h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I finished the Hitchens ("God Is Not Great") and another called "God: the Failed Hypothesis" over these last two weeks. I can't recommend the Hitchens enough. I know you've been looking forward to it, and I sure hope you get a chance to read it soon!

And how are tricks, otherwise? I've been vaguely half-assed in my communications with various people of late. Not for lack of interest on my part. The office has been like Peyton Place, and the hits just keep on coming. I'm counting down till my week's vacation (third week in July).

And now I've bought and started "The Ancestor's Tale". Great stuff, so far. I'm learning new things, more about things I'd already known about to varying degrees.

It's a big'un, though. I had to stand on the train home Friday afternoon, and my arm fell asleep halfway.

Yeah...the audiobook is abridged. But it refers to various tales that are missed out, and I desperately want to buy the book so I can read them.

I've succumbed. The God Delusion was in the supermarket, half price. I wasn't going to bother, because I assumed he would be making obvious arguments and attacking the easier targets. But I'm impressed!

I thought "The God Delusion" was pretty decent. I'd never read any Dawkins before, other than bits of stuff on the web.

For the most part, he didn't seem to just go for the easy targets. He seemed to offer pretty much an equal opportunity for all of them.

Haven't picked up "The Ancestor's Tale" since Friday; was feeling lazy over the weekend, and today I've got a screaming migraine and the beginnings of what's shaping up to be a wicked head cold. I can't read anything and have it stick this morning.

I've just read this: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDRhYTc4N2IxMDEwNTY2Zjc3Y2NlNDIxYTc4MWQ2MmI on Hitchensweb: http://www.hitchensweb.com/

Sincere stuff - but here's the holes:

1) The creator god that Hitchens assumes people believe in isn't actually the Judeo-Christian god. So what the F is the Judeo-Christian god?

2) Good atheists who hold compassionate values get them from (Judeo-Christian) religion. Alternately...religions get their good - and bad - components from their human inventors.

There's also a good Hitchens interview in defence of Wolfowitz.

I wish I could access more Hitchens stuff from the office to read during down time- but anything related to religion is blocked by our filters.

Meanwhile, I've just finished "The Ancestor's Tale" on the train this morning. Working with a roughly 20 minute commute either way, meant a book of such magnitude was going to take a while. Was it ever worth it. What a fantastic book! I learned stuff.

Now I just need to learn to remember stuff I've learned so I can get involved in discussions I find interesting. I still find myself feeling much more shy and reticent online than in RL. And some of you lot are so knowledgeable, it's intimidating.

It was learning that plants aren't really green that blew my mind.

Oh...and that Herring Gulls and Black Headed Gulls are one and the same, but after a round the world trip.

It really is absolutely amazing to read of all the "little" adaptations, mutations, etc that life has made in order to survive. And it really is much, much more awe-inspiring to know that it's entirely a result of natural processes than to imagine some cosmic entity just "made it all happen".

I mean, a lot of creationists ask "do you really believe that the earth 'just happened' to be suitable to sustain life?", when what is really the case is that life just adjusted itself to survive with what it has to work with. Life forms that can adapt, survive. Life form that can't, become extinct. Period.

That really does put one's own survival in perspective. *wheeze*

And it really is cool to

Shit! Hit "post" by mistake

It really is cool to see the sense of awe Dawkins demonstrates. I've heard that he was a bit "dry", but I didn't think so at all. I rather came away with a sense of wide-eyed wonder.

I've finally reached the top of the library waiting list.

It's rather delicious, isn't it?

He's admitted that he's not a science write - but I still think he makes a decent ground of covering off the 'Argument from Design' and all its variants (eg God created via evolution.) But then he goes further than Dawkins by hammering away at what an affront religion is to our credulity and dignity. It's not so much that it's not true - although that's important enough - but that even if we were to assume it were true, it's disgraceful.

If I'd known that was what you were waiting for, I'd have sent you my copy to read.

I did think it was rather delicious, though by now I've forgotten most of the specifics. I can't remember things as well as I used to these days. I'm assuming it's because the long-term memory part of my brain was previously pickled in malted hops and bong resin.

Glad you're enjoying it, though. I could give it a quick once over again in order to be able to discuss.

Yes, do.

On the Dawkins thread, I'm trying to hammer the point that Reason isn't just about science. Both sides seem to forget that. Science isn't everything...but that doesn't mean it's nothing.

The false dichotomy seems to be between the logical/rational world and the emotional/religious. I'm trying to make a metaphysical land grab for all these traditionally religious things like beauty, truth, art, morality. Obviously they're part of the same world as science. Where else could they be?

Anyway...I think The Hitch knows this. He's a literary critic.

