Richard Dawkins

IdleRich said:

Yeah of course. But I assume that this is related to one of those surveys that demonstrates that Christians tend to know less about the actual important bits of their religion than atheists. The example of the order of the gospels is an unfortunate one I'd say.


Well the man on the Clapham omnibus is scarcely more likely to end up like Eagleton is he?


This depends on a misunderstanding (or at least a difference in application) of the word "fact". I take it to be a true state of the world, I think you are using the definition of a fact as a provably true statement. There either is or isn't a God - one of those things is the true state of the universe, one isn't (and one of them is therefore, I'd say, the fact of the matter). However this will probably never be definitively proven one way or another. The definition of a fact as a provably true statement says that there is thus no fact of the matter on this kind of question - and I have no problem with that, it's just that it stops too early. Call what I'm talking about fact* perhaps, I don't think you would deny that God either does or doesn't exist - maybe you would, Eagleton kind of does I guess.


You said that the left-wing critique of Dawkins stems from the idea that he is pushing people towards a darker place, I'm asking why on earth they think that.


OK, let me put it this way. Eagleton is an old leftie, you said that Dawkins' arguments are likely going to force people to think like Eagleton. Why should the left have a problem with this?


Not sure I understand this. I'm saying that Dawkins thinks that religion is a lie. I happen to think he's pretty much right and he's trying to expose this lie. Are you saying that because he's doing this in a capitalist society it will lead to more capitalism and so he shouldn't do it?

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Forget Eagleton, he's not relevant here - that's my mistake. He's another ageing academic who has lived a life in academia.

I find your definition of fact as true state of the world to be as empty as the definition of God as 'the mysterious'. They are both reliant on existential demands that cannot be satisfied. Thus I find the idea of it being a fact that God exists or does not exist to be slightly odd.

To repeat, religious institutions emphasise oneness and altruism in a way that market-based solutions to those same problems cannot and do not. The market emphasises existential freedom in the face of all evidence and common sense. Dawkins has no way of making the problems that religion addresses go away. Obviously he thinks the cure is worse than the disease, but the choice is not between the cure and the disease - it's between cures and a left-wing critique is to suggest that this will ultimately lead to bigger problems. Some Marxists might see that as a good thing, so I'm not sure I would suggest that Dawkins should or shouldn't do what he is doing. Should Tesco have the unemployed do 'work experience' at their supermarkets? Some Marxists might suggest that they are bravely showing the true face of capitalism.

Nonetheless, what I suppose I am saying is that capitalist reduction of altruism to self-referentialism changes the way that altruism manifests itself and that this reduces the possibility of genuine long-term restructuring of society in a way that protects the long-term future of what we would broadly judge to be liberal freedoms.

I am not suggesting that this critique is problem free. But being 'against lies' is not as sustainable a moral position as it initially might seem.

Bangpuss said:

All the stuff about defining God as a vague, undefined force, the creator of science &c. irritates me in the sense that the people who make that argument are doing so in the knowledge that it cannot be proved to be wrong, since there is essentially nothing to their god, other than as an intellectual construct they use to explain the currently unexplainable.

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To view it as an intellectual construct is probably to misunderstand the point. When yogis or whatever talk about God, or waheguru or the source, Mother Earth or whatever, they are connecting with a part of themselves. We respond to notions of the divine in a way that we can only otherwise get near through certain aesthetical and physical experiences. They are guarding the legitimacy of those experiences against attack from those who do not understand what they want to destroy.

Comelately - where is that Zizek quote from? Very interesting I think.

Slavoj Zizek, “The Fear of Four Words: A Modest Plea for the Hegelian Reading of Christianity,” in The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic, ed. Creston Davis (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009) 27-28.

http://rainandtherhinoceros.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/zizek-on-capitalism-and-new-age-spirituality/

I'm pretty sure he also said that spirituality should become more religious. He could certainly be said to look upon Christianity more favourably than spirituality.

"Forget Eagleton, he's not relevant here - that's my mistake. He's another ageing academic who has lived a life in academia."

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Fair enough, I brought him up I guess.

"I find your definition of fact as true state of the world to be as empty as the definition of God as 'the mysterious'. They are both reliant on existential demands that cannot be satisfied. Thus I find the idea of it being a fact that God exists or does not exist to be slightly odd."

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I don't see that at all. What existential demands cannot be satisfied?
As an aside I went out with a girl who is now a philosophy lecturer, she and others on her phd always deemed the argument that the statement "There are no facts" only has value in the case of it being true ie a fact, in which case it's not true, enough to disregard it as nonsense. It was something that was generally said by the slow one in the class when he'd missed the point.

