Thank You for your Social Consent

I came across an atheist blogger of whom I was not familiar. Her blog is the self-named Greta Christina's Blog


I found her short recent post, Religion Relies on Social Consent interesting.


I’ll admit this up front: her post is generic (religion) but my response will be, for the most part, specifically Christian.


One thing I didn't like in her post--but is unfortunately quite common--is the use of the Reductio ad Hyperlink argument. This is where a bold assertion is hyperlinked, giving the impression that a substantive, on-target argument awaits you on the other side. For example, she writes, about religion,

“At best it’s almost certainly wrong”.

The "almost certainly wrong" there, as here, is a link. Surely it is a scholarly article arguing convincingly that religion is "almost certainly wrong." No, it is a link to one her own posts—a "top ten list" enumerating the reasons, all very common, why she doesn’t believe in God.


She uses the Reductio ad Hyperlink argument again, here:

Religious beliefs are either unfalsifiable — in which case we should reject them on that basis alone — or they’ve been falsified. It has never, ever, ever turned out to be the right answer to anything.

The link, you may have guessed, takes you to another of her posts which does not, in fact, demonstrate that religion has never, ever, ever turned out to be the right answer to anything.


Of course it is not only religious believes that are unfalsifiable. I have pointed out before you can, on lucky occasions, encounter internecine warfare on the atheist uber-rationalist sites over questions like "Is animal testing ever ethical?" Or heated brouhahas on gun control, veganism or (perhaps especially) libertarianism. When one atheist uber-rationalist argues with another over animal testing it is because in their "hearts" one holds belief A, that people have no more value than, say, a lab rat, and the other holds belief B that people are at least slightly more valuable than lab rats. Beliefs A and B are unfalsifiable beliefs--not based on rational thinking (othewise they wouldn't disagree!) but on irrational presuppositions that they obfuscate by calling them "values"--which are of course indistinguishable from religious beliefs. Pot. Kettle. Black.


Now, as to Greta Christina's thesis, which she has been “kicking around for sometime,” it is this: 


Religion cannot stand on its own—it relies on social consent. Remove the social consent and religion, it is be believed and hoped, will collapse under its own weight. She tells us:

So those of us who think religion is a bad idea — mistaken at best, flat-out harmful at worst — have to deny our consent.

Let us examine how the consent is to be denied. How does Greta Christina argue that religion is perpetuated?

It perpetuates itself through people not asking hard questions

Well, if this is true you have to blame the gnu atheists--because they ask the least challenging, and most utterly boring questions. Ever. For example Dawkins's seminal question of religion is: if god made everything, who made god? Still, if they did ask good questions, I doubt it would have the desired effect. Because the old atheists, like Betrand Russell, did ask hard questions. Yet it did not seem to harm Christianity or "deny consent" when there were smart atheists asking hard questions. On the contrary I would say it strengthened Christianity by forcing self-examination. No need to be a Berean when, say, PZ Myers's intellectual contribution, in terms of challenging Christianity, is to take pictures of communion wafers in a trash can. Russell caused Christians to dig into the bible to address is criticisms. Myers and the gnus cause us to scratch our nether regions and click on espn.com to search for something, anything, interesting. Continuing:

It perpetuates itself through dogma saying that asking questions about religion is sinful and will result in punishment, and that trusting religion without evidence is virtuous. 

Examples please? I have never witnessed, in either evangelical Protestantism or Roman Catholicism, any  admonition that asking questions is sinful and will result in punishment. Indeed, building on the point above regarding the failure of gnu atheists to ask anything challenging--the difficult questions for Christianity are asked by only one group: Christians.


The second point is also wrong. At least for Christianity. It--understandably because almost all atheists get this wrong--treats faith as something that one musters up and is therefore virtuous. The bible, of course, teaches that such a notion is utter nonsense:  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8) Faith, in and of itself, is not virtuous. It's a gift.


But even if it were true--where does social consent come in? Are you graciously allowing us to have faith? What action would you take that would result in a denial of social consent if this entire point were true? 

