Myers, Coyne, and Loftus attack Secular Humanism! (sort of)

Two weeks ago in Roseville, California, I debated Phil Zuckerman on the topic, "Does Christianity or Secular Humanism provide a better foundation for Civil Society?"  Some parts of my performance were fumbling.  I think I won on substance.  Phil didn't even claim to debunk my arguments, and I'm not sure he made any real arguments for Secular Humanism of his own (as we'll see).  But the consensus is, he won on style.  And that means a lot in Show Biz. 

The atheist Blogosphere has now ridden to my rescue, however.  Several big name (I almost said big mouth) atheist bloggers -- PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne, John Loftus, Tippling Philosopher, and the Friendly Atheist website, among others - have posted on the debate and its aftermath, often drawing "wider lessons" either from my alleged loss, or from Adventure's initial temerity in posting the exchange.  The guest poster on the Friendly Atheist site, Richard Wilson, who actually attended the debate, was polite, reasonable, and fair, even admitting that he had initially heard one of my arguments incorrectly.  By contrast, other secularist posters seemed to be doing their level best to support my fourth point in the debate:

Secular Humanism does not have a clear and independent record of building great societies, nor does it offer the best solutions to modern crises.  There are some troubling signs.

Consider the light that these comments by leading Secular Humanists, and  then their followers, throw on the potential their ideology holds for encouraging a rational, healthy, and neighborly public sphere. 

I.  John Loftus.   After announcing my supposed loss, John Loftus added, "David Marshall is a joke, folks, and this is my judgment apart from his debates."

You might think this odd if you had read John's communiques, asking me to co-write a book with him.  Or his requests that I offer a blurb for his books.  (A request he's given two or three times, one of which I was able to fulfill, since I liked that book.)

Would you ask someone to write a book with you if you thought that person was a "joke?"  Or would you want a clown's name on the back of your book, recommending it?  (Unless it were a book of jokes, or an illustrated guide to Big Tent circus acts?) 

Or would you tell someone whom you regarded as a "joke," "If I could write like you, I'd be the Stephen King of atheism?" 

You don't suppose Loftus' "judgment apart from his debates" would have anything to do with the fact that I posted the most detailed critical review of his OTF book, taking it apart, on Amazon, do you?  (After which he posted a phony review of one of my books on Amazon, which he obviously had not read, and which he took down after I revised my review of his book a bit?)  Or with my recently demonstrating that all Loftus' criticisms of "Christian apologists," are credibly true about him?  (After which he swore at me, and seemed to swear me off?) 

So there's one of your new generation of Secular Humanist leaders, folks, creators of a new and better, post-religious civil society. 


2. Jerry Coyne.   Jerry doesn't remember me, and clearly hadn't seen the debate.  So his target wasn't myself so much as Adventure Church, and Christianity in general, as a threat to democracy.  Those who know him, can only find his sermonette deeply ironic:

This is why this form of Christianity is inimical to democracy.  I can’t imagine Zuckerman, myself, or any other debating atheist refusing to allow the debate to be aired—no matter how bad our performance was.

What I can imagine, is Jerry Coyne censoring Christians for posting on his blog while making too much sense.  That has happened to me.  You make a point there, several people throw wild criticisms at it and at you, you respond patiently, politely, and rationally -- and your response never appears. 

And in fact, I posted several times on that thread, including some innocuous "behind the scenes" explanations, but also criticism of Coyne.  Last I checked, none of it had appeared.

My friend Tom Gilson has seen worse.  Coyne is allegedly capable of posting comments that directly challenge Christians like Tom, then deleting his responses, making it appear that he is unable or too cowardly to reply.  And it seems Coyne is also engaged in what Tom describes as "witch-hunting," by seeking to pressure universities to cancel classes that fairly discuss evidence in nature for God.

So Coyne is being disingenuous.  Not only can he "imagine" censoring considered opposing arguments, he does it all the time.  He seems to be deathly afraid of an honest exchange of views. 

