I completely agree with your sentiments, I hope to instill in my children the wonderment of the world around them, an understanding of our place in the “real” universe. if they choose to be drawn to religion, then so be it, but they will always have the education to think for themselves.

I don’t no why it has taken me so long to look in this dicection.

I can appreciate where you are coming from. I probably would nuance some things you said differently, but what you say is entirely reasonable. Cheers!

In Randal’s blog post summarizing his talk he says at the end “And this leads me to my conclusion. The first step in intellectual maturation is when you stop pointing and laughing at the beliefs of others and make an effort to understand them.”

Yes, you’re right, there it is in plain English. I obviously should have read his blog post more thoroughly before posting. We interrupted Randal so much during his talk that he was rushed at the end, so he probably didn’t have time to give a nice concluding statement.

Regarding the teapot quote, I’m pretty sure it was as I described, in part because that’s how Randal presents it in his blog post on the same quote. I think it was inappropriate to present it this way, because removing these sentences strips the quote of context and makes it harder to see what Russell’s point actually was. This is supported by the confusion of some SEA members who challenged Randal on the intended meaning behind the illustration. With those sentences in place, the meaning becomes quite clear – it’s about how the idea of the burden of proof can become distorted by religious privilege. It’s not about “pointing and laughing” at ridiculous beliefs (although, as I said, I think the example has to sound ridiculous out of necessity to make the point).

Let’s create a parallel scenario… I’d be interested in hearing how Randal should have responded in such a scenario.

I think you might have misunderstood me. There’s nothing crazy about Randal defending himself against the claims Dennett makes in the video. Dennett’s words are super harsh! It’s not exaggerating in the least to say that he basically dismisses Randal’s entire occupation in a few sentences. I’m sure if I found myself in the same situation I would feel compelled to respond, and would feel more than a little justified expressing some anger!

No, I’m talking about the part where he attacked the simple posting of an informative video as “the sad face of atheistic fundamentalism“, and characterized it as “a way to marginalize my entire presentation”. He then went on to concoct a scenario where Rodrigo, staggering from the cognitive dissonance from being exposed to other points of view, frantically searches for a video to post to soothe his wounded ego. Keep in mind that this is all from a single post saying basically “hey guys, I know some of us agreed with a point that Randal made, here’s a video where Dennett disagrees with this point, I think it’s valuable to watch.” Do you see how I would find this kind of response to such an innocent post bizarre and out of proportion?

My most charitable interpretation is that Randal’s frustrations with Dennett were so great that he simply slipped and took them out on some of the wrong people. Hey, I understand that. We are only human after all. But I hope you can see how I would not have expected this from someone who seems to have made a career out of urging people to interpret the beliefs and motivations of others charitably.

Thank you for your very thoughtful comments. I do have a few thoughts on them however.

You said “The main reason I’m having such a hard time writing about the talk is that even after all that, I’m not entirely sure what exactly he was trying to say.”

In Randal’s blog post summarizing his talk he says at the end “And this leads me to my conclusion. The first step in intellectual maturation is when you stop pointing and laughing at the beliefs of others and make an effort to understand them.”

I think everything in his talk was meant for us to appreciate this conclusion.

You mentioned “It turns out that he left out the first two sentences of the paragraph it came from: “Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.”

For some reason I seem to remember this statement clearly. Now that could be entirely because I have heard the quote before. I would be interested in seeing Randal’s power point slide and see whether he did indeed leave this part out. If he did leave it out then I’d be interested in knowing why. My guess (if he did indeed leave it out) would be he didn’t feel it relevant to the talk. But of course, I’m sure many would disagree with that, possibly even me.

You said “I will say though that I think he misused the “celestial teapot” quote from Russell in order to force it to fit his larger point.”

I’d be interested in hearing in what way you think Randal misused the quote.

You said “Finally, I have to say that my opinion of Randal has not improved after reading his most recent blog posts, particularly his spectacular overreaction (I don’t think there’s any other way to put it) to Rodrigo posting an informative link to our Facebook group. I am frankly astonished at how quick he was to invent stories about Rodrigo’s motives and state of mind. This is not behaviour I would expect from someone who wrote a book called “You’re Not As Crazy As I Think”.”

And this was reiterated by Frank when he said “Amen, Aden, especially on your last paragraph. I wonder why Rodrigo’s adding a simple link could rile him up so much.”

Let’s create a parallel scenario. Let’s say you or Frank came and gave an intellectually stimulating talk at a church about why being an atheist instead of a Christian isn’t being foolish. In actuality, things aren’t as simple as many people think it is and that there are potentially many good reasons to be an atheist, especially when we take people’s background into consideration. Many in the audience disagree with your talk, bring up objections, some better than others, rigorous dialogue in sues, etc. But at the end of the day you feel you have had a *dialogue*.

Well, you then get home, pop open Facebook, and an elder from the church you just spoke at has posted a video of some famous Christian. He says he is posting this because someone in the audience said they thought learning the reasons why people are atheists might be a useful enterprise. The Christian in the video states:

“No I just don’t think it’s true. I don’t think it’s true. I think that atheistic thinking, and particularly new atheistic thinking is a pseudo-sophisticated mugging game and there’s no reason to learn any of it because we’ve just seem some of the best of it and its full of I think willful obscurity and willful use of ‘deputies’”

How do you think you would react? How would you interpret that? Do you think you might possibly write a blog post about why you don’t think that is the case? And really, is that an overreaction? Writing a blog post in response to something that *seems* to be suggesting that everything you said in your talk is pseudo-sophisticated? Especially if you are already an active blogger?

I’d be interested in hearing how Randal should have responded in such a scenario.

Thanks again Aden!