The Argument from Citation

Peter Coghlan, a senior lecturer in the school of philosophy at the Australian Catholic University has felt the need to argue that 'Religion should not be glibly dismissed as mumbo-jumbo'. I hope he surprises me and uses some arguments that I haven't seen before, but I'm afraid that I'll be disappointed.

He starts with a fair and accurate representation of Catherine Deveny's argument, which I will boil down to one sentence - "Religion is nonsense and you shouldn't constrain your life and thoughts with it." In response to this Coghlan argues:

"Deveny's stance represents one possible response to human experience. It is the kind of response that Wordsworth expressed in A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal when he spoke of the absolute finality of the death of loved one."

At this point my simple-relativism-ometer is flashing and my inner Ratzinger is drafting excommunication speeches. One possible response? A 'glib dismissal' is a possible response? Coghlan doesn't recover himself either. He doesn't retrieve himself from the edge of simple relativism, which even I with my postmodern Arts student education dislike.

Instead, he presents the Argument from Citation, which doesn't so much prove that there is a god or that religion should be taken seriously, but that people in the past have written stuff that took it seriously and that the author has read their work. Coghlan describes Wordsworth's position and then says,

"But Wordsworth's vision needs to be placed alongside other deeply felt responses that find meaning and value in human experience that may extend beyond the grave."

Simple relativism anyone? Coghlan employs T.S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets' and while wikipedia notes that he converted to Anglicanism, this doesn't prove anything. So it's a good thing then that Coghlan asks the question: "Which vision is right - Wordsworth's or Eliot's? "Reason", "evidence" and "common sense" may not be able to answer that question conclusively." But here again, he resorts to simple relativism, arguing that some people might go for Wordsworth, others for Eliot and others for a combination.

"But ultimately, our adoption of one position rather than another is deeply personal.
[...]
They do not provide us with conclusive proof of any reality that transcends the natural world of space and time. This is what I miss most from Deveny's article: a humble awareness of the limits of "reason" in this context."

Sure, reason has limits, but why should faith, religion or spirituality be the necessary choice for transcending these limits? Why can't the simple "I don't know" be good enough? Why can't the conjecture, hints and guesses regarding the unknowable (or noumenal, in a Kantian sense) be treated as conjecture, hints and guesses?

Ultimately, I don't know what Coghlan was trying to argue apart from, "You can't prove there is no god." It's like saying that I can't prove there are no positively charged electrons. Electrons are more or less by definition negatively charged, but this position is based on inductive reasoning employed by physicists (every electron they have thus far encountered is negatively charged). There is nothing stopping them from finding the counterexample of a positively charged electron, except for its nonexistence, which cannot be proven. Great. See Celestial Teapot, see Invisible Pink Unicorn, see Flying Spaghetti Monster.

If, for all his philosophy and fancy poetical references, Coghlan's argument boils down to this then perhaps religion really is just mumbo-jumbo.

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The Sunday Age is Boring

So I dragged in my copy of The Sunday Age today, even though it was a little wet and had a skim. However, I'm afraid that I continue to be uninspired by the paper. While Chris Berg entertained me for a while, his arguments all seem to come from the same place. It's hard to express exactly what that place is, but it has stopped interesting me. But there wasn't even that today, there weren't even letters devoted to shredding his neoconservative arguments. The first few letters were about an article on John Brumby, but the letters page quickly descended into a farce of Christians arguing amongst themselves over who is the fairest Christian of them all. Apparently there is a 'Progressive Christian Network of Victoria' - this is the first I've heard of them, maybe they were founded to write dull letters to Sunday papers.

There was a reasonable article on the etymology of the word 'lesbian', but that's about as far as the interesting went. Perhaps all the interesting writing is to be found through my RSS feeds rather than a sunday paper?

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Dealing with Diversity

An article in The Age today must be ruffling the feathers of someone, somewhere. It covered a supposed divide between international and domestic students, suggesting that there might be a 'backlash'.

That's about the scariest thing I've heard since that little fly trying to eat food from my bin. Simply put, I don't buy it. Sure, there are divides between cultures, but it's not that big a deal. Some people move between cultures easily and others need more time and encouragement. No one is going to go to war over this stuff because it just isn't worth it. Besides, surely having someone whose english skills aren't great in a group assignment isn't that much worse than having someone who is a lazy slob in a group assignment.

And this issue made the front page. A slow news day? Maybe since the Pope has left the country all the News Ltd. journos must be left praying for scandal.

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Word-Switching

John Paul II used the umbrella-term 'culture of life' to describe his anti-abortion, anti-stem cell research, homophobic theology. Ratzinger looks set to be using 'non-violence' to try and make these religious doctrines even more insidious.

Larvatus Prodeo provides links to what the Pope actually said at World Youth Day. From the Catholic Herald:

"But what of our social environment? Are we equally alert to the signs of turning our back on the moral structure with which God has endowed humanity (cf. 2007 World Day of Peace Message, 8)? Do we recognize that the innate dignity of every individual rests on his or her deepest identity - as image of the Creator - and therefore that human rights are universal, based on the natural law, and not something dependent upon negotiation or patronage, let alone compromise? And so we are led to reflect on what place the poor and the elderly, immigrants and the voiceless, have in our societies. How can it be that domestic violence torments so many mothers and children? How can it be that the most wondrous and sacred human space - the womb - has become a place of unutterable violence?

