FFS - this is utterly asinine. I said "by Jove" the other day, so this must mean that in a moment of need I slipped and turned to Jupiter, Optimus et Maximus. I guess deep down I really believe in Jupiter after all.
The idea that Giles' silly gambit was some mighty victory is dumb enough but the petty gibbering above is simply beyond pathetic.
I couldn't agree more. I don't have any time for this idiotic tit for tat over complete non-issues.
Joined: Jun 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 298 Location: Glasgow, Scotland Karma: 5
Re: Bryan Appleyard vs. New Atheists « Reply #16 on Mar 9, 2012, 5:01pm »
Most of the regular posters here have agreed with you, Tim, inasmuch as a brief memory lapse does not negate the man's point or his entire written works. However, it still exposes a flaw in his reasoning when he tries to classify other people, and shows (as UnkleE and others have eruditely explored) how complex categorising peoples' beliefs can be. It doesn't justify "petty gibbering", but I'll help myself to a wry chuckle, thanks very much.
EDIT - for clarity, I meant that his inability to recall the full title of Darwin's book exposes the flaw, not him saying "Oh God". That was just ticklishly ironic.
However, it still exposes a flaw in his reasoning when he tries to classify other people, and shows (as UnkleE and others have eruditely explored) how complex categorising peoples' beliefs can be.
That exploration got so "erudite" that the word "Christianity" became drained of any meaning whatsoever. I pulled out of it at the point where UnkleE decided that because he and James believe different things about Jesus this means we can't base our definition of of "Christian" on belief at all. Which is absurd. Clearly he and James have more in common than, say, they do with a Shinto or Ba'hai. So obviously there is a belief basis for the word.
Dawkins was making the perfectly correct and unremarkable observation that bishops and Christian politicians can't point to people who mark themselves as "Christian" on a census and say "They believe what I believe" when his survey showed what other such surveys have shown - many of these people simply don't. Giles Fraser couldn't actually dispute this, so played silly word games instead. Dawkins was absolutely right.
UnkleE decided that because he and James believe different things about Jesus this means we can't base our definition of of "Christian" on belief at all. Which is absurd. Clearly he and James have more in common than, say, they do with a Shinto or Ba'hai. So obviously there is a belief basis for the word.
You say this very confidently Tim, but actually I said quite the opposite. You can check these quotes:
There are many, many such definitional problems in the real world, but we don't stop using the words entirely. Rather, we accept that the definitions are useful, but not entirely precise, and there will always be differences of opinion around the margins.
'Christian' is a word with more definitional problems than most, but if someone says "I converted from Islam to Christianity" or "I think christians are arrogant" we have a fair idea what they mean (i.e. they have conveyed information) even if we might have some questions as well.
I think your 5 suggested questions are a reasonable attempt. I would accept all 5, but you show that others (including you) may not, yet I wouldn't want to say you weren't a christian.
So I said I was fine defining "christian" by belief, but there were problems with defining that belief. I also said that we needed different definitions for different uses, and sometimes belief was inappropriate and culture or self-identification were sometimes more useful.
I further said that we need to be consistent. if we are talking about self identification, then use the same criteria for believers and non-believers, ditto if using belief, and I pointed out a group of self-identified atheists in the US who apparently believed in a God or a life force. I think some of the discussion here and elsewhere hasn't been consistent or explicit in its definitions, and I think that has created some of the misunderstanding.
I also said that we needed different definitions for different uses, and sometimes belief was inappropriate and culture or self-identification were sometimes more useful.
The fact remains that, for the purpose that was under question, belief was the only defining characteristic with any relevance, since the bishops and Christian politicians Dawkins was objecting to pretend anyone who marks themselves down as "Christian" shares the bishop/politican's beliefs. And this is simply wrong. That was Dawkins' point and all the waffling that cluttered up the discussion that followed wandered off into irrelevance and avoided the fact that Dawkins was absolutely right.
Fraser's silly gambit was a pathetic attempts at skipping around this awkward fact by playing games with a side point. And Warsi's feeble attempt at a "gotcha" was simply sad.
Fraser's silly gambit was a pathetic attempts at skipping around this awkward fact by playing games with a side point. And Warsi's feeble attempt at a "gotcha" was simply sad.
