Greg Epstein on Humanism
Epstein is a champion my own moral philosophy, "secular humanism". He's the author of a book (to my lament, I have not yet read it) called "Good Without God". The overarching point of his presentation was that we humanists need to come together and demonstrate the power of morality without a god to scare us into being good people.
I, and others, found this to parallel and contrast with David Silverman's talk at Skepticon IV about how we atheists need to rally together and show the world that non-belief is a belief growing in popularity. Epstein even goes so far as to kind of call out that point, saying that we should show the world what we believe in, not what we don't believe in.
I think the best answer is a combination of the two. I strongly identify myself as an atheist for political reasons - it's easy to see that we have a growing problem of religiosity in our current government (look no further than the Republican presidential candidates, the declaration of "the year of the Bible" in Pennsylvania, and the numerous attempts to push creationism and intelligent design into science classrooms). By showing that there is a growing force of non-belief pushing for secularism and protection of private, personal religious freedom by the government, we can help let people know that:
- Theocrats are not running unopposed
- You are not alone (the drums!)
Of course, that's not enough. Being a secularist is all well and good, but many see churches, temples, and mosques as places that do good because they perform humanitarian efforts such as fundraisers for charities and food drives, and this is where Epstein's point becomes key: if we're going to, as atheists, propose that religion is an unnecessary (or even harmful) aspect of society, we're going to have to supplement the gap left behind by the lack of those religious humanitarian services - we're going to have to actually follow through on the tenets of being humanists. Get out and donate blood, stock at a food pantry for a day, help clean up a park, collect donations for the needy - stop debating on the Internet for five hours and go out and do stuff. It's one of the reasons why I love the Kansas City Atheist Coalition so much - they inspired me to get out and make good on my claims of humanism, and, as a result, I'm working to get my very own Northland Freethinkers group doing the same, both with KCAC and at other places in the Kansas City area.
Unfortunately, his book, "Good Without God", was sold out by the time I got there, so I neither got a copy nor got it signed. Next time, perhaps!
Keith Lowell Jensen
ReasonFest managed to snag this guy from the "Coexist?" comedy tour, and he was downright awesome. I had the pleasure of being the one who picked him up (which was why my first talk was Epstein's), and he was incredibly personable and funny. I'm afraid that, by the time he was selling his CDs and DVDs, I had already spent far, far too much on books.
Darrel Ray: Sex and Evolution
This was, hands-down, the best presentation of the weekend. I've seen Darrel talk before about sexual satisfaction of people surveyed, pre- and post-deconversion, and seen him talk about how religion can negatively impact a person's sexuality, but this one blew me away. He presented on why primate sexual reproduction - including our own - and our sexual organs evolved the way they have and, likely for the first and last time, made the topic of duck sex something that kept me on the edge of my seat. In the event that you're reading this post in a timely manner, local Kansas City citizens can see him talk at an event hosted by the Northland Freethinkers on March 12, 2012.
Can Science and Christianity Co-Exist?
...and now we get to the debates. The first debate was on the topic of whether or not Christianity and science can co-exist.
This debate featured J.T. Eberhard, representing the atheist who stated that science and Christianity cannot co-exist, and Dr. Murray, a physics professor with Kansas University. What followed was not something I would have considered the best kind of debate.
I agree with the point J.T. represented - that Christianity and science cannot, ultimately, co-exist (and scientists who are Christians are, as J.T. pointed out, suffering from severe compartmentalization) - but the method by which he went about it danced around that point without ever touching it. He continually pushed Murray to prove that fantastical events in the Bible - such as the creation myth of Genesis - as a means of invalidating the Bible's authenticity and authority. What he should have done, in my opinion, was drive the point that Christianity, at its core, relies on the implicitly non-empirical concept of faith to support it, and, as science is supposed to be drive in part by empiricism, they cannot ultimately co-exist.
This isn't to say Murray's arguments were any better. In response to calls to prove the historicity of the Bible, Murray made the point that the Bible was only inerrant as a guide for salvation and that its purported historical accounts are not relevant to the claim of its inerrancy. This is, conveniently, a reduction of the claim of inerrancy to the unfalsifiable. How convenient - it doesn't matter how much in the Bible can be proven wrong, because it doesn't matter!
Can Islam and Science Co-Exist?
As a citizen of a county comprised mostly of Christians, my exposure to Islam is lacking, to say the least, so I was looking forward especially to this second of two debates in the hopes of learning more about Islam.
I knew things weren't going to go quite the way I wanted it to when she started off by saying that, when she was invited, she began looking into the the theory of evolution.
"Oh, good," I ironically thought, "someone well-studied in the topic she's debating."
From there, she went on to say that, in her study of evolution, she learned about the people who discovered it - Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and one other who I missed because I was laughing too hard at the continued absurdity of her opening statements. When she followed that list of people by claiming that they didn't believe in God (can't say for sure about Marx or Nietzsche, but it seems a reasonable enough claim), and that they said that, if God did actually exist, that he must be killed, I decided that I needed to go charge my phone, and so excused myself. This worked out well enough, because I ran into Jennifer Michael Hecht while I was out and got her signature on my copy of her book, "Doubt: A History".
I returned to find that the woman's argument consisted of: "No, Islam and science cannot co-exist, because the Qur'an already has the answers, and, until science finally catches up to it and accepts Islamic creationism, they cannot co-exist." This didn't lead to much of a debate, as her opponent, Taner Edis, held the same stance, but in reverse: Islam and science cannot co-exist as long as Islam tethers itself to creationism.
Jennifer Michael Hecht
The last presenter, Jennifer Michael Hect, author of "Doubt: A History", presented about various skeptics and god-doubters in history - the Jewish book Ecclesiastes, the wife of Biblical Job, Epicurus, and others. It got me pumped to read her book (admittedly, it's...one in a long backlog of books), and definitely turned me on to her other books.
The speakers aside, one of the things that I feel is really important to point out is this: I had a friend visiting with me, and he remarked on the pleasant surprise of the size and warmth of the community. Things like ReasonFest are great, not just because of the speakers they bring in and the topics they discuss, but because it helps us continue to build a community that atheists are in great need of. Time and again, the thing I hear religious de-converts lament the most is the loss of community - potlucks, movie nights, book clubs, and getting together every Sunday for your "second family". By gathering people together like ReasonFest does - and making it free, to boot! - it helps gather atheists together and broadcast the message that I outlined above: "You are not alone."
The weekend was great, and I got to finally meet a Facebook friend that I "met" back around Skepticon. It was surprising to me just how many people I knew, and it help me realize how, after years of socially wandering, I've really found my corner of the world in which I am most comfortable. I finally have the wide swathe of good friends; it's a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling.
Unfortunately, his book, "Good Without God", was sold out by the time I got there, so I neither got a copy nor got it signed. Next time, perhaps!
Keith Lowell Jensen
ReasonFest managed to snag this guy from the "Coexist?" comedy tour, and he was downright awesome. I had the pleasure of being the one who picked him up (which was why my first talk was Epstein's), and he was incredibly personable and funny. I'm afraid that, by the time he was selling his CDs and DVDs, I had already spent far, far too much on books.
Darrel Ray: Sex and Evolution
This was, hands-down, the best presentation of the weekend. I've seen Darrel talk before about sexual satisfaction of people surveyed, pre- and post-deconversion, and seen him talk about how religion can negatively impact a person's sexuality, but this one blew me away. He presented on why primate sexual reproduction - including our own - and our sexual organs evolved the way they have and, likely for the first and last time, made the topic of duck sex something that kept me on the edge of my seat. In the event that you're reading this post in a timely manner, local Kansas City citizens can see him talk at an event hosted by the Northland Freethinkers on March 12, 2012.
Can Science and Christianity Co-Exist?
