BBC Focus Magazine

[leesparky]

Hi guys

After reading Keith Atkin's Letter of the month 'A rational response' in the latest (Feb' 2012) issue of Focus, I thought I simply had to comment.

Keith seems upset at the fact that Focus *dared* to post an article about Robin Ince's 'Nine Lessons And Carols For Godless People', and Helen Pitcher's 'Tis the season to be jolly rational'. I'm guessing he found (or thinks others might find?) it insulting to poke fun at one of [or some of] the many religious beliefs on the planet in a way that also brings to light how good it actually is to base beliefs on evidence. Perhaps Keith and any others of *his* ilk should either shut their eyes to the world around them, or not read science-based magazines in case some of the evidence-based science might offend?

He also has the [wrongly informed] ironic view of atheism (and perhaps even science?) as a dogma. And finishes his letter stating (correct me if I'm wrong here) that all scientists and intelligent comedians like Robin Ince, who dare to point out the absurdities of religions (especially the Abrahamic ones) either seriously or humorously are, and I'm paraphrasing a little here "examples of childish and arrogant materialism that do disservice to science and humanity".

I wonder if Keith realises (probably not) how utterly ironic his letter is?

I also [cynically] wonder if Focus gave this comment the Letter of the month, to either appease the deluded among us, or [even more cynically!] to simply get people debating and perhaps buying more copies?!

Yours

Happy in my dogma-based-science

Lee

[M Paul Lloyd]

Hi Lee, I absolutely agree with all that you say and although I do not wish to second guess the good people at Focus central I suspect that by publishing Mr. Atkin's words as 'Letter of the Month' they were being careful to avoid the all too common criticism of ignoring or even sidelining the issue?

However I personally think that Mr. Atkin's letter is rather heavily weighed down with an excess of self righteous indignation which does his case no good whatsoever.

Indeed if he does not wish to witness aetheist opinion then as you suggest he is indeed best to look away and not try to impose his belief based concepts upon people with a more rational attitude.

[Shadowwolf]

Tis a symptom of the unwarranted respect granted to such erroneous notions as if they are beyond reproach. An all too common reaction of the privileged majority when their sacred cow is not treated as such by those to which it means nothing, as though the personal convictions of some believer presents a compelling force to silence any comment that believer deems offensive. You see your voice, opinions, or position simply do not matter, only their precious dogma and its protection matters and every one that does not hold to it should just shut up and be respectful.

I doubt there would have been any umbrage if the figures of humour were Zeus or Ahura Mazda.

He also has the [wrongly informed] ironic view of atheism (and perhaps even science?) as a dogma.

It sure is an odd position to take, to basically admit the position you hold is unsupported and irrational but look, they're no better! Which is also peculiar given that their dogma, their belief without evidence is treated as a virtue.

I wonder if Keith realises (probably not) how utterly ironic his letter is?

Doubtful, very doubtful.

I also [cynically] wonder if Focus gave this comment the Letter of the month,

Twas probably printed in that fine tradition of "balance". IMO this kind self entitled bleat is exactly the kind of thing you either bin or robustly refute as it amounts to a demand for special censorship because someone, somewhere found something offensive.

[leesparky]

Hi gents

Thanks for the replies - I hoped I wasn't the only one with my particular view!

I guess Keith is one of the many religious apologists out there who feel the need to look for the infinite respect they think they somehow deserve. I'm used to debating with people like him, so I'm not *too* surprised to see the letter.

The thing I can never really fathom, is how any obviously educated people like him reconcile the two ultimately opposing views in their own minds.

Yet, the bit that confuses me most though, is that a science magazine would publish it in the first place I could understand if it was a general newspaper, but not a science magazine

It's not going to make me stop my subscription, as I love the mag. I was just hoping not to come across religious delusion in it

[Healerman]

He also has the [wrongly informed] ironic view of atheism (and perhaps even science?) as a dogma.

