I'm going to be intentionally contrarian here and say that — there's every chance that their blatant hypocrisy had nothing to do with their faith and everything to do with their conservatism.

Those of strong religious belief tend to be more likely to be Right Wing Authoritarians (who also tend to be politically conservative) but either way, that hypocrisy had a lot to do with their faith (remember always that faith is very important to the typical high RWA).

The problem isn't faith, belief or religious affiliation; it's political conservatism and, as Jim Baerg pointed out above, psychological rigidity. These are not necessarily symptoms of religious intolerance. They are they causes of it.

It's quite likely that excessive religious faith causes the psychological rigidity that is the problem.

As plunge noted, Dawkins is writing from a UK perspective with different laws, etc. He still makes a fundamental mistake: he confuses religion with a simple belief system, reducible to just the tenets and creeds the followers espouse.

Religion ultimately comes down to exactly that.

But belonging to a faith is also belonging to a community, a family, a group.

If there is anything about religion that is good then we can replicate it in a non-theistic manner although many of us doubt the necessity of that.

By denying membership in the group — all to preserve the child's ability to 'autonomously' choose their beliefs later on — is to deny them the benefits that come from being a part of their larger community.

They have their family as well as the rest of the people in the country they are as well as their friends at school. I see no need to add a religion to it.

Besides, atheists seem to get by just fine without membership in religious groups so there's obviously no need for such groups.

It also seems to me that teaching comparative religion to children again gives the atheist, humanist and secularist an unfair advantage. We atheists gain lots of converts once people see how arbitrary religious choices are.

Wrong, it is giving religion an unfair advantage not to teach comparative religion to children. All we want is to have the same rights as the religions and then we'll let the free market of ideas deal with everything (of course since we actually have some confidence that we're right we can expect to have our beliefs do well on a level playing field).

Finally, I want to reiterate the point that — whether my reading of Dawkins is correct or not — that we atheists need to watch out for the "selective wall" ourselves. It's very easy to say that, since we're right and the theists are wrong, we deserve some form of special consideration.

But maybe we do.

I think Nick Humphrey got it right when he suggested that a child should only be forcibly taught that which they would likely decide for themselves.

But this goes against the basic liberal values of our secular society, and I personally think it is more dangerous than teaching children a fib such as that Jesus was real.

It may actually be necessary to our basic liberal values.

This here is probably the heart of our disagreement. The religious right (let loose by the lax 'good natured atheists!') isn't the cause of our current Culture Wars; they are a symptom of them.

If there were no religion in the religious right then what would they have to fight over?

Without their religion they'd have no reason to hate gays, nor any reason to be annoyed about "Happy Holidays" nor any reason to take evolution out of school.

The sin of slimy Falwell and his ilk wasn't being religiously conservative; it was their political authoritarianism and their willingness to sell their pastoral flocks for a seat at the political table.

Why did they even want a seat at the political table?

It was because they thought their religion was threatened (fundamentalist Christianity used to stay out of politics).

I don't think we're in the middle of a fight between Reason and Superstition.

Oh yes we are and we probably will be for some time even after religion is gone.

We're in a fight between political Freedom and political Authoritarianism. What makes it seem like a fight against religion is the fact that most authoritarians are religious.

Yes, because religion tends towards authoritarianism.

But if we atheists spend all our time fighting the symptoms, who will ever try to fight the disease?

The thing is that it's you who wants to fight the symptoms (e.g. Political authoritarianism) instead of the disease.

For too long we have been fighting symptoms such as Creationalism instead of going after religion which is where all that crap comes from.

To be clear: the 'religious right' is the enemy. But they aren't the enemy because they are religious; they are the enemy because they want to tell what and how to think.

But why do you want to tell other what and how to think?

Because they are religious, if they weren't religious they wouldn't be pulling most of the crap they do.

The rest of the western world has political conservatives but they tend not to be anywhere near as scary as the ones in the US.

They aren't the enemy because they want to subvert science. They are the enemy because they think subverting science is a step towards political domination.

But why would they possibly want to subvert science? Because it contradicts their religion.

If I sound rancorous, it's because I am. Because I want to fight the long war and not just the current battle

Defeating this lot of political authoritarians won't stop religion from breeding more.

For us to win the long war we need to reduce the prevalence of religion in society.

— because I want to fight the whole damn edifice of irrationality and authoritarianism,

That's a fight that will get easier with religion gone (and religion is the worst form of irrationality).

Meyers, Moran and Dawkins call me and my compatriots "Neville Chamberlain" atheists and "do-nothing" atheists.