"To repeat, religious institutions emphasise oneness and altruism in a way that market-based solutions to those same problems cannot and do not. The market emphasises existential freedom in the face of all evidence and common sense. Dawkins has no way of making the problems that religion addresses go away. Obviously he thinks the cure is worse than the disease, but the choice is not between the cure and the disease - it's between cures and a left-wing critique is to suggest that this will ultimately lead to bigger problems."

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I've got a few problems with that statement. Firstly I don't think the market emphasises existential freedom of the kind discussed above which we both deem to (probably) not exist. It just emphasises freedom to do what you will (without the control over what you will) and I don't think that that is against common sense or evidence at all.
Also, it obviously doesn't matter if Dawkins can't make the problems that religion attempts (and I would say fails) to address go away. He's not seeking to do that and in debates with fundies he's been very happy to say that his worldview struggles to provide a morality (of course so does religion but try telling that to someone religious).
Are you saying that a left-wing critique of Dawkins acknowledges that he is not attempting or claiming to do this but still announces the failure of what he's doing because it does not do it?
Further, when you say that there is a choice between cures, which other "cures" are you referring to here?

"Nonetheless, what I suppose I am saying is that capitalist reduction of altruism to self-referentialism changes the way that altruism manifests itself and that this reduces the possibility of genuine long-term restructuring of society in a way that protects the long-term future of what we would broadly judge to be liberal freedoms."

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I think a lot of people would struggle to see the relevance of this to what we're talking about, or what we started talking about.

"being 'against lies' is not as sustainable a moral position as it initially might seem."

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You might think that but I don't think you've demonstrated it though.

What existential demands cannot be satisfied?

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The demand for the kind of freedom sought by philosophical libertarians, the demand for pure altruism, the demand for facts etc

As an aside I went out with a girl who is now a philosophy lecturer, she and others on her phd always deemed the argument that the statement "There are no facts" only has value in the case of it being true ie a fact, in which case it's not true, enough to disregard it as nonsense. It was something that was generally said by the slow one in the class when he'd missed the point.

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I think I've missed the point? Only kidding. I think that notion of value is dependent on the precondition of there being facts and so it's no surprise that the 'there are no facts' statement appears to be nonsense. I would actually say that to say such a statement is 'nonsense' is to engage in a kind of philosophical autism. Value is subjective not logical surely?

I've got a few problems with that statement. Firstly I don't think the market emphasises existential freedom of the kind discussed above which we both deem to (probably) not exist. It just emphasises freedom to do what you will (without the control over what you will) and I don't think that that is against common sense or evidence at all.

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It explicitly emphasises 'negative freedom' and this is ultimately incoherent for sure, but the idea I am talking about is that one creates one's own destiny and essentially gets what one deserves. The rich deserve to be rich, the poor are lazy and should pull themselves up by their bootstraps etc etc. Such talk is talked pretty openly right now, I am surprised you have not noticed it. It is ultimately dependent on the idea of will, which is transcendental and, in an important sense, isn't to be found. David Smail is excellent on this stuff from the pov of critiquing psychology.

Also, it obviously doesn't matter if Dawkins can't make the problems that religion attempts (and I would say fails) to address go away. He's not seeking to do that

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The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'm not sure it's not fairly irrelevant.

Are you saying that a left-wing critique of Dawkins acknowledges that he is not attempting or claiming to do this but still announces the failure of what he's doing because it does not do it?

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I think this is a strange reframing to be honest. I think his 'project' is shallow and pedantic, it does not necessarily fail in its intentions.

Further, when you say that there is a choice between cures, which other "cures" are you referring to here?

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I think I've covered this: spirituality, self-help NLP literature, alcohol (popular with academics), watching team sports, patriotic warmongering, trolling messageboards etc

I think a lot of people would struggle to see the relevance of this to what we're talking about, or what we started talking about.

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Well I pretty much just repeated what I stated in my original post, so I'm not sure that really works. Philosophy is hard, even phd philosophy students struggle it seems (to be fair, a philosophy student can get their phd without going near left wing social and political or continental philosophy). As an observation, you seem overly attached on the idea that a critique must speak to the the achievement of the projects conscious objectives, which is why I think you are struggling to grasp the viewpoint. I think I am describing some fairly complex ideas fairly simply, but I will try and do better.

You might think that but I don't think you've demonstrated it though.

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Probably not. I can't spare more time on this today, I will return with more cohesive thoughts tomorrow.

IdleRich said:

Terry Eagleton I think

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That's the fella. His version of the argument is probably the most well-known but I've read a lot of people on the pro-faith left use it. Basically you make up a definition of "God" that's so recondite and abstract that it sounds more like some kind of kooky po-mo meta-Buddhism than anything the vast majority of theists, of whatever flavour, would actually recognise. Then you use this to (supposedly) show that Dawkins and pals have got it all wrong because they're busy attacking the vengeful beardy man in the sky but puh-lease, who actually believes that any more? And hey presto, the "atheist fundamentalists" are revealed to be just as unsophisticated as the religious fundies they unceasingly excoriate, and can therefore be dismissed or ignored. Hurrah.