To be perfectly fair, atheism is in fact a faith...the absolute belief in the non-existence of a god.
As has been stated all too often, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
An agnostic, on the other hand, believes in nothing that is unsupported by evidence, which just about defines where science is supposed to be, whereas atheism is, at the end of the day, a blind faith."I believe!" and "I refuse to believe!" are two sides of the same coin.

Eliminate the impossible and what remains, however unlikely, is the truth. Well, if you have the truth, your opinion upon how unlikely it is, must be regarded as totally irrelevant. If it is not evidence based, then it is opinion.

Rant over.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Strange I always took the term A-theist to mean someone who lacked belief in a god rather than one who believed that belief in a god was an incorrect concept, whilst an agnostic was someone who wasn't sure either way so was hedging their bets?

I consider myself an atheist but I don't believe god doesn't exist rather I'm quite confident that god doesn't exist because it is all purely a figment of human imagination made up to fill a yawning gap in our inability to understand the universe.

Rant over.

[leesparky]

He also has the [wrongly informed] ironic view of atheism (and perhaps even science?) as a dogma.

To be perfectly fair, atheism is in fact a faith...the absolute belief in the non-existence of a god.

No it absolutely is not. You couldn't be more incorrect if you tried. To be a theist is to believe in something that cannot be proved. To be an atheist is to fail to believe in something that cannot be proved. The first is a faith position, the second is a position of no faith. Atheism is not based on faith, and is not a ‘belief’. Atheism is an absence of theism – atheism. To present it as anything is else is simply false.

In order for atheism to be based on ‘faith’ or ‘belief’ it would have to positively assert something. In fact, atheism does no such thing. Atheism is, simply, a lack of theistic belief, or, in simpler terms, an atheist does not believe in the existence of God.

It is also not an absolute belief either. Any atheist worth his/her salt would probably say they're 99.9% certain there is/are no god or gods. A believer on the other hand would always absolutely believe, even if all the evidence proved otherwise - this is faith.

By definition faith means a belief that is not based on proof.

No rant at all, simply correcting you.

[Shadowwolf]

To be perfectly fair, atheism is in fact a faith...the absolute belief in the non-existence of a god.

This is exactly the argument I referenced, the, "well maybe I am but so are you!" To be perfectly fair, you're completely wrong there but seen as tackling how mistaken this tired canard is can be a long exercise I'll direct you to this excellently written piece which does the job admirably.

Agnostics already can see there is no evidence for just about every deity but at the same time either ignore all the evidence against most of them, or make the unreasonable demand that we need to know the entire verse first before ever reaching a conclusion. For some reason they're unable to take that final step.

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

And no evidence is indicative of nothing at all. Every suspect claim from ghosts to alien visitation hides behind that yawnsome absence of evidence line because it is taken to absolve them of the fact that they don't actually have any evidence. Absence of evidence is indeed not evidence of absence but for demonstrating a claim it's meaningless and it's a damn poor start in arguing for the reality of a claim. If all someone has is that, then they essentially have an assertion without evidence and thus everyone else can simply dismiss that assertion and carry on as if there is in fact nothing. More so if the claim is substantially differing from the reality we observe.

Not ranting either.

[M Paul Lloyd]

And all this dear reader is a perfect example of why we don't generally allow ourselves to stray into the realm of religious debate as it can prove so very divisive.

[Thinker]

I was wondering when the mods would wake up! Tut tut! Usually you are meant to discuss this sort of thing is the Dark room...but it seems to have disappeared!

Anywho, regarding the letter itself, I also believe that it was to keep a balanced view. Can't be too hasty on the reality-deniers, oops! I mean, faithful.

Agnosticism is best described by Dawkins as fence sitting or watching from ring-side as I prefer it.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I was wondering when the mods would wake up! Tut tut! Usually you are meant to discuss this sort of thing is the Dark room...but it seems to have disappeared!

I can assure you Thinker we were awake thank you, just not being too draconian about it.
As for the Darkside, well I'm afraid it floundered due to a lack of user traffic, things just havn't been the same since the old MSN site was shut down.

[Shadowwolf]

I guess we just have to make-do with the PM option but that's always going to be a limited debate.

