BrockLi Soup

You may remember that I’ve been reading What’s So Great About Christianity with the intent of writing a rebuttal. Well, I finished it last week, and I’ll post it as soon as I find some time to write a post about it.

In the meantime, I’d like to direct you to The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2007. I don’t agree with all of them, but they have the same opinion of Dinesh that I do:

29. Dinesh D’Souza

Charges: Wrote a book blaming 9/11 on — who else? — liberals, because if we didn’t live in a free society, then fundamentalists wouldn’t dislike us so. Even conservative nuts blasted D’Souza’s empathy for poor al Qaeda. Lately, he’s been engaging prominent atheists in debates, revealing himself to be a pseudointellectual ass, and then declaring victory. D’Souza’s master plan for attacking atheism is the ridiculous Pascal’s wager: Atheists could be wrong, and then they’d go to hell, but if the religious are wrong, then they suffer no ill effect — aside from living their lives in delusion, of course. And possibly going to someone else’s hell for believing the wrong religion. D’Souza seems to think that if he speaks more loudly and rapidly than his opponent, he is winning, but his arguments are weak and idiotic, and he never even attempts to truly debate the existence of any god, which is the ostensible point of these debates. Instead, he likes to compare body counts — Stalin and Mao killed more than the religious leaders of their time — rather than actually debate whether there is a God, or for that matter a Jesus. This, of course, is because there is no case to be made.

Exhibit A: “[Atheists] are God-haters… I don’t believe in unicorns, but then I haven’t written any books called The End of Unicorns, Unicorns are Not Great, or The Unicorn Delusion.” But what if everyone you met did believe in unicorns, and not only that, but worshiped a unicorn, held a book about unicorns to be the divine truth of the universe, invoked unicorns in political contexts, and speechified about how non-believers were indecent people waging a war on morality, which could only be predicated on the unquestioning belief in unicorns? Then, maybe, D’Souza would think about writing that book. But of course, that’s not really true, because if that was the world we lived in, then Dinesh D’Souza would believe in unicorns.

Sentence: Spanish inquisition.

And unrelated, but also amusing:

9. You

Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism — it’s nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears’ children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you’re going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase “enhanced interrogation techniques.” You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can’t spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don’t want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy’s doing well. You’re an idiot.

Exhibit A: You couldn’t get enough Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

Sentence: A gradual decline into abject poverty as you continue to vote against your own self-interest. Death by an easily treated disorder that your health insurance doesn’t cover. You deserve it, chump.

To the organizers of the Atheist Alliance International Conference:

Greydon Square was good this year, but I hope you’re thinking bigger for 2008. May I suggest Bad Religion?

Get back to me.

Hearts, Brock

It’s Wednesday night, and I finally have enough energy to talk about the weekend. Erin and I moved in together, which has been great, and my company moved to a new office. As far as I’m concerned, I did three moves this weekend: me, Erin, and my company. For those of you I haven’t spoken to lately, Erin and I managed to get a one-bedroom in my building. It’s in a great location, pretty cheap, and in good condition, so we were hoping to stay here. The place we got was at a reduced price, since not a lot of people are moving this time of year, and it had just been re-done with new carpet and appliances. Really, it worked out pretty well.

So, the quick and dirty:

Spent the week packing up our office. Erin and I signed our lease and got keys Thursday night.

Friday, we moved to the new office, and then I went home and moved most of my crap up to the new place while Erin packed up her stuff.

Saturday, I woke up early and went in to the new office to unpack with the rest of the company. Went straight to U-Haul after that to get a truck, then went to Erin’s to load up (which only took half an hour, with Schmitty and Aubri helping).

Sunday morning, Erin and I unloaded all her stuff in less than hour (I was pretty proud of us). We spent part of the day unpacking, had ourselves a nap, then had my company holiday dinner, which was awesome.

Monday was the first day at the office. Finished most of the unpacking there and at home.

Erin and I are pretty much settled. We’re getting real furniture sometime in January, which kind of sucks because we’ve just got patio furniture in front of the TV right now. Without actual furniture and everything moved in, I just feel kind of unsettled.