So really, it's a straw-man argument based on the fallacious accusation of a straw-man argument.

comelately said:

I find your definition of fact as true state of the world to be as empty as the definition of God as 'the mysterious'. They are both reliant on existential demands that cannot be satisfied. Thus I find the idea of it being a fact that God exists or does not exist to be slightly odd.

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With respect, I find this line of reasoning specious and sophistical in the extreme. In what meaningful way is it not demonstrably true (that is, a fact) that fire is hot and ice is cold, that London is the capital of England or any of a million other examples we could easily come up with? Going down the road of questioning "what we can ever really know" (within certain well-described limitations such as the Heisenberg uncertainty relation) leads ineluctably to solipsistic silliness like "What it we're all just living in a giant computer simulation?". The material universe is maya, there are no facts or truths because nothing really exists, blah blah blah. Not really a position to be taken seriously.

DannyL said:

I see nothing there that makes him a misogynist

I'm not arguing that he's a misogynist. I'm just sayig that Dawkins' dismisal of her pov. - and the equivalences he draws with it - do him no favours at all.

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Well he was probably wrong-footed by her decision to take offence at absolutely nothing at all. Isn't she flattering herself a bit to assume that he OBVIOUSLY wanted to get in her pants, rather than actually drink coffee and talk? I bet if he'd ignored her she'd be in a huff about his 'aloofness'.

Watson promptly profiled Dawkins as the worst villain a person can be in class warfare – a “wealthy old heterosexual white man”.

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Off with hir head!

Mr. Tea said:

With respect, I find this line of reasoning specious and sophistical in the extreme. In what meaningful way is it not demonstrably true (that is, a fact) that fire is hot and ice is cold, that London is the capital of England or any of a million other examples we could easily come up with? Going down the road of questioning "what we can ever really know" (within certain well-described limitations such as the Heisenberg uncertainty relation) leads ineluctably to solipsistic silliness like "What it we're all just living in a giant computer simulation?". The material universe is maya, there are no facts or truths because nothing really exists, blah blah blah. Not really a position to be taken seriously.

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Well all those things are only true linguistically oh wait maybe not i dunno what i'm saying

i agree with luka though, i think astrology is very important - i want to get some tarot cards. i think that it is bullshit, but that doesn't mean that bullshit cannot be 'real' in the sense that it affects you aye?

"The demand for the kind of freedom sought by philosophical libertarians, the demand for pure altruism, the demand for facts etc"

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I'm getting quite confused here - you said that (my definition of) facts cannot satisfy certain existential demands which you now explain as the demand for facts. Well, I'm getting confused or you are.

"I think I've missed the point? Only kidding. I think that notion of value is dependent on the precondition of there being facts and so it's no surprise that the 'there are no facts' statement appears to be nonsense. I would actually say that to say such a statement is 'nonsense' is to engage in a kind of philosophical autism. Value is subjective not logical surely?"

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The notion of value depends on the pre-condition of there being facts? I don't think so, in the sentence I made it would have been the same to say "the statement only has meaning if it's true" and I'm sure you wouldn't say that facts are a pre-condition for meaning... unless you are denying all meaning. In which case, why are we talking?

"It explicitly emphasises 'negative freedom' and this is ultimately incoherent for sure, but the idea I am talking about is that one creates one's own destiny and essentially gets what one deserves. The rich deserve to be rich, the poor are lazy and should pull themselves up by their bootstraps etc etc. Such talk is talked pretty openly right now, I am surprised you have not noticed it. It is ultimately dependent on the idea of will, which is transcendental and, in an important sense, isn't to be found. David Smail is excellent on this stuff from the pov of critiquing psychology."

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Yes, I've seen that talk but I didn't realise that was what you meant. Again, I don't see how this is relevant to what Dawkins has said.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'm not sure it's not fairly irrelevant."

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Triple negative there, so you think it is fairly irrelevant? What is?

"I think this is a strange reframing to be honest. I think his 'project' is shallow and pedantic, it does not necessarily fail in its intentions."

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So, do you have any other criticisms of his so-called project? You're saying it's shallow and it doesn't do what communism was supposed to but it does kinda demonstrate the lack of existence of God and the futility of religion. He'd probably be happy with that.

"I think I've covered this: spirituality, self-help NLP literature, alcohol (popular with academics), watching team sports, patriotic warmongering, trolling messageboards etc"

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I must have missed that post. But I don't see that Dawkins has to address all those attempted cures as well as his chosen bugbear, in fact I'd go so far as to say that that would be impossible for any one person to do.