It perpetuates itself through dogma saying that joy and meaning and morality can only be found in religion, and that leaving religion will automatically result in a desperate, amoral, pointless life.

Actually I never was taught that morality is found in religion, even Christianity. Religion is man-made. Religion can't do squat. Instead I have always been taught that God provided a moral compass for all people. So unbelievers and believers, given that the source of their morality is the same (God, not religion) have, to first order, the same morality. Nor have I ever heard that leaving Christianity will automatically result in a desperate, amoral life. On the contrary, what is common to hear in a Sunday sermon is an admonition that our behavior is indistinguishable if not worse than unbelievers--who often live admirable lives. 


As for pointless--I'll concede that point.


But again even if it were true--where does social consent come in? Would you make it criminal for us to argue that morality comes from religion? What act are you proposing to counter this form of perpetuation?

It perpetuates itself through parents and other authority figures teaching it to children, whose brains are extra-vulnerable to believing whatever they’re taught.

And what do you propose? That it is illegal to teach your religion to your children? If so, would you stop there? Or would other ideas that parents indoctrinate their children with come under review? Children adopt the politics of their parents too. I adopted my father's Ayn Randism (Objectivism). Until such time as I jettisoned it--about the same time many of the kids of religious parents were walking away from the faith of their parents. Could parents teach their kids to be Objectivists? Communists? White Supremacists? Vegans? Meat lovers? 

It is true that my child-brain was vulnerable and readily aligned itself with my father's politics. But it didn't stick. God or evolution (or both) seems to have wired people to, as they approach adulthood, start thinking on their own. That may be why in any given church you will find a great diversity of pedigree. Some come from religious families. Some, like me, from non-religious families. Some kids stay in the church. Some leave. 

 It perpetuates itself through social and even legal protections that keep religious leaders and organizations from suffering consequences when they behave despicably.

It would be hard to argue, especially given the scandals in the Catholic Church, that there is not some truth here. However if the solution is to vigorously enforce all laws, and to exact appropriate punishment for any member of any church that commits a crime, and to punish the church officials who cover up such crimes--there were do I sign the petition?  

 It perpetuates itself through religious communities and support systems that make believing in religion — or pretending to believe in religion — a necessity to function and indeed survive. 

My counter to this is that I have the greatest job in the world. Tenured professor. And most of my colleagues are atheists. Many are vocal. In the bible belt. They seem to be doing quite well. I don't see the evidence for your claim.

Still, I'd like to know, once again --what do you propose?

So those of us who think religion is a bad idea — mistaken at best, flat-out harmful at worst — have to deny our consent.

But how? Most of what you described is self-perpetuation. All I can see for you to do, given you list of what perpetuates religion is:

1. Get the gnus to do something useful beyond self-aggrandizement and preaching to the choir
2. Criminalize teaching religion to your children
3. Prosecute criminals and those who harbor them in the church

Is there something I missed?

Based on this essay, I won't lose any sleep over a denial-of-consent attack.
--------------------
Addendum:


I actually missed the end of her post. There she writes that denying social consent is one of the biggest reasons for atheists to come out of the closet. Somehow this, in and of itself, denies social consent. I don't see how, but I am all for atheists coming out of the closet. The numbers of self-identified Christians in the US is absurdly high. No doubt a great many of them are closet atheists. It is a win-win if they would come out of the closet. Atheists masquerading as Christians because of family or peer pressure is no good for anyone. So I completely support her call for more atheist billboards, clubs, etc. Anything that reduces the stigma of being an atheist.


The difference is that she thinks this would hurt the church (religion), whereas I see it as an invaluable service to the church. 

The Law, Lesson 2: What is the Question?

We start here with a lighthearted verse:

¹³ “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. (Lev 20:13)

Fast-forward to the 21st century and you have the repulsive Westboro (unfortunately) Baptist Church. And their loathsome (worse than unfortunately) Calvinist pastor, Fred Phelps.

