From Dorset Humanists forum. Daniel Bird said on 29th April
http://forum.dorsethumanists.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=82#82
If anyone is interested, John Polkinghorn - a notorious religious zealot - will be giving a talk in Southampton University as part of the Christians in Science group there.
The talk is part of a series and is well attended. If you intend to go you should plan to get there early because the hall fills up fast. Most of the people who go to the talks are Christians and agree with the speaker so they don't ask any good questions.
http://www.cis.org.uk/centralsouth/
I intend to go the his lecture.
Thanks Daniel for drawing my attention to it.
from:
Sir John Polkinghorne: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Polkinghorne
..He describes his view of the world as Critical Realism and believes strongly that there is One World, with science and religion both addressing aspects of the same reality.
Trying their best to collide, Dr. Gould's nonoverlapping magisteria (science and religion) seemed farther apart than ever, two great ships passing in the night, pointed in opposite directions.
http://www.templeton-cambridge.org/fellows/johnson/publications/agreeing_only_to_disagree_on_gods_place_in_science.html
Because scientific experiments work very hard to eliminate extraneous influences, he believes that they are thus highly atypical of what goes on in nature. He suggests that the mechanistic explanations of the world which have continued from Laplace to Richard Dawkins should be replaced by an understanding that most of nature is cloud-like rather than clock-like.
I need to do research on what is meant by "cloud-like rather than clock-like"
On the existence of God
He addresses the questions of "Does the concept of God make sense? If so, do we have reason for believing in such a thing?"
He suggests that God is the ultimate answer to Liebniz's great question "why is there something rather than nothing?" The atheist's "plain assertion of the world's existence" is a "grossly impoverished view of reality," he says, arguing that "theism explains more than a reductionist atheism can ever address."
Theism view of the existence of the Universe is impoverished compared to the science of Cosmology.
He "does not assert that God's existence can be demonstrated in a logically coercive way (any more than God's non-existence can) but that theism makes more sense of the world, and of human experience, than does atheism.
Theism does not make more sense of the world compared to science.
* The anthropic fine tuning of the universe: He quotes with approval Freeman Dyson, who said "the more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming" and suggests there is a wide consensus amongst physicists that either there are a very large number of other universes in the Multiverse or that "there is just one universe which is the way it is in its anthropic fruitfulness because it is the expression of the purposive design of a Creator, who has endowed it with the finely tuned potentialty for life.
I would argue for the Multiverse. The anthropic principle: our universe is just right for us but their may be billions of other universes that are devoid of matter. Paul Davies discusses this subject in "The Goldilocks Enigma (why the Universe is just right for life")
* A wider humane reality: He considers that theism offers a more persuasive account of ethical and aesthetic perceptions. He argues that it is difficult to accommodate the idea that "we have real moral knowledge" and that "statements such as 'torturing children is wrong' are more than "simply social conventions of the societies within which they are uttered" within an atheistic or naturalistic world view. He also believes such a world view finds it hard to explain how "Something of lasting significance is glimpsed in the beauty of the natural world and the beauty of the fruits of human creativity."
Science offers best explanations for the beauty of the natural world. Philosophy can give more coherent ethics than theism.
Richard Dawkins said of Polkinghorne that he is one of a number of "good scientists who are sincerely religious", but says "I remain baffled ... by their belief in the details of the Christian religion."
Dawkins also says about Polkinghorne: "
On freewill and free process
Polkinghorne regards the problem of evil as the most serious intellectual objection to the existence of God. He believes that "The well-known free will defence in relation to moral evil asserts that a world with a possibility of sinful people is better than one with perfectly programmed machines. The tale of human evil is such that one cannot make that assertion without a quiver, but I believe that it is true nevertheless. I have added to it the free-process defence, that a world allowed to make itself is better than a puppet theatre with a Cosmic Tyrant. I think that these two defences are opposite sides of the same coin, that our nature is inextricably linked with that of the physical world which has given us birth."
