A few years ago, as a newbie assistant professor, I was visited in my office by an editor at The Free Press. He was basically trolling the corridors, looking for people who had interesting ideas for popular-science books. I said that I liked the idea of writing a book, but I didn’t really want to do a straight-up cosmology tome. I had a better idea: I could write a book explaining how, when you really think about things scientifically, you come to realize that God doesn’t exist. I even had a spiffy title picked out — God Remains Dead: Reason, Religion, and the Pointless Universe. It’s not any old book that manages to reference both Steven Weinberg and Friedrich Nietzsche right there on the cover. Box office, baby.
The editor was actually intrigued by the idea, and he took it back to his bosses. Ultimately, however, they decided not to offer me a contract, and I went on to write another book with more equations. (Now on sale at Amazon!)
All of which is to say: I totally could have been in on the ground floor of all this atheism chic. These days, between Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Victor Stenger, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a prominent publicly-outspoken atheist of one form or another. That could have been me, I tell you.
These guys have gotten a lot of attention — especially Dawkins, who was recently voted Person of the Year by at least one reputable organization. Of course, some of the attention has been negative, especially from folks who are unsympathetic to the notion of a harsh, materialistic, godless universe. But even among self-professed atheists and agnostics (not to mention your wishy-washy liberal religionists), some discomfort has been expressed over the tone of Dawkins’s approach. People have been known to call him arrogant. Even if you don’t believe in God, so the argument goes, it can be a bad strategy to be upfront and in-your-face in public about one’s atheism. People are very committed to their religious beliefs, and telling them that science proves them wrong will lead them away from science, not way from God. And if you must be a die-hard materialist, at least be polite about it and respect others’ beliefs — to be obnoxious and insulting is simply counterproductive. Apart from any deep issues of what we actually should believe, this is a separate matter of how we could best persuade others to agree with us.
I’m sympathetic to the argument that atheists shouldn’t be obnoxious and insulting; in fact, I think it’s a good strategy in all sorts of situations. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, etc. But it does not follow that we should keep quiet about comforting illusions because those are the only things standing between the poor dears and overwhelming existential anxiety. If people ask whether, as scientists, we believe in God, we should respect them enough to tell the truth — whatever we think that is. That doesn’t mean we have to go door-to-door spreading the good word of the laws of nature. It just means that we should be honest about what we actually think, giving the best arguments we have for whatever that may be, and let people decide for themselves what to believe.
Arrogant or not, as a matter of fact Dawkins and company have done a great service to the cause of atheism: they have significantly shifted the Overton Window. That’s the notion, borrowed from public-policy debates, of the spectrum of “acceptable opinion” on an issue. At any given time, on any particular question, the public discourse will implicitly deem certain positions to be respectable and worthy of civilized debate, and other positions to be crazy and laughable. The crucial part of this idea is that the window can be shifted by vigorous advocacy of positions on one extreme. And that’s just what Dawkins has done.
In other words, by being arrogant and uncompromising in his atheism, Dawkins has done a tremendous amount to make the very concept of atheism a respectable part of the public debate, even if you find him personally obnoxious. Evidence: a few years ago, major newsmagazines (prompted in part by the efforts of the Templeton Foundation) were running cover stories with titles like Science Finds God (Newsweek, July 20, 1998). Pure moonshine, of course — come down where you will on the whole God debate, it remains pretty clear that science hasn’t found Him. But, within the range of acceptable public discourse, both science and God were considered to be undeniably good things — it wasn’t a stretch to put them together. 
Nowadays, in contrast, we find cover stories with titles like God vs. Science (Time, Nov 13, 2006). You never would have seen such a story just a few years ago.
