"When Dawkins and other proselytizing atheists point out the errors, inconsistencies, and crudities of the Bible, they hope to be the doughty Daniels of their own True Faith. But by showing that there is a great deal of myth in scripture, all they are doing is to fault the people of two or three millennia ago for not being aware of current scientific theory and for using the means available to them to describe natural phenomena. "
No, they're faulting modern religious people for basing their social morals and political choices on something written by the people of two or three millenia ago who weren't aware of current scientific theory. Truly most Christians don't believe the world is flat and rests on four pillars, but a large percentage do believe, for instance, that homosexuality is a sin because of stories from the same book. It's not so much that they don't believe the Bible is literal that irks atheists, it's that they don't believe that the parts that are clearly fiction discredit the parts that are murky. It's as if they're saying "well, this math book routinely says things like 2+2=6 and 5*3=87, and I know that's incorrect, but I'm going to trust the chapter on differential equations."
"The theory of evolution, to cite one example, does not per se disturb any Christian who is not a literalist."
In that case, 51% of American Christians are literalists, since that's the percentage who believe in intelligent design.
"What disturbs him is the neo-Epicureanism that frequently accompanies it (and for which there is no more empirical basis than there is for the idea of intelligent design)."
Clearly this fellow is not a biologist, or someone who even reads the science section on Google News. Evolution occurs daily, and we can and do watch it. Wild animals that humans hunt are rapidly growing smaller. Bacteria are becoming antibiotic resistant. Genes for lactose tolerance becoming pervasive in humans.
I'm fascinated by how impossible it is for geeks to have an intelligent conversation about religion. This was a good article that many people chose to misread.
Yes, there is no invisible man in the sky, and gays are normal people. Evolution is real. Look how smart you are.
Now, there is a fascinating history of religion in human society probably dating back 500,000 years. To most people, it continues today. Yet we are so insecure that we cannot examine that tradition as inquiring minds while noone is demanding that we accept it for ourselves.
Such intolerance and misbehavior from intellectuals! How do they interact in our society, hating and condemning most whom they meet, totally unwilling to take others at face value? I do not know. I hope that I can be more generous.
This article wasn't about that at all. It wasn't intelligent, it was well-written. There's a big difference.
And it isn't about intolerance, it's about getting your facts straight. There are certainly many valuable services rendered by religion, but he didn't go into them.
Besides, intolerance in this debate doesn't come from the geeks. It's not computer scientists organizing against gay marriage, or insisting their beliefs must be in the Pledge of Allegiance. If I'm intolerant of the fiction that others use to justify their intolerance, is that wrong?
From what I remember, there was nothing in the article about gay marriage, or the pledge of allegiance. The author wasn't even particularly religious, though he hinted at deist tendencies. He certainly wasn't advocating religion, rather he was discussing the role it played in the lives of its adherents, and what that meant for popular atheist advocacy.
But from the reaction on this thread, he could have been linking to a Jack Chick tract. The anti-intellectualism on display is stunning. It looks to me that a Pavlovian anti-religious response is kicking in and a bunch of folks are spewing worn out canned responses orthogonal to the topic at hand. The reason this topic was dead-ed is surely more due to the juvenile discussion here than the thought-provoking article.
Should we refuse to listen to Christmas carols over the holidays because California passed proposition 8? Ought we boycott history lectures that mention popes because of Catholic stances on birth control?
If we temporarily drop our feelings about how people ought to act and examine how people actually do act, I promise you that we will learn interesting things. What happened to the geek ideal of learning about the world around us?
What happened to the inquiring mind? When I meet people that think different from me, I try to understand what motivates them, why they are different, what their history is like, what their culture is like, and how they see me. That shouldn't be hard for smart people like you and me, and I think it's a valuable thing to do.
The downside is that when you start to understand people, you start to lose enemies, and it is fun to have enemies.
Sadly, there are few places where one can have a good conversation these days. Most of the people who are capable of interesting discussion are old. It seems few young people are learning the art of entertaining ideas without changing their minds. Such a flat society it will be when every conversation must be an occasion for advocacy or agreement.
But maybe I am missing your point and you are just going to restate how gay people are okay and evolution is correct again. How thrilling.
Clearly this fellow is not a biologist, or someone who even reads the science section on Google News
The author attacks neo-epicureanism not evolution. The author believes in evolution.
In that case, 51% of American Christians are literalists, since that's the percentage who believe in intelligent design.
Well yes, but that's not an indictment of Christianity per se. Most people who believe in "science" have very superstitious views of science. Most of the "studies show ..." features on the five o'clock news are really cargo cult science. If we judged the value of science by what the average person believes, we would toss the whole field out.
Also, while I do not agree with the Christian teachings about homosexuality, in general, I think relying on accumulated wisdom for morality is a much better strategy than throwing the whole book out and rewriting morality from scratch. A lot of the social science fads of the 20th century, from Freudism to equality-of-results-feminism are far more crackpot than the moral teachings of the Gospels.