I've noticed a lot of that railing against science/logic/reason because "it takes the awe and beauty out of things". I'm part of the crowd that finds things all the more awe-inspiring and amazing because they've *evolved* to work the way they do, which is a helluva lot more beautiful to me than the version I grew up with.

Personally, I think that's why I preferred the Hitchens to the Dawkins, initially; because it seemed to be written from a more literary perspective. Though I have to say, having subsequently read "The Ancestor's Tale" and "The Selfish Gene", Dawkins is pure poetry, in a way.

Hitchens does to the awe-in-science bit too. He's writing against type a little. He's said he has a standing bet with his Vanity Fair editor that he can be relied on to turn in 2000 words on any topic except science or mathematics. He makes a good job of it, though.

The Christian argument seems to be 'Yeah...but god could have created evolution.' I think he's great when he pointd out whow unecessary this became, post Darwin - and then goes on to bring Hume into it: OK...you can believe this if you want...but here's the alternatives...which is more likely? Is it OK if I think different? Then how do we decide between us? (I've not made much sense there. I'll have to brush up on my Hume.)

I'm looking forward to him looking at the usefulness of religion for morality.

I think I'll re-read some of that over the next several days so you and I can talk about it. That morality can exist without religion is definitely an issue I'll have tossed in my face again once the winter holidays roll around and K and I have to endure the proselytizing of his insuffrable uncle and cousin.

Well...that's something that Dawkins is very good on also. His chapter on how not even Christians believe the moral guidance offered by their book. They select what appears to them to be appropriate and dismiss the rest.

How do they select? Well, by a process not dissimilar to that which you or I use, I suppose. In that case, they should be prepared to expose their basis for selection and we can discuss it.

>In that case, they should be prepared to expose their basis for selection and we can discuss it<

Exactly!

It's the resolute refusal to acknowledge where the basis for selection comes from, and the depserate need to attribute it to outside forces, that confuses me.

The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that perhaps it's needed to counterbalance the externalization of responsibility, or the need to rationalize things when there is no individual responsibility, when Bad Things Happen.

I was reading the chapters on whether religion is sinful and whether you need religion to be good last night. And very persuasive they are. Hitchens is very good at taking religion on its own terms. The way I see the argument...imagine a preacher on your doorstep:

Scenario 1:
- Have you found the love of the Lord?
- What will happen to me if I haven't
- You'll suffer an eternal torment.
Obviously this god us immoral and one wants nothing to do with him.

Scenario 2:
- Have you found the love of the Lord?
- What will happen to me if I haven't
- Er...nothing really. The Lord loves all His children and forgives sinners.
- Oh good! I needn't worry, then.

Can I suggest that versions of these might work with your relatives? Obviously the religious simply aren't disposed to being de-converted, so they're not going to listen to reasoned argument. So take them on their own terms. With humour.
"Oh, I know, I know...I'm headed for damnation. I only hope that if there's a god, he'll see that I'm a decent person and forgive me."
Just a thought.



I liked the bit about faith not being necesary for MLK's apparently religion-based message. He took *part of* the Moses story, leaving out the mean bits. The bits he took, any secular Atheist could be in sympathy with. (Plus Hitchens gives due credit to the Communist origins of the Civil Rights movement).

I fear there's one piece of the jigsaw missing. We can dismiss the nonsense that Stalin (or Hitler) was motivated by Atheism. We can point out that good acts performed by the religious are not dependent on religion. But it would be really neat to have a killer example of a saintly Atheist.

I don't recall ever hearing Nelson Mandela mention god...



You've really got to admire someone who's willing to take on not only Mother Theresa, but even the Dalai Lama and Ghandi. Over here, there;s been a lot of interest in India recently, with the 60th anniversary of independence/ partition. Never mind the Richard Attenborough hagiography - I've never felt that the secularist Nehru was given enough credit. At times he was completely exasperated with Ghandi, who he often regarded as a bit of a meddler. The received wisdom is that the Pakistan problem was caused by Jinna. But he was a secularist, too. He saw a secular Pakistan for Muslims as the only alternative to Ghandi-assisted domination by Hindus - and not necessarily Hindus in the Ghandi mould.

btw...from Az's blog, commenting on a post about the Spanish government ending bullfights on state TV...maybe this gives a better explanation of my position on animal cruelty than I've managed before:

I've stated repeatedly that I think the notion of 'Animal Rights' is a nonsense. Our principal concern should be human suffering, and animals should in no way be regarded as on a moral par as us. However, that is not to say that I endorse wanton cruelty to animals. We would be deeply suspicious of anyone who tortured kittens for a hobby. We would suspect that this person's lack of empathy might also have wider implications. It says something about a society when it considers it entertaining to watch a bull being goaded with spikes.

I'm not about to start actively campaigning against bullfighting - but government disapproval of it has, I think, to be regarded as A Good Thing.