This is a huge step forward. Keep in mind, the typical American thinks of atheists as fundamentally untrustworthy people. A major network like CNN will think nothing of hosting a roundtable discussion on atheism and not asking any atheists to participate. But, unlike a short while ago, they will eventually be shamed into admitting that was a mistake, and make up for it by inviting some atheists to defend their ideas. Baby steps. Professional news anchors may still seem a little befuddled at the notion that a clean, articulate person may not believe in God. But at least that notion is getting a decent public hearing. Once people actually hear what atheists have to say, perhaps they will get the idea that one need not be an amoral baby-killer just because one doesn’t believe in God.
For that, Richard Dawkins, thank you.
Ugh, I hate the “you can’t prove a negative” nonsense. Yet another reason why people should take logic starting from an early age.
Chris says,
They’re outlined in recent books by Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway Morris (and others). All three scientists make the effort to rationalize a scientific way of thinking with their personal religious beliefs. It takes them an entire book and they still don’t do a very good job.
Some of the things they have trouble with are: does God answer prayers?; do miracles exist?; does life have a purpose?; is morality derived from the Christian God?; does God intervene in the natural world? Science is based on rationality and religion is based on superstition and many religious scientists feel this conflict.
One of the the biggest stumbling block for them seems to be miracles. Miracles, by definition, are not compatible with science. It’s very hard to be a scientist and believe in miracles because once you start believing that natural laws can be violated at the whim of a supernatural being then it’s difficult to know where to stop.
Have you read any of those books? How about other Christian apologists? I’m surprised you aren’t aware of the extensive literature on this subject. Did you really think there was no problem so nobody had to worry about it? Did you think that all conflicts between reason and religion had been resolved by St. Augustine in 420 AD?
Walt asked “… Tony, you just compared Richard Dawkins to Joseph Goebbels? Seriously? …”.
First, sorry that I misspelled “Goebbels” in my comment 39.
That said:
No, I did not compare the individual Richard Dawkins (or his belief system) to the individual Joseph Goebbels (or his belief system).
I did compare:
Dawkins’s propaganda technique, as described by Sean as “… vigorous advocacy of positions on one extreme” in order to “shift… the spectrum of “acceptable opinion””;
with
Goebbels’s propaganda technique, described by Goebbels himself as “… tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it …”.
It seems to me that the two propaganda techniques have a lot in common,
and
both seem to me to be undesirable because they attack those in the middle ground,
such as (with respect to Dawkins’s subject matter)
people like Chris who say (comment 19) that they are “… skeptical about the existence of any reason to believe that the reconciliation of science and religion … is all that difficult …”.
Tony Smith
I quoted in comment 53 a statement by Chris (in comment 19) saying that Chris is “… skeptical about the existence of any reason to believe that the reconciliation of science and religion … is all that difficult …”.
Larry (in comment 52) attacked that statement by Chris, by saying
“… in recent books by Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway Morris (and others). All three scientists make the effort to rationalize a scientific way of thinking with their personal religious beliefs. It takes them an entire book and they still don’t do a very good job. …”.
In my opinion, one scientist who did a very good job in “mak[ing] the effort to rationalize a scientific way of thinking with … personal religious beliefs” was Albert Einstein,
who wrote in the New York Times Magazine on November 9, 1930 pp 1-4:
“… there is a third stage of religious experience … I shall call it cosmic religious feeling.
It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it … The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.
The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism … contains a much stronger element of this. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. … Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another. …
In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it. … I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.
Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue.
What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand … Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics!
Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. …
It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. …”.
Tony Smith
The circle-jerk technique of mutual reinforcement is a rather weak way to advance any position; however, it is a kind of intellectual honesty to recognize that groundless assertions can only gain validation through expressing them as a social force that compels unthinking acceptance — when one’s own ideas are devoid of truth value, at least one can gain the gratification of brute power.
Darn, I am such a lazy bum. I was going to use Overton Window for my review of God Delusion that I never found time to write (I finished reading it months ago). Now I’ll just be copying you….have to find a different angle now.
“But it would be foolish to think that these would be sufficient to establish the truth or falsity of the religion. As foolish as thinking some statement in Genesis establishes the falsity of science.”