Phelps and his sheep use Lev 20:13 to justify all manner of attacks on homosexuality and anything they see deriving from our nation's tolerance thereof. This leads them to, most notoriously, protest at the funerals of fallen US soldiers. In order to justify their noxious protests they somehow connect the dots from our ignoring Lev 20:13 to the American military.


But what about Lev 20:13? It is certainly a commandment from God. And, it appears, a lasting (as opposed to a one-off) commandant intended to stand for at least some duration (how long?).  And God is not making an exception--it is not situational ethics as discussed earlier. God is not saying: do not summarily execute practicing homosexuals *unless* they are overly flamboyant and flaunt their proclivities and corner the market on nice city apartments. Furthermore, as will be relevant for later discussion, the commandment appears to be, or at least is arguably, moral in nature as opposed to civil or ceremonial. A plain reading of Lev 20:13 is: Homosexual activity is immoral to the point of being an abomination. Kill them. 


If the problem for us is not apparent, atheists are ready, out of the goodness of their hearts, to put the issue into stark relief. In my post Internet Atheists Facts O' Fun I enumerated some laws of internet atheist apologetics. One of these laws was The Law of Bright Darkness:

The Law of Bright Darkness: The worse the behavior of a Christian, the more honest the Christian is. For example, this comment from a reader on Ed Brayton's blog :

 If you really want to see the most honest adapation [sic] of what the bible and Christianity really stands far if you follow the most literal interpretation of the bible, go to Phelps.

What this atheist commenter is alleging is that Phelps is more honest than the rest of us. The rest of us are so-called "cafeteria Christians." We, à la carte, pick and choose from the Old Testament what verses we like and let the inconvenient verses sit untouched well beyond their expiration date. According to this commenter (who is merely representative) we should call for the death of gays, blasphemers and disobedient children--were it not that we, unlike Phelps, are too cowardly and not true to our faith. The intent of the commenter, if it is not obvious, is not to redirect our faith but to demonstrate how hateful Christianity is.

As an  aside, atheists will bristle if you say "Phelps is not a true Christian!" This will immediately earn you a charge of having committed the dreaded "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy:

Alice: All Scotsmen enjoy haggis.

Bob: My uncle is a Scotsman, and he doesn't like haggis!

Alice: Well, all true Scotsmen like haggis.

(It can be, be needn't be, a legitimate charge--but almost never is it legitimate as atheists use it. They tend to use it as misapplied rhetorical language obfuscating their true position: anyone who claims to be a Christian, is. Legitimate examples of the fallacy are, alas, easy to find in the family: I don't see how you can be a Christian and yet believe that the earth is billions of years old.)

The fact that if we say Phelps is not a Christian¹  we are committing a logical fallacy while an atheist can say Phelps is a truer Christian than we are without his irony meter exploding--well it is consistent with the fact that atheists have been given a sort-of blanket immunity from the No True Scotsman charge. All this is codified in three additional laws of internet atheism:

The I-Say-Therefore-I-Am Law: Questioning the sincerity of self-identified Christians such as Fred Phelps (or the Big H—-you know, that guy with the funny little mustache) is immediately dismissed as a No True Scotsman Fallacy. The definition of a Christian is: "anyone who claims (or ever claimed--if no explicit renouncement is available) they are a Christian."

Exception to the I-Say-Therefore-I-Am Law: Anyone questioning the atheism of an inconvenient self-proclaimed atheist (such as students who gun down their classmates) is granted blanket immunity from the No True Scotsman Fallacy. It's only fair. 

The Ipso Facto No Atheist Is That Bad Law: Stalin and Mao were not atheists. They were demigods of the religions Stalinism and Maoism. We know this because mass murder on such a scale can only be committed by religionists.

Now, hilarity aside, we must ask ourselves the question: was that commenter correct? Does he have a point? Should we be calling for the death of practicing homosexuals? And if not, why not?--and why not biblically, not just "because people would not like us."

