Simon Smart, and time to smarten up the christian v atheist debate with talk of tigers ...

Want a guide on how to sound smug, condescending, and something of a know all in your opening par?

No worries, just follow the Simon Smart guide, as demonstrated at the start of Ignorance is more concerning than religion:

I was once at a dinner party when a friend, who I think had read a Robert Fisk article that morning, began explaining an aspect of Middle Eastern politics. Unbeknown to her, one of the guests was something of an expert in the field, and was nodding politely at my friend’s newfound wisdom. I felt the need to jump in and save her from embarrassment.

What a golden goody. First theres' the notion that Robert Fisk knows nothing about the Middle East, so reading his columns in The Independent, indexed here, is a waste of time. You know, a little learning and considering the opinion of others is always a dangerous thing ...

Perhaps it was his piece Exodus: The changing map of the Middle East, from Israel to Iraq, a Christian flight of Biblical proportions has begun that got up the nose of Smart or his expert friend.

Then there's the condescension of the 'real' expert, who understood that anything that Fisk said was likely liberal gibberish, so he could nod politely at the friend's "newfound Fisk wisdom", matched only by the condescension of Smart, who of course knows as much as the 'real' expert, and so, as a 'real' expert himself, can jump in and save his friend from embarrassment.

Well once you've strutted your punch drunk stuff for The Punch with that kind of opening par - The Punch has lately turned into an outreach post for the Centre for Public Christianity - there's no chance things will get any better.

Smart, you see, is scribbling in agitated response to another Punch-drunk posting:

I have something of a similar response to Brendan Brown’s appeals to rationality (Why an Atheist Prime Minister is better The Punch Nov 10). The article, picking up on the now familiar New Atheist shtick makes me want to point out some realities of history and philosophy that the writer seems unaware of.

Yep, it's more of that now familiar soft shoe New Christian shtick, and oodles more condescension, as he points out realities of history and philosophy that turn out to give surreality a good name:

There are some bold claims here. We read for instance that, “even the most devout of Jesus’ disciples would admit that the Bible makes an underwhelming historical document.”

The audacious statement, sweeping aside thousands of years of scholarly work, reveals a lack of understanding of believers in the first instance, but also of the many non-believing historians who nonetheless consider the biblical text to be historically robust by ancient history standards. Classicist and historian Joseph Klausner and his successor, Oxford Professor Geza Vermes, come to mind as historians at the top of their field, without Christian affiliation, who consider the New Testament to be serious history at its core.

Uh huh, but merely assembling a couple of historians doesn't make a decent point, since a dozen historians with countervailing views could be assembled just as easily to make the point that the Bible isn't particularly historically robust, even by ancient history standards.

And much of the scholarly study of the bible in previous generations has been of the quasi historical theological kind, resulting in dross like Archbishop James Ussher's epic timeline starting the history of the world at 4004 BC (how we love our Ussher). If that's history, pardon me while I forget about the Stone Age ... though in his day Ussher was hailed for his remarkable work of scholarship, and I still have a number of bibles in the house adorned with his impeccable datings.

Never mind. A lot of the bible was written way after the events described, authorship is shadowy and often unattributable, much is clearly mythology and myth-making, and nothing wrong with that, and because many events took place in the outer parts of empire, there's a disturbing lack of correlative references in other contemporary literature.

Much of the study of the bible as history is like Shakespeare scholarship, pinning a lot on very little, and relying a lot on studying the actual text and resolving internal contradictions, or scrambling around in archaeological digs trying to nail a little reality on the tail of the donkey.

Even poor old Herodotus, himself something of a fabulist, emerges with a better charge sheet as an ancient historian, and when he gets on to turf he knows something about, turns in a good read as well as decent history, especially as there are good ways to check what he wrote - well better at least than a lot of the stuff in the bible, from Noah's ark to Jesus rising from the dead.

At its core, the Bible is great mythology, and great poetry, at least if you have a soft spot for the King James version, wherein Elizabethan language and apocalyptic scribbling had a fine meeting of minds.

