According to its website, The Unbelievers movie “follows renowned scientists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss across the globe as they speak publicly about the importance of science and reason in the modern world – encouraging others to cast off antiquated religious and politically motivated approaches toward important current issues.”
Okay, so let’s unpack that a bit and examine the contents of the film in light of its billing.
Science and Reason
Shortly into it, there is a string of clips, apparently taken from an Australian TV show called Q&A, in which (unbeliever) Dr. Dawkins and (believer) Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, participate in an informal debate. Now here’s something to pay attention to, the truly inquiring free thinker might say to himself, rubbing his hands together and preparing to listen up.
But that genuinely curious viewer-listener would be disappointed if he were hoping to hear a scientific or reasoned argument over the existence or nonexistence of God. Or even just a scientific or reasoned argument at all.
Here’s a little snippet from the Q&A:
Cardinal Pell: Most evolutionary biologists today don’t believe … this crude, fundamentalist version of random selection that you have proposed.
Dr. Dawkins: I do not propose it, and I strongly deny that evolution is random selection. Evolution is non-random selection. Non-random.
Cardinal Pell: Oh, so there’s a purpose to it?
Dr. Dawkins: No! [laughs can be heard from the audience]
Cardinal Pell: Could you explain what non-random means?
Dr. Dawkins: Yes, of course I could. That’s my life’s work.
But we never actually get to hear the explanation, if there was one. Oddly, interspersed between the clips of this discussion, we get selected clips from another debate, at another location, between (unbeliever) Dr. Krauss and Muslim (believer) Uthman Badar. When the film cuts back to Dawkins and Pell, the discussion has moved on.
We can surmise, though, from listening between the clips, if you will, that there was mention of discernible purpose in the universe and some reference to the human inclination to look for meaning:
Cardinal Pell: It’s part of being human to ask why we exist.
Dr. Dawkins: The question Why? is not necessarily a question that deserves to be answered.
There are all sorts of questions that people cannot ask. Like, What is the color of jealousy? That’s a silly question. Why? is a silly question.
You can ask, What are the factors that led to something coming into existence? That’s a sensible question. But, What is the purpose of the universe? is a silly question. It has no meaning.
Sadly, we don’t get to hear what Cardinal Pell said next, as the film cuts away again to Krauss and Badar.
Then it cuts back:
Dr. Dawkins: We do have a scientific understanding of why we’re here. And we therefore have to make up our own meaning to life.
We have to stand up, look the world in the face, face up to the fact that we are not going to last forever, we have to make the most of the short time that we have on this planet. We have to make this planet as good as we possibly can and try to leave it a better place than we found it. [applause can be heard from the audience]
And this is, as far as the film is concerned, the end of the Q&A. It’s also the end of any semblance of reasoned argumentation in The Unbelievers of the basic point purportedly at issue: whether there is reason to believe or unbelieve in God.
Encouraging Others to Cast Off … What?
After the two debates, which we see by clips and switches, the film shifts to a ponderous conversation between Dawkins and Krauss. The two are riding in the back seat of a car when Dr. Dawkins expresses some exasperation with the debate format.
Dr. Dawkins: Well, I got thoroughly fed up with BBC type interviews where you have a chairman in the middle and you’ve got an interesting conversation going on between two … there might be [as many as] five people around the table. And A and B are having an interesting conversation. And so the chairman suddenly says, ‘Well, what do you think about this, C?’ totally breaking the flow and spoiling the conversation, all in the interest of balance and things like that.
And it occurred to me, Why on earth do we bother with chairmen? They’re not necessary. Certainly my recent encounter with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Sheldonian Theater in Oxford (click here for debate), that was completely ruined by the chairman, who was a philosopher and felt it was his role to clarify things. And of course that meant obscuring things.
The two scientists share a knowing laugh. Those silly philosophers who ask clarifying questions. Don’t they know some questions should not be asked?
And to Embrace … What?
Having cast off those questions that should not be asked or that have no meaning by the fifteen minute mark, the remainder of the film consists mostly of this “Dynamic Duo of Science” traipsing the globe, pontificating together, and speaking to sympathetic audiences about the universe “that can come from nothing,” the multiverse “that can be eternal,” and how we are “endowed by evolution” to create our own meaning during our “brief moment in the sun.”
Look at those phrases again. Does this sound to you like the language of science or the language of religion?
Later on, the two are riding in the back seat of another car, and we get to listen in:
Dr. Kraus: I guess the best part of communicating is the excitement. Science turns us on. Science is fun. Science excites us. … I feel it’s so fascinating for me that I want to tell people about it.
Dr. Dawkins (looking off into the distance): Carl Sagan said, “When you’re in love, you want to tell the world,” and say to them, “I’m in love with science, and I have to tell the world.”
