Tag Archives: atheist

This just in: Dawkins is consistent

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Sometimes journalists are good, sometimes they are just plain lazy.

Richard Dawkins is world-renowned for his staunch atheism; so much that it eclipses his work in the field of evolutionary biology, his long, illustrious career with the University of Oxford, and his creepy, meme-worthy resemblance to Emma Watson. Indeed, if you know anything about Richard Dawkins, it’s probably that he’s an atheist. Maybe it’s a sign of old age (he’s pushing 70), maybe he was genuinely flattered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, his sparring-partner last night, or perhaps he was just feeling generous. Either way, last night Professor Richard Dawkins admitted that he can’t be certain that there is no God.

The insincere shock journalism stems from a conversation between Dawkins and Williams. Specifically the article notes:

Slow down there, we’re not talking conversion. But for the first time, Dawkins is actually admitting that he leans a little agnostic. Sharing an Oxford stage with Dr. Williams, Dawkins said he was “6.9 out of seven” certain of his atheism. “I think the probability of a supernatural creator existing is very, very low,” he said. Philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, asked: “Why don’t you call yourself an agnostic?” to which Dawkins answered that he did.

Slow down there (because phrases like this make a journalist sound classy), this is definitely not “the first time” for any such admission.

In fact, anyone who actually made it through the first two chapters of The God Delusion will find this quote (from page 51 of the hardcover) that defines his position after outlining his scale of 1 (strong theist) to 7 (strong atheist):

…I count myself in category 6, but leaning towards 7 – I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden. [Emphasis mine]

It’s like the media sees this frank and consistent admission as somehow equivalent to the Pope admitting that maybe Jesus never really existed or that perhaps Mary wasn’t a virgin (of course there was a proper amount of press over revelations of Mother Teresa’s personal doubts). Dawkins, like all new atheists, has admitted that there is a vanishingly small chance that they’re in error. Something the devoutly religious rarely concede.

Finally, we can also dissect the semantics of the words atheist and agnostic to realize they are not really in contradiction. [A]theism deals with beliefs while [a]gnosticism deals with knowledge. So if one knows there is a God, he is a gnostic theist. This has been summarized effectively in a simple chart:

image

Dawkins admitting the limits of his knowledge is not a change of position. It is not the end of the New Atheism. It is most definitely not a gotcha moment that the pro-religious media seems to think will restore religion’s dominant place in society

The Queen recognizes atheists

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I’ve never been a huge fan of the British/Canadian monarchy, mostly viewing it as an archaic and superfluous institution that doesn’t really represent Canadian modesty.

My only personal reason for not being gung-ho for a Canadian republic is the fear that it would be done wrong and more power would be centralized in the already dangerous Prime Minister’s Office.

And I really don’t care about the upcoming royal wedding.

But, it’s still really nice to hear our Queen, head of the Church of England, say a few nice words about the non-religious:

In our more diverse and secular society, the place of religion has come to be a matter of lively discussion. It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue and that the wellbeing and prosperity of the nation depend on the contribution of individuals and groups of all faiths and none.

Almost makes you want to sing God Save the Queen, eh?

Of course, some Anglican priests aren’t as progressive as Queen Liz II, and are going Catholic out of fear that the Church of England is sufficiently “protecting” against female priests.

Although, maybe I should commend them for taking such a strong stance on this issue, since their overt sexism makes the Queen’s statement so much more visibly true.

Canadian atheists: be counted

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The British Humanist Association has just launched its latest campaign: to get Brits to check none on their upcoming census.

In the British Census, people are asked “What is your religion?” and are given a list of generic options (none, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, etc.), and in an effort to get an accurate count of the non-religious community in England, the BHA is calling on people to check “no religion” instead of what their parents are or what they used to be.

Canada also has a census coming up next year, and while our religion question is part of the now-voluntary long-form portion, it is equally important that Canadians check “no religion” (or better yet fill in atheist or humanist) on our question.

Unfortunately, our question is worded more deceptively:

22. What is this person’s religion?
Indicate a specific denomination or religion even if this person is not currently a practising member of that group. For example, Roman Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic, United Church, Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, Greek Orthodox, Jewish, Islam, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, etc.
Specify one denomination or religion only __________
No religion ________

which is how we get data that suggests Quebec is among the most religious provinces, while having among the lowest church attendance (since everyone is “culturally Catholic”).

CFI Canada attempted to get the wording changed this past January, but as with many attempts to change policy quickly, their efforts seem to have been in vain. Thus is it even more important that non-religious Canadians count themselves.

Governments can use census data to claim support for religious school funding and faith-based initiatives (like funding evangelical youth centres), while also denying that non-religious communities exist.

Hopefully FAC, CFI and/or Humanist Canada (as well as grassroots local groups) step up and start a similar campaign here.

