Voices of Disbelief

[Ray Moscow]

As these guys speak (mostly) as philosphers, we can put this interview on the Philosophy forum.

Interview With Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk (http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=429)

With atheist best-sellers flying off the book-shelves, people are now finding their beliefs questioned, probed and examined. Lumping all arguments together, many dismiss the new wave of intellectual concern as a crass form of schoolyard bullying, calling all those critical of religion “new atheists”. But what is forgotten in these discussions is the human side, the reasons for not believing and what that means in our lives. Many know the arguments against belief but now the point has come to ask another question: why does that matter? In an effort to do just that, two philosophers, Russell Blackford from Australia and German-born Udo Schüklenk have co-edited a book which seeks to solve recent problems for the modern non-believer. 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We are Atheists, was published recently by Wiley-Blackwell.

For many who have spent some time involved in any form of engagement in these matters, the names should appear familiar: from the great AC Grayling to the revolutionary Maryam Namazie. Finally, in one book we can hear their stories – if not about themselves, then about the aspects of religion or lack thereof they find most important. If all these contributors were speakers at a convention, it would be sold out many times over. Udo and Russell kindly agreed to delve further into the background of the book.

Enjoy! I really like Russell Blackford's blog (http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/)as well.

[DMB]

Looks an interesting book. I may get it.

[Quizalufagus]

With atheist best-sellers flying off the book-shelves, people are now finding their beliefs questioned, probed and examined. Lumping all arguments together, many dismiss the new wave of intellectual concern as a crass form of schoolyard bullying, calling all those critical of religion “new atheists”. But what is forgotten in these discussions is the human side, the reasons for not believing and what that means in our lives. Many know the arguments against belief but now the point has come to ask another question: why does that matter?

Are these guys actually suggesting that there are reasons for being an atheist aside from atheism being true?

[BWE]

With atheist best-sellers flying off the book-shelves, people are now finding their beliefs questioned, probed and examined. Lumping all arguments together, many dismiss the new wave of intellectual concern as a crass form of schoolyard bullying, calling all those critical of religion “new atheists”. But what is forgotten in these discussions is the human side, the reasons for not believing and what that means in our lives. Many know the arguments against belief but now the point has come to ask another question: why does that matter?

Are these guys actually suggesting that there are reasons for being an atheist aside from atheism being true?

interesting question.

you must be a mathematician. Atheism being the best conclusion maybe... :p

[lpetrich]

I found a summary of it (http://jennybl.customer.netspace.net.au/voices.htm) in his webpages. It lists all the contributors and the titles of their contributions.

Several of the contributors will need no introduction for many of us, but we may not be very familiar with some of them.

[David B]

With atheist best-sellers flying off the book-shelves, people are now finding their beliefs questioned, probed and examined. Lumping all arguments together, many dismiss the new wave of intellectual concern as a crass form of schoolyard bullying, calling all those critical of religion “new atheists”. But what is forgotten in these discussions is the human side, the reasons for not believing and what that means in our lives. Many know the arguments against belief but now the point has come to ask another question: why does that matter?

Are these guys actually suggesting that there are reasons for being an atheist aside from atheism being true?

If group reinforcement and peer pressure can help make people believe things which ain't true, which I'm pretty sure it can, then I'd imagine that they would also have an effect on helping people believe things which are true.

David

[Preno]

Are these guys actually suggesting that there are reasons for being an atheist aside from atheism being true?If group reinforcement and peer pressure can help make people believe things which ain't true, which I'm pretty sure it can, then I'd imagine that they would also have an effect on helping people believe things which are true.
That's not really a reason, is it? I mean, "so why do you believe in God, anyway?" - "Oh, you know, peer pressure, mostly." :dunno:

[Quizalufagus]

Atheism being the best conclusion maybe... :p

Best in what sense? In the sense that atheism is the conclusion most likely to be true? The passage quoted in the OP implies that truth isn't the relevant motivation for these guys.

[BWE]

Atheism being the best conclusion maybe... :p

Best in what sense? In the sense that atheism is the conclusion most likely to be true? The passage quoted in the OP implies that truth isn't the relevant motivation for these guys.

Sorry, my bad. Your point was excellent. I think my post should go to failforums.com. :p

It is a good question. What other motivation could there be? Well, they do hint at some. It's a crazy world out there.

