Overheard @ GAC 2012

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.