Ruse and Rhetoric
Note: The first paragraph has been edited, since, as Dan found out, my use of ‘old atheist’ and ‘new atheist’ is confusing. I used them in an apparently historical sense, and that’s not what I had in mind, so I have tried to clarify this, so that I do not mislead anyone else.
I tend to be a tinkerer, and I can’t forbear adding the following ”prolegomena” to this post, just to clarify further. Here is Michael Ruse talking to John Dickson, co-founder and director of the Centre for Public Christianity in Sydney, Australia:
This short video (only 1 minute and 3 seconds) should clarify what I mean by “old atheist,” for Ruse is an atheist in this sense. (Notice, by the way, how Ruse elides the question whether Christianity “works for me.”) The truth seems to me to be that the theological argument can no longer be taken, given the advance of science, as reasonable in the same sense as it was once thought to be, even by those who disagreed with it. This would be a good research project, and perhaps even a book for some enterprising “new atheist.” Ruse thinks that Dawkins should take seriously what believers believe, but it is not altogether clear why he should. Nosing around for a few minutes on the Biologos site will give any thoughtful, reasonable person cause to question whether religion can engage us rationally, as it might once have claimed to do. “New atheists” are those who, because science has soundly discredited religious belief, and the reasons given for holding it, can simply no longer accept arguments for religious belief as rational. The cultural reasons for this are explored in some detail by the Cambridge theologian (or atheologian) Don Cupitt, who in a series of books argues that classical Christianity can no longer be accepted as in any reasonable sense — as we now understand truth — true. And now I hand you over to the post as originally published with the re-edited first paragraph:
I’m trying to get a handle on what Michael Ruse now thinks about the relationship between science and religion. In his recent book, Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science, he makes his case for the compatibility of religion and science, a position he has defended zealously against the new atheists, who, of course, disagree. The “old atheists” take it for granted that we are playing on a level playing field, and that both religion and science, though of course they think that religion was wrong, are rational approaches to reality. The old atheists do not, on principle, impugn the rationality of theology, but that is just what the new atheists are doing, and this is the point at which Ruse, an “old atheist” in my sense, while professing himself to be an atheist, parts company with the new atheists, whom he considers as intellectually disastrous as the tea partiers.
However, Ruse has now himself come upon the solid wall of contradiction between religion and science, as he states quite clearly in his response to the Pope’s Easter homily. In that homily, “the most important of them all,” says Ruse, the Pope said this:
If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense or might even be a chance of nature. But no, Reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine Reason.
To which Ruse’s response is forthright and uncompromising:
The point I am making is that, as things stand at the moment, there is a flat-out contradiction between the claims of modern biological science and the theology of the Roman Catholic Church. And the fact is that the Pope, for all of his vaulted theological expertise, is either ignoring this fact or is glossing over it, probably because he has made the decision that, when push comes to shove, theology trumps science.
This, of course, is what the new atheists have been saying all along, so it is no surprise that a few new atheist bloggers took note of Ruse’s apparent about face. Whether it really is or not remains to be seen.
Jason Rosenhouse, for instance, responded with a post on “Ruse on the Pope on Evolution,” and Jerry Coyne followed Rosenhouse’s with one entitled, “Ruse admits that faith and science are irreconcilable, but messes up on human ‘inevitability’.” As Jerry Coyne asks, tying both his and Jason Rosenhouse’s posts together:
But, as Jason notes, if Ruse really feels this way, why has he spent his career arguing for a compatibility of faith and science, and excoriating those of us who see an implacable incompatibility? The man has some ‘splainin’ to do!
