Rob Knop on Gnu Athiests

[Andara Bledin]

I posted the link to the blog post because I happen to agree that the actions highlighted in the "common behaviors" he attributes to "new/gnu atheists" are counterproductive to getting those who specifically aren't already atheists or considering discarding their religion will be turned away from everything associated with the messengers, regardless of the validity of any message they bring.

First you claim that he "never specifies" who he's talking about when he spend the first three paragraphs doing only that. Then you state that if he's going to attribute these actions to "new/gnu theists" that he needs citations. I provided you with citations based on your own activities here because you're one of the few vocal atheists I have any contact with, and so now it's no longer about the divisiveness of the tactics in question but somehow about you, personally? I really don't think the blog post was about you, and neither is the thread. It's about people with an attitude that you happen to share and are an outstanding example for.

You and your ilk proselytize in a notably condescending and contemptuous manner. Some dress it up in polite terms, others are just outright demeaning. When you push for science in the same breath that you push for the marginalization or eradication of religion, you push those who are religious away from science. This is a Bad Thing.

Also, those figures from your link are likely unreliable:

Ecklund also discusses how there is a stigma against belief in God in the professional science community, which may have contributed to underrepresentation of religious voices in the field.

It's possible that there are as many believers in the fields of science as out, but it's likely that there are some who prefer to report as atheist or agnostic rather than admit to being religious because it's derided within the community.

It's likely similar to those who self-reported as heterosexual in the 50's. It wasn't acceptable, so many stayed in the closet. Currently, religion and science are viewed as incompatible, so those who are in science and religious tend to closet themselves to avoid the scorn you and your ilk can't help displaying.

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[Hyena Dandy]

Ghel, you said there was no proof people acted like that. Andy provided proof. You can't refuse to argue that just because you were the proof.

[Boozy]

The moderators are getting somewhat concerned at the tone this thread is taking.

We do not want to see any discussions about a member's debate style. Those concerns should be addressed to a moderator via reports or PMs.

Go ahead and discuss Rob Knop's debate style. He's not a member here. Go ahead and discuss the debate style of "Gnu Atheists". But keep your comments generalized, please.

Many members will identify themselves as a member of a certain group, or align themselves with certain beliefs. That doesn't mean that you can shift focus to that member. The focus must remain on the group in general, or the set of beliefs in question.

For further clarification, please see my explanation in Site News.

[Ghel]

Ghel, you said there was no proof people acted like that.

No, I said that Knop provided no evidence that atheists were behaving the way he was claiming.

I posted the link to the blog post because I happen to agree that the actions highlighted in the "common behaviors" he attributes to "new/gnu atheists" are counterproductive to getting those who specifically aren't already atheists or considering discarding their religion will be turned away from everything associated with the messengers, regardless of the validity of any message they bring.

Again, Knop has not demonstrated that this is the case. Nor have you. I have never claimed to represent any community. All opinions I express are mine alone. If anybody else shares those opinions, it is largely coincidence.

First you claim that he "never specifies" who he's talking about when he spend the first three paragraphs doing only that. Then you state that if he's going to attribute these actions to "new/gnu theists" that he needs citations.

That's right. He never names names. He cites no references. He links no links to the behaviors he's claiming. He makes generalizations and bald claims which he refuses to back up, even when he's called on it in the comments on his own blog.

I provided you with citations based on your own activities here because you're one of the few vocal atheists I have any contact with, and so now it's no longer about the divisiveness of the tactics in question but somehow about you, personally?

It did appear that way, with your sample size of one. Even if I granted that my statements supported Knop's claims (and I don't), one person does not make a movement. And one anonymous person, at that. That seems to be all the support Knop has for his claims - anonymous blog posters. He either can't or won't support his claims with quotes from atheists who are willing to sign their real names to their statements.

Ecklund also discusses how there is a stigma against belief in God in the professional science community, which may have contributed to underrepresentation of religious voices in the field.

Wait a tick. I was talking about correlation - that scientists tend to be less religious, on average, than the overall population. This quote is talking about causation - one of (perhaps many) reasons that scientists tend to be less religious.

This article quotes the same scientist, but she cites a different potential reason here.

It appears that those from non-religious backgrounds disproportionately self-select into scientific professions. This may reflect the fact that there is tension between the religious tenets of some groups and the theories and methods of particular sciences and it contributes to the large number of non-religious scientists.

