Strange Doctrines

The Universal Apologetic

The fact that the existence of God may seem inconsistent with some arbitrarily well-established fact is only proof that God is more mysterious than we thought.

(This generalizes my comment here at Conscious Entities.)

The Unbearable Lightness of Talk About Being

Adam Frank offers up some standard-issue NOMAic tripe tropes about how in fact there is no tension between science and religion, in particular because religion actually has nothing to do with knowing. Good to know.

Anyway, he says, "Spirituality, at its best, points us away from easy codifications when it shows us how to immerse ourselves in the simple, inescapable act of being."

Well, if it's simple and inescapable, why would we need to be shown how? Why would we have to immerse ourselves?

I know, I know - these claims aren't about knowledge. They're about, well, they're about...

Wait - what are they about, exactly?

John Cottingham: Undergraduate Sophist

Shorter John Cottingham: Would that all atheists had the humility to realize that the only thing that can save all of humankind from its moral inventions are the religious doctrines I prefer to believe in.

(Via Arts & Letters Daily.)

New New Atheism, Same as the Old New Atheism

Shorter Tim Crane: Religious belief cannot be accounted for merely in terms of the ignorance or irrationality of human beings; it must be accounted for in terms of the wanton ignorance or irrationality of human beings.

(H/T Rob Sica.)

This Post Contains Six Errors

Ron Rosenbaum makes it clear by his third sentence here that he simply does not know anything about his chosen subject matter:

[Agnosticism] is radical skepticism, doubt in the possibility of certainty, opposition to the unwarranted certainties that atheism and theism offer.

I count three incorrect definitional statements and one false presupposition - four errors, in a mere 20 words. And all stated with a self-certitude that, given Rosenbaum's overarching thesis, should count as a fifth. Impressive.

(Via 3 Quarks Daily.)

Blessed Are the Pasta Makers

Skeptics of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are missing the point. Obviously, it isn't meant to be taken literally. It refers to any divinity in wheat products.

Theogony

In the beginning, there were no meanings.

And then Man said, “Let there be Meaning!”

And on that day, God was born.

Simple Probabilities

David B. Hart muses about a new book featuring fifty essays the "new" atheists. His credulity, so robust when it comes to matters of the Spirit World, has apparently met its match in the Bad Writing of Smug Humanists:

Simple probability, surely, would seem to dictate that a collection of essays by fifty fairly intelligent and zealous atheists would contain at least one logically compelling, deeply informed, morally profound, or conceptually arresting argument for not believing in God.

But why should that be, when no one believes in God based on arguments?

Anyway, reading Hart's piece, which is (simple probability being what it is) only mostly horrible, [1] was at least worth it qua set up for the withering riposte waged by Ars Artia in the first comment:

Any comment I could make about the content of this essay would necessarily be banal (one does not want to join the ranks of Daniel Dennett, et al). I can only acknowledge that the intellectual and spiritual power of David Hart steadies one's spine, so to speak, for the terrible things that already exist and may lie ahead. This essay provides hope. There are still men of faith, courage, and good will on earth. Can they prevail?

NOTES

1. In fairness, I found his enthymematic riffing amusing, even edifying. One must take the sweet with the bitter.

Seeds of Doubt

Doh! Squared

Daniel Davies (a.k.a. d squared), usually so right about so much, has published two posts in one day on the two topics he consistently gets wrong.

The first is about the "new atheist" v. "accommodationist" debate. It's a tiresome business, made every bit as tiresome by the indiscriminate flailing of the accommodationists as by the ululating polemics of the new atheists. (See how I did that? I mentioned two opposing cohorts, and then positioned myself as socially and philosophically superior to both by using carefully chosen epithets, all without really dealing with the merits of the competing claims. (One can learn much from the accommodationists.))