Now, at this point there is some technical detail about evolutionary theory, and just how inevitable or otherwise the appearance of human beings actually was. Ruse considers Dawkins, Simon Conway-Morris (a Catholic), and Stephen Jay Gould. According to Ruse:
Richard Dawkins (following Darwin) seems to think that humans are more than chance because evolution works through “arms races” — the prey gets faster and so the predator gets faster — and that ultimately this will produce human-type brains. Simon Conway Morris thinks that there exist always niches waiting to be occupied, one of these niches is for humans, and so at some point it was bound to be filled. Even Gould thought that complexity increases and so at some point, if not here on earth then somewhere in the universe, humans would appear. [my italics]
Since he had just said that “[t]o put direction into evolution is to be a supporter of the non-scientific theory of Intelligent Design,” and that this is “absolutely the position today,” the question needs to be asked: If there was an inevitability about the appearance of humans somewhere, as Ruse’s interpretation of Dawkins, Conway-Morris and Gould seems to imply, isn’t there a direction as good as built into the evolutionary process?
Jerry Coyne takes Ruse to task for attributing inevitability to either Gould or Dawkins (Conway-Morris is a Catholic, so he doesn’t count, because the inevitability is a theological presupposition), and he has a note from Dawkins responding to Ruse’s piece saying that he is
… astonished that [Ruse] could attribute such a view to Gould, who strongly advocated the opposite. He is a tiny bit nearer the mark with me because, like Conway Morris but unlike Gould, I do believe in something that could be called progressive evolution, mainly because of arms races. Unlike Conway Morris, however, I haven’t gone so far as to suggest that humans were inevitable.
And Coyne quotes Gould to this effect (from Wonderful Life):
Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay. [Wonderful Life, 14 -- see http://books.google.ca/books?id=SjpSkzjIzfsC&pg=PA14&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false]
Notice the vital qualification ”vanishingly small.”
However, Ruse is not finished yet, for he comes back with some accusations of his own in a subsequent HuffPo piece entitled “Evolution and Christianity: Did We Arrive by Chance?” In this response to Rosenhouse, Coyne and Dawkins, Ruse expresses how surprised he was “to find that I am being strongly criticized for my characterization of evolutionary thinking about the contingency or otherwise of human existence,” and he speaks of the new atheists being “up in arms” about his claim regarding Gould’s position on the inevitability of humans being the product of evolution.
In view of the statement quoted from Wonderful Life, is it not astonishing, as Dawkins suggests, that Ruse should believe, as he says, that “Gould thought that complexity increases and so at some point, if not here on earth then somewhere in the universe, humans would appear”? If, as Gould said, there was a vanishingly small probability that the tape of evolution, if rewound and played again, would produce us, then isn’t that the same probability that this result would occur elsewhere? Apparently not, since Ruse quotes Gould to the effect that “[p]erhaps, in another form on another world, intelligence would be as easy to evolve as flight on ours.” Perhaps Gould contradicted himself, or, perhaps, since Wonderful Life (1989) appeared after his 1985 essay on the search for extraterrestrial life (from which this quotation comes) was published in Natural History, he had changed his mind. But it is certainly not obvious, in light of the “vanishingly small” of Wonderful Life that Gould “could and would and did” affirm that intelligent life was more than a chance occurrence. Ruse gets the chronology of his quotes wrong, for one thing; but it may be that Gould contradicted himself. Besides, did he have any reason for suggesting that in some places intelligent life may be as easy to evolve as flight? Ruse shouldn’t make any victory laps just yet.
In any event, it’s not obvious why he should so strenuously defend his turf, because Ruse doesn’t think, in any case, that, even if Gould did hold the belief that Ruse attributes to him, it follows that Christian belief, as delineated by the pope, is not in conflict with science. The problem is still there. Speaking of Dawkins, Conway-Morris and Gould in his first essay he says:
I am not convinced that any of these work. I am convinced that none of these give you an iron-clad guarantee that they must work, which is what the Pope needs.
In other words, evolution implies that the demands of Christianity, that humanity be a part of God’s intention and design, cannot be met. But he does emphasise that this does not mean that the incompatibility cannot be solved. Indeed, he emphasises this point:
I am saying that “as things stand at the moment” there is a clash and that the Pope is not helping. I am not saying that the clash could not be resolved.
