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Religion

Unbelievers are bad and have defective brains

By Charles Foster

You’d better believe that believers are better.

So far as religiosity is concerned, humanity, say Cooper and Pullig , is divided fairly neatly into three clusters: Skeptics, Nominals and Devouts. The bulk of the evidence suggests that there is a relationship between religiousness and moral reasoning. That relationship, though, is complex. Its anatomy needs a lot of exploration. Cooper’s and Pullig’s exciting and audacious paper, which concerns broadly Christian religiosity amongst marketing students in the US, suggests that narcissism is a factor in explaining why individuals make wrong ethical decisions. That in itself isn’t surprising. Narcissism, for instance, is a predictor of white-collar crime in business: narcissistic individuals tend to think that they are above the laws that govern the behaviour of lesser mortals. What is perhaps surprising is that ethical decision-making was affected by narcissism only in Nominals and Devouts. The reasons for that can be speculated about very entertainingly. But I want to highlight one almost incidental observation: ‘Notably, Skeptics in general exhibit worse ethical judgment than respondents in either of the other two clusters.’

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Should the government have policies to deal with fear of zombies?

Would you vote to be protected from him?

From the always sublime Dara O’Briain:

I give out when people talk about crime going up, but the numbers are definitely down. And if you go, “The numbers are down”, they go, “Ahh, but the fear of crime is rising.” Well, so fucking what? Zombies are at an all-time low level, but the fear of zombies could be incredibly high. It doesn’t mean you have to have government policies to deal with the fear of zombies.

But let’s look at this in more detail. If there was a large demand for it, should the government have policies to deal with the fear of zombies? By zombies, we do mean non-existent flesh-eating fictional undead monstrosities that don’t exist.

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Rick Santorum, birth control, and “playing God”

By Brian Earp

See Brian’s most recent previous post by clicking here.

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Rick Santorum, birth control, and “playing God”

Rick Santorum thinks that birth control is immoral. Santorum, a former Senator from Pennsylvania, is one of two human beings – if the polls have it right – likeliest to become the Republication nominee for President of the United States this election cycle.

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Should we Encourage Atheists to get into Foxholes?

‘There are no atheists in foxholes’, as the saying goes. This is of course an exaggeration. There have always been some atheists in foxholes. With millions of military personnel representing this or that country around the world it seems inconceivable that no atheists whatsoever would be occupying foxholes. The Richard Dawkins Foundation appears to like the idea of atheists in foxholes. So much so that they have been providing care packages to members of the Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers (MAAF) who request them. So far they have sent out over 150 care packages. These contain food items, supplies such as gloves, Dawkins Foundation pins and stickers and the occasional book. See http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644969-dawkins-foundation-care-packages-go-to-atheists-in-foxholes. Perhaps enough to encourage an atheist to remain in a foxhole for a while longer.Read More »Should we Encourage Atheists to get into Foxholes?

Sam Harris is wrong about science and morality

By Brian Earp (Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here.)

WATCH MY EXCHANGE WITH SAM HARRIS AT OXFORD – ON YOUTUBE HERE.

I just finished a booklet by “New Atheist” Sam Harris — on lying — and I plan to write about it in the coming days. But I want to dig up an older Harris book, The Moral Landscape, so that I may express my hitherto un-expressed puzzlement about Harris’ (aging) “bold new” claim — presented in this book — that science can “determine human values” or “tell us what’s objectively true about morality” or “give us answers about right and wrong,” and the like.

In his new book (the one about lying) Harris says, in effect, you should never, ever, do it — yet his pretense in The Moral Landscape to be revolutionizing moral philosophy seems to me the very height of dishonesty. What he actually does in his book is plain old secular moral reasoning — as non-religious philosophers have been doing for a very long time — but he claims that he’s using science to decide right from wrong. That Harris could be naive enough to think he’s really bridged the famous “is/ought” chasm seems unlikely (Harris is a very smart writer and researcher, and I tend to like a lot of what he publishes), and so I submit that he’s exaggerating* to sell books. Shame on him (or his publisher).

*A previous version of this post had the word “lying” here, but I was told that my rhetorical flourish might be interpreted as libel. I hope “exaggerating” is sufficiently safe. Now onward to my argument:

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Stop bullfighting but carry on bullrunning, really?

“The only place where you could see life and death, i. e., violent death now that the wars were over, was in the bull ring and I wanted very much to go to Spain where I could study it” wrote Ernest Hemingway. These days he couldn’t go to Catalunya to find some inspiration because bullfighting is banned. The decision was very controversial and it came as a result of a petition signed by 180.000 people who think that torturing animals just for the sake of fun is morally outrageous.

Bullfighting supporters adduced several reasons for maintaining the “spectacle”. Firstly, they gave what we can call a conservative argument. They said that bullfighting is a rooted tradition, like flamenco or paella, and there is value in keeping meaningful traditions alive. Secondly, they put forward an aesthetic argument. There is beauty in a corrida (a bullfight): the outfit, the risk of death, the bravery of the matador. The work of great artists like Hemingway, Almodovar or Garcia Lorca has been inspired by the ritual. A third and more twisted reason was the animalist argument. It was claimed that bullfighting is a good means to preserve the animals. The kind of bulls that are used in bullfighting are of a particular kind (toros de lidia). They are raised only for the ritual and they have a very good life until “their day arrives”– they enjoy better conditions than farmed animals so they can be brave enough. Finally, bullfighting supporters denounced that the interest behind the abolitionist campaign was not moral but political. For them, the popular initiative was not the result of a genuine concern for the animals but of the separatists’ strategy to dissociate Catalunya from anything considered as quintessentially Spanish. We can call this reasoning the political argument.

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Galliano, Westboro Baptists, and the question of free speech

Despite the protestations of Albert Sydner, the father of a young soldier killed in Iraq, the American Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the Westboro Baptist’s right to picket military funerals. The religious group has demonstrated at 200 funerals, sporting events, and concerts, claiming that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are god’s way of punishing America for tolerating homosexuality. Their protests are quiet. There is no personal abuse, no threats of force either, and they operate 1,000 feet from the church in which the funeral takes place, under police supervision. They merely hold signs with offensive messages such as “God Hates You” and “God Hates Fags”. No matter how morally outrageous these messages are, the Court has been clear that the picketing is protected by the First Amendment and, therefore, should be allowed. Samuel Alito was the only judge who dissented in the Supreme Court decision. He argued that a commitment to free speech does not license verbal assault. I found myself sharing Alito’s intuitions and that, considering his conservative and libertarian views, put me in an uncomfortable position. So, I asked myself, why do I oppose the Court’s decision? Another piece of news helped me to think through this issue. While the Westboro Baptists were celebrating the verdict, John Galliano was fired for declaring his admiration for Hitler and he will now be prosecuted. These two cases can be compared in several respects, but I will point to two.Read More »Galliano, Westboro Baptists, and the question of free speech

Who should be allowed to foster?

A Christian couple have been blocked in their attempt to foster children this week. Eunice and Owen Johns had applied to Court to prevent Derby city council from continuously stalling their application to foster children. The council was doing so because the couple are Pentecostal Christians who hold “strong views on homosexuality, stating that it is ‘against God’s laws and morals’”. The court refused to rule on the matter, effectively allowing the council to prevent the Johns from fostering. Should conservative Christians be allowed to foster children?

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