Do you hear the echoes of religiosity as Dawkins and Krauss pontificate together? These men are not advancing science or reason. These are adherents of an alternative religion.
So don’t ask them silly question they aren’t prepared to answer. Science turns Dr. Krauss on. And Dr. Dawkins? He’s in love, and he has to tell the world about it.
Watch The Unbelievers if you like. But not if you want to hear a discussion based on authentic science or grounded reason. The Unbelievers is about two scientists who are missionaries of Evangelical Atheism.
Thank you for the explanation, Frank. You’re right, there is a definitional difference here. I do not define religion as the belief in and worship of a god, though I’m aware that many non-theists do define religion that way.
I agree atheism is not a religion, but it is a belief about God and the supernatural realm – specifically the belief that God does not exist.
Based on your comment, I think you do grasp why I said the two scientists bordered on the religious: it’s because of the way they are spreading the “good news,” mentioning things eternal, making statements about the meaning of life, things of that nature, all based on their particular belief about God and the supernatural that neither actually exists.
This seems to be a recurring theme with theists and atheists, with neither side really listening to each other. I’m talking about the definition of atheism. Theists claim it’s an assertion about the non-existence of god; atheist (often) claim it is simply a lack of belief in god. There is a subtle, but importance difference there that I’m sure we can all see if we try.
If you look up the definition of atheism, you get BOTH definitions. Meaning the word can take on either meaning, depending on the intent of the one using it. This means that it’s just another definitional problem, unfortunately.
I myself, as an atheist, relate more to the lack of belief definition. However, you’ll notice, that when you reach the conclusion that there is zero reason to believe in something, instinctually you tend to jump to the assertion that it does not exist. When someone asks me if Santa Clause exists, I don’t say “I have no reason to believe he does”, I say “he does not”. I say this even though I can’t provide any proof that he doesn’t exist. In science they are more judicious about not claiming the null hypothesis is correct, but in every day life we tend to make the “leap of faith” for simplicity sake. However, if you put my feet to the fire, the “lack of belief” is as far as I’ll go because it is factually more accurate. I could see how that would be frustrating for a theist, because it doesn’t put us on equal debating ground (i.e., we are not both making positive claims that should require proof), rather it just puts theism on the chopping block – but it is what it is.
tildeb:
In response to your statement that “non belief is not another kind of belief” :
We differ here. I think it is another kind of belief. To take you as a specific case in point, according to your comment on Confronting Atheism on the Advance, where you identified yourself a New Atheist, you are an atheist. An atheist adheres to the position that God does not exist. That is a belief. Unless, I suppose, you identify yourself as an atheist but don’t believe the atheist position is true. (I don’t mean to be snarky here, but either you believe what you assert is true or you place yourself in the absurd intellectual position of saying you adhere to a belief but don’t believe it.)
I would also suggest as follow-up food for thought that the belief “There is no God.” is itself a kind of faith position. Because it is a truth claim accepted without
evidence. I explain that more fully here: Blinded by Science? Don’t Be. That’s Just the New Atheists Masking Their Faith Choice.
Unless, that is, you have a persuasive case to present for atheism’s objective truth. You have been invited to do that, twice now, in fact. (I can provide links back to where I issued the invitation if you’d like me to.) But unless you’ve presented it somewhere else and I’ve missed it, so far you have declined the invitation. Consider this a third invitation to do so.
An atheist adheres to the position that God does not exist. That is a belief.
Thank you for pointing out your ignorance. I don;t mean that in a bad way; I mean it as something you do not know or understand. Atheism does NOT mean what you continue to assert it does mean. Now take a moment and understand what I just said: you do NOT understand what atheism means… and so this spills over into what you assert NEW atheism means.
To be absolutely clear, atheism means no belief in god or gods.
It’s quite simple. And now that I have provided the definition to fill that hole of ignorance you maintain, the question now becomes whether or not you are willing to change YOUR definition of atheism to fit reality or if you will continue to assert something that is not true in order to misrepresent others. This choice is yours.
My atheism towards your god is identical to your atheism about other gods. We share our atheism. If you cannot appreciate what this means, then turn it back to yourself: are you asserting that no other gods but yours don’t exist… because this is an argument you will have to take to all the other believers of all the other gods. I simply reject all of them because, like you, I find no compelling reasons to believe otherwise. This is neither a philosophy nor a belief stance; it is identical to refusing to believe in pixies or Santa Claus or the Nessie. I suspect you, like I, are not believer in a-pixiesm, a believer in a-Santa Clausism, or a believer in a-Nessieism. Trying to describe all the various renditions of reasonable non belief in thousands of such remarkable claims for which there is no compelling evidence to suggest otherwise is really rather silly. And the same holds true for me regarding the belief you claim I hold to not believe in your god(s).
