Short answer: Define "meaning."
For the long answer, look no further than this excellent post by Bad.
For the long answer, look no further than this excellent post by Bad.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
From the archive at SciFi.com--well worth exploring.
The Stare
by John Wyndham
"A most objectionable habit," declared the Major emphatically.
"I always say," ventured Rodgers, "that the only way to deal with a man who stares persistently is to stare back at him."
The Major looked at him unkindly.
"You would. And if he 'always says' the same thing, I suppose you continue to glare at one another for hours on end."
White joined in the conversation.
"It's not," he said, "the plain, straight-in-the-face stare which troubles me as much as the oblique method—I mean the kind of stare which looks firmly on to your tie or shoes and stays there. All I can do when I meet it is to wriggle unhappily and wonder whether anything has come adrift."
"Men don't like being stared at, but women don't like not being stared at," said Rodgers with the air of one making a contribution to philosophy.
· · · · ·
The Major groaned. "There can be few men with such a fund of generalizations, but this time I'm bound to admit that there's something in it."
"Undoubtedly most women prefer molestation to indifference," White agreed.
Berridge's lazy voice drifted into their talk.
"I know a number of women who don't care for being stared at, and one who can't stand it—in fact, she definitely hates it."
"Of course, there are exceptions," admitted the Major, "or we should be in the unthinkable position of having Rodgers always right. But you can hardly call this lady normal."
"Well, if you call hurt pride an abnormality—"
"Let's have the story," White suggested.
"It dates from an evening six or seven years ago.The place was New York, and her name is Mary," Berridge began in his quiet manner.
"She had been to the theatre and to supper with friends. Since her destination was not the same as theirs, she decided to go home alone on the subway—as they call the New York Underground.
"By day the subway is a mass of men and women all apparently ten minutes behind time, but late at night it echoes with a dreary desolation, and the trains seem to rattle and crash indecently through a world more than half dead."
· · · · ·
"Mary, her mind still full of an indigestible play, could preserve an indifference to the mere sordidness of her surroundings, but she did notice that there were depressingly few travellers scattered around the car she boarded. At each stop there followed a further depopulation until, four of five stations later, she realized suddenly that she was alone save for three men who sat facing her. The middle member of this trio was staring in a fixed manner.
"Now, though Mary was well used to stares and chose to take them as compliments, yet, on this occasion, she was not flattered. The starer was a flashy production, striped hat-band to chrome yellow shoes. His lips hung slightly apart and gave to his whole countenance an unattractive vacancy. But his eyes were piercing. Pupil and iris had combined into a bright blackness to glare out at her from vivid whites.
"Mary hummed a tuneless little tune and tried to find something interesting to look at, but her eyes were drawn back to the man opposite. She assumed a forbidding expression of indignation, which failed to have any effect. Her distaste began to give way to neutral discomfort—she felt somehow as though she were being mentally undressed. His eyes cut into her, and through her. Without a quiver they out-stared her."
· · · · ·
"The man's two companions seemed unaware of his rudeness. They sat beside him, each with an arm firmly linked in his, only turning to exchange an occasional word behind his unmoving head. Mary's decision to alight at the next station was postponed by the entry of a man and a woman, bringing her a new supply of courage. They sat down beside her, and the train continued; so did the stare.
"A minute or two later she became aware that the newcomer was addressing her.
"'Perhaps,' he suggested, 'you would like to look at the evening paper?'
"'Thank you,' she replied gratefully. It was a kind thought; a screen from the stare. Not until she raised it did she notice scrawled pencil marks across the columns. The writing was jerky by reason of the trains' motion, but with difficulty she managed to read:
"'I think you had better get out with us at the next stop.'
"She looked questioningly at her neighbour, and he gave a slight nod.
"There was apologetic explanation in his tone as they stood on the platform and watched the train recede.
"'I'm sorry if I alarmed you,' he said, 'but my reason was the man opposite to us. Did you notice him?'
"'Notice him? Why, the creature had been staring at me in a loathsome, horrible way ever since I got in.'
"The man looked at her and shook his head.
"'No, I'm afraid you are wrong there. You see, I'm a doctor, and I assure you that the man was not staring at you—as a matter of fact, he was stone dead.'"
Berridge paused for a moment, then he added:
"Such a wound in one's pride is hard to heal—Mary still feels a little foolish when anyone stares at her."
The End
Friday, September 28, 2007
The week in fundie . . .
Ben Stein's Expelled
- An article in the Washington Post surveys McCarthyism across the Islamic world. In one example, three Saudi Arabian democracy activists were thrown into prison on charges of using such "unIslamic terminology" as 'democracy' and 'human rights'.
- Republican presidential hopeful John McCain declares America a Christian Nation. Quote
"But I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, 'Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?'"
unquote. (Beliefnet) - Producers of intelligent design documentary Expelled lied (for Jesus) to various interviewees, including PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins, in order to secure their involvement. (via Pharyngula)
- Catholic archbishop: condoms from Europe are deliberately infected with HIV in order to wipe out Africans. (via Pharyngula)
- The MySpace page of Major Freddy Wellborn, who lied (for Jesus) his way into a meeting of atheists and freethinkers among US military serving in Iraq and then shut it down. (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
- UPDATE: Chicago dentist orders employees to recite Scientology formulas in order to get their paychecks, and learn about Scientology in order to keep their jobs. (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
Ben Stein's Expelled
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Super Simmo apologises for this break in transmission.Super Simmo is one of the few bloggers on my sidebar that I know personally. He's a teacher in Perth who regularly posts on politics (and rugby union, and games) with passion and conviction.
Now it appears that he has deleted his blog; at least, it seems so: Blogger displays in Japanese characters over here. He did mention starting a new blog,
Simmo--if you're reading this, let me know what's going on.
Anyway, this is for you, Simmo:
And in the light of recent events . . .
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Actually, this is more of an extension of #1 and #2 from the existing list, but the argument runs thus: The Gospels constitute eyewitness accounts of the events they describe (the Virgin Birth, miracles, the Resurrection, etc.), and just as juries are able give credence to eyewitness testimony in a modern court of law, so we ought to give credence to the "eyewitness testimonies" of the writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The answer to this argument, of course, is that it presents a false analogy. Eyewitness testimony is never (or should never be) taken at face value in a court of law until the credibility of the eyewitness has been satisfactorily established. This is far easier to accomplish with eyewitnesses who are still alive, and whose existence is itself a demonstrable matter of record, than with those who are either millennia-dead or who may not have existed at all. Moreover, the reliability of the Gospels themselves as documents of historical fact is dubious in the extreme.