Which is more dangerous to democracy: a private religious institution that gets cold feet after a debate, for a few days, or an anti-religious scientist who can't handle disagreement on his own blog, and projects his bossy personality on the public sphere by getting public institutions to suppress Bad Think on campus?  And then brags about how he would never censor a debate? 

Coyne works himself into a fine lather:

Imagine what these Christians would do if they turned America into the theocracy they want!

The vast majority of Christians want no such thing.  And here Zuckerman's comments sail way past the evidence, as well:

They are indeed afraid to air the underling truth of my position: that no civil society can thrive if it does not exist upon a bedrock of democracy, and democracy is not a Christian value — it is not articulated anywhere in the Gospels, nor is it promulgated, in any way, by Jesus or Paul. Rather, democracy is a secular humanist ideal — something dreamed up and established by and for people.  (Coyne cites Zuckerman, from his blog)

Yeah, and Zuckerman himself admitted in the debate that the people who "dreamt it up" were Christians, not Secular Humanists. 

One might wonder here, not only about the charity of Zuckerman's Patheos conclusion, but also its rationality -- generalizing about Christians from the narrow evidential base of one church.  Reason is supposed to be high on the list of virtues for the Secularist Millennia. 

But Zuckerman was piqued, and can be forgiven a bit of venting.  Coyne has no such excuse. 

I explained, in the debate, how Christianity did indeed nourish civil society in the West, citing eminent historians who have examined the matter, and how the value of separation of Church and State derives in part historically from the New Testament.  I quoted two specific verses that were cited in the Medieval debate on this subject.  Zuckerman did not address this point. 

Protestant missions were also key to the spread of democracy around the world, as Singapore University sociologist Robert Woodberry points out:

Protestant missions are significantly and robustly associated with higher levels of printing, education, economic development, organizational civil society, protection of private property, and rule of law, and with lower levels of corruption. 

But a fellow who can't handle dissent on his own blog, or in state universities, wants to trash the entire Christian record, based on a few days' delay in releasing the tape of a debate? 


3. P. Z. Myers. 

PZ does remember me, and like John Loftus, seemed to relish the opportunity to get in a few digs:

Remember David Marshall? Christ the Tao? The last thread he commented in was this one, where he was his usual bumbling pretentious self, if you need a prod to the memory.

But his main target was Rick Stedman, the Senior Pastor:

So he was surprised that people pressured him to release the video. How disingenuous, especially given that before he revealed it, he had posted several one-sided rebuttals.  And now he has the gall to whine about ‘civility’!  You gotta give it to get it, guy.

And that, of course, is what PZ Myers is known for -- civility.   He is therefore highly qualified to preach it to others. 

If, that is, by "civility" you mean "the sadistic psychological disembowlment of posters, including atheists, who fail to toe the party line in all nuances and flavors of the day, for the ritualistic pleasure of cult members."  (See "P Z Myers, Guru of Hate.") 

And if by "civility" you mean, "launching civil wars among atheists so fierce that even John Loftus walks out on you." 

It has gotten so, that when an atheist points to Christian sins, often all one needs to say in response is

"Pharyngula" (the title of PZ's popular web site)

And the atheist will reply:

"Touche." 

I'll take "bumbling" and "pretension" over that, any day. 


4. Shots  From the Peanut Gallery

Phil Zuckerman pointed to the (temporary) incivility of Rick Stedman, if that's how we should interpret it, and carelessly generalized from that to the Christian record as a whole.  He was ticked.  I don't really blame him.  PZ and Coyne gleefully follow his lead, harboring fewer scruples, therefore not needing any excuses for their pique. 

If one church, or one pastor, serves as an adequate evidential base to generalize about a billion or two Christians, why shouldn't we take three popular humanist bloggers and generalize about the probably smaller number of Secular Humanists?  And the influence these folks would have, with an increased quanta of power? 

Because it's still too small a sample.  However poorly other people act, one must still be fair and reasonable. 

