Swinburnophobia

Richard Swinburne's recent speech to a regional meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers, and the response to it, highlights how religion can support retrograde beliefs long after the rest of us have jettisoned them. I was surprised to find, for example, that Opposition to Interracial Marriage Lingers Among Evangelicals more than it does among the unaffiliated. Here a Christian continues to argue against mixed race marriage using the Bible:

Throughout the Bible interracial marriage is discouraged.

In the book of Ezra, the Israelites repented of their abandonment of God. As part of this repentance they pledged to end their interracial marriages according to God's will:

“We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the Law. Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.” (Ezra 10)

A similar experience is recorded in Nehemiah 13:

“Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah. I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath in God’s name and said: ‘You are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves.’”

Other prohibitions against interracial marriage can be found in Exodus 34:12-16, Joshua 23:12, and Deuteronomy 7:3: “Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons...”

...and the supposed problems arising from it:

Research has repeatedly demonstrated that interracial marriages end in divorce more often than same-race marriages. For marriages involving a White female and Black male the divorce rate is 200% higher than if the White female had married a White male.

I'm sure, however, that most Christians would not give any credence to these views and arguments. The views expressed on homosexual sexual acts in Swinburne's talk were discriminatory in the same way, in the sense that Swinburne identifies a group of people by virtue of an attribute that has no intrinsic moral implications (sexual orientation), and treats the group differently because of that attribute (discourages them from acting on that attribute). Swinburne thinks that this discrimination in the treatment of homosexuals is fair, and, in fact, good; I do not. The notes for his speech are here (but note that this link seems to be working at some times but not others), and there is a video here.

How mistaken Christianity is

In the talk he starts by noting how wrong traditional Christian teaching on sexual morals is currently considered:

As we all know, traditional Christian teaching on many moral issues, but in particular on sex, family, and life is regarded by all non-religious and some religious believers as totally and evidently mistaken.

Pretty much every non-religious organisation that comments on such things would confirm that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality per se. The WHO Bluebook says 'Sexual orientation alone is not to be regarded as a disorder', and nowhere does it say that there is anything wrong with homosexual sexual acts per se. A recent WHO policy document, noting the ruling of a previous bluebook, says:

 Although ICD-6 classified homosexuality as a sexual deviation that was presumed to reflect an underlying personality disorder, subsequent research did not support this view. 

...and continued:

Over the last half century, several classification systems, including the ICD, have gradually removed diagnoses that once defined homosexuality per se as a mental disorder. These changes reflect both emerging human rights standards and the lack of empirical evidence supporting the pathologization and medicalization of variations in sexual orientation expression. 

So, to confirm Swinburne's impression: yes, authorities agree there is nothing wrong with same-sex attraction, or same sex sexual acts, contra Christian teaching. You would hope that these rulings should drive the ethics of Christians, particularly a theologian who prides himself on his natural theology.

Homosexual sexual acts are immoral?

To his credit, Swinburne dismisses Catholic 'natural law' arguments based on function:

The Catholic ‘natural law’ tradition has sought to show that [divorce, fornication, homosexual sexual acts, contraception] are 'disordered' or 'unnatural' actions, and for that reason wrong. The best contemporary statement of this tradition known to me is Alexander Pruss’s book One Body. Pruss argues that bodily organs have ‘functions’ and they ‘strive’ or ‘try’ to ‘fulfil’ their functions. For example, Pruss argues, the penis has the function in intercourse of omitting (sic) semen into a vagina which it strives to do; and to prevent it from doing this is unnatural and so wrong. It seems to me that to ‘strive’ or ‘try’ is an intentional action which only intentional agents can do; and that even if I am mistaken about this, it still doesn’t follow that it would be morally wrong to do what is unnatural.

Quite. But he still wants to defend the traditional view that these things are immoral, so he has to make an argument to this effect. For background, he doesn't think that homosexual sexual acts are intrinsically immoral (bad in themselves), but extrinsically immoral. He says:

God, like any other benefactor such as parents or the state, has reasons also to command humans to do actions which would not otherwise be obligatory. These reasons include (A) coordinating imperfectly obligatory actions so as to ensure the realization of a good overall goal. This may involve telling different humans to do different actions...God may tell all Christians to worship together each week on a Sunday rather than on a Thursday, in order to ensure that the Christian community worship together. 

The idea here is, I think, that there are practices that will encourage good outcomes, and, further, that this practice of doing certain things, or refraining from certain things, will encourage actions over and above our normal obligations ('supererogatory'), and that is virtuous.

Homosexual orientation as a disability?

He says:

Having homosexual orientation is a disability – for a homosexual cannot beget children through a loving act with a person to whom they have a unique lifelong commitment.

Without refinement, this looks like a definition of disability that is going to be too wide; that is, it is going to include people who would not normally be considered disabled, such as the infertile, older people, those with a low sex drive, unattractive people, and even Catholic priests and nuns (priests and nuns are people with a clerical leaning, and that leaning means they 'cannot beget children through a loving act with a person to whom they have a unique lifelong commitment'. Should society therefore discourage the young from developing leanings to serve Christ?).

And, of course in actual fact homosexuals 'can beget children through a loving act with a person to whom they have a unique lifelong commitment', and have demonstrated that ability throughout history. And often this has been done in response to Christian teaching on homosexuality. In his response to Martin Pleitz's paper on his homophobia, Swinburne suggest that such people are not 'fully homosexual', and should therefore restrict themselves to heterosexual acts.

This is a naive view of human nature; apart from its binary view of sexual orientation which can be challenged, it reduces sexual orientation to a physical rather than an inner reality. Humans are sophisticated beings with a rich inner life, and are quite capable of divorcing their inner life from their physical reality; we are skilled fantasists, after all. Further, we have many loving relationships, such as with siblings, children and friends, which are not sexual, so 'love' does not entail lust. Therefore, just because a woman with a homosexual orientation, for example, might have loved and married a man, and indulged in a full sex life with him, that does not render her less than 'fully homosexual'. Her sexual orientation is for her to know. Imagine someone blindfolded in a dark room being masturbated, so they cannot see who is doing the act. I suspect that some people of any orientation could be stimulated under such circumstances, and to then declare their sexual orientation based on the gender of the unknown masturbator (the physical reality) is absurd.

Swinburne admits himself that even homosexual couples are able to have children, with the use of surrogates, so no absolute barrier to 'begetting' exists there either. As noted above, by specifying 'loving acts', Swinburne does not restrict the acts to purely sexual ones. A person's orientation clearly does not make them physically unable to have children. The premise he defends in the response to Pleitz is:

P1 Homosexuals are “unable to enter into a loving relationship in which the love is as
such procreative”.

He thinks the words 'as such' are doing a lot of work here, but I confess I don't see it. There is no doubt that homosexuals are quite capable of entering 'into a loving relationship in which the love is as such procreative', since a non-sexual procreative act can be inspired by love, and in any case sexual procreative acts can be performed lovingly without feeling lust for the partner.

The value of having children?

A part of Swinburne's argument is the great value he places on having children. It's not clear to me how this is supposed to cash out. We know that there are many people who don't want to have children; they do not place great value on having children. Pleitz also notes that there is a global problem with the idea that having children is an unalloyed good. This sort of thinking has resulted in large families in the Catholic and Muslim communities, causing endless cycles of poverty and deprivation. China introduced a one-child policy to mitigate the effects of over-population. These factors show that the great value, if that is what it is, of having children is not universal in time and place, so having children cannot be a universal injunction, to follow in all times and all places.

