Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
'Teh Wittwarthion' And The Other Prof. Myers
Dave Myers, Whitworth University trustee and author of the new anti-atheist book called "A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists" claims:
[Professor David Myers] "My book aims to bridge the skeptical/believer dichotomy and to suggest how faith can be reasonable, science-affirming, healthy, hopeful and humane,"
First of all, the copy editor at The Whitworthian should be fired for this headline:
[link] Trustee's new book counters aethism
That's just sad. Even the URL spells it that way. The writer of the article managed to spell the word "atheism" correctly. What the heck happened to the headline? Pathetic.
Now, I do indeed agree with Myers that religion can be science-affirming, hopeful and humane. No, no - I know. Calm down. Think about it. The Catholic faith has pretty-much always been "science-affirming". And most religions make at least a nod towards being hopeful and humane. They are completely irrational at times, and tend to encourage their believers to live in a fear-wracked, magical, supernatural fairy-land world of gods, demons, ghosts, and monsters - but they can be science-affirming, hopeful and humane. No doubt about it.
However, what faith can never be, by it's very nature, is "reasonable". It is most emphatically not "reasonable". That's why it's called "faith".
"Healthy" depends on the faith, I suppose. Faithful snake-handling isn't very healthy in my opinion, nor is the faith that drives someone to explode a bomb in a crowded marketplace, or fly a plane into a building.
What are your thoughts about Prof. Myers new book? Should he be commended for "reaching across the aisle," as it were, and should it's strengths be praised? Or is it something that should be torn to shreds and ridiculed? Maybe a gentle combination of the two?
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The Catholic faith has
Hello? Galileo?
Hello?
That's where the "pretty much" part of my sentence applies.
SCIENTIA ANCILLA RELIGIONIS
Yes, and I would say that, at best, science has for a long time been seen by religion as its handmaiden.
Religion and Critical Thinking
No,
I think we can dismiss the good Doctor as another apologist who hypocritically states one thing and then goes on to demonstrate another.
In his latest Newsweek blog entry titled, "Believers Can Be Reasonable" (http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2008/09/believers...) He states that faith and critical thinking are not incompatible. He then goes on to support his argument with comparisons of of health and happiness data comparing church goers and non-church goers. In doing this he commits two logical fallacies. First, church attendance and actual beliefs are not necessarily correlated and church attendance and health/happiness and faith are never shown to be causal in relation, only correlated (i.e. he confuses correlation with cause). Second even if faith and health/happiness had a causal relationship (this has never been demonstrated), it in no way makes the thing he has in faith in true (i.e. he commits the logical fallacy of making an argument from consequence).
Consequently, if his point was to show that religion and critical thinking were compatible, his arguments thoroughly betray his premise.
Can't remember who said it
I can't remember who said it, and I don't feel like searching Google, but the statement is still true: "To say that a theist is happier than an atheist is no more revealing than to say that a drunk man is happier than a sober one."
Oh, right; it was George Bernard Shaw. (Thank you, Google. I'll not disparage your name again.)
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
A mild shock on first reading
I was scanning my RSS and this phrase jumped out at me:
Wait, what? (reads again) Oh, different Myers. Carry on...
It's fine, I guess
If Myers wants to make a case that religion can be all those things, that's fine. From the review blurbs I read, it seems he's at least likable, and possibly even-handed, so that's all well and good.
If the point of his book is to show Atheists that some religious believers can be intelligent, believe in science, be humane, etc., I won't bother reading it: I already know all of that. If the point is to show that, viewed through the correct lens, some religions can be interpreted as science-affirming, hopeful, and humane, again, I'll pass. Nothing new there either. I'll either agree with him or not, but I imagine it will be the same arguments made by others.
I agree with Brent; religions aren't reasonable by definition. Reasonable people can believe them, but that just means reasonable people sometimes believe unreasonable things. Intelligent people can believe that Jesus was the son of god, born to a virgin, died and then came back to live, yada yada yada, but that just means intelligent people can believe some pretty dumb things.
So, I'm not sure there's much to his book that would interest me. None of those points, whether true or not, will make any religion more believable to those who hold some standards to what they will believe. If it's just a "can't we all get along" thing, that's fine (and a welcome respite from most of those who want to "counter aethism") but not very compelling.
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.