But readers of Patheos, Deconstructing Christianity, Pharyngula, Why Atheism is True, and even a few on Friendly Atheist and Tippling Philosopher, also Amazon, seemed to feel no such constraints. 


a.  Saad M. Jafri, from New York City, posted a "review" of my book, The Truth Behind the New Atheism on Amazon, entitled "David Marshall is a coward -- getting churches to censor video of him losing debates."  In the "review" he said nothing about the book itself, but wrote:

My advice to David Marshall would be to not hide behind pastors' skirts in putting your own work, in practice, out there when you're upset that you've been outclassed.

You're as much a fraud as a coward.

I would recommend others to check out the article themselves at patheos.com, concerning "the Grate Debate" held by Adventure Christian Church... and their cowardly censorship on behalf of this joke of an author.

I think Saad means "great debate."  A "Grate Debate" would be an argument over whether to burn cedar or pine in the fireplace.  He also probably meant to give the book one star, but gave it five stars by accident.  Of course he was also mistaken in thinking I asked Adventure not to release the debate. Zero for three. 
   

b. Gregory in Seattle

"You cannot have a contest of wits with an unarmed opponent like David Marshall."

Brilliantly original, Greg.  I hope you're not a cousin-in-law of that name and city.   


c. Caine, Fleur de Mal

"Remember David Marshall?"
"Yes, I do. Eeeuwerbleargh. Now I have to get this sour taste out of my brain."
Can't argue with that, sunshine. 


d. Zibble

"4 minutes in, Marshall calls North Korea a “secular society”. Welp, this guy’s a dumbass."

My mistake.  North Korea is a Christian-murdering and torturing,slave society that hates God worse than Richard Dawkins after losing a debate with Ken Ham.  How could I ever describe it as "secular?"

 
e. Moarscienceplz

"Marshall cites Dan Brown as a character reference for Jesus! I next expect to hear that Jesus is alive and living in Boca Raton."

I said, "Jesus was the original feminist, as Dan Brown, ironically, put it."  The word irony is key, but was apparently lost on this listener.  And of course, borrowing a phraseology is not the same as citing a reference. 


f. Kevin Schelley

"Wow, Marshall seems to have a really hard time comprehending what Zuckerman was saying. How did he get that Zuckerman was saying that Marshall was supporting Gnosticism and Theocracy?"

And didn't Coyne use that exact word, theocracy, in his interpretation of Zuckerman's comments on Pantheos?  How is it that Coyne and I both made the same mistake? 

As for "Gnosticism," I was referring to Phil's claim that Christians don't care about our physical lives in this world, since we're so eager to get to heaven. 


g. Leftover1under

"On his site, Marshall makes the feeble claim about “having no influence in posting the video”.
“No influence” means he never asked the church to post it, and never will."

Uh, yes I did ask for its release, which is one reason Stedman gave for doing so. 


h. Closet Atheist

"I'm not trained in debate, but even I feel like I could have torn him a new * after he listed those 7 ridiculous 'gifts of the gospel.'  Feminism? Human rights? First healer? the red cross being Christian? The Christian capacity for % is the only thing in this universe that seems to be infinite."

One of the other infinites seems to be the atheist capacity for misunderstanding and misrepresenting.  Making a vast empirical argument for the impact of Christianity over 2,000 years in ten minutes, of course one needs to be simple -- thus the citations of eminent non-Christian historians that some posters complained about.  But I backed up all seven points, explaining what I meant.  And it should be clear that I in no way intended to say that, for instance, there had been no doctors in the world before Jesus.  That would be a very uncharitable hearing. 

Also, read up on the life of Jean-Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross. 


But we should be fair.  Some skeptics were far more gracious.  I mentioned the fair-minded report on Friendly Atheist, though I disagreed with its conclusion.  There were others, including an erstwhile critic who said some nice things in a hostile environment.   

But in the absence of real evidence for the proposition that Secular Humanism has made a seriously positive difference in society -- and as we'll see, despite three feints in that general direction, and much eloquence of speech, Phil Zuckerman really did not give any -- Gnu bloggers would do well to abstain from tipping the scales too much in the opposite direction.