In order to understand Ruse’s point, we have to understand what he means by “as things stand at the moment.” He considers, and dismisses, the possibility that the conflict can be resolved from the side of science. In a second article, published in HuffPo on 27th May (just three days ago), he reaffirms what he had said in the first:
There are two main reasons why it is important to get clear the thinking of evolutionists about the emergence of humankind. First, it is important to see if any shade of modern thought about the evolution of humans suggests that our appearance was inevitable. I don’t think it does and I don’t see the Gouldian position just sketched as altering this negative conclusion. So I think Christians have still got a problem here.
The question is: Why does Ruse want to solve it?
The problem here should be obvious. Ruse has gone out of his way to abuse the new atheists who have claimed incompatibility between science (evolution) and religion. In his 11th of May piece in HuffPo, “Evolution and Catholic Theology,” he states clearly that there is an incompatibility here, an incompatibility which cannot be remedied from the standpoint of science, but then he immediately goes on to say that perhaps it can be dealt with from the side of theology, and then he makes his own proposal of how it might be handled, using an idea which, he says, is his own, and of which he is therefore rather fond. Here it is:
My own thinking is that if you are going to get anywhere then you need to work on the theology. I have suggested that, since we have appeared, we could appear. Hence, God (being outside time and space) could simply go on creating universes until humans did appear. A bit of a waste admittedly but we have that already in our universe.
Now here we have, at the same time, an admission that this universe doesn’t really qualify as the creation of a God such as Christians profess to believe in — “A bit of a waste admittedly but we have that already in our universe” — and a “theological” proposal that would make Christianity consistent with science, a God who keeps on creating universes until we appear (and therefore, presumably, intends that we should, even if God has to achieve it by throwing dice often enough to get a double six). But in what sense is this a theological proposal? Theologians and Christian philosophers have been arguing for some time now that the existence of God makes our appearance less improbable than supposing that we just appeared by chance. (See, for example, Keith Ward, Why There Almost Certain Is a God, 41) The suggestion that God is just a shadowy figure behind the randomness and unpredictability of the universe or of a universe of universes does not perform an explanatory function, and therefore can perform no religious function either. The proposal is theologically sterile.
It seems, in other words, that Ruse wants to leave the question of the compatibility of religion and science open, at the same time that he wants to make sure that he still takes a view orthogonal to that of the new atheists. He can at the same time think in terms of compatibility and accommodation between science and religion, even in the absence of any reason to continue doing so, and remain obdurately opposed to those he has for so long abused so stridently. It is not a lovely picture, nor does it show a commitment to reason either.
Surprising to see you join in. More cussing and discussing here, as well on other websites (see B & W) re: new and old atheists, etc.
Isn’t an atheist (and agnostic) one who does not find/see evidence that there is a god, and therefor has a LACK of belief in same? Isn’t that the essence of `atheism’? That’s really all there is to it, IMO. It isn’t some people’s belief that there is a god that seems to be the problem, but the damage that that belief (thru religion) does to people, and makes people do to others.
The latest atheist vs atheist (I’m a better, smarter atheist than you) rants online just seem to be arguments about nuances, and verbal/written attacks on personal opinions and views of others… fun for some, perhaps, but getting rather tedious, i.e. what’s the sharp and rusty point of it?
Well, I’m not so sure that there isn’t an important distinction to be made here. There is the atheist who thinks that it is wrong to confront religion, or even to insinuate that there is something irrational about religious belief. We shouldn’t be negative and contemptuous of religion, they say. We should not be so shrill and strident. But I think if you look back, while atheists and believers differed, there was a sense that there was a wide area of agreement, even that atheism was a world view in some sense parallel with, and no less or more reasonable than, religion.
This is certainly the impression that Ruse seems to leave. And while I might agree that arguing over nuance is not very profitable, it may be important, especially for the future of a very religiously divided world, that non-believers began to emphasis that, in many respects, religion is not a rational pursuit at all, and that theology, which endeavours to express itself in rational terms, is either irrelevant to religion or, where it is not, itself not a rational pursuit at all.
And I am beginning to think that there is a fairly sharp divide over the new and the old atheists in this respect. I could be wrong, of course, and I haven’t really pursued the question more than you see here, but it is interesting to watch Ruse come to the conclusion that religion and science are, after all, incompatible, but at the same time resisting accepting that conclusion. And I wrote this post mainly because this distinction has not, to my knowledge, been clearly stated. I even tried in an earlier post to characterise what was new in the new atheism, and did not see this point clearly at the time. Reading Ruse trying to avoid the conclusion of his own reason clarified it for me at least, whether anyone else can or will bother to follow me down this particular alley remains to be seen.
My focus, as I sometimes repeat, is to see the hold of religion over legislation weakened. We can’t do that unless we call religion sharply into question, in my view, and so I do not think the more docile atheism is much use. I may be wrong, but I think, the way religions are reacting to events now, we are hurtling towards a point of no return so far as the world goes. The largest religions, Catholicism and Islam, are both obstinately opposed to birth control, abortion and the control of population, the new climate figures show an alarming tendency to worsen rather than to improve, and the religious violence in the world is now becoming endemic. Is this not sign enough that we need to be more sharply opposed to religion? It seems so to me, at least.
Once against, a clear and sharply thoughtful post.
It is entirely true that religion is irrational. We could say the reasons for it are either personal (delusional or deception) or social (conformity and ignorance) but not rational.
The reason I think that Ruse has dug himself a trap is that his criticisms are not rational either, they are also personal or social.
The difference between old atheism and new (and this is for people like oldebabe too) is that old atheism perceived the problem of religion as ignorance, and only a matter of reasoned debate and education to solve the problem. New Atheism recognises that religion is not only about ignorance, it is also about delusion, deception and conformity.
That is why new atheists go beyond the intellectual into the social, it’s why it is necessary to challenge conformity and the status quo, to point out how religious people are exploited by leaders and other authority figures, and to the atrocities done by the delusional.
Ruse, for whatever reason (likely personal/social), like most accommodationists, refuse to acknowledge the other problems caused by religion. And in doing so, they make themselves appear to support all those problems by pretending religion doesn’t cause them.
And it’s a battle within the atheist community, because not all atheists are new atheists, and indeed, atheists can be as irrational as theists. Atheism does not solve all our social problems, however it certainly does not cause them. That is why reason, education, equality and morality hold greater weight among new atheists, as we’re battling against social problems not just intellectual ones.
I find Ruse’s claim that the “old” atheists didn’t impugn the rationality of theology to be really puzzling. If you look at the works of a lot of the old-school non-theists (not just atheists) they make the “new” atheists’ writings appear kind of meek. Has Ruse read Ethan Allen, Robert Ingersoll, David Hume, Mark Twain, M.M. Mangasarian, Thomas Jefferson, or Thomas Paine on the rationality of revealed religion? When even deists were loudly impugning the rationality of theology hundreds of years ago I don’t understand why Ruse is saying the old atheists didn’t criticize theology as a rational way of knowing.
Yeah, Ruse’s “solution” isn’t a solution at all. You might as well posit an infinite number of universes and apply the anthropic principle, leaving God out entirely. Also, it seems that such a God isn’t even an intelligent designer, or necessarily intelligent at all. Does Ruse really think that this “solution” would be at all appealing to believers?
I also would be interested to know why Ruse is so eager to find a solution that reconciles Christianity and science. Is it really just because it would make life easier for some? Also known as wishful thinking?
It is telling, however, that just like the New Atheists he despises, Ruse appears to admit that the science trumps religion. However, unlike the New Atheists, he doesn’t want to challenge religion’s authority directly. I don’t see why not, as in the end, it’s all about authority.
I’m sorry Dan for confusing you. That’s not what Ruse is saying. And I am using ‘old atheists’, and should have used it more perspicuously, to refer, not to Enlightenment atheists who indeed were very critical of the rationality of religious beliefs, but to those atheists who criticise the the so-called ‘new atheists’ for criticising the rationality of religion. I am thinking of people like Richard Norman who, much as I respect him, thinks that Dawkins is too shrill and strident for pointing out that religious beliefs are delusions. Norman says that, although their arguments are weak, religious people still reason about their beliefs, and so must not be taken to task quite so dismissively for their irrationality. Or, like Chris Stedman, who Ophelia has been taking to task lately, who thinks that atheists and the religious should find common cause in “interfaith” events and associations. Or, indeed, Ruse himself. So, I’m sorry to have misled you, but Ruse does not say this. In order to clarify a bit, I’ve changed the tense of the verb where I refer to the old atheists, and have put the words inside scare quotes. Once again, apologies for the misunderstanding.
Absolutely, as I say, the alleged solution is theologically sterile — that is, believers would not find it religiously meaningful. I think he is trying to find a solution, however, because he’s nailed his colours to the mast and doesn’t dare back down now. After all, he’s published a whole bok about it. Reference my response to Dan, Ruse is an “old atheist” in the sense intended — since they have, after all, applied the name “new atheists” to those who decline to compromise.
It is interesting that the only side he is asking to change is religion. This does seem to be the story of religion since the enlightenment, how does it respond to science’s evolving understanding of the universe.
Eric,
I see, sorry for the confusion. I have actually seen the argument often that old atheists (in a historical sense) were so nice to religious people and basically knew their place, while all these “new” atheists are just so shrill and uppity. I thought that you were implying that Ruse was saying that, which, as I pointed out, is not historically accurate. When you look at the writing of old-school non-theists they were often much more disrespectful of religious thinking than anything Dawkins has said.
I understand that you meant old atheist just as modern atheists who are opposed to the new atheists (people like Ruse, Mooney, and Rosenau). Thanks for the clarification.
You might be right. Maybe Ruse should read up on the riles of digging holes?
Ah, no, entirely my fault Dan, as I saw immediately when I read over that first para.
So, just let me say this about niches and the “inevitability” of humans.
It is trivial to note that throughout the 3.7 billion year history of life on Earth, something has been either the most-intelligent species or tied for that honor.
For about 3.698 billion years, that species was not humans. The ecological niche was still there and it was occupied, but humans were not the occupants of that space.
“Vanishingly small” is probably way too kind a term to use for the likelihood that a rewinding of the clock would have eventually led to human-type intelligence (ie, language, writing, technology, global warming), and even less likely that that “smartest” species would look anything like us.
That said, the fallacy of retrospective improbability needs to be carefully avoided. The likelihood of humans on Earth is 100%. A dead-shot certainty. Because we’re here. No matter how improbable that journey may have looked from a 3.7 billion-year-old starting line. It’s the difference between any single person winning the lottery and the lottery actually being won (ie, your odds of winning are vanishingly small, but inevitably, someone does win).
Yes, that’s just the point, Michael, and the reason it must come from the side of religion is precisely because religion is not rational, and so must continue to adjust what it says to the only measure of rationality that we have regarding what is real.
I really don’t get Ruse’s point there – is he suggesting that those reasoned defences exist and Dawkins is ignoring them, or that Dawkins approach would be to exclude hypothetical reasoned defences?
Theologians don’t try to prove their beliefs true, just currently unfalsified (and often take great pains, where appropriate, to change their beliefs enough to keep them unfalsified). The New Atheists have said “that isn’t rational.” Having no evidence for one’s beliefs makes holding them irrational by definition. Now theologians are fighting to keep their beliefs in the realm of “not ridiculous” and failing mightily.
