nameandnature

In this issue: more Alpha, more de-converts copying me, and more liberal Anglicans doing the Devil's work. Yes, it's time to close some more browser tabs before Firefox seizes up completely.

Beta

Chat continues over on my previous posting about Channel 4's documentary on the Alpha course. I found Jon Ronson, the documentary maker, had been on Alpha himself back in 2000 and written about it for the Graun. The link comes via Metafilter, where there's some discussion of the article and of Alpha, into which I've dipped my toe.

I de-converted before it was fashionable

Jamie Frost sounds like he had a experience of Christianity at Oxford which was similar to mine at Cambridge (except, of course, the Cambridge one was just better). He went to St Ebbes, which is the Doctrinal Rectitude Trust church in Oxford, as StAG is in Cambridge. He was, and is, a science student. He also left Christianity, and his tale (of struggling to keep the faith, being buoyed up by emotional sermons and then realising he didn't have reasons to believe) sounds awfully familiar. He writes about it in a meaty essay (I think it's even longer than mine), which is worth a read.

The link to Frost's essay came to me via the indefatigable Steven Carr, who helpfully posted it to the Premier Christian Radio discussion forum.

OK, so I've been watching The Wire

Yeah, so after the Templeton boys got lit up in a drive-by by PZ, I heard it was going down over at the Premier Christian Radio discussion forum, so me an' my boy Carr grabbed our nines and mounted up. I done showed that Richard Morgan (who used to be tight with the Ditchkins crew before he snitched to the Christers) how we do it, then I had interesting discussion on epistemology [You seem to have slipped out of character - Ed], and shit. [Better - Ed]

Bishops Gone Wild

Those crazy Anglicans and their schisms: I can barely keep up these days, so I don't usually bother. One thing caught my eye: Ruth Gledhill reports that Bishop Greg Venables, of the Fellowship of Mainstream True Christians Except If You're Gay, had said of the fight against the godless liberals that "We must remember we are not fighting flesh and blood. This is about principalities and powers."

If you weren't a CU Bible Study group leader, you might not be able to complete that quote. It ends "and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms". Yep, liberal Christians are in league with the devil. John Broadhurst, Bishop of Fulham, allegedly said "I now believe Satan is alive and well and he resides at Church House." As Roy Zimmerman would say, "That was out loud, did you know that?"

Gambling at Rick's Bar

According to New Scientist, Francis Collins's BioLogos site (wherein Collins, an evangelical Christian, advocates theistic evolution) not only faces the wrath of the neo-militant atheist secularists like Coyne and Myers, but has also been criticised by the Discovery Institute, who advocate Intelligent Design. They have a new site at Faithandevolution.org where they explain why Collins is wrong by quoting the Bible.

I'm a bit puzzled by this, as I thought that Intelligent Design was a hack get around the firewall that is the United States judiciary. The courts say you can't teach religious opinion as fact in state schools, so if you want to get creationism into public education, you attribute creation to an anonymous Designer. You can then claim that you're shocked, shocked I tell you (your Honour), that some kids might reach the conclusion that the Designer is the Christian God. I don't want to tell these people their business, but setting up a web-site full of New Testament quotes gives the game away, doesn't it?

Sun, moon and bumper sticker cry "Jesus is Lord"

Anyhoo, as it happens, the Discovery Institute quotes Romans 1:20, which I've mentioned before as a verse that supports the common evangelical belief that everyone knows there's a God really, even if they don't want to admit it. The DI say that Collins's argument that God could have made stuff happen in such a way that his intervention was undetectable goes against the Apostle Paul's statement that God's existence is visible from what has been made.

I got into a discussion of undetectable divine intervention over on gerald_duck's LJ. gerald_duck had criticised atheists for saying that evolution proves there is no god, which is a valid criticism (if indeed there are any atheists saying that), but he's oddly attached to the idea that it's desirable to be agnostic about unwarranted beliefs, like Collins's belief that the Christian god did it and carefully hid his tracks. I don't really understand this. I accept that evolution is sufficient to explain the history of life after abiogenesis, because I think there's good evidence for it. If evolution is sufficient, I require further evidence before I can conclude that, say, a god was involved. Without that evidence, I do not believe a god was involved (if gods there be: again, this isn't an argument about their existence), just as I do not believe that any Flying Spaghetti Monsters were involved. I can't strictly rule it out, but gods and FSMs are one of an infinity of possible additions to the hypothesis which I don't seem to need, so why bother with any of them?

Over at the Discovery Institute, the cdesign proponentsists part company with Collins on whether evolution is in fact a sufficient explanation. If they could show that it isn't, and further show evidence of design, they'd be on firmer ground than Collins is. Unfortunately for them, they can't, but they were really following the evidence (which there's some reason to doubt), their methods would be more rational than Collins's.

New Scientist's Amanda Gefter has summarised it well:

Watching the intellectual feud between the Discovery Institute and BioLogos is a bit like watching a race in which both competitors are running full speed in the opposite direction of the finish line. It's a notable contest, but I don't see how either is going to come out the winner.