I don't think I have commented at all on Fraser or Warsi, so that wasn't the point of my post. MY point was to correct your impression that I thought belief irrelevant, when in fact I didn't.
Quote:
The fact remains that, for the purpose that was under question, belief was the only defining characteristic with any relevance, since the bishops and Christian politicians Dawkins was objecting to pretend anyone who marks themselves down as "Christian" shares the bishop/politican's beliefs. And this is simply wrong.
And here I disagree. For some purposes, belief is indeed the correct defining characteristic - but exactly what is the belief criterion is very difficult to define, and no-one has really resolved that here.
But in this case, one might argue that cultural identification is more important than belief for some matters. If a person has only vaguely christian beliefs, but still supports certain ethical/political/social viewpoints (e.g. opposing the building of mosques, abortion, gay marriage, etc) then politicians and social activists will be more interested in their culture than their spiritual or theological beliefs. You are simplifying too much.
I quite agree with Richard Dawkins that there are many nominal or cultural christians who do not seem to have personal commitment to christian belief as I understand it. But I disagree with him when he makes blanket statements about the social and political implications of that fact, just as I have disagreed with you above.
I suggest both of you are reacting in a one-dimensional manner to a question that I think (and have continually stated here) is a complex and multi-dimensional matter. I try not to bash Dawkins or anyone else (as I think you know from this forum), but I think you are too prone to take opportunities to bash believers. As I have said before, consistency is important.
I said (in one of my more rash and excitable recent moments) "Holy sh*t!" - what that says about my unconscious beliefs, I really don't want to think...
I agree with you that thinking that Fraser's question was some enormous victory is at least silly, but I think there are two extremes here. It was certainly not a significant event in Dawkins's career, but I also wouldn't call Dawkins petty or desperate there. Imo "silly" and "amateurish" would do.
The pettiness and desperation I was referring to was on the part of those trumpeting Fraser's pathetic gotcha as a mighty victory over the Dawkins Bogeyman. If that's the best you guys can do, you're really in trouble.
However, it still exposes a flaw in his reasoning when he tries to classify other people, and shows (as UnkleE and others have eruditely explored) how complex categorising peoples' beliefs can be.
That exploration got so "erudite" that the word "Christianity" became drained of any meaning whatsoever. I pulled out of it at the point where UnkleE decided that because he and James believe different things about Jesus this means we can't base our definition of of "Christian" on belief at all. Which is absurd. Clearly he and James have more in common than, say, they do with a Shinto or Ba'hai. So obviously there is a belief basis for the word.
But that is simply not true, nobody in that topic denied that there is an important belief aspect to Christianity, everybody recognised it as the more important area, but several users thought that drawing the line is problematic - for the completely sane reason that it simply is problematic. However, I'm sure everybody is aware that there are several beliefs that are regarded orthodox, while there are also more unorthodox beliefs and that a nominal Christian is not the same as a practising Christian. The issue is that there are several variables in the game than cannot be easily be reduced into an easy answer. There was absolutely no attempt to try to drain the word "Christianity" of meaning nor was that a result.
However, nominal Christians are a mixed bunch, some with quite orthodox ideas but simply inactive in any church, others with very syncretic, heterodox or New-Age beliefs. They cannot be assumed to be heterogenous in any way, neither by the established church tribe who love to assume they are perfectly pious nor by the BHA-NSS tribe who all too often assert that they are nothing but non-Christians in sheep's clothing.
Dawkins was making the perfectly correct and unremarkable observation that bishops and Christian politicians can't point to people who mark themselves as "Christian" on a census and say "They believe what I believe" when his survey showed what other such surveys have shown - many of these people simply don't. Giles Fraser couldn't actually dispute this, so played silly word games instead. Dawkins was absolutely right.
Come on, Tim, you accuse us frequently of seeing Richard Dawkins as a Bogeyman, but I think it's fair to say you have quite a Bogeyman view of Giles Fraser here.
Dawkins is right to contest those bishops and politicians who try to support establishment of the Church of England by referring to census figures. Abusing the figures like that is indefensible - and it has been before our friend Clinton came along with his cute poll. But we can be almost 100% certain that, defending the position of the C of E as the state church of England, is not at all what motivated Fraser. That's a fact.
So why would he have any motivation to dispute the figures for establishmentarian purposes? It simply makes no sense if he is a disestablishment guy. It's bad enough to project sinistre views on somebody without evidence, but here there is evidence against that belief.
The reason why Fraser resorted to his elegant and intelligent example is clear: Dawkins thought that knowing what's the first book of the New Testament is an indicator of whether somebody is a true Christian or not and Fraser recognised that for the codswallop it is. Bible reading is important for a Christian of a Protestant persuasion, but while I readily acknowledge that many Protestants actually don't read the Bible that often outside church services, it is well possible read the Bible without knowing the sequence of the New Testament canon. He also found it too assuming of Richard Dawkins that he made essentialistic pronouncements on who was an was not a Christian - as an atheist! Isn't that a much better reason why Fraser would pose his "gambit" to Dawkins?
They... Many of them don't go to church, don't read the Bible, an astonishing number couldn't identify the first book in the New Testament, they don't believe Jesus is the Son of God, all sorts of things indicate that although, even... the fifty four percent who identify as Christian, even most of those are not really Christian at all.
There is a funny irony here: if knowing that the gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament somehow indicates whether one really is a true Christian, then many medieval people wouldn't be really Christian either. That would support UnkleE's statement that the crusades were more 'Christian' - that is institutionally, nominally and superstitiously Christian - than Christian. I disagree with him on that, but there is a need for consistency, as UnkleE has emphasised time after time. He would be undeniably right on the Crusades if Dawkins was right on the gospel of Matthew being an indicator.
I also said that we needed different definitions for different uses, and sometimes belief was inappropriate and culture or self-identification were sometimes more useful.
The fact remains that, for the purpose that was under question, belief was the only defining characteristic with any relevance, since the bishops and Christian politicians Dawkins was objecting to pretend anyone who marks themselves down as "Christian" shares the bishop/politican's beliefs. And this is simply wrong. That was Dawkins' point and all the waffling that cluttered up the discussion that followed wandered off into irrelevance and avoided the fact that Dawkins was absolutely right.
It wasn't the only relevant characteristic, Dawkins himself recited several other characteristics that are not beliefs and supposedly showed that many were not real Christian. It was fair for Fraser to respond to those, especially because Dawkins was silly enough to claim that many weren't real Christians. And while I am strongly sympathetic to formal separation of state and church, it is hardly justifiable for Dawkins to let his support of secularism become a bias that influences his interpretation of the poll results. Which did occur, as has been shown in the other thread.
As a side-issue, Dawkins is not a sociologist of religion nor associated to a related field. And if he thinks that some of his poll results were very different to other surveys, then he has obviously not been checking the relevant literature. Dunning-Kruger, anyone?
The fact remains that, for the purpose that was under question, belief was the only defining characteristic with any relevance, since the bishops and Christian politicians Dawkins was objecting to pretend anyone who marks themselves down as "Christian" shares the bishop/politican's beliefs. And this is simply wrong.
And here I disagree. For some purposes, belief is indeed the correct defining characteristic - but exactly what is the belief criterion is very difficult to define, and no-one has really resolved that here.
But in this case, one might argue that cultural identification is more important than belief for some matters. If a person has only vaguely christian beliefs, but still supports certain ethical/political/social viewpoints (e.g. opposing the building of mosques, abortion, gay marriage, etc) then politicians and social activists will be more interested in their culture than their spiritual or theological beliefs. You are simplifying too much.
This makes no difference: the bishops/politicians are blithely assuming that these "Christians" (including my muddled co-workers and their equally confused ilk) share their beliefs and "certain ethical/political/social viewpoints". The fact that one assumption (re the beliefs) can be unwarranted shows that the other is equally likely to be as well. However you try to avoid it, we keep coming back to the fact that trying to use these wobbly figures about self-identifying "Christians" to bolster a political position based on numbers is fallacious. Which is all Dawkins was saying.
Quote:
I try not to bash Dawkins or anyone else (as I think you know from this forum), but I think you are too prone to take opportunities to bash believers.
And that is the most absurd thing you've ever said here.
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