Plato is dead

new digs

Change is coming to America. The President gives an unprecedented and pivotal speech in/to the Middle East, Conan O’Brien finally is crowned king of late night TV, and Plato is dead, after an exciting and educational five months at Tumblr, is moving out.

I began this blog merely as a fancier place than my Facebook profile to dump things on the internet I thought were neat. Lately, I have been enjoying writing a little more, and some good discussions have sprung up in the comments threads; and I have become increasingly dissatisifed with Tumblr’s capabilities. After some deliberation, I think Google’s Blogger will be a better venue for what I hope this blog will become.

I won’t be posting anything here anymore, although I may later convert this site into something else.

Hope you’ll join me:

http://platoisdead.blogspot.com/

there's more

Stephen Greer wrote a great response to yesterday’s “almost right” post (about the Texas Board of Education and it’s debate over teaching evolution), and I did my best to reply to him. What began as a pretty limited criticism of a state senator from Texas has morphed into a broader discussion of the limits of science in general.

I was going to put up both Stephen’s comments and my response as new posts, but I realized that, if we are doing it right, the conversation will continue, making constant repostings impractical and disorganized.

So, anyone interested should check out the comment thread, and throw in if you like.

more "no god" ads

The so-called “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens) have been consistently criticized as “shrill,” “obnoxious,” and “mean” for their articulate and unashamed spokesmanship for atheism in the 21st century. Whether or not you think that is a fair criticism (I do not, although I dp think Hitchens is a bit of a tool), it seems clear that, if nothing else, they have opened a lot of space behind them, so to speak, in which ordinary people are suddenly allowed to speak openly and in whatever manner they choose about their own lack of belief in the supernatural. This, I think, will be the “New Atheist’s” greatest legacy.

Signs of this aftershock are, literally, all around us. Assiduous reader(s) of PID (i.e., Matthew McCroskey) will remember the London bus ads from January that cautiously offered: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Yesterday we heard about a similar campaign in Chicago, where buses reminded passing pedestrians and drivers: “You can be good without God.”

And today, Richard Dawkins tweeted about a billboard on interstate 10, west of New Orleans that read: “Don’t Believe in God? You are not alone.”

So I think we are seeing the beginnings of a sea-change. Atheism has moved out of cynical chat-rooms and off of snarky t-shirts and into mainstream advertising; all of these ads are positive, simple, and non-aggressive.

Atheists will soon become recognized as the significant minority we are; we will become a demographic. This is a good thing; advertisers and politicians will no longer be able to ignore us and still count on our patronage and support (the parallels with the gay rights movement are hard to ignore). And, of course, more and more ordinary people will talk to each other seriously about the reasons to believe in a god. This is also only good for atheists; when that conversation happens, atheists win.

Remember, it’s not like the “Four Horsemen” invented the arguments against belief in the supernatural. To be sure, they refined them and added new insights, but basically the debate hasn’t changed significantly in a hundred years. What is important now is changing the culture, so more people are willing to seriously listen to those (very good) arguments. I think these ad campaigns are the first signs that that is happening.

almost right

“It is not fair to say that if you don’t believe Darwin’s theory of evolution or accept the argument that global warming is occurring, that you should not be on the State Board of Education,” [Texas State Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan] said.

Change the “not” to “completely” and I agree.

Or, consider this modified version. Would Ogden agree? On what grounds could he not?

“It is not fair to say that if you don’t believe Newton’s theory of gravity or accept the argument that the Earth revolves around the Sun, that you should not be on the State Board of Education.”

The point is, of course, that it is actually totally fair to say that people who hold demonstrably false beliefs, about which there is an overwhelming scientific consensus, should have no role in the education of our children. Just imagining an alternative “theory” does not make it equally plausible, and thus worthy of “fair” equal consideration. And we all accept this with those matters of science fortunate enough to have been spared politicization by the culture-wars, Christianist Right.

So, in the interest of “fairness,” would Ogden support equal time for both chemistry and alchemy? Astronomy and astrology? Algebra and numerology? Psychology and phrenology? Or is philosophical consistency too much to ask?

equals nothing new

I’ve been pretty disappointed with the recent Garfield Minus Garfield strips.

It’s a shame, because some of the early ones were really brilliant. Removing the silent cat strangely cast Jon in a whole new, pathetic light. It surprised us with something we already knew.

These days I feel like he’s just erasing Garfield from strips where Garfield doesn’t add anything anyway - and so nothing is added by removing him. He’s just freeloading off the humor already in the strip, and it kind of pisses me off. I wonder how long he can keep it up.