The alleged problem with “Me too!” comments

One of our earlier posts concerned the efforts of evangelicals to relegate early hominid fossils to the back room of Kenya’s National Museum.   That post recently drew this comment from James Davenock:

It seems that many here could simply replace the name Sam Harris, with Jesus, Newton or Sullivan in their writings. Many keep quoting others in an attempt to get their point across rather than just trying to get their point across. You could say “Dave, I admire Jesus’ viewpoints” or “Dave, I admire Sam Harris’ viewpoints” or “Dave, I admire Newton’s viewpoints”. . .

 The difference between Science and Religion is Science has a process by which to prove its ideas while Religion does not and requires you to simply accept or excommunicate. I have found the same smugness in both religious and science types and that is a bit disquieting.

The wise man first says “I do not know”

I started responding to James Davenock’s comment at the location of that earlier post, but it grew long enough to justify posting at this separate location.

Davenock raises a good point.  I suspect that there are many non-believers out there (all of us, some of the time), who “hero-worship” people like Richard Dawkins just like many theists hero-worship James Dobson or Jesus. You can quickly spot these folks by their writings, which essentially amount to “Way to go, Charles [Darwin]!”  Or “Way to go, Jesus!”  This lack of thoughtful content is no more informative than the rote prayers …

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Whatever Became of Thorium?

And why should we care about this material rarely mentioned outside of science-fiction? Well, it involves recycling, our energy future, and a chance to de-proliferate nuclear weaponry and reduce the threat of "dirty" bombs. First, a brief bit of history: Back in the 1930's, it was discovered that isotopes of…

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Shopping for Sex: wasteful consumerism and Darwin’s theory of sexual selection

A few weeks ago I ate dinner with friends.  One of the friends mentioned that, a few weeks earlier, he had attended a party in an upscale neighborhood.  At that party, one of the guests announced that she had brought her own bottle of wine because the host’s expensive wine wasn’t good enough. From my end of the table, I blurted out that it is not necessary to have expensive wine to have a meaningful gathering with friends or family.  In fact, I added, “wine is not necessary at all.”  I was about to elaborate when I noticed that the other adults at the table were staring at me like I had three eyes.  “That’s not correct,” they told me, almost in unison. I know that “look” well. I have received that same “look” from various people on other occasions. On one occasion I got “the look” from someone who was trying to justify that an ordinary car wasn’t sufficient, so he needed to buy a BMW.  Another person who gave me “the look” was trying to convince me that her $75,000 kitchen remodeling was “necessary,” even though all of the appliances in her existing kitchen functioned perfectly.  The problem with her current kitchen was that it was “old.” I have also received that same look from fundamentalists when I explain that the earth is billions of years old.  The “look” is a “we-will-pretend-you-didn’t-say-that” look.  It shouldn’t surprise me to draw the same “look” from both consumers and Believers, given that wasteful and pretentious spending is the de facto national religion of the United States.  We’ve moralized extravagant spending to such an extent that “living the good life” means buying lots of things we don’t really need.

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Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan discuss whether religion is “built upon lies.”

Beliefnet is currently hosting an on-going discussion involving atheist Sam Harris and pro-religion blogger Andrew Sullivan.  The topics of the discussion are God, faith, and fundamentalism.  These are two excellent writers who are doing a terrific job of testing each others’ positions.  Well worth a visit.

Here’s a sampling of Harris:

Please consider how differently we treat scientific texts and discoveries, no matter how profound: Isaac Newton spent the period between the summer of 1665 and the spring of 1667 working in isolation . . .When he emerged from his solitude, he had invented the differential and integral calculus, established the field of optics, and discovered the laws of motion and universal gravitation. Many scientists consider this to be the most awe-inspiring display of human intelligence in the history of human intelligence. Over three hundred years have passed, and one still has to be exceptionally well-educated to fully appreciate the depth and beauty of Newton’s achievement. But no one doubts that Newton’s work was the product of merely human effort, conceived and accomplished by a mortal—and a very unpleasant mortal at that. And yet, literally billions of our neighbors deem the contents of the Bible and the Qur’an to be so profound as to rule out the possibility of terrestrial authorship. Given the breadth and depth of human achievement, this seems an almost miraculous misappropriation of awe. It took two centuries of continuous ingenuity to substantially improve upon Newton’s work. How difficult would it be to improve the Bible? It

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