A counter might be that it is not a universal injunction, but having some children is of great value, and there is a golden mean number of children that is good, that benefits humankind; surely no-one would dispute that? Well, some may, but let us grant that for the sake of argument. Evolutionary science shows that having children is a mechanism for persisting genes, and genes drive speciation. So the result of natural selection will be the most successful strategy for the environment in which the species finds itself. We know that homosexuality has persisted in homo sapiens for thousands of years, and that homosexuality persists in other species that are primarily heterosexual. This 4 billion years-long experiment shows, then, that a percentage of homosexuality in the population must, in some way, help the fitness for survival of certain species, including homo sapiens. Consequently, a natural theologian like Swinburne should look at this overwhelming empirical evidence and argue for the goodness of some people being homosexual, since it must be of great value in having the perfect number of children, overall.

Disability = immoral?

Let us allow that having homosexual orientation is a disability, again for the sake of argument. Disability does not equate to immorality, but Swinburne states that '[d]isabilities should be prevented'. This might be true, but prima facie this 'should' is not a moral 'should', but a prudent one. For example, if one can prevent someone from losing an arm, one should, because it's prudent for someone to keep two good arms (one can carry more shopping with two arms); but, there is no moral stain attached to the person for losing the arm.

So what reason does Swinburne give for going further and deciding that homosexuality is immoral, rather than just something that affects one's chances of having children?

Well, he appeals to scripture:

I’m going to assume , despite the effects (sic) of many to show that the Bible and various theologians all meant something different by (what seems to many of us to be) apparent condemnations of such acts, that some such passages as I Corinthians 6:9-10 and Romans 1:24-27 and the continuing weight of subsequent tradition does condemn such acts.

I see no more reason to think that these appeals to scripture have any more value than the appeals to scripture against interracial marriage.

He also appeals to theological authority:

Where, after all, do we ever find before the twentieth century any explicit approval of such acts by any theologian orthodox in other respects?

That, sadly, is more a condemnation of theologian orthodoxy than homosexuality; as a proponent of evidence-based thinking, Swinburne should really recognise that the opinion of the medical establishment outweighs the views of mere theologians. He chooses to demur on the evidence:

And, as I read the much disputed evidence available on line about whether children nurtured by homosexual parents flourish as well as other children, the balance of that evidence seems to me to indicate that children whose nurturing parents are also their male and female biological parents in a happy marriage flourish better than all other children.

Recall that the racist said above:

Research has repeatedly demonstrated that interracial marriages end in divorce more often than same-race marriages. For marriages involving a White female and Black male the divorce rate is 200% higher than if the White female had married a White male.

Even if these assertions were true (and that is very debatable), it would not be a reason to condemn same-sex marriage or mixed race marriages. This sort of evidence is very prone to confounding variables; most obviously with race and sexual orientation, the centuries of prejudice that forms the societal backdrop to mixed race and same sex marriages. But, more importantly, we have been given no more reason to think that we should analyse such statistics by orientation or race than we should analyse them by, say, religious belief. If the statistics showed that the children of protestant evangelicals flourish less than those of Catholics, would that be a reason to conclude that protestant evangelical sexual acts are a bad thing? No, of course not, and likewise for same-sex sexual acts.

Homosexuality is reversible?

Another part of Swinburne's case is that sexual orientation is reversible, since this drives his recommendation to discourage homosexual behaviour; or, at least, to endorse his view that God commands the discouragement of homosexual behaviour (what would be the point of discouragement if it had no effect?). He says:

The evidence seems to me to indicate clearly that genes and environment (nature and nurture) both play a role in determining sexual orientation; and also that this orientation is sometimes to a considerable extent reversible.

Sadly for Swinburne's case, this is unsupported by the evidence. If sexual orientation can be conditioned in some way, then presumably heterosexuality could be conditioned away too? In fact, that's entailed by Swinburne's view that homosexual practice causes homosexuality. Many of us experience orientation differently, however, as something intrinsic to our identity, not a 'here today, gone tomorrow' preference - I can't imagine my heterosexuality being conditioned away, and I suspect those of a homosexual tendency can't imagine their orientation being conditioned away either. Philosopher Rob Hughes points out on the Leiter Report:

Swinburne's assertion is at odds with the evidence that a person's future sexual orientation is determined before school age and possibly much earlier. He provides no evidence for his assertion that sexual experimentation influences orientation, either in his 2007 book Revelation, or in his 2008 reply to critics, or in the text of his recent talk.

He notes the problem with the scant evidence Swinburne cites for his view, and quotes the apology from Alan Chambers after the closure of the 'ex-gay' organisation Exodus International. Hughes says:

After the 2013 closure of the leading "ex-gay" organization, Exodus International, no informed person can seriously entertain the suggestion that "reparative therapy" works.

Hughes concludes:

In 2016, it is intellectually and morally irresponsible to assert without evidence that sexual  experimentation causes homosexuality or that people can change their sexual orientations through "reparative therapy".

The WHO policy document quoted before cites this document on the pointlessness, and bankruptcy, of homosexual 'cures':

Health professionals who offer “reparative therapies” align themselves with social prejudices and reflect a stark ignorance in matters of sexuality and sexual health. Contrary to what many people believe or assume, there is no reason – with the exception of the stigma resulting from those very prejudices – why homosexual persons should be unable to enjoy a full and satisfying life. The task of health professionals is to not cause harm and to offer support to patients to alleviate their complaints and problems, not to make these more severe. A therapist who classifies non-heterosexual patients as “deviant” not only offends them but also contributes to the aggravation of their problems. 

“Reparative” or “conversion therapies” have no medical indication and represent a severe threat to the health and human rights of the affected persons. They constitute unjustifiable practices that should be denounced and subject to adequate sanctions and penalties.

So given this overwhelming consensus among the relevant authorities, why doesn't Swinburne defer to them? In Swinburne's response to Pleitz, he only claims that his view is 'plausible', given the evidence, but it is clear that it is not. He is far too well informed to be ignorant of this literature.

Homophobia?

Therefore, I think Pleitz's original conclusion stands:

Swinburne’s argument against homosexuality is a clear-cut case of homophobia (section 4). The criticism of the premises of Swinburne’s argument shows that some premises are wrong and badly argued for and that there is an equivocation which renders the argument invalid (section 2). If Swinburne’s conclusion gained wider acceptance in the contemporary Western societies, this probably would lead to grave consequences for homosexuals (section 3). Thus, there is an extreme imbalance between Swinburne’s brief argument and the great harm that the endorsement of its conclusion would probably lead to. I conclude that Swinburne in his argument against homosexuality has moved beyond the limits of scientific philosophy, and into the realm of homophobia.

Christian response

As with mixed race marriage, research shows there is a similar reluctance amongst Christians to accept homosexuality as something that is not wrong in some way, and the controversy after Swinburne's talk shows that Christians tend to take such arguments more seriously than the non-religious. Not all of them, though, and it is to the credit of Michael Rea (the president of the SCP) that he expressed regret  on Facebook for the hurt caused by it. He paints the SCP as committed to diversity and inclusion (two of the good Christian traits!), so, perhaps understandably, distanced the SCP from Swinburne's views.

But this apparently innocuous paragraph has been cast by some of the more splenetic members of the Christian community as an assault on free speech and academic freedom (see here and here). Even one of the more reasonable Christian thinkers, Randal Rauser (a champion of analytic philosophy and defender of atheists, whilst being a strong critic of atheism), has called out Rea for his Facebook comment:

If Christian philosophers face censure within the Society of Christian Philosophers for articulating a dispassionate philosophical critique of homosexuality, then where can they express those views?

...and many, often thoughtful, commentators agree with him. I think, rather, that if Christian philosophers should expect no censure when discussing their views amongst other Christian philosophers then that discipline would have stagnated, signalling an end to normal debate on such matters among thoughtful Christians. Rea's comment is not the severest censure, in any case, and pales against the censure delivered to homosexuals by Swinburne in his talk. Imagine being a practising gay Christian in the audience listening to the professor blithely describing her having a homosexual orientation as a 'disability', and that she should be 'cured'.

Such censuring talk is surely inevitable when norms are being challenged, and whilst I can imagine it being abused (such as unreasonable claims of Islamophobia in response to criticisms of Islam, unreasonable claims of Christian persecution in response to judgments of secular law, and perhaps even the framing of reasonable moral censure as an attack on academic freedom), there seems little chance that Rea's comment will threaten Swinburne's, or other Christians', academic freedom, given how overly deferential even countries in the enlightened West are to religion. Religious discrimination against homosexuals is a completely appropriate target for opprobrium, just as religious discrimination against non-whites is. It's just part of the cut and thrust that determines the Overton window of what is acceptable in society.

The modern world has figured out that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, and Christians should accept that they are on the wrong side of history on this one, and that people, hopefully including other Christians, will call out bad arguments against homosexuality as homophobic, even if they are made behind the privileged screen of religion. Unfortunately at the moment anti-homosexual sentiment is normalised in the Christian community to an extent that would be challenged in non-religious public fora. Comments such as Michael Rea's are, therefore, to be welcomed.

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Atran on Coyne

Jerry Coyne recently posted a piece called 'Once again, Scott Atran exculpates religion as a cause of terrorism', complaining about Scott Atran's apparent apology for religion in a recent article in the Guardian. A typical taste of Coyne's complaints:

When I read Atran’s brand of Islamic apologetics, and when I think of the terrorists’ cries of “Allahu Akbar” that accompanied their Kalashnikov fire, and when I ponder why young men out for just “a good time, a cause, and brotherhood” would do these deeds knowing they were surely going to die (and probably believing that, as martyrs, they’d attain Paradise), and when I think of the other deeds they do—the slaughter of Christians, Yazidis, apostates, atheists, and gays, and of the way they treat women like chattel, raping their sex slaves and stoning adulterers—when I think of all this, and the explicitly Islamic motivations the terrorists avow, I have to ask people like Atran: “WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO MAKE YOU ASCRIBE ANY OF THEIR ACTIONS TO ISLAM?”

Perhaps fair enough, although I'm not sure I fully understand Atran's position; this article suggests he does acknowledge that motivations aren't entirely political:

Some officials speaking for Western governments at the East Asia summit in Singapore last April argued that the Caliphate is traditional power politics masquerading as mythology. Research on those drawn to the cause show that this is a dangerous misconception. The Caliphate has re-emerged as a seductive mobilizing cause in the minds of many Muslims, from the Levant to Western Europe.

Atran appears to have commented on Jerry's piece, saying:

I recommend some of the commentators, as well as the principal author, read some of our scientific papers inScience, PNAS, BBS, and reports of others in Nature, You might also glance at articles and editorials in the NY Times, Foreign Policy, Wall Street Journal etc. I never made an argument that “religion” is not a cause of terrorism. “Religion,” in fact, is as empty a notion (scientifically speaking) as “culture.” What I said is that the propositional content of some religious canon is not a principal predictor for may joining Al Qaeda (and now ISIS), and that, the principal predictors have to do with social network factors. Intel and military have used these finding to help break up those networks. Counter canon narratives have done absolutely nothing at all to stop violence or dissuade ISIS volunteers. In other findings, most recently reported in PNAS and NATURE, we detail how commitment to strict sharia of a form practiced by the Islamic State Caliphate, and Identity fusion (a particular type of social formation), although independent (largely uncorrelated) interact to predict costly commitment to costly sacrifices, including fighting and dying.

Mr. Coyne, like Mr. Harris, are not interested in the science, at least on this issue, but in continuing their declamations against “liberal apologetics.” Neither has ever had any dealings with volunteers or fighters from ISIS and Nusra (accepted perhaps reformed ones in safe settings), they have never been to the frontlines of combat zones to see for themselves what motivates fighters. They have never systematically interviewed or psychologically tested volunteers for such movements. And they have never tried, or been asked by those actually fighting ISIS or Al Qaeda to help in the fight because their proposals are, quite frankly, ridiculous. They are like angry children who believe that yelling at the top of their lungs will change the world. Like many politicians and pundits, willful ignorance of the science that bears on this issue is understandable (good argument is, by and large, used for persuasion and victory in social discourse, not discovery of the reason). The sad thing is that their followers believe they have scientific credentials that must give them knowledge ot support their arguments. But even Nobel prize winners have no special insight into social and political affairs, and their views should be scrutinized without passion by their peers (wishful thinking, I know).

It's again difficult to tell what his position is, because he denies that he argues that '“religion” is not a cause of terrorism" (apologies for the double negative) but goes on to describe it as an empty notion (scientifically speaking), and to cite 'social network factors' as the principal predictor of joining 'Al Qaeda (and now ISIS)', which together appear to suggest that he is arguing that religion is not a cause of terrorism. I've posted this comment:

Thanks for making this comment. I assume it’s genuinely Scott Atran! It would be helpful if you could recommend one or two links that you think particularly address the issues raised here. You say that you ‘detail how commitment to strict sharia of a form practiced by the Islamic State Caliphate, and Identity fusion (a particular type of social formation), although independent (largely uncorrelated) interact to predict costly commitment to costly sacrifices, including fighting and dying’. Apologies, but I don’t understand what that means! So bear with an interested bystander for a mo, if you can.

I think as a layman I can appreciate that a frankly perverse organisation like ISIS has multifarious causes; obviously billions of religious people don’t behave that way, so ‘religion’ is not explanatory in that sense, and might be, as you say, an ’empty’ notion. But a similar observation could be made about the term ‘politics’ and yet no-one would deny (or would they?) the political motivations of communism as an important factor in Stalin’s actions, for example. Perhaps the vast majority of communists would not have indulged in purges, so it would be correct to say that there is some other predictor of those particular actions. Nonetheless, the communism played a part, is it reasonable to say?

Furthermore, just about every theist I’ve met would not recognise their religion as an empty notion.

This suggests that saying that ‘religion’ is an empty notion in *some* sense is a weak rejoinder to anyone who argues for or against the effects of religious beliefs, and unlikely to persuade either the irreligious or the religious that religious beliefs should not be criticised (or praised).

So someone who thinks that way can accept your (no doubt firmly supported empirically) view that ‘the principal predictors [for joining Al Qaeda (and now ISIS)] have to do with social network factors’, whilst still decrying the deleterious effects of religious beliefs within the complex matrix of factors that have caused these phenomena.

For example, it seems silly to claim that religious beliefs could be used to predict who would commit acts of terrorism in the Northern Ireland troubles (both Protestants and Catholics did, of course). But it would surely be fair to point out the role that religion played in the underlying complex mix of history and culture that brought those two communities to that point.