On kinship between Science and Religion
It is a consistent theme of Polkinghorne's work that when he "turned his collar around" he did not stop seeking for truth. Many of his books explore the analogies between the truth-seeking enterprises of science and religion, with a unifying philosophical outlook of Critical realism. He believes that the philosopher of science who has most helpfully struck the balance between the "critical" and "realism" aspects of this is Michael Polanyi.
He suggests that there is a cousinly relationship between the ways in which science and theology each pursue truth within the proper domains of their interpreted experienceand drawing on his experience of the development of Quantum physics suggests that, in both disciplines, there are five points of cousinly relationship between these two great human struggles with the surprising and counterintuitive character of our encounter with reality:
1. Moments of enforced radical revision
2. A period of unresolved confusion
3. New synthesis and understanding
4. Continued wrestling with unresolved problems
5. Deeper implications
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
John Polkinghorn - Southampton University - Christians in Science - 9th May 2007
From Dorset Humanists forum.
If anyone is interested, John Polkinghorn - a notorious religious zealot - will be giving a talk in Southampton University as part of the Christians in Science group there.
The talk is part of a series and is well attended. If you intend to go you should plan to get there early because the hall fills up fast. Most of the people who go to the talks are Christians and agree with the speaker so they don't ask any good questions.
http://www.cis.org.uk/centralsouth/
I intend to go the his lecture.
Thanks Daniel for drawing my attention to it.
from:
Sir John Polkinghorne: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Polkinghorne
..He describes his view of the world as Critical Realism and believes strongly that there is One World, with science and religion both addressing aspects of the same reality.
Trying their best to collide, Dr. Gould's nonoverlapping magisteria (science and religion) seemed farther apart than ever, two great ships passing in the night, pointed in opposite directions.
http://www.templeton-cambridge.org/fellows/johnson/publications/agreeing_only_to_disagree_on_gods_place_in_science.html
Because scientific experiments work very hard to eliminate extraneous influences, he believes that they are thus highly atypical of what goes on in nature. He suggests that the mechanistic explanations of the world which have continued from Laplace to Richard Dawkins should be replaced by an understanding that most of nature is cloud-like rather than clock-like.
I need to do research on what is meant by "cloud-like rather than clock-like"
On the existence of God
He addresses the questions of "Does the concept of God make sense? If so, do we have reason for believing in such a thing?"
He suggests that God is the ultimate answer to Liebniz's great question "why is there something rather than nothing?" The atheist's "plain assertion of the world's existence" is a "grossly impoverished view of reality," he says, arguing that "theism explains more than a reductionist atheism can ever address."
Theism view of the existence of the Universe is impoverished compared to the science of Cosmology.
He "does not assert that God's existence can be demonstrated in a logically coercive way (any more than God's non-existence can) but that theism makes more sense of the world, and of human experience, than does atheism.
Theism does not make more sense of the world compared to science.
* The anthropic fine tuning of the universe: He quotes with approval Freeman Dyson, who said "the more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming" and suggests there is a wide consensus amongst physicists that either there are a very large number of other universes in the Multiverse or that "there is just one universe which is the way it is in its anthropic fruitfulness because it is the expression of the purposive design of a Creator, who has endowed it with the finely tuned potentialty for life.
I would argue for the Multiverse. The anthropic principle: our universe is just right for us but their may be billions of other universes that are devoid of matter. Paul Davies discusses this subject in "The Goldilocks Enigma (why the Universe is just right for life")
* A wider humane reality: He considers that theism offers a more persuasive account of ethical and aesthetic perceptions. He argues that it is difficult to accommodate the idea that "we have real moral knowledge" and that "statements such as 'torturing children is wrong' are more than "simply social conventions of the societies within which they are uttered" within an atheistic or naturalistic world view. He also believes such a world view finds it hard to explain how "Something of lasting significance is glimpsed in the beauty of the natural world and the beauty of the fruits of human creativity."