[Ray Moscow]

With atheist best-sellers flying off the book-shelves, people are now finding their beliefs questioned, probed and examined. Lumping all arguments together, many dismiss the new wave of intellectual concern as a crass form of schoolyard bullying, calling all those critical of religion “new atheists”. But what is forgotten in these discussions is the human side, the reasons for not believing and what that means in our lives. Many know the arguments against belief but now the point has come to ask another question: why does that matter?

Are these guys actually suggesting that there are reasons for being an atheist aside from atheism being true?

That's how you seem to be taking the intro to the interview (rather than the interview itself), but I rather doubt that's how Blackford would put it. But hey, you can go to his blog and ask him.

There are, of course, various reasons to reject theism such as its lack of substantiating evidence, the POE, lack of plausibility of the basic claims, etc. -- and any of these leaves one an "atheist" by default.

[Quizalufagus]

Sorry, my bad. Your point was excellent. I think my post should go to failforums.com. :p

It is a good question. What other motivation could there be? Well, they do hint at some. It's a crazy world out there.

Well, I'm concerned that our supposed atheist leaders are shirking around the central epistemic problem with religious worldviews (namely, that religious people belief because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy). Now there seem to be some atheists who suggest you should be an atheist because it makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

What ever happened to believing stuff that you think is probably true?

[DMB]

Are these guys actually suggesting that there are reasons for being an atheist aside from atheism being true?If group reinforcement and peer pressure can help make people believe things which ain't true, which I'm pretty sure it can, then I'd imagine that they would also have an effect on helping people believe things which are true.
That's not really a reason, is it? I mean, "so why do you believe in God, anyway?" - "Oh, you know, peer pressure, mostly." :dunno:

If David Icke is the only person in the world who believes something you can probably discount it. But if everybody you meet believes something, it's only human nature to start wondering if you haven't got it wrong by holding out.

[Quizalufagus]

That's how you seem to be taking the intro to the interview (rather than the interview itself), but I rather doubt that's how Blackford would put it. But hey, you can go to his blog and ask him.

Well, I think the issue I've pointed to is implicit in the interview itself as well. Tbh, I think epistemic bankruptcy is a necessary part of viewing atheism as a movement rather than a simple philosophical stance.

There are, of course, various reasons to reject theism such as its lack of substantiating evidence, the POE, lack of plausibility of the basic claims, etc. -- and any of these leaves one an "atheist" by default.

I guess so. I don't really think most of the popular arguments against theism are compelling without a lot of additional epistemology. The best argument against theism is probably the meaninglessness of its claims.

[Ray Moscow]

Not so much "meaningless" as impossible, highly improbable or lacking supporting evidence

It seems to me that most theistic claims would mean a great deal if they were true.

[Daydream]

Ray Moscow, thank you so much for posting this. Do you know when their book will be released?

[Ray Moscow]

Amazon UK has it now, and so I suppose it's in bookstores, too.

[lpetrich]

Amazon.com now has it (http://www.amazon.com/50-Voices-Disbelief-Why-Atheists/dp/1405190469)

Here are its contributors:

A.C. Grayling, Adèle Mercier, Athena Andreadis, Austin Dacey, Christine Overall, Dale McGowan, Damien Broderick, Edgar Dahl, Emma Tom, Frieder Otto Wolf, Graham Oppy, Greg Egan, Gregory Benford, J. L. Schellenberg, J.J.C. Smart, Jack Dann, James Randi, Joe Haldeman, John Harris, John P. Phelan, Julian Baggini, Julian Savulescu, Kelly O'Connor, Laura Purdy, Lori Lipman Brown, Marc Hauser, Margaret Downey, Maryam Namazie, Michael R. Rose, Michael Shermer, Michael Tooley, Miguel Kottow, Nicholas Everitt, Ophelia Benson, Peter Adegoke, Peter Singer, Peter Tatchell, Philip Kitcher, Prabir Ghosh, Ross Upshur, Russell Blackford, Sean M. Carroll, Sean Williams, Sheila A.M. McLean, Stephen Law, Sumitra Padmanabhan, Susan Blackmore, Tamas Pataki, Taner Edis, Thomas W. Clark, Udo Schuklenk, Victor J. Stenger

I checked on its Table of Contents at Amazon.com, and it is identical to the list at Russell Blackford's page about the book (http://jennybl.customer.netspace.net.au/voices.htm).

Some of the names are familiar to me, and some of the names will be familiar to you others also, but many of them I'm unfamiliar with.