...and now we get to the debates. The first debate was on the topic of whether or not Christianity and science can co-exist.
This debate featured J.T. Eberhard, representing the atheist who stated that science and Christianity cannot co-exist, and Dr. Murray, a physics professor with Kansas University. What followed was not something I would have considered the best kind of debate.
I agree with the point J.T. represented - that Christianity and science cannot, ultimately, co-exist (and scientists who are Christians are, as J.T. pointed out, suffering from severe compartmentalization) - but the method by which he went about it danced around that point without ever touching it. He continually pushed Murray to prove that fantastical events in the Bible - such as the creation myth of Genesis - as a means of invalidating the Bible's authenticity and authority. What he should have done, in my opinion, was drive the point that Christianity, at its core, relies on the implicitly non-empirical concept of faith to support it, and, as science is supposed to be drive in part by empiricism, they cannot ultimately co-exist.
This isn't to say Murray's arguments were any better. In response to calls to prove the historicity of the Bible, Murray made the point that the Bible was only inerrant as a guide for salvation and that its purported historical accounts are not relevant to the claim of its inerrancy. This is, conveniently, a reduction of the claim of inerrancy to the unfalsifiable. How convenient - it doesn't matter how much in the Bible can be proven wrong, because it doesn't matter!
Can Islam and Science Co-Exist?
As a citizen of a county comprised mostly of Christians, my exposure to Islam is lacking, to say the least, so I was looking forward especially to this second of two debates in the hopes of learning more about Islam.
I knew things weren't going to go quite the way I wanted it to when she started off by saying that, when she was invited, she began looking into the the theory of evolution.
"Oh, good," I ironically thought, "someone well-studied in the topic she's debating."
From there, she went on to say that, in her study of evolution, she learned about the people who discovered it - Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and one other who I missed because I was laughing too hard at the continued absurdity of her opening statements. When she followed that list of people by claiming that they didn't believe in God (can't say for sure about Marx or Nietzsche, but it seems a reasonable enough claim), and that they said that, if God did actually exist, that he must be killed, I decided that I needed to go charge my phone, and so excused myself. This worked out well enough, because I ran into Jennifer Michael Hecht while I was out and got her signature on my copy of her book, "Doubt: A History".
I returned to find that the woman's argument consisted of: "No, Islam and science cannot co-exist, because the Qur'an already has the answers, and, until science finally catches up to it and accepts Islamic creationism, they cannot co-exist." This didn't lead to much of a debate, as her opponent, Taner Edis, held the same stance, but in reverse: Islam and science cannot co-exist as long as Islam tethers itself to creationism.
Jennifer Michael Hecht
The last presenter, Jennifer Michael Hect, author of "Doubt: A History", presented about various skeptics and god-doubters in history - the Jewish book Ecclesiastes, the wife of Biblical Job, Epicurus, and others. It got me pumped to read her book (admittedly, it's...one in a long backlog of books), and definitely turned me on to her other books.
The speakers aside, one of the things that I feel is really important to point out is this: I had a friend visiting with me, and he remarked on the pleasant surprise of the size and warmth of the community. Things like ReasonFest are great, not just because of the speakers they bring in and the topics they discuss, but because it helps us continue to build a community that atheists are in great need of. Time and again, the thing I hear religious de-converts lament the most is the loss of community - potlucks, movie nights, book clubs, and getting together every Sunday for your "second family". By gathering people together like ReasonFest does - and making it free, to boot! - it helps gather atheists together and broadcast the message that I outlined above: "You are not alone."
The weekend was great, and I got to finally meet a Facebook friend that I "met" back around Skepticon. It was surprising to me just how many people I knew, and it help me realize how, after years of socially wandering, I've really found my corner of the world in which I am most comfortable. I finally have the wide swathe of good friends; it's a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling.
Oh man, for picking me up I would've happily given you a DVD or CD. In fact, here you go: http://youtu.be/-CPFK-zh_04
ReplyDeleteThanks again. It was great meeting you.