Statements in Genesis don’t establish the falsity of science because science has supporting evidence and Genesis doesn’t. But you think it’s foolish to think that the existence or resurrection of Jesus is irrelevant to the truthiness of Christianity? The core tenet of the religion is that God gave his only Son as a sacrifice (through crucifiction and resurrection) to redeem the sins of humanity, saving those *who believe in Christ* from eternal torment in Hell. Most Christians would say it matters a whole lot if Christ never rose, or never even existed.
“I can understand the self-defense motive, certainly in the case of Americans. It doesn’t apply to Dawkins, I don’t think, because he lives in a country where even most religious people aren’t that religious.”
Leaving aside Blair’s support for faith-based schools and the creationism in them, Dawkins lives in a world dominated by the United States, currently led by a President who has said God speaks to him. Dawkins also lives in a world where religious opinions weigh in on stem cell research, abortion rights, and gay rights. Not to mention religious-driven terrorism. I think he’s got a lot of stake in this, as do we all.
“However, I personally think that the self-defense is best achieved by individual examples of atheists being decent people, rather than trying to convince religious people to become atheists.”
This contradicts the experience of a lot of actual formerly-religious atheists, many of whom escaped religion through reading the critical writings of past atheists. Not all: some are guided by their own knowledge of conflicts between their religion and science, or their religion and other religions, or by disgust with the behavior of their leaders. But many others have had some help.
“I have never understood the position that atheism is a scientific stance. Isn’t claiming to prove a negative the essence of logical fallacy? It seems to me that – in the absence of gnosis – agnosticism is the only scientifically valid position.”
Dawkins addresses this in his book, as have many many atheists before him. Atheist and agnostic are not exclusive labels: one can be agnostic for philosophical purposes but atheist in any practical sense. Dawkins takes the usual argument into more detail than usual, though, pointing out that lack of certainty between two possibilities does not imply equiprobability. We cannot prove the non-existence of invisible intangible faeries at the bottom of the garden but see no reason to worry that they have any noticeable probability. The aether wasn’t disproved, but made irrelevant. And we can reason about whether the evidence of the universe is more likely in the atheist model or the (specific religious) model.
What he didn’t say, but might have, is that God’s existence is held to a higher standard than anything else. People demand mathematical levels of certain proof of his non-existence, when such levels don’t exist anywhere outside of mathematics. That doesn’t stop us from making decisions about whether it is *reasonable* to believe that person X committed crime Y, or whether Zeus will strikes us with lightning for skimping on his sacrifices, or whether Jesus was born through Mary’s hymen and was later crucified by a Pontius Pilate being cowed by a Jewish mob, and then resurrected. Or from invoking scientific — not mathematical — proof. Science doesn’t deal in certainties, it deals in probabilities. Is Judeo-Christianity probable? No.
Well put fh (#5)!
Another reasoin for atheist “preaching”: a lot of ex-Catholics have called their upbringing abusive. Not sexually abusive with some priest diddling them, but the emotional abuse of the guilt and the fear of hell. It doesn’t take saintly amounts of altruism to want to fight that and limit the suffering inflicted on others.
Larry, I’m not sure you actually addressed my points. In answer to your first question, no, I haven’t read Miller’s book. Nor will I. I’m not all that interested in scientists writing religious apologetics. I have, however, read plenty of religious apologetics from the last 17 centuries. If you haven’t done so, you might be surprised to learn that miracles have in fact been seen by many as the solution to the challenges of scientism, metaphysical naturalism, and strict empiricism. This has been especially true since the beginning of the Enlightenment. One would have to accept philosophical ( i.e., metaphysical) naturalism (which, if you’ve been following the Intelligent Design debates over the last few years, you know is not necessary for the practice of sciece) in order to believe that miracles are incompatible with science. Of course, if a Christian accepts philosophical naturalism, he or she is probably a gnostic or pantheist, and it’s a short hop and a skip from there to positivism and the atheism that comes with it. I don’t think I know any Christian gnostics, though, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Miller and the others you mention aren’t gnostics either. If one doesn’t accept philosophical naturalism, then natural laws can apply to the entire natural world, with God outside of it and capable of affecting it without having to adhere to those laws. Obviously, the philosophical issues are a bit more complex than that, but this should do for now.
