Why do we need a(nother) Global Atheist Convention? Wake me when it makes an impact.

Seeing as the event is underway right now I thought I'd provide some opinions on this.

I was at the first Global Atheist Convention, but decided not to go to the current spectacle. This instalment lacks the shock value of the original, possibly because a lot of the fears or hopes (depending if you are believer or atheist) didn't come to fruition. Last time an atmosphere of uncertainty and expectation surrounded the event. Now there just seems to be internal enthusiasm for a weekend of specialty entertainment. I am not sure why a second event was deemed a good idea. I would've understood staging the event elsewhere (maybe Texas) but in the same country (Australia) and the same city (Melbourne)? The reason for my reticence to see this as the greatest show on Earth (so to speak) is that two years later where is the impact of the Global Atheist Convention? Without a legacy or tangible effects, what justifies another? Let's see what David Nicholls, "president" of the Atheist Foundation of Australia says on the topic. (quotes taken from 'Why Have a Global Atheist Convention?' on the official site)

Nicholls claims, "There is a massive paradigm shift happening in all societies, especially in developed nations, where the taken-for-granted truths about supernatural origins are being critically questioned like no other time in history." To justify this assertion he offers only approximate attendance numbers from the original Global Atheists Convention ("2,500") and the USA Reason Rally ("20 thousand"). So according to Nicholls the fact that several thousand people (in a global population of several billion) attend these events proves "taken-for-granted truths ... are being questioned like no other time in history"? Hardly evidence for the assertion he makes.

Quantity is not quality. Nor does mass involvement indicate originality. We should begin our critical evaluation of Nicholls' claim by duly noting that challenges to religious and supernaturally based "truths" have been in circulation since the time of the Ancient Greek philosophers. That more people are questioning a set of beliefs does not mean said beliefs are being subjected to a greater level of interrogation than ever before placed on them. Considering he is talking attendance, we can assume he is taking the participation of the public rather than the presenters (the most notable of which hold academic positions) as the main object of discussion. Yes, Nicholls and Co. are now on the bandwagon, taking armchair philosophy out of lounge rooms and into the streets and convention centres of the Western world but numbers signify nothing more than popularisation. What we really have is the general populace standing alongside academics and public intellectuals to pose salient questions. Still, it is the numbers that are growing, not the intensity of critique. Nicholls says nothing of the implications of this growth.

Following on from this, Nicholls forgoes substantiating his assertion and lists a number of gripes about "religion". I use inverted commas because Nicholls is justs saying "religion" without any concrete sense of what particular religions he is referring to or what constitutes a religion. Lack of a definitional scope is a problem as some may label his atheism a religion. In most of its forms I would argue atheism is not a religion but let's humour the claim and evaluate a little of what Nicholls says. At one point he states, "[religion] encourages a them and us mentality". But this is exactly what Nicholls does in the closing stages of his writing where he outlines a division between the "solution" (also called "us" by Nicholls implying his personal status therein), the spectators, and the "problem" (a by word for religious believers that may as well read 'them'). Personally, I am troubled that an individual who calls himself the "president" or an organisation that represents atheists nationally could be so flagrantly hypocritical.

My opinion is that Nicholls statement (he calls it an "essay" but I would refrain from applying that term if only on grounds of length) fails to answer the question of "Why Have a Global Atheist Convention?" Furthermore, it seems to me to be rife with hubris and self-aggrandisement. In a move reminiscent (in my eyes) of religious polemicists he is asserting with great satisfaction the privileged status of the atheists (the "solution" no less, but to what Nicholls gives us no insight). If so he is positioning atheists as a new chosen people (chosen by themselves in lieu of a deity or sense of fate). That comes a little too close to religion to sustain a division between believers and non-believers. Such stances are merely fodder for the religious and those who try to deride atheism.

Ineloquent expositions of this sort are one of the primary reasons I disassociate from "atheist" groups...as a general rule, one simply never knows if it was critical reasoning or ego that drives people to adopt the moniker of atheist, especially at a time when it has become a subcultural identity.

Just an opinion.

Huxley Quote

"[T]he question as to what Jesus really said and did is strictly a scientific problem, which is capable of solution by no onther methods than those practised by the historian and the literary critic."

T.H. Huxley, 'Agnosticism', 1889

The Atheist's Guide to Reality: A Review

Rosenberg, Alex. The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions. New York: Norton, 2011.

At first look the title is perhaps what one would expect to adorn a book featuring similar content to Richard Dawkins', The Magic of Reality. Instead of that, Rosenberg offers a treatise on 'where to from the assumption of God's non-existence'. Linking this to the previous post I thought Rosenberg's intention would have been better suited if he had labelled the book, Beyond Atheism.

Rosenberg is open about the fact that this book does not aim to provide arguments for atheism or disproof of the divine. Recent attempts at such (Dawkins - The God Delusion, and Hitchens - God is Not Great) he sees as showing "relative lack of originality" because the arguments they present "have been around for quite some time and achieved little effect" (i.e. they have not wiped out theism) [p.x]. In this regard I believe he misses the point of what was offered by those books. Yes, the arguments they listed and discuss have existed for upwards of a century. However, outside of academic or learned circles many of the arguments are not known (or known only in a poorly vulgarised form). Therefore, the work of Dawkins, Hitchens, and their colleagues may be regarded more as popularisation than any effort at providing new arguments. That task alone is a significant one at a time when broad education is sorely lacking.