I’ve been thinking about the three strands of rhetoric, Ethos, Pathos and Logos, as suggested by Aristotle (as I’m sure you know).
I think that the three strands might make a suitable model for how humans modify their behaviours. Ethos is their social values, Pathos their individual emotional responses, and Logos their rational thoughts which constrain (sometimes) the other two.
I propose that Christianity (and other religions) is a parasite draped over the three strands of human behaviours. It modifies those behaviours in its own interests. By the Middle Ages it had a solid lock on all three strands, but the Reformation and Enlightenment gradually eased the grip on Logos and then Ethos. Religion is still firmly draped across Pathos.
So when Atheists argue from a Logos perspective (mostly), they are anti-parasite defences. Most religions realise that they cannot compete in this area.
The arguments about Ethos (divorce, abortion, euthanasia, contraception) are still raging backwards and forwards, but the direction tends to be in favour of human values, not religious values.
That leaves Pathos. Most religions seem to be squatting firmly on the Pathos strand through calls to faith, or compassion, or group identity, or desire for heaven/enlightenment, or fear of damnation.
I don’t believe atheism currently has much to offer in pushing the parasite off Pathos. It’s a puzzle. But it does mean that some people can follow their own values, accept that religion is non-rational, yet still emotionally believe.
There are plenty of people who argue that religion and rationality can co-exist. I would argue that it is a parasite that makes them think so – but we don’t yet know what an effective anti-parasite will be. Rational thought (Logos) is not enough.
I think this was part of your update, because otherwise I would’ve probably responded to it before:
I think that’s an unfair criticism. To me, it seems that the New Atheists take the beliefs of believers far more seriously than most accommodationists do. In this video, for example, we see Ruse basically saying that of course nobody takes the story of Abraham and Isaac seriously. I wouldn’t be so sure of that, if I were him.
It also isn’t Dawkins who is trying to move the discussion away from what creationists or average Christians believe to more “sophisticated” theology.
Ah, yes, Deen, well I agree. But what I meant, and what Ruse so obviously means, is that the new atheists should take the beliefs of believers seriously as a constribution to a rational understanding of reality. You have to see it in the context of that little video clip, where Ruse is talking about the rationality of religious belief. And while it is true that the new atheists take the actual beliefs of religious people seriously, in the sense of taking it for granted that they mean what they mean when they speak about, for example, the story of Abraham and Isaac, Ruse wants to say that, of course, while beliefs like that are clearly irrational beliefs and put you deservedly in a psychiatric clinic, there are other religious beliefs which have a rational foundation, and we should take these beliefs seriously as part of an ongoing dialogue about what is real. And that is what new atheists do not do and should not do.
I can’t help commenting on the centre’s name “Centre for Public Christianity”: Christianity is already too public and pervasive. Why does Christianity need a centre?
Yeah, OK, I see what you mean. Basically, Ruse wants to claim that theology and apologetics are still respectable intellectual disciplines. Yeah, I don’t see why New Atheists should concede to that either.
Haven’t finished – I have to go to work, but how does Ruse get “human” from “intelligence”? There may be intelligent life on other planets, whatever the probability, but the idea that such intelligence would be human is (to me, and I suspect to Gould as well) laughable. Ruse seems to be assuming that (if the Gould is accurate) intelligence = human. From what we are learning about more and more animals, we aren’t the only ones with some form of intelligence, so it really isn’t true on Earth now, let alone if we “rewind the tape” (reverse the dvd?). Hope that makes sense.
So we see one more step in the steady retreat of Christian cosmology: they have regressed from a God who created humans to one who merely triggered evolution on earth; then to one who simply laid down the ground rules at the creation of the universe — and now they have Ruse’s God, who merely kicked off the universe-creation cycle trillions of years ago and promptly went on an extended holiday. How much closer can they dance to the notion of non-existence before they fall over it?