So I’ll ask again, what reasons are there for seeing science and religion as incompatible?
“So I’ll ask again, what reasons are there for seeing science and religion as incompatible?”
Because the domain of science is anything that affects measureable properties of the universe, and no religion (in practice) is willing to concede it such authority?
Non-overlapping magisteria is bullshit.
Chris:
I think you may be moving your goal posts here. Initially you asked why scientists would have problems reconciling science and religion. Larry answered that. Now you seem to be asking why non-scientist apologetics would have such troubles, by excluding scientists apologetics writings as a non-concern.
John Wilkins calls this bounded rationality and contrasts that with a coherent total view. The difficulty being when religious rational meets the fair insistence that (scientific) facts are important.
This also bears on your fourth point in that comment. Religion and it’s metaphysics was partly conceived to explain facts. It no longer works, not even fully inside its own bounded rationality, so it seems unfair to pretend it hasn’t failed here or that it shouldn’t have been able to be a basis for technology.
Why do YOU refer to ‘god’ as Him
Sorry what i meant is if YOU Don’t believe in the existance of X
how can you put a label on X e.g. gender, color, race , wherever
there are cracks in your foundation!!!
Henry Chivasa:
It’s a convention. Every atheist knows that one can’t apply physical properties to a general deity that doesn’t exist.
These aren’t ‘cracks’ in his ‘foundation’. And even if they were, you’ve hardly shown how this leads to a self-inconsistency in his view.
However, if in particular the discussion is about the traditional western God, then it becomes relevant. The bible refers to God as ‘Him’.
What next? Spell-checking as a method for debate?
Dear Sean:
I have posted a rebuttal to your argument for the worth of Richard Dawkins. Please find the following link to Richard Dawkins’ Ideological Dark Energy.
“No religion (in practice) is willing to concede such authority”
In Christianity at least (I don’t know the theology and apologetics of any other religion very well), there’s a long tradition of treating science as, in fact, the study of God’s first and primary revelation: Nature. The issue isn’t concession at all, then. Read, for examples (he cites a few), Galileo’s letter to the Grand Duchess. Now, you won’t find any non-pantheist/mystic religion that’s willing to argue that anything restricted to cataloging and correlating the measurable properties of the universe can serve as the ultimate arbiter of truth, or that there aren’t entities beyond the measurable, but that’s another issue, and isn’t a barrier to being a scientist and religious.
So my question still stands. What are the barriers?
Torbjörn Larsson,
A couple things. First, Larry’s the one who envoked apologetics post-Augustine, so I wasn’t moving anything. And really, if the question is, what are the barriers to being a religious scientist, apologetics are valid. The issue is theological and philosophical, and that makes scientists the third or fourth in line, opinion-wise.
Next, as to Wilkins’ use of the phrase “bounded rationality,” it’s not his. It’s Simons’, and it doesn’t apply to world views, it applies to people. And that’s all people, including you, Wilkins, and me. I believe what Wilkins may be trying to get at by misusing the phrase slightly is that rational people who are religious are rational only in their non-religious beliefs, or that those beliefs necessarily involve some degree of irrationality. In fact, the part of my original post that you quoted came from my response to just this assertion. So my reply still stands: there are rational arguments for religion, so it’s not irrational. Of course, there are always unspoken and unargued assumptions, and people have reasons for accepting religion that go beyond reason, but again, that’s true of any individual and any world-view, yours and mine included. Furthermore, while I’ve seen it argued many time that most believers aren’t aware of the rational arguments for religion in theology and apologetics, and that is in fact true (though it doesn’t, necessarily, make the beliefs themselves irrational), the equivalent is true for most atheists. They either don’t know or don’t understand reasons for not believing, and they certainly aren’t aware of the arguments against or philosophical issues associated with their atheism. So if the ignorance of the volk makes religion irrational, then atheism is in the same boat (as, again, is virtually any world view/philosophy).
