Always a Dangerous Thing

I've been thinking . . . always a dangerous thing.

More from The Great God Divide: European Secularism and American Religiosity: the following comments were excited by the speaker's impressions of the Great Arch of La Defense, President Mitterrand’s monument to the bicentennial of 1789.

"And that put a question in my head . . . which culture could give a better account of its commitments to the rights of men, which was being memorialized here, the culture that produced this rational, striking, but essentially featureless cube, or the more complicated culture that had produced gargoyles and flying buttresses and crosses and the holy unsameness, if you will, of Notre Dame.

It’s a question of what a society loses when it completely and self-consciously cuts itself off from those civilizing and civilizational roots, represented in this case by the cathedral, and attempts something that I think is quite unprecedented in human history; namely, the creation of democratic political community on an essentially religiously featureless social and cultural terrain."

This remark is yet another example of a romantic apology for religion. Certainly, the flying buttresses of Notre Dame (at top), for example, are much more visually interesting than even the most interesting view of the Great Arch (below). However, few rational people would argue that 13th century Paris gave a better "account of its committment to the rights of man" than 21st century Paris, its frustrations with Muslims notwithstanding.

I think that the speaker was ignoring the fact that the cost of stone masons and the time required to construct a cathedral such as Notre Dame, and not secularist politics, preclude the construction of another such cathedral. Construction on the cathedral began in 1163 CE. Does anyone wish to guess when the cathedral was completed? [answer]

All of which brings me to thinking about the so-called New Atheism. Atheism as nonbelief about the existence of deities (or belief of nonexistence if you recognize what disbelief actually means) is scarcely new. The new element lies in the refusal to be polite about the content of religious delusions and emphasis on the dangers posed by religionist elements (not by religious moderates, but by religious fundamentalists).

I don't think that there is any paucity of empirical historical evidence that links religious extremism to harm. Nor do we lack evidence that links dictator-exploited ideological extremisms such as communism or, its mirror, fascism to harm.

I think that the key element of any harmful -ism lies in extremism in its application – perhaps I should say misapplication. Obviously, this is also true of the harmful misapplication of scientific advances, particularly those in military technologies, that have caused damage and distress. Alfred Nobel invented gunpowder in the hope that such a dangerous weapon would prove to be a deterrent from warfare. Clearly he did not succeed, and nor has the 'atomic' bomb succeeded, except insofar as gunpowder conflicts have so far stopped short of nuclear holocaust.

Sam Harris' Islamophobia smacks of paranoiac visions of annihilation such as followed 1945. Ironically, and nontheless tragically, the greatest recent Islam-related deathtoll is of innocent Iraqi civilians brought about as a result of the stupid decisions of a president not-elected largely as a result of the politicking of the Conservative Religious Wrong.

The Middle East has presented a political problem ever since Zionists decided that Jewish problems could be solved by turning Palestine from a Jewish symbol of exile into a homeland. This is not to dismiss the influence of earlier capitalist exploitation of the Middle East nor to ignore the long-standing perceived threats of imposed secularization within Islam. In other words, it is not only religion that causes harm. The problem is that religion perpetuates ancient divisions that exacerbate political schisms.

answer: The towers were completed around 1245 CE, and the cathedral was completed around 1345 CE – a mere 182 years, or about 6 generations.

atheism, religion,

David Wolpe Demonstrating Sam's Point

The Jewish TV network has a video of Sam Harris in debate with Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple. I have streamlined the exchange, at 13+ minutes, somewhat:

Rabbi David Wolpe: "You said explicitly that religion is the only thing that we believe things on insufficient evidence. . . . On what evidence do you believe that life is worth living?"

Sam Harris: "I think that that’s a misconstrual of how we talk about beliefs. . . . People attacked me with the line, “but we need faith to get out of bed in the morning, our lives are built on faith” That’s not the kind of faith I’m attacking."

Rabbi David Wolpe, interrupts: "I’m asking you whether you believe that life is good or worthwhile on the basis of scientific evidence. Because if you don’t then I would amend your statement to, “religion and everything else that is of central value in our lives, we believe on evidence that is not susceptible to scientific proof.”

Sam Harris: "You’re equivocating on the meaning of the word “belief”. I don’t believe that life is worth living – that’s not what gets me through my day. I am operating as though life is worth living because I am seeking various states of happiness, I am avoiding suffering, I’m moved by compassion. I have these states in me that presuppose the reasonableness of not killing myself at the end of the day.

Rabbi David Wolpe, interrupts: "Which is not so different, by the way, from a religious person who would say . . . you know, religion is not belief in a proposition, it’s an orientation towards life."

Wolpe is actually equivocating on more than "belief": he's misapplying the term "evidence"; he's misstating what Sam could otherwise have said; he ought to know better than to think that science ever claims to have proven a theory; and he inadvertently illustrates Sam's point about the equivocated meaning of belief.