Kelly O'Connor is from the Rational Response Squad; she and Brian Sapient had debated Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron about the existence of God on Nightline a few years back.

[RexT]

Are these guys actually suggesting that there are reasons for being an atheist aside from atheism being true?That's a fine point, Quiz. If only everyone used accuracy instead of ignorance to determine their beliefs...

But politics and emotion are often the greater motive, not only for this important issue but for countless others. Governments and leaders have used this fact to spin and propagandize for centuries. People are controlled easier through ignorance than through accurate information. It boggles the mind that this is still possible in the information age. I suspect however that the tide is slowly turning in favor of accuracy.

[muidiri]

Are these guys actually suggesting that there are reasons for being an atheist aside from atheism being true?

The social memes and concepts implicit in religion that are (I believe) a threat to the continued development of our species? He asks why it's important to question religion - and aside form the truthiness of it, I think there are many very good reasons to question the underlying messaged - especially those that are expected to be accepted axiomatically (that eating the apple was a bad thing, for example).

[muidiri]

Sorry, my bad. Your point was excellent. I think my post should go to failforums.com. :p

It is a good question. What other motivation could there be? Well, they do hint at some. It's a crazy world out there.

Well, I'm concerned that our supposed atheist leaders are shirking around the central epistemic problem with religious worldviews (namely, that religious people belief because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy). Now there seem to be some atheists who suggest you should be an atheist because it makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

What ever happened to believing stuff that you think is probably true?

Religion isn't so much about that sort of truth - the science-fact kind of truth. It's much more, in my opinion, about hope and about how one views the purpose and meaning of one's life. It's intimately linked with how we view our society or community, and a comparison of how it currently works versus how we think it ought to work. It's about a perspective on what values and behaviors are important to us, and why we think they're important.

For many people, I don't think they ever really dig into why certain behaviors are important - they just accept them because of religion. Religion provides them a why: Because God said so. Trying to actually weed through the delicate balance between autonomy and society, trying to reason out why charity is good and avarice is bad, for instance, is difficult. And for much of our history, they were virtually impossible to answer.

All of the eventual answers - even our atheistic and more scientific ones - rely on certain assumptions about human behavior, motivations, and fears. It relies on our very unscientific assumptions about how people will act, how they might act, and how they ought to act.

Those things are extremely difficult to assign a degree of varacity to - it's not all about truth or falsehood. If it were that simple, you wouldn't have so many political discussions in an atheist forum :) But perspectives about what ought to work best, and what best incentivizes desired behaviors and characteristics, as well as what those characteristics are in the first place... is all open to interpretation. It's all a matter of belief. Atheism simply asks that you set aside the "Be good or Santa won't bring you presents" aspect of the superstitions and actually examine your own soul (or whatever you want to call it).

To me, there are reasons for atheism that transcend the question of whether or not god actually exists.

[Rie]

:D When we , every one of us is on our death bed, as the saying goes, we will all wonder like Super Tramp.... 'Lord, is it mine?' and similar thoughts because altho' near death experiences can not be dismissed, we all of us will wonder what comes next. For me, for there to be nothing would be like a play with no denouement. As for belief in a creator of all things long time ago..... I believe that since, despite desperate arguments from Scientific types, we have not proved we can create anything from nothing, then I incline to thinking that there is some entity or force that can. Whether that entity cares about us is the REAL question./ just for some light relief , my Russian mother in law's last words were ..."ALL men are bastards"

[Jobar]

Rie, have you read some of the fine books on atheism that have come out in the past few years? I suggest you get a copy of The God Delusion, if you haven't already.

The hope of life after death can be understood by our experience of waking from a sound sleep; we know that our consciousness can disappear, then reappear. But once our physical bodies disappear... well, despite myths and legends all through history, we have no evidence of anyone ever coming back from that.

This might better be discussed in the Religion forum, if you want to carry on with it. If you respond, I'll split it off to a new thread there.

[Ray Moscow]

Amazon UK has it now, and so I suppose it's in bookstores, too.

I forgot to mention: Barnes & Noble (a big US chain) only has it listed as a "textbook" and will only order it on a prepaid basis.

I'd go with Amazon instead.

I gave Russell the heads up on this by email a couple of week ago. There's not much he can do except ask his publisher (John Wiley & Sons) to push harder to have it stocked in bookstores.