You're giving in to the theists so an accurate description.

did the parents fight to exclude literature aimed at "atheist, agnostic and humanist" children because they were religious or because they were conservative?

Ordinary not very religious conservatives wouldn't care about such things so I'm going to answer that it was because they were religious.

When I label the enemy as the 'authoritarian mindset', I include people like Kim Jung Ill, Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, in addition to the Ted Haggards and Fred Phelps of the world. When you label the enemy as theists you include Haggard, Phelps and … Richard Swinburne. I boggles my mind to think Swinburne is more dangerous than Alexander Lukashenko. I've (briefly) met Swinburne. He's sweet and smarter than either of us. He's a Darwinist, too.

The problem with the more moderate theists is that they make theism acceptable enough to allow the Fred Phelps of the world to preach their crap (and the Osama Bin Ladens to put it into practice).

Besides, where do you think the fundamentalist churches get their converts from? Mostly the more liberal (and much less dangerous) branches of their own religion.

(Note: this post has been over-edited and is starting to lose coherence. So I'm posting it now, before I have a chance to make it even worse.)

If this is what you consider this to be merely a spirited discussion, then what would you be like when actually defending Christianity? I've been reading your dialog with OMGF in this thread, and you started off by accusing Dawkins and Harris of requesting special treatment for atheism (which has been disproved by direct quotation of the statements in question), and made particular use of the Amish as an example of a group of "good" Christians (in context) from which you had to retreat when evidence was produced; you have failed to make a case for your central thesis (that conservatism, not religion, is the true root of problems) or your side claim (that atheists can be as narrow-minded as theists). You have, instead, grabbed a few out-of-context words and built objections on them. Hardly a spirited logical discussion. More a spirited arbitrary digression.

You claim to be an atheist. Well, if there is no god, then the bible (as any other theist holy book) is just a book of occasionally pretty-sounding lies. Should lies be taught at any school which professes to teach science? Remember what one of C. P. Snow's characters said about science (many scientists have echoed this sentiment, including at least one president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, but Snow's formulation is probably best): "the only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time". The book goes on to say something along the lines of "if we allow someone to tell a lie for a beneficial reason, then we open the door for lies to be told for reasons which may not be beneficial." If we let theists pollute public education with their unverified and unverifiable claims, even "nice" theists, then we open the door to frauds, hucksters, and the inevitable shakedowns for money which somehow manage to accompany theism wherever it goes.

Allowing revealed "truth" to be spread via the medium of publicly-funded schools is special treatment. It doesn't happen otherwise: you don't see biology teachers saying "well, there used to be unicorns, but they were never fossilized", or music teachers saying "this composer's works cure cancer" or a math teacher saying "you can actually count to infinity, but the government won't let me tell you how." (We used to let health teachers tell people that masturbation would make boys grow hairy palms, go blind, go insane, or become physically infirm, but that has been stopped precisely because it isn't verifiable truth.) Asking to have religious training abolished from schools is not special treatment, nor is asking for the teaching of classes in world religions as objective cultural phenomena. These are what atheists have suggested, and which you have categorized as special treatment. Ridiculous! The former is asking for an end to special treatment, and the other is fair treatment.

You deny that atheism is inherently morally superior to theism? No atheist has ever sold indulgences or claimed that people would suffer for failing to contribute money, both of which are practices which continue to this day around the world (the pope recently sold some indulgences to a bunch of rich Catholic kids, although mention of that word was studiously avoided -- instead, they were merely allowed to pay for a session which would reduce their sin before god), and if there are atheists out there who pretend that convincing others of the truth of a set of unprovable statements is worthy of tax-free status, they are so rare as to be nonexistent for all practical purposes. If an atheist wants tax-free status, they are forced to at least be honest about what it is they're doing and provide a charitable service. (Note: this morning, I actually had a door-to-door solicitation asking me to come to a traveling preacher who lives off his donations. I would love to think that he will have a net loss in my area, but unfortunately there are a lot of people who will go -- dragging their unfortunate children and carrying their checkbooks -- and who will donate money to "do the Lord's Work". Sadly, these will be the people who can afford such a waste of resources the least. I wish I were cynical enough to follow the sarcastic line and "think of it as evolution in action" but I see some of these people at the food pantry and I want to cry.)

Honestly, arguing that because I didn't spell out "inferred from" I was discounting the use of inference? It can only mean things have to spelled out for you, which means you failed to infer. (Cyclic!) But that means that either you normally do not infer from what you read -- in which case I think I can be excused for saying you aren't too bright -- or else you are doing this deliberately, in which case you are being deliberately obtuse. Thus my comment, though perhaps tactless, still stands.