From the short video clip, I didn’t get the sense that John Dickson agreed with Ruse’s comment that most xtians (himself included) would be horrified if the voices in Mr. Dickson’s head told him to take his child to the highest point in Sydney and sacrifice it to the invisible sky fairy.
It is interesting (psychologically) to do a bit of close listening (rather than close reading) and Ruse says something very odd. He uses a made up word ‘misservice’ rather than the correct word ‘disservice’.
I think Ruse hesitates using the word ‘serious’ and had in his mind ‘mistake’ and then somehow–in tidying up his mental grammar–mixes up disservice and mistake.
The point is, how he views atheism as somehow providing a service and thus people like Dawkins are no longer serving but doing the opposite, and this seems seriously unfair in Ruse’s mind.
Ruse further reinforces this servile attitude by emphasizing the importance of religious beliefs as ‘serious’. He seems to think that beliefs require seriousness, work, not because they’re rational, but because they’re important.
Then Ruse makes an unfunny hypothetical joke about someone sacrificing their own child, because in his mind, he thinks he’s empathizing with the presenter John, but in fact, by John’s reaction, the empathizing only runs one way.
Finally, Ruse concludes that it’s not about whether or not Christianity works but whether Christians can articulate a rational defence.
Now that’s odd again, not only because Ruse struggles to articulate a rational defence for his own thinking himself, but because he earlier talked about how atheists ‘ought’ to take belief seriously. Now he seems to think we can dismiss belief, and instead treat the Christian as a rational thinking person instead.
I think Ruse struggles to explain his views here because his views are incoherent. When forced to actually articulate his views, he begins to struggle to make sense of them.
It’s been said before, and recently maybe here or on WEIT, that Robert Ingersoll, et al. were really “new atheists”. And of course, that “new atheists” aren’t “new”, which is why many of them prefer to self-identify as “gnu atheists”.
Perhaps we need a different label for the “old atheists”, too.
In any case, they seem to be of more than one kind: (a) Those who “perceive[d] the problem of religion as ignorance, and only a matter of reasoned debate and education to solve the problem”, as Egbert notes, but are still broadly against religion. (b) Those, like Ruse, labelled as “accommodationists” or “faitheists” by gnu atheist, who seem to want to defend and preserve established religions on the one hand but somehow feel they should change their beliefs so that they can be reconciled with science on the other.
Those criticising the “stridency” of gnu atheism seem to be mostly – entirely? – (b).
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PS. (b) could be “yak atheists” (because they yak a lot). I’m not sure about (a); nothing springs to mind that is mellifluous but not obscure…
Except in a rollover!
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Oh, that’s good.
That ties in very well with what on of the panellists on BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze – the edition in which Jerry Coyne was an interviewee – said about the origins of morality: empathy (pathos); community (ethos); and reason (logos).
This Aristotle seems to have been a pretty bright chap…
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Agreed. Even on Earth you can imagine (rewinding the tape, a là Gould) that the species with human intelligence could have been a descendant of raptors, or corvids, or octopodes, or cetaceans, rather than tree shrews.
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PS. I’m not sure about badgers, however.
God as the quantum vacuum of all being…
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Yes, Egbert, I had taken note of the ‘misservice’. I just thought his English was rudimentary. Nice thought about eliding mistake into misservice. Could well be so.
I also suspect, as Steve says, that John Dickson was not altogether comfortable with Ruse’s careless reference to the sacrifice of Isaac. After all, the sacrifice of Jesus (see Hebrews) is modelled on the sacrifice of Isaac, or, as the Jews call it, the binding of Isaac. However, in Jesus case, there was no lamb to take his place (hence Jesus as lamb of God) and his “father” did not shrink from the act. I am surprised that someone who has studied this, like Ruse, is not familliar with the relationship. He’s really saying that God, the “father” of Jesus, according to the story, cold-bloodedly murdered his son. For what? No one really knows, that’s why the atonement is called a mystery, and has never been defined.