(h/t Friendly Atheist)

My Secular Student Summer

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This summer I attended two secular student leadership conferences… the Centre for Inquiry Student Leadership Conference and the Secular Student Alliance Leadership Conference. I’ve attended both in the past but this was the first year I attended both in the same summer. Was one better than the other? Maybe…

Centre for Inquiry:

CFI conference group picture

Let’s be honest, I have a very soft spot in my heart for CFI. Back in 2007 it was my first secular conference and my first time ever really hanging out with a group of atheists. I had a lot of fun with it. You can tell from my glowing post-conference review that I became enamoured almost immediately. Now, after just surpassing our third year anniversary, CFI is my longest committed relationship. This was my third CFI student leadership conference and I have to say, at least they’re being consistent…

Consistency can go either way. When I go to a CFI student leadership conference, I know what I’m walking into. A toast about why we’re here, talks on how to start a group, raise money and get media attention, ice cream socials, oddly selected catered food and “quite nights” at the dorms. But consistency can start to fall a little bit flat, too. The same talks by the same people, with the same (albeit delicious) ice cream, the same quite nights in the dorms and the same oddly selected catered food (I’m not complaining, it just seems so random!).  It is up for debate about whether or not CFI should change the format, the speakers and the way the conference is run. I, personally, have been advocating for four things in particular:

  1. Shorter talks: Hour and a half long talks about how to get media attention are not effective anymore. You are talking to the generation of technology and immediacy… our attention spans doesn’t generally last for that long. Fast paced talks with short breaks in between keep the atmosphere fresh! Yeah, you have to come up with a few extra speakers – but if you have a bad one, it’s okay! They won’t talk for that long! Plus, I think we like to hear what other people are doing, so it’s really not a bad thing to have a group go up there and talk about a really unique event they put on or have someone like JT Eberhard rant for a bit…we’ll listen, and we’ll love it.
  2. More “social” time: CFI starts at something like 9 am and ends at like 9 pm… This leaves 12 hours to hang out, shower and sleep. There is a lunch break in the middle and a couple shorter breaks in between but everything is on such a tight schedule that it is hard to really talk to more than 5 or 6 people. Social time doesn’t have to be letting us all lose on the big-bad-town of Buffalo. Debbie asked me to do a seminar on leadership. This is a seminar that I’ve lead like a million times… but there was one key thing I did really differently at this conference – I put people into groups with people they didn’t know and had them talk to each other. Some people may have thought I didn’t teach them much about leadership (because I didn’t, really) but what I did was made them all meet some new people and tried to have them learn from one another. The people who got my point really appreciated it. So group sessions can be social time!
  3. Splitting the students up: We’re starting to have a pretty big split between the different students that show up. ½ are new ½ are old. The older ones who have been to 3 or 4 conferences should be learning new things (like how to better use their communities or more advanced stuff), we should be building on our knowledge. I think it could be a good idea to do an experienced leader’s session while the new guys learn how to run effective meetings.
  4. Networking with the community: I love the Toronto community members… but I wonder how many other students know their community CFI groups as well as I do. Canada is a bit different than the states because our community leaders are usually student leaders as well, and this creates fruitful interactions between the campuses and the CFIs. This is something that should be happening all over North America.

CFI does a lot of things right. They have a do a big onetime payment and provide everything, give a structured atmosphere and are extremely professional. I think what is missing from the CFI conference is the interjection of student youthfullyness (yep). Feeling like we’re all part of some larger group is much more important than knowing how Justin Trottier (for the fourth year in a row) got into the Globe and Mail. Once we know we’re part of a larger group we start to share ideas and these things just start to come out.

Secular Student Alliance:

SSA conference group picture

The SSA takes a much different approach that I, personally, think is more effective *for students*. They’re one big benefit is that they’re not running two conference at the same time. So they don’t have to worry about a totally different group of older/professional people while trying to entertain the difficult 20-year-olds.

  1. They TED-talk-it: 20 minutes and it is all said-and-done. It works *so* well. Sometimes it seems like the talks are over WAY too quickly! But then there is time to talk to the speakers later, so it’s okay. And if the speaker is total crap, it’s okay because by the time you realize just how crappy they are there is only 15 minutes left in their time! But then they give the better speakers more time later on, which again works really well. I am a big fan of how they do this.
  2. Social time: They only had one brainstorming session (and I slept through it) but that was okay because they give you some ridiculously large amount of time for lunch and dinner and they release you out onto the town to go and do it. Again, this works brilliantly. I went to eat/hang out with people that I probably wouldn’t under other circumstances simply because they were going somewhere for lunch that I wanted to go too. So then you’re sitting there and you have well over an hour to talk to this new group of people and you really get to know them. SSA also facilitates a pub night at a restaurant like place that is all ages. Again, a great way to have some fun, hang out and really connect with your fellow secularists. AND their talks start at like 10 am… nice.
  3. Splitting the students up: It’s not really necessary with their format, but this should statement should also be indicative of have much I’ve learned at SSA conferences… which is close to nothing. Not quite nothing, but close to it. To be fair the first one I went to I had already been running groups for 3 years and the second one I was already running entire an entire freethought charity… so maybe other people learned stuff. But I didn’t.
  4. Networking with the community: There is no community to network with. SSA is purely student oriented which has its downfalls, the major one being where to go after graduation. With CFI it is a natural progression into a key volunteer role with CFI but with SSA there isn’t really this same transition. They had a talk about getting involved with the community, but it’s not as easy as it would be with a CFI connected community group.

So was one better than the other? I had more fun at the SSA conference. I felt more structured at the CFI conference. I met more people at the SSA conference. I learned more at the CFI conference.  I think next year for the CFI conference my $100 might be better spent in funding a new student leader’s conference fee and letting them go. But I think the SSA conference is worth every penny spent just for the social interactions and happy-fun-times… so screw off new kid, I’m going back. But I’m not breaking up with CFI… let’s have an open relationship…

NEXT CONFERENCE ON THE LIST: SKEPTICON!!! (Possibly Atheist Alliance International in Montreal or the humanist one in LA…but DEFINITELY skepticon)

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