This affects what defines a New Atheist: a person who is willing to publicly criticize faith-based beliefs privileged in the public domain… because upon examination we find there are no compelling reasons to justify this privilege and much compelling evidence to show its harmful effects by doing so. Know also that this goes beyond just religious belief; it also includes all kinds of woo (supernatural causal agencies) claimed to be effective in various applications and therapies like we find populating alternative ‘medicine’, fortune telling, astrology, alchemy, conspiracies, and so on. And the central criticism is revealed about how we justify these beliefs by answering the question, “How do you know that?” This involves epistemology that stands contrary to and in conflict with what we call the scientific method, namely, methodological naturalism. If one cannot demonstrate a link by some mechanism between an asserted cause and its supposed effect, then people have no business pretending these kinds of claims have anything whatsoever to do with ‘knowing, with knowledge. Understandings and interpretations about the reality we share presented without a foundation of knowledge to ground them is faith in action. Faith can be both meaningful and valuable to the person who holds them but there must be a respected boundary between these subjective preferences and the operation of the public domain. In other words, if you want to put some policy or procedure or governance into effect in the public domain, then there must be a case made for compelling reasons that can be adjudicated not by faith but by reality for their effectiveness in attaining the goals for which they have been implemented in the name of all.
I sincerely hope this explanation helps you to understand that nothing positive is gained by continually misrepresenting atheism as if it were a negative stance when it’s a shared method we use in almost every facet of our lives to great and positive effect. That you are willing to make exceptions is your business; trying to grant these exceptions unjustified respect in order to promote its effect in the public domain becomes mine.
tildeb,you bring up a very good question that I believe gets to root of disagreement between you and me when you pose the question, “How do you know that?” If I understand you correctly, you believe that something can be known to be true if and only if it has been ascertained by the scientific method. This, as you correctly point out, is the epistemology of methodological naturalism.
I would invite you to consider, though, the distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. Methodological naturalism rightly acknowledges that the scientific method can only operate within the natural realm (the natural realm basically meaning observable matter and energy). Philosophical naturalism, however, holds that the natural realm is all that exists. This obviously implies a different assertion. Philosophical naturalism, however, is not itself a belief ascertained by the scientific method. It is a philosophical presupposition that one may or may not apply to their personal epistemology. I unpack that a little bit here, in Darwin’s Quantum Leap.
In other words, I would suggest for your consideration that there are other ways of knowing, in addition to the scientific method. Conscience, for example, which literally means, ‘knowledge together with.’ (Note the embedded word ‘science’ in ‘conscience.’) You’re obviously an intelligent man, and I’m willing to bet my life you have a working conscience and that you know that you have a conscience. But this is something that you know apart from the scientific method, isn’t it?
Food for thought…
I could see how it might seem like they are evangelical missionaries, because the activity is similar, and the topic is also god. However, it’s really just a definitional question. I would define religion as the belief in and worship of a god; I’m guessing most others would as well. By this definition, atheism is not a religion and Dawkins is not a missionary. If you want to stretch the definition to include interests and opinions in general, without the god/worship part, then that really opens the door. By that criteria, people touring and giving talks on politics, gay rights, abortion, taxes, immigration, gun control, drugs, medicine, diet, etc. are all evangelical missionaries engaged in a religion, at which point the word “religion” begins to lose meaning at all.
Regarding the explanation of non-random selection, I think this is at the heart of a lot of skepticism about evolution. If this point is not understood, I could see why people don’t give the theory credit. I’ll do my best to clear it up for the few that will read this comment. Genetic mutations are random, but the manner in which nature “selects” organisms to succeed and multiply is non-random. In other words, organisms do not win at the game of life at random, it is the organisms that are best adapted to the environment that win and multiply. In a foot race, contestants do not win at random, the runner who is best adapted to running fast wins the race – likewise in the animal kingdom. This is why every animal seems perfectly “designed” for its environment, because those that came along before with suboptimal genetic mutations were deselected to succeed by nature in a non-random fashion.
Regarding the “why” question, unfortunate Dawkins gets a little condescending – it’s his vice. But I think he has a point. If atheism is true, then there is no “why” to the universe and our existence, at least not in the religious sense. The introduction of a god that provides purpose enables the question to be asked. Without that god, then it is like asking the color of of jealousy; it’s a nonsensical question unless we introduce a concept that applies color to emotions.
Nicely said, Frank.
I will add a question of Terrell: what is your understanding of New Atheism? Is this understanding correct?
When you conclude that these New Atheists, doing what New Atheists do, are “adherents of an alternative religion” then this comment is to inform you that you reveal the depth and scope of ignorance necessary to arrive at such a conclusion. The conclusion is not correct (obviously, non belief is not another kind of belief any more than a non car is another kind of car) so I wonder if you have the means to find out where you went wrong?