Blogcritics

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

The Atheist Manifestos IV: God - The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger

Tim Gebhart — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 15:47:19 EST

Proof that atheism is hot -- at least from the perspective of bookstores -- hit me in my local national chain bookstore last week. Just a few feet from the front door sits a center cap of new releases on sale. Amongst the dozen or so selections - Victor Stenger's God: The Failed Hypothesis.Now you gotta understand. I come from a deep dark red state, one so full of evangelical and activist Christians that it is replete with recent legislative efforts to ban virtually all abortions on moral grounds. Thus, a significant portion of the population might well consider the placement of Stenger's book as flaunting the devil's work.At the same time, the placement of the book in a state like this is reflective of the buzz the so-called "new atheism" has been generating due to the popularity of Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Among the issues they raise is why religion is exempt from the same scrutiny applied to other areas of life and society. Although Stenger does not go as far as Harris or Dawkins in condemning religion itself, he takes the ultimate analytical step in the process. He subjects the question of the existence of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God (and, hence, the very foundation of those religions) to the scrutiny the scientific method would apply to any other hypothesis.Stenger is fully aware of and does not hesitate to refer to the cries theists raise to this approach. Specifically, they claim that matters of faith, belief and miracles are not amenable to logic or the scientific method because they are outside science itself. Balderdash, says Stenger. You don't need to apply science to beliefs or faith itself. Instead, it can be applied to the factual foundations of the assertion that God exists. Do the laws of physics and nature suggest that a divine hand played a role in the creation of the universe or life itself? Does scientific fact jibe with the views of life and the universe expressed in scriptures purported to be the word of God? What do scientific studies show about prayer and miracles?This is not a book that asks, "Is God dead?" Instead, while at times waxing somewhat more philosophical, the vast majority of it is a scientific approach that challenges whether God ever existed in the first place. In making that assessment, Stenger comes away with one conclusion: the God envisioned in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions does not exist.Stenger notes that definition is important when seeking to subject a hypothesis to scientific analysis. Thus, the "scientific God model" to which he applies analysis has eight attributes that serve as the tested hypotheses. These are not such things as omnipotence or omnipresence. Instead, they are more straightforward and quantifiable attributes such as God being the creator of the universe, authoring the laws of nature, stepping in when he wishes to change the course of events, endowing humans with eternal souls, and being the source of morality and other human values. Stenger examines each of the eight attributes in turn by looking at what he contends to be the objective and empirical evidence. In each case, he concludes that life, the universe and everything look just as they would be expected to look if there is no God.God: The Failed Hypothesis suffers two largely unavoidable problems. The first is this is, of necessity, science writing. For some, myself included, science and scientific terms can cause eyes to glaze over or heads to hurt. That said, Stenger, an emeritus professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii and an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, does an admirable job of trying to keep things basic enough for the average reader.Second, those most likely to read the book are probably already members of the atheist congregation. Thus, those who most need to read and ponder Stenger's arguments are those most unlikely to. Yet even if they do, I can hear them invoke a phrase astronomer Carl Sagan used in his 1980 public television series Cosmos: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."This latter aspect is most problematic when Stenger strays from the strictly scientific (e.g., what does the scientific evidence show about the validity of intelligent design) to the philosophical (e.g., the question of evil). In these cases, he tends to support his conclusions with rather broad strokes. For example, he writes that if religious experiences were as deeply significant as religionists suggest, "then data would exist that even the most die-hard skeptic could not ignore." Likewise, he asserts there is no independent evidence that "any" biblical prophecy has been fulfilled and there is no "incontrovertible physical data" confirming the events detailed in scripture.Such an approach does not, however, specifically refute the arguments of theists that as much as we may prefer it otherwise, questions of God's existence are not always going to be the stuff of hard evidence. Stenger is prepared, though, noting that the fact such evidence should have been found produces the high probability necessary to draw a scientific conclusion that the God hypothesis has failed objective and scientific scrutiny. At bottom, though, it ultimately reflects the loggerheads between the two views.Some may find Stenger's conclusion that "we are just a product of circumstance and chance" disconcerting, if not downright depressing. Apparently cognizant of that, Stenger's last chapter is called "Living in the Godless Universe" and he uses it to flesh out his position that belief in a deity is not a prerequisite to finding meaning, wonder and awe in life and the universe.God: The Failed Hypothesis has its limitations and flaws. All things considered, though, it is a valuable contribution to a growing list of modern works that raise serious and legitimate questions about the basis of religion and its acceptance and impact in the 21st century.

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dog, and his books. His blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.