[Thinker]

Don't take me the wrong way by any means, I like debating this sort of thing, gets it out in the open in a democratic way. I'll stop pretending not to take the foot out of my mouth now!

[Shadowwolf]

Isn't it odd that we/you/I feel that we should perhaps take this kind of topic anywhere but out in the open?

It's another part of the seemingly infinite respect for religions that has been embedded even in *our* minds. If we were talking about Zeus, Mars or Thor, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't fell as if we ought to...

[M Paul Lloyd]

I think we have to accept that different people have different views of the world and how it works and whether one believes in something or doesn't believe in it is a personal choice, and its that right to personal choice which I think we have to try and respect rather than what is behind that belief surely?

It all starts getting complicated and potentially unpleasant when one side insists that the other side is wrong and debate, in my experience at least, merely stokes the fire of disagreement.

So for the purposes of this forum could I ask that we all put aside our beliefs, or lack of same, and, at the risk of trying to sound clever, we should 'focus' on subjects dealing with evidence based science and technology ?

Agree to differ as it were?

[Shadowwolf]

It's another part of the seemingly infinite respect for religions that has been embedded even in *our* minds. If we were talking about Zeus, Mars or Thor, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't fell as if we ought to...

I completely agree, the special pedestal beyond vocalised reproach it has been placed on is just one of the defences the otherwise irrational edifice uses to protect itself from the obvious failings inherent of it and to suppress competing ideas that are more sensible. However, whilst this may be a valid observation it is constituting a further deviation from the OP that will only lead to further digression given how broad, complex and contentious this subject is. For example, just from Mr M's response above we could then highlight the point that everyone is of course free to their beliefs, the problem arises when one lot seeks to foist those beliefs on others or silence anything which offends those beliefs much like the letter writer had done. This is a primarily sci and tech forum and whilst digressions can be indulged in, the general conflict between unbelievers and those who want those folks to be unnoticeable is often outside the aforementioned scope. Faith's special pedestal, biblical errancy, theist's trying to foist their beliefs on other faiths or non-believers and so on are not specifically science or tech topics. As interesting and necessary as the wider debate may be, unless there is a specific cross between science and religion such as evolution versus ID and the like, then generally it is not dealt with here.

Btw the reference by Mr Thinker to a 'Dark Room' was not a suggestion to take such talk to some hidden place, but an alternate site that used to exist where there were no such restrictions based on the magazines general content.

[M Paul Lloyd]

The word secular comes to mind.

[leesparky]

Morning

I'm left a tad frustrated here - I won't be discussing anything religious-orientated again on the Focus science forums. Even though the letter of the month in the Focus magazine was solely about the 'religious respect' issue, to which I responded fairly and with correct assumptions and points - all based on the one thing science's foundations are built on - evidence.

I make this decision based on my respect for the moderators' authority, not on the reasoning - which, again I feel is more about being careful of upsetting someone's feelings, than anything else.

Anyway, I'm not upset or angry, and it won't stop me reading the magazine or forums. I'm simply frustrated.

I'll leave you with an article from the Independent that sums my feelings up perfectly:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 17789.html

Cheers

Lee

[M Paul Lloyd]

I feel your frustration Lee, truly I do, and am grateful for your restraint on the matter, but after having allowed a degree of religious debate on the forum in its former incarnation (see 'How it all began' in the Reference section) we found that after many hundreds of posts it seemed to resolve nothing much at all other than to emphasise that the two camps lacked any sort of common ground.

We therefore undertook to avoid the subject (along with politics) from then on. Focus magazine has touched on religious subjects from time to time as I recall and given that, for whatever reason, some scientists are religious then it has to be given a fair crack of the whip.
I am pleased to say that I do not find it dominating the usual content matter, indeed that letter is the first such example of religious material being published in Focus I can recall seeing for quite some time.

[Thinker]

Look at the other end of the scale!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/indonesian-atheist-attacked-charged-with-blasphemy-after-denying-gods-existence-on-facebook/2012/01/21/gIQAncASFQ_story.html