Example of a rotten atheist · 1:33am Jan 4th, 2015
Often, religious folk are in the news for pushing stereotypes of atheists. That is certainly wrong and horrible to do.
But I have found something that is the opposite. Sam Harris, one of the 'Four Horsemen of new atheism', goes after Francis Collins who is the director of the National Institutes of Health, for the sole reason of being a Christian. As if someone cannot be Christian and be an accomplished scientist.
To say that is not possible is just as stupid as saying you can't be an atheist and be moral.
Sam Harris, you're a smart guy, but being an atheist doesn't mean a damn thing about an individuals intelligence. All this thing by you shows is that for all that you and some other atheists go on about how atheists are more logical, you showed an extreme lack of logic in saying that.
Here is the link to that event.
Well, technically, though one person can easily be an accomplished scientist and a religious person at the same time, that doesn't mean that, strictly speaking, a scientist must not set aside all of his religious beliefs while, for the lack of a better term, doing sciencey stuff. I mean, it's very important to not inject anything from the side into your science. I would say that while they work, every good scientist should be at least a temporary atheist, or pretend to be so. So that these sides of a person never mix, because while religion can probably stand a dose of science in it, science can't really take even a little drop of religion before it stops being true science.
Also, having listened to that bit of recording provided there, I didn't really see Sam "bashing" or "going after" Francis Collins. In fact, he was perfectly reasonable and civil. First thing he does is admit that he is an accomplished scientist with many contributions to science. What he seems to say about Francis mainly, though, is that him being a well-known christian scientist is a problem because it gives more credence to religion than Sam believes it deserves. Because from his position, belief in some of the more fantastic things is kind of ridiculous, and for every true scientist who is also religious, more people will do the authority thing and go "well, that smart guy says he's religious, so I don't have to question anything". While Sam believes that religion should be questioned a lot, to unveil the inconsistensies and such, and potentially prevent people from having harmful convictions. He also says that science and religion do come at odds at points, which sometimes requires religious folk to change their intepretation or whatever, for everything to fit with the new scientific facts. Kinda like how less and less of the bible is being taken literally and more of it is described as allegory with humanity's notable scientific advances. And the fact that they do sometimes come at odds (which they do usually until religion says "oh fine, jeez" and twists around to fit with science better) only means that people who profess to be religious and are scientifically literate might have had to make some compromises in order to fit both sides into one mindset, and that is an occurence that should be scrutinized because one way or another, it does slightly undermine religion a bit. Just by the sole fact that someone can decide what and how he wants to believe in order to better suit him, which is shady.
So all in all, I don't see any "rotten atheists" here, just a bit of common religious overreaction, both from the website you linked (that unironically calls what Sam says "slamming", which is just silly) and you. No offense.
2698936 First, about religion twisting in the face of science, that isn't always the case. About Genesis for instance. The bits about it being taken literal is not the original way. That is the new way, the allegorical thing is the traditional way. Atheists like Sam Harris believe it must be taken literally far more often than folk like Doctor Collins does. The way he, myself, and many other authors take it, is the way it was read thousands of years ago. The way that Harris, Dawkins, and other new atheists along with religious fundamentalists put it is the new way. The new atheists and religious fundamentalists have a lot in common in thinking that the text must either be literal, or a total lie. Simple scholarship shows that isn't the case.
Also, Collins has never, ever, injected his faith into his science, nor has he compromised his faith, or his scientific research. Science for myself, Doctor Collins, the folks at the Biologos organization, and others find science to enrich their faith, not lessen it. Their is no reason, at all, for someone like Collins appointment to be treated with suspicion or worry. At all. He is a good scientist, has excellent credentials, and led the human genome project. If he was an atheist Harris wouldn't give a damn about it, and that's the issue I have.
2698967 Well, does it say anywhere in any holy text which parts are literal and which are allegory? Hasn't it always been determined pretty much by the followers, quite often on an individual basis? I have no idea if you're correct about the texts being read non-literally originally, but I'll trust you on this because I don't really care one way or another. Even you say that "it isn't always the case", meaning sometimes it actually is the case after all, right? That's good enough for me.
Second, I didn't really notice Sam Harris putting any doubt on Francis' worth as a scientist or a doctor. He didn't say that being religious in any way undermines his scientific achievements. On the contrary, Sam seems to feel that being such an accomplished scientist should undermine his faith a bit. For an atheist such a view is entirely reasonable, because, taking myself for example, while I can sympathize a bit with a religious person and education on the matters of science only deepening his faith, I do, under all that, perhaps subconsciously, believe that when this happens, it's still a result of some tiny error of judgement somewhere deep in a person's worldview. But I don't hold such a thing against anyone, who doesn't have errors of judgement after all?
