Monday, January 05, 2009
Atheism
Sue Blackmore wants humanists, agnostics and atheists to be allowed to have a go at Radio 4's Thought for the Day. I don't have any problem with that - though it might get a touch boring - but I do find the atheists' urge to be like a religion a little, well, odd. For that it, in effect, what she is saying, that atheists should have the same voice as Christians, Hindus and so on. This is the correlative of the militant atheist movement which aspires to the condition of a missionary cause, seeking converts. They are all hung up on the idea of belief, which they don't seem to understand. If they want atheism to be a belief system like all others, then, fair enough, they will in time marginalise themselves utterly. The much stronger position would be to advocate an atheist conception of God as the highest and best we can imagine. This is not a paradox, it is merely a way of pointing out that God is not the problem the atheists are trying to solve; perhaps they sense that the one they are trying to solve is insoluble. Meanwhile, read this, a lucid defence of the idea of kindness which includes a neat dismissal of Dawkins' elitism. The modern dismisser of kindness as a form of selfishness is, as Hume foresaw, forgetting 'the movements of his heart'. More exactly, he is abusing language. In whose eyes is kindness 'really' selfishness? Not yours, not mine and, not, dear atheists, God's. To say kindness is not kindness, now that is a paradox worthy of explication on an atheist's Thought for the Day.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Great point dude. I've in the past mistaken kindness for weakness and it has only brought me pain and the appearance of immense arrogance. I think people who dismiss kindness as selfishness are rather scared of their own humanity.
ReplyDeleteFrom the article by Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor:
ReplyDeleteAlthough we must accept that nature makes people nasty, "we" - that is, altruistic people like Dawkins who somehow, mysteriously, have escaped their genetic destiny - can none the less set things right. Here we are truly in the realm of magical kindness, akin to the type experienced in infancy, but which now is required to overcome not just ordinary human unhappiness but the realities of human biology. The speciousness of Dawkins's diagnosis of the human predicament is matched by the absurdity of this solution.
Tish and pish. What twaddle and pernicious quote-mining by Ad and Babs. The Dawkinsian line says that the existence and success of kindness and altruism in humans is compatible with, and can be explained in terms of, 'selfish' gene theory.
It doesn't say that we are condemned to be selfish; it starts with what we are (mostly kind most of the time, within limits), and seeks to explain why. So if anything, it says the opposite of what Ad and Babs claim it says - it shows why we are determined to be kind.
Of course, the Dawkinsian line might be completely wrong, but it's not that straw man.
Blackmore, like her 'partner Adam Hart-Davis, is best ignored; they have the infallible knack of raising the blood pressure
ReplyDeleteYou would have thought the fundamentalist atheists would have understood the spontaneous order part of evolution?
ReplyDeleteBlackmore's long-standing crusade is to have the 'meme-concept' brought into credible scientific discourse, as opposed to the pseudoscience it is. She has written a piece for the ‘Edge’ discussion site in which she unveils her view of the human condition and its future fate. It starts badly and goes downhill from there.
ReplyDelete"All around us the techno-memes are proliferating, and gearing up to take control; not that they realise it; they are just selfish replicators doing what selfish replicators do—getting copied whenever and wherever they can, regardless of the consequences. In this case they are using us human meme machines as their first stage copying machinery, until something better comes along. Artificial meme machines are improving all the time, and the step that will change everything is when these machines become self-replicating. Then they will no longer need us. Whether we live or die, or whether the planet is habitable for us or not, will be of no consequence for their further evolution."
why would it get a touch boring (well, any more so than it is now)? I don't suppose they would come on to ridicule Christianity any more than the Christians would ridicule Hinduism. It's just another way of getting to the same end.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought there wasn't enough pagans to be fair (though I'd probably draw the line at Benin voodoo...)
Spot on, Ian. Apart from a bit of window dressing early on, all Thought for the Day-ers deliver wholly interchangeable messages: the Golden Rule, find time to contemplate, don't be greedy etc.
ReplyDeleteIf the speaker wanted to focus on an area where their religion was incompatible with generally accepted modern secular morality they wouldn't be allowed on Thought for the Day anyway.
"but I do find the atheists' urge to be like a religion a little, well, odd"
ReplyDeleteOne correction for you:
atheists' urge
-->
New Atheists' urge
Not all atheists want the same thing, and I suspect that you're focusing on too small a group here.
Tufty
(see my blog against atheophobia)
People who call kindess "selfish" are themselves not kind. Big difference between Old Testament and New is the introduction of compassion. Jesus tells someone at some point that of all the virtues, pity and mercy are the most important.
ReplyDeleteWhat a curious faith some folks have in Thought for the Day! If you really want to reach people now, you surely need the internet, TV or even an advertising hoarding at a soccer match. It's hard to be a fan of the proggie anyway, as fiery, difficult, challenging and generally unpopular ideas are the ones that get you thinking, not the Thoughtless for a Day guff that Brit rightly alludes to.