Belief simply means to hold something to be true, whether or not it is actually true. This is a mental state, and, as applied to belief that life is worth living, indicates a state of expectation based upon past and current experience. Religious belief, or religious faith, as Sam implied, is the mental state of holding some claim to be true despite the absence of sufficient evidence to rationally support the belief. The scriptures actually have nothing specific to say about the value of life insofar as getting out of bed in the morning. Any such assumptions have been built into interpretations of religion.

The evidence that leads any individual to personally consider life worth living is experiential. There is no need to demonstrate our personal experiences to each of us in order that we believe ourselves. Those whose experiences repeatedly indicate that their life is not worth living are not helped much by religion – improved circumstances would help.

Sam is correct to say that there is no evidence to support religious belief in the proposition that the supernatural exists. Wolpe's fallacious argument in an attempt to counter this fact is an argumentum ad ignorantiam.

Wolpe is incorrect to say that no scientific evidence could be gathered concerning those things that are of value in our lives. However, scientists do not claim that all such things are technically experimentally accessible, nor that they need be investigated scientifically.

Scientists could gather evidence concerning an individual's life situation, and could measure the decreased frontal lobe activity that is correlated with emotional depression. So, scientific evidence could be gathered, though scientists would not bother with such an investigation, and a psychiatrist would administer antidepressants without such a demonstration. Wolpe is not really interested in such data, he merely wishes to make a different point. To imply that life must be explained either by religion or by scientific evidence is to create a false dichotomy.

Finally, Wolpe reduces religion to the level of attitudes, to the level of framing of personal experiential evidence. This is an atheistic view of religion – it has expunged the supernatural from religion, leaving a mere framework for interpretation of experience. Wolpe has tossed out religious propositions, leaving only a sense of the spiritual. This coincides with Sam's view.

I have yet to find a good argument by a deist or theist. Shifting the actual definition of the deity or the definition of religion is a common ploy.

However, I have not yet listened to the entire debate. You never know, Wolpe's arguments could improve.

.........they didn't. I quit in disgust at 33 minutes, after Wolpe had blamed the Holocaust on science.

What's in a Label?

Sam Harris' AAIC remarks certainly provoked discussion! (See What's in a Name?)

Reading blogosphere reactions led me to some thoughts on the topic of labels, worldviews, and approaches to message promotion.

Harris said that atheism is not a worldview. I would agree that atheism does not inhere a single worldview, though I do think that statistical clusters of approaches to thinking about the world are implied by the labels.

Conflating two opposing philosophical terms, I'll call the most frequently associated cognitive style 'rational empiricism'. That is, 'rational empiricists' formulate their worldview by emphasizing a combinination of logic and evidence. This is not to say that all agnostics or atheists arrive at doubt about supernatural claims through cognition, but it does seem likely that a greater proportion of those who approach the world this way will also be atheistic. The data on the relationships between lack of religiosity and IQ/education/scientific-attitudes supports this view.

Linguistically speaking, people use labels positively, negatively, or neutrally as simplification tools (jargon), as membership signals, and/or as position indicators. Labels are not only useful but highly likely to be applied by others. A label will be applied with negative connotations whenever we leave the choice solely up to our opponents.


If I say that I am an atheist, you quickly know that I am not a theist and more likely to be a 'rational empiricist' who is also against religious violence, pseudoscientientific mumbo-jumbo, and creationism in science classrooms.

Whenever I have debated such topics with a theist, they usually detect that I am atheistic from my position and I don't need to spell out that I am an atheist, or liberal, or pro-choice, or whatever else is under discussion. Particularly in a written medium where tone is not a clue, we do assess the writer's philosophical position if we are not sure whether they are being serious or satirical.

A religionist might decide that my being an atheist necessarily indicates that I am also guilty of a variety of religionistically-concocted-sins, presenting me with the opportunity to directly address the fallacious thinking beneath those religionist-labels.

I think that much of the reaction to Sam Harris' remarks related to the fact that he suggested that we hide from all labels, particularly the atheist label–"go under the radar"–which seems simultaneously a cop-out, a concession to theistic manipulation, and a loss of the rally to membership.

I really think thatHarris' message at the AAC was superfluous. I think that Harris, and some who are defending his statemenst, are missing the point that atheists always had the right to choose not to join a group of fellow atheists, not to come 'out' as atheists either socially or in debate, and not to emphasize atheism in lieu of rationality and evidence when debating about religion or creationism.

Elsewhere: Ellen Johnson responds to Sam Harris . Ellen Johnson responds to "The End of Atheism" . Sam Harris - pussyfooting to theists?! . Letter to a non-atheist New Atheist . What Label for People Like Us? .

Sam Harris' response: Response to My Fellow "Atheists", on Richard.Dawkins.net : and response to Harris' response: Sam Harris seems like a nice fellow, but very confused . “Cult” is the new “fundamentalist” . Fundamentalism .

AAIC 'o7: Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the AAIC : Dan Dennett at AAIC '07 :



agnosticismatheismcreationismeducationempiricismfallacies of logiclogicreligionSam Harris

What's in a Name?

At the Atheist Alliance convention, Sam Harris spoke against atheists' referring to themselves with the term "atheist".

A quick look at cyberreactions reveals much what one would expect: many blogs pasting the transcript with minimal or no commentary; theists crowing over any sign of dissent in the opponent's ranks; atheists who disagree with Harris; and, atheists swayed by the latest pronouncement from the pulpit (forgive this analogy to religion, I'll explain later).

On Richard Dawkin's site, most comments seem to be for retaining the label "atheist", partly because nonbelievers' and fed-up-with-religious-stupidity-types need a rallying identifier. Atheist is certainly shorter than either of those labels and it is more to the point than the implicitly insulting "bright".

I did think that this comment makes sense regarding human attitudes:

"It is something about the way the human brain works - forever handicapped by the sequence in which you feed in the information. If you bring forth a sound argument, people may listen to you, even accept your reasoning and most may not care too much if they later find you to be a 'new atheist'. However if they find that out first, then they will lock out of anything you have to say immediately."

(Comment #75517 by 82abhilash on October 2, 2007 at 10:51 pm)

I do think that the commenter is being too kind to religionists, though his comments might be relevant to moderate theists. In my experience, religionists are too locked into inculcated thought-patterns to even recognize a sound argument as being a sound argument. Instead, their radars are finely tuned to any hint of deviance from the party line.

In comment Comment #75521, ChrisMcL says:

"Why don't we just do with the "A" word what African-Americans have done with the "N" word. Let's "take back" the "A" word. The negative connotations to the label are from stereotype, not reality. By showing the world who we really are, atheists can, in time, redefine the ideas associated with the word "atheist"."

A-Deistic wrote:

"Many of us are atheists, secularists, secular humanists, naturalists, and skeptics/rationalists/freethinkers/brights. Each of the terms indicates a different manifestation of the usually liberal, empirical worldview that also manifests as atheism. . . This is not a problem due to calling ourselves 'atheists', rather this is a manifestation of the cognitive problem that accompanies theism. To be a theist in this age of scientific explanation requires that the believer close his or her mind with the church door. . . I can assure you, Sam, that our not calling ourselves 'atheists' will not make this [atheists are bad] bogus argument go away, because it appeals to emotional thinking. When a rationalist makes what is only an intellectual argument, most theists are simply not paying any attention. As soon as most theists are aware that any discussion relates to religion, to lack of faith, or to science, they will troop out one of the tired fallacies of logic that offer such emotional succor to the logically challenged. . . The war of ideas against religion can only be won by attacking the illogic of religious dogma by asserting the facts and arguing and arguing and arguing that 'atheism' is the logical, rational alternative on the basis of all the evidence."

Like that commenter, I agree that rationality is needed. Rationality is ultimately the point in so far as all supernatural religious beliefs demand faith not merely in the absense of evidence, but demand faith counter to the evidence. This insistence of churches of "Abandon all Reason, Ye Who Enter Here" has had far reaching negative impacts on critical thinking. By all means, we should emphasize that we are speaking for the evidence and for logic – and we should do so with well-thought out arguments to counter religionist emotionality. We also need to emphasize and demonstrate that we also experience love, appreciate life and beauty, and follow moral codes.

Atheism is on the rise amongst the young and many older atheists have recently become vocal and political because, as Harris pointed out, because of the dangerous increase in religious violence and hysteria (mysteria!)

The cat's out of the bag, religionists and moderate theists alike are well aware of the rise of political atheism. Trying to retract from the label just because religionists pull out fallacious ad hominem arguments against a misrepresentation of atheism will neither fool theists that the sound argument is not atheistic, nor demonstrate that their depictions of atheists are not accurate.

Contrary to theist arguments that atheism is a religion and theist wishful thinking that atheism will become a religion, atheism is a belief system. Rejection of supernatural explanations includes the conviction that empirical evidence can provide us with explanations for the physical world and much of the emotional world. On the other hand, religion, despite its claims, actually provides us with no explanations at all.

When I made an analogy to atheists' being swayed by the latest pronouncement from the pulpit, I referred to the human tendency to seek inspirational leaders. Atheists have only recently acquired vocal, atheism-identified leaders. Because atheists are generally more open minded than theists, atheist are more likely to be swayed by well-expressed appeals. I did not think that Harris' speach was particularly impressive, but some more placatory bloggers appear to have been swayed.

Elsewhere: Ellen Johnson responds to Sam Harris . Ellen Johnson responds to "The End of Atheism" . Sam Harris - pussyfooting to theists?! . Letter to a non-atheist New Atheist . What Label for People Like Us? .

Sam Harris' response: Response to My Fellow "Atheists", on Richard.Dawkins.net : and response to Harris' response: Sam Harris seems like a nice fellow, but very confused :
“Cult” is the new “fundamentalist” :

AAIC 'o7: Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the AAIC : Dan Dennett at AAIC '07 :



atheismfallacies of logicfundamentalismlogicmoralityphilosophypoliticspsychologyreligionRichard DawkinsSam Harris