Like you, I'm not ashamed of who I am -- the difference between us is, perhaps, that one of the things I am is fed up with deliberate ignorance and those who defend it. Maybe it's just the Republican debates last night, where every one of the candidates seemed to suffer from occasional halving of their IQs or an ingrown hatred of humanity or both, or it might be the "please ignore our previous eight years of utterly failing to differentiate ourselves from the Republican party" Democratic debates before that (all of them had that fault, but I'm looking specifically at you, Hillary and Barack), but I'm not in the mood to argue with someone who is unwilling to read intelligently right now.

I'm sorry to hear that. I honestly thought we were having a spirited discussion. I had no idea I was "contemptible," "obtuse," and/or "genuinely stupid." I've always thought there is room for rational disagreement on issues. I've always assumed that there is room for difference of opinion, even among allies.

If I've harped on the observation/inference distinction it's because I think it's important. When people forget, downplay or ignore the importance of the inferences we make they fall into mistakes. Mistakes such as thinking 'science' and 'reason' are co-extensive. Here are some posts by atheists who agree with this general point: Deeply Blashphemous and Everyday Atheism.

I've always felt it's my duty to point out arguments that are fallacious, incorrect, or inconclusive — even when they are arguments made by fellow atheists. It's beyond me how pointing out a mistake is the same as 'defending Christianity.'

I was — and am — serious when I said this:

If you think my arguments are wrong, don't just tell me. Convince me. If my arguments are wrong then I made a logical mistake somewhere. I hate logical mistakes — much more than I ever hated Jerry Falwell.

When I get into a discussion with someone, I assume they feel the same way. If they don't — well, that's no reason to remain uncontroversial. After all, these words apply to me, also:

I am not, nor will I ever be, ashamed of who I am. I will not apologize for defending the positions I believe in, nor will I apologize for speaking out with energy and passion. I will entertain any fair criticism of my beliefs, but I will pay no regard to those who put on a pretense of high-mindedness and try to silence positions they find disturbing by calling them uncouth and radical.

It's tempting to let OMGF speak for me here, since I agree that your posts have been pretty contemptible. My original phrase was "discovered by observation and experiment". Says nothing about ignoring inference, and only someone who was either deliberately obtuse or genuinely stupid would assume that.

Your posts suggest to me that you are actually a theist -- in fact, more specifically a Christian -- who for some reason is posing as an atheist. You're willing to twist anything, squeeze through any loophole, to try and turn this discussion into the age old fable of "evil atheists versus innocent Christians". Possibly you're still in the "how I was brought up makes no sense logically but I can't bring myself to let go" stage, or maybe this is some sort of twisted attempt at subversion. (The latter sounds paranoid, but when you consider that Vicki's quote, above, is from a public statement by a self-proclaimed Christian, and that torture is now repeatedly not just justified but actually demanded by the same groups, you have to realize that there is no infamy so great that Christians will not do it in the joyous belief that they are doing the will of god.)

Yes, there are nice Christians. You probably live surrounded by them, if you are genuinely an atheist and not just an agitator, because otherwise you'd realize that atheists don't need to defend Christianity; it already has its own defenders, and the force of numbers (in the west, at least) to boot. The fact of the matter is that the only resolution of this particular story (the one we're commenting on at the moment) which doesn't lead to either an admission of outright religious advocacy or blows is to stop using public schools to distribute this sort of stuff entirely. Stick, in fact, to those valid truths I defined. (Of course, it will still make religious fundamentalists angry -- if you accept actual evidence from the universe, then you end up with evolution and an "old" earth, which they refuse to admit. But then, you can never actually satisfy a religious fundamentalist when it comes to this stuff -- they always need an excuse to explain why the magic isn't working -- so you might as well choose to incur their anger by telling the truth instead of compromise yourself first and get them angry anyway.)

"So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God."
–Gary North, "The Intellectual Schizophrenia of the New Christian Right" in Christianity and Civilization: The Failure of the American Baptist Culture, No. 1 (Spring, 1982), p. 25.

Two points:
1. Inference is the process of using observation and experimentation. It does not come from a vaccuum. Just because we take those older observations for granted doesn't mean they didn't happen.
2. Theism is irrational. It depends on begging the question. In order to "reason" to god, one has to first assume that god is correct. Then all of one's "reasons" make sense. Convenient and logically fallacious. It is not logical fallacy to point this out, as you asserted. Besides, if it is not fallacious to "reason" to god, then it is similarly not fallacious and certainly reasonable to believe in fairies, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, invisible pink unicorns, and the floating teapot that orbits the sun between Earth and Mars, as well as any other thing that I can imagine. Actually, the teapot is probably more reasonable, since we know that teapots exist, which gives it a leg up on god.