For another example, it seems to me that one can differentiate between the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the one on Bataclan by reference to a particular religious doctrine – blasphemy. The CH attack is more obviously religiously motivated than Bataclan, prima facie. You seem to be saying that your research suggests that both attacks are predicted more by social network factors than religious ones, and I bow to your superior knowledge on that. But how could Charlie Hebdo be *singled out* for attack (amongst the enormous Western infidel media pack) if it weren’t for their particularly blasphemous (according to Islam) actions? This is surely an attack where the religious belief is ‘critical’ to the motivations of the terrorists. The Bataclan attack, less so, imo, but still an underlying, important, factor.

It is this sort of specificity of action that, again, to a layman like me, would not occur without the religious doctrine. And you perhaps acknowledge this when you say that the content of religious beliefs aren’t a ‘principal predictor’; are they a secondary one?

So the question from a complete ignoramus like me who wants to understand the differences between you and Coyne is this: Coyne suspects you would not even ‘ascribe any of [the terrorists] actions to Islam’. It’s still not clear from your comment how you respond to his question. Even if the religious doctrines aren’t a principal predictor of *who* acts, do you acknowledge that they do effect the behaviour of jihadists in Syria and in attacks on the West? If you do, and I get the impression you might, then I’m not sure what Coyne is saying that you disagree with. Is it just the emphasis he puts on ‘religion’ when these atrocities occur? He clearly cites other factors – ‘disaffection, the need to feel part of something greater than oneself, innate aggression of young males, and, yes, the mishandling of many Middle Eastern situations by the West’, so he’s not denying those other causes. Just because people bemoan one factor does not mean they discount all others.

If, on the other hand, you don’t think such doctrines have an effect on terrorist behaviour, I should like to see the papers that support that conclusion, in the (perhaps forlorn!) hope that I could understand them.

If you’ve got this far, thanks for reading, and apologies if I misconstrued your position!

It's interesting that Atran says that 'Counter canon narratives have done absolutely nothing at all to stop violence or dissuade ISIS volunteers'. This doesn't counter Coyne's complaints about religious causes, but it does perhaps point to why Atran is frustrated at 'New Atheists'; their complaints are pointless, because attempts to change religious views have not worked, according to whatever metrics Atran has used in his studies.

That may be true in Atran's studies, but the idea that societal progress cannot be made by addressing deleterious religious beliefs seems to deny the last 200 years, from the Enlightenment onwards, which has seen a secular, rational, scientific push-back against such beliefs that has had a civilising effect. Now, to be fair, many religionists would deny that this civilising effect is particularly secular, rational or scientific, but for me the evidence is pretty overwhelming.

I do wonder what 'counter canon narratives' have been attempted, because, as far as I can see, not so much has been done to counter the blasphemy narrative since CH. Indeed some western countries still outlaw it! So a meaningful counter canon narrative would have to be substantial and accord religion a lot less respect than just about every country, including in the west, does currently. Until we see this happening I suspect many of us will still see plenty in religion to complain about.

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Craig describes SSM as 'a sort of legal fiction'

William Lane Craig has revealed some homophobia in the latest Q&A on his Reasonable Faith site, as well as recommending some seditious behaviour. In answer to someone questioning the Supreme Court's decision on SSM, and what Christians should do about it, he says:

[Same sex] marriages are a sort of legal fiction which we must respect.

He thinks there is an essence to marriage that resists legal re-definitions, just as horses and chairs could not be re-defined. This shows a curious blindness to the complexity of social institutions, which, by their very nature (one may say 'essence'), are defined by their social milieu. Simply perusing the Wikipedia article on marriage presents a bewildering variety of types, many of which do not feature just one man and one woman (WLC's preferred flavour). Of course, to describe the marriage of two people in love as any sort of fiction is deeply offensive to those involved.

Craig says:

The Supreme Court did not legalize, nor is anyone advocating for, gay marriage. What it legalized was same-sex marriage, regardless of sexual orientation.

...and he is right, strictly speaking. But let's not pretend that Craig is railing against two heterosexual men getting married; it is the homosexuality he is prejudiced against, and his language shows his prejudice:

Suppose you are a baker who is approached to make a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding or that you are a wedding photographer who is hired to photograph a same-sex ceremony. It’s hard to see how you can justifiably resist legal authority here and refuse to comply, regardless of how distasteful it may be to you, since your activity is not sin on your part.

Craig supposes it may be 'distasteful' to provide a service for a same-sex marriage; why 'distasteful'? Sin is not a matter of taste, after all. Plainly it's the homosexuality that is not to Craig's taste, rather than some contravention of his definition of marriage. If somebody redefined a horse as a chair, no-one would find that 'distasteful'; simply incorrect.

As for government authority, he says:

...we should and must resist authority if it requires us to act contrary to God’s will. 

So, he thinks it's necessary for Christians to impose God's will over and above the law of the land. As at least one study suggests, what God wants tends to be the same as what the individual believer wants. This is a recipe for insurrection, or at least civil disobedience à la Kim Davis, even if one has some sympathy for conscientious objectors in general.

It's nice to see that Craig can see the way the wind is blowing, though:

As our secular culture becomes more and more accommodating to same-sex marriage, the pressure upon Christians to compromise and conform will be heavy and unrelenting.

Yes, the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws delivered legal justice and, as a consequence, generated social pressure on racists to drop their prejudices; so too, now, will the pressure build upon the homophobic to drop their prejudices now that equality before the law has been granted to those of every sexual orientation.

Craig's response reveals the problem with a morality embedded in the aspic of ancient mores; they give the prejudiced ammunition in their fight against overwhelming reason and evidence. Just as many sensible practices and beliefs have arisen through our genetic and cultural history, so too has prejudice. We need the freedom to challenge our practices and beliefs to sort the sensible from the insensible, and religion, amongst other things, hinders that process.

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What Does it Matter What One Believes?

As a 'new atheist', Richard Dawkins has been subjected recently to a campaign by right-on lefties who want to stifle criticism of Islam. Their unfortunate modus operandi is to devalue the notion of Islamophobia; the reprehensible practice of unfair discrimination against Muslims.

Maybe first was Nathan Lean on Salon.com, who said, with nothing to support it other than new atheist criticism of Islam:

The New Atheists became the new Islamophobes, their invectives against Muslims resembling the rowdy, uneducated ramblings of backwoods racists rather than appraisals based on intellect, rationality and reason.

He even immediately followed this crass accusation with an example proving himself wrong:

"Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death,” writes Harris, whose nonprofit foundation Project Reason ironically aims to “erode the influence of bigotry in our world.”

Go figure. Murtaza Hussain produced a febrile piece on the usually more temperate Al-Jazeera website sensitively titled Scientific racism, militarism, and the new atheists that included this on Dawkins's fellow horseman Sam Harris:

Harris engages in a nuanced version of the same racism which his predecessors in scientific racism practiced in their discussion of the blanket characteristics of "Negroes". 

New atheists, of course, are the nasty and militant ones for objecting to the baleful influence of Islam, not Hussain for accusing of racism Harris and everyone who has been tarred with the new atheist brush. Go figure.

Then liberal commentator Glenn Greenwald tweeted this nonsensical article approvingly and got into a spat with Harris himself, who understandably thought that someone of a liberal persuasion would object to Hussain's wild speculations and mistaken inferences:

I’ve had pleasant exchanges with Greenwald in the past, so I wrote to him privately to express my concern. As you will see, I came right to the point. I was simply outraged that he would amplify this pernicious charge of racism so thoughtlessly. However, I am even more appalled by his response. The man actually has thought about it. And thinking hasn’t helped.

