Anarchoblogs

…may be found @ Benjamin Myers’ blog Faith and Theology; @ PodBlack Cat (which includes a setlist of the songs that accompanied speakers to the stage); and of course @ Your ABC, whose commitment to Atheistic Communism & Homosexuality is being cleverly disguised, thank G*d, by a plethora of religious programming.

Anyway, one additional thing I learned by way of attending the Convention on Sunday was the fact that His Eminence Cardinal George Pell debated former Christian preacher turned atheist Dan Barker in Sydney last week on the proposition ‘Without God we are nothing’. Naturally, this brought to mind nineteenth-century anarchist Mikhail Bakunin: “I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him”. Pell originally debated Drink-Soaked Ex-Trotskyite For War Christopher Hitchens on the subject in October last year, but given that Pell appears not to have quit his post in the interim, I can only assume Hitchens wasn’t very convincing.

I also forgot to mention that Peter Singer’s rejection of the moral injunction, generally associated with Christianity, to turn your cheek was interesting, as it opens up a whole series of other questions regarding moral reciprocity. (Of course, a quick glance over the history of Christianity reveals some few problems putting all the cheek-turning and cloak-giving-awaying into practice.)

And oh yeah. The summaries I made of the speeches made on Sunday don’t do them justice. Better summaries are provided by Chris Mulherin and Margaret Coffey: Being good without God? (Singer); Sunday – being good, and spiritual (Bechman and Robinson); and Giving thanks in a vacuum – Richard Dawkins. Regarding Dawkins, I seem to remember the title of his speech as being ‘Gratitude for evolution and the evolution of gratitude’ which, given that this was the title of his speech in Aotearoa/New Zealand last week, now appears to be correct.

In any case, Dawkins “concluded that indeed we should be grateful to be alive, and indeed that [we] have probably evolved to “lust” to be grateful (which in part explains the human desire for religion)”. Which case I found fairly unconvincing as, indeed, I find his earlier writings on The Selfish Gene (1976), at least or perhaps especially insofar as the same arguments have been applied to social evolution.

What are the evolutionary roots of gratitude and of religion? The fact that such characteristics of humans seem to be universal demands an explanation. Dawkins suggested that religion might be a by-product of another predisposition. For example, the child mind is predisposed to obey authority, a characteristic which has strong survival value. But a by-product of this predisposition might be vulnerability to “mental viruses such as religion,” just as a computer is vulnerable to viruses because it has no way of knowing whether a program is good or bad.

As for gratitude, Dawkins suggested it might be the by-product of the need, prior to the use of money, to keep mental accounts of what is owed and owing. Children early on develop a sense of fairness and in some cases it operates without a real target, for example, “it’s not fair that it is raining on my birthday.” Sexual lust too still operates although its original reproductive benefit is no longer ‘the target.’

Dawkins suggests “we have a similar lust to calculate debt, gratitude, fairness and it’s so powerful that it goes off in a vacuum.” Such psychological dispositions might also lead us to postulate God, he said. In a pastoral moment Dawkins assured us that “this sort of vacuum activity is nothing to be ashamed of” and that the first part of his talk gave sufficient reason for gratitude to be alive even though it is “gratitude in a vacuum.”

Or something like that anyway. That said — or written, by an Anglican minister named Chris — I’m not aware that “the child mind is predisposed to obey authority”, or that this is “a characteristic which has strong survival value”. I mean, it’s an interesting speculation, but I would expect anyone, especially a scientist, to be able to provide some evidence to support it. In fact, given the claim is a strong one, and concerns ‘human nature’, I’d expect quite a lot. Along with a demonstrated understanding of infant and child psychology, cultural history, anthropology and sociology — a working knowledge of the history of political economy and the emergence of marketised social relations probably wouldn’t hurt — and the various debates within and across these disciplines concerning what is at the centre of Étienne de La Boétie sixteenth century tract the Discours de la servitude volontaire (Discourse on Voluntary Servitude).

Which, in a political context in which atheism has been decoupled from anarchism, is another story (as Fred put it: “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress”).

Blah blah blah.

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

~ Phillip Larkin

See also : Michel Onfray : Militant Atheist (December 18, 2006) | Mysterious ways… Or: Down with atheism! (October 21, 2009) | God Hates Haiti (January 14, 2010) | God Hates Haiti (II) (January 16, 2010) | The Rise of Atheism : 2010 Global Atheist Convention (March 14, 2010).

!nataS sunoB

Bonus Wittgenstein!

See also : Wittgenstein.

Update : Mysterious rituals of the atheists, Stephen Bullivant and Lois Lee, The Age, March 15, 2010 | Dawkins derides sainthood as Pythonesque, Jacqueline Maley, The Sydney Morning Herald, March 15, 2010 | Questions of Faith, Radio National’s report on the 2010 Global Atheist Convention.

Only a group of atheists would start a convention at this un-Godly hour on a (Death Metal) Sunday.

More blah later, but in the meantime…

Stuart Bechman ***
Peter Singer *** 1/2
Ian Robinson **** 1/2

Kylie Sturgess ***
Robyn Williams ****

Jamie Kilstein ****
Dan Barker *** 1/2
Richard Dawkins ***
Stuart Bechman / Kyle Sturgess ** 1/2

Stuart Bechman. Lolcats. Atheist charity. Stuff.

Peter Singer made an occasionally amusing but otherwise fairly straightforward case for the possibility of an ‘Ethics without Religion’ (cf. Plato’s Euthyphro). Of note: Singer made reference to the idea that morality may be in some way ‘hardwired’ into human beings, and that this may also help to explain the persistence of xenophobic attitudes (or at least help to explain their origin). He also noted that proximity (in this case geographical) to suffering is an important factor in determining the likelihood of a ‘moral’ response. Otherwise, he failed to properly address the distinction between moral and political consciousness or to answer the question ‘Why act ethically?’ (a question also addressed in his MA thesis (1969)). Oh yeah: Singer referred to evolution which, for some reason — I think maybe ’cause he referenced Gould — but which in any case prompted me to think of Kropotkin (see : Stephen Jay Gould, Kropotkin Was No Crackpot, Natural History, No.106, 1997).

Ian Robinson was — to my surprise — probably the best speaker and, despite noting that, as students, Singer was one year ahead of him in Philosophy @ unimelb, and joking that Singer was now, philosophically speaking, many years ahead of him, Roninson actually gave a more nuanced address on ‘Atheism as the Logical Conclusion to a Spiritual Quest’. He was much funnier, too. Oh, and I’m not sure, but I think it was Robinson what recommended The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power (1993) by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad and Feet of Clay: Saints, Sinners, and Madmen (1997) by Anthony Storr.

Kylie Sturgess presented the findings of an academic survey as ‘Sex and Skepticism: A Study of Belief in Australian Women’. An interesting subject, but a somewhat disjointed presentation.

Robyn Williams’ speech was titled ‘In-depth Musings on Existence and Atheism’, which was basically an entertaining journey through some anecdotes drawn from his many years working @ the ABC. As he spoke, I wished I was drinking port and smoking a cigar (after having consumed a rather large dinner).

Jamie Kilstein was funny and profane.

Dan Barker was amusing and profane… but in a nice way. (Of course, both he Kilstein are going to Hell.) He also suggested, rather aptly, that fundamentalist Christians, to which category he once belonged, could best be approached by atheists by way of reference to Biblical teaching — to be precise, by way of its internal contradictions — within an overall context of sensitivity to their emotional and psychological sensibilities. Fun and useful in this context: Ken’s Guide to the Bible.

Richard Dawkins was Richard Dawkins. A Cartoon Character Buggering A Bald Transvestite. The Evolutionary Biologist. In the program, the title of his speech is given as being ‘How Do I Misunderstand Thee? Let Me Count the Ways’ (whatever that means) but I dunno if that is the speech he gave. My recollection is that he presented a paper giving his views on what might explain the emergence or (better) the persistence in religious belief — which is to say, the irrational belief in a diving Divine being — in terms of its function as an evolutionary mechanism — one which, in turn, was theorised as having something to do with the capacity of human beings to… um… bugger. Having had bugger-all sleep the night before, I was falling asleep at this point in the afternoon, and I’m still very tired, so maybe I’ll return to this subject… later. In any event, it had all the hallmarks of an address most suited to an academic conference on evolutionary biology, not a public conference on atheism. (He was, of course, given a standing ovation nonetheless.)

Oh and finally: all the speeches were filmed, and will be released as a DVD at some point. They may also be released more widely, perhaps under a Creative Commons license. (But then again, maybe not.)

See also : Atheist convention’s first secular success, Barney Zwartz, The Age, March 13, 2010.

Bonus!