Science offers best explanations for the beauty of the natural world. Philosophy can give more coherent ethics than theism.
Richard Dawkins said of Polkinghorne that he is one of a number of "good scientists who are sincerely religious", but says "I remain baffled ... by their belief in the details of the Christian religion."
Dawkins also says about Polkinghorne: "
On freewill and free process
Polkinghorne regards the problem of evil as the most serious intellectual objection to the existence of God. He believes that "The well-known free will defence in relation to moral evil asserts that a world with a possibility of sinful people is better than one with perfectly programmed machines. The tale of human evil is such that one cannot make that assertion without a quiver, but I believe that it is true nevertheless. I have added to it the free-process defence, that a world allowed to make itself is better than a puppet theatre with a Cosmic Tyrant. I think that these two defences are opposite sides of the same coin, that our nature is inextricably linked with that of the physical world which has given us birth."
On kinship between Science and Religion
It is a consistent theme of Polkinghorne's work that when he "turned his collar around" he did not stop seeking for truth. Many of his books explore the analogies between the truth-seeking enterprises of science and religion, with a unifying philosophical outlook of Critical realism. He believes that the philosopher of science who has most helpfully struck the balance between the "critical" and "realism" aspects of this is Michael Polanyi.
He suggests that there is a cousinly relationship between the ways in which science and theology each pursue truth within the proper domains of their interpreted experienceand drawing on his experience of the development of Quantum physics suggests that, in both disciplines, there are five points of cousinly relationship between these two great human struggles with the surprising and counterintuitive character of our encounter with reality:
1. Moments of enforced radical revision
2. A period of unresolved confusion
3. New synthesis and understanding
4. Continued wrestling with unresolved problems
5. Deeper implications
Review by Prof Simon Blackburn of Sir John Polkinghorn books
If anyone is interested, John Polkinghorn - a notorious religious zealot - will be giving a talk in Southampton University as part of the Christians in Science group there.
The talk is part of a series and is well attended. If you intend to go you should plan to get there early because the hall fills up fast. Most of the people who go to the talks are Christians and agree with the speaker so they don't ask any good questions.
http://www.cis.org.uk/centralsouth/
I intend to go the his lecture.
Thanks Daniel for drawing my attention to it.
from:
Sir John Polkinghorne: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Polkinghorne
..He describes his view of the world as Critical Realism and believes strongly that there is One World, with science and religion both addressing aspects of the same reality.
Trying their best to collide, Dr. Gould's nonoverlapping magisteria (science and religion) seemed farther apart than ever, two great ships passing in the night, pointed in opposite directions.
http://www.templeton-cambridge.org/fellows/johnson/publications/agreeing_only_to_disagree_on_gods_place_in_science.html
Because scientific experiments work very hard to eliminate extraneous influences, he believes that they are thus highly atypical of what goes on in nature. He suggests that the mechanistic explanations of the world which have continued from Laplace to Richard Dawkins should be replaced by an understanding that most of nature is cloud-like rather than clock-like.
I need to do research on what is meant by "cloud-like rather than clock-like"
On the existence of God
He addresses the questions of "Does the concept of God make sense? If so, do we have reason for believing in such a thing?"
He suggests that God is the ultimate answer to Liebniz's great question "why is there something rather than nothing?" The atheist's "plain assertion of the world's existence" is a "grossly impoverished view of reality," he says, arguing that "theism explains more than a reductionist atheism can ever address."
Theism view of the existence of the Universe is impoverished compared to the science of Cosmology.
He "does not assert that God's existence can be demonstrated in a logically coercive way (any more than God's non-existence can) but that theism makes more sense of the world, and of human experience, than does atheism.
Theism does not make more sense of the world compared to science.
* The anthropic fine tuning of the universe: He quotes with approval Freeman Dyson, who said "the more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming" and suggests there is a wide consensus amongst physicists that either there are a very large number of other universes in the Multiverse or that "there is just one universe which is the way it is in its anthropic fruitfulness because it is the expression of the purposive design of a Creator, who has endowed it with the finely tuned potentialty for life.