Other faitheists and theists have taken the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon: the laughable Theo Hobson, a mythicist called Neil Godfrey, and, one of the usual culprits, Andrew Brown, suggests Dawkins should stop pouring scorn on the Muslim belief in creationism:

However, this is where Dawkins' scorn does some real damage, even among people who have never otherwise heard of him. Because there is a self-consciously oppositional culture among young poor Muslims, who feel themselves stigmatised and disadvantaged, they can tend to embrace creationism simply because they know it's wrong by the lights of the majority. Dawkins' dismissal of Muslim creationism as "alien rubbish" was not only found as a YouTube clip on the EDL website for a while, but also used in the propaganda of Harun Yahya, the Turkish creationist and self-publicist. The emotional logic is clear: if this rich, sneering white man is against it, it must be good for disaffected young Muslims who feel that they are themselves treated as "alien rubbish".

The logic here is stunningly thoughtless; presumably Brown thinks Dawkins should continue to ridicule Christian creationism (Brown did, after all, call creationists in Northern Ireland a 'crank group' and compared them to saucer-cultists and leprechaunists), but refuse to ridicule Islamic creationism? But that would indeed be discriminating against Muslims unfairly. To pull one's punches against one religion would be simply unfair on its congregation, who deserve, and should expect, to have their beliefs exposed to the same ridicule and scorn as everyone else's.

Today Dawkins tweeted about Mehdi Hasan who, apart from being a pretty good journalist in other respects, I understand, also believes in a winged horse. This is a belief worthy of ridicule; and scientific ridicule at that, since evolution shows that mammals have four limbs and such a horse is usually depicted as having six limbs. Oh, but of course it's a magic horse from heaven, so evolution is irrelevant, believers would say, which just increases the risibility of the belief for anyone who doesn't believe in magic horses from heaven.

So far, so Dawkins. But then Labour MP Tom Watson, stalwart of the anti-Murdoch campaign, replied:

On the face of it, Watson thinks that pointing out someone's silly belief makes one a 'gratuitously unpleasant man'. Watson, a man not known for his tenderness, thinks Dawkins could 'try a little tenderness'! Well, that certainly made me laugh. However, I guess Watson saw what a daft thing this was to say, so he changed his focus to Dawkins's second sentence:

His first complaint was clearly about Dawkins's tone, but now he straw-mans Dawkins by translating "And New Statesman sees fit to print him as a serious journalist" to "people with faith cannot contribute to civic society with their journalism".

This is dishonest, but does show something important; the reason Watson feels free to defend the winged horse belief is because it's a religious belief. And, possibly more importantly given the recent hysteria, a Muslim belief. If Dawkins was ridiculing saucerists or leprechaunists, I doubt Watson would intervene. This is supported by a later tweet:

@formertheist "Religious observer can't write for the New Statesman." Does that strike you as measured? "Really?" back to you, sir.
— tom_watson (@tom_watson) April 21, 2013

This is not what Dawkins said, of course, but it does raise interesting questions of how much one's beliefs might discredit one. Plainly in society today, religious beliefs that are worthy of ridicule are nevertheless protected from ridicule because they are religious. Religious beliefs, particularly Christian ones, are given credibility by society's attitudes to them. They are still afforded platforms in the press and television media, including the BBC; religious leaders bypass democracy and are allowed a central role in law-making; the Church of England is central to the UK's constitution. Given this, it would bring the entire establishment into disrepute if Dawkins's attitude became the norm, in Parliament, the press and the broadcast media. But that is really the aim of the so-called new atheism; to strip religion of its privileged position, and let its ideas swim in the free marketplace of ideas.

Add to this the unfortunate conflation by left-wingers of Islamophobia with valid criticism of Islam, and we can see why Watson felt the need to intervene. He is a political animal, and prioritises protection of Muslim individuals because he sees politics as more important than religion. On this he may be right, and his aims are laudable. It seems plausible that some racists do adopt the pose of Islamic criticism as a route to the othering of Muslims. Sadly, these recent articles are attacking the wrong target, so they will make the task of combating genuine Islamophobia more difficult.

Interestingly, Watson actually thinks that what one believes should disqualify one from the public forum; this is what he said about shock jock Glenn Beck:

The Glenn Beck show in no way achieves those vitally important aims. That type of journalism is dangerous and can have wide-ranging negative effects on society. The kind of material broadcast by Glenn Beck is not unique; a number of other "shock jocks" operate in the States. However, none has displayed intolerance on such a frequent and irresponsible scale as Glenn Beck. It is vital that that kind of "news" is not made or broadcast in the UK. However, the proposed acquisition of BSkyB by News Corp means that there is an increased threat of its becoming a reality. (my emphasis)

Now to be fair, Watson is attacking the content of Beck's journalism here, not his beliefs directly. But the content is informed by Beck's beliefs, and I think Hasan's recent interview with Dawkins shows that his beliefs clearly influence his contributions to the public forum (negatively). My feeling is that it is fair to point out when someone believes something ridiculous; Bill Maher has curious ideas about vaccines, Michael Shermer is way too libertarian for my liking, and Sam Harris is just plain wrong on gun law and, probably, moral objectivity. Does this discredit their other pronouncements? Yes, I think it does to a degree, but not necessarily fatally; it depends on the belief. Some beliefs are just sillier than others. Creationism is sillier than the (still silly) theistic evolution. Winged horses are sillier than golden plates, even.

Given that, I think it's fair to wonder aloud if a reputable organ like the New Statesman should publish Hasan as if he were a serious thinker, which I think a serious journalist should be.

Look at it this way; Dawkins is suggesting that if Mehdi Hasan believed in alien lizards, like David Icke, the New Statesman would not continue to publish his journalism without comment. Does Hasan's credibility suffer by his beliefs? I think, like Beck's, and Icke's, it does.

UPDATE:

Blimey, true to form Andrew Brown writes another incoherent piece with the Islamophobic slur in the URL, in which he says "On Sunday afternoon [Dawkins] was at it again, wondering why the New Statesman employs an imaginative and believing Muslim". Dawkins did not wonder that, of course, as anyone who reads the tweet can see. Brown's attack is confused - he wants to call Dawkins Islamophobic but admits:

Anyone who follows him knows he is an equal opportunities bigot who is opposed to Christians of every colour as well.

So a person is a bigot now even if they don't discriminate in their opprobrium! Someone contact the OED. As I say above, the insidious effect of this sort of nonsense is that language becomes debased and we cannot identify genuine bigots for what they are.

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Religious Goggles

Richard Dawkins has written a piece on Salman Rushdie's non-appearance at Jaipur, linking it to Nick Cohen's new book - You Can't Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom. The article is excellent, and the last quote from Nick Cohen is bang on the money about the many accommodationists who complain about "Richard Dawkins and his ilk":

The complaints boiled down to a simple and piteous cry: “Why can’t you stop upsetting them?”

Some have compared faith to a drug, and it does seem to me that, just as some people don the beer goggles at the end of an evening in the pub, some set aside their reading glasses and replace them with 'religious goggles' when they read the new atheists. The goggles are available in a variety of styles, for believers and non-believers alike.

Ophelia Benson has been discussing a case which I think illustrates this inability some have to see vocal atheists in a reasonable light because of these goggles; the blogger in question misrepresents the atheist desire for theists to see the error of their ways as an insistence that theists 'convert' to atheism. During the course of his piece he conflates proselytising with forced conversion, and so pronounces it 'evil'. Accommodationists often compare new atheists to religious fundamentalists, which betrays a similar goggle-induced error. I would be surprised if anyone did not want others to agree with them; at least, I'm sure most of us think that, which, seen through some accommodationist goggles, becomes evil proselytising, on a par with the most aggressive religious fundamentalism. But the goggles are only worn, apparently, for religious discourse; similar arguments on political or cultural matters are enthusiastically joined. It's a genuinely barmy misfire of the brain, I think.