What then does Rosenberg see as the purpose of his book? Aiming at those who already consider God's non-existence to be established, Rosenberg seeks to rehabilitate the term 'scientism' as a replacement for 'atheism', seeing the latter as too much of a "public relations problem" [p.5]. This is a rather odd choice as scientism is equally pejorative, connoting an ideological adherence to science as the only epistemological process of value. Often this is extended to imply that all that can be known is known by the available tools and theories of science as they currently stand. This is very close to the way that Rosenberg argues in suggesting that the answers to "persistent questions" (meaning of life etc) are provided with answers by science but these answers are rejected on more or less grounds of taste and tradition.

Here we see that the title is a little erroneous. The book deals largely with providing a positive identity (scientistic people - those who believe science provides the only reliable answers) as opposed to a negative one (atheists - those who do not believe in God). Directly reiterating the point I mentioned above, Rosenberg writes, "Our project is not to provide another argument for atheism, but to explore the God-free reality." [p.82] Much of this extends little further than suggestions for a nihilistic moral code (the only one Rosenberg sees as validated by science), and waxing on the meaninglessness of history and human life.

There are a few more qualms worth mentioning. Firstly, Rosenberg seems to have things around the wrong way. He suggests that this endorsement of science follows from the acceptance of atheism. Rather, I believe it more accurate to argue that atheism is a logical outgrowth of science - just one of the many implications of the findings that have thus far been made. Secondly, there are moments of lax consistency with regards to historical matters. In one chapter Isaac Newton is lauded for driving divine purpose out of physics [p.44], but subsequently it is stated that Newton viewed "the laws he discovered [as] God's commands to the universe" [p.84]. Newton is a complex figure due to his own occult and (idiosyncratic) theological leanings; too complex in fact to be invoked in Rosenberg's argument. Even now physics is the primary scientific recourse for those who want a little extra validation with their theistic beliefs. Finally, I found his discussions of C.P. Snow's 'Two Cultures' to be less than nuanced, and thought that his treatment of the subject implied giving a pseudo-priestly authority to scientists.

Overall the book suffers from a lack of clarity. The lucid writing that one finds in Sagan and Dawkins is sadly lacking here. I genuinely mean sadly as I think Rosenberg's idea is a particularly interesting one that only falls short in its execution.

Although he did not intend to provide further arguments for atheism, it was a point that could well be considered such an argument which I found most intriguing. Usually when entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics is mentioned with regards to evolution it as a refutation of Darwin's grand idea. Rosenberg however, argues persuasively that entropy and chaos is a benefit to evolution on the molecular level: the random distribution of molecules and the lack of any inevitable outcome providing the stage for random occurrences that eventually lead to the development of complex organisms sufficient opportunity to occur despite the low probabilities.

I would not suggest this book to anyone looking for an easy read. Those who do read it bear in mind that you must bring many elements of existing knowledge with you (for examples, there is no clear description of the Second Law that would render it explicable for absolute beginners).

Brief Research Note: HPL

One of the papers I am currently working on features H.P. Lovecraft. Yesterday, while watching a presentation by Richard Dawkins and Laurence Krauss on youtube I came across an interesting thought. Dawkins had pointed out (as he done in the past) that the human brain is evolved to cope with certain time frames which are far smaller than the geological scale across which evolution happens and the universe was formed. Reflecting on several comments that HPL makes in his letters and fiction writing which display acute awareness of geological time scales, I wondered if it was not this aspects of his thinking which caused him to be dismiss religious and supernatural explanations in favour of science and unbelief. It is a matter of his philosophical thinking that I will likely follow up on in a specific paper of its own.

Here is one of my favourite quotes from HPL:

"It is only the inferior thinker who hastens to explain the singular and the complex by the primitive short cut of supernaturalism."

So, what's my problem?

Arduosly I struggled to pay attention at a Sataurday seminar prepping all the research higher degree kids for the next few years of their lives. In the end I was quite glad that I did because I actually learnt something. One of the presenters, Rob Elson of the History department, spoke about how you shouldn't think about a topic but a problem. Phrase your area of reseach in a way that makes it a problem which needs to be resolved then propose a well thought out and argued resolution via your thesis. This way of looking at things has become the talk of the offices and proved quite useful in stimulating even the jaded RHD candidates who are nearing their submission dates.

As a way of getting ready for my impending meet-up with the advisors I had a crack at the process, and here's the result: How does popular culture (specifically science-fiction TV) inform out understanding of the effceets of science on religion? For a fairly general and over-arching issue of debate it's not too bad and has alreday started me down the road of defining me scope. Now that I have that I can also situate my reasearch in the areas to which it pertains: science and religion, science and popular culture, religion and popular culture, televisual studies, cultural history, etc.

I've never been one to start off looking through a very narrow frame of refernce, prefering as I do to begin with something big then whittle it down into a workable object. And that's exactly what I'll be off to do right now. I think I'll start with some analysis of "primary documents"...so, should I watch the X-Files or Stargate?

Science, ho!

Recently, I've been part of a number of discussions about scientific objectivity applied to the question of religious faith. In one of the forums science was repeatedly ridiculed for claiming to have a "monopoly" on truth. Objective analysis was the particular target of many comments. Here are some quotes on this issue for you all to ponder...

Why am I an atheist? The short answer is that I cannot accept any of the alternatives. I simply don't find them believable. As for the accusation of intellectual pride, surely the boot is on the other foot. Atheists don't claim to know anything with certainty—it's the believers who know it all.

- Barbara Smoker

I would, like any other scientist, willingly change my mind if the evidence led me to do so. So I care about what's true, I care about evidence, I care about evidence as the reason for knowing what is true. It is true that I come across rather passionate sometimes—and that's because I am passionate about the truth. … I do get very impatient with humbug, with cant, with fakery, with charlatans.

- Richard Dawkins

Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates.

- Thomas Jefferson