By Michael De Dora
* On the heels of a New York Times report on the Council for Secular Humanism’s recent conference, interfaith activist Christopher Delos Stedman says atheists shouldn’t ponder, “how pushy should we be?” but rather, “what are we pushing for?”
* During that CSH conference, Chris Mooney, P.Z. Myers, and Jennifer Michael Hecht (who was supposed to moderate but was essentially a third voice) sat down for a conversation about “accomodationism” and “confrontationalism” for the podcast Point of Inquiry.
* Frans de Waal writes about how primate behavior sheds light on the origins of our sense of right and wrong. For a longer take on this, I highly recommend the book Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved.
* In his latest essay, Christopher Hitchens wonders why any normal person would ever want to run for public office in America.
* A perfect storm of a different sort than the fantastic book (and decent movie): more and more wealth in fewer and fewer hands, plus secret campaign donations. Robert Reich argues America is becoming a plutocracy. My response: becoming?
* On Oct. 7 the Center for Inquiry in New York City – you know, where I am executive director – hosted Sam Harris for a public lecture about his new book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. Full video, including the talk and Q&A, is now available.
* And lastly, with Election Day coming, the Brennan Center’s Web site is a great resource for any voting information you might need.
How about a h/t?
ReplyDeleteIn his latest essay, Christopher Hitchens wonders why any normal person would ever want to run for public office in America.
ReplyDeleteThis pouring into your private life and past aspect seems to be particularly extreme in the USA, but the question is relevant globally. I was politically active in my youth, and it occurred to me that in Germany at least, the only people who have a decent chance of ever becoming representatives or even ministers are those who have sunk years and years of overtime building alliances, networking, learning the right buzz words, etc. into their career.
What they conspicuously neglect along the way is gaining any "real world" job experience, mingling with non-politicians, or actually learning enough about any topic except party politics whatsoever that they can discuss it without notes prepared by their advisers.
The results are people like a member of parliament I knew who had the balls to say that the parliamentary remuneration, widely seen as excessively high among the German populace, was actually kinda low and marginal especially once you have a child or two. She presumably really believed that, and I can only assume it is because she must have been completely unaware that many families must make ends meet with a quarter or so of that income...
I liked your response to the Stedman article on FB, Michael. There are indeed many goals within the atheist/skeptic/rationalist movement, many of which are worthy.
ReplyDeleteIf you lack bare acceptance, you campaign for tolerance. If you have acceptance, you go even further and try to win the argument. Anybody who thinks widespread skeptical attitudes among the public are an impossible goal, is succumbing to status-quo bias (and forgetting about Scandinavia to boot).
The Hitchens article makes excellent points. The public and media treat politicians and public servants so horribly that only the cynical survive.
I cannot stop wondering why anybody thinks that religion has anything to do with morality? The furthest religions went was to codify some rules of behavior.
ReplyDelete@graim,
ReplyDeleteI think religious belief, quite naturally, has a lot to do with morality. How would it not?
@Michael:
ReplyDeleteWhat does morality have to do with religion or religion with morality? It is not oblivious what so ever.
Michael said to graim: I think religious belief, quite naturally, has a lot to do with morality. How would it not?
ReplyDeleteTraditionally, religious belief has a lot to do with just about everything (e.g. explaining how the world works and where we come from), and morality is certainly no exception. The goals of religious morality, however, tend to differ from secular ones (think of pleasing the gods vs. promoting well-being).
But, given that morality is demonstrably separable from religious belief, is religious belief particularly good at morality (say, better than it was at solving those other age-old problems)? I think that's what many adherents (including liberal ones) would like us to believe (or at least that religious belief is a particularly effective motivator), and is likely to remain a topic of debate & dialogue (along with human consciousness) with skeptics for years to come.
So what are we pushing for? There seems to be this unquestioned underlying assumption that the world would be a 'better' place if everyone was rational and did not believe in ancient imperceptibles, but I have yet to see any proof or even strong argument that that would be the case (which is not to say that such things don't exist). Rationality and science are simply methods, they are not in and of themselves motivations. Religion in and of itself is not the problem. The human nature which embraces it and many other deleterious beliefs and behaviors is the problem and until human nature is changed through accident, evolution or design I think our species will steadfastly remain on the course we are on. Right over the Malthusian cliff.
ReplyDeleteFor my own part I don't try to make any conversions. People believe because deep down they want to. Should I tell them what to want and what not to want? The lack of evidence is all right there in front of them if they just open their eyes and look. Aside from a complete lack of hell atheism doesn't really have a lot to offer. No eternal life, no fairness, no ultimate meaning, just inherent isolation and eventual inescapable entropy. The truth is pretty damned hideous. If some people don't want to look at it I can't say as I blame them. Although I still think they are insane of course. I mean really - imperceptible magic people?
Pure Luck,
ReplyDeleteif everybody were rational, the world would certainly be a better place, because by definition doing that which is rational is doing that which has the best outcome (however that is defined, that is another question). Only if you accept the uncomfortable truth can you actually try to do something about it.
But then there is the only semi-convincing argument against pushing back religious faith that I have ever heard: the idea that many people actually need their delusions to be happy and functional. In other words, it might be rational to be irrationally escapist if the advantage of being honest about the sucky truth weighs less than than the disadvantage of less happiness and lowered mental stability that might correlate with it.
I do not have any hard data, but looking at thoroughly secularized countries vs. very religious ones, it seems at least possible that there is no drawback whatsoever to being non-religious.
And of course people will never be entirely rational. But they will also never be entirely honest, nonetheless we all consider dishonesty a vice and work against it.
"But then there is the only semi-convincing argument against pushing back religious faith that I have ever heard: the idea that many people actually need their delusions to be happy and functional. In other words, it might be rational to be irrationally escapist if the advantage of being honest about the sucky truth weighs less than than the disadvantage of less happiness and lowered mental stability that might correlate with it."
ReplyDeleteYes, this is indeed the closest approach to defensibility that irrationalists ever manage.
But even this is pretty pathetic. Yes, it's plausible (not sure if it's actually true) that theism is more livable than just atheism and nothing else, but does any brave soul want to make the argument that some brand of theism is OPTIMAL for promoting eudaimonia? That we literally *couldn't* do better?
I think we can do a lot better.
Alex SL -
ReplyDeleteAgain I will say that the problem is not religion and a world without it might not be better. Consider that it was rationality and hard science in the service of political (not religious) motivation which brought our species weapons that for a while stood a non-negligible chance of all but sterilizing the biosphere in the space of a few hours. Religion with all its wars has never done anything close to comparable. Reason and science are just efficient tools for accomplishing a goal, but they are used by those with laudable and deplorable goals alike and even motivations which on the surface seem desirable may have unintended consequences. Doubtless the people who invent new medical techniques don't intend to make people weak and dependent, but that is the outcome. It simply isn't enough for everyone to be rational and reasonable. You have to be rational, reasonable and