Book Review — The Atheist Manifestos III: The Heathen's Guide to World Religions by William Hopper

Tim Gebhart — Wed, 1 Nov 2006 08:09:09 EST

It might be unfair to include William Hopper's The Heathen's Guide to World Religions with reviews of works by Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins (covered in part I and part II of this series respectively). That's because Hopper's work is a Marxist manifesto. Marx as in Groucho Marx.Yet that may be what is ultimately required when it comes to advocating atheism. Religious faith and belief are not founded on concepts of logic, reasoning or the scientific method. As a result, perhaps humor is the only way to draw believers in and educate them.Farce is not Hopper's sole approach to his "secular history of the One True Faiths." It is actually two-fold. The serious side examines the precepts and contentions of various religions in the context of what history actually reveals. The other is to approach it all with biting satire and flat out humor. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.Hopper, a Canadian who pursued a college program in world religions, turns a skeptic's eye toward the largest of the world's religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. One thing is certain. When Hopper offends, he does so on an equal opportunity basis. Thus, Jesus is referred to as "JC" or "Josh" (short for Joshua, his actual Hebrew name) and Buddha as "Sid" (short for his real name, Siddhartha Gautama).People like me who tend to look askance at religion likely will find The Heathen's Guide far funnier and less offensive than believers. And, certainly, believers will find that shots Hopper takes at other religions far more palatable than any shots he may take toward their own. But Hopper is also intent on trying to educate people about what history really says.Thus, in his examination of Christianity, Hopper takes an honest and serious look at what a messiah was insofar as Judaic tradition meant. That is a wholly acceptable approach since that is the only religious tradition in which the term had meaning at the time. Likewise, Hopper seeks to belie some of the gloss put on the religions, such as the view of Jesus as this bearded, long-haired, fairly attractive white man. He quotes a description of Jesus that appeared in the work of 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus:His nature and form were human; a man of simple appearance, mature age, dark skin, small stature, three cubits high [about five feet], hunchbacked, with a long face, long nose and meeting eyebrows, so that they who see him might be affrighted, with scanty hair with a parting in the middle of his head . . . and an undeveloped beard.Not quite the image with which most people today are familiar.While Hopper's work is replete with such information, it is within a satirical setting that, once again, does not discriminate based on religion or creed. A few examples:His description of the Essenes, a Jewish sect in which Hopper believes Jesus was a member: "They're the nutbar, genuinely certifiable Jews; the ones who would have been in the Waco, Texas standoff if they'd lived today."The Christian concept of the Rapture "is basically like being beamed up to the Enterprise, except you end up in Heaven instead of the transporter room."His description of when Mohammed first saw the archangel Gabriel: "There's nothing scarier than being half-asleep on a mountain and having an archangel show up out of nowhere with a silk scroll and commanding you to read. Unless, of course, it's being half asleep on a mountain and having an archangel show up out of nowhere commanding you to read when you're illiterate - which, as luck would have it, was what Mohammed was."His description of the death of the caliph that caused the split between the Shi'a and Sunni sects of Islam: "[T]he orthodoxy got together and removed Hussein from his position as head of the faith. They left the rest of him, mind you. They just took his head. It was mounted on a stick and taken back to Damascus, where it was paraded around the streets[.]"His version of "Suffering," the first of Buddhism's Four Noble Truths: "Life is shit."This tongue-in-cheek approach pervades Hopper's exploration of these religions. Unfortunately, while there's plenty of information here, there are items that cause you to wonder about either Hopper's knowledge of the tenets of the religion he examines or his attention to detail. Having been raised with a Roman Catholic background, I can only truly comment on his explanation of some of its doctrines. Here he makes at least two fundamental errors that require pause in evaluating his explanation of other denominations and faiths. This is particularly so since Hopper's biography at the end of the book indicates he was born Catholic.For example, Hopper refers to Mary, the mother of Jesus, as the "Immaculate Conceptee" and indicates it was the conception of Christ that was immaculate. Roman Catholics (particularly those of us who attended Catholic schools named "Immaculate Conception") should immediately recognize that is erroneous. The dogma of the immaculate conception stems from Catholic obsession with original sin, the "hereditary stain" all humanity is born with because Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden. Seeking to avoid Jesus being born of someone afflicted by original sin, the church came up with the doctrine that when Mary was conceived she was "preserved exempt from all stain of original sin." Thus, the concept refers to Mary's conception, not the supposed virginal birth of Jesus.Similarly, while Hopper explains how the Nicene Creed came about from the doctrinal debates over the concept of the trinity in western Christian faiths, he says that Catholics will recognize the prayer "as being the first words said in the mass." That, too, is wrong. Instead, the Nicene Creed is said in the Roman Catholic mass after the homily and immediately before the Eucharist services.Adherents of other religions or creeds might find equally egregious errors in the discussion of their faith. Then again, they may not. It is that uncertainty that causes the most harm to an otherwise enjoyable work. Also undercutting The Heathen's Guide is something that rankles me about books issued by any number of very small or vanity presses — the proofreading is horrible. This book is no exception. In comparison to the factual errors, this is minor but it never helps an author when the reader is forced to stumble over various sentences.That said, as long as the reader is aware that it is possible that not every fact in the book should be taken as gospel (pun intended), Hopper's blend of cynicism, humor and history make this a top notch "Dummies Guide to World Religions." It also provides an enjoyable counterpoint to traditional "heathen" views of religion.

