William Lane Craig has his rhetoric down pretty well. He is a professional debater, after all. Ask him most any metaphysical or theological question and he will probably have a prepared answered well memorized. But that’s about as far as the guy can go. Actually engage his points and it isn’t difficult to defeat him.* But why should anyone bother debating the guy? He has made zero special contributions to his field other than to revive a long-dead, easily dismissed argument (one which, unlike a good deal of philosophy, can be directly addressed and defeated via empirical evidence). His primary claim to fame is that he likes to debate. I admit I occasionally enjoy watching debates myself, but I generally only watch the ones done by people with esoteric knowledge in a field. Craig, for that reason, is not worth watching.
Don’t feel embarrassed if you’ve never heard of William Lane Craig. He parades himself as a philosopher, but none of the professors of philosophy whom I consulted had heard his name either. Perhaps he is a “theologian”. For some years now, Craig has been increasingly importunate in his efforts to cajole, harass or defame me into a debate with him. I have consistently refused, in the spirit, if not the letter, of a famous retort by the then president of the Royal Society: “That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine”.
It’s true. A debate between Dawkins and Craig, while it would rack up the YouTube hits, would only serve to benefit Craig. It would be beneath Dawkins to engage the guy.
But these facts aren’t stopping Craig from continuing “in his efforts to cajole, harass or defame” Dawkins into a debate. At one of his entertainment shows in England, Craig is going to place an empty chair on the stage to represent Dawkins’ absence. I’ll let the good doctor take it from here:
But what are we to make of this attempt to turn my non-appearance into a self-promotion stunt? In the interests of transparency, I should point out that it isn’t only Oxford that won’t see me on the night Craig proposes to debate me in absentia: you can also see me not appear in Cambridge, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and, if time allows, Bristol.
Okay, I’m happy Dawkins isn’t going to debate the guy, but it wouldn’t be so bad to hear a few more knockdowns like that.
*When I went over to Mike’s to find some Craig links, it turned out he already had a post on this topic, as well as another Craig post. Further searches will reveal a good number more posts.
That “Elevatorgate” bullshit got an article in USA Today recently. The actual content was a dead non-topic from the get-go because as Richard Dawkins said, “zero bad happened”, so I don’t care to rehash something the Watsonites lost long ago. What I want to talk about is this from PZ:
What this one incident did was expose a small, fringe group of obsessive sexists who suddenly had the privileges they took for granted questioned…and oh, how they did squeal, and continue to squeal.
There are two points to be taken from this. First, it is a blatant, bald lie to say it has been those who disagree with Watson and PZ that have been making this into a big deal. Who watches Rebecca Watson videos? Who re-blogs those videos (prior to controversy)? It certainly isn’t all those “obsessive sexists”. No, it is people who are fans of Watson, those who support her, those who wanted to make this into a big deal. How anyone can say it is the other side that has made this into something it isn’t – and PZ has said so at least twice – astounds me. It is obviously the fault of Watson’s side – especially the guy with a blog that regularly cracks the top 100 blogs on the Internet – that anyone beyond a few dozen people even know about this.
Second, “obsessive sexists”? Really? PZ obviously means those who have been vocal about disagreeing that anything bad happened here. After all, that is the majority of the dissent – not those who say disgusting things or make it a point to publicly comment on Watson’s appearance or gender. And who else is included in that majority dissent? Why, Richard Dawkins, of course. Has PZ called him an “obsessive sexist”? Nope. In fact, he has explicitly said he doesn’t think Dawkins is sexist. (PZ instead condescendingly said Dawkins was just removed from the situation, as if that wasn’t the case for every fucking person on the planet except two.) Weird, huh? It’s almost like a certain someone isn’t able to stand back and be objective when it comes to sex and gender issues.
There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today’s Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous ‘GOP’ nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered ‘grand’) is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.
Let’s not forget that the likes of Palin, Bachmann, and Cain have also been bandied about as serious options. The Democrats may put out individuals deficient in charisma a la Gore and Kerry, but it is nothing like the Republicans where either stupid or ignorant people consistently rise to prominence. And, of all things, that is actually a point of pride for the party.