We’re pretty much moved into the new office too. It’s a lot bigger than the old place, which keeps surprising me because there was so little space to move around in the old office. I keep being surprised that I don’t have to goose step my way around road cases, boxes, and desks that were strewn about.

Also, I’m STILL looking for someone to move into my old place and replace me on the lease. We’ve been meeting people for like three weeks. My old roommate offered the room to about a half dozen people. Three of them accepted, only to back out on us. It’s getting pretty frustrating. If you know anyone looking for a place in DC, you be sure to let me know, because I don’t want to pay an extra $900 at the beginning of January.

This past week, a bunch of the Beltway Atheists and I went George Washington Univeristy to see Dinesh D’Souza debate Michael Shermer on either the existence of god, or the goodness of religion, depending on who you asked. I probably wouldn’t have been as interested in going if I weren’t currently reading D’Souza’s book, because there’s no question which side of the debate I would start and end on. Plus, it was free, and that can’t hurt. I tried to take notes along the way, but I really only bothered to write down the parts that were particularly agreeable or reviling.

D’Souza began with a twenty-minute opening statement that mostly rehashed his book (I’m sure Shermer was doing the same thing, but I haven’t read his book, so I can’t say). First, let me say that following D’Souza’s arguments is only easy if you’re willing to suffer amnesia every time he finishes talking. His points frequently counter arguments he’s already made, and a lot of times, you have to wonder if he’s given them any thought at all, because he rarely backs any of it up.

He criticized atheists again for spending so much time fighting something they don’t believe in, and likened it to writing books like The Unicorn Delusion, or Unicorns Are Not Great. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that the people who believe in unicorns don’t generally have much effect on the lives of those that don’t, while the people who believe in god have tremendous effect on those of us who don’t. That would be like telling something with a nut allergy, “I don’t like mangos, but you don’t hear me complaining. Now quit whining and eat your peanut butter sandwich.” He argued that the universe had to have a beginning, and that it was prompted by god at the Big Bang (Shermer later pointed out that the Big Bang may well have been one in a series of bangs and compressions, and not necessarily the beginning of everything). He also said the universe must have a cause and a reason, which is god. I suppose he can’t imagine things without a reason, but some of us can, and maybe we’ll find a better cause one of these days.

D’Souza went on to argue that god must exist because of the balance of the universe. This argument will be familiar to many people; basically, a number of constants in the universe - gravity, nuclear attraction, and so on (I can’t remember any more, but it’s not important) - are perfectly tuned such that life can exist. If they were any different, we would not be here. In D’Souza’s mind, this is proof that a god must have tuned them. In some peoples’ minds, we just got lucky. D’Souza has been happy to attack one theory that says infinite universes exist, with every possible combination of these factors, and we’re in one of them. I’m not convinced that many people think this theory is anything more than a proposed possibility, but D’Souza seems to think all of us atheists believe it, and argues that it’s more ridiculous than a god. He accuses atheists of using “atheism of the gaps” - a new take on the “god of the gaps” explanation, wherein one might say, “We can’t explain it, so god did it.” D’Souza says scientists use the same thing with atheism - we can’t explain it, so we put forth seemingly ridiculous possibilities (such as infinite universes) to try to fill these gaps. He argued that Occam’s Razor dictates that the simplest answer is probably true, and the simplest answer is god. I have no idea how he came to determine that the simplest answer is an unimaginably intelligent and powerful beast in the sky, but I suppose that’s simpler than looking for a better answer. Certainly, infinite universes isn’t much simpler, but I don’t think many people actually thing that’s the way things work.

D’Souza finished up with a quick discussion of morality. He spent a few minutes refuting the number of deaths generally attributed to the Spanish Inquisition and Salem Witch Trials to show that they weren’t as bad as we’ve been making them out to be, and proclaims that those who killed in the name of atheism - such as Pol Pot and Castro - have done a lot more damage. I didn’t pay much attention in high school history classes and haven’t had a chance to do the requisite reading, so I really can’t speak to that.