DD apparently thinks that Dawkins is getting his comeuppance because, after all, his being called an "utter twat" by mean atheists is only a taste of his own medicine. Yes, finally - payback for all those times Dawkins called this religious figure or that an "utter twat." Whatever.*

The second, and far more egregiously wrong, post is about the nylon v. tortex guitar pick debate. DD blithely claims that "[n]ylon is for jazz, tortex is for rock." What utter tosh. Dunlop's Gator Grip picks are superior for both idioms. 

*I realize that the real moral the authors of the linked-to pieces mean to draw is that there is justice in Dawkins' finally being abused by denizens of his own forum, which abuse heretofore had been heaped only upon Dawkins' critics. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to spot the gaping hole in this argument.

Reasons

The headline of this inane blog post by Stanley Fish (but I repeat myself) asks: "Are There Secular Reasons?"

Paul Gowder has the correct answer: "I sure hope so. Because otherwise there aren’t any reasons at all."

Call Me Ungrateful

Stephen Meyer writes a letter to the editor of the London Times:

Functional RNA catalysts arise only once RNA bases are specifically arranged into information-rich sequences – that is, function arises after, not before, the information problem has been solved. For this reason, invoking prebiotic natural selection in an RNA World does not solve the problem of the origin of genetic information; it merely presupposes a solution in the form of a hypothetical, information-rich RNA molecule capable of copying itself.

Therefore, God did it.

Okay - the last sentence was mine. But the interpolation fairly captures the logic intended.

BTW, Thomas Nagel has a letter on the same page, who describes himself as having recommended Meyer's book "as a grateful reader." Good heavens.

The Parable of God's Retirement

What with the sun's being about to enter its red-giant phase, God realized it was time to get the End Times rolling. (He had always thought that the imminent, literal end of the solar system would be a reasonably clear sign to everyone. But anyway...)

First, then, the tribulation. The Antichrist induced war among all men. Then came pestilence. Famine. Earthquakes. Surviving populations fled to caves to escape the molten fragments of planet and moon and star hurtling toward earth. The wicked were slaughtered, rendering the seas boiling cauldrons of human blood and viscera. In short, just the kind of wholesale ghastliness one would expect from the penultimate stage of any lovingly plotted eschatology.

But then the Messiah returned to earth. And the dead were resurrected. And the sinners were forever banished from the cosmos. And the rest were invited to join God in Heaven, for all eternity.

And so all of God's work was complete.

And then God pondered: Okay, what now?

What's the Connection?

Jonathan Benthall reviews five new books* that "reflect the withering away of the 'secularization thesis' that prevailed in sociology thirty years ago." It's a good review, and it made me think about the common trope that religion is uniquely concerned with achieving a sense of connectedness with something greater or other than oneself.

The Philosophical Shallows of "Narrative Depth"

Theologian John Haught in the WaPo notes that "[e]volution makes very good sense scientifically speaking," then queries: "But does it make good sense theologically as well?"

Haught uses the next 693 words inadvertently to show that the answer is "No."

A more advertent showing is available from Jerry Coyne.

(Via Butterflies & Wheels.)

Piety in the Sky

There are many interesting questions concerning the influence of religion on Nietzsche's thought. Whether Nietzsche was "pious" in any useful sense, it seems to me, isn't one.

(Via Arts & Letters Daily.)

Next to Gaudiness

Ophelia Benson, on "Goddy" epistemology:

The claims that are made about God bear no resemblance to real knowledge. This becomes immediately apparent if you try adding details to God’s CV: God is the eternal omnipotent benevolent omniscient creator of the universe, and has blue eyes. [Mention of eye colour and]  it suddenly becomes obvious that no one knows that, and by implication, that no one knows anything else either.

From 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists, a new collection of essays. More excerpts here.

The Metaproblem of Evil

The Problem of Evil is not an argument against Christianity.

But that is an argument against Christianity.

Spirits in the Material World

Epiphenom limns some relations and distinctions between religion, spirituality and humanism.

(Via Cognitive Daily.)

Dreher's Camp

Rod Dreher unintentionally describes his own column* thus: "This is narrow-minded cant."

But now that's a slight to the narrow-minded, who at least aren't generally inclined to make shit up: