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New Documentary Chronicles Road Tripping Scientists Promoting Reason
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Dennis Overbye reports in the NY Times that two years ago Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss set off on a barnstorming tour to save the world from religion and promote science. Their adventure is now the subject of The Unbelievers, a new documentary. 'If you think a road trip with a pair of intellectuals wielding laptops is likely to lack drama, you haven't been keeping up with the culture wars,' writes Overbye. The scientists are mobbed at glamorous sites like the Sydney Opera House. Inside, they sometimes encounter clueless moderators; outside, demonstrators condemning them to hellfire. At one event, a group of male Muslim protesters are confronted by counterprotesters chanting, 'Where are your women?' 'Travelogue shots, perky editing and some popular rock music, as well as interview bits with such supportive celebrities as Woody Allen, Cameron Diaz, Sarah Silverman and Ricky Gervais, shrewdly enliven the brainy — but accessible — discourse,' writes Gary Goldstein in the LA Times, 'but mostly the movie is an enjoyably high-minded love fest between two deeply committed intellectuals and the scads of atheists, secularists, free-thinkers, skeptics and activists who make up their rock star-like fan base.' The movie ends at the Reason Rally in Washington, billed as the largest convention of atheists in history. Dawkins looks out at the crowd standing in a light rain and pronounces it 'the most incredible sight I can remember ever seeing' and declares that too many people have been cowed out of coming out as atheists, secularists or agnostics. 'We are far more numerous than anybody realizes.'"
December 13-19, 2013: Quad Cinemas 34 West 13th Street New York City, NY (212) 255-8800
News on Blu-ray/DVD/iTunes/Netflix/VOD coming soon.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Science doesn't need to disprove anything since there is no reason to believe in a god in the first place. Even if there is a god, it doesn't mean that any of the junk in the bible, koran, bhagavad gita, or harry potter is true.
You may experience violence if you voice your views in some countries.
most Christians and Buddhists that I know understand the role of religion (and when to NOT use religion).
Not so for the Muslims.
And how many Muslims do you know? Most Muslims also know when NOT to use religion. There are more than a billion of them - if half a billion of them did not know when to use it, I think we might have a tad bigger problem that we currently do.
Remember, the kooks you see on TV are like the kooks you see for other religions as well - they are the minority. Hell, the way faith is involved in politics in the US and informs policy decision (veiled as some other excuse) has done far more harm to the LGBT community than most other religions.
If you're afraid to publicly affirm what you believe, you probably don't deserve your beliefs.
>by Anonymous Coward
I agree.
"Science hasn't "disproven" the existence of *any* supernatural being, just as it hasn't "proven" the existence either."
It isn't up to science to disprove the existence of god or whatever you want to call it. As Sagan so eloquently put it "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and religion doesn't like to produce evidence.
On other hand though, when you look at how many gods mankind has believed in over the millennia (approximately 3000) the odds that the one particular god currently favoured is the right one is pretty darn small so as far as disproving it, no you're right, the particular favourite god of the moment (and this will change as it always does) may not be disproven, but it in no way stands out any more than all these other gods ever did and as such the probability that this god is any more real than any of the others is very tiny indeed. I certainly wouldn't go betting my life on being right about which one to pick.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot
Hard to explain it much better than that...
Comments say it's just an interview, not the actual film. Just a heads up.
Science doesn't disprove anything.
Isn't the only thing you actually can do in science? Disprove or fail to disprove, but there is no prove.
This is why I don't tell people I am an atheist. Most people who proclaim it make insulting comments about others beliefs, like "sky faery". I classify this not as atheism, but religion hating. I think there is a difference. I don't really talk about religion, or unicorns, or any number of things I don't believe in. It really never comes up in my day to day life with people.
That being said, I don't believe I have a monopoly on the truth. I think I am right, but my views have changed time and again throughout my life. I don't know I am right, so how can I tell someone else with certainty they are wrong? I don't want people telling me I am wrong and arguing with me because they think they are right, why wouldn't I do the same for others. Mostly though, I don't care. Their lives are not mine to live.
And how many Muslims do you know? Most Muslims also know when NOT to use religion.
The statistics from Britain, where something like 30% Muslims want the UK to become a SA-like theocracy, speak a little different. Or are you suggesting that the majority of Muslims in other countries is less extreme than those living in the relatively liberal UK?
Ezekiel 23:20
Dawkins can be obnoxious.
Rush Limbaugh is simultaneously obnoxious, obviously devoid of integrity in his stated purpose, and doesn't listen to the people he is meant to interview or debate. Oh, and he's a demagogue, intentionally playing against the passions and prejudices of his audience for personal gain.
Rush is worse
And how many Muslims do you know?
In the thousands ?
And I am not kidding.
Of the people that I know many of them are Muslims.
Many of them are very bright, except for one thing - you just can NOT discuss religion (or faith) thing with them.
Unlike the Buddhists or Christians or Jews where you can have civil discussion, or even debates on matter pertaining to whether if there is a "God" or matter such as "If the different religion worship the same God" or the very act of suicide bombing killing the innocent can be call "a service to God" ... you just can't have such discussion with the Muslims.
My background being from a Communist country (during the time I left China it was VERY ANTI-RELIGION) I can see the point from *both* the anti-religion standpoint and from the "God is my savior" standpoint.
I can have civil discussion with the Jews, with the Buddhists, with the Hindus, and with the Christians, in matters that I outlined above, but so far, the Muslims just can't discuss it civilly.
For them, anything that "threaten" and/or "weaken" their "belief in Allah" is "blasphemous" --- and in the discussion, I certainly never even have the thought of "weaken their faith" at all, but the Muslims just don't take it kindly if anyone DARE to question their religion.
That is why I say, if those two scientists are REALLY SO CONCERN of the negative effect religion might do to human civilization, they should stop proselytizing in the street of Los Angeles or Sydney.
They should go to Saudi Arabia, or Yemen or Egypt or Tunisia or Iran, and try to make their point across to the Muslims.
Anything short of that they are preaching to the choir.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Great sentiment, well stated.
God bless you.
If they are SO REALLY CONCERN about religion ... Why don't they take their tour into the Middle East, maybe to countries such as Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Egypt ?
Maybe because atheism doesn't require martyrs? How is this +1Insightful?
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
If someone presents me with a well-formed logical argument that proves B (within an axiomatic framework obviously), but I believe A, I change my belief. This is what a rational being does. I don't get emotional about it, I simply adjust my model of reality. If there is no well-fomed logical argument within an axiomatic framework, I either ignore or refute it with a well-formed logical argument based in an axiomatic framework. (Phew, someone should invent a shorter way to say that...)
The sad part of this is that you're absolutely right. The vast majority of the people in the world lack the ability to think critically when it directly confronts a long-held viewpoint.
First thing one should focus on to learn reason is logical fallacies, and the False Dichotomy, for example, "Reason versus religion", is right up toward the top.
I disagree. Anyone who actually reasons about their religion will shuck it in a heartbeat. There's not the slightest evidence to support one religion's claims vs. another's, so the only rational choice is to set your standard for evidence low and believe all of them, or set it high and reject all of them. And since they are mutually contradictory, reason requires you to throw one of those options out.
Religion is a culturally transmitted phenomenon, almost like language. It's no accident that if you know when and where a randomly selected person lives or lived you can predict both their language and religion with fairly high accuracy. Reason indicates that religion all about tradition, not about some objective reality.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I don't think that the intent is to convert the religious 'true believers', they're lost causes. There are an awful lot of people in the world, in all cultures, who have lost their faith in religion and feel alone and perhaps frightened of a life without the familiar restrictions. I live in Seattle now and there are plenty of non-theists here, but I used to live in Michigan and Florida and Peru. It can be a scary thing to grow up in a place where children are taught that atheists worship Satan and commit atrocities because they have no morality. These are the people that I hope this movie reaches.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Hope this helps. Here is some more. Think we can find similar numbers for any other religion?
I am an atheist. It's not an organization, it's not a belief, and it certainly is not a fucking religion.
If they start annoying me with it I'm gonna troll the shit out of them. I do this all the time and if they don't want to be screwed with they should keep their trap shut and leave me the fuck alone.
I'd have no problem with it if they managed to keep their 'beliefs' to themselves but it seems they have to drag it into school, government, and every-fucking-where else they seem to think they have a right.
My problem with them is large majority vote whatever way their pastor tells them and believe whatever crap they interpret out of their religious text. There is nothing more dangerous that stupid people in large numbers with a book that tells them whatever they do is right and the will of whatever deity they worship.
Religion is a disease and sooner or later it will be destroyed or mankind by it.
I think this is a lot more simple. What complicates it are people's egos that demand they aggressively defend a position, and that's incredibly frustrating when it's a position derived from faith. No wonder they get so upset. The ego can't lose, yet it has nothing to defend itself with at all, and that's an animal backed into a corner. Reason solves that problem, but requires maturity at several levels to implement.
Even positions derived from science and reason can be fanatically defended by scientists that don't want to listen to any arguments that may just force them to reevaluate their position. Scientists can have huge egos in that regard, and I think we see quite a bit of problems evidenced by all the articles about publishing and reproducibility problems. They are not perfect either, and subject to the same periods when they lack reason as well.
Faith is actually a very simple thing to deal with once you remove ego from the equation. Easier said than done, I know.
I personally believe such and such to be true, despite the complete lack of evidence supporting it. I know there is nothing to support the position, therefore I don't attempt to hold anyone else to the code of conduct that the position demands. It's my faith. Go get your own.
I'm not atheist. I believe in many, many, concepts and abstract ideas derived from decades of ontological excursions into my inner self, and attempting to use that knowledge to explain the world.
Quite often I don't feel included in Dawkins movement against reason having been replaced with religion. That's a shame, because they're is not all that much we disagree on at all. I do feel that reason must be used in our governance and construction of our "base" reality, and faith can be a personal thing not regulated or subject to governance.
It's not required that I reject everything not solely based upon reason to participate in such a movement, yet I experience quite the opposite. Even around here.
Those that make the fanatical demand to only adhere to reason are just as much a problem as the religious fanatics IMHO.
I did a quick search and found this saying 40%:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1510866/Poll-reveals-40pc-of-Muslims-want-sharia-law-in-UK.html
... but I do agree that atheism is a religion. After all, how can one believe that a supernatural power does not exist except through faith?
There's your problem, right at the beginning. You're assuming that atheism means a belief that no supernatural power exists, rather than merely the lack of belief in the existence of a supernatural power. Lack of belief does not require faith and is not a religion any more than not collecting stamps is a hobby (to coin a phrase).
You refer to agnosticism "in its simplest form". The simplest form of atheism is the absence of belief, not belief in absence. To be completely general, there are actually four possible combinations: gnostic theist, agnostic theist, gnostic atheist, and agnostic atheist. An atheist can be gnostic or agnostic, and an agnostic can be theist or atheist. Using either word alone inevitably leads to confusion.
The term "agnostic" refers almost exclusively to agnostic atheists, while "atheist" by itself is more flexible. In general practice "atheist" also refers to the agnostic atheist—just with different emphasis (lack of evidence for a supernatural being, vs. lack of knowledge). Of the two, the emphasis on lack of evidence is more scientific. We don't emphasize how little we know about invisible pink unicorns when faced with the complete lack of evidence in favor of their existence. We require evidence of existence, not evidence of absence.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
In a way, you're as fanatical, as is everyone. Everyone thinks that morality is something. I'm a relativist, so the only point I'm fanatical about is that morality is different for everyone, and we should keep that in mind when constructing social contracts and trying to be good to each other. Yet, I'm absolutely fanatical about this point, because I live by it, and think other's should, too. Whatever it is, you have an actionable belief that you think is the proper one, which you have clearly indicated by suggesting that Dawkins is just as fanatical as "religious fanatics".
I don't think you need to be fanatical at all. The truth does not require cheerleaders. I believe that there is a level of maturity such that a reasoned person is making the decisions, and will choose based up on reason.
That happens when you remove ego, and emotions, from the decision. I think the truly great leaders of our time acted exactly like that at least some of the time.
So I agree with you about what you want to be fanatical about. That's kind of the ideal world anyways. One in which people employ such reasoned decisions the majority of the time. That would be awesome.
Once again, you don't need to be fanatical at all. Embrace the fact that faith exists. Champion the good effects that come from it. Accept it for what it is. After that, just be passionate about explaining to people how they balance their faith in their decision making process.
Even atheism is faith. Oh yes it is. You can't prove or disprove the existence of deities and the various frameworks created around them. It isn't falsifiable. An atheist is not inherently correct even when you only apply well reasoned logic to it. It's the choice to only make decisions upon that which is falsifiable . That is a matter of faith that nothing else is operating that can affect your conclusion.
You might think that is a stretch. I'm only championing neutrality here. True neutral defaults to only that which we can work with in a tangible sense. When you employ that in your reasoning process, I think many things become self evident in nature.
The problem is you don't agree, 100%, with Dawkins method, and you don't think he should be trying to convert people to his method.
Not at all.
I think converting people over to the "method" is fine. It's not really belonging in a group of people anyways. What you are teaching is logic itself. Just teach the concepts of logic in its various disciplines. Can you imagine having that as 2 hours a day required for all children while in school? Yeah, holy shit. You would have some very smart people out there.
Applying logic can create a person that is beyond atheism. They just recognize what they know, and what they don't know. Everything else is logic. Even faith in a sense.
What I disagree with, is that Dawkins thinks he has to convert me in the first place. He doesn't. We are on the same team so to speak already.
I feel this way because quite often I get that reaction any time I discuss my faith (being asked) with so-called intellectuals that become a little bit condescending once you step outside of falsifiable territory. It's hypocritical to me.
I think Dawkins would say the role of religion is not to exist. That he would say that theism works against our interests more than it helps, so he would say no Christians understand the proper role of religion.
I'm not sure he would go that far. Remember that Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, and to him, there is always an explanation for why some feature or trait persists in a species. I think Dawkins would more likely qualify your statement with "now that we have science, we no longer need religion." I've read some of his books and there's a sense that you can justify the existence of religion as a socio-evolutionary trait of humans. Our early society demanded something, an idea both simple and powerful, to germinate around. Something that promoted beneficial traits, like a strong sense of community, and not to ask too many questions, all while "explaining" the natural world. This was religion's role. Something which would promote the survival of one tribe over another, so that the most devout tribe was likely one of the strongest. But, now that we have science, logic, and rational thought, we no longer need religion as the very core of our societies. The social nature of humans is both well established and self-sustaining (barring global catastrophe, of course), and I believe his opinion would be that we're long overdue to jettison the booster-rocket of religion, and rely solely on science and logic to be our main engines from here on out. Pardon the rocket metaphor.
That's my take on him, anyways.
I don't think it is a stretch, I think its irrelevant. I think calling it a faith when the word is used to describe methods clearly exclusive to empiricism is a malapropism, but nonetheless, I do believe empiricism is the only correct way to seek "truth".
Ouch.
I still think its relevant. If you exclusively limit yourself to empiricism, you negate an entire domain based upon non falsifiable statements. Logic precludes you from operating entirely upon empiricism without possessing some qualities and properties of faith.
To think otherwise is just as dismissive as those adhering to dogmatic belief systems dismissing our shared belief in empiricism being the foundation to cooperating with another.
Do you think people are condescending if they think you're wrong?
No, I think they are condescending when they instantly refute my statements without actually refuting them at all. The moment any aspect of non empiricism comes into discussion they can effectively Godwin the discussion.
That's frustrating. It makes any kind of lively discussions of an ontological nature difficult to have, and any kind of socio-political statements to be instantly without worth.
Yes, perhaps those are the militant people. I've got to be honest though, they are about as prevalent as the Tits-or-GTFO crowd. The level of arrogance present with strict empiricism is above average at least.
I'm not directing that at you specifically either.
It's about the empirical method I used to start and maintain a belief and my continual willingness to examine and synthesize new beliefs with the method. I also believe that I, and everyone else, would be better off if most people agreed with me.
I do agree with you. I just also believe that it doesn't preclude faith. You really can have your cake and eat it too.
Dawkins is of course going to be a net positive. That's a given. I just think that the movement would be far more efficient if it put more effort into the formal sciences around logic. They would reach more people, and find that they have allies they've been dismissing unfairly.
Not all questions are resolvable by empiricism and scientific method
That's true. But there are zero questions resolvable by faith. Not if you care about accuracy. There are lots of things that are going to be unknowable. That's OK, we don't need to make up answers.
Epistemology is far wider than that. Is rock music good? Prove it.
That's an opinion. The theist makes a factual claim.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
If God is telling me what to do and what not to do, the question of whether or not God exists seems pretty important.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
You seem to be under the impression that the Russians by large are atheists. Or that the government still promotes atheism. Let me tell you something - religion is exploding in Russia. Big time, no, huge time!!
They are incorporating it (again, just like during the times of the Tzars) in the their patriotic, empire-like attitude. "The third Rome" , have you heard that [Moscow]? The Russians see themselves as the sole protector of Orthodox Christianity. The Russian tourists that I meet in my country spend all their time visiting religious sites. They talk about it all the time. Just yesterday a Russian businessman offered to buy one of the largest old buildings in the capital of my country [it would cost a fortune] in order to make a museum of Orthodox Christianity.
Tzarist Russia was a backwater, superstitious, low-educated, peasant-bashing, stupid and callous totalitarian hellhole. But man, were they religious! Now they come back to that state again, only at a different technological level.