I would argue for the Multiverse. The anthropic principle: our universe is just right for us but their may be billions of other universes that are devoid of matter. Paul Davies discusses this subject in "The Goldilocks Enigma (why the Universe is just right for life")
* A wider humane reality: He considers that theism offers a more persuasive account of ethical and aesthetic perceptions. He argues that it is difficult to accommodate the idea that "we have real moral knowledge" and that "statements such as 'torturing children is wrong' are more than "simply social conventions of the societies within which they are uttered" within an atheistic or naturalistic world view. He also believes such a world view finds it hard to explain how "Something of lasting significance is glimpsed in the beauty of the natural world and the beauty of the fruits of human creativity."
Science offers best explanations for the beauty of the natural world. Philosophy can give more coherent ethics than theism.
Richard Dawkins said of Polkinghorne that he is one of a number of "good scientists who are sincerely religious", but says "I remain baffled ... by their belief in the details of the Christian religion."
Dawkins also says about Polkinghorne: "
On freewill and free process
Polkinghorne regards the problem of evil as the most serious intellectual objection to the existence of God. He believes that "The well-known free will defence in relation to moral evil asserts that a world with a possibility of sinful people is better than one with perfectly programmed machines. The tale of human evil is such that one cannot make that assertion without a quiver, but I believe that it is true nevertheless. I have added to it the free-process defence, that a world allowed to make itself is better than a puppet theatre with a Cosmic Tyrant. I think that these two defences are opposite sides of the same coin, that our nature is inextricably linked with that of the physical world which has given us birth."
On kinship between Science and Religion
It is a consistent theme of Polkinghorne's work that when he "turned his collar around" he did not stop seeking for truth. Many of his books explore the analogies between the truth-seeking enterprises of science and religion, with a unifying philosophical outlook of Critical realism. He believes that the philosopher of science who has most helpfully struck the balance between the "critical" and "realism" aspects of this is Michael Polanyi.
He suggests that there is a cousinly relationship between the ways in which science and theology each pursue truth within the proper domains of their interpreted experienceand drawing on his experience of the development of Quantum physics suggests that, in both disciplines, there are five points of cousinly relationship between these two great human struggles with the surprising and counterintuitive character of our encounter with reality:
1. Moments of enforced radical revision
2. A period of unresolved confusion
3. New synthesis and understanding
4. Continued wrestling with unresolved problems
5. Deeper implications
Review by Prof Simon Blackburn of Sir John Polkinghorn books
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
The God Delusion pledge to MPs - email to All Humanist Group MPs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [mailto:]
Sent: 23 April 2007 20:52
To: PURVIS, Rebecca; CURRY, David; MARSHALL-ANDREWS, Robert; JONES, Lynne; portsmouthldp@cix.co.uk; GIDLEY, Sandra; CLAPHAM, Michael; ALLEN, Graham (MP)
Subject: Meeting with The Press to celebrate successful "The God Delusion" Book pledge to MPs.
To the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group MPs: Evan Harris David Curry Robert Marshall-Andrews Robert Marshall-Andrews Lynne Jones Mike Hancock Sandra Gidley Michael Clapham Graham Allen John Austin Ashok Kumar John McDonnell Nick Brown Paul Holmes Roger Berry Michael Connarty Piara Khabra Ian Gibson Tom Levitt Ann Keen Ken Purchase Joan Ruddock Angela Eagle
James Christie pledged "I will arrange for my MP to receive a copy of Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" but only if 645 other people (one per UK constituency) will do the same for other MPs."
The deadline to sign up was 31st March 2007 - 826 people signed up (181 over target). Every MP in the country is to receive a copy of the book following a grassroots effort by humanists who want to challenge state privileges given to religious groups. The campaign, organised through the community action website, Pledgebank, is an attempt to demonstrate how widespread secular and atheist views are in this country.