It's all the more infuriating because I think some incoherent accommodationist posturing might be coming from a good place. That good place is the value of diversity and a distrust of conformity to some all enveloping 'truth'. Through Mill, Orwell and Isaiah Berlin, for example, the Western tradition has become wary of an authoritarianism which tries to force an idealised truth on people for their own good. All fine and dandy - I value a diversity of opinion and debate too, as a method for uncovering the truth, finding better ways of living and resisting totalitarianism. But that doesn't mean that there are many truths, and we should all be relativists. And, more to the point, no-one is a relativist on most matters under discussion in the public square. It mainly rears its head when people reach for the religious goggles.

Coincidentally another 'accommodationist' of sorts, Julian Baggini, has just had an article published arguing his position against some critics of religion (I think it's safe to say he means 'Dawkins and his ilk'). He doesn't appeal to diversity or multiculturalism, but draws an analogy between religion and the family, to support a softly-softly approach:

I think there is a lesson here for atheist critics of religion. No one wants outsiders trying to break up their families, even when they recognise all its faults. Too often we heathens play the role of over-invasive social services, sometimes quite literally worried about child protection. But if we think a religion is a problem, we might do better to take on the role of family therapists, trying to lead them to see that certain members are behaving in unacceptable ways. Sometimes that does mean challenging false beliefs, but it never means treating doctrines as though they were free-standing claims that can be dissected irrespective of the role they play in the family dynamic. This approach won't necessarily make us the most welcome of guests, but it might mean we at least get a hearing at the table, and find some allies there.

The family analogy seems plausible to me, and goes some way to explain resistance to argument. I'm not sure this is any different to other families, however, such as political or footballing ones, and he wouldn't be shy about arguing with those beliefs, would he?

Leaving that aside, sure, many people don't want outsiders to break up their families. But some do, and for good reason. They're vulnerable and not in a position to assert their autonomy. If such people exist, then it would be our duty to intervene. The problem with disallowing a more vocal expression of disagreement with religion is that you are placing the value of this notional family above the individuals in it. That's not fair on them, in my opinion.

I approve a multi-faceted approach to combating harmful beliefs, and I've yet to read an accommodationist piece that has argued persuasively, with evidence, to make me think that vocal criticism of religion should not be one of those facets.

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Can't We Enjoy the Best Bits?

Alain de Botton has a handsome new book out called Religion for Atheists, and he has launched  a little website puffing it. I've never been too keen on de Botton's writing, but his heart is often in the right place. This book gets a stinking review from the rather pusillanimous accommodationist Terry Eagleton, who says:

What the book does, in short, is hijack other people's beliefs, empty them of content and redeploy them in the name of moral order, social consensus and aesthetic pleasure. It is an astonishingly impudent enterprise. It is also strikingly unoriginal.

From Eagleton's description of the book, I find myself agreeing with him on de Botton's project, which is a pretty sorry state of affairs, given Eagleton's daft opinions on matters of faith. The ad campaign for the book is particularly patronising. Consider these:

Click to enlarge

St Botolph's

The straw man de Botton is railing against is that atheists cannot enjoy the cultural aspects of religion because we, I suppose, are blinded by our hatred of all things religious. This doesn't apply to me. I'm quite happy rambling around the countryside visiting old churches; I attend the occasional service without heckling the vicar; I have theist friends; I sing carols and celebrate Christmas. Atheists cannot operate in most countries without participating in many religious events, and inevitably enjoy some of them. It's a bizarre misrepresentation of them that they do not enjoy the 'best bits'. Even arch new atheist Richard Dawkins makes it clear he likes certain manifestations of religious life:

I actually love most of the genuine Christmas carols. I can't bear Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and you might think from that that I was religious, that I can't bear the ones that make no mention of religion. But I just think they are dreadful tunes and even more dreadful words. I like the traditional Christmas carols.

And he seems to have a soft spot for the King James bible too. So de Botton's target is close to non-existent. It appears that de Botton pats the religious on the head and says: 'There, there; you're completely mistaken, but carry on because we have no way of producing awe-inspiring songs, architecture or rituals without believing something that is untrue, so have at it; the more untrue things you believe the more inspired you'll be, and the more I'll have to enjoy!'.

But even if it were true that atheists were humbugging their way through the festive season and studiously ignoring all ecclesiastical architecture, would this make de Botton's case any more sound? His point is that, regardless of an ideology's truth, we can encourage it, or at least condone it, because of the good things it gives us. I really don't think that will wash. For example, would pictures from this ad campaign justify National Socialism?

Click to enlarge

Now, just to be clear about this: I'm not comparing religion with Nazism here. I'm simply pointing out that there are more important matters at stake than simply enjoying some of the side effects of a particular phenomenon. In fact, it's crass to reduce such an important world-changing phenomenon to a sideshow of amusements, particularly when that phenomenon is causing the harm it is.

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The Tall Tales of Hoffmann

"Hic!"

I'm not sure if this Hoffmann's first love was Olympia, the automaton, (or was it Ophelia? She's certainly no automaton.) or if his further loves were Antonia and Giulietta, but there is more than a whiff of the old Hoffmann about this New Oxonian. It's as if some gnu atheist Lindorff has gone off with his Stella,  leaving him drunk in the tavern crying into his beer, "Muse whom I love, I am yours!". I've been that drunk too, though in humbler company than Hoffmann. He certainly loves the Muse, but perhaps he has spent too long musing while nimbler, more successful courtiers of Stellar Street have taken the plaudits and bouquets. That seems to be part of the complaint (h/t Screechy Monkey):

Part of that has to do with (as I suggested) a record that goes back long before most Americans had heard of Richard Dawkins. Some of us older and old atheists remember what a lonely battle that was. Many who came to the movement since 2000 will not. And that is precisely the pojnt. Without saying jealousy is involved, there are many (not just me) who know that the Dawkins revolution could not have taken place without th almost invisible work of many of my associates in and out of the academy over many many years. On the one hand, we need to be grateful that the New Atheists have been successful in garnering support; on the other hand, and I know this from experience, nothing ensured the death of a book in this country before 1995 like putting the word atheism or humanism in the title. So, there were laborers in the trenches.

But in his latest offering he is far from a-musing, letting off at every gnu he can think of, like a drunk sending texts to former lovers. He starts off with the usual suspects and regurgitates well-worn non-arguments against the Four Horsemen (three of whom he might call Gnu Oxonians?). Interesting that he seems to admire Hitchens the most ("the only true intellectual and by far the best-read of the group"), since Hitch's arguments were always the worst of the four, even if his polemics were the best. More ire is aimed at the gnu bloggers who dare to offer an opinion on religion that has not been informed by years of study in the Divinity School at Harvard. He starts with Jerry Coyne, quoting him comparing religion to leprechauns in their compatibility with science, to which he responds:

Just a flash: While leprauchauns didn’t copy the books that were turned into the books that led to the science Dr Coyne eventually studied, monks and rabbis did. Why does the perfectly reasonable opposition to religious craziness have to descend to this caricaturing of the history of religion?

