Overheard
@ GAC 2012
Here is a summary of some key points made
at some GAC conference sessions. These are intentionally presented without
comment to help give a feel for the content of key talks.
Many of the sessions revolved around scientific
issues (creationism and cosmology) and political ones (especially education and
church-state separation), along with some sessions on topics such as ethics and
death.
PETER
SINGER: Reason
and ethics. (Singer is an Australian born ethicist who teaches at Princeton
and Melbourne unis.)
Optimism about human ethical progress in
recent decades. For example a decline in deaths by human violence and an
absence of wars between major powers since 1945.
Singer attributes this to the rise of the
civil government that restrains and to Enlightenment with the rise of
questioning reason.
LESLIE
CANNOLD: Separating
church and state: a call to action (Cannold is an Australian writer and was
2011 Australian Humanist of the Year.)
She questions whether Australia really has
a separation of church and state as mandated by Section 116 of the federal
constitution. To support her case she cited such things as public funding of
Catholic Youth day; tax breaks for religious institutions, state-funded
chaplaincies in government schools and access for religious bodies to schools
for special religious education classes. Her conclusion is that Australia is a
‘soft-theocracy’ and she argued for activism against this.
DAN
BARKER: Life
driven purpose’ (Barker is co-President of the US Freedom from Religion
Foundation as was once a pastor.)
The same desire to know and teach the truth
that took him into ministry also took him out. Many other clergy are in the
same boat and hence bodies such as ‘the clergy project’ to help religious
workers discuss related issues and leave ministry.
Dan spoke of how a desire to glorify God is
to bow down before a slave master and of how atheism is a revolt against the
heavenly dictator. He portrays God as maintaining a torture chamber of great
horrors into which he sent his son so that others don’t need to enter it, if
only they will believe in him.
He stressed how life has no outside-driven
purpose and there are no outside-driven morals and said that this is the good
news of atheism. Why good news: because it leaves us at the centre of life and
free to find goodness within.
AC
GRAYLING: What
next for atheism? (Grayling is Master of the New College of the Humanities
and a Supernumery Fellow of St Anne’s College Oxford.)
Grayling spoke of how things are trending
well for atheism, especially among young people. However, care is needed for
theism has a track record of fighting back when threatened.
He identified three areas for continued
attention to foster the advance of atheism: (1) the metaphysical debate about
evidences, (2) the debate and campaign about secularism in public life and
especially in education, (3) fostering atheistic approaches to ethics and
life-affirming understandings of life.
LAWRENCE
KRAUSS: A
universe from nothing (A cosmologist at the Uni of Arizona).
Krauss addressed the question of why there
is something rather than nothing, commenting ‘it’s all an accident’. After
surveying the vast scope of the cosmos he concluded ‘… cosmology tells us that we are far more insignificant than we thought’
and that ‘we have this incredible conceit
to think that we are the peak of evolution’. As to those who differed from
his view, he categorised them as … morons
like Cardinal Pell.
After scanning through the evidence and
options, Krauss concludes that it is entirely possible that we have a steady
state universe that came from nothing. Hw do you live and find meaning in a
such a universe … well you just create your own meaning and enjoy your moment
in the sun.
AYAAN
HIRSI ALI: The
Arab protests of 2011: a secular spring or an Islamist winter (Ayaan is a
former Muslim and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in
Washington DC).
The Arab spring is more like a winter as
Islamist forces take power in the regimes that have changed governments.
Amidst this there are signs of hope through
the (small) secularist parties in many Arab states, the growing number of Arabs
who have discarded Islam and the rising use of social media. Western secular
liberals were asked why they haven’t been more involved in helping in this
situation, especially in contrast to the role of conservative Christians in
defending the rights of Muslim women.
Some of these same themes arose later in
the conference after a noisy Muslim protest at the conference venue changed the
agenda from an almost-exclusive focus on Christianity to consider how atheists
respond to Islam.
RICHARD
DAWKINS: Now
praise intelligent design (Dawkins is a recently retired evolutionary
biologist based at Oxford uni.)
Dawkins called for atheists to take back
intelligent design and ethics from religious bodies.
With respect to intelligent design he
argued that the appearance of design does not imply a designer because design
can evolve by natural selection. He then distinguished between paleo-design
(design by natural selection) and neo-design (design by humans) making the
observation that people can plan for the future in a way that nature cannot.
With regard to morality, he referred to the
‘odious doctrine of redemption and asserted that we cannot and do not derive
moral from religion, but that moral are designed by us and fitted for our
times. He noted that evolution excludes constructing ethics based on special
pleading arising from a special sense of the uniqueness of human identity.
In a side comment, he referred to believers
who accept evolution but who still have a theology of creation – observing the
capacity of theology to maintain theological meaning even after abandoning the
alleged factual basis supporting it.
EUGENIE
SCOTT: Reason
and creationism (Scott is executive director of the National Center for
science Education in the US).
Scott defined two forms of creationism.
Young earth creationism argues for a comparatively recent special creation of
the world it is present form. Old earth accepts much of modern science and
includes development within kinds over long time periods. Either form of
creationism can be linked with theistic intelligent design.
Scott acknowledged that creationists do so
data-driven science, even if doing it badly and only seeking confirmatory
evidence (as compared with falsifying evidence).
She was dismissive of intelligent design as
being more of an ideological and philosophical position (rather then a
scientific one) and as motivated by a concern that scientific materialism
necessitates philosophical materialism.
Scott saw creationists as seeking to
undermine evolution and thus undermine science and materialism. She
acknowledged that all the monotheistic faiths had great problems with
evolution, but that it is not an issue for traditions such as Buddhism and
Hinduism.
SAM
HARRIS: The
illusion of free will (Harris is co-founder and CEO
of project reason in the US)
Sam started by announcing a change of topic
from free will to death.
He noted the reality of death and its
importance as a theme among religions. By contrast, atheism taught that that
there is nothing to worry about in death and that life is the problem, not
death.
Nonetheless, death was a painful reality
that had to be faced. He noted how religions had mechanisms to make sense of
and give comfort before death and other painful experiences and what atheism
had to offer as an alternate to these bad ideas.
The answer lies in the nature of the
problem. Death is a painful problem because of thoughts about past deaths of
loved ones and anticipatory thoughts of future death. However, if we have a
‘now’ focus and suppress these past and present thoughts these painful past/
future thoughts can be avoided. Sam then took attendees through a mindfulness exercise
using meditation techniques of breathing and a focus on consciousness in order
to show how these painful thoughts can be set aside in the now.
PZ
BEYERS: Scientists!
If you’re not an atheist, you aren’t doing science right (Meyers is a Prof
of biology at the Uni of Minnesota Morris.)
Morris acknowledged the power of ideas to
change the world as seen in Christianity and its creation of a community that
crosses borders – a community of the word. He called for an all-out assault on
Christianity and the ‘killing of God’.
The only way to do this was to develop
better ideas by rejecting ideas based on superstition for those based on
evidence: ‘...our only authority is reality and we learn by questioning it’.
Science was extolled as actually working and as being the ‘God-killer’ as it
created a community of the world.
Beyers referred to the ‘illogical lunacy’
and ‘odious doctrines’ of Christianity and asserted that ‘we are not baboons’.
As to how to live as a good atheist, Beyer
staled about a focus on truth (especially evolution), human autonomy and
community.
