Dawkins' Atheist Bus

[Mr. Tea]

[for instance, that the theory of evolution, or any other theory, requires conceptual formatting, is also 'a human construct and only exists in the human mind', something which you and, interestingly, Dawkins, fail to assert]

This just goes to show your own ignorance of the subject under discussion, and the basic concepts of science in general. There is no such thing as "THE theory of evolution"; evolution is *not* a theory, it is an empirical (yes, that nasty word again I'm afraid!) fact. You're coming dangerous close to the 'just-a-theory' fallacy beloved by creationists. Once upon a time there were dinosaurs and no people; now there are people but no dinosaurs. Ergo, evolution has occurred, and is still occurring. Darwinian evolution by natural selection is a *theory* of evolution, and is by far the best one that's so far been put forward. Lamarckian evolution by adaptation is another theory, one which is far less well supported than Darwinian evolution and has been discredited. So-called 'intelligent design' isn't even a theory, since it is disqualified from being considered scientific as it seeks to explain features of the natural world by supernatural means - I suppose if one were being generous one could call it a hypothesis.

 

[IdleRich]

"It's been fascinating watching HMLT/Waffle slowly unmasking himself over this thread. At first it was the odd word hinting (ontological is always a good'un), now we've got the full-pelt screamathon.

Was this always his intention, I wonder, or is he just congenitally incapable of sustaining debate without reverting to type?"

Yeah, I was just thinking the very same. At first I didn't realise it was the same guy. I just assumed it was another person who took everything he read at face value and was incapable of modifying it despite whatever came along to suggest that that might be the right thing to do. Then a few familiar vocal tics kind of crept in ("on the contrary", "..that you imagine" etc), then there was the excitement visibly taking over as the insults came out and spelling went by the wayside ("stupifying" - I'm sure that he could spell this under normal circumstances but when the blood starts heating up thought goes out the window). Now indeed we're approaching the stage which I think you rightly identify as a full-pelt screamathon. Not quite there yet (no capitals, red coloured writing, threats, pictures from the Matrix) but it's coming.

 

[swears]

Right, 'cause none of these things have anything to do with capitalism, yeah?

Oh, of course! Because it HAS to be either one or the other!

 

[fokse vektaire xeven]

superhero

Careful now Slothrop

 

[jambo]

There is no such thing as "THE theory of evolution"; evolution is *not* a theory, it is an empirical (yes, that nasty word again I'm afraid!) fact.

Not to derail but it's both really isn't it? Observed facts and ideas about how those events occur etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact

Perhaps a thoughtful theist could argue that for a 'god' time may not be unidirectional so that what would appear from a human perspective to be an evolutionary progression could also be a kind of 'morph' towards a desired end point.

 

[jambo]

I am intrigued as to why the PoMo echo chamber is so fixated on Dawkin's atheism. What's the deal?

I don't think it's the strident atheism as such that's gathered attention. It's the other bit, the implied ideas about the consequences of atheism or otherwise and what that might say about 'the culture'.

Otherwise of course it's the usual assumption that this is something worthy of analysis precisely because it has percolated prominently to the surface of the media gloop, and as such can be used to tell us something about the activity below the surface. That's the idea anyway I think.

 

[crackerjack]

Yeah, I was just thinking the very same. At first I didn't realise it was the same guy. I just assumed it was another person who took everything he read at face value and was incapable of modifying it despite whatever came along to suggest that that might be the right thing to do. Then a few familiar vocal tics kind of crept in ("on the contrary", "..that you imagine" etc), then there was the excitement visibly taking over as the insults came out and spelling went by the wayside ("stupifying" - I'm sure that he could spell this under normal circumstances but when the blood starts heating up thought goes out the window). Now indeed we're approaching the stage which I think you rightly identify as a full-pelt screamathon. Not quite there yet (no capitals, red coloured writing, threats, pictures from the Matrix) but it's coming.