Some Christians, in fact, agree with the commenter. Most of us do not--but we may not how to make the argument scripture based rather than emotion based. One of the goals of this course will be to equip us with the tools to a) tell the commenter he is full of crap, which he is, and b) to back up that charge.

--------------------

¹ I for one would not say that Phelps is not a Christian. Instead I  would say this: showing no perceptible fruit, the basis upon which we who claim the title Christian are supposed to judge one another, I refuse to regard him as a Christian and instead, as instructed, consider him worse than an unbeliever. If he came to my church (other than for repentance) I would not serve him communion, and would in fact toss his Ichabod-Crane-like skinny ass out of the building.

New building on the way

Virtually every building on our stunning campus is new.

• All new dorms (and more on the way).
• New (and, while still new, nevertheless already expanded) sports/fitness complex.
• New library (with a Starbucks!)
• New I. M. Pei designed performing arts center.
• New student union.
• Two new ginourmous academic buildings.
• Our first night football game.

Alas our building, which houses computer science, computer engineering, physics and my new department, mathematics, is the last old, decrepit academic building. It's a bit like the movie Up, where the old house was surrounding by shiny new buildings.

But no worries! the new building, Luter Hall, has broken ground and will be ready for Fall 2013. I'm sure you'll want to follow its construction here on the Luter Cam.

When the building opens, I will go to the biology, chemistry and psych departments, which are in the brand-spanking-new building (Forbes Hall) that just opened this semester and ask: "How can you stand being in this old, out-of-date facility?" Can't wait!

Jerry shoots and scores!

Jerry, puffing himself up for winning a debate, writes

"As to why the universe is comprehensible, well, I fail to see how that provides evidence for God.  In fact, if there were a theistic God—and Haught is indeed a theist who thinks that God intervenes in the world—I would expect the universe to be not comprehensible"

Here we find two thoughts, illogically strung together. But both follow the standard "proof by the fact Jerry sez so." We are familiar with this construct:

Q: Science and Christianity are incompatible because: 

A) It has been demonstrated that peer-reviewed publications from believing scientists are detectably "different" from those of atheist scientists. A clever person can detect which papers in, say, Phys. Rev. Lett. are published by believers masquerading as scientists.

B) Theists must allow "it was a miracle" as an explanation for anomalous data. They say they don't--they say that they follow the scientific method--but we know what they are really thinking. 

C) Certain experiments are simply impossible for theists. Which ones are unimportant--some just are.  

D) Only faitheists and accomodationists disagree, and we all know that they are big fat dummies.

E) Jerry sez so. Oh, he throws about words like "epistemology" but the bottom line is: Jerry sez so.

The correct answer, of course, is E.


So here Jerry writes: 

As to why the universe is comprehensible, well, I fail to see how that provides evidence for God.

Now of course the comprehensibility of the universe is not direct physical evidence for god or anything else. But one can argue that of all we know about the universe it is the best apologetic for God. Better than anything ID has mustered. I wrote about that here, in The Unreasonable Success of Physics. In that post I quote Feynman, commenting on the success of science:

What is it about nature that lets this happen, that it is possible to guess from one part what the rest is going to do? That is an unscientific question: I do not know how to answer it, and therefore I am going to give an unscientific answer. I think it is because nature has a simplicity and therefore a great beauty. Richard Feynman, "Seeking New Laws," pp. 143-167, in Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law, New York: Modern Library, 1994. Quote is from p. 167.

Feynman recognizes that the success of science is due to something metaphysical: nature's simplicity and beauty. Others recognize it as exactly the kind of universe that God created and told us he created. We see it as prima facie evidence or at least faith affirming.


Not the Jerr. The  Jerr goes on:

In fact, if there were a theistic God—and Haught is indeed a theist who thinks that God intervenes in the world—I would expect the universe to be not comprehensible"

Thank you Jerry. Inventing a view of god that is incompatible with the universe and then declaring victory because god and the universe are incompatible is surely a scholarly approach worthy of emulation. Well played, sir.

(De)links

I am in the process of delinking blogs that removed their link to here. (My view of links has always been one of mutual courtesy, not an endorsement). If you want to reestablish links, let me know.

The Law, Lesson 1: Absolute Truth

In John 18:38 Pilate, interrogating Jesus, asks “What is truth?”

Interestingly there is no agreement as to whether this question was asked in earnest or was asked dismissively. Was Pilate asking a deep question, hoping to connect with Jesus, perhaps to understand him better? Or was he dismissing the concept of truth (“Bleh. What’s this truth thing anyway?”) in a well-meaning attempt to advise Jesus to say anything to save himself? Nobody knows.

The great biblical commentator Andrew Lloyd Webber believed Pilate was asking a serious question. To drive home the point he took poetic license in his opera Jesus Christ Superstar and put these words in Pilate’s mouth:

“ And what is 'truth'? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours?” 

Here Pilate, insightful at least in Webber’s mind, connects truth with unchanging law. We shall ponder that connection as well. Is God’s law a representation of the truth? Of absolute truth? If the truth is unchanging, does that mean the law is also unchanging? Can the law ever change?

Lest you think this is unimportant, this entire course can be summarized by the question: can the law ever change, and if so which laws?

We have to, in fact, get past the trivial

Absolute Truth → Unchanging Law

or this will be a very short course indeed.

We begin in everyone’s favorite book, Leviticus:

 ³ “‘If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the LORD a young bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed. ⁴ He is to present the bull at the entrance to the tent of meeting before the LORD. He is to lay his hand on its head and slaughter it there before the LORD. (Lev 4:3-4).

We could use many other verses to make the same point. But the bottom line is that in the Old Testament God commanded:

If the people/priests sin, there must be an animal sacrificed.

Today, of course, Christians sacrificing an animal as an attempt to deal with sin would be considered an abomination. What was moral has become immoral. What was right has become wrong. So in this case, at least, the law has surely changed—setting the precedent that laws do change. The question of law-changing, it appears, will not be the of the trivial yes/no end-of-the-story variety but the more complicated: which laws change?

But our concern at the moment is for "absolute truth". In agreeing that the law (at least some) can and has changed, we are left with the question: Have we then  sacrificed absolute truth?

The answer is a resounding “no”. However, to appreciate that answer we may have to revise what we think of as absolute truth.

Moral Absolutes and Situational Ethics

Most Christians take the view: 

Moral Absolutes: good

Situational Ethics: bad

But this is due, I believe, to a kind of false dichotomy. That is, it is perceived that Moral Absolutes and Situational Ethics are in conflict.

Now, contrary to this popular Christian belief, not all moral decisions are absolute. There most certainly are situational ethics in Christianity. Jesus tells us that the Sabbath was made for man, not vice versa. Even the most fundamentalist Christian denominations that take the position that you should not work on a Sunday¹ will say: "No working on Sunday unless, um, you have to." Much of the Mosaic law reads like precedent setting, situational specific, case law: "You may not, willy-nilly, kill your neighbors ox! Unless your neighbor's ox was a serial offender of the goring variety, then you may kill him. The ox, that is." 

So the bible is chock-full of situational ethics, not the most pleasant of which is: killing people is wrong, unless God commands you. I am thinking here, of course, of the conquest of Canaan. Now, I believe you can make a more than compelling case that the conquest of the Holy Land was a one-time event in God's redemptive plan and we have reason to expect that God will never command us to annihilate anyone, and we are certainly under no standing orders to take anyone's life or property, but nevertheless the point remains: it is absolutely wrong to commit murder, and yet Joshua was not sinning when he engaged in genocide.

There is no way for a Christian who holds to the simpleminded relationship: moral absolutes are the opposite of situational ethics to reconcile this tension. That is because in my opinion they misunderstand moral absolutes.

They're not in tension. We just need proper definitions:

Wrong Definition of Moral Absolute: If God and any point says it is wrong to commit act A, then it is always wrong to commit act A. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Correct Definition of Moral Absolute: if it is wrong for one person to commit act A in situation S, then it is wrong for any person to commit act A in the same situation S.

