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Phil Plait "Don't be a dick" at TAM 8 & religion

cj.23

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cj.23
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I was just listening to Phil Plait's thoughtful, intelligent and useful TAM 8 talk. I want to address it properly, but I was interested in a number of issues that arose.

Firstly, the "JREF is anot an atheist organisation" as Randi always said. Plait's ( i don't want to call him Phil as i don't know him!) talk raised a lot of very interesting issues, but one thing that repeatedly struck me was his assumptions --

1 Scepticism == Science. Well the scientific method and sceptical method are for all purposes equivalent, but not all sceptics are scientists, though I think you could say all scientists are sceptics.

2. Scepticism == Atheism. Obviously I have a far stronger problems with that. Scepticism = Agnosticsm, yeah sure, that I could see. However Plait assumes that all sceptics are atheists;and this is of course demosntrably untrue, one much invoked example being Martin Gardner.

I wondered if this had been discussed elsewhere? I can't find where we discuss JREF videos these days?

cj x
 
cj.23 said:
2. Scepticism == Atheism. Obviously I have a far stronger problems with that. Scepticism = Agnosticsm, yeah sure, that I could see. However Plait assumes that all sceptics are atheists;and this is of course demosntrably untrue, one much invoked example being Martin Gardner.
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I'll need to listen to it again (I was at TAM8), but if he said that, I don't think he meant it, given that he was introduced by someone who is not an atheist.
 
The more important point that should be noted are derisive the tactics used by skeptics when interacting with believers. I've noted many times everyday actually the uncalled for snarkiness by many posters replying.
As Phil noted there are many more of them then there are of us and if your goal is to persuade them they are wrong calling someone stupid will not work in our favor.
 
Steve001 said:
The more important point that should be noted are derisive the tactics used by skeptics when interacting with believers. I've noted many times everyday actually the uncalled for snarkiness by many posters replying.
As Phil noted there are many more of them then there are of us and if your goal is to persuade them they are wrong calling someone stupid will not work in our favor.
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I don't think I have encountered much snarkiness in my endless discussions of woo and religion (peaking as an Arch-woo: I have had a few lively debates, and met some people who seemed a bit excitable, but that's it. I have been called ridiculous, and been told my posts are garbage - but for all I know they might be, and i often am ridicolous. :)

I am not worried about making converts to my ways of thinking - but I do note that "believers" like me are often deeply blinkerd and offensive about sceptics, and far from frid to make horrible generalisations and rude comments. Don't beat yourselves up over the odd bit of snarkiness - it is sometimes clled for in ths life! I appreciate Phil's point though, as i hope my OP makes clear.

cj x
 
I don't buy it.

When it comes to religion, the #1 flaw of atheists is that they are atheists. Whatever is #2 is far behind, and basically a red herring.

For those people (the believers who whine about uppity atheists), the most offensive thing that they hear atheists say is, "I don't believe in God."

There's really no way around that.
 
I don't think skepticism and a given religious stance are the same thing.

People enter skepticism from all points of life. Some may enter while they are atheists. Some may enter while they are fundamentalist Hindus. And they shouldn't be made to feel unwelcome because of that. The important thing, is that no matter what current bucket of beliefs and facts they come in with, they come in, and have a great chance to hone their critical thinking skills.
 
cj.23 said:
I think you could say all scientists are sceptics.
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Then you're wrong. There are scientists who fall into all sorts of wooish beliefs.
cj.23 said:
Scepticism = Agnosticsm, yeah sure, that I could see.
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Not true because scepticism isn't a boolean thing.
Sceptisicm is a method of analyzing issues and comming to a result.

A person can use proper sceptisim in one field and completely disregard it in another.

Example: Person A sees no evidence for the existence of god and thus ignores it until evidence will be produced. However, he does believe in UFOs because one day he saw some lights in the sky he couldn't explain.

The person is being skeptic of the god claim but goes for appeal to ignorance on the UFO.

pgwenthold said:
I don't buy it.
For those people (the believers who whine about uppity atheists), the most offensive thing that they hear atheists say is, "I don't believe in God."

There's really no way around that.
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Actually I disagree. There is a variation in what they think is the most offensive. Appearntly, many of them don't mind being called stupid, ignorant or whatever. But just tell them they decended from apes...
 
I love Phil Plait's message about civility. I frequently see my fellow skeptics indulging in rude or contemptuous language directed at believers. It is off putting and detracts from the issues, so I feel this is a message that needs to be considered by many in the community. Joe Nickel is another person that is worth listening to on this subject.

As to the question of skepticism equating to athieism, here is a recent post I made in another forum that touches on the subject:

To me, skepticism is a search for clarity and understanding using critical thought and the scientific method. The goal is to be as close to the actual truth as is possible when it comes to the observable world.

Religion, on the other hand, is based on faith in a set of precepts. While portions of almost any religion will deal with natural, testable specifics, such as historical events or special powers, the parts that really make it a religion are metaphysical in nature and thus cannot be tested, falsified or proven true using critical thought or the scientific method. In it's most basic sense, religious belief in a deity falls outside the scope of critical thought and science.