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dog, and his books. His blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.

Book Review: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Tim Gebhart — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 08:53:17 EST

With two books on the bestseller list raising questions about the validity of belief in God, some observers see a movement they call the New Atheism. If they are right, Richard Dawkins is to New Atheism what Bertrand Russell was to what is now apparently "Old Atheism".Yet there is a fundamental and significant difference between Dawkins, the author of the bestselling The God Delusion, and Russell. Russell was a philosopher. As such, he approached the question of the existence of God as an interesting exercise in logic and philosophy. Dawkins, in contrast, is an evolutionary scientist at Oxford University. He approaches the subject with an eye honed by scientific analysis and reason. His conclusion: belief in God is a "delusion" because religious faith is a false belief in the face of extremely strong evidence to the contrary.There is also a difference between Dawkins and Sam Harris, the author of the best-selling Letter to a Christian Nation (reviewed in Part I of this series). Harris provides a condensed view of the problems many people see with Christianity. Dawkins' scope is much larger. He presents a lengthier and perhaps more erudite analysis of not just Christianity but the whole idea of a belief in God. In fact, Dawkins frequently challenges the reader intellectually with his analysis and commentary, particularly when he embarks into philosophical ideas and examines them with a scientific eye. At the outset, for example, Dawkins even invokes Russell in explaining why he believes agnosticism — the position that it is impossible to know whether there is a God — is untenable. He also devotes a chapter to deconstructing arguments for the existence of God advanced by thinkers from St. Thomas Aquinas to C.S. Lewis and, more recently, the mathematical approach of Stephen UnwinYet even here the scientific method that permeates this work shows through. His scientific approach becomes stronger as the book progresses. He uses evolutionary principles to show why arguments that life supports the existence of God cannot withstand scrutiny. Likewise, in examining why all human cultures seem to have religion, Dawkins discusses not only evolutionary principles but alleles, memes (a term Dawkins is credited with coining), and memeplexes.With his razor-like approach, Dawkins is almost brutal in his deconstruction of the argument that religion is necessary as a source of morality. He says "much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird". Anyone who wishes to "base their morality literally on the Bible" he writes, "[has] either not read it or not understood it." In response to criticism that no one takes every word of the Bible literally any more, Dawkins says:That is my whole point. We pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols or allegories. Such picking and choosing is a matter of personal decision, just as much, or as little, as the atheist's decision to follow this moral precept or that was a personal decision, without an absolute foundation. If one of these is "morality flying by the seat of its pants", so is the other.Dawkins, like Harris, also sees inconsistency evidenced by the Ten Commandments as being the foundation of morality. He points out:If we took the Ten Commandments seriously, we would rank the worship of the wrong gods and the making of graven images as first and second among sins. Rather than condemn the unspeakable vandalism of the Taliban, who dynamited the 150-foot-high Bamiyan Buddhas in the mountains of Afghanistan, we would praise them for their righteous piety.That is not the only commonality between Harris and Dawkins. Both are equally appalled that religious doctrines can not only influence but dictate public policy. Likewise, perhaps given their ardent approach toward the subject, Dawkins joins Harris in questioning why religion is granted "such uniquely privileged respect" that any disagreement is viewed as intolerance.The immunity and existence of blind and unquestioned faith is a large part of what Dawkins sees as the evil of religion. Once again, though, Dawkins approaches it from the standpoint of analysis and evaluation.More generally (and this applies to Christianity no less than to Islam), what is really pernicious is the practice of teaching children that faith itself is a virtue. Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument. Teaching children that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them -- given certain other ingredients that are not hard to come by -- to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for future jihads or crusades. ...If children were taught to question and think through their beliefs, instead of being taught the superior virtue of faith without question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers. Suicide bombers do what they do because they really believe what they were taught in their religious schools.That also leads Dawkins to a conclusion that undoubtedly prompts outrage from believers. He considers some aspects of religion to be child abuse. For example, he believes it improper to refer to a child as "Catholic" or "Muslim". While they may be a child of parents of that religious belief, "children are too young to know where they stand on such issues, just as they are too young to know where they stand on economics or politics."It is somewhat surprising The God Delusion has remained on the bestseller lists for as long as it has. First, advocacy of atheism is not a subject one would expect to find popular favor in the United States. Second, despite Dawkins' unquestionable writing skills, the book can be difficult going at times. Yet commercial success does not necessarily equate to practical success. If The God Delusion suffers a flaw, it is an inherent and perhaps ultimately fatal one. It is almost impossible to use logic and reasoning to educate and persuade others on a subject that requires ignoring and rejecting logic and reasoning.