It might even be a good demonstration of civility and rationality, to honestly consider the case I made for the good Christianity has done humanity.  (And I did see signs that a few may also be doing this, not excluding my esteemed opponent.) 

Give an atheist a holiday hug!

I used to post occasionally on P.Z. Myers' popular site, Pharungula, for some reason, and still receive updates on new posts from the Free Thought Blogs community. 

What a downer, right after Christmas, and just before New Years!  Do these people ever need some good cheer! 

Here are five of the topics posted on this morning:

PZ Myers, Guru of Hate

Can this angel get off the ground? Or
out of the gutter?
 

Introduction: Some time ago, I challenged biologist PZ Myers to a debate over the impact Christianity has had on women.  I meant that challenge sincerely: I would not issue such a challenge to someone I couldn't (at the time) have seen myself on a stage with, however unlikely it might be that he or she would accept.  I also make hypothetical travel plans to Minnesota, thinking about what else I might do along the way.  (I've always wanted to see if I could find more of the dinosaur fossils I brought back from eastern Montana on my last visit 30 years ago, for instance.) 

I later came to think that it would probably be wrong to debate Myers. I have come to see PZ as a bad person, a character who serves much the function of a Rajneesh or a Mao in Gnu society, who should be exposed, and probably not treated with the respect sharing a public forum (were PZ bold enough to do that sort of thing) would imply.

Everyone hates everyone.

Or so it seems, sometimes. 

Consider the last sermon I preached at the little church in the town of Zhonghe, in Taiwan, when I was going to seminary.  It was on love.  It ended with the pastor and the most useful person in the church standing up and yelling at one another. 

Apparently this talent for instigating war by preaching peace has not deserted me. 

A couple months ago, the atheist writer John Loftus asked me to endorse the "debate" book he co-wrote with the Christian philosopher, Randal Rauser.  I read it on the plane to and from the UK, and enjoyed it very much.  I wrote the following:

This is not a quarrel, nor one of those flame wars of the deaf that rage across cyberspace then spills angrily into print, nor even that stuffy, artificial creation, a ‘religious dialogue.” What we have here is conversation: at times witty, at times tendentious, often humorous and almost always engaged on emotional as well as intellectual levels. Rauser is master of parables with a philosophical point: Loftus makes an art form of heart-on-his-sleeve pragmatism. Both land blows, yet the book contains hardly a trace of bitterness: at best, it reaches the level of a mythical, Platonic debate in a pub. Almost no one will fully agree with either writer, nor fail to enjoy the rhetorical flow.

Well it wasn't a quarrel, but it soon became one, and the "rhetorical flow" soon became less enjoyable.  Loftus cited the review on his blog, and made a few minor quibbles.  Rauser then cited both the review, and Loftus' quibbles, and made his own quibbles about those.  Our friend Crude launched an attack on Loftus. John replied with profanity and gusto, and deleted his original blog post. 

Among other things, John wrote off Christians in general, again:

I will not be linking to any Christian blogs at this point from now on. I have given them too much of an audience as it is. You're all on your own now, delusional people on a par with Scientologists, and I mean that. Damn, it's hard dealing with * for brains and acting like they have them.

Now if you go to that region of Debunking Christianity, you find instead an article (actually from a day or so previous to this little tempest in a teapot) entitled "Why is Everyone on the Internet So Angry?"

Gee, I don't know.  Beats me. 

And today John announces a new Skeptical Blog Network. Why do we need one of those?  Because PZ Myers, the doyen of the alternative Freethinkers Blog network, is (as is widely recognized)  rather a jerk, a bit of a megalomaniac, and had a vocal, angry falling-out not just with John Loftus, but with a popular anti-creationist gotcha-artist calling himself Thunderfoot, and with a whole range of atheists whom he considers insufficiently feministo.  (Apparently they don't hate men enough, or something.) 

Little-known historical footnote: Mr. and Mrs.
Giraffe quarreled and ultimately
divorced over who got to ride shotgun. 