No doubt you're right and it's simply a loss of control. But I like the idea that it's a deliberate drip-drip of info, a 'can you see who i am yet?' A self-Rolfing, as it's known in the artworld

 

[waffle]

That'd be a bit sciencey though wouldn't it?

Dawkins completely abandons all science (along with philosophical and theological literacy) in The God Delusion, settling instead for arrogant fundamentalist dogma (ironically, his moral vision derives, to a considerable extent, from the very traditions he so despises), as with Idlerich and flamer Mr T, the latter being the forum's parasite (5,000 of them) who once again has dragged this thread down to where he permanently resides - in the gutter. Dawkin's sets out to drive religion to extinction in The God Delusion. The book, however, has little new to offer. It is deeply flawed, data-free and full of double standards. Dawkins is on a mission to convert, and hopes thereby to drive the beast to extinction. But as with the 'war on terror', it tragically creates even more of what it imagines it is eliminating.

From Terry Eagleton's review in the LRB of The God Delusion:

Dawkins on God is rather like those right-wing Cambridge dons who filed eagerly into the Senate House some years ago to non-placet Jacques Derrida for an honorary degree. Very few of them, one suspects, had read more than a few pages of his work, and even that judgment might be excessively charitable. Yet they would doubtless have been horrified to receive an essay on Hume from a student who had not read his Treatise of Human Nature. There are always topics on which otherwise scrupulous minds will cave in with scarcely a struggle to the grossest prejudice. For a lot of academic psychologists, it is Jacques Lacan; for Oxbridge philosophers it is Heidegger; for former citizens of the Soviet bloc it is the writings of Marx; for militant rationalists it is religion.

What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them? Or does he imagine like a bumptious young barrister that you can defeat the opposition while being complacently ignorant of its toughest case? Dawkins, it appears, has sometimes been told by theologians that he sets up straw men only to bowl them over, a charge he rebuts in this book; but if The God Delusion is anything to go by, they are absolutely right. As far as theology goes, Dawkins has an enormous amount in common with Ian Paisley and American TV evangelists. Both parties agree pretty much on what religion is; it’s just that Dawkins rejects it while Oral Roberts and his unctuous tribe grow fat on it.

[ ... ]

He might also have avoided being the second most frequently mentioned individual in his book – if you count God as an individual.

 

[vimothy]

Otherwise of course it's the usual assumption that this is something worthy of analysis precisely because it has percolated prominently to the surface of the media gloop, and as such can be used to tell us something about the activity below the surface. That's the idea anyway I think.

Has it even percolated to the surface, though? (Excepting some amusing chats with Bill O'Reilly) Seems to me that no one really talks about Dawkins except for this one tiny corner of blog-world, who fixate on him madly. Why? I grok the possibly not stated but obviously implicit reason that Dawkins tells us something about our collective unconscious. Sure, sure --- but what's the real reason? I guess what I'm trying to say is that Dawkins may well be a good subject for psychoanalysis, but the Chomsky-group-brain of HMLT, K-Punk et al is a better one.

 

[crackerjack]

Has it even percolated to the surface, though? (Excepting some amusing chats with Bill O'Reilly) Seems to me that no one really talks about Dawkins except for this one tiny corner of blog-world, who fixate on him madly. Why? I grok the possibly not stated but obviously implicit reason that Dawkins tells us something about our collective unconscious. Sure, sure --- but what's the real reason? I guess what I'm trying to say is that Dawkins may well be a good subject for psychoanalysis, but the Chomsky-group-brain of HMLT, K-Punk et al is a better one.

grok?

 

[jambo]

Well this bus thing has had some publicity, but then of course that was the whole point, what they paid money for. I do wonder about that Zizek thing of looking at 'popular culture', does he realise what he is seeing is corporate culture? Shouldn't he be looking at more grass roots stuff? But again, maybe that is the point - if it has the force to move big money then it is probably significant in some way. I dunno.

