Smug Atheists?

This is the script for my two minute broadcast on BBC Radio Humberside on Friday 12th November 2010:

Good Morning. The American comedian Stephen Colbert recently defined Atheism as the religion devoted to the worship of one's own smug sense of superiority. Well, I hope that isn’t the impression I have given in my two minute tuppence worth every morning this week. The truth is that whatever your creed or belief, actually living up to a vision of what life should be about is easier said than done. We can’t all be Albert Einsteins and for most of us, just getting by, managing to hold on to our jobs and homes and families is an achievement in itself. The distinguished Humanist Richard Dawkins wrote in his book “Unweaving the Rainbow”, “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness that are here”. Viewed from this perspective, we are all lottery winners in being born at all. A Human life, with all its trials and tribulations is still worth living and we have but a short time to grasp an understanding and appreciation of this place in which we fleetingly find ourselves. It is an opportunity, an adventure that might never have been and the contemplation of this truth can surely be the basis for an exuberant and life affirming sense of self-worth.

Forever Jung

In one of my earlier blog posts (Jan 2009) I talked about my sudden fascination with Myers Briggs Personality Tests (MBTI) and how this would probably be a characteristically short lived fad for me. Well in this case, my interest in Jungian Type Theory has not been short lived and over the past year I have grown to be a fully fledged MBTI bore, expanding my collection of books which now include Jung for Beginners, The Essential Jung, The Undiscovered Self by Carl Gustav Jung, Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs Myers, Please Understand Me II by David Kiersey (who developed the Kiersey Temperament Sorter), Type Talk: The 16 Personality Types and the latest addition to my library, Personality Type: An Owner’s Manual by Lenore Thomson, a former editor of the Jungian journal Quadrant and in my opinion the best book on personality type that I have read. Some of my fellow Humanists will be sceptical about Jungian psychology. Richard Dawkins has been scathing about Jung’s questionable pseudoscientific ideas, claiming in the God Delusion that Jung believed that books would spontaneously fly off his bookshelf. I gave an impromptu talk about the New Atheists on Monday in York when a planned presentation of YouTube comedy clips was scuppered by a dodgy internet connection. I put up a slide showing Dawkins’ 7 point scale of belief, with 7 being someone who is certain that there is no God and 1 being someone who knows that there is. Dawkins gave Carl Jung as an example of this type 1 certainty about God, quoting an interview given shortly before Jung’s death in with he said “I don’t need to believe in God, I know”. I am sceptical that Jung was claiming to believe in the God of traditional theism but that is a moot point. I think Jung was a more insightful thinker than Dawkins gives credit for. He may have had questionable beliefs in astrology and synchronicity but his ideas about personality type seem to ring true to me. Or maybe I am still a sucker for psychobabble.

At the time of my last blog post on MBTI I consistently tested as INTJ – the Mastermind, to use Kiersey’s terminology. I have since become convinced that I correspond much more readily with the INTP personality type – the Architect.

Good Morning Humberside

I have been invited back on to the BBC Radio Humberside equivalent of the BBC Radio Four Thought for the Day, on Andy Comfort’s breakfast show which is a 2 minute slot called Pause for Thought at a quarter to eight each morning (for a week in April). Yes, I know, I have a face for Radio. I am the first Humanist to be involved with this in our region, though other local stations have Humanists doing the same. Hopefully I will be the first of many. I did the week before Christmas – which was a bit of a surprise and took the opportunity to refute the old chestnut about atheists trying to ban Christmas. I pre-recorded all five sessions the week before, the day after our office Christmas party and was feeling a bit hung-over. Hopefully that didn’t come across in the recording. A friend suggested that I was a bit didactic, but being a bit platitudinous goes with the territory. It’s hard to sound natural when you are reading from a script but at least you can re-record if you mess up, which is not an option if you are going out live. A work colleague suggested I try a more light hearted approach, but that’s not really me. I am quite a serious person when it comes to my Humanist beliefs and I want to at least try to say something pensive without sounding as if I am stood in a pulpit. The British Humanist Association has been running a long campaign to have Humanists included in the rota of speakers on the national Thought for the Day slot on Radio Four. They allowed Richard Dawkins and Ariane Sherine (of Atheist Bus Campaign fame, above) to do a one off each but they have yet to agree to regular Humanist speakers. I had the pleasure of meeting the glamorous and intelligent Ariane Sherine the same day my first broadcast went out as she was giving a very funny talk at the North Yorkshire Humanist Group in York, which was excellent. I explained to Ariane that I was so impressed by her Thought for the day that I typed out what she had said and tried to pass it off as my own work to my wife, who proceeded to tell me that I had definitely not written it “... because you’ve got no feelings”. A bit harsh I thought. What I eventually came up with owed more to the popular Humanist philosopher A.C. Grayling. I now have to come up with another five ideas, any suggestions anyone?

