Burnee links for Sunday

Tony Blair: Without God's Truth at its centre, no community can fulfil its potential - Commentators, Opinion - The Independent
This is all faith and fuzzy feeling - isn't it all terrible, if only we could have more God, everything would be fine and dandy. Sorry Tony, this is more than usually muddle-headed. Anyone (the pope included) who claims that atheists are to blame for global warming is simply not thinking straight.

NSS supports Penn & Teller’s right to attack the Vatican on TV | National Secular Society
Penn & Teller's half-hour show on the Vatican is indeed hard-hitting, but someone needed to do it. The Catholic League, in the person of Bill Donohue, is veritably frothing at the mouth over it. But he doesn't speak for all Catholics, let alone the Vatican itself, from whom we have yet (2009-09-01) to hear on this subject.

Secular kids' camp in Collin County aims to provide questions, not answers | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Religion | The Dallas Morning News
Now that we have one (or more) of these camps in the UK, there's a chance that we might soon overtake the US in the number of them, given the relative un/godliness of the two nations.

"There must be a reason" : Respectful Insolence
Insightful blog-post on why some people cling to certain beliefs despite ample evidence that those beliefs are incorrect - based on a recent research paper.

Greta Christina's Blog: Decisions Are Made By Those Who Show Up: Why Calling Congress Isn't A Waste Of Time
How to be a political activist . . . or, stop grumbling and attempt to make a difference. Sound advice, in two consecutive posts.

BHA objects to accreditation of creationist qualifications
Creationists claim that the existence of the Loch Ness monster disproves evolution. Wait, did I miss something? Did Nessie give a press conference?

Italy ok's abortion pill despite church opposition | International | Reuters
Notice how when opposition to the RU-486 pill on religious grounds fails, the Vatican (or its unofficial spokesperson) switches to saying it's not safe. This is is the same as when the pope claimed that condoms contribute to HIV deaths in Africa. If the original argument doesn't sway people, invent something else that might. Unfortunately (for the Vatican) the reasoning behind the fake argument is just as transparent as the dogma-based argument.

Students must learn about other religions: judge - nationalpost.com
An upright judge, a learned judge!

My Admittedly Acerbic Observation... - JREF
The Amazing One adds his (considerable) voice to the godless condemnation of Pope Benny's latest.

Catholic League: For Religious and Civil Rights
One of the blurbs on Bill Donohue's new book, Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America:

• “Wake up, America! The secular minority has cut the brake cables on America’s In-God-We-Trust-Mobile™! Not even all 43 of our Christian presidents can save us now.” – Stephen Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report”

(Via @mightymur on Twitter: RT @mattstaggs: Apparently Catholic League pres Bill Donohue doesn't know Colbert is a satirist.)

Daylight Atheism > Original Virtue
A discussion of "original sin". Fascinating stuff, but I question its purpose.

AfF #6: Fine-tuning Argument

(Click here for Arguments for Fred #5)

The fine-tuning argument is actually part of the teleological argument.

The way the universe is arranged, from the micro to the macro, is just so. It turns out that everything is just right for intelligent life on Earth. This is so amazingly improbable it must have been done on purpose.

Actually no. Look at the size of the universe (in particular, look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image). Compared to the size of the universe, life on Earth is an invisible dot on an invisible dot on an invisible dot on an invisible dot. What kind of intelligent creator would make something so mind-bogglingly vast, just so that an infinitesimal part of it could develop intelligent life, while the rest of creation remains – to an almost universal degree – dispassionately deadly? Only an incompetently wasteful one.

The reason why the universe appears fine-tuned to us is that we are a product of it. If the universe were "tuned" differently, we would be different (probably utterly and incomprehensibly different).

Some people invoke the idea of the multiverse – a possibly infinite number of universes, all slightly different, existing in parallel, and unable to communicate with each other in any way. This hypothesis may be useful as a thought-experiment, but it's unfalsifiable, so of little practical utility. The idea is that there are so many of these parallel universes that all combinations of the values of physical constants will exist, somewhere, however improbable. We just happen to be living in one that contains at least one planet suitable for the evolution of intelligent life.

Here's Douglas Adams on what has become known as the Anthropic Principle:

"...imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise."

(From Biota)

UPDATE 2009-09-10: Click here for AfF #7

When "The Bible tells us..." is legitimate

I have to admit that when a Christian evangelist begins a sentence with "The Bible tells us..." I tend to tune out, because inevitably the Bible is being quoted as a source of incontrovertible truth, and personally I've seen no compelling evidence for this belief.

Writers like to quote other writers. Someone once complained that they really didn't see what was so great about Shakespeare, because all he had done was take a stack of famous quotations and string them together. We quote other people when when we think they have a unique way of saying something, or when the quote seems particularly apt. So why reinvent the wheel?

The Bible is full of quotations - by which I mean it is oft quoted, but not necessarily as inerrant truth. One of my favourite put-downs comes from two different places in the Bible:

"And [Judas] went and hanged himself." (Matt 27:5)
"Go, and do thou likewise." (Luke 10:37)

This is All Dawkins's Fault! - Jason Rosenhouse, Evolutionblog

The ridiculous fracas over the mention of "evolution" on the shirts of a school marching band has been all over the blogs, but Jason Rosenhouse has, I think, the most ironic take on it:

http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2009/08/this_is_all_dawkinss_fault.php

My friends, there are certain times in your life when you are simply forced by events to reevaluate everything you believe and hold dear. For me, now is such a time. I have argued at length that the aggressive tone of the anti-religion books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens does not hurt the cause of promoting good science education. That position is no longer tenable, in light of events coming out of Sedalia, Missouri:

The shirts, which were designed to promote the band's fall program, are light gray and feature an image of a monkey progressing through stages and eventually emerging as a man. Each figure holds a brass instrument. Several instruments decorate the background and the words “Smith-Cotton High School Tiger Pride Marching Band” and “Brass Evolutions 2009” are emblazoned above and below the image.

...continue reading

What surprised me about this affair is the assumption by certain people that the mention of "evolution" is somehow a religious issue.

AfF #5: Transcendental Argument

(Click here for Arguments for Fred #4)

If absolute physical, logical and moral laws exist, they must by definition be independent of human minds, and of the universe itself. They must, therefore transcend human minds and the physical universe. The only transcendent entity these laws can therefore originate from is God. So if absolute laws exist, God exists.

This argument comes under the heading of "false dichotomy" or "excluded middle". The implication is that these laws are either absolute (transcendent) or contingent on the universe (and by extension on human minds). But there's a third option. These laws could be neither contingent on human minds, nor absolute, but instead be conceptual. That is, they originate in human minds, either as invention or observation, but are not of human minds.

But what about physical laws – aren't those absolute? No, they are merely the best approximation, the most accurate description, of the physical universe we have to date. Newton's laws accurately describe the motion of physical objects – up to a point. Beyond that point (for example at great distances, or velocities approaching that of light) Einstein's laws take over. Similarly at very small distances (sub-atomic, for example) the laws of quantum mechanics kick in.

Turning the transcendental argument back on itself: if absolute physical, logical and moral laws don't exist, neither need God.

(I have discussed the transcendental argument before.)

UPDATE 2009-09-05: Click here for AfF #6

Burnee links for (bank holiday) Monday

Skepticblog » Homo religious

San Francisco News - The Demystifying Adventures of the Amazing Randi

Why Engage in Religious Debates? | Conversational Atheist

the quackometer: The Society of Homeopaths are a Shambles and a Bad Joke

Perry Bulwer’s Story | AnAtheist.Net

Review of Why There Almost Certainly is a God, Part One : EvolutionBlog

How Religion May Affect Your Medical Care | Center for Inquiry

NeuroLogica Blog » A Few Questions on Evolution

Jaycee Dugard's Abduction Case Highlights Failure of Psychics | LiveScience

Bishop of Rochester: Church of England must do more to counter twin threats of secularism and radical Islam - Telegraph

Metamagician and the Hellfire Club: The Grand Opening up of the Solar System

Skepticblog » Everybody’s an Expert

The Meming of Life » Fear and Loathing in Chicago

Inside the twisted minds of politicians : The Uncredible Hallq

Damaris Culture Watch : Talking about . . . Darwin
Tony Watkins' overview of Darwin's legacy seems entirely reasonable, except for his final paragraph:

Atheist followers of Darwin believe that his ideas destroy the uniqueness of human beings, and that the meaning of life becomes merely passing on our DNA. Yet we instinctively feel that life is more than this. But where do meaning and purpose come from? Why, like Darwin, do we seek truth, rejoice in beauty and love deeply? The answer to these questions is the one that Darwin gave up on because of his grief. Only the existence of God allows for objective morality. Only God gives human life real meaning. Only God can make sense of suffering; without him it is utterly meaningless. And only God can account for the very existence of life.

"Destroy the uniqueness of human beings" is a loaded phrase - I'd put it more simply that Darwin's ideas showed that an interventionist deity is not necessary to explain the development of life. "The meaning of life becomes merely passing on our DNA" - this is a fundamental misunderstanding; it implies that there is a purpose to life, external to living beings, for which there is not a shred of compelling evidence. The passing-on of our DNA is simply the result of the evolutionary mechanism. It explains how we came to be here, but it says nothing at all about "meaning". The remainder of the paragraph is unfortunately mired in unjustified assumption.

AfF #4 Ontological Argument

(Click here for Arguments for Fred #3)

The most perfect being imaginable is an all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing, all-present super-being who for the sake of argument we shall call God. Obviously (the argument goes) such a being who actually existed would be more perfect than one we simply imagine, but if he doesn't exist, then in fact we can imagine a being more perfect than the one we previously imagined. That is, if we can imagine a god that exists, it must be more perfect than the "most perfect" one we imagined at the outset, which is a contradiction. So therefore God exists (in order not to have this contradiction). Unfortunately for this argument, it fails to recognise that each of the gods, of varying degrees of perfection, are all being imagined, so even if we imagine a god that exists in reality, it is still only existing in our minds.

See Skeptico's recent blog post and the subsequent comments for further discussion of this aspect of the ontological argument. It pretty much comes down to semantic logic-chopping. James Tracy also has a good summary at AnAtheist.Net. For a more formal description of the ontological argument, try Wikipedia.

Personally I've always found the ontological argument for the existence of God to be the least convincing. I thought the reason for this might be that I didn't understand it, but I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't make sense anyway. Try this variation (thanks to Dan Barker): the most perfect void imaginable is one where nothing, absolutely nothing at all, exists. Obviously, if the existence of the perfect void were actually true, and nothing at all existed, then the actual perfect void would be more perfect than the one that is simply imagined. But this is a contradiction, only resolvable by the actual existence of the perfect void, where nothing at all exists. (Where did everybody go? Why can't I see anything?)

UPDATE 2009-08-31: Click here for AfF #5