If 51% of American Christians are really biblical literalists it is an indictment of America
Very few Christians are biblical literalists in the rest of the world, and (except perhaps for a brief period post reformation) the educated have never been literalists.
It is worth noting things such as St Augustine's explicit rejection of a "six twenty four hour days" creation, ideas of gradual creation in the early church etc.
Americans as a whole have, since our founding, gone backward in time with our religious beliefs. Our founders were largely anti-religion (though you'd never know it if you heard the supporting arguments for prayer in public school), and nowadays you can't get elected without being videotaped coming out of a church.
And Obama, who is probably the least religious President we've had in a very long time, at his inauguration still had about one God reference per dollar in the budget deficit.
No, most Christian scholars throughout history have been literalists. But, they also recognize that certain portions of the Bible are not meant to be literal. All of the literalists I know of take this view. In fact, to think that everything is literal is not taking the Bible literally, since Jesus and the Apostles explicitly use metaphor themselves.
I won't address the rest of your post, but you're misreading his quote about neo-Epicurianism. He's not arguing that there's no empirical basis for evolution, but rather that there's no empirical basis for the _ethical_ component, neo-Epicurianism, which he sees as often being held by modern atheist believers in evolution.
I see what you mean, though I'd disagree with his conclusion that there is no more evidence of that than of intelligent design. Or maybe not evidence, but logical support at least.
I normally keep my religious views to myself as they seem to conflict with the majority of people here (and Reddit, for that matter), but...
In that case, 51% of American Christians are literalists, since that's the percentage who believe in intelligent design.
The two groups (evolution vs. intelligent design) are not mutually exclusive. I fully believe in the big bang and the process of evolution, but why couldn't a higher power have a hand in that? Call it 'divine evolution'.
It doesn't seem to require a separate theory. I guess I might believe in "Shepherded Design" in the sense that I believe in evolution, but also think people who own livestock have been selectively breeding them for millennia. My belief in people interacting with evolution doesn't require a new theory -- it's just belief in evolution, and something else.
Even if your theory is that without a God, we wouldn't have evolved into humans, you're still conflating evolution with something else that happens to have interacted with it to reach a certain end. People who believe that life would not have arisen on earth if the planet orbited the sun 5% more slowly don't claim that this is an entirely separate belief from evolution; people who believe that God (rather than orbital speed) was a deciding factor don't need a new theory, either.
People tend to think it's creationism, when in fact they are diametrically opposite methodologies. Creationism is entirely deductive, whereas intelligent design is inductive. A good hint here is that ID is hated by creationists as well as Darwinists.
Creationism starts with the theory that a particular interpretation of the Bible is correct, and attempts to find evidence for the theory.
Intelligent design, on the other hand, is the conjecture that intelligent/intentional causation is empirically distinguishable from physical causation. Therefore, it attempts to develop falsifiable hypotheses, such as Dembski's explanatory filter.
Additionally, it is common descent ambivalent. Common descent, old earth, etc. may or may not be true for all it cares. However, ID contradicts Darwinism, since Darwinism implies intelligence and intent are produced only by physical laws, thus indistinguishable from physical causation.
I do not want to be a troll. I only want to help correct a very common and very annoying misunderstanding. If someone wants to discuss it more offline, I'd be more than happy to do so.
"When Dawkins and other proselytizing atheists point out the errors, inconsistencies, and crudities of the Bible, they hope to be the doughty Daniels of their own True Faith. But by showing that there is a great deal of myth in scripture, all they are doing is to fault the people of two or three millennia ago for not being aware of current scientific theory and for using the means available to them to describe natural phenomena. "
No, they're faulting modern religious people for basing their social morals and political choices on something written by the people of two or three millenia ago who weren't aware of current scientific theory. Truly most Christians don't believe the world is flat and rests on four pillars, but a large percentage do believe, for instance, that homosexuality is a sin because of stories from the same book. It's not so much that they don't believe the Bible is literal that irks atheists, it's that they don't believe that the parts that are clearly fiction discredit the parts that are murky. It's as if they're saying "well, this math book routinely says things like 2+2=6 and 5*3=87, and I know that's incorrect, but I'm going to trust the chapter on differential equations."
"The theory of evolution, to cite one example, does not per se disturb any Christian who is not a literalist."
In that case, 51% of American Christians are literalists, since that's the percentage who believe in intelligent design.
"What disturbs him is the neo-Epicureanism that frequently accompanies it (and for which there is no more empirical basis than there is for the idea of intelligent design)."
Clearly this fellow is not a biologist, or someone who even reads the science section on Google News. Evolution occurs daily, and we can and do watch it. Wild animals that humans hunt are rapidly growing smaller. Bacteria are becoming antibiotic resistant. Genes for lactose tolerance becoming pervasive in humans.