I’ve never felt terribly comfortable with the display of passion from believers. It isn’t that it bothers me that people believe false things (though it does) or that someone is claiming to be so emotionally moved by their belief. It’s that it lacks something. It’s one of those intangible things that’s difficult to really identify. It’s like the body from Weekend at Bernie’s. Yeah, it was moving and it fooled a lot of people, but it was ultimately lifeless.
That isn’t to say I think believers are being insincere or that they aren’t really wrapped up in their belief. Of course they are. But when they try and convey that, they lose me. And it isn’t merely that I find what they believe to be silly. Hitler believed a lot of moronic things (including creationism), but when he conveyed them, he didn’t lose anyone in the room. He had a real passion, awful as it was.
And the same goes for a lot of figures, including one’s much more revered in history. Sticking with the WW2 theme, Churchill and FDR conveyed some real passion in their words. Moving further up in history, JFK and MLK both passed on their passion. You could feel it. You knew they meant what they were saying.
I think the same goes for a number of scientific figures, but probably for different reasons. With the political and social people I just mentioned, I’m not so sure what it is that really drove them. For Hitler, it was probably simple hate. For the others, they probably had convictions fundamental to who they were as humans, I would hazard to guess. But I’m not sure there was one underlying thing that made their passion so real. For people like Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, though, I think what makes their passion so special is that it is underlined by a deep understanding. When they speak their beliefs, they know they are as close to truth as anyone can get. Religious believers may think they’ve found truth, but since they have zero methods for determining as much, they can’t know it.
And that brings me to Brian Cox. He currently has a fantastic show on The Science Channel right now called Wonders of the Universe. Throughout every moment of the show, it’s obvious he has a passion. You can feel it. And along with the Dawkins’ and Sagan’s and Tyson’s of the scientific world, he conveys it in a way that is uniquely powerful, unavailable to mere believers.
I won’t be so bold as to call him the next Carl Sagan, but he has that same passion, that same fire. It’s really exciting stuff, under all of which lies an intensely deep understanding.
There’s a bit of a hub-bub over a lawsuit by the group American Atheists. Some of it is expected while other reactions are mildly surprising. Here’s the gist. An atheist group is suing over attempts to use a World Trade Center crossbeam as part of a public memorial. The crossbeam is a “t” and basically is viewed as symbolic of the cross of Jesus. We all know this. The atheist group knows it, Christians know it, liberals know, conservatives know it. Anyone who says the beam is not being revered because it represents a particular aspect of a particular religion is just being insincere.
As expected, most Americans find this lawsuit offensive. By and large, it is Christians who really care – this is a symbol of their religion and they believe it is okay to display it publicly while using public funding and government property. But those who are sympathetic to religion also believe the crossbeam ought to be displayed. Or, perhaps more commonly than that, people believe this is a trivial issue. Of course, if we were talking about a Mosque a few blocks away, it might be a different story.
One other reaction has been from PZ. His beef is that this is the wrong battle to pick. People aren’t going to see this at all rationally (plus he sees it as relatively trivial). September 11, 2001 was an emotional day for a lot of people. Attacking any method they use in order to cope is going to be viewed extremely negatively. I can understand that, but I still find this disappointing. PZ doesn’t tend to be one to back away from controversy. Besides that, I’m not sure when the last time it was that he cared about how people are going to react to offensive things. Jon Stewart and Richard Dawkins have also come out against the suit. Stewart did so in part because he views this as a trivial issue over which to sue, but also probably because he has so much emotion tied up in the whole day. Dawkins has posted articles on his site which defends the display as one of many.
As for myself, this seems like a fine lawsuit. Yes, it is politically difficult, and no, it isn’t going to help the image of any atheist group, but so what? The short-term effect will be negative with all the press, but should American Atheists succeed, it will represent a significant win. That crossbeam is only being viewed as special because it is being viewed as representative of the cross on which Jesus died. Atheists, Jews, Muslims, deists, agnostics, and Buddhists don’t see it as special. Why should any of us have to pay for it to be displayed? Why should we be forced to remember all the murdered non-Christians with a Christian symbol? Why can’t we just leave it at the church where it has been? I don’t see any particularly good justification for why it ought to be used as part of a public memorial. And besides, if anyone found any piece of rubble which represented the symbol of any other religion, we all know there would be an uproar against its public display.
An animal’s behaviour tends to maximize the survival of the genes ‘for’ that behaviour, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal performing it.