James Christie, Peter Klaver and I seek to announce the success of the pledge, to The Press, at a 30 minute meeting w/c 23rd April or w/c 30th April at The House of Commons.
Attending (subject to final confirmation):
· Graham Allen MP
· Norman Bacrac, South Place Ethical Society
· Jane Bannister, Chairman, Dorset Humanists
· Crispin Blunt MP
· James Christie, pledge creator
· Andrew Copson, BHA / PA to Lord MacDonald
· Prof. Richard Dawkins, Author “The God Delusion”
· Martin Horwood MP
· Prof. Steve Jones, Secularist of the Year
· Dr Peter Klaver, pledge organiser
· Chris Street, Dorset Humanists / pledge organiser
· David Williams, Berkshire Humanists
We would be pleased if members of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group would attend this meeting.
Please advise which dates & times during w/c 23rd April or w/c 30th April you can / cannot attend.
More information: http://www.pledgebank.com/church-and-state
List of MP and Pledgers: http://www.jamiechristie.com/cands/
Guardian report: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2007/04/12/darwins_rottweiler_looks_to_round_up_britains_atheists.html
Best Regards,
Dorset Humanist Association www.dorsethumanists.co.uk
Affiliated to British Humanist Association www.humanism.org.uk
From: [mailto:]
Sent: 23 April 2007 20:52
To: PURVIS, Rebecca; CURRY, David; MARSHALL-ANDREWS, Robert; JONES, Lynne; portsmouthldp@cix.co.uk; GIDLEY, Sandra; CLAPHAM, Michael; ALLEN, Graham (MP)
Subject: Meeting with The Press to celebrate successful "The God Delusion" Book pledge to MPs.
To the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group MPs: Evan Harris David Curry Robert Marshall-Andrews Robert Marshall-Andrews Lynne Jones Mike Hancock Sandra Gidley Michael Clapham Graham Allen John Austin Ashok Kumar John McDonnell Nick Brown Paul Holmes Roger Berry Michael Connarty Piara Khabra Ian Gibson Tom Levitt Ann Keen Ken Purchase Joan Ruddock Angela Eagle
James Christie pledged "I will arrange for my MP to receive a copy of Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" but only if 645 other people (one per UK constituency) will do the same for other MPs."
The deadline to sign up was 31st March 2007 - 826 people signed up (181 over target). Every MP in the country is to receive a copy of the book following a grassroots effort by humanists who want to challenge state privileges given to religious groups. The campaign, organised through the community action website, Pledgebank, is an attempt to demonstrate how widespread secular and atheist views are in this country.
James Christie, Peter Klaver and I seek to announce the success of the pledge, to The Press, at a 30 minute meeting w/c 23rd April or w/c 30th April at The House of Commons.
Attending (subject to final confirmation):
· Graham Allen MP
· Norman Bacrac, South Place Ethical Society
· Jane Bannister, Chairman, Dorset Humanists
· Crispin Blunt MP
· James Christie, pledge creator
· Andrew Copson, BHA / PA to Lord MacDonald
· Prof. Richard Dawkins, Author “The God Delusion”
· Martin Horwood MP
· Prof. Steve Jones, Secularist of the Year
· Dr Peter Klaver, pledge organiser
· Chris Street, Dorset Humanists / pledge organiser
· David Williams, Berkshire Humanists
We would be pleased if members of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group would attend this meeting.
Please advise which dates & times during w/c 23rd April or w/c 30th April you can / cannot attend.
More information: http://www.pledgebank.com/church-and-state
List of MP and Pledgers: http://www.jamiechristie.com/cands/
Guardian report: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2007/04/12/darwins_rottweiler_looks_to_round_up_britains_atheists.html
Best Regards,
Dorset Humanist Association www.dorsethumanists.co.uk
Affiliated to British Humanist Association www.humanism.org.uk
The God Delusion pledge to MPs - Graham Allen MP response
- I want Graham Allen as my MP!
