On the utility of epistemologically flimsy propositions
Look, just read. It will take five minutes or less, I promise. I need to take lessons from this guy. He writes so well.
This Letts guy needs to be slapped. For serious. The opening salvo, "Anti-religionist Dawkins, the best-known English dissenter since Darwin, is the merciless demander of provable fact," really sets the tone. Is this supposed to be a bad thing? "Merciless demander of provable fact?" Umm... I don't know about you, but where I come from, that's not an insult. In fact, I can only imagine the rejoinder of "prove it" to be frustrating if your idea has no proof - oh, right. How silly of me!He is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and tours the world lecturing the elites of the West that they are stupid to believe in any god.
Well, yeah, I'll give him that one. Dawkins is the Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, and any scientist worth the standard human allotment of sodium chloride will tell you that the only way to learn about the world is by looking at it. Not by reading a book written thousands of years ago by primitives who thought the Sun was magic. As for the "stupid" thing, I mean, has anyone ever argued that it's smart to believe in God? Well, there's Pascal's Wager, I guess (easy mode). But that's also stupid, to a serious degree (or, as Richard Carrier shows, it might not mean what you think it means). Here's how it works: show me an argument that it's smart to believe in God, and I'll show you a person who doesn't understand probability, or epistemology, or logic, or some other essential element of critical thinking.He proselytises against the proselytisers, most of his targets wishing they had a fraction of his apparent certainty.
Ooh, a two-parter! Let's see what proselytize means. Well, Dawkins is certainly trying to [plain English]convince people[/plain English], as is anyone (including this Letts guy) who ever makes a case for anything. As for the certainty? Well, as it turns out, you can disprove God, so long as you use the term "disprove" the same way against God as you use it against fucking anything else.He is the anti-preacher whose sermons are designed to erode churchgoing and, with that, weaken our happiness.
Weaken our happiness? By not going to church? Plainly false. In fact, a good portion of Dawkins' writing is about how we can be happy without superstitions. So does this qualify as libel? Whatever, not that important - what's important is that if a religion is false (and they are all demonstrably so, at least insofar as their supernatural claims can be tested - the rest are shitty claims for being untestable), then the religion is what erodes human happiness, because it distracts people from reality by focusing on the hereafter, thereby actively stifling genuine progress. The worries of punishment, the sulking over the unsaved (or the callousness with which they are treated), the frustration of being unable to live up to your chosen deity's impossible standard, the blithe backwardness of believing that divine forgiveness is more important than Earthly amends, and so on, and so forth.A man less obsessed with himself and with the narrow calculations of men in white coats might realise that religion, although never offering proof of God's existence, can sugar catastrophe and brighten chasms.
Fucking what?! So let me get this straight: it is better to believe something false because it stands between you and understanding reality, so that you can reap the short-sighted benefit of hollow respite from temporary problems? LRN 2 EQUANIMITY, NOOB. Comforting bullshit is still bullshit, and learning to accept hard truths is good for you.In times of turbulence, the human being is little different from the vole or the dormouse. It will take shelter where it can.
Yeah! Don't try to rise above your evolutionary history! Don't think you can weather the storm! Don't stand tall in the valley of the shadow! Cringe! Cower! Submit! After all, you can do no better. At least, not according to this asshole.No amount of superior lecturing from an anti-Christ, not even one with so important a title as his, will alter that.
[principle of charity]Ah, he's saying that Dawkins is against Christ, I get it! What a clever turn of phrase![/principle of charity] Wait, let me get out my bullshitometer. Hang on a sec... ah! Here it is! Umm... let's see... calling a scientist the Antichrist... yep, that registers about a 6.2 on the Sphincter Scale (for reference, that's the log of how wide your asshole must open, in centimeters, to pass a turd of that magnitude). Hold on, we've got a mitigating factor of 3.8 eye-rons (units of irony), what could that mean? Oh, right, that religion and thinking are fundamentally opposed, and have been ever since Socrates was executed for impiety.