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dog, and his books. His blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.

Book Review — The Atheist Manifestos I: Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

Tim Gebhart — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 09:21:21 EST

Is atheism "in"? There are multi-page expositions in national news weeklies and two books advocating an atheist viewpoint have been on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list for a month. If atheism is in, it is thanks in no small part to Sam Harris, the author of one of those bestselling books, Letter to a Christian Nation.If you aren't familiar with his prior bestseller, The End of Faith, his latest book leaves you no question where Harris stands. In the opening note to Letter to a Christian Nation, Harris is explicit in the purpose of the slim volume: "I have set out to demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity in its most committed forms."Just as The End of Faith was Harris' response to the role of religion in 9/11, his latest is his response to the reaction of Christians to that book. After it was published, Harris received thousands of hate-filled e-mails from supposedly devout Christians. Their reaction demonstrated to him that many Christians who invoke and claim to be inspired by the love of Jesus "are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism." At the risk of sharing in the hate mail he receives, let me not only praise this work but suggest it needs as widespread distribution and reading as possible.Despite what the introduction might lead one to believe, Letter to a Christian Nation is not simply an ad hominem attack on Christianity. It is a thoughtful précis of some of the bases, impacts and ramifications of Christian thought and the concept of atheism. First things first, though. Harris acknowledges that his epistle does not necessarily apply to each and every Christian. He narrowly defines the term Christian for this book. It means "a person who believes, at a minimum, that the Bible is the inspired word of God and that only those who accept the divinity of Jesus Christ will experience salvation after death." That doesn't mean others of Christian persuasion may not be equally subject to some, if not most, of the points Harris makes.Even Harris would admit that the Christians to whom his work is nominally addressed are probably the least likely to read it. As such, it serves more as an invitation to moderates and what he calls "secularists" to examine religion, in particular Christianity, and its impact on this country. Harris, however, is not necessarily directing his book to "atheists." The reason? Harris says that"atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. An atheist is simply a person who believes that 260 million Americans (87 percent of the population) claiming to "never doubt the existence of God" should be obliged to present evidence for his existence — and, indeed, for his benevolence, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day.The bulk of the book is devoted to why Harris views these beliefs as unjustified and how they adversely affect the U.S. and the world. As for justification, for example, Harris points out that millions of devout Muslims, just like millions of devout Christians, believe theirs is the true religion and failure to convert to it means eternal damnation. Yet both cannot be right and Christians who would demand "proof" from Muslims refuse to demand the same of their own religion.Harris also points out that Christianity is not necessary for morality to exist. He notes the first four of the Ten Commandments the religious right wants to post in schools and public buildings have nothing to do with morality. He also points out that Christians who view the Bible as the literal word of God must be ready to accept the death penalty as punishment for violation of those commandments as well as for adultery and working on the Sabbath.But where Harris excels is in looking at how we blithely accept religious beliefs and let them influence, if not determine, public policy.Can you prove that Zeus does not exist? Of course not. And yet, just imagine if we lived in a society where people spent tens of billions of dollars of their personal income each year propitiating the gods of Mount Olympus, where the government spent billions more in tax dollars to support institutions devoted to these gods, where untold billions more in tax subsidies were given to pagan temples, where elected officials did their best to impede medical research out of deference to The Iliad and The Odyssey, and where every debate about public policy was subverted to the whims of ancient authors who wrote well, but who didn't know enough about the nature of reality to keep their excrement out of their food. This would be a horrific misappropriation of our material, moral, and intellectual resources. And yet that is exactly the society we are living in.One of his examples deals with the vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), one of the most commonly transmitted diseases in the U.S. It causes nearly 5,000 women to die each year from cervical cancer and more than 200,000 deaths worldwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the vaccine is almost 100% effective in preventing diseases caused by the four HPV types covered by the vaccine, including precancers of the cervix, vulva and vagina. Yet, Harris notes, "Christian conservatives in our government have resisted a vaccination program on the grounds that HPV is a valuable impediment to premarital sex. These pious men and women want to preserve cervical cancer as an incentive toward abstinence, even if it sacrifices the lives of thousands of women each year."Harris provides a concise and highly readable critique of the impact of elevating religious doctrine over science and fact. And while far from a scientific or systematic analysis of Christian faith and beliefs, Letter to a Christian Nation urges people to examine why Christianity and religion are exempt from the rules that we otherwise apply to everyday life. Equally important, Harris asks why religion not only can be used to dictate public policy, any effort to ask why Christianity is exempt from rational standards is condemned as intolerance. To put all of this in the space of less than 100 pages is one reason why this book may be considered a must-read book of the year.

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dog, and his books. His blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.