Reception (party!) would be a great idea - I'd be up for it. I'll send Gummy an invite.Clive Beale at 16:56, Friday 27 April. Abusive? Report it! - Wow - Abigail - nice response. Please keep us all informed if anythings happening.Giles Stokes at 20:46, Friday 27 April.
The God Delusion pledge to MPs - John Gummer MP response
My reply from John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal):
"Thank you very much for sending me a copy of "The God Delusion."
"Richard Dawkins [sic] views have been comprehensively answered by several much more profound assessments of the evidence. I am of course sad that he should spend so much time in a vain attempt to undermine revelaed truth. Happily Pope John Paul II will be remembered with affection and reverence after Richard Dawkins is entirely forgotten."
How reassuring that I am represented in Parliament by such an open minded chap. I particularly like his false dichotomy about the Pope and Dawkins :D.
Clive at 11:50, Wednesday 25 April."Thank you very much for sending me a copy of "The God Delusion."
"Richard Dawkins [sic] views have been comprehensively answered by several much more profound assessments of the evidence. I am of course sad that he should spend so much time in a vain attempt to undermine revelaed truth. Happily Pope John Paul II will be remembered with affection and reverence after Richard Dawkins is entirely forgotten."
How reassuring that I am represented in Parliament by such an open minded chap. I particularly like his false dichotomy about the Pope and Dawkins :D.
Here is my reply to Gummer:
Thank you for your letter 19th April regarding “The God Delusion”.
I am greatly disappointed to find that I am represented in Parliament by such a closed mind. I could ask for details of these “profound assessments of the evidence”. I could ask for scientific peer reviewed studies of this “revealed truth”. But that would be pointless. As Swift said, “You cannot reason a person out of a position that he did not reason himself into in the first place”, and I know that there is no hope of changing a worldview based on “revealed truth” and religious faith.
You may have guessed by now that I am an atheist and that I value scientific evidence and rational thinking above faith. In the circumstances there seems little point in continuing our correspondence. I can only hope that my next MP is more enlightened.
On a lighter note, I did enjoy your comment about the Pope and Dawkins. As this was a both a non-sequitur and a false dichotomy, I’m sure that it was not intended to further your argument against Dawkins. I can only assume, therefore, that it was meant in a “Happily, Tommy Cooper is remembered with more affection and reverence than Ernst Mayr” sense. Either way, I enjoyed the imagery.
Regards,
Clive Beale at 13:28, Wednesday 25 April.Thank you for your letter 19th April regarding “The God Delusion”.
I am greatly disappointed to find that I am represented in Parliament by such a closed mind. I could ask for details of these “profound assessments of the evidence”. I could ask for scientific peer reviewed studies of this “revealed truth”. But that would be pointless. As Swift said, “You cannot reason a person out of a position that he did not reason himself into in the first place”, and I know that there is no hope of changing a worldview based on “revealed truth” and religious faith.
You may have guessed by now that I am an atheist and that I value scientific evidence and rational thinking above faith. In the circumstances there seems little point in continuing our correspondence. I can only hope that my next MP is more enlightened.
On a lighter note, I did enjoy your comment about the Pope and Dawkins. As this was a both a non-sequitur and a false dichotomy, I’m sure that it was not intended to further your argument against Dawkins. I can only assume, therefore, that it was meant in a “Happily, Tommy Cooper is remembered with more affection and reverence than Ernst Mayr” sense. Either way, I enjoyed the imagery.
Regards,
http://www.pledgebank.com/church-and-state#comment_1019235
Good of you to send a follow-up letter Clive. Indeed, you won't change his mind, but our MPs are elected. If atheists come out and become more vocal, they'll have to take our views into account to some extent, even if they don't agree with them. So it's good that you're active beyond the extent required by the pledge.
I like the atheist-scientist-rationalist message of your letter.