Another problem with the argument is that it gives undue credence to what is actually a very weak standard of evidence. As Austin Cline points out, "Juries place a lot of weight on eyewitness testimony, but this is because people place a lot more emphasis on personal stories than impersonal scientific data as a general rule. It’s unfortunate that people can be convicted solely on the basis of eyewitness testimony and without any corroborating evidence, but it has happened." Carl Sagan is famous for the maxim, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence--a kind of corollary to Ockham's Razor and Hume's argument against miracles --and eyewitness testimony just doesn't cut the mustard. It can't, otherwise we would have to accept as fact a myriad of claims based on personal testimony, including alien abductions, UFO sightings, astral travelling, ghost sightings, tarot reading and so forth.
The answer to this argument, of course, is that it presents a false analogy. Eyewitness testimony is never (or should never be) taken at face value in a court of law until the credibility of the eyewitness has been satisfactorily established. This is far easier to accomplish with eyewitnesses who are still alive, and whose existence is itself a demonstrable matter of record, than with those who are either millennia-dead or who may not have existed at all. Moreover, the reliability of the Gospels themselves as documents of historical fact is dubious in the extreme.
Another problem with the argument is that it gives undue credence to what is actually a very weak standard of evidence. As Austin Cline points out, "Juries place a lot of weight on eyewitness testimony, but this is because people place a lot more emphasis on personal stories than impersonal scientific data as a general rule. It’s unfortunate that people can be convicted solely on the basis of eyewitness testimony and without any corroborating evidence, but it has happened." Carl Sagan is famous for the maxim, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence--a kind of corollary to Ockham's Razor and Hume's argument against miracles --and eyewitness testimony just doesn't cut the mustard. It can't, otherwise we would have to accept as fact a myriad of claims based on personal testimony, including alien abductions, UFO sightings, astral travelling, ghost sightings, tarot reading and so forth.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
This post brought to you by . . .
BIBLEMAN: A FIGHT FOR FAITH*
(UPDATE: List now expanded to 21 unconvincing arguments)
How did I miss this? (I know: it's because I wasn't reading Friendly Atheist when he posted it.) The following, generated by August Berkshire of Minnesota Atheists and Atheist Alliance International, is a list of 18 unconvincing arguments for theism, along with their refutations.
(1) Holy Books - Just because something is written down does not make it true. This goes for the Bible, the Qu’ran, and any other holy book. People who believe the holy book of their religion usually disbelieve the holy books of other religions.
(2) “Revelations” - All religions claim to be revealed, usually to people called “prophets.” But a revelation is a personal experience. Even if the revelations really did come from a god, there is no way we could prove it. As Thomas Paine said, it is a revelation only to the first person, after that it is hearsay. People of one religion usually disbelieve the revelations of other religions.
(3) Personal Testimony / Feelings - This is when you are personally having the revelation or feeling that a god exists. Though you may be sincere, and even if a god really does exist, a feeling is not proof, either for you or for someone else.
(4) The “God Part” of the Brain - Some religious people argue that a god must exist, or why else would we have a part of our brain that can “recognize” a god? What use would that part of our brain be otherwise?
However, imagination is important for us to be able to predict the future, and thus aids our survival. We can imagine all kinds of things that aren’t true. It is a byproduct of being able to imagine things that might be true.
As a matter of fact, scientists have begun to study why some people have religious beliefs and others don’t, from a biological perspective. They have identified certain naturally occurring chemicals in our brains that can give us religious experiences.
In studies of religion and the brain, a new field called neurotheology, they have identified the temporal lobe as a place in the brain that can generate religious experiences.
Another part of the brain that regulates a person’s sense of “self” can be consciously shut down during meditation, giving the meditator (who loses his or her sense of personal boundaries) a feeling of “oneness” with the universe.
(5) “Open Heart” - It will do no good to ask atheists to “open our hearts and accept Jesus” (or any other deity). If we were to set aside our skepticism, we might indeed have an inspirational experience. But this would be an emotional experience and, like a revelation, we’d have no way to verify if a god was really speaking to us or if we were just hallucinating.
(6) Unverifiable “Miracles” / Resurrection Stories - Many religions have miracle stories. And just as people who believe in one religion are usually skeptical towards miracle stories of other religions, atheists are skeptical toward all miracle stories.
Good magicians can perform acts that seem like miracles. Things can be mismeasured and misinterpreted. A “medical miracle” can simply be attributed to our lack of knowledge of how the human body works. Why are there never any indisputable miracles, such as an amputated arm regenerating?
Regarding resurrections, atheists will not find a story of someone resurrecting from the dead to be convincing. There are many such legends in ancient literature and, again, most religious people reject the resurrection stories of other religions.
Modern resurrection stories always seem to occur in Third World countries under unscientific conditions. However, there have been thousands of people in modern hospitals hooked up to machines that verified their deaths when they died. Why didn’t any of them ever resurrect?
(7) Fear of Death / “Heaven” - Atheists don’t like the fact that we’re all going to die any more than religious people do. However, this fear does not prove there is an afterlife – only that we wish there was an afterlife. But wishing doesn’t make it so.
There is no reason to believe our consciousness survives the death of our brains. The mind is not something separate from the body. Chemical alteration and physical damage to our brains can change our thoughts.
Some people get Alzheimer’s disease at the end of their lives. The irreversible damage to their brains can be detected by brain scans. These people lose their ability to think, yet they are still alive. How, one second after these people die, does their thinking return (in a “soul”)?
(8) Fear of Hell - The idea of hell strikes atheists as a scam – an attempt to get people to believe through fear what they cannot believe through reason and evidence.
The only way to approach this “logically” is to find the religion that punishes you the worst for disbelief, and then believe that religion. Okay, you will have saved yourself from the worst punishment that exists – if that religion is the “true” religion.
But if that religion (with its punishment) is not the true religion – if the religion that has the second or third worst punishment for disbelief is the true religion – then you have saved yourself nothing.
So, which religion’s hell is the true hell. Without evidence, we can never know.