...
The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. "
[Emphasis mine]

So when he talks about violence in the social environment, he is really talking about enforcing pregnancy and restricting anything that involves the manipulation of embryos. To be fair, he mentioned domestic violence in that paragraph, but that was just a buildup to what really mattered - the sanctity of "the most wondrous and sacred human space" which requires the clerical policing and enforcement of its sanctity.

This looks like part of the strategy. Instead of separating these issues out into 'life issues', the church succeeds in confounding the ordinary person and cloaking the theological basis of these positions. For example, Father Bob Maguire who is so often revered as a nice, accessible cleric does this very well. He says, "And they [church bosses] must alert the general membership to the clear and present public danger generated by the moral viruses of affluence, abortion, lousy prison and illegal migrant detention systems, just to name a few." Abortion is neatly juxtaposed against affluence, tapping into the anti-corporate or anti-capitalist sentiments of many left-leaning or otherwise not-rich people. Prison and detention are also within the general domain of leftiness - after all it is 'the hippies' and 'bleeding hearts' who care about the mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

Another example of how Fr. Bob does this is in his post 'Things that never change" where he begins by discussing the execution of Saddam Hussein and then:

"The body of a woman believed to be in her 80's has been found, as we go to press, inside a wheelie bin. Her neighbours were shocked to find her outside a Sydney apartment.

The embryonic stem cell? Does it, him or her, warrant concerned discussion? Some say it, he/she has a place in the world not "per se" but depending on what use it, he/she can be put to - scientific or medical research, for example, to build a better world for some of us."

Apparently it isn't just the embryo that counts, but all of its stem cells too and this is in the same class as executing heads of state and murdered women.

It is religion here that is behaving like a virus as it evolves and adapts itself to become more insidious. Anyone who wants to do scientific research in the area of embryonic stem cells or wants to train to work in reproductive health has some big barriers in their way.

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Condensing Catholicism

Over at Hoyden About Town:

"Shorter Cardinal Pell: If you agree to a candlelight dinner then you’re just asking for it, aren’t you? How could sex later be rape?"

And in today's 'Age', the usually pro-religious Barney Zwartz has reported,

"THE Pope's expected apology to victims of sexual abuse by priests has been sabotaged by a senior Australian bishop, who criticised people for "dwelling crankily on old wounds"."

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'Catholic League' Attacks Academic Freedom

On July 8 Scienceblogger, PZ Myers responded to a news story about someone trying to take a consecrated Eucharist out of a Church here. In response, 'The Catholic League' opened up a letter-writing campaign against him. PZ Myers has requested support and friends such as Richard Dawkins are asking for support for him as well.

It was only 12 hours ago that there was a protest outside Parliament House here in Melbourne against World Youth Day, the big Catholic activist festival. The 'Youth Against World Youth Day' protest is reported by the Herald Sun to have attracted about 150 people. Anti-WYD protestors carried placards and worse shirts with slogans such as 'Blasphemy is not a crime', 'Gay is Okay!', 'Pope is wrong! Put a condom on!' and 'Human rights, not religious rites.'

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Objects of Envy

Sometimes it is hard to figure out why the top US universities attract so much attention, so much discussion and so much longing. A lot of Australian commentators have a thing for them. UWA DVC Donald Markwell certainly did in his book A Large and Liberal Education, former UoM VC Alan Gilbert did if John Cain and John Hewitt are to be believed in Off Course: From Public Place to Market Place at Melbourne University. So today, I picked up a copy of The Age and on the front cover is 'Homeless Crisis at Top University'.

"She [Denise Bradley] revealed the push [to overhaul Youth Allowance and Austudy] as the vice-chancellor of Melbourne University, Glyn Davis, said 440 students were in effect homeless, "hot-bedding" with relatives or friends because they could not afford their own residence.
...
But federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said yesterday the Government was unlikely to change HECS, despite calls, including from its architect, Bruce Chapman, for a rethink."

So, after reading that and being rather disappointed by the lack of review for HECS, I got home and opened my RSS feed. The Harvard Crimson reports, 'Harvard Endowment Posts 9 Percent Return in 10 Months'. I'm not an economist, but 9% in 10 months looks pretty impressive to me. What does this mean?

"Harvard's endowment posted returns of approximately 9 percent through the first 10 months of this fiscal year, according to data from the University. The increase puts the endowment's value at around $38 billion as of this April, up from $34.9 billion as of last June."

Ok, so they made an extra 3.1 billion USD in 10 months, just from investment, not operation, just investment. What is UoM's annual turnover? Well, the 2007 Annual Report (pdf, 8.1mb) tells us that for the year ended 31 December, 2007, operating income was $1.433 billion (AUD of course) and the operating surplus was $96.246 million after tax. So there we have it in simple numbers. Top US universities are making more money from investments than top Australian universities are making in operations for an entire year. It is no wonder that those US universities are envied.

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