"Well I pretty much just repeated what I stated in my original post, so I'm not sure that really works. Philosophy is hard, even phd philosophy students struggle it seems (to be fair, a philosophy student can get their phd without going near left wing social and political or continental philosophy). As an observation, you seem overly attached on the idea that a critique must speak to the the achievement of the projects conscious objectives, which is why I think you are struggling to grasp the viewpoint. I think I am describing some fairly complex ideas fairly simply, but I will try and do better."

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It is hard, and easily confused with other disciplines which allow less rigorous argument. But your original point "But I think the left-wing critique of Dawkins is that the atheist promised land he wishes to lead people to is a ludicrous fantasy, and the place he is really leading them to is somewhere far darker than he realises." is far from what you've said in the last few points.

With respect, I find this line of reasoning specious and sophistical in the extreme.

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Don't specious and sophistical mean more or less the same thing?

In what meaningful way is it not demonstrably true (that is, a fact) that fire is hot and ice is cold

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They are both ultimately interpretations. Sure I'm not denying it is a useful and probably necessary shorthand to describe those things as facts. But they are not objective facts, hot and cold *are* subjective states - I think it's on you to demonstrate otherwise. I'm sure you could easily get a consensus that fire is hot, but that isn't what you want.

"London is the capital of England". Tougher but ultimately built on consensus and not objectivity. If I say that Birmingham is the real capital, how would you falsify that? Again you confuse consensus with objectivity.

I'm not saying ''there are no facts" as an isolated statement, I'm saying there is a sense in which there are no facts. Humans are meaning-creating beings that infer a=b facts, that infer that human beings (and even animals) have 'free will' of a kind that cannot be demonstrated and that infer pure altruism from acts that can probably be more accurately be shown to be self-referential. But this meaning creation is ultimately all narrative, il n'ya pas de hors-texte.

slowtrain said:

Well all those things are only true linguistically oh wait maybe not i dunno what i'm saying

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How else are we meant to communicate if not linguistically? I think that's a bit reductio-ad-absurdum. Well there is another way: "1+1=2", for example. Though this is rigorously provable rather than empirically demonstrable, so I'd call it a truth rather than a fact. Both words and numbers are just symbols but if we can agree on a convention for their meaning (the English language, figures plus elementary-level arithmetic symbols...) then we can make meaningful sentences. The only alternative is telepathy.

slowtrain said:

i think that it is bullshit, but that doesn't mean that bullshit cannot be 'real' in the sense that it affects you aye?

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I'm sure a lot of people would call Game Of Thrones bullshit, but it affected me. To get back on topic, you could say the same about myths, superstition, liturgy, scripture and so on.

comelately said:

Don't specious and sophistical mean more or less the same thing?

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I think they're close but not quite the same.

comelately said:

They are both ultimately interpretations. Sure I'm not denying it is a useful and probably necessary shorthand to describe those things as facts. But they are not objective facts, hot and cold *are* subjective states - I think it's on you to demonstrate otherwise. I'm sure you could easily get a consensus that fire is hot, but that isn't what you want.

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Well fire is hotter than ice - that removes any reference to subjective values like what constitutes 'hot' or 'cold'. If you can agree on what temperature means (the root mean square velocity of particles in a body or fluid, loosely) then "[x] is hotter than [y]" is not a tricky or subjective statement.

comelately said:

"London is the capital of England". Tougher but ultimately built on consensus and not objectivity. If I say that Birmingham is the real capital, how would you falsify that? Again you confuse consensus with objectivity.

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It's not the seat of parliament so it's not the capital. You could then ask "well how do you define 'seat', in this case? Or parliament?" and so on ad infinitum. You end up asking rhetorical questions that you, I and anyone with a basic grasp of English know the answer to. It doesn't achieve anything and it sure as hell doesn't prove that facts don't exist. That's what I meant by specious and sophistical.

Bangpuss said:

As with London being the capital of England: it's true in a University Challenge sense, but the idea of a 'capital city' only exists because we came up with it. There was no such thing as a capital city before we decided to start calling it that. Similarly, just because Eskimos have god-knows how many different words for snow, it doesn't mean that there are, in their essence, that many different kinds of snow.

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Well yeah, but I still think this is missing the point. Yes, the concept of a 'capital city' is a human construct, but then so is a city itself. Does that mean it doesn't exist? Of course not.

As for different types of snow - sure, there aren't however many objectively distinguishable types of snow, but there can be slushy snow or crisp snow, heavy snow and light snow, and so on. There clearly aren't seven discrete colours in a rainbow - this is the convention because Newton was a mystic with a thing about the number seven - but there are different wavelengths of light that we can talk about in terms of the subjective experience of 'colour'.

Edit: comelately, 'free will' and altruism are much trickier things of course, and I don't have a ready answer for you on those.