After D’Souza, Shermer took the podium for his opening statement. I don’t have many notes from him, probably because I mostly agreed with him. Shermer is a much more laid-back debater than D’Souza - he said a few times, “It’s OK to not know the answers,” a stark contrast to D’Souza’s continued insistence that god is the answer to questions science hasn’t answered yet. He did go on to cite a few studies that looked at religiosity of doctors involved in charity work and things like that. The numbers between religious and non-religious participants were not striking - maybe 5% better for the non-religious - which D’Souza immediately attacked in his rebuttal. Unfortunately, Shermer did not make his point well in this case. He was arguing that religious people are NOT better people than atheists (”So stop claiming you are!”), but it was poorly worded, and D’Souza had no trouble dismissing it as statistically insignificant.

In addition to the points I mentioned above, D’Souza used his rebuttal time to attack a number of Shermer’s weaker points. And it’s true, they were weaker points, but D’Souza’s entire position in the debate (and indeed, his whole book) was made up of poorly-supported points. He makes a lot of big, loud arguments that sound pretty good and got the Republicans in the room cheering, but he doesn’t really offer anything to back it up; he just moves on to his next point quickly, and the atheists are left in stunned disbelief. For example, he argued that atheists would try to find a naturalistic explanation if planets arranged themselves to say, “Yahweh made this.” To hear him make this point, the planets have already arranged themselves as such, and we have all dismissed it as mere natural oddity. How can he say what we would believe it such a thing were to happen? Another argument he made (in his book, too) was that science has advanced significantly in many fields, but in some areas, it hasn’t progressed “since the time of the Babylonians.” Care to guess what area of science is that far behind? I couldn’t tell you, because he never bothered to specify.

One of the points Shermer made was that the Christian churches tend to go along with things until everyone agrees that they’re immoral, and then they act like they disapproved all along - the example he gave was slavery. D’Souza was quick to counter that the abolitionist movement in Europe was pretty much founded by a priest. I can’t remember how he worded this, but he made it sound like the Church fought to end slavery, and that atheism is trying to take credit for it. Shermer never claimed that atheists were the pillars of morality that finally ended the scourge of slavery; the point was that the Church was largely complacent with it, even if a member of the clergy did fight to end it. There are good and bad people on both sides - Shermer’s point was that the institution of the Church was not so moral as they claim to be.

In the end, D’Souza was the better debater, but only because he was a more rousing speaker. His arguments were largely unfounded and his rebuttals picked the low hanging fruit. Shermer isn’t a very good debater, at least partly because he’s so laid back, but it was pretty clear from the beginning that D’Souza was just going to rile the crowd with his invocations of the Jesus, and everyone left thinking pretty much the same thing they did when they went in.

I had a rough weekend and a shitty morning. My “just make it to January” mantra seems too much like the ones I had earlier this year, and that worries me, because that turned into “just make it though six or eight months.” But, seriously this time, I think everything will be OK if I can just get through two moves and Christmas.

I’m trying to decide how I’d like to be remembered, in the event that I become an emperor or king. Thoughts?

• Brock The Great
• Brock The Charming
• Brock The Wise
• Brock The Dashingly Handsome
• Brock The Uncle That’s Not Actually Related To Us
• Jesus

Sam Harris recently posted Atheism’s Wrong Turn, an article by Damon Linker in The New Republic. I don’t want to address the entire thing, but at least part of the premise it’s built upon. As Linker puts it:

That’s because “the new atheism” is not particularly new. It belongs to an intellectual genealogy stretching back hundreds of years, to a moment when atheist thought split into two traditions: one primarily concerned with the dispassionate pursuit of truth, the other driven by a visceral contempt for the personal faith of others.

Today’s bellicose atheists are part of the second tradition.