(9) “Pascal’s Wager” / Faith - In short, Pascal’s Wager states that we have everything to gain (an eternity in heaven) and nothing to lose by believing in a god. On the other hand, disbelief can lead to a loss of heaven (i.e. hell).
We’ve already noted that heaven is wishful thinking and that hell is a scam, so let’s address the issue of faith.
Pascal’s Wager assumes a person can will himself or herself into having faith. This is simply not the case, at least not for an atheist. So atheists would have to pretend to believe. But according to most definitions of God, wouldn’t God know we were lying to hedge our bets? Would a god reward this?
Part of Pascal’s Wager states that you “lose nothing” by believing. But an atheist would disagree. By believing under these conditions, you’re acknowledging that you’re willing to accept some things on faith. In other words, you’re saying you’re willing to abandon evidence as your standard for judging reality. Faith doesn’t sound so appealing when it’s phrased that way, does it?
(10) Blaming the Victim - Many religions punish people for disbelief. However, belief requires faith, and some people, such as atheists, are incapable of faith. Their minds are only receptive to evidence. Therefore, are atheists to be blamed for not believing when “God” provides insufficient evidence?
(11) The End of the World - Like the concept of hell, this strikes atheists as a scare tactic to get people to believe through fear what they can’t believe through reason and evidence. There have been predictions that the world was going to end for centuries now. The question you might want to ask yourselves, if you’re basing your religious beliefs on this, is how long you’re willing to wait – what amount of time will convince you that the world is not going to end?
(12) Meaning in Life - This is the idea that, without belief in a god, life would be meaningless. Even if this were true, it would only prove we wanted a god to exist to give meaning to our lives, not that a god actually does exist. But the very fact that atheists can find meaning in their lives without a belief in a god shows that god belief is not necessary.
(13) “God is Intangible, Like Love” - Love is not intangible. We can define love both as a type of feeling and as demonstrated by certain types of actions.
Unlike “God,” love is a physical thing. We know the chemicals responsible for the feeling of love.
Also, love depends upon brain structure – a person with a lobotomy or other type of brain damage cannot feel love.
Furthermore, if love were not physical, it would not be confined to our physical brains. We would expect to be able to detect an entity or force called “love” floating around in the air.
(14) Morality/Ethics - This is the idea that without a god we’d have no basis for morality. However, a secular moral code existed before the Bible: the Code of Hammurabi.
In Plato’s dialogue called Euthyphro, Socrates asks a man named Euthyphro whether something is good because God says it is, or does God announce something to be good because it has intrinsic goodness?
If something is good because God says it is, then God might change his mind about what is good. Thus, there would be no absolute morality.
If God merely announces something to be good because it has intrinsic goodness, then we might be able to discover this intrinsic goodness ourselves, without the need for god belief.
Christians can’t even agree among themselves what’s moral when it comes to things like masturbation, premarital sex, homosexuality, divorce, contraception, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and the death penalty.
Christians reject some of the moral laws found in the Bible, such as killing disobedient children or people who work on the sabbath. Therefore, Christians must be applying their own ethical standards from outside the Bible to be able to recognize that these commandments in the Bible are unethical.
Other animals exhibit kindness toward one another and a sense of justice. Morality is something that evolved from us being social beings. It’s based on the selfish advantage we get from cooperation, and on consequences.
(15) Altruism - People sometimes say that without a god there would be no altruism, that evolution only rewards selfish behavior.
However, it can be argued that there is no such thing as altruism, that people always do what they want to do. If they are only faced with bad choices, then people choose the thing they hate the least.
Our choices are based on what gives us (our genes) the best advantage for survival, including raising our reputation in society.
“Altruism” towards family members benefits people who share our genes. “Altruism” towards friends benefits people who may someday return the favor.
Even “altruism” towards strangers has a basis in evolution. This behavior first evolved in small tribes, where everyone knew each other and a good reputation enhanced one’s survival. It is now hard-wired in our brains as a general mode of conduct.
(16) Free Will - Some people argue that without a god there would be no free will, that we would live in a deterministic universe of cause and effect and that we would be mere “robots.”
Actually, there is far less free will than most people think there is. Our conditioning (our biological desire to survive and prosper, combined with our experiences) make certain “choices” far more likely than others. How else can we explain our ability, in many cases, to predict human behavior?
Experiments have shown that our brain makes a “decision” to take action before we become conscious of it!
Some believe that the only free will we have is to exercise a conscious veto over actions suggested by our thoughts.
Most atheists have no problem admitting that free will may be an illusion.
This issue also brings up a conundrum: If a god who created us knows the future, how can we have free will?
In the end, if we are enjoying our lives, does it matter if free will is real or an illusion? Isn’t it only our ego – our healthy self-esteem that is beneficial for survival – that has been conditioned to believe that real free will is somehow better than imaginary free will?
(17) Difficulties of Religion - It has sometimes been argued that because certain religious practices are difficult to follow, nobody would do them if a god didn’t exist. However, it is the belief in the existence of a god that is motivating people. A god doesn’t really have to exist for this to happen.
Difficulties can serve as an initiation rite of passage into being counted one of the “select few.” After all, if just anybody could be “saved,” there might be no point in having a religion.
Finally, the reward for obedience promised by most religions – a heaven – far outweighs any difficulties religion imposes.
(18) False Dichotomies - This is being presented with a false “either/or” proposition, where you’re only given two alternatives when, in fact, there are more possibilities.
Here’s one that many Christians are familiar with: “Either Jesus was insane or he was god. Since Jesus said some wise things, he wasn’t insane. Therefore, he must be God, like he said he was.” But those are not the only two possibilities.
A third option is that, yes, it is possible to say some wise things and be deluded that you are a god.
A fourth possibility is that Jesus didn’t say everything that is attributed to him in the Bible. Maybe he didn’t actually say all those wise things, but the writers of the Bible said he did. Or maybe he never claimed to be God, but the writers turned him into a god after he died.
A fifth possibility is that Jesus is a fictional character and so everything was invented by the authors.
Here’s another example of a false dichotomy: “No one would die for a lie. The early Christians died for Christianity. Therefore, Christianity must be true.”
What’s left out of this is that there is no evidence that anyone who ever personally knew Jesus (if he even existed) was ever martyred. We only have stories of martyrdom.
Another explanation is that the followers had been fooled, intentionally or unintentionally, into thinking Jesus was God, and so they were willing to die for a lie (that they thought was true.)