As an aside, would k-punk identify as Christian? I thought he was on a kind of Spinozan pantheist tip, or is that old news?

 

[droid]

Has it even percolated to the surface, though? (Excepting some amusing chats with Bill O'Reilly) Seems to me that no one really talks about Dawkins except for this one tiny corner of blog-world, who fixate on him madly. Why? I grok the possibly not stated but obviously implicit reason that Dawkins tells us something about our collective unconscious. Sure, sure --- but what's the real reason? I guess what I'm trying to say is that Dawkins may well be a good subject for psychoanalysis, but the Chomsky-group-brain of HMLT, K-Punk et al is a better one.

Would this be the same Chomsky famed for rejecting Po-mo thinking?

As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand, and show why they are different from, or better than, what others had been doing long before and and have continued to do since without three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to me, at least) is largely meaningless, etc

I guess its an easy mistake to make in the rush to conflate your prejudices....

 

[IdleRich]

"grok?"

It's a hippy word for understand (or get) isn't it?

 

[fokse vektaire xeven]

grok?

60s slang via stranger in a strange land. to understand, "dig"

 

[jambo]

Yeah it's from Robert Heinlein.

 

[Slothrop]

Has it even percolated to the surface, though? (Excepting some amusing chats with Bill O'Reilly) Seems to me that no one really talks about Dawkins except for this one tiny corner of blog-world, who fixate on him madly. Why? I grok the possibly not stated but obviously implicit reason that Dawkins tells us something about our collective unconscious. Sure, sure --- but what's the real reason? I guess what I'm trying to say is that Dawkins may well be a good subject for psychoanalysis, but the Chomsky-group-brain of HMLT, K-Punk et al is a better one.

Slight tangent, but I've always thought that there was a bit of a parallel between the sort of religion that says that any attempt to make a better life in this world is only a distraction from preparing our souls for the rapture (or equivalent) and the sort of radical politics that says that any attempt to make the world a better place is only a distraction from preparing our souls for the revolutionary global overthrow of capitalism...

 

[waffle]

One difference, I believe, is that divine theism makes sense as a concept (although it's clearly tautological), whereas humanist theism makes no sense since it is an oxymoron, and appears to have been invented by you in an attempt to hold up your logically untenable arguments.

With this extraordinary sentence, you confirm that you have absolutely no idea what theism is (much less divinity or humanism). Why don't you go and look up these concepts (you have the ability to do that, haven't you, or do you need explicit permission from the Big Other ?) rather than parading your total ignorance about them.

 

[vimothy]

As an aside, would k-punk identify as Christian? I thought he was on a kind of Spinozan pantheist tip, or is that old news?

I dunno -- from what I recall of the Hyperstition/CCRU fall-out, it was Mark the Christian (which he seemed to derive from his readings of Badiou and Zizek?) Marxist versus Nick the atheist neo-con.

Would this be the same Chomsky famed for rejecting Po-mo thinking?

Er, famed?! Isn't HMLT "famed" for rejecting PoMo thinking? Isn't K-Punk?

I knew you'd comment on this...

I guess its an easy mistake to make in the rush to conflate your prejudices....

I just can't help myself.

*Rushes off, conflating prejudices at every turn*

 

[droid]

Er, famed?! Isn't HMLT "famed" for rejecting PoMo thinking? Isn't K-Punk?

I knew you'd comment on this...

Describing people who frequently refer to and discuss the concepts and ideas of commentators like Badiou, Lacan and Zizek as part of a 'Chomsky group brain' is pretty much a contradiction in terms.

And yes of course I would comment on it - seeing as i coined the phrase!

 

[vimothy]

Well it's a good name, but I think all parents have to deal with the fact that their children will do things they don't like at some point. Hanging around with strange men, e.g.

Regardless of philosophical positioning, politically I don't think that Chomsky is very far from Mark or HMLT, but even more than that, the quality of their discourse is pretty much equivalent.