We need to slow down. I'm not saying anything stronger than we need observation, experimentation and a process of inference. I was objecting to your characterization of using only observation and experimentation — I never meant to imply that "a theory is not allowed to develop because one could not possibly observe all possible permutations governed by that theory." Absolutely a theory is allowed to develop beyond the particular observations that lead to it. But they can only move past those observations through some form of inference.

In step (1), moving from repeated discrete observations to a general law is a form of inductive inference. It's a cogent inference and is perfectly acceptable. But it's still an inference.

In fact, moving from (1) to (7) is a set of discrete deductive inferences leading to a valid conclusion.

I'm only making this minor (and, I would have thought, uncontroversial) claim: our knowledge, especially our true scientific knowledge, requires more than just observation and experimentation. It requires some process of inference. Good forms of inference lead to true knowledge. Bad forms of inference lead to false or unwarranted knowledge.

I don't really think we're that far apart on this. After all, your steps from (1) to (7) is, essentially, the same as my claim:

In the case of the largest star in could be a form of deductive inference, since we can mathematically prove that any finite group of objects will (again, barring ties) have a biggest and a smallest member.

You know, I'm going to back down on this one. My point was only that "indoctrination" is a very loaded term. But it is a leap to move from that one word to proof of prejudicial intent. This is an instance where my rhetoric outran my evidence. I apologize for any offense.

Oh, come on. That's the most childish splitting of hairs I've ever seen -- you're basically saying that a theory is not allowed to develop because one could not possibly observe all possible permutations governed by that theory. (That is, Newton isn't allowed to come up with the gravity unless he sees all falling apples in the entire universe.) I never claimed that -- you're putting words in my mouth, and since they aren't even true words, I object. Here's how it works:

1. Observation of natural world and experimentation leads to hypothesis/theory/law (by this time, it is a law, although I don't think anyone has ever questioned its status enough to give it that name) that one can count discrete objects. (Set theory begins here.)

2. Observation of natural world leads to h./t./l. (law status also not contested to my knowledge) that objects made from matter have mass and therefore weight (although weight is determined by context, so better to use mass)

3. Experimentation with numbers (matching of numbers to natural law is tricky, but thanks to work by mathematicians ca. 1900 or so, there are constructionist proofs, derivable from integers which can be derived from observation of the real world, of the useful parts of finite set theory) leads to law (theorem?) that every finite set of numbers has a greatest member. (If the items in the set are not numbers, this is not necessarily true.)

4. Observation and experimentation w/heating of elements leads to theory that spectral lines in light emitted from a hot object indicate makeup by particular types of matter. (This is eventually rooted in quantum theory, which is backed by a huge number of experiments and observations.)

5. Stars are observed to have spectral lines in their light emissions, and are, by (4), made of matter.

6. Stars are made of matter so by (2) they have mass.

7. A finite list of masses is a finite well-ordered set, so by (8) and (1), in a finite list of the masses of stars, there will be one which is the largest.

The only open question from this is: are there a finite number of stars or not? The last I heard, the answer was still supposed to be yes, so that means there is definitely a largest star somewhere (or some number of stars which tie for the title). If the universe is truly infinite, then it is possible that there is no star which is the largest one -- any time you think you've got the largest one, there could be one that is larger by one electron, somewhere.

Of course, this also ignores the fact that there is an upper limit on the mass of a star -- if you clump enough matter together, even the process of fusion which powers a star (and which normally prevent collapse) will not be enough to keep it from turning into a black hole. Since stars create light by slowly converting matter into photons, though, any star near this critical mass (that didn't immediately engulf something large enough to push it over the edge) would gradually back away from it.

dpoyesac wrote: The very fact that you use words like "indoctrination" and claim that "that religion has a 'structural disadvantage' in terms of the use of critical thinking, reason and evidence" — well, that kind of proves my overall point, doesn't it? Prejudice by atheists against the religious is just as bad as prejudice by the religious against us nonbelievers.

It's not clear that you kind of proved anything. And what is "kind of proves"? Is that some kind of cut-rate proof? Because you provide no supporting rationale. I think if you are going to kind of accuse someone of prejudice, you should kind of put forward a solid, well explained case.