Sadly, not content with explaining how miracles and rising from the dead form a decent historical record (when will we ever see that sort of thing again, excluding of course Philippines faith healers and the joys of the transformative e-Meter) Smart has bigger fish to fry, and that's the important role Christianity has to play in the world:

And what about the claim that economic reform and climate change are decidedly secular issues? That appears arbitrary and ill-founded. It is very clear that faith has contributed to and shaped, in both good and bad ways, huge social movements throughout centuries. One can immediately think of the fight to end slavery, 18th Century British social reform and the Civil Rights movement in the States, the growth of education and development of hospitals. We could go on.

Please don't, because otherwise we'd be tempted to go on in our own way with a list of standard naughty Christian things, from the Inquisition to the odd bit of witch maltreatment at Salem, and really it's just the same old stew re-hashed a thousand times, as we might expect of the new atheist-new Christian schtick. And talk of good and bad ways doesn't get you out of jail, if all you talk about is the good ways ...

Of course it's clear that faith has played a major role in the world. Enough already ...

Smart can't get enough of lists and experts and completely non-sequitur arguments, which soon reach a peak of irrelevance:

The suggestion that religion survives on “faith alone” and that it is not subjected to even the most elementary scrutiny or analysis, is especially problematic. It’s boringly obvious to point out the many great minds that do in fact believe and could hardly be thought of as foolishly naïve. Even that most pugnacious of atheists, Christopher Hitchens, is happy enough to describe Francis Collins, the man who brought the human genome project to completion and a committed Christian, as “one of the greatest living Americans”. Presumably Collins isn’t in the business of committing his life to something that is completely devoid of evidentiary burden, as Brown believes all religion to be.

Huh? Say what? So Hitchens thinks a piece of science is a great piece of science and the scientist is a committed Christian so that's the evidentiary burden gone, and it's a jolly mystery why Hitchens remains a committed atheist, and never mind his outrageous poking at the long absent god as he's devoured by cancer?

It's the level of logic in the argument that makes me feel a deep pity for Smart's friend who showed up at the start of the story. I have a deepening suspicion that she and Robert Fisk were right ...

Because then we get another dose of condescension as an example of how to conduct a debate:

But regarding the argument that religious belief is entirely non-rational; that it is about disregarding the laws of the universe and ignoring the natural order I do feel the need to offer a suggestion. For those who want to go down that path, getting familiar with Notre Dame Professor Alvin Plantinga’s work on why naturalism cannot be rationally believed, might make for an interesting excursion?

Yep, it's another expert, a field trip, a spiffing excursion, possibly with tea and scones, and offering more expert views, as a way of helping a friend, who might have read an article by Christopher Hitchens and offered it by way of insight at a dinner party, and so possibly produced an incredible faux pas, and only being saved from social embarrassment by the ever-helpful and ever-obliging Smart.

So come on, roll out the expert:

Plantinga, a leading American philosopher, recently explained his famous argument in an interview with the Centre for Public Christianity. The basic idea is this: if you’re a naturalist (there’s no God or gods), you’ll also be a materialist (the only thing that exists, including consciousness, is physical matter). You’ll think human beings are material objects, and that there isn’t any immaterial soul, or self, or person.

Uh huh. Would this be the same Plantinga who has lent support to the intelligent design movement, and who was a member of the 'Ad Hoc Origins Committee' that supported Philip E. Johnson's book Darwin on trial against Stephen Jay Gould's rather stern review? (here) Would that be the same Plantinga who scribbled this?

Consider the role played by evolutionary theory in our intellectual world. Evolution is a modern idol of the tribe; it is a shibboleth distinguishing the ignorant fundamentalist goats from the informed and scientifically acquiescent sheep. Doubts about it may lose you your job. It is loudly declared to be absolutely certain, as certain as that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun—when it is no such thing at all.(here).

Would that be the same Plantigna who wrote this?

Like any Christian (and indeed any theist), I believe that the world has been created by God, and hence "intelligently designed." The hallmark of intelligent design, however, is the claim that this can be shown scientifically; I'm dubious about that. ...As far as I can see, God certainly could have used Darwinian processes to create the living world and direct it as he wanted to go; hence evolution as such does not imply that there is no direction in the history of life. What does have that implication is not evolutionary theory itself, but unguided evolution [original emphasis], the idea that neither God nor any other person has taken a hand in guiding, directing or orchestrating the course of evolution.

Yep, it's the same Plantinga who lent moral support to the intelligent design camp, and who believes in Wedge strategies, and who was a signatory to the Evangelical Manifesto.

Naturally Smart takes time out to explain Plantinga's arguments about naturalism, albeit in a half baked way:

Now, evolution doesn’t give a toss about what you believe. It only cares about rewarding adaptive behaviour and punishing maladaptive behaviour. So evolution will modify those neuro-physiological properties in the direction of greater adaptiveness, but it doesn’t follow that it modifies belief in the direction of truth. Evolution doesn’t care about true belief.

So, says Plantinga, if you accept the combination of naturalism and materialism, you’ll have to take it that for any particular belief you might hold, the probability that it’s true is about a half. It could as likely be true as false. All you really know is that as creatures, we evolve and behave adaptively. If that’s the case, given naturalism and evolution, then the probability that one’s beliefs are reliable will be low.

Actually I prefer Plantinga's own surreal example of the idea that there are true beliefs which come in handy as a survival strategy:

Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour

Uh huh. And perhaps Paul is just a dimwit fuckwit, and that's why the Neanderthals are no longer with us ...

I mean, did you ever see the bones of a sabre tooth tiger in a museum, and wonder how you might have wanted to be eaten by one? Assuming of course we'll allow a sabre toothed tiger into the historical record ...

But back to Smart, and see how valiantly we've resisted making a pun about his name in the body of the text:

Now of course, if you don’t accept naturalism and materialism, and suspect there is more going on inside you and those you love than mere physical matter, then you don’t have that problem. If you think there is more to life than only that which you can see and touch and smell, you have grounds for trusting your faculties.

Grounds for trusting your faculties? Because you believe in holy ghosts and ghoulies and zombies and werewolves and saints and miracles and spirits and boojums and garlic and silver bullets and holy water and relics? Waiter, bring some loaves and fishes, I'm feeling in the mood for a little scientific research ...

Well there's a fair argument that people - men in particular - wouldn't be so cheerful about the prospect of being dead for all eternity, if all they could look forward to was bones dissolving in the cold earth, as opposed to pie in the sky, and life in a kind of blissful summer camp with god, Christ, the Buddha, Muhmmad, seventy two virgins, endless beers, poker machines that pay out, and lawn bowls with a decent bias.

See how you go about a recruiting drive for a holy war (or unholy ones for that matter), if all you get is a bullet in the brain or a head chopped off, and an eternity in the earth, rotting, eaten by worms, and fit only for a soliloquy in Hamlet ...

But then comes the Smart zinger:

None of this is intended to prove belief.

Say what? So what's the bloody point? Why the hell have I hung around in this column for so long, spending time with people with more than a toe in the intelligent design camp and given to prattle about friendly tigers?

But it might give Brendan Brown reason to pause. He’s right that rationality shouldn’t be an optional quality in a Prime Minister. But he’s wrong to think that religious faith is always evidence of leaving one’s brain at the door.

Yes, indeed, Brendan Brown's piece was light weight, and his celebration of an atheist PM largely irrelevant to the needs of the body politic.

Thankfully however, it produced Simon's Smart's piece as a counter-punch ...

The result? Well religious faith doesn't always provide evidence of leaving one's brain at the door, but Simon Smart is of a religious faith and clearly leaves his brain at the door ...

Where I come from that's a slam dunk petitio principii argument of a very Smart kind ...

(Below: speaking of tigers, you can find this cartoon at Design Yes, Intelligent No: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory and Neocreationism).