Peter Klaver at 13:47, Wednesday 25 AprilI like the atheist-scientist-rationalist message of your letter.
http://www.pledgebank.com/church-and-state#comment_1019283
Religion Poisons Everything
God Is Not Great
This week Slate is publishing three excerpts from Christopher Hitchens' new book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
There are four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking.
I do not think it is arrogant of me to claim that I had already discovered these four objections (as well as noticed the more vulgar and obvious fact that religion is used by those in temporal charge to invest themselves with authority) before my boyish voice had broken. I am morally certain that millions of other people came to very similar conclusions in very much the same way, and I have since met such people in hundreds of places, and in dozens of different countries. Many of them never believed, and many of them abandoned faith after a difficult struggle. Some of them had blinding moments of un-conviction that were every bit as instantaneous, though perhaps less epileptic and apocalyptic (and later more rationally and more morally justified) than Saul of Tarsus on the Damascene road. And here is the point, about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically: the disagreement between Professor Stephen Jay Gould and Professor Richard Dawkins, concerning "punctuated evolution" and the unfilled gaps in post-Darwinian theory, is quite wide as well as quite deep, but we shall resolve it by evidence and reasoning and not by mutual excommunication. (My own annoyance at Professor Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, for their cringe-making proposal that atheists should conceitedly nominate themselves to be called "brights," is a part of a continuous argument.) We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: we have music and art and literature, and find that the serious ethical dilemmas are better handled by Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Schiller and Dostoyevsky and George Eliot than in the mythical morality tales of the holy books. Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and—since there is no other metaphor—also the soul. We do not believe in heaven or hell, yet no statistic will ever find that without these blandishments and threats we commit more crimes of greed or violence than the faithful. (In fact, if a proper statistical inquiry could ever be made, I am sure the evidence would be the other way.) We are reconciled to living only once, except through our children, for whom we are perfectly happy to notice that we must make way, and room. We speculate that it is at least possible that, once people accepted the fact of their short and struggling lives, they might behave better toward each other and not worse. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true—that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow.
Most important of all, perhaps, we infidels do not need any machinery of reinforcement. We are those who Blaise Pascal took into account when he wrote to the one who says, "I am so made that I cannot believe."
There is no need for us to gather every day, or every seven days, or on any high and auspicious day, to proclaim our rectitude or to grovel and wallow in our unworthiness. We atheists do not require any priests, or any hierarchy above them, to police our doctrine. Sacrifices and ceremonies are abhorrent to us, as are relics and the worship of any images or objects (even including objects in the form of one of man's most useful innovations: the bound book). To us no spot on earth is or could be "holier" than another: to the ostentatious absurdity of the pilgrimage, or the plain horror of killing civilians in the name of some sacred wall or cave or shrine or rock, we can counterpose a leisurely or urgent walk from one side of the library or the gallery to another, or to lunch with an agreeable friend, in pursuit of truth or beauty. Some of these excursions to the bookshelf or the lunch or the gallery will obviously, if they are serious, bring us into contact with belief and believers, from the great devotional painters and composers to the works of Augustine, Aquinas, Maimonides, and Newman. These mighty scholars may have written many evil things or many foolish things, and been laughably ignorant of the germ theory of disease or the place of the terrestrial globe in the solar system, let alone the universe, and this is the plain reason why there are no more of them today, and why there will be no more of them tomorrow. Religion spoke its last intelligible or noble or inspiring words a long time ago: either that or it mutated into an admirable but nebulous humanism, as did, say, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a brave Lutheran pastor hanged by the Nazis for his refusal to collude with them. We shall have no more prophets or sages from the ancient quarter, which is why the devotions of today are only the echoing repetitions of yesterday, sometimes ratcheted up to screaming point so as to ward off the terrible emptiness.