Strange, isn't it, that religion has morphed into the history of religion? What a befuddled argument. It's difficult to know what Hoffman's point is here. Is it that a deep and complex history justifies an ontology? But Coyne doesn't deny religion's history. It's as if he thinks the involvement of religious people in the history of science invalidates the Conflict Thesis, but none could be that dumb. Leprechauns don't exist so they couldn't have copied early science books, so Hoffmann's comparison doesn't work. Coyne, on the other hand, is pointing out that religion is a superstition, like leprechauns, not that religion doesn't exist, or, even more foolishly, that the history of religion doesn't exist or isn't complex. Hoffmann's argument wouldn't pass muster at infant school, sadly, let alone any philosophy department.

A Gish Gallop of mud-flinging follows, aimed at PZ Myers ("If ever atheism got dumber and less impressive, it is in the work of this dissolute insult- monger"), Greta Christina ("She sees everything as a weird sexual joke"), Ophelia Benson ("...has turned her once-interesting website (I used to contribute regularly) into a chat room for neo-atheist spleen"), Eric MacDonald ("doesn’t seem to know bloody anything about the academic study of religion") and Jason Rosenhouse ("I sometimes wonder why people whose only contribution to blogdom consists of sentences like “Most religious rituals leave me beyond cold,” find themselves titillating?"). Like one or two other misguided critics of new atheism, Hoffmann is often pragmatically self-refuting!

But Hoffmann has an illustrious history, if not an illustrious future, so I do wonder what has got under his skin so much about people who aren't guilty of the things he thinks they're guilty of. Apart from the self-confessed jealousy above, he gives a clue to one of his concerns in a comment below his latest rant:

The new atheists don’t oppose the study of religion. Not true: in fact the famous “Pinker Intervention” at Harvard in 2006 prevented religion from becoming a part of Harvard’s core curriculum, on the premise there was no difference between theology and religion-studies, though Harvard was the first university in America to introduce such study in the 1930′s, apart from its Divinity School. Read all about it here: http://www.somareview.com/godandmanatharvard.cfm Stephen Pinker (who is far more considerate of religion in general) is not the issue here, btw; a number of the newbies have gone on record as saying that the study of theology does not belong in a university, though in some places like Harvard, Yale, and Chicago, this would mean closing down their divinity schools where the study of religion is alive and well. That’s half the problem: the other half is that rank amateurs like the newbies have already pronounced their verdict on such study by mixing up the objectives. Frankly if this confusion is any indication of the state of their information, they’d better hold off on the God thing for a few years. If you want to see the nadir of this imbecilic conversation, here you go:http://www.newstatesman.com/2011/06/dawkins-myers-religion-faith

Interesting. The New Statesman piece compares religion to knitting, which is presumably what upsets Hoffmann, but this is nothing more than Myers's view of what religion's status should be in society, not a judgement of its historic worth, I think. Despite people like Dawkins and Hitchens regularly supporting the study of religion, he genuinely believes they don't, and his evidence is the "Pinker Intervention" and a throw away remark from one of the more strident new atheists. I'm not familiar with the background to the Pinker story, so it would be good to hear some more about this other than what Hoffmann's written, cloaked in dense references as it is ("Pinker Intervention" throws up just one link on Google, to Hoffmann's piece).

So maybe his concern is that divinity schools should not be closed down? But opposition to divinity schools is not opposition to the study of religion, so it's still not clear why he is so exercised about this. In the piece he links to, about the study of religion at Harvard, he says:

In short, all the wrong reasons for studying religion—because it is popular, widespread, and personally significant—triumph over the good reasons for studying it.

I confess, though, that I'm not clear from the piece what the good reasons are for studying it. I could guess at a few. Hoffmann does say earlier:

But religion puts itself forward as something that ought to be studied in its own right, not because in doing so the student learns to value its influence or validate its claims, but so that the student will be able to evaluate it within a particular analytical frame of reference. And it is in providing that context that Harvard excels.

This may be true, but it does not go any way to justifying separate divinity schools - religion can still be studied in its own right without that - so I'm still left struggling to understand the nature of Hoffmann's complaint, once again. Unless he thinks that the only frame of reference that is sufficient for good religious study is in divinity schools? Maybe, but he would have to be clear why he thinks this, or it's just special pleading for religion; something that new atheists are (obviously) against.

I dare say he has other complaints; if only he could write clearly, without so many distracting straw men and errors of fact, then we might have a better chance of understanding them. Maybe one day he'll sober up and tell us fellow drunkards what he means.

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Unreasonable Accommodationists

The UK's Equality and Human Rights Commission has issued a press release calling for a concept of 'reasonable accommodations' to allow employees to manifest their religious beliefs. They say:

For example, if a Jew asks not to have to work on a Saturday for religious reasons, his employer could accommodate this with minimum disruption simply by changing the rota. This would potentially be reasonable and would provide a good outcome for both employee and employer.

Seems fair enough. But Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the EHRC recently said:

Our business is defending the believer. The law we're here to implement recognises that a religious or belief identity is, for the majority of people in Britain, an essential element of being a fulfilled human being and plays an important part in our society.

Clearly he is wrong here, since his business is equality, not just the concerns of a particular group, like believers. But let's be charitable and assume he meant that in striving for equality, the Commission must recognise the concerns of every group, and he's simply mentioning one group over others because he's expressed himself clumsily.

However, one of the cases that the Commission is supporting is Lillian Ladele's. She's the Christian Registrar who wanted to discriminate against gay people in the performance of her duties. One can only assume that the Commission adopt the position that she should be allowed to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation, because of her religious belief. If the Commission thinks this falls into the range of 'reasonable accommodations' for religious views, then one wonders what qualifies as unreasonable. Note the duties of the EHRC:

We have a statutory remit to promote and monitor human rights; and to protect, enforce and promote equality across the nine "protected" grounds - age, disability, gender, race, religion and belief, pregnancy and maternity, marriage and civil partnership, sexual orientation and gender reassignment.

So, sexual orientation is on a par with age, disability, gender, race and religion and belief. As an aside, in my view sexual orientation, age, disability, gender and race are qualitatively different to religion and belief, since they are invariable, and cannot be chosen under any circumstances. But, in any case, since the EHRC appear to be including discrimination based on sexual orientation as a 'reasonable accommodation' for religious beliefs, then one assumes that discrimination based on race, gender and so on are also 'reasonable accommodations' for religious beliefs.

So, if the EHRC support Ladele, then this renders the EHRC self-defeating. They will then be campaigning against their own aims. A bizarre situation.

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Theo-Science

Image via Wikipedia

The criteria for the £1,000,000 Templeton Prize are laid out as:

The qualities sought in a Templeton Prize nominee include creativity and innovation, rigor and impact. The judges seek, above all, a substantial record of achievement that highlights or exemplifies one of the various ways in which human beings express their yearning for spiritual progress. Consideration is given to a nominee's work as a whole, not just during the year prior to selection. Nominations are especially encouraged in the fields of:

Research in the human sciences, life sciences, and physical sciences.
Scholarship in philosophy, theology, and other areas of the humanities.
Practice, including religious leadership, the creation of organizations that edify and inspire, and the development of new schools of thought.
Commentary and journalism on matters of religion, virtue, character formation, and the flourishing of the human spirit.

So, anyone who writes about science and religion could receive a £1,000,000 prize. Quite an incentive. What impact would that have? I wonder.

Science and religion have fundamentals at odds with each other. Science attempts to draw models of the world based on the best evidence that human methodology can uncover. In principle it is contingent, and never a complete explanation, since it's always open to variation based on new evidence. Religion settles arbitrarily on some preconceptions, vows never to examine those and proceeds to draw inferences about reality based on those preconceptions. In principle it is not contingent but a complete explanation; no evidence could gainsay its preconceptions.