Let’s stop the shouting that Richard Dawkins is some kind of raving misogynist. What’s happened here is that he is at some remove from all of the details, and this issue got blown up by lunatics who felt their manhood threatened and who exaggerated the situation to an absurd degree. I think he is wrong, but what he was arguing against was a cartoon of feminism which far too many people have been peddling on the blogs.
No one is about to doubt the intelligence of PZ Myers, but to be such a condescending little prick to someone like Richard Dawkins is risible. Dawkins is not “at some remove” from anything. He had access to the video. He used details provided in that video when he wrote about it. If he’s short on any detail it’s only insofar as everyone else who wasn’t on that elevator is short on detail. Including PZ.
The second place where PZ is wrong is where he pretends that it’s been those who disagree with Rebecca Watson that have been blowing this out of proportion. Go take a look at the comments on all the blogs, including Pharyngula. It hasn’t been the dissent that started drawing connections with rape and deep-seated misogyny. No, what has happened here is that everyone except caricature feminists has been saying that the elevator guy made a bad move, he should have been paying better attention, but we don’t know what his intentions were. It would be no surprise if he hoped for something sexual, but all he did was ask Watson for coffee in his room, which was in the general direction they were already heading. As Dawkins said, “zero bad” happened here.
What I find really interesting about this is PZ’s defense of Dawkins. If any non-celebrity male said the exact same thing, there would be zero defense from PZ. And he knows it. If anything, he would join in the chorus of feminists who portray those who disagree with the Designated Feminist Position as women haters who are against first and second wave feminism. As I’ve said elsewhere, it is that sort of reaction – and we all know it’s a common one – that leads to Internet feminists being seen as caricatures. This isn’t some big crazy patriarchal conspiracy. (No, really, I swear. It isn’t my penis talking.) Overreacting to minor situations (or even non-situations, as is the case here) is why so many third wave feminists get portrayed as cartoons.
In all the drama surrounding Elevatageddon, there has been a lot of rhetoric thrown around. As always, I find myself appreciating it, even if I actually disagree with the point being made. But that appreciation can only go so far. Even if I think people are wrong in what they’re saying, and even if I think they’re letting their rhetoric get the best of their argument, I can take solace in the fact that at least they’re being honest. But once that honesty stops, so does all my appreciation. Enter Greg Laden:
Recently, Richard Dawkins said (full quote below) that a woman should not be concerned about her own safety if she finds herself in an elevator (under some sort of threat, presumably), because it is trivially easy to get out of an elevator if you are under attack.
This is an outright lie and Laden needs to apologize. He is being blatantly dishonest, and he even undermines his own lie by posting two of the three comments Dawkins has made. He has been caught, much by his own fumbling hands, and he needs to own up to that. Forget all the stupid drama surrounding a guy who isn’t very good at interacting with women he doesn’t know very well. Laden lied, and unless his intelligence is as low as his general blogging quality*, he knows it. Grow up and say you’re sorry, Laden.
*I used to have his blog in the blogroll widget some time ago, but the guy makes consistently muddled, ugly posts with little useful content.
Update: I told Laden he needs to apologize for misrepresenting Dawkins’ statements. He has put all my comments in moderation. As is my policy, I will no longer post there (not that I planned on it anyway) since he is not trustworthy. Here is the last thing I said (who knows if it will appear):
There are three times when my comments get held in moderation. One is when there is a blanket policy for all first-time posters. The second is when it’s a Christian blog and my comments are likely to be edited. The third is right now. And per my policy when people show their cowardice, I’m out.
Now grow up, correct your blatant (and I would hope embarrassing) lies, and apologize, Laden.
Presuming you’re too lazy to watch the video, she was at a bar with a number of people, decided to go back to her room around 4 a.m., and when she got on the elevator so did a guy who was apparently engaged in previous group conversation (or at least listening). The guy said he found the talk she gave earlier interesting and asked if she wanted to go back to his hotel room for a cup of coffee to discuss things more. It’s not a very good line, but I bet it has worked more than once. (And who knows, maybe he was being genuine. I doubt it, but let’s at least throw it out there.) She was uncomfortable and declined. And that was that – he didn’t press further, nor did he lay a finger on her.
Fast forward a bit and PZ makes a post on the topic. His focus was on an issue that arose with Watson calling out her critics by their names. Apparently one person was a student or some such thing and Watson really singled her out. I don’t know (or care) enough about the details to really give it a fair shake, but those sort of criticisms can be dicey. Hell, I’ve put out a publication around my school where I really wanted to criticize the worst professor I have ever had. I decided against it for various reasons, not the least of which was because those sort of things aren’t always clear. Besides, there are more appropriate channels.
Next PZ made a post where he gave no-brainer advice to avoid being a creeper. It was condescending, even if largely right, and I can only be thankful he stopped before giving sex advice.
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
However, the existence of greater crimes does not excuse lesser crimes, and no one has even tried to equate this incident to any of the horrors above. What these situations demand is an appropriate level of response…
The elevator incident demands…a personal rejection and a woman nicely suggesting to the atheist community that they avoid doing that.
No, wrong. The elevator incident demands a personal rejection and some better communication skills for that guy, but it certainly does not demand the damnation of the entire atheist community.
The point Dawkins was making was not that, ‘Oh, there are worst things in the world, so get over it.’ He isn’t stupid. He was making the point that even if this is a great offense (and it isn’t), the response it has gotten makes a mountain out of a mole hill. A man asking a woman to go back to his room for coffee, whether innocent or with the greatest of hopes in his mind, might deserve a quick admonishment of the guy later on – if a friend of mine did that, I would tell him he should have chosen a better location than in a small, temporarily inescapable room. And if he hadn’t personally talked to the woman at all prior to that moment, I would wonder why he thought he was in a position to ask her anything close to that – and I would tell him he had been less than smooth. What I wouldn’t have done was create a video about the incident, make the guy out to be the greatest misogynist in the world, and condemn an entire group of people. Dawkins was advocating for some perspective.
And hell, has anyone stopped to think that maybe this guy just isn’t very good at ‘picking up’ women? His line was weak, he apparently didn’t speak with Watson directly (or at least not much), and he didn’t consider his location very well. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he chose the elevator because it was private. I don’t know many guys who are willing to ask women out or invite them some place in front of a group of people. Just tonight, actually, I saw a TV show that featured a man talking to a beautiful woman in front of his friends. It struck me as immediately odd because that sort of scenario is rare, at least among strangers and near-strangers. I don’t want to defend the guy on this basis, but I doubt anyone, especially PZ, even bothered to consider it.
No I wasn’t making that argument. Here’s the argument I was making. The man in the elevator didn’t physically touch her, didn’t attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn’t even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that.
If she felt his behaviour was creepy, that was her privilege, just as it was the Catholics’ privilege to feel offended and hurt when PZ nailed the cracker. PZ didn’t physically strike any Catholics. All he did was nail a wafer, and he was absolutely right to do so because the heightened value of the wafer was a fantasy in the minds of the offended Catholics. Similarly, Rebecca’s feeling that the man’s proposition was ‘creepy’ was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.
Muslim women suffer physically from misogyny, their lives are substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny. Not just words, real deeds, painful, physical deeds, physical privations, legally sanctioned demeanings. The equivalent would be if PZ had nailed not a cracker but a Catholic. Then they’d have had good reason to complain.
Richard
Naturally, the interpretation here has been that Dawkins thinks words don’t matter. He still isn’t stupid. He makes the point that the man was polite and did no harm to the woman. She may have been offended, but he caused her no turmoil from the forgettable incident. Perhaps if he was rude, or cursing, or plainly asked her if she wanted to fuck, then hey, we’ve got ourselves something disgusting. But he asked her for a cup of coffee. That does not get us here from there.
One of the biggest whines I hear from theists about The God Delusion is that Richard Dawkins just doesn’t know enough about all that wonderful theology. Why, if only he knew more! Maybe then he would totally be a Christian.
But I’m wondering. What would that knowledge actually change? Aside from making Dawkins a great Jeopardy! player, it’s obvious the whiny little Christians really don’t have an answer. After all, just think about it. Has anyone even bothered to give a single example where having a deep theological background would have changed a single bit of The God Delusion?
The truth is, theology is nothing more than literary criticism with a narrow focus. What’s more – and here’s the kicker – Christian theology assumes God. Why in the hell would Dawkins ever defer to theologians? Using theology to prove God is classic question begging and has no place in a serious debate about the existence of God. I hardly believe anyone who says any different is even really interested in these sort of discussions.
For the Sake of Science 