So from what I understand, Sam doesn't question Francis' intelligence because of him being religious, he's saying that him being 100% authentically religious should be questioned because he's a great scientist. For reasons that I mentioned before (the odds and all that), however unfounded they might be in reality. The thing that Sam believes that you could actually take an issue with IMO is that science should've inevidably lessened Francis' faith a tad, which as you say often doesn't happen. And of course there's the personal agenda of not loving the existense of people who provide extra credence to religion by being smart because in the end it does work against what he wishes for the future of humanity, I assume. So all in all, I think you have this a bit in reverse. Not "religious? can't be a scientist" but "a scientist? I wonder how religious he truly is" or something like that. Of course, there's still this implication you could maybe stretch out of this about insinuating something about people's intelligence but I believe he only thinks of the odds between religion and science that he believes exist.
2699005 You're missing my point. He wouldn't care, wouldn't voice concerns, wouldn't say a thing if he was an atheist. If Collins was an atheist Harris would be happy about his appointment because with science, everything he (and nearly every other Christian scientist) has done is fine and scientifically valid. Harris has a problem with religion.
He has repeatedly, along with fellow new atheist Richard Dawkins, made comments about religion and religious people while they've never studied theology. Harris has said that some beliefs are so dangerous that it would be ethical to kill people for believing them.
Dawkins has commented about religion without once ever studying it and thinking that while he's got a great mind for science, that makes him a good commenter on religion. Guess what? It doesn't.
Almost all new atheist folk like them fall into the same category. They may be good scientists, but don't know ANYTHING about theology.
The one and only well known modern atheist I think as a good commenter on the subject is Bart Erhman. While I of course disagree with him, he has studied theology greatly, and is a brilliant scholar in the area. And, unlike the others mentioned above, he doesn't talk down to religious people.
Now, imagine this. Say an atheist, who has never pushed atheism (like Collins doesn't push Christianity) was put in charge of a nation wide charity. He or she has great, flawless credentials. But, religious folk then start saying similar things about the individual, leveling equally baseless, ridiculous accusations and worries at the candidate. Would you think it would be fine for them to do that?
2699062 I don't think I'm missing your point. It's blatantly obvious that Sam would not have said anything about Francis in that little speech if Francis was an atheist. But you put it as if it's something that I have to admit or something. I think it's you who's missing the point. Sam brought up Francis precisely because he's a religious person. His entire point required an example of someone who he freely admitted to be a very accomplished scientist who was also religious. He doesn't, repeat after me, does not have any problem with "his appointment". He did not question his merit as a scientist because he was religious. You're having an issue with something that didn't even happen in this case. Sure, it happens other times, but in this particular case Sam did NOT imply that Francis can't be a truly great scientist because of his beliefs. Of course Sam has a problem with religion. That is also blatantly obvious from the start and shouldn't come as any sort of revelation. I mean, I have a problem with religion, broadly speaking, and you haven't yet started calling me rotten. And I'm sorry if I'm being tedious, but I'm tired of even the most good-natured religious people being so sensitive that any occurence of negativity about religion makes them construct strawman atheists with their strawman claims.
To fix your mirrored example, what would've had to happen was... say, a non-outspoken atheist does a charity. The religious folk would have to start saying "His charity is so great and he's doing a truly good job, can he really be an atheist?" and not, like you seem to imply, "He's an atheist, there's obviously something wrong with his charity or his handling of it". These are different viewpoints. Specifically, former puts no doubt on the fact that said atheist is a good man doing a good job. Just as Sam isn't putting doubt on the fact that Francis is a good scientist.
Now, from what I'm getting out of this, you still believe that Sam is making a flipside analogue of the latter argument. Which would be unfair to Francis and generally bad. While actually, he's saying his version of the first thing, which is honestly pretty benign all things considered. I certaily would only be, at worst, mildly amused by religious folk making that argument ("how adorable, they think that if the person's good, he must be secretly religious"). Clear this up for me please, do you actually honestly still think that Sam has problems with Francis' credentials and abilities as a scientist, based on his problems with religion? Because I believe I've explained it about as good as it can be explained that he doesn't, but from your replies I feel that you still think that. One final time: he does NOT imply that religious people are less intelligent or less capable of being scientists. He does, however, imply that a great scientist's faith should (with time) come to differ from the faith of someone who doesn't question anything, i.e. the majority. Which is his personal opinion and not harmful or offensive in any way.
Also, a personal addition, and I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, but I don't take theology and people saying "but he hasn't studied theology" seriously. Why? Because at the end of the day, the only TRUE and CONCRETE source is a holy text. The way people choose to understand and interpret it comes only from the people themselves. Therefore, to me, it's like saying "but this person hasn't familiarized himself with all of our excuses and bullshit that we've been able to weave out of thin air throughout the ages". Obviously religion would like equality with science in this matter but it simply can't be. Because in science, everything is based on observable facts or perfect logic, and you DO need to know the things you choose to dismiss because they aren't arbitrary. While theology can't possibly be anything more than philosophy with a mission, simply because the source of all information in a religion is pre-set and unchanging and all it does is annotations and explanations which can't be proven. At least that's my understanding of it, please correct me if theology does in fact take any other source as basis of an equal power to the holy text.