Damien #57:
Blair’s faith-based schooling stuff is just following the parents and they are sending their kids, often enough, to faith schools because they are often the best schools. There can be all sorts of different reasons for that (it varies from school to school) but if the fight is directed at stopping the faith-based schooling, it’ll be lost, because parents tend to be pretty single-minded about getting their kids into the best school they can. The fight would be better directed at improving the other schools, which is something on which nearly everyone would agree in any case. Blair’s initiative is clearly shallow, because the reason for the relatively common local superiority of the faith school is really very varied; many of them, in fact, aren’t terribly religious at all and, in particular, many of the teachers aren’t religious. I wasn’t even asked when I interviewed, just whether I foresaw any difficulties in teaching in a church school (and this was a school that took its religion relatively seriously and also, by some way, the best school I ever had any connection with or of which I knew). The Science department, the biggest in the school, was a mix of believers, lapsed catholics who probably still had some underlying belief, and atheists and it was great. But, as normal, I digress.
Dawkins may live in a world dominated by the US, but I don’t see that explains his evangelical zeal. Sure, I can believe that former believers came to atheism by reading atheists’ writings, and also that they felt less bothered by it because, as Sean wrote, atheists are at least seen in a slightly more positive light than was formerly the case (unlike back, say, in the early 1800s in the US where the Federalists’ accusation that Jefferson was a racist was a really serious one)(and, hmmm, quite possibly true). The matter of how ‘in your face’ you get about atheism is the issue, I think; so far as I am concerned, Dawkins has crossed the line, so that he is now more like an intelligent and erudite version of the crazy religious guy that used to rant near the bus-stop outside Camberwell McDonalds back in the day than a considered defender and explainer of atheist beliefs. I’d rather read Sean on atheism, say, than Dawkins, by a country mile.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but some here seem to be postulating (perhaps for sake of argument) a God who exists “outside” of nature and whose existence is undetectible by any scientific measurement. Such a God, I take it, no longer creates or destroys anything, answers no prayers, performs no miracles, and divinely inspires no scriptures – otherwise it would be detectable.
What then is the practical difference between this god’s existence and non-existence?
I would imagine that it comes down, as most religious beliefs do, to what, if anything, happens after you die.
Although an omnipotent and omniscient God can clearly do whatever He wants and not be detected. That’s the benefit of being omnipotent and omniscient.
Blair’s faith-based schooling stuff is just following the parents and they are sending their kids, often enough, to faith schools because they are often the best schools.
I have heard that some of these “faith schools” are teaching Young Earth Creationism, which would make it very difficult for me to accept that they are better than other schools.
If an omnipotent and omniscent God desires to remain anonymus, I am more in accordance with its divine will than those who argue for its existence.
As for what happens after we die, scientific evidence strongly supports the theory that consciousness is a brain function. Brain damage can cause loss of memory, loss of the ability to reason, and even changes in personality. The evidence supports the conclusion that when the brain dies, consciousness ends.
Tony: There is _no_ evidence that Dawkins does anything other than 100% believe in what he says. Sean’s point about the Overton Window is that people who are more moderate than Dawkins are always telling him to shut up, while at the same time they don’t tell people who are more religious than they are to shut up. If successful, this will have the inevitable effect of silencing atheists. If your goal is to silence atheists, then that’s A-OK. If your goal is to open the debate to different points of view, well then the very first step is to open the debate to different points of view, not tell holders of select points of view to shut up. Sean’s point, I think, is that it’s time for us to stop telling Dawkins to shut up.