Another point is that if you believe you’ll end up in a heaven after to die, then martyrdom is no big deal.
Finally, does the fact that the 9/11 bombers were willing to die for their faith make Islam true?
(19) God-of-the-Gaps (Medicine, Life, Universe, etc.) - The god-of-the-gaps argument says that if we don’t currently know the scientific answer to something, then “God did it.”
God-of-the-gaps is used in many areas, but I’ll focus on the three main ones: medicine, life, and the universe. You’ll notice that God never has to prove himself in these arguments. It is always assumed that he gets to win by default.
Here’s a medical example: A person experiences a cure for a disease that science can’t explain. Therefore, “God did it.”
But this assumes we know everything about the human body, so that a natural explanation is impossible. But the fact is, we don’t have complete medical knowledge. Why don’t we ever see something that would be a true miracle, like an amputated arm instantaneously regenerating?
Several studies of prayer, where the patients didn’t know whether or not they were being prayed for, including a study by the Mayo Clinic, have shown prayer to have no effect on healing.
(This raises the question of why we would have to beg an all-powerful, all-loving god to be healed in the first place. It seems ironic, to say the least, to pray to a god to be cured from diseases and the effects of natural disasters that he himself created. It also raises the Problem of Evil: If God is all-powerful and all-loving, why does evil exist in the first place?)
An example of god-of-the-gaps as it applies to life is creationism and “intelligent design.” It says we don’t know everything about evolution, therefore “God did it.” This ignores the fossil and genetic evidence and also fails to explain the many poor and sub-optimal “designs” we find in nature. Is “God” an incompetent or sloppy designer?
The final and most popular example of god-of-the-gaps is the universe. But to say we don’t know the origins of the universe – if the universe even had an ultimate beginning – does not mean that “God did it.”
And, of course, it begs the question: Who created God? If complex things need a creator to explain their existence, then “God,” who by the traditional definition is far more complex than the universe, and is even more in need of a creator.
(20) “Fine-tuning” of the Earth - Some religious people argue that the Earth is positioned “just right” in the solar system (not too hot, not too cold, etc.) for life to exist. Furthermore, the elements on Earth (carbon, oxygen, etc.) are also “just right.” These people claim that this couldn’t have happened “by accident,” so a god must exist to have done the positioning and chemistry.
We should be able to recognize a god-of-the-gaps argument here. But an even better rebuttal exists. If Earth was the only planet in the universe, then it would indeed be remarkable that our conditions turned out to be “just right.”
But most religious people acknowledge that there are probably thousands, if not millions, of other planets in the universe. (Our own solar system has eight planets.) Therefore, by chance, at least one of those planets will have conditions that will produce some kind of life.
We can imagine religious purple creatures with four eyes and breathing carbon dioxide on another planet also falsely believing that their planet is “fine-tuned” and that a creator god exists in their image.
(21) "Fine-tuning” of the Universe - Some religious people argue that the six physical constants of the universe (which control such things as the strength of gravity) can only exist within a very narrow range to produce a universe capable of sustaining life. Therefore, since this couldn’t have happened “by accident,” a god must have done it.
Again, this is a god-of-the-gaps argument. But beyond that, this argument assumes that we know everything about astrophysics – a field in which new discoveries are made on almost a daily basis. We may discover that our universe is not so “fine tuned” after all.
However, the best rebuttal is that there may exist multiple universes – either separately or as “bubble universes” within a single universe. Each of these universes could have its own set of constants. Given enough universes, by chance it is likely that at least one will produce and sustain life.
We know it is possible for at least one universe to exist – we are in it. If one can exist, why not many? On the other hand, we have no evidence that it is possible for even one god to exist.
Conclusion - Religious people have a tough, if not impossible task to try to prove a god exists, let alone that their particular religion is true. If any religion had objective standards, wouldn’t everyone be flocking to the same “true” religion? Instead we find that people tend to believe, to varying degrees, the religion in which they were indoctrinated. Or they are atheists.
*Yes, Bibleman is legit. HT: Outchurched.
BIBLEMAN: A FIGHT FOR FAITH*
(UPDATE: List now expanded to 21 unconvincing arguments)
How did I miss this? (I know: it's because I wasn't reading Friendly Atheist when he posted it.) The following, generated by August Berkshire of Minnesota Atheists and Atheist Alliance International, is a list of 18 unconvincing arguments for theism, along with their refutations.
(1) Holy Books - Just because something is written down does not make it true. This goes for the Bible, the Qu’ran, and any other holy book. People who believe the holy book of their religion usually disbelieve the holy books of other religions.
(2) “Revelations” - All religions claim to be revealed, usually to people called “prophets.” But a revelation is a personal experience. Even if the revelations really did come from a god, there is no way we could prove it. As Thomas Paine said, it is a revelation only to the first person, after that it is hearsay. People of one religion usually disbelieve the revelations of other religions.
(3) Personal Testimony / Feelings - This is when you are personally having the revelation or feeling that a god exists. Though you may be sincere, and even if a god really does exist, a feeling is not proof, either for you or for someone else.
(4) The “God Part” of the Brain - Some religious people argue that a god must exist, or why else would we have a part of our brain that can “recognize” a god? What use would that part of our brain be otherwise?
However, imagination is important for us to be able to predict the future, and thus aids our survival. We can imagine all kinds of things that aren’t true. It is a byproduct of being able to imagine things that might be true.
As a matter of fact, scientists have begun to study why some people have religious beliefs and others don’t, from a biological perspective. They have identified certain naturally occurring chemicals in our brains that can give us religious experiences.
In studies of religion and the brain, a new field called neurotheology, they have identified the temporal lobe as a place in the brain that can generate religious experiences.
Another part of the brain that regulates a person’s sense of “self” can be consciously shut down during meditation, giving the meditator (who loses his or her sense of personal boundaries) a feeling of “oneness” with the universe.
(5) “Open Heart” - It will do no good to ask atheists to “open our hearts and accept Jesus” (or any other deity). If we were to set aside our skepticism, we might indeed have an inspirational experience. But this would be an emotional experience and, like a revelation, we’d have no way to verify if a god was really speaking to us or if we were just hallucinating.
(6) Unverifiable “Miracles” / Resurrection Stories - Many religions have miracle stories. And just as people who believe in one religion are usually skeptical towards miracle stories of other religions, atheists are skeptical toward all miracle stories.