Much has been written about their compatibility, including by me, which, considering the above, is surprising. It's understood that *people* can be scientific and religious, happily, but that's not the same. People can be adulterous whilst thinking it's wrong to be adulterous too. People can hold contradictory positions; it's a 'feature' of our thinking. But it's trivially true that science and religion contradict each other as world views at the above fundamental level. A test of someone's theism would be to ask them if they would revise their beliefs if evidence came in to shake their preconceptions; if they say they would revise their beliefs, they aren't really theistic, but scientific. If they say no, they wouldn't, then Don't Pass Go, go Straight to Jail; they're not scientific.

So why is there so much 'science and religion' talk going on? Consider this:

Ophelia Benson talks about some strange developments, including...

The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion, by Peter Harrison, from the Ian Ramsey Centre at Oxford University. The Ian Ramsey Centre has links with Templeton.

A BBC program on science and religion by historian Dr Thomas Dixon, which suggests more harmony than there is. His published work includes Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction, with this blurb:

As Thomas Dixon shows in this balanced and thought-provoking introduction, many have seen harmony rather than conflict between faith and science.

Harmony? What does that mean? It means religion before science, so science doesn't get to tell religion it's wrong. As Ophelia points out, both Harrison and Dixon are members of the The International Society for Science & Religion, a Religion in Science organisation, founded by Anglican priest and Templeton Prize recipient, Sir John Polkinghorne. Dixon's also contributed to Science and Religion, New Historical Perspectives, with fellow ISSR members Geoffrey Cantor and Stephen Pumfrey, which has this blurb:

The idea of an inevitable conflict between science and religion was decisively challenged by John Hedley Brooke in his classic Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge, 1991). Almost two decades on, Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives revisits this argument and asks how historians can now impose order on the complex and contingent histories of religious engagements with science.

Great, no conflict between science and religion, because they disallow science as an arbiter of religious claims. So who else belongs to this Society?

Michael Reiss, who recently wrote about Creationism in the classroom:

Effective teaching in this area can help students not only learn about the theory of evolution, but also better appreciate the way science is done, the procedures by which scientific knowledge accumulates, the limitations of science and the ways in which scientific knowledge differs from other forms of knowledge.

Oh yes, the *limitations* of science and those other forms of knowledge. Not really science *and* religion then. Religion, then science.

Here's another article, by Cathy Lynn Grossman; she's connected to Templeton too. She asks:

Do you think a baby conceived in test tube is still a child in the eyes -- or mind or hands, depending on your theology/philosophy -- of God? Does the science behind this merit the Nobel Prize for Medicine or condemnation in the realm of faith and ethics?

This sickening question doesn't seem to be about science and religion, but religion, then science.

As Jerry Coyne notes as well, there's a lot of accommodationism about. Elaine Ecklund has conducted a survey of scientists and religion that shows that scientists aren't very religious, but against her own data she says:

As we journey from the personal to the public religious lives of scientists, we will meet the nearly 50 percent of elite scientists like Margaret who are religious in a traditional sense...

So religion, then science again. Her work was funded by Templeton, you'll not be surprised to hear.

Not be outdone, at Cambridge we have The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, funded by Templeton. One of their aims is, supposedly:

Scholarly research and publication on science and religion, including the organisation of invited groups of experts to write joint publications.

Let's have a look; here's a paper called Nothing but a Pack of Neurons? by Dr Stuart Judge, a physiologist and neuroscientist. Scientific, is it? Well, there's a lot of expert science and intelligent discussion of the problems of dualism and non-dualism. But towards the end, Judge says:

What then of Jesus’s saying: ‘be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell’? This certainly reminds us that our Maker has the sovereign authority to do more than destroy our present embodiment. But does this use of the word soul (psyche) imply a separate kind of non-physical stuff that attaches to our bodies when we are alive and detaches from them at death, or can it be read as a way of indicating that from the point of view of the Creator our identity extends beyond space and time?

He's begging the question. So, we again have religion, then science. Perhaps that's a one-off? Well, no; here's Human genomics and the Image of God; and Creation and Evolution Not Creation or Evolution (the author gets this the right way round for a change!). It's all a travesty of science.

So, now, let it be known that wherever you see the words 'Science and Religion', what you'll actually be getting is 'Religion, then Science', and, more than likely, a link to the Templeton Foundation somewhere in the background.

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Respect Creep

An interesting and honest article by Rabbi Dr Naftali Brawer in The Times, on interfaith dialogue. He says:

To declare similarity between Judaism and Islam on the basis that their practitioners fast or pray is to betray an astonishing superficiality that does not do justice to either faith.

I think this is right. Unfortunately he follows this up with:

More importantly, the instinctive desire to find commonalities between faiths fundamentally undermines the whole point of interfaith dialogue in the first place, which is to learn how to respect those whose faith is profoundly different from your own.

I have a difficulty with this; why should one respect those whom one profoundly disagrees with? Respect means to esteem or regard highly. It's certainly *possible* to respect someone with different views, but is this always a desirable state of affairs? Should Churchill have respected Hitler and his views? ("Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. But I respect his megalomaniacal views." - OK, I added the last bit - would he have said that?) I would suggest not.

The rabbi concludes:

There are profound differences in how various faiths conceive of God and instruct their adherents to behave. Honest interfaith work takes as its point of departure that I will never truly understand the faith of the other, nor will I necessarily see any reflection of my own faith in that of the other.

This certainly seems a possibility, but quite a counsel of despair; will we never understand each other? There is a way out; consider all beliefs in the cold light of reason and evidence, and eliminate those that don't stand up to scrutiny.

Different faiths cannot all be conveniently collapsed into a basic common language. This is neither possible nor desirable.

Neither possible nor desirable? Is it really not desirable we should understand each other?

Most importantly it is unnecessary. We already have a common language: our humanity.

This is a tacit admittance that interfaith dialogue amounts to 'let's agree to disagree'. Fair enough; it also concedes, I think, that some form of humanism is our only hope for common agreement. I have to say I agree. Nice to see a churchman admitting this!

Simon Blackburn writes well on Respect and Religion; he recognises that respect is sometimes used as a synonym for *tolerate* (although this is probably incorrect usage):

We can respect, in the minimal sense of tolerating, those who hold false beliefs. We can pass by on the other side. We need not be concerned to change them, and in a liberal society we do not seek to suppress them or silence them. But once we are convinced that a belief is false, or even just that it is irrational, we cannot respect in any thicker sense those who hold it—not on account of their holding it. We may respect them for all sorts of other qualities, but not that one. We would prefer them to change their minds.

I quite like that formulation; one cannot respect someone on account of their holding a belief with which one disagrees. This still leaves us open to respecting them on account of their character and other beliefs. But if they are foolish on many matters, then one would lose one's respect for them. This is surely normal behaviour, and justifiable.

Tony Blair supports state funded faith schools, which often teach that their particular world view is the only true way to heaven. At the same time, his foundation supports a project to teach kids to respect the beliefs of others:

Respect - Our world is a diverse world. To communicate and grow we must respect one another's beliefs, values, attitudes and faiths.

No. Not unless one agrees with them. If one respected a belief, one would agree with it, surely? If one assumes that this means *tolerate* not *respect*, then one can agree to a *small* degree. But even then, one does not, in practice, tolerate everyone's beliefs. We don't tolerate racism, sexism and homophobia. Tony Blair doesn't. He doesn't respect the Pope's beliefs on homosexuality, quite rightly.

So why is he promoting something for kids that he doesn't practice himself?

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