Suspension of Disbelief

This Christmas saw the last episode of the classic BBC children’s Sci-Fi drama Dr Who to feature the actor David Tennant in the lead role. Tennant has proved to be one of the most popular of the eleven actors to play the role. It might feel awkward for some adults to admit to liking this long running and immensely popular show, mainly because of an association between science fiction and nerdy socially inadequate adolescent boys. I’m sure the cap fitted in my case and I was always interested in Science Fiction as a child. I used to read Isaac Asimov, who wrote The Foundation Trilogy. Asimov’s books The Bicentennial Man and I Robot were later made into movies and the eagerly awaited Foundation movie is currently being made. I also enjoyed watching the original series of Star Trek on a Saturday morning, another indicator of developing geekishness. At the time I was unaware of the close link between Science Fiction and the Humanist beliefs I adopted later in life. Isaac Asimov was a former president of the American Humanist Association, as was the science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut and more influentially Gene Rodenberry who was the creator of Star Trek - remember that there were no priests and no God on board the Enterprise in the far future! In fact the vision of the future presented in the Star Trek universe, a United Federation of Planets (with a logo almost identical to that of the United Nations) and a racially and culturally diverse humanity working together to explore space probably did a lot to lodge Humanist ideas in the developing minds of children everywhere, though they were almost certainly unaware of the word Humanist. The idea of a perfected logical and rational Spock, devoid of emotion clouding his judgement seems a bit naïve but Star Trek was way ahead of its time. On this side of the pond, the development of Dr Who was influenced by Douglas Adams who was a Humanist and an early writer on the series, also a close friend of Richard Dawkins who’s wife, Lalla Ward was one of the Doctors companions during the Tom Baker years. Dawkins even appeared in Dr Who himself in a recent episode. Arthur C. Clarke, writer of 2001 A Space Odyssey was another writer who was closely associated with the Humanist movement.
Whilst sat enjoying the Christmas episode of Dr Who, it’s hard not to start thinking of the absurdities of the Dr Who narrative, especially about the paradoxes of time travel, but enjoying science fiction is all about suspension of disbelief. I think that this enjoyment of magical thinking is healthy. The narratives associated with traditional religious beliefs are every bit as absurd as a Dr Who plot line. They only really become worthy of ridicule when someone chooses to take religious stories as corresponding to historical reality.

April Fools

I had a few problems logging on to my laptop at work this morning because a mischievous elf had selotaped the pins on my network cable. All good fun but I didn’t see any of the usual April Fools Day news items on TV or the web today and this didn’t really surprise me in these serious and sombre times.
Recent stories about failed bankers paying themselves bonuses “because otherwise we won’t retain the best people” could be taken as April Fool cons for the gullible but sadly, this is the real world. Richard Dawkins was reported in the Telegraph this morning as calling a certain aging pontiff "either stupid, ignorant or dim" because of recent claims about condoms not preventing the spread of aids in Africa. A gleeful Dawkins was quick to point out on his website that he would never say anything so repetitive and that his exact words were “stupid, ignorant or wicked”. Perhaps he should tone down his abuse and stick to “foolish” or he might get a reputation for being aggressive and strident.

Dennett, Dawkins and Itchy Ghosts

I am on the train home from three days of lectures and hiking around museums in the capital, beginning with the superlative lecture given by Daniel Dennett at Conway Hall, home of the South Place Ethical Society in Red Lion Square, titled A Darwinian Perspective on Religions: Past, Present and Future, part of the Darwin 200 series of events put on by the British Humanist Association. I think that it was one of the two most enjoyable lectures that I have ever attended, the other being the lecture given by Richard Dawkins with his wife Lalla Ward in Leeds as part of his 1998 book tour to promote Unweaving the Rainbow. I have met at least one other Humanist who attended the 1998 lecture and for whom the talk spurred them on to be involved in organised Humanism as it did me. Dawkins was chairing the meeting on Thursday evening which was the icing on the cake. Other favoured luminaries such as Susan Blackmore (author of the Meme Machine and A Very Short Introduction to Consciousness) were conspicuous attendees (who could miss that hair?). Dennett was mesmerising and the gravitas of his delivery will probably go with me to the grave as a memorable day, one which might not have come to pass as Dennett almost died in November 2006, surviving a major heart bypass operation. This near death experience did not prompt a religious conversion - quite the opposite.
I visited the Natural History Museum on Friday to see the Darwin Exhibition. I also intended to visit Darwin’s memorial in Westminster Abbey but the last admission was at 15:30 and I missed the opportunity. Probably just as well - the entrance fee was £12 - to visit a church!
On Saturday was the second Centre for Inquiry UK event organised by it’s provost, the philosopher Stephen Law, titled God in the Lab. The morning session with Emma Cohen (do ghosts get itchy?) and Michael Jackson (not that one) was particularly good, exploring experiments to investigate religious experience. I thought that Miguel Farias’ experiments on religious belief and analgesia seemed flawed, as did several of the audience members, but hey, I’m not the PhD educated Oxford scientist.

Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

Thanks to the editors of the excellent Butterflies and Wheels website (see side panel) which featured my Monday morning blog entry titled Thought for the Day for Everyone. I didn’t realise I had been exposed to the worlds fighters of fashionable nonsense until I looked at the viewing statistics for my blog site which had suddenly increased from the usual dozen to over 600 in a couple of days. It’s nice to know someone thinks that what I have to say is worth reading, or perhaps it was a slow news day.
The Butterflies and Wheels website takes its name from a quotation from the Richard Dawkins hating philosopher Mary Midgley who wrote:

Up till now, I have not attended to Dawkins, thinking it unnecessary to break a butterfly upon a wheel.

I have found that this patronising and dismissive tone is often adopted by the philosophically and theologically trained when contemplating the good professor who has recently retired. I have read Midgley’s Science as Salvation. She thinks that people like Dawkins are guilty of scientism, turning evolution in to a quasi-religious ideology. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Dawkins is no butterfly and was voted the top public intellectual in the UK by the readers of Prospect Magazine in 2005. Though he is an ethologist and evolutionary biologist, he is sometimes referred to as "the philosopher" by his friend the philosopher Daniel Dennett. I think it is just the case that some people who are trained in philosophy or theology don’t like people with a background in science encroaching on their turf.

Photo by Fir002, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australian_painted_lady_feeding.jpg

Origin of Species

Next week is Darwin Day which commemorates the birth of the Victorian scientist Charles Darwin. This year is a significant anniversary because it is 200 years since the birth of Darwin and 150 years since the publication of his seminal work, On the Origin of Species, which I am reading for the first time to mark the occasion. There has been a raft of TV documentaries about Darwin and Evolution, including Richard Dawkins’ The Genius of Charles Darwin which was shown before Christmas and more recently David Attenborough’s Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life which was shown on Sunday. Darwin was born in Shropshire and was an alumni of my old alma mater, Edinburgh University, where the Biology building is named after him. Another Edinburgh alumni was David Hume who had demolished the “argument from design” using logic a century earlier, but it was Darwin who hammered home the final nail in the coffin of natural theology. Richard Dawkins said in his book, the Blind Watchmaker:

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

Having said all of that, it was whilst studying at Edinburgh that I first encountered Christian fundamentalism. I remember attending a lecture on evolution in the Zoology building (not related to my course) and was amazed by all of the young earth creationists who were studying science. Some of them were a lot more intelligent than me, but the truth is that it is difficult to break free from ideas strongly and repeatedly presented to you as a child by intelligent adults, no matter how barmy. These people arrive at university in an impregnable cocoon of circular reasoning. This is why it is important to reverse the early conditioning by strongly and repeatedly pushing the mantra of the enlightenment scientific world view.

All aboard!

This week sees the launch of the most extensive Humanist advertising campaign in our history. Polly Toynbee and Richard Dawkins, respectively president and vice-president of the British Humanist Association, are pictured above with Ariane Sherine who came up with the idea. The advertising campaign is country wide with some posters appearing on buses in York today. A friend from the North Yorkshire Humanist Group was interviewed by the local press this morning about the atheist bus campaign - his comments can be read here: http://www.thepress.co.uk/news/4035013.Controversial_campaign_launched_on_side_of_York_buses/

The posters say “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. When the fundraising campaign for the adverts started last year, some of my humanist friends were completely against the adverts, calling them anti-human and suggesting that the slogan merely reinforces precisely the religious presumption that people who don’t believe in God have no morality and are only interested in enjoying themselves. I don’t think that is a fair assessment. To some extent all publicity is good and this is easily the most successful Humanist marketing campaign in the BHA's entire 50 year history. The slogan does not suggest, to me at least, that "if God does not exist, everything is permitted" to use a phrase attributed to Dostoevsky in the Brothers Karamazov - though I have reason to doubt that he ever wrote it (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/cortesi1.html).

I suppose Robert Ingersoll's famous remark that "Happiness is the only good" is also open to being misinterpreted, though this has graced BHA promotional material for a long time. We live in a media, sound bite age and in my opinion, the slogan is a stroke of genius, attracting £140,000 in donations to date (see http://www.justgiving.com/atheistbus). I hope that people will look at the web site links that accompany the slogans.