This Letts guy needs to be slapped. For serious. The opening salvo, "Anti-religionist Dawkins, the best-known English dissenter since Darwin, is the merciless demander of provable fact," really sets the tone. Is this supposed to be a bad thing? "Merciless demander of provable fact?" Umm... I don't know about you, but where I come from, that's not an insult. In fact, I can only imagine the rejoinder of "prove it" to be frustrating if your idea has no proof - oh, right. How silly of me!He is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and tours the world lecturing the elites of the West that they are stupid to believe in any god.
Well, yeah, I'll give him that one. Dawkins is the Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, and any scientist worth the standard human allotment of sodium chloride will tell you that the only way to learn about the world is by looking at it. Not by reading a book written thousands of years ago by primitives who thought the Sun was magic. As for the "stupid" thing, I mean, has anyone ever argued that it's smart to believe in God? Well, there's Pascal's Wager, I guess (easy mode). But that's also stupid, to a serious degree (or, as Richard Carrier shows, it might not mean what you think it means). Here's how it works: show me an argument that it's smart to believe in God, and I'll show you a person who doesn't understand probability, or epistemology, or logic, or some other essential element of critical thinking.He proselytises against the proselytisers, most of his targets wishing they had a fraction of his apparent certainty.
Ooh, a two-parter! Let's see what proselytize means. Well, Dawkins is certainly trying to [plain English]convince people[/plain English], as is anyone (including this Letts guy) who ever makes a case for anything. As for the certainty? Well, as it turns out, you can disprove God, so long as you use the term "disprove" the same way against God as you use it against fucking anything else.He is the anti-preacher whose sermons are designed to erode churchgoing and, with that, weaken our happiness.
Weaken our happiness? By not going to church? Plainly false. In fact, a good portion of Dawkins' writing is about how we can be happy without superstitions. So does this qualify as libel? Whatever, not that important - what's important is that if a religion is false (and they are all demonstrably so, at least insofar as their supernatural claims can be tested - the rest are shitty claims for being untestable), then the religion is what erodes human happiness, because it distracts people from reality by focusing on the hereafter, thereby actively stifling genuine progress. The worries of punishment, the sulking over the unsaved (or the callousness with which they are treated), the frustration of being unable to live up to your chosen deity's impossible standard, the blithe backwardness of believing that divine forgiveness is more important than Earthly amends, and so on, and so forth.A man less obsessed with himself and with the narrow calculations of men in white coats might realise that religion, although never offering proof of God's existence, can sugar catastrophe and brighten chasms.
Fucking what?! So let me get this straight: it is better to believe something false because it stands between you and understanding reality, so that you can reap the short-sighted benefit of hollow respite from temporary problems? LRN 2 EQUANIMITY, NOOB. Comforting bullshit is still bullshit, and learning to accept hard truths is good for you.In times of turbulence, the human being is little different from the vole or the dormouse. It will take shelter where it can.
Yeah! Don't try to rise above your evolutionary history! Don't think you can weather the storm! Don't stand tall in the valley of the shadow! Cringe! Cower! Submit! After all, you can do no better. At least, not according to this asshole.No amount of superior lecturing from an anti-Christ, not even one with so important a title as his, will alter that.
[principle of charity]Ah, he's saying that Dawkins is against Christ, I get it! What a clever turn of phrase![/principle of charity] Wait, let me get out my bullshitometer. Hang on a sec... ah! Here it is! Umm... let's see... calling a scientist the Antichrist... yep, that registers about a 6.2 on the Sphincter Scale (for reference, that's the log of how wide your asshole must open, in centimeters, to pass a turd of that magnitude). Hold on, we've got a mitigating factor of 3.8 eye-rons (units of irony), what could that mean? Oh, right, that religion and thinking are fundamentally opposed, and have been ever since Socrates was executed for impiety.