So, obviously, there's more than one reason that scientists are less likely to be religious than the rest of the population.

[Andara Bledin]

No, I said that Knop provided no evidence that atheists were behaving the way he was claiming.

Fair enough. Although I've also realized that it's entirely irrelevant to the overall point that such attitudes, regardless of who displays them, are counterproductive to acceptance, advancement, and growth.

So, obviously, there's more than one reason that scientists are less likely to be religious than the rest of the population.

Actually, this quote also supports the basic gist of the post - that such attitudes harm the adoption of science by those who are religious.

So, on one side, those who are religious people who avoid science do to the prevailing attitudes, and those that do go forward aren't comfortable stating that they are. A lose/lose proposition for both science and truth.

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[Ghel]

I interpreted that quote completely differently. What "there is tension between the religious tenets of some groups and the theories and methods of particular sciences" says to me is that people who have had a religious upbringing find that science is in conflict with their beliefs, and thus decline to enter into a scientific field. That seems to me a large factor in why religion beliefs are less likely to be followed by scientists.

[Andara Bledin]

Reading the article you linked, and another describing her recent book, Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think, it appears that advanced learning really has no appreciable effect on whether a person is religious. Which means that those who go into advanced science are skewed heavily towards those who are less religious.

Here is an article she wrote late last year at Big Questions Online. In it she explains that it wasn't religion that quit science, but that science became hostile to religion, to it's detriment, and of society at large.

At the center of these secularizing movements was science, and as religious ideas were subjected to the same kind of rigorous scientific scrutiny as other ideas were, they began to decrease in prominence. Soon, the academy was generally free from religious influence or support, and many scientists took up their own value system in which science was considered the superior form of knowledge. At the university level, the sciences stopped needing to engage with religion in any meaningful way.

These reforms were not without costs, historian Julie Reuben points out. Efforts to create a scientific objectivity that was also value neutral ultimately failed, she says, leading instead to a complete separation of facts and values. Science, considered to be completely fact-based, was separated from more humanistic fields such as English and history. And this separation left scientists with little vocabulary for thinking about the moral implications of their research or what kind of public translation of science works well.

This supports Knop's statement that hostility towards religion is counter-productive to the advancement of science, with her final comment being, "Such an initiative would be a forceful step toward waging peace on the science-and-religion battleground and advancing the public transmission of science."

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[Sleepwalker]

I can't think of anyone in this thread who acts like that either.

"I really see little difference between the "New Atheists" and religious extremists.

To these guys, science becomes their religion, and heresy is something to be put down as ruthlessly as Galileo was."


After which you replied, agreeing. Having been equated with the inquisition and a word usually relating to terrorists, but lacking thumbscrews, c4 and pitch, I must withdraw.

Civility. Ahh, religion.

[Ghel]

Having been equated with the inquisition and a word usually relating to terrorists, but lacking thumbscrews, c4 and pitch, I must withdraw.

I don't blame you. I had passed over that post because it was so far out of line. But you're right, let's not ignore the crazy.

I really see little difference between the "New Atheists" and religious extremists.

When was the last time an atheist flew a plane into a building? Blew him- or herself up to kill a handful of ideological opponents? Shot an abortion doctor? Where's even one example of an atheist participating in extremism or terrorism in order to support his or her philosophy?

Here is an article she wrote late last year at Big Questions Online. In it she explains that it wasn't religion that quit science, but that science became hostile to religion, to it's detriment, and of society at large.

The article talks about how religion has declined in universities. It says nothing about the "New Atheist" movement. Here is the most telling quote: "While most universities sprung from religious roots, by the 1920s, movements to secularize the academy had relegated religious perspectives to the sidelines, or shut them out altogether." The 1920s. The decline of religion in universities has nothing whatsoever to do with the "New Atheist" movement.

This supports Knop's statement that hostility towards religion is counter-productive to the advancement of science...

Yes, I can see how "religious ideas were subjected to the same kind of rigorous scientific scrutiny as other ideas were" would make religious people shy away from science. The vast majority of religious claims do not stand up to scientific scrutiny. That is a problem for religion, not for science.

In my rush to get out the door to work, I forgot to mention something that occurred to me while I was reading Eklund's article. Eklund says that scientists should consider the religious implications of their research. I disagree. Scientists should consider the moral and ethical implications, certainly. But moral systems tend to be independent of one's religious affiliation. The only time scientists need to consider the religious implications of their research is when they're testing religious claims.

[AdminAssistant]

I'll admit that I don't have facts, a survey, or an academic study to back this up, only my own observations. The *vast* majority of the academics I know* at my current school are atheists, agnostics, or 'mildly spiritual' without belonging to an organized religion. I have one friend who is a lapsed Catholic and would like to convert to Judaism, another that is a lapsed Southern Baptist like myself, and a few Jewish professors. And one of those professors said to me, "Of course it's based on mythology, you think we all came directly from Abraham? Nahhh." There are also a handful of Buddhists, but again, that's a philosophy, not a religion.

I don't know why that is, or why the vast majority of academics are also liberals. I guess that's just the type of person who dedicates themselves to the pursuit of knowledge and/or the desire to share that knowledge with others. It was slightly different at my undergrad in the Bible Belt, but even then the majority of the professors were areligious. A friend at Texas Tech (Lubbock, TX) has said the same thing. Even when most of the students are conservative and religious, even when the community is openly hostile to liberals and atheists, the majority of the professors are liberals and areligious.

*All in the humanities/arts. Don't know any scientists. Well, one, but he was an asshole.

[Andara Bledin]

Yes, I can see how "religious ideas were subjected to the same kind of rigorous scientific scrutiny as other ideas were" would make religious people shy away from science.

Except that religious people didn't "shy away from science" based on their being religious. The more I read of her work and her articles, it becomes obvious that science became uncompromising as regards the concept of religion, seeking to divorce itself entirely from any possible religious trappings, including belief in practitioners.

With a third of current scientists actively religious and another third passively religious and a number of the non-religious identifying themselves as still spiritual, it's fairly obvious that religion and spirituality pose no barrier to learning or the advancement of science.

Also, her research shows that the number of religious individuals in the sciences is still recovering from the purge of the 20's. This shows that the advancement of science is not a barrier to belief, either.

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[Ghel]

The more I read of her work and her articles, it becomes obvious that science became uncompromising as regards the concept of religion...

Not just religion, but any claim that is insufficiently supported by evidence. I don't see a problem with this.

...it's fairly obvious that religion and spirituality pose no barrier to learning or the advancement of science.

...This shows that the advancement of science is not a barrier to belief, either.

Then what's your beef? Again, these quotes talk about science vs. relgion, not atheism vs. religion. These articles give no support to Knop's claim that "New Atheism" is pushing religious people away from an acceptance of science.

[Andara Bledin]

Not just religion, but any claim that is insufficiently supported by evidence. I don't see a problem with this.

She does. As do a number of the subjects she polled and interviewed.

If one steps away from the label and actually starts looking at what Knop states that the label represents, you end up with - among other things - those who have and would purge religion from science in the 20's and through to today.

It wasn't a healthy attitude then, and it remains an unhealthy attitude today.

According to these natural and social scientists, their students ought to understand religiously-based forms of science ethics alongside ethical-moral-value systems derived from naturalism, those views independent of supernatural claims. One social scientist I spoke with, who described herself as a cultural Jew, believes university students have to learn to “take responsibility for the ways in which their beliefs and values affect other people,” and they must understand how other people’s beliefs and values affect them and their research.

Science is not a closed system; it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

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[AdminAssistant]

While I don't want religion purged from society, I do want it purged from science. The supernatural doesn't have a place in the scientific. Scientists, hell, all academics, need to base their research on facts not faith. I'm not a scientist, but I can't publish an article that says that Queen Elizabeth wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare without supporting my claims with historical facts. I can't just say that it is so because I think it's so, or that it came to me in a dream, or that her ghost sat down to have tea with me and told me it was so.

[Andara Bledin]

But where do you draw the line?

Are you comfortable with those who teach and perform science just keeping their beliefs to themselves, or do you think that those people shouldn't have beliefs at all or those with beliefs should be allowed to go into science?

You can't be scientific and not accept that religion exists and effects how people react and respond. After all, you wouldn't just discard any other data because you didn't care that it existed, would you?

From a purely scientific standpoint, acting against those who are religious solely for the fact that they are religious (beliefs as opposed to actions) would be just as wrong as someone who was religious taking action based on those beliefs, wouldn't it?

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