ReplyDeleteI think kindness can be quite hard, because if you haven't thought about the other person's best interests, then you are not being kind. You are being stupid. Like, it's not very kind to give someone money if you think they are going to buy drugs with it, or to "help" an old lady cross the M40 during rush hour. Words like kindness and compassion are all touchy-feely and "nice" (dread word!). But in practice they requite an awareness that can be darn hard work and so despite our best efforts we'll never really get it right. Just my 2 cents.
Tell me when they have Odhinists on Thought for the Day and i'll tune in. We could do with some spear-wielding wisdom in these dark days.
ReplyDeleteKindness is a funny thing, i do a lot of volunteer work and the people that i meet, once you get to know them well, have all sorts of reasons and motivations for doing the work that they do, work that ostensibly is very much kind. You are really the only one in a position to judge your own kindness and you cannot judge it by the act alone, but by the feeling and motivation involved.
ReplyDeleteThe Guardian article starts off talking about kindness as a human quality, but goes on, I think, to prefer its institutionalized form. Reaganism brought no diminution in charitable undertakings in the U.S. nor have such undertakings diminished under Bush. Quite the contrary, in fact. In this regard at least, the authors of the article simply don't know what they're talking about (so-called welfare reform, moreover, happened under Clinton).
ReplyDeleteI think they mean the championing of individualism that began with Reagan has naturally eroded everyday kindness. Kindness isn't seen as a virtue anymore because it's not compatable with getting rich quick etc.
ReplyDeleteContra anonymous, if there is any relationship between a person's insistence that government look after every poor and unfortunate soul and that person's own record of reaching out to said unfortunates, it is an inverse relationship.
ReplyDeleteKindness is a human necessity, but also a responsibility to be taken seriously. Sometimes the kindest thing to do for someone is to allow them to struggle through to a solution to their own problems.
Despite myself, I've actually managed to gain some wisdom in my 51 years, and one point that came as a revelation to me relatively recently is that to struggle is a normal, expected condition of life. I used to think myself a failure for having to struggle, that I was doing something wrong. Actually I was doing something right.
We Americans are poor stoics, we look for someone to blame or a way around every patch of trouble. The idea that one would let a child struggle with anything has been redefined nowadays to near child abuse. But I've learned that to learn how to struggle well is a great gift, and one that should not be taken from another lightly.
Good point. I'm an atheist myself, and I've always been quite surprised at the evangelical nature of the New Atheists. Instead of trying to 'convert' others, atheists should instead be joining with theists to protect secular society (i.e., freedom of religion)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Duck. I have learned much more from failing than I ever learned from success. Also, when you're down, it humbles you. Humility is an excellent thing. I know I became far more compassionate because of it. I know what it feels like to be in someone else's shoes -- someone less fortunate than I happen to be in THIS particular moment -- and I always bear that in mind, no matter who I'm dealing with.
ReplyDelete"The Guardian article starts off talking about kindness as a human quality, but goes on, I think, to prefer its institutionalized form."
ReplyDeleteBecause it is substantially more effective- look at the difference between the Gilded Age, The Roaring Twenties, The Depression and now.
"In this regard at least, the authors of the article simply don't know what they're talking about (so-called welfare reform, moreover, happened under Clinton)."
Clinton was part of the "lets make the government smaller" movement that Reagan championed. Clinton was in no way left wing.
"Contra anonymous, if there is any relationship between a person's insistence that government look after every poor and unfortunate soul and that person's own record of reaching out to said unfortunates, it is an inverse relationship."
Which is why charitability is at a all time high in Somali... oh wait, it isn't.
The two are NOT an inverse relationship- many communist states were noted for the feelings of solidarity and working together among the populace. After WW2, commie Yugoslavia managed to do major rebuilding using voluntary labor (actual instead of "voluntary").
"We Americans are poor stoics, we look for someone to blame or a way around every patch of trouble. The idea that one would let a child struggle with anything has been redefined nowadays to near child abuse. But I've learned that to learn how to struggle well is a great gift, and one that should not be taken from another lightly."
This is an old problem. During WW2, people were worried about American recruits- they had been dotted on by their mothers their whole lives.
Needless to say, it doesn't appear to affect ability when push comes to shove, but it is really annoying in normal circumstances. Of course, SCA, the Polar bear Club and others exist to circumvent it :)
"Good point. I'm an atheist myself, and I've always been quite surprised at the evangelical nature of the New Atheists. Instead of trying to 'convert' others, atheists should instead be joining with theists to protect secular society (i.e., freedom of religion)"
Why?
"Humility is an excellent thing."
There is nothing wrong with arrogance if it is deserved. You should be proud of your accomplishments and abilities.