He goes on to discuss the tactics of the Four Horsemen (Dawkins, Dennet, Harris, and Hitchens), and I’m not going to argue with his take on that. However, I want to point out something about us “new atheists.” I certainly don’t intend to speak for others, but this is my perception. I would say that most of us don’t have a “visceral contempt for the personal faith of others.” What bothers me is not other peoples’ personal faith; it’s the way their faith affects me that bothers me. Religion influences the laws in our country (and most others), terrorist attacks are largely motivated by religious faith, and how many conflicts and civil wars are the result of religious differences? My stance on religion is the same as my stance on drugs: do what you want, just leave the rest of us out of harm’s way. I don’t care if you do heroin, just don’t drive while you’re high and put everyone else in danger. You can believe that the Easter Bunny rose from the dead after three days and will come to Passover dinner if you set him a place, just so long as that belief doesn’t involve crotch-punching people who disagree with you. Fair enough?

The second thing I want to mention doesn’t really have anything to do with that, but it keeps coming up as I read stuff. Atheism is not a religion. We don’t all share the same set of beliefs, even if a lot of us agree with each other on most issues. Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color, like not collecting stamps is a hobby. Stop describing us as if you can tell what we all believe based on the Horsemen’s books. Catholics believe that the Eucharist is the physical body of Christ. Muslims believe that Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse. In general, we can talk about Catholics and Muslims with the assumption that they believe these things because they’re included in the dogma of those religions. Atheists don’t have a dogma. We have a couple of popular writers and philosophers that tend to speak for us, more or less, but that doesn’t mean we agree with everything they say. Anytime somebody starts an argument with “Well, atheists believe…” I cringe. Although we do all adhere to The Atheist’s Bible - particularly the last book - please stop making assumptions about us beyond that. Thanks much.

I’m starting to think I may have bought the wrong book. I mean, I don’t think there were any elections for it or anything, but is Dinesh D’Souza the spokesman for Christians? I just started chapter seven of What’s So Great About Christianity? It begins on page 67, which should give you some sense of the depth with which D’Souza explores his arguments.

By the time I got through the first chapter, I had made several notes in the margins and on an index card. My plan was to collect my notes and counter-arguments, cite other authors’ arguments where appropriate, and compile it into a sort of supplemental to give to my parents at Christmas - a “this is what I believe and why” package.

It became clear, around chapter three, that I was going to have a ton of writing to do if I wanted to adequately address his flimsy and largely unfounded arguments. I haven’t been taking as many notes since, because really, what’s the point? Here’s your reading supplemental: read The God Delusion first, and What’s So Great About Christianity? will seem absolutely absurd in comparison.

I may post my comments after each of the eight parts of the book, if there’s anything worth mentioning. Like I said in my original post about it, I’m trying to keep an open mind and give the other side their say, but it’s really hard to take any of I seriously. Nonetheless, I soldier on, reading inane crap so you don’t have to. I’ll keep you posted.

A bunch of things happened in the past few months that I never really got a chance to mention here. Let’s have us a quick recap, eh? (More or less in chronological order)

Atheist Alliance International Conference, in Crystal City So, a lot of atheists - the kind that would go to the conference, anyway - are WAY more involved than I am. I met a few group organizers and a number of people that are involved politically, and the crowd was generally older than I would have expected - I’d say that less than 10% were under 30 (granted, not a lot of 20-somethings have money to travel to DC for a conference). I’m really glad I went - it was enlightening, I learned a lot, heard some interesting opinions, and got some good argument points in a couple sessions. Well worth the money.

Matt Pond PA, at 930 Club I didn’t know any of their songs when we went, but Erin wanted to see them. It was a cool show, but really not the kind of band I would see by myself.

Street Dogs, opening for Tiger Army at Black Cat One of the best punk shows I’ve been to. Honestly, even better than expected. I think my favorite part was when they started playing Fatty and all the big fellas pushed their way up front. We didn’t stick around for Tiger Army.

Gogol Bordello, at Sonar in Baltimore Gogol never disappoints. Fun as always.

Against Me!, at 930 Club The songs from their new album, New Wave, went over better than I figured they would. I really like most of them, but they’re not really the kind you would dance and sing to at a concert, I thought. We hung out near the back and I just sang my little heart out - I’m gettin too old to keep getting punched in the chest in the pit, so I didn’t even both jumping in for this one. Sometimes, it’s nice to just stand back and enjoy the band.