One of John Loftus' new allies is Arizona Atheist, who is rather obsessed with trying to dis my book, The Truth Behind the New Atheism (60-plus posts and counting -- but who is counting?) and we've found necessary to swat around a bit here, in the past. 

And you wonder why God sent the Great Flood. 

Gnu civil war

Boy meets girl.  Boy propositions girl.  Girl says, "No."  Elevator door opens.  Boy and girl return to separate hotel rooms.

Miss Watson

Such was the shot heard round the bloggosphere, the first salvo in what began as Elevatorgate, but has now escalated into an international civil war among New Atheists.  The word "civil" here should not be taken as a synonym for "courteous," nor should its connections with "civilization" be exagerrated.  Bodily functions of an impossible or painful nature have been suggested. Stars and curly cues (in our cartoon translation) have flown back and forth like fireworks at the Battle of Fort McHenry.  Venerable names (Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Rebecca Watson, the girl in question, at an atheist convention in Ireland), have been dragged through the mud.  Arguments Ad Hitlerum have been loosed upon the world.  Anathemas rain down upon the just and unjust.  Everyone is right and rational in his or her own eyes (and no, lines are not neatly drawn between boys and girls -- "gender traitors" are found in both camps, an epidemic of Stockholm Syndrome having accompanied the war, as epidemics often do).  Former friends are now revealed as bullies, cads, implicit justifiers of rape, neo-Nazis, and darn-near religious in their unscientific irrationality, thanks to positions they embrace -- the only embracing allowed in Gnuistan these days, it seems. 

Why PZ Myers won't debate.

Fly, fly away!

A few weeks ago, biologist and atheist blog-king, PZ Myers, explained on his popular web site, Pharungula, that if for no other reason, we should "tear down" cathedrals because Christianity (and other religions) harm women.  I challenged PZ here to debate the subject in person, and also e-mailed him the challenge directly.  He knows who I am.  I predicted, though, that he would not respond at all, or would respond with mere vitriol and mockery.  He did not respond.  Curiously, PZ has just responded to another Christian, a popular blogger and video game afficiando named Ted Beale, who calls himself Vox Day, on this very same issue, indeed Beale had challenged him over the very same post.  Myers took the occasion to explain why he does not "do debates" anymore, at least not with "the other side," apparently meaning people who are not doctrinaire atheists. 

The funny thing is, PZ's "response" to Beale actually does show why he doesn't do debates, and why that may really be a wise policy for him.

PZ Myers vs. Women

If there are two things Gnu blog-mogul PZ Myers can't stand, it's Christians and bigots. 

Dr. Octopus, before he acquired
the extra arms.

PZ's hatred of Christians is one of the mainstays of the biologist's popular Pharyngula web site, along with florid descriptions of underwater fauna, and sometimes fawning descriptions of underwater flora.  Christians are stupid, venile, pestilential, and all the attributes Dawkins ascribed to God, incarnate here on Earth. When a Christian shows up on his blog, as I did for a few exciting months last year, PZ leads the high-tech lynching in person, not of course with rational argument, but with crude name-calling, obscenities, and a "throw everything up and see what sticks" litany of accusations.  Sooner or later, he finds some excuse to get rid of the Christian, and the highly-educated denizens of Pharyngula breath a collective sigh of relief, like a mob that has had fun burning its witch of whom it is secretly afraid.  Besides, it's late and the mob has work the next day, when it goes back to its regular occupation of more low-key scoffing, denigrating, and dehumanizing those outside the True (un) Faith. 

At the same time, PZ also passionately crusades against bigotry -- directed at women.  He often attacks fellow male atheists for real or imagined sins of mysogeny, with ferocity of an intensity not unlike that he directs at Christians. 

Recently, PZ tried to combine his two prejudices, by claiming that the chief moral problem with religion is how it encourages us to treat women:

"Whenever I hear that tripe about the beneficial effects of religion on human cultural evolution, it’s useful to note that the world’s dominant faiths all hardcode directly into their core beliefs the idea that women are unclean, inferior, weak, and responsible for the failings of mankind…that even their omnipotent, all-loving god regards women as lesser creatures not fit to be intermediaries with him, and that their cosmic fate is to be subservient slaves to men, just as men are to be subservient slaves to capital-H Him.

