth or the death of Christ, had obstinately persisted in the worship of the daemons, neither deserved nor could expect a pardon from the irritated justice of the Deity. These rigid sentiments, which had been unknown to the ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into a system of love and harmony. The ties of blood and friendship were frequently torn asunder by the difference of religious faith; and the Christians, who, in this world, found themselves oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were sometimes seduced by resentment and spiritual pride to delight in the prospect of their future triumph. "You are fond of spectacles," exclaims the stern Tertullian; "expect the greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal judgment of the universe. How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs, so many fancied gods, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates, who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ; so many tragedians, more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers." * But the humanity of the reader will permit me to draw a veil over the rest of this infernal description, which the zealous African pursues in a long variety of affected and unfeeling witticisms." (DFRE, vol. 1, chapter XV)

Posted by Harold | December 23, 2007 1:58 PM

the State should do something to protect children from religious instruction.

The State already does this, of course. You can't do anything you want to your children and defend it as "your religious right as a parent." Your religion may say that if your child tells you to fxck off and go to hell, that the child must be whipped forty times and banished to a dark room in the basement without food for a week.

Think you'll get away with it? Think the bad old State will just sit back if they know such things are happening?

Here's another scenario: how about a foster child who is taking from his mother while she is receiving treatment for drug addiction. The foster child is put in a home with Jehovah's Witnesses who brainwash the kid into believing that he should never get a blood transfusion. Shortly thereafter, the kid refuses a necessary blood transfusion because of his "religious beliefs" and dies.

Is that the sort of result that you will tolerate because religion is otherwise so fantastic and wonderful that we should never contemplate interfering with parents right to brainwash their kid?

Seriously. A similar issue was addressed recently by a Judge in Washington and the kid was allowed to kill himself. Dawkins thinks that is pathetic and disturbing and so do I.

Raising your kid to belong to your religion *is* brainwashing. If your religion is so great, then let the kid decide if he wants to join it when he's an adult. It's like telling your kid that if he doesn't vote Republican for the rest of his life that he's going to be tortured for eternity after he dies. What would you think if you overheard a parent sternly saying that to his 8 year old?

Posted by Frank | December 23, 2007 1:58 PM

looks like I owe the good doc a coke.

Posted by r€nato | December 23, 2007 2:02 PM

If one makes an assertion, then the burden is on that person to provide proof.

1. That's been my point all along.

2. Dr Biobrain insists that the religious have no burden to supply proof of their assertions when they have "faith"

3. If we are absolved of the burden of proof then nothing prevents me from proclaiming the negation to any assertion and falling back on "faith" or shifting the burden back to my interlocutor.

Old rhetorical game, easy to play.

Understand that, renate?

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 2:06 PM

That's why the only rational position on all this is agnosticism. If you don't have evidence, then you just don't know.

The evidence that the God of the Christian Bible doesn't exist is actually more compelling than the evidence that pink lesbian unicorns don't exist.

A unicorn is just a goat with single horn. No biggie. Some animals are pink. Some animals are lesbians. It's all possible, albeit unlikely.

Invisible omniscent beings who never die, amuse themselves by playing petulant games with the creatures they create out of nothing, and write books filled with demonstrable mistakes for some of those creatures to read and use as an excuse to kill other people?

Sorry, friend, but that sounds like a bunch of pure crap. The reason I think so and you don't is because (1) I'm not trying to be everybody's friend and (2) I'm using my brain.

Your agnosticism is no different from your friend's religion. It's an excuse to turn off your brain when you hear people talking about their deities.

Posted by Frank | December 23, 2007 2:07 PM

Here's a thought experiment for those who think it's acceptable to insult Christians by calling them insane: If someone five hundred years ago had read a bible passage which made them believe that black holes existed, would it be valid to insist that black holes didn't exist and attack them as insane? Sure, they didn't have proof that they existed and their claim would not be scientific, but they really do exist. So it would be wrong to suggest that they didn't exist, even if there was no evidence to suggest they existed.

Similarly, there are lots of things that science does not have proof of, but which exist all the same. And without proof, science must plead ignorance. In the end, absence of proof is not enough to say that something doesn't exist. The best you can do is to say that there is no proof and leave it at that. I know, it's more fun to attack these people as delusional, but that's just not scientific. Science demands proof, always.

And that's where these people are wrong. It is not rational to suggest that things don't exist without proof. Again, there is a lot that science doesn't know, but which exists all the same. That's not an attack against science; that's the point of it. We require proof. And that means that we need proof to make claims against believers too.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | December 23, 2007 2:13 PM

3. If we are absolved of the burden of proof then nothing prevents me from proclaiming the negation to any assertion and falling back on "faith" or shifting the burden back to my interlocutor.

I never suggested that all people have a burden of proof. Only science-based people do. But if you're not science-based and are willing to allow any argument as reasonable, then there is no burden of proof. But if you're science-based, then there is always a burden of proof. You can claim that pink lesbian unicorns don't exist, but you can't base that claim on science.

To restate my point: If you think that all claims require evidence, then you must be able to provide evidence of your claims. But you can't do so with negative claims, as it's impossible to prove that something doesn't exist. Science can only prove what is; not what isn't. You can make any claim you want, but only the ones with evidence can be considered scientific.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | December 23, 2007 2:23 PM

If someone five hundred years ago had read a bible passage which made them believe that black holes existed, would it be valid to insist that black holes didn't exist and attack them as insane?

Yes.

Similarly, there are lots of things that science does not have proof of, but which exist all the same

Science does not, and has never claimed, to have proof of all things.

Major religions make assertions that are provably false and assertions that are untestable. Assertions with respect to effects on the natural world are refutable. Assertions with regards to the imperceptible and intangible are uninteresting.

Posted by bp | December 23, 2007 2:28 PM

it's impossible to prove that something doesn't exist.

What's your basis for that claim, doc?

Short answer: metaphysical garbage in, metaphysical garbage out.

The good doctor appears to be a master of such games.

Posted by Frank | December 23, 2007 2:29 PM

I should have read comments more carefully before I posted above, sorry.

Frank above hits it on the head. All the anti-Dawkinsers on this board take this whole 'mean mister dawkins wants to end religious education of kids, but science will never be able to understand issues of faith and why doesn't he just leave us alone since we're not hurti