Good magicians can perform acts that seem like miracles. Things can be mismeasured and misinterpreted. A “medical miracle” can simply be attributed to our lack of knowledge of how the human body works. Why are there never any indisputable miracles, such as an amputated arm regenerating?
Regarding resurrections, atheists will not find a story of someone resurrecting from the dead to be convincing. There are many such legends in ancient literature and, again, most religious people reject the resurrection stories of other religions.
Modern resurrection stories always seem to occur in Third World countries under unscientific conditions. However, there have been thousands of people in modern hospitals hooked up to machines that verified their deaths when they died. Why didn’t any of them ever resurrect?
(7) Fear of Death / “Heaven” - Atheists don’t like the fact that we’re all going to die any more than religious people do. However, this fear does not prove there is an afterlife – only that we wish there was an afterlife. But wishing doesn’t make it so.
There is no reason to believe our consciousness survives the death of our brains. The mind is not something separate from the body. Chemical alteration and physical damage to our brains can change our thoughts.
Some people get Alzheimer’s disease at the end of their lives. The irreversible damage to their brains can be detected by brain scans. These people lose their ability to think, yet they are still alive. How, one second after these people die, does their thinking return (in a “soul”)?
(8) Fear of Hell - The idea of hell strikes atheists as a scam – an attempt to get people to believe through fear what they cannot believe through reason and evidence.
The only way to approach this “logically” is to find the religion that punishes you the worst for disbelief, and then believe that religion. Okay, you will have saved yourself from the worst punishment that exists – if that religion is the “true” religion.
But if that religion (with its punishment) is not the true religion – if the religion that has the second or third worst punishment for disbelief is the true religion – then you have saved yourself nothing.
So, which religion’s hell is the true hell. Without evidence, we can never know.
(9) “Pascal’s Wager” / Faith - In short, Pascal’s Wager states that we have everything to gain (an eternity in heaven) and nothing to lose by believing in a god. On the other hand, disbelief can lead to a loss of heaven (i.e. hell).
We’ve already noted that heaven is wishful thinking and that hell is a scam, so let’s address the issue of faith.
Pascal’s Wager assumes a person can will himself or herself into having faith. This is simply not the case, at least not for an atheist. So atheists would have to pretend to believe. But according to most definitions of God, wouldn’t God know we were lying to hedge our bets? Would a god reward this?
Part of Pascal’s Wager states that you “lose nothing” by believing. But an atheist would disagree. By believing under these conditions, you’re acknowledging that you’re willing to accept some things on faith. In other words, you’re saying you’re willing to abandon evidence as your standard for judging reality. Faith doesn’t sound so appealing when it’s phrased that way, does it?
(10) Blaming the Victim - Many religions punish people for disbelief. However, belief requires faith, and some people, such as atheists, are incapable of faith. Their minds are only receptive to evidence. Therefore, are atheists to be blamed for not believing when “God” provides insufficient evidence?
(11) The End of the World - Like the concept of hell, this strikes atheists as a scare tactic to get people to believe through fear what they can’t believe through reason and evidence. There have been predictions that the world was going to end for centuries now. The question you might want to ask yourselves, if you’re basing your religious beliefs on this, is how long you’re willing to wait – what amount of time will convince you that the world is not going to end?
(12) Meaning in Life - This is the idea that, without belief in a god, life would be meaningless. Even if this were true, it would only prove we wanted a god to exist to give meaning to our lives, not that a god actually does exist. But the very fact that atheists can find meaning in their lives without a belief in a god shows that god belief is not necessary.
(13) “God is Intangible, Like Love” - Love is not intangible. We can define love both as a type of feeling and as demonstrated by certain types of actions.
Unlike “God,” love is a physical thing. We know the chemicals responsible for the feeling of love.
Also, love depends upon brain structure – a person with a lobotomy or other type of brain damage cannot feel love.
Furthermore, if love were not physical, it would not be confined to our physical brains. We would expect to be able to detect an entity or force called “love” floating around in the air.
(14) Morality/Ethics - This is the idea that without a god we’d have no basis for morality. However, a secular moral code existed before the Bible: the Code of Hammurabi.
In Plato’s dialogue called Euthyphro, Socrates asks a man named Euthyphro whether something is good because God says it is, or does God announce something to be good because it has intrinsic goodness?
If something is good because God says it is, then God might change his mind about what is good. Thus, there would be no absolute morality.
If God merely announces something to be good because it has intrinsic goodness, then we might be able to discover this intrinsic goodness ourselves, without the need for god belief.
Christians can’t even agree among themselves what’s moral when it comes to things like masturbation, premarital sex, homosexuality, divorce, contraception, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and the death penalty.
Christians reject some of the moral laws found in the Bible, such as killing disobedient children or people who work on the sabbath. Therefore, Christians must be applying their own ethical standards from outside the Bible to be able to recognize that these commandments in the Bible are unethical.
Other animals exhibit kindness toward one another and a sense of justice. Morality is something that evolved from us being social beings. It’s based on the selfish advantage we get from cooperation, and on consequences.
(15) Altruism - People sometimes say that without a god there would be no altruism, that evolution only rewards selfish behavior.
However, it can be argued that there is no such thing as altruism, that people always do what they want to do. If they are only faced with bad choices, then people choose the thing they hate the least.
Our choices are based on what gives us (our genes) the best advantage for survival, including raising our reputation in society.
“Altruism” towards family members benefits people who share our genes. “Altruism” towards friends benefits people who may someday return the favor.
Even “altruism” towards strangers has a basis in evolution. This behavior first evolved in small tribes, where everyone knew each other and a good reputation enhanced one’s survival. It is now hard-wired in our brains as a general mode of conduct.
(16) Free Will - Some people argue that without a god there would be no free will, that we would live in a deterministic universe of cause and effect and that we would be mere “robots.”
Actually, there is far less free will than most people think there is. Our conditioning (our biological desire to survive and prosper, combined with our experiences) make certain “choices” far more likely than others. How else can we explain our ability, in many cases, to predict human behavior?
Experiments have shown that our brain makes a “decision” to take action before we become conscious of it!
Some believe that the only free will we have is to exercise a conscious veto over actions suggested by our thoughts.
Most atheists have no problem admitting that free will may be an illusion.
This issue also brings up a conundrum: If a god who created us knows the future, how can we have free will?
In the end, if we are enjoying our lives, does it matter if free will is real or an illusion? Isn’t it only our ego – our healthy self-esteem that is beneficial for survival – that has been conditioned to believe that real free will is somehow better than imaginary free will?
(17) Difficulties of Religion - It has sometimes been argued that because certain religious practices are difficult to follow, nobody would do them if a god didn’t exist. However, it is the belief in the existence of a god that is motivating people. A god doesn’t really have to exist for this to happen.
Difficulties can serve as an initiation rite of passage into being counted one of the “select few.” After all, if just anybody could be “saved,” there might be no point in having a religion.
Finally, the reward for obedience promised by most religions – a heaven – far outweighs any difficulties religion imposes.
(18) False Dichotomies - This is being presented with a false “either/or” proposition, where you’re only given two alternatives when, in fact, there are more possibilities.
Here’s one that many Christians are familiar with: “Either Jesus was insane or he was god. Since Jesus said some wise things, he wasn’t insane. Therefore, he must be God, like he said he was.” But those are not the only two possibilities.
A third option is that, yes, it is possible to say some wise things and be deluded that you are a god.
A fourth possibility is that Jesus didn’t say everything that is attributed to him in the Bible. Maybe he didn’t actually say all those wise things, but the writers of the Bible said he did. Or maybe he never claimed to be God, but the writers turned him into a god after he died.
A fifth possibility is that Jesus is a fictional character and so everything was invented by the authors.
Here’s another example of a false dichotomy: “No one would die for a lie. The early Christians died for Christianity. Therefore, Christianity must be true.”
What’s left out of this is that there is no evidence that anyone who ever personally knew Jesus (if he even existed) was ever martyred. We only have stories of martyrdom.
Another explanation is that the followers had been fooled, intentionally or unintentionally, into thinking Jesus was God, and so they were willing to die for a lie (that they thought was true.)
Another point is that if you believe you’ll end up in a heaven after to die, then martyrdom is no big deal.
Finally, does the fact that the 9/11 bombers were willing to die for their faith make Islam true?
(19) God-of-the-Gaps (Medicine, Life, Universe, etc.) - The god-of-the-gaps argument says that if we don’t currently know the scientific answer to something, then “God did it.”
God-of-the-gaps is used in many areas, but I’ll focus on the three main ones: medicine, life, and the universe. You’ll notice that God never has to prove himself in these arguments. It is always assumed that he gets to win by default.
Here’s a medical example: A person experiences a cure for a disease that science can’t explain. Therefore, “God did it.”
But this assumes we know everything about the human body, so that a natural explanation is impossible. But the fact is, we don’t have complete medical knowledge. Why don’t we ever see something that would be a true miracle, like an amputated arm instantaneously regenerating?
Several studies of prayer, where the patients didn’t know whether or not they were being prayed for, including a study by the Mayo Clinic, have shown prayer to have no effect on healing.
(This raises the question of why we would have to beg an all-powerful, all-loving god to be healed in the first place. It seems ironic, to say the least, to pray to a god to be cured from diseases and the effects of natural disasters that he himself created. It also raises the Problem of Evil: If God is all-powerful and all-loving, why does evil exist in the first place?)
An example of god-of-the-gaps as it applies to life is creationism and “intelligent design.” It says we don’t know everything about evolution, therefore “God did it.” This ignores the fossil and genetic evidence and also fails to explain the many poor and sub-optimal “designs” we find in nature. Is “God” an incompetent or sloppy designer?
The final and most popular example of god-of-the-gaps is the universe. But to say we don’t know the origins of the universe – if the universe even had an ultimate beginning – does not mean that “God did it.”
And, of course, it begs the question: Who created God? If complex things need a creator to explain their existence, then “God,” who by the traditional definition is far more complex than the universe, and is even more in need of a creator.
(20) “Fine-tuning” of the Earth - Some religious people argue that the Earth is positioned “just right” in the solar system (not too hot, not too cold, etc.) for life to exist. Furthermore, the elements on Earth (carbon, oxygen, etc.) are also “just right.” These people claim that this couldn’t have happened “by accident,” so a god must exist to have done the positioning and chemistry.
We should be able to recognize a god-of-the-gaps argument here. But an even better rebuttal exists. If Earth was the only planet in the universe, then it would indeed be remarkable that our conditions turned out to be “just right.”
But most religious people acknowledge that there are probably thousands, if not millions, of other planets in the universe. (Our own solar system has eight planets.) Therefore, by chance, at least one of those planets will have conditions that will produce some kind of life.
We can imagine religious purple creatures with four eyes and breathing carbon dioxide on another planet also falsely believing that their planet is “fine-tuned” and that a creator god exists in their image.
(21) "Fine-tuning” of the Universe - Some religious people argue that the six physical constants of the universe (which control such things as the strength of gravity) can only exist within a very narrow range to produce a universe capable of sustaining life. Therefore, since this couldn’t have happened “by accident,” a god must have done it.
Again, this is a god-of-the-gaps argument. But beyond that, this argument assumes that we know everything about astrophysics – a field in which new discoveries are made on almost a daily basis. We may discover that our universe is not so “fine tuned” after all.
However, the best rebuttal is that there may exist multiple universes – either separately or as “bubble universes” within a single universe. Each of these universes could have its own set of constants. Given enough universes, by chance it is likely that at least one will produce and sustain life.
We know it is possible for at least one universe to exist – we are in it. If one can exist, why not many? On the other hand, we have no evidence that it is possible for even one god to exist.
Conclusion - Religious people have a tough, if not impossible task to try to prove a god exists, let alone that their particular religion is true. If any religion had objective standards, wouldn’t everyone be flocking to the same “true” religion? Instead we find that people tend to believe, to varying degrees, the religion in which they were indoctrinated. Or they are atheists.
*Yes, Bibleman is legit. HT: Outchurched.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
1. An atheist US soldier serving in Iraq organises the first ever meeting of that country's chapter of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, having dotted all the necessary 'i's and crossed all the necessary 't's. Of the four soldiers who attend this meeting, one turns out to be a Fundamentalist Christian army major, posing as a "freethinker." Said fundie proceeds to verbally harangue the other attendees--after he has ordered them to stand to attention--for "plotting against Christians" and "being disrespectful to other soldiers," and then shuts the meeting down. This actually happened.
Well, the organiser has since filed a lawsuit, and for his troubles has been threatened with fragging by good Christian soldiers (good purely by virtue of being Christian, of course) in his own unit. Fragging non-theists: it's what Jesus would do. (Austin Cline/No God Blog)
2. A Muslim dentist in Britain has been accused of demanding that a female patient cover her head with a scarf in traditional Muslim fashion before he would treat her. (Austin Cline)
3. Police catch youths who spraypainted images of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on various buildings in a Canadian town. (Is this a hoax?)
4. In Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party is pushing for the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in schools. (Pharyngula)
From OneGoodMove, Bill Maher spells out The New Rules. You have been schooled, my friends.
UPDATE re: the atheist soldier in Iraq. I've been reading the discussion forum at the Military Religious Freedom Association website. A commenter writes:
Well, the organiser has since filed a lawsuit, and for his troubles has been threatened with fragging by good Christian soldiers (good purely by virtue of being Christian, of course) in his own unit. Fragging non-theists: it's what Jesus would do. (Austin Cline/No God Blog)
2. A Muslim dentist in Britain has been accused of demanding that a female patient cover her head with a scarf in traditional Muslim fashion before he would treat her. (Austin Cline)
3. Police catch youths who spraypainted images of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on various buildings in a Canadian town. (Is this a hoax?)
4. In Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party is pushing for the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in schools. (Pharyngula)
From OneGoodMove, Bill Maher spells out The New Rules. You have been schooled, my friends.
UPDATE re: the atheist soldier in Iraq. I've been reading the discussion forum at the Military Religious Freedom Association website. A commenter writes:
I don't know if there has been any coercion on the part of officers in the military. It may have occurred on occasion - I just don't know. However, if only one soul were saved as a result of the activities in the military, wouldn't it be worth it? All the wealth in the world isn't worth the value of a single soul. My point to Mr. Weinstein was this: Is he actually doing what God wants Him to do? Maybe the persons involved in the military are doing what God has asked them to do.Browbeating and threatening non-theists: it is what Jesus would do!
Friday, September 21, 2007
Being away from the blogosphere for so long (relatively speaking) has put me at some remove from current debates regarding atheism, and I am only just beginning to catch up. I will mention in passing one trend that appears to have developed as The God Delusion, God Is Not Great, The End of Faith, Breaking the Spell and others have gained in popularity and notoriety--and, it seems, atheism with them. It seems that all one needs to do nowadays to refute atheism is to put the modifier "militant" in front of it--and hey presto! the argument is won. Darwin's Beagle has noted this very trend:
What I'd like to do, however, is direct you to the blog of Matt McCormick, from the Philosophy department of California State University, who is teaching that university's first ever seminar on atheism. What I want to draw your attention to, though, are two posts of his where he suggests that, in a predominantly Christian epistemic context such as that which prevails in the US, "the lion’s share of the burden of proof" will be on atheists. That is, in a culture in which God-belief is the prevailing belief,
What do you make of McCormick's argument? My own response is mixed. On the one hand, to return to McCormick's geocentrism example--in which one would be justified in believing that the sun orbits the earth if that is the prevailing belief of one's culture--can we really be justified in believing a falsehood? And I don't accept the claim that even in a god-fearing milieu the atheist bears the lion's share of the burden of proof. The lion's share rests with the party advancing a positive knowledge-claim: this certainly applies to the theist, and it also applies to the strong atheist. It doesn't apply to the weak/agnostic atheist, who lacks belief in gods because there is no evidence that gods exist. Sure, he or she would not be able to say definitively what such evidence would look like, but here's the thing: neither could the theist.
On the other hand, I agree with McCormick that it is not enough for atheists to simply rest on their laurels and expect theists to do all the argumentative leg-work. For one thing, they won't, given that (in societies where theism predominates) they consider theirs to be the default position. Furthermore, to demand reflexiveness on the part of theists whilst neglecting to practice such reflexiveness ourselves is a double-standard. If we have a compelling justification for our position, as McCormick maintains we do, we ought to be out there advancing it.
As an experiment, I decided to do a search of Google news using a variety of search terms that included "militant" in their name and comparing what "militant" meant when applied as a modifier to other groups. There was no hits for the search terms "militant Christian", "militant Jew", "militant Judaism", or "militant fundamentalism". There was one hit for "militant Christianity", three hits for "militant fundamentlist", 137 hits for "militant Islam", 90 hits for "militant Islamist", and 15 hits for "militant Muslim". There were 6 hits for "militant atheism" and 5 hits for "militant atheist".I myself have been labeled a "Militant Fundamentalist Atheist," even though I am in possession of no bombs or weaponry, have had no military or paramilitary training or experience, and cannot for the life of me see what there is in atheism (particularly the agnostic atheism I espouse) to be "fundamentalist" about. FSM forbid that an actual argument could be allowed to elbow its way past the ad hominems.
So Islam and its derivatives swamp the number of news articles in which the term "militant" is used. Browsing through the articles, I could not find a single one where the adjective "militant" was used to refer to an Islamist that argued passionately for the acceptance of Islam. Every article dealt with factions of Islam that openly advocated killing Americans, infidels, non-believers, or was in some way or another connected with terrorism.
What I'd like to do, however, is direct you to the blog of Matt McCormick, from the Philosophy department of California State University, who is teaching that university's first ever seminar on atheism. What I want to draw your attention to, though, are two posts of his where he suggests that, in a predominantly Christian epistemic context such as that which prevails in the US, "the lion’s share of the burden of proof" will be on atheists. That is, in a culture in which God-belief is the prevailing belief,
You can’t just opt to believe otherwise at will and be epistemically inculpable. Even if everyone around you believes something completely mistaken like “The sun orbits the earth,” their believing it, and so many of them believing it, puts an tremendous burden of proof on you if you are going to break ranks and form a contrary opinion.In case you were thinking otherwise, McCormick is not engaging in Christian apologetics, or at least he is not trying to. (I think.) As a coherentist, his point is that we are justified in believing that which is coherent with prevailing beliefs, and if our beliefs do not cohere with prevailing beliefs, the onus is on us to show how the prevailing beliefs are wrong. To the objection that we should check that our beliefs correspond with objective reality, McCormick replies:
Evidence, for the most part, is what a person takes it to be. Evidence doesn’t just exist out there on its own. Some phenomena only becomes evidence in virtue of being taken to be indicative of some conclusion by some person. And obviously, different people can take the same phenomena as evidence to contradictory conclusions. Or they can appear to be observing the very same phenomena, but they are actually taking note of very different details and drawing the same or different conclusions from it.In other words, McCormick is arguing that it really won't do for the atheist to simply declare that, in the absence of evidence for the existence of a god, there is no reason to believe that god exists. This merely raises two questions: (i) what would the atheist count as evidence of god's existence?, and (ii) since many theists do believe evidence exists for the existence of god, why should the atheist's interpretation of the evidence trump the theists'? Everything turns, then, on the justification and coherence of one's beliefs. It is up to atheists to show how atheism is more coherent than theism as a worldview.
What do you make of McCormick's argument? My own response is mixed. On the one hand, to return to McCormick's geocentrism example--in which one would be justified in believing that the sun orbits the earth if that is the prevailing belief of one's culture--can we really be justified in believing a falsehood? And I don't accept the claim that even in a god-fearing milieu the atheist bears the lion's share of the burden of proof. The lion's share rests with the party advancing a positive knowledge-claim: this certainly applies to the theist, and it also applies to the strong atheist. It doesn't apply to the weak/agnostic atheist, who lacks belief in gods because there is no evidence that gods exist. Sure, he or she would not be able to say definitively what such evidence would look like, but here's the thing: neither could the theist.
On the other hand, I agree with McCormick that it is not enough for atheists to simply rest on their laurels and expect theists to do all the argumentative leg-work. For one thing, they won't, given that (in societies where theism predominates) they consider theirs to be the default position. Furthermore, to demand reflexiveness on the part of theists whilst neglecting to practice such reflexiveness ourselves is a double-standard. If we have a compelling justification for our position, as McCormick maintains we do, we ought to be out there advancing it.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Japanese toilets: Kenny was right.I've been feeling a little cut off from the rest of the world these past few week sans internet. It's been difficult enough keeping up with goings on in Japan, given my workload and my inability to read or understand the language, and nigh-on impossible to keep up with happenings at home. I've been missing my mornings with Fran (of Radio National Breakfast fame)--in a platonic sense, you understand--which makes it all the more wonderful to finally have an internet connection and to be able to enjoy streaming audio. (I've been surviving off my collection of podcasts all this time--"life in the fast lane," I know.)
Life in Japan has many advantages, of course. Two which spring immediately to mind are that I don't care that the Eagles have been eliminated from the finals, and I don't really care that Australia looks likely to be eliminated from the Twenty20 World Cup. It all just seems so trivial--and probably should have seemed as trivial when I was back in Australia.
Of course, living in Japan also means that I am living outside the Abrahamosphere. Japan is a religious country in its own way, and that is a topic I intend to investigate while I am living here, because I know so little about it. It's just that the Japanese (yes, I know I'm generalising) don't seem to feel as if they need to wear their faith on their sleeves; and--get this--their society manages to hold itself together, quite successfully I might add, in the absence of Jesus. Japan held a federal election last year, but to my knowledge there existed no Japanese Buddhist or Shinto Lobby that deemed itself (by virtue of its very religiosity) qualified to vet the ethical credentials of the contending parties' leaders on national television. And it is actually possible to gaze from a lofty height across the skyline of a Japanese city and not see a single spire, cross, or minaret--and yet somehow, amazingly, the citizens manage to make it through a single day, even many single days, without raping and killing each other!!! Go figure.
Needless to say (but I'll say it nonetheless), it sounds like paradise to me. (The intolerable summer heat and humidity is quite another matter.) But I do have a favour to ask. During my sojourn in the land of adzuki bean-flavoured frappacinos, I fear that I've become quite ignorant of matters religious, political, politico-religious and religio-political in Australia, the US and elsewhere. What's been happening?
Saturday, September 15, 2007
As Sam Gamgee famously puts it in the closing lines of Lord of the Rings, "Well, I'm back." How's Japan, I hear you ask? Japan is a wonderful country: friendly, sophisticated, and so much more "alive" than Australia (or at least the Ben Cousins-obsessed corner of Australia from which you humble servant hails). Who would have thought it in a country full of heathens? But Japan is also hot: insufferably hot. I really should have done my homework on that one: I was expecting to arrive in a mild European-style clime and wound up landing in a steam bath. The heat wave, which has continued pretty-much unabated since the beginning of August, has claimed more than 50 lives, apparently. But not me--my apartment has an air conditioner.
I've been away for quite a few weeks now, and evidently I have a lot of catching up to do regarding the topics of magical thinking and church-state separation, which as you know I like to write about from time to time. I have running internet in my home now, so I should be back in the swing of things soon enough, if not as frequently as when I was back in Australia. After all, I'm living in Japan, and I have touristy-stuff to do.
So this morning I would simply like to plug a magnificent post by Balneus--a critique of a Quadrant article by Cardinal George Pell in which he mounts an apologia for theocracy by way of a hagiography of Emperor Constantine.
If you peeked over the fold, I wanted to post more episodes of the "Search for a Scapegoat" series, but no more seem to have been made. A pity.
So here's Daniel Dennett on ants, terrorism and memes:
I've been away for quite a few weeks now, and evidently I have a lot of catching up to do regarding the topics of magical thinking and church-state separation, which as you know I like to write about from time to time. I have running internet in my home now, so I should be back in the swing of things soon enough, if not as frequently as when I was back in Australia. After all, I'm living in Japan, and I have touristy-stuff to do.
So this morning I would simply like to plug a magnificent post by Balneus--a critique of a Quadrant article by Cardinal George Pell in which he mounts an apologia for theocracy by way of a hagiography of Emperor Constantine.
If you peeked over the fold, I wanted to post more episodes of the "Search for a Scapegoat" series, but no more seem to have been made. A pity.
So here's Daniel Dennett on ants, terrorism and memes:
Monday, September 10, 2007
Hello all. I just wanted to let those of you who still care know that I am still around, and waiting for a working internet connection in my apartment, before I rejoin the fray.
In the meantime, please enjoy some Richard Dawkins. (You know you want to.) (I should warn you that the audio is not the best.)
In the meantime, please enjoy some Richard Dawkins. (You know you want to.) (I should warn you that the audio is not the best.)
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