"David Sloan Wilson can argue all he wants that religion helped promote group survival in our evolutionary history, or that his group selectionist models somehow explain its origins, but it doesn’t matter. Here and now, everywhere, those with eyes to see can see for themselves that religion has for thousands of years perpetuated the oppression of half our species. Half of the great minds our peoples have produced have lived and died unknown and forgotten, their educations neglected, their lives spent doing laundry and other menial tasks for men — their merits unrecognized and buried under lies promulgated by religion, in cultures soaked in the destructive myths of faith which codify misogyny and give it a godly blessing.

"Isn’t that reason enough to tear down the cathedrals — that with this one far-reaching, difficult change to our cultures, we double human potential?"

Tear down cathedrals? 

Like the octopus that is his totem, PZ Myers looks fearsome, but is actually a timid creature, in my experience.  Were it not so, I might merely reply to all of this:

PZ!  I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DEBATE!  LET'S GO TO THE MAT OVER THIS VERY QUESTION: 'HAS CHRISTIANITY HELPED OR HURT WOMEN?' 

In fact, I think I'll e-mail this challenge to PZ.  But I doubt he'll will be willing to debate me publicly -- or even allow me to take him, and his thousands of disciples, on, in his own forum, with all the odds stacked in his favor.  I'll tell what happened last time, another day. 

But PZ's comments above bring up several initial observations to mind.

First, by "religion" PZ clearly has Christianity largely in mind.  Thus, the evil that religion does to women is reason to tear down "cathedrals," not (per example) gudwaras, ashrams, synagogues, temples, or Earth God shrines in the fields of Guang Xi Province.  This is also implied by the term "the world's dominant religions," of which Christianity is of course the most demographically prominent. 

Second, it is a physical fact that women are, generally, weaker than men, in the most concrete sense of muscular power.  Less literally, women are stronger in the sense that they usually live longer. Biology knows nothing of equality: this is a human construct, which generally arises from religious or metaphysical beliefs. It would be strange if a biologist, of all people, were to take strict gender-equality, or the idea that gender roles should be identical, for granted, as if it were some sort of a biological given.   

Third, I'm sure PZ is very good at doing laundry.  He's fond of water, familiar with sponges, at least scientifically, and has long practice in white-washing the absurdities and contradictions of his own on-line sect.  So I'm sure he knows where the washer and dryer are at home, though of course I have no idea how often he uses them. 

But if it were not for religion, does PZ seriously maintain that men and women would be domestically interchangeable?  Does he imagine that, say, in the Soviet Union, after all religion was driven underground, and no macho man in the whole Evil Empire would admit to believing in God like the babushkas (grandmas), that suddenly men started doing the laundry?  Or how about Japan, where men are very irreligious -- do they do half the domestic chores?  (Pause for extended, in some cases bitter laughter from those who, like myself, have lived in Japanese and Soviet societies.)

If real world experience doesn't falsify PZ Myer's naïve conception of how relations between men and women would be in the absence of religion, what can? 

Again, my claim is that the Gospel has liberated women more than anything else.  I argue this from personal experience, from sociology, from history, and from the gospels themselves.  

If all that is true -- and it is -- then PZ's attacks on Christianity are, in effect, also attacks on women. 

I dare PZ Myers to debate me on this issue.  I challenge him to carry out that debate in a fair, equitable, and open forum.   (They say he can be civil in person -- I'm not sure I'm ready for that, but what the hey.) 

I'll e-mail this challenge to PZ.  The response I most expect will be silence, or else another unified chorus of vitriol and insults.  But people grow, and perhaps we may hope that even PZ Myers may some day grow up and begin dealing maturely with the real world, and the genuine role the Gospel of Jesus has played in making it a whole lot better. 

(And here on Myers' "response.")