The latter definition preserves the proper Christian aversion to moral relativism. In the same situation, it cannot be morally wrong for one person to behave in a certain manner while, for whatever reason, it is morally acceptable for another. Moral absolutism is preserved over moral relativism. At the same time, situational ethics may and indeed must be considered. 

Suppose, for the sake of argument, we return to the common (but not necessarily correct) church teaching that is situational ethics par excellence: it is not permissible to work on Sunday, unless it is a work of necessity. (Again, I'm not arguing whether or not this is the correct view of the day of rest. That's a separate topic. I'm just using it here as an example.) In these terms it would mean:

• Working on Sunday is, to first order, wrong.
• Working on Sunday, if is not a work of necessity, is absolutely wrong.
• Working on Sunday, if it is a work of necessity, is acceptable—and it is an example of situational ethics.
• Working on Sunday, even if it is not a work of necessity, is permissible for some as long as they don't feel guilty about it is an example of moral relativism, and is wrong.

Of course, some of the ethics are not situational, but absolute. These are the apodictic laws. Apodictic laws are universally binding principles that tend to use the familiar "you shall" and "you shall not" form:

³"You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴"You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. (Ex. 20:3-4)

Clearly these are not conditional laws, but rather universal absolutes. There is no condition that, if it is met (or if it fails to be met) would allow a person to have another god before God. Under all circumstances, we shall have no other gods before God.

Yet even then, when there is no possibility of dispute, we will find dispute. In particular we will face a tricky question: although apodictic laws are absolutes, can they be nullified in the sense that they are replaced by a fuller revelation of the law? In the same sense that the absolute truths of the proto-gospel and the absolute truths of the messianic prophecies are replaced by the fuller revelation of the finished work of Christ, is it possible that the apodictic laws, though absolute, can be replaced by something better? Are they types of the true law. 


A secular example would be, suppose this law:





was replaced by this law:

Was the first absolute, and yet nullified and replaced by the second?

We shall ask such vexing questions.

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¹ We make no comment at this point about whether it is proper for Christians to work on Sunday. It is just an example of where situational ethics can be found even in those denominations that would be most violently opposed to the idea.

The Law

Next week I will be starting a new, long-delayed School on the Law. We'll be looking at some of the ways different schools of theology (dispensational, reformed, and various flavors therein) look at the law. We we also look at a the relatively nascent view of New Covenant Theology.

Man, that star fell fast!

Alternate title: Virtue has triumphed! The sword of retribution has cut down Pro-fessor Lawrence Krauss!

Just the other day I commented on Lawrence Krauss's guest post on one of (if not the) most popular atheist blogs on the planet: PZ Myers's Pharyngula.

LK was riding on top of the Gnu atheist world!

Then--scandal!

Krauss has a friend. A billionaire friend. More importantly the friend is also a scumbag sex offender of the Roman Polanski genre. This post from skepchick denounces Krauss for defending his friend.

Krauss handled this all rather stupidly. Granted it is tough to be in a situation where you are asked to denounce a friend--but there are non-weaselly ways out. You could simply say: He is my friend. I denounce his crimes, but remain his friend and hope to help him find the professional treatment he needs. Or something like that. Instead it appears that Krauss looked for loopholes.

That's all I'll say about that--because I don't really care about Lawrence Krauss and his piece-o-crap friend. You can judge for yourself should you find the affair interesting. I don't. What I find interesting is the fact that on day one he is a hero to the gnu atheists while on day two he is a goat.

I will say that skepchick's (Rebecca Watson) blog post title: Lawrence Krauss Defends a Sex Offender, Embarrasses Scientists Everywhere is incredibly stupid. Krauss's behavior is not an embarrassment to scientists everywhere. It may reflect on his character and may be an embarrassment to Krauss--but it is not an embarrassment to scientists everywhere. We are not a priesthood-we are people who are lucