Dawkins (and my) atheism essentially stem from two basic tenets which are derived from the scientific method:
1. He who makes the claim needs to provide evidence to support the claim. The burden of evidence is upon the claim maker. Theists claim that God exists made the world etc. They need to provide evidence that supports this claim. Atheists simply state that the evidence for a personal God is lacking. Additionally, an inability of the listener to provide evidence against the claim DOES NOT constitute evidence for the claim. Dawkins outlines this idea well with his discusion of the spaghetti monster and the celestial teapot.
2. When a hypothesis is being tested (a personal god exists, created the world and intervenes in human activity), an alternative hypothesis needs to also be considered (evolution, carbon dating, fossil record, etc. etc. which are agreed upon by 99% of the people who understand these concepts – scientists)
Proof of a personal god falls short on both these criteria.

I think you are well aware of how philistine is used in common parlance and that it has nothing to do with race (or even circumcision)

“Race” itself is a modern social construct.

Philistines in the Old Testament were not a race. In Old Testament genealogy they were descendants of the Casluhites, who where descendants of Ham one of the sons of Noah (Gen 10). They were avowed enemies of the family and then group of clans who later became the nation of Israel. In later references Philistines simply were the people who had settled in a particular area in the South West of Canaan with five principal cities Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. Like we who live in Australia are Australians. Want to call us a race?

The origins of the Philistines is still debated – probably Mycenean – they disappeared in the time of the Neo Babylonian empire.

The term ‘Philistine’ is now a term of abuse.

Abusing people by saying that they belong to one particular group of people is racism.

If you want to really insult somebody, always turn to terms of racist abuse derived from the Bible.

Eagelton has just betrayed how much hatred and racism religion has inspired , in one cute Freudian slip.

And you’re quite right, of course, it’s William. As you say, James would very likely put a determined agnostic — if that’s not a contradiction in terms — at the bottom of his scale.

Nicholas, glad to see you back. I’m not sure I’ve done anything like a decent job of defending your initial thesis — at least as I read it — in your absence but it’s been interesting. Look forward to whatever comments you may find time for.

Ingolf, nice quote, but I think it is William James, not Henry.

James, I totally agree, atheism certainly doesn’t rely on a “proof” of non-existence. I tried to explicitly disavow that in my comments.

But then I think an atheist is not waiting for the “bell to toll”. I read the W. James as an exhortation to decide, and not wait, if justified. So this gives no specific warrant for an agnosticism.

“Sodomites over there against the wall”. On to weightier matters, the Atkinson sketch is from his one man show. I’ve got it on an old cassette, “Live in Belfast”. Brilliant show. His straight man was Angus Deayton I think. Saw a version of the show in the late ’80’s or early ’90’s.

Also, fell asleep last night to the op.111 piano sonata. Found I had it on a cd. Only got to about 4 minutes of the first movement, and not a reflection of the music. Looking forward to listening to the rest.

The book fairly crackles with brio. Yet reading it can feel a little like watching a Michael Moore movie. There is lots of good, hard-hitting stuff about the imbecilities of religious fanatics and frauds of all stripes, but the tone is smug and the logic occasionally sloppy. Dawkins fans accustomed to his elegant prose might be surprised to come across such vulgarisms as “sucking up to God”

The Pierce that I quoted and the James that you quote are very clearly of a similar sensibility. Perhaps the air they were breathing was a bit full of spiritualists and cranks for my liking (though certainly Pierce was strident against the cranks of his age, religious and otherwise.)

It’s been an odd but good debate I think – between about five non-believers. I’ll stick to ‘vulgar atheism’ for Dawkins, but I’m afraid I don’t have the time to explicate further right now. I doubt it will make much difference but I have a slightly different take on it to Ingolf and will try to have one more go if I have a bit more time soon.

In terms of the kind of God presented by conventional religions I’d also have to classify myself as an atheist. It wasn’t for this that I felt the intellectual door should be left open. It’s more about nourishing a sentiment, an underlying openness that permeates Taoism, say, or some of Buddhism, or much of the thinking of Paul Tillich.

There’s a rather lovely — if slightly lengthy — quote from Henry James’ “The Will to Believe” which in a way encapsulates this whole business from my point of view:

“When I look at the religious question as it really puts itself to concrete men, and when I think of all the possibilities which both practically and theoretically it involves, then this command that we shall put a stopper on our heart, instincts, and courage, and wait, acting of course meanwhile more or less as if religion were not true — till doomsday, or till such time as our intellect and senses working together may have raked in evidence enough, — this command, I say, seems to me the queerest idol ever manufactured in the philosophic cave. Were we scholastic absolutists, there might be more excuse. If we had an infallible intellect with its objective certitudes, we might feel ourselves disloyal to such a perfect organ of knowledge in not trusting to it exclusively, in not waiting for its releasing word. But if we are empiricists, if we believe that no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp, then it seems a piece of idle fantasticality to preach so solemnly our duty of waiting for the bell. Indeed we may wait if we will, — I hope you do not think that I am denying that, — but if we do so, we do so at our peril as much as if we believed. In either case we act, taking our life in our hands. No one of us ought to issue vetoes to the other, nor should we bandy words of abuse. We ought, on the contrary, delicately and profoundly to respect one another’s mental freedom: then only shall we bring about the intellectual republic; then only shall we have that spirit of inner tolerance without which all our outer tolerance is soulless, and which is empiricism’s glory; then only shall we live and let live, in speculative as well as in practical things.”

From time to time one encounters a bitter denunciation of something called militant atheism, on the basis that it involves some kind of double standard. The militant atheist is portrayed as no less dogmatic than the religious believers he scorns, and no less reliant on faith – His faith being different only by virtue of being negative.

I thought I detected this meme, to coin phrase, in your first post. If I was mistaken, then you might well agree with the following.

The trouble is that the militant atheist is a strawman. There may have been a time when an atheist was defined as someone who claimed that the non-existence of God could be formally demonstrated, while an agnostic believed that neither His existence nor his non-existence can be demonstrated. But by these deninitions hardly anyone, not even Dawkins, would be atheist, and indeed a good many believers would be agnostic. In contemporary usage, an atheist is simply someone who doesn’t believe in God, while an agnostic ‘isn’t sure’. All the self-proclaimed agnostics I have known were strongly tempted by the idea that there is some kind of conscious being ‘out there’. Atheists are not.

It’s obvious why religious people want to put atheists on the back foot, by exposing their alleged double standard. In the case of agnostics, however, I find it a bit puzzling. I guess it just boils down to a sensitivity to ridicule. But I don’t think Dawkins wants to rubbish anyone’s private spiritual experiences. On the other hand, when believers claim some degree of authority in matters of moral or natural philosophy, on the basis of those experiences, he takes that as a licence to cut and slice.

Gaby: I remember being in stiches over that sketch too, but had long forgotten it. Was it from ‘Not the 9 0′Clock News’ or later?

“For my own further education in the pitfalls of communication, would one or both of you let me know whether this is where your impression of my position –

My only contention throughout has been that the ultimate questions –

I’m not good on opus numbers, but I think there is an Op.135 that is a personal fave.

And “Point Counterpoint” is a good read too.

And if someone comes to me insisting that this, and only this, possible answer is the true answer to this unanswerable question (“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”) then aren’t I entitled to cry “bulldust”? Especially when, as is usually the case, the insistent dogmatist then slides from positions on unanswerable questions to positions on questions which are capable of an answer but where they don’t like the best answer.

On entheogenic music, there’s a scene in Aldous Huxley’s “Point Counterpoint” where someone tries to convince an atheist of the existence of god simply by playing the 2nd movement – the Heilige Dankgesang – from Op 132. If you want profound and moving music you can do a lot worse than any of those late quartets – 35 years after I first heard them they’re still capable of evoking tears when I’m in the right mood.

I’ve enjoyed the chat too, Ingolf. So thanks to Nicholas for his original post too.

Ingolf, you asked me about what our disputes of substance may be. Well our differences are not about meaning, e.g., the meaning of “God” or the meaning of the proposition “god exists”.

But rather about the truth of, or justified belief in, the proposition “God exists”. This to me is a difference of substance in the sense that it depends on how the world is.

Also, I interpreted your use of “proof” to be a reference to the standard philosphical arguments or proofs of god’s existence.

Finally, I suppose I don’t find this issue as mysterious or ineffable as you. If god is so ill- or un- defined that it is difficult to ask even these simple questions of his nature or existence, then so much the worse for believers.

Richard Dawkins is of course no less free to fulminate than anyone else. My negative reaction, by the way, is not based on having read his latest book but on a radio programme I listened to a while back celebrating his career (a sort of intellectual roast if you like). Religion and God received the expected bashing — which was obviously fine — but I remember being surprised at the shallow, almost sophomoric quality of many of the comments. Could have been a bad night for he and his mates and may also have been a poor representation of his more fully articulated views but it added to the distaste I’d occasionally felt reading a few of his books many years ago.

Anyway, enough — from me at least — on Mr Dawkins. My initial few words yesterday, which I thought would pass without comment, have grown and multiplied far too much.

Thanks for a good exchange. Time to listen to that piano sonata, me’thinks.

However, the point is that Dawkins’ critique is not directed at nebulous agnosticism of your variety, but rather at people whose faith consists of specific doctrines. Now, you might argue that, as long as the doctrines don’t inspire harmful actions, there is no need to go around writing insulting polemics against them. That seems fair enough. But as Dawkins sees it, the trouble with this approach is that, when you create an environment in which arbitrary beliefs in general must be respected, it becomes harder to challenge specific arbitray beliefs that do actually threaten to cause harm. When there emerges a campaign to introduce Sharia Law, or creationism in biology classes, are you content to respond by saying ‘I respect your belief but it doesn’t personally suit me, so I’m going to resist it’, or do you prefer to go further and appeal to the zealots to analyse their assumptions and try to be more rational? If the latter, shouldn’t you apply the same standard to anyone who subscribes to arbitrary beliefs, including harmless ones?

I’ve not suggested there could be any such thing as “proof” of God’s existence, much less offered one. Nor have I put forward any evidence beyond — in passing — the mystical feelings we all have from time to time and that I fully accept may well mean nothing. Indeed I don’t understand how one actually could put forward either evidence or proof and I wouldn’t know where to begin in theoretically describing a hypothetical God. My only contention throughout has been that the ultimate questions — however one is to try to frame them — seem best left open because they are probably unanswerable.

Can you enlighten me as to our disagreements of substance?

I didn’t say that belief in god is a matter of “proof”, but of evidence. Proof is not to the point. Hence, I would say James’s pointed counter-example is still relevant. The purported proofs of god’s existence are unsound. And I don’t know how to begin a “proof” of god’s non-existence.

And I don’t think that our disagreements are semantic. On the contrary, I am arguing that they are of substance.

With the possible exception of your comment that the ultimate questions are well known (see below), I feel comfortable with everything you wrote, Gaby. I also entirely agree that any belief in God (however defined) is a matter of faith, not of proof. This whole discussion was sparked by Nicholas’ distaste for Dawkins’ absolutism on a question where in his view — and mine — neither positive or negative proof is possible.

And therein, I think, lies the difference between your lovely parody, James, and the case for leaving open the ultimate questions. The existence or otherwise of the Loch Ness monster can be settled by scientific verification. Plus of course there’s hardly a compelling reason to postulate its existence in the first place. How “it all” began, and when, and perhaps even why, on the other hand, are not questions that can be easily avoided. Nor do I see how they can ever be definitively answered. Of course we’ll continue to learn more and more about the origins of the universe etc etc, but behind every such gain in knowledge these core mysteries will still stand. Infinite regression, conceptual gridlock. Some choose to call the hypothetical answer to these mysteries God, or Allah, or the Great Spirit . . . and so on.

I suspect most, maybe even all, of our apparent disagreements are semantic. Perhaps to Nicholas’ phrase “vulgar atheism”