In the way the state uses religion to fortify patriotism and instill a sense of righteousness Russia and USA are the two sides of the same coin. This has to do with empire-thinking more than it has to do with religion IMO [although a successful argument can be made that that every religion is an empire and behaves like one]. In fact I am aghast that the religious folk happily accepts to be used in this manner by the sate. But then again, they probably like it because the state will, in turn, place special privileges for their religious institutions. Why are you, religious people, behaving like prostitutes, I often ask? Have you no shame? Some sensible people in the military of the US have complained that they were/are used as racketeers; where are the religious leaders that say "we don't want our fate to be used as political tool".
Dawkins isn't primarily trying to convert believers into atheists; he's trying to level the playing field so that it is as acceptable to criticise or even mock a religious or otherwise superstitious belief as it is to criticise or mock a political belief or any other kind. He is also trying to raise opposition to the institutional legislative advantages religion, particularly the Church of England, has in government, such as the seats in the House of Lords which are automatically assigned to CoE bishops, and to end the practice of governmental support of faith schools.
He's also made it quite plain that he doesn't dislike "religious people" in general - he is in fact close personal friends with many, including prominent bishops and other clerics.
In that case, that "rational being" thing must be a mythical creature. Most of the time, human beings create rational explanations that match their pre-existing beliefs and subsconscious decisions they've taken, based on the emotions they evoke; not the other way around.
The shorter way to say that is rationalization, and it has a biological basis that has been studied through magnetic resonance imaging. There are some beliefs that can be discredited by careful assessment of axiomatic frameworks, looking for inconsistencies in them, but certainly the scientific method does not apply to non-falsifiable ideas like core religious beliefs; if you apply logic to them, you only get more and more complex and convoluted scholastic theories.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
That's BS. I can agree that there is a revulsion against anything different, i.e. something that goes against the moral norm. In ancient Rome and ancient Greece homosexuality was openly and accepted until the Christian fundamentalist took over. You see the "revulsion to homosexuality" because Christianity took whole Europe over for over 2000 years with their dogma that homosexuality is "sin". But before that nobody cared about homosexuality and was even openly practices.
> For example, one of the most successful arguments has been homosexual rights are similar rights for black people, and civil rights for black people - indeed even the elimination of slavery - had deep religious roots and motivation.
Eh, no. Religion was always used to enforce and justify slavery and to suppress woman and black rights.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/history/slavery_1.shtml
Historical records show that Islam and Christianity played an important role in enslavement in Africa. The Arab-controlled Trans-Saharan slave trade helped to institutionalise slave trading on the continent. And during the age of expedition, European Christians witnessed caravans loaded with Africans en-route to the Middle East.
For many of these early European explorers, the Bible was not only regarded as infallible, it was also their primary reference tool and those looking for answers to explain differences in ethnicity, culture, and slavery, found them in Genesis 9: 24-27, which appeared to suggest that it was all a result of sin.
In the Genesis passage, Africans were said to be the descendants of Ham, the son of Noah, who was cursed by his father after looking at his naked form. Moreover, in Genesis 10, the Table of Nations describes the origins of the different races and reveals that one of the descendants of Ham is Cush - Cush and the Cushites were people associated with the Nile region of North Africa.
In time, the connection Europeans made between sin, slavery, skin colour and beliefs would condemn Africans. In the Bible, physical or spiritual slavery is often a consequence of sinful actions, while darkness is associated with evil. Moreover, the Africans were subsequently considered heathens bereft of Christianity
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Seriously? Maybe I didn't make the analogy clear. The reasoning is circular. You're assuming that it went like this:
1) Prediction of what people will experience when they nearly die.
2) People nearly die and experience it. Prediction validated!
The problem is that people have been dying and nearly dying for, like, a really long time. That means that "what happens when you nearly die" is not so much a prediction of the future as an observation of the past and present. So it's more likely that it went like this:
1) Person nearly dies and experiences trippy things.
2) Person describes trippy things and creates mythology around them or incorporates them into popular mythology.
3) Later people nearly die and experience similar trippy things. Therefore, mythology in (2) is validated!
In that sense, it's no different from:
1) We observe that the sun crosses the sky daily.
2) We tell a story about Helios and his chariot crossing the sky daily.
3) Everybody observes the phenomenon of the sun crossing the sky daily. Everybody! All subjects in the study saw it! Prediction validated! Helios is real!
Not so much. I don't discount that people experience very similar things during near death experiences any more than I discount their observations of the sun crossing the sky. I just dispute the conclusions that can be drawn from it.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"