While some religious apology is magnificent in its limited way—one might cite Pascal—and some of it is dreary and absurd—here one cannot avoid naming C. S. Lewis—both styles have something in common, namely the appalling load of strain that they have to bear. How much effort it takes to affirm the incredible! The Aztecs had to tear open a human chest cavity every day just to make sure that the sun would rise. Monotheists are supposed to pester their deity more times than that, perhaps, lest he be deaf. How much vanity must be concealed—not too effectively at that—in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan? How much self-respect must be sacrificed in order that one may squirm continually in an awareness of one's own sin? How many needless assumptions must be made, and how much contortion is required, to receive every new insight of science and manipulate it so as to "fit" with the revealed words of ancient man-made deities? How many saints and miracles and councils and conclaves are required in order first to be able to establish a dogma and then—after infinite pain and loss and absurdity and cruelty—to be forced to rescind one of those dogmas? God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization.
The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did. Still less can they hope to tell us the "meaning" of later discoveries and developments which were, when they began, either obstructed by their religions or denounced by them. And yet—the believers still claim to know! Not just to know, but to know everything. Not just to know that god exists, and that he created and supervised the whole enterprise, but also to know what "he" demands of us—from our diet to our observances to our sexual morality. In other words, in a vast and complicated discussion where we know more and more about less and less, yet can still hope for some enlightenment as we proceed, one faction—itself composed of mutually warring factions—has the sheer arrogance to tell us that we already have all the essential information we need. Such stupidity, combined with such pride, should be enough on its own to exclude "belief" from the debate. The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species. It may be a long farewell, but it has begun and, like all farewells, should not be protracted.
The argument with faith is the foundation and origin of all arguments, because it is the beginning—but not the end—of all arguments about philosophy, science, history, and human nature. It is also the beginning—but by no means the end—of all disputes about the good life and the just city. Religious faith is, precisely because we are still-evolving creatures, ineradicable. It will never die out, or at least not until we get over our fear of death, and of the dark, and of the unknown, and of each other. For this reason, I would not prohibit it even if I thought I could. Very generous of me, you may say. But will the religious grant me the same indulgence? I ask because there is a real and serious difference between me and my religious friends, and the real and serious friends are sufficiently honest to admit it. I would be quite content to go to their children's bar mitzvahs, to marvel at their Gothic cathedrals, to "respect" their belief that the Koran was dictated, though exclusively in Arabic, to an illiterate merchant, or to interest myself in Wicca and Hindu and Jain consolations. And as it happens, I will continue to do this without insisting on the polite reciprocal condition—which is that they in turn leave me alone. But this, religion is ultimately incapable of doing. As I write these words, and as you read them, people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction, and the destruction of all the hard-won human attainments that I have touched upon. Religion poisons everything.
The Invisible Pink Unicorn logo represents atheism.
The Invisible Pink Unicorn logo represents atheism. It is a fusion between the mathematical void symbol and the stylized representation of an unicorn.
The void symbol (empty set Ø) is an allusion to nothingness and in this case meaning "no faith" or "no god".
The unicorn is a reference to a kind of story that atheists often tell to make their point. In this case one of the first stories to circulate the Internet newsgroups: The Invisible Pink Unicorn.Wikipedia article on IPU:-
Richard Dawkins alluded to the Invisible Pink Unicorn in his 2006 book The God Delusion, saying "Russell's teapot, of course, stands for an infinite number of things whose existence is conceivable and cannot be disproved. A philosophical favorite is the invisible, intangible, inaudible unicorn."
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I got a good one.....
Dear Abigail,
Fab book, many thanks.
I'm sorry I'm not your MP, but that shouldn't stop you visiting for a
cuppa next time you are in London,
Good Wishes, Graham
PS As a member of the All Party Humanist Group I am trying to organise
a reception for all the book donors.
So, will I see all of you there?
Great news indeed! The book handover media event at Westminster has hit a problem that it's virtually impossible to get a bunch of MPs and a bunch of prominent humanists/secularists together for a handover photo shoot. A reception there would be a great alternative. See you there maybe? Btw, the extension of the pledge to the Northern Irish Assembly at Stormont does already have a firm date and MLAs signed up for a handover event on 8 May.Peter Klaver at 15:13, Friday 27 April.