Based on that, I see no problem with a skeptic believing in a diety. Belief in a diety is a purely personal decision that has to be made on personal judgement alone. Any answer is about as valid as the next, because none can be falsified. I know that many scientists do hold religious beliefs. Being skeptical or scientifically minded does not automatically exclude the possibility of having faith or belief in a metaphysical concept. I see no problem with a person employing critical thinking skills in various aspects of their life, but also choosing to believe in metaphysical concepts for whatever reason. It would only be intelectually flawed if they claimed that their metaphysical belief was some how proven true by science or critical thought. Likewise, anyone claiming to be able to falsify a religion's metaphysical precepts using science is also quite wrong.

This is why being a skeptic and an atheist are two entirly different things to me. Although there is a good bit of cross-over in the two demographics, intelectually, they are as different as a rosary & a test tube.

There is nothing wrong with having a little faith if it makes you a happier person. There are days when I wish I had some myself.

Regards, Canis
 
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caniswalensis said:
I love Phil Plait's message about civility. I frequently see my fellow skeptics indulging in rude or contemptuous language directed at believers. It is off putting and detracts from the issues, s
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No it doesn't.

Believers just use it as an excuse to run. I don't see any indications that playing nicey nicey has been effective overall.

As I said, it doesn't matter whether you are nice or rude, the most offensive part of non-believers is the fact they exist.
 
pgwenthold said:
No it doesn't.

Believers just use it as an excuse to run. I don't see any indications that playing nicey nicey has been effective overall.

As I said, it doesn't matter whether you are nice or rude, the most offensive part of non-believers is the fact they exist.
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Well you are making me thinnk about this issue. :)

I have a couple questions for you.

Would you say that being rude helps when speaking to others? In what way might it help?

Have you never experienced rudeness at the hands of others? Did it have no effect on you at all?

I find your stance facinating. It is in direct contradiction to some of my personal experience. I have many friends that are believers in woo, and they are not offended that I do not share their beliefs any more that i am offended that they have them.

I guess we are speaking in generalities here though. I suspect there are individual people to which rudeness would not be problem, but most people I have talked to are put off by it, and shut dow their ears when treated in a rude or belittling manner.

Regards, Canis
 
caniswalensis said:
Well you are making me thinnk about this issue. :)

I have a couple questions for you.

Would you say that being rude helps when speaking to others? In what way might it help?
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Define "rude."

This is probably the biggest problem. For many people, apparently, simple disagreement with them is considered rude. I have been in places where correcting someone's factual error was construed as a "personal attack." When I was on jury duty, one of the questions I got was, would the fact that the opposing lawyer went to a rival school influence my judgment. The opposing lawyer, meantime, in his questioning, responded by saying that since the other lawyer used a personal attack, he had to respond. That "personal attack" was a question of whether a juror's opinion would be influenced by the lawyer's school!

So the biggest problem is that there is a huge range of views of what is considered "rude," and I have to say that most of the time, what people call rude, I call "blunt."

If I disagree with someone, I will say straight out that I disagree with them. I won't waste a lot of time fluffing it all up so that it doesn't hurt as much. Is that being rude?

"Not being sufficiently flattering in contradiction" is not the same thing as being rude.
 
As the famous movie we all know and love says:
"aw, being a dick ain't so bad. You see there are three kinds of people..."

Athiesm is a religion. Plait is a preacher. Am I wrong?

Should not we be skeptical of athiesm as well?
 
pgwenthold said:
When it comes to religion, the #1 flaw of atheists is that they are atheists. Whatever is #2 is far behind, and basically a red herring.

For those people (the believers who whine about uppity atheists), the most offensive thing that they hear atheists say is, "I don't believe in God."
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I've encountered several who don't seem to understand that atheism simply means not believing in a god. They strongly believe that there is a god so seem to assume that atheists must strongly believe that there isn't. I don't think it is necessarily a matter of deliberately creating the strawman - it just reflects their own beliefs.

Alternatively, some seem to assume that strong belief in something else must have replaced the 'natural' belief in a god. I've even seen Darwin referred to as "your God".

And then, of course, there are theists who just can't believe that anyone could not believe in a god, so assume that atheists must "hate God" or "hate the Bible" (one of whom also claimed to treat the Bible "just like any other book").

When these sort of motivations are assumed, it can be quite difficult to engage the people assuming them without saying something that they consider offensive.
 
Mojo said:
When these sort of motivations are assumed, it can be quite difficult to engage the people assuming them without saying something that they consider offensive.
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I agree. I strongly agreed with Dr. Plait's talk (hey, it's even quoted in my sig), but I don't think that "Don't be a dick" means never saying anything that might offend anyone. As you point out, that's pretty much impossible.

But I do see a lot of what I consider to be unnecessary rudeness on some of these threads, and I think that that just reinforces the stereotype of skeptics as arrogant, unpleasant, closed-minded people. And that, in turn, makes a lot of people want us to be wrong.
 
Mojo said:
How about "all scientists should be skeptics"?
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I think I mean "the process of doing science is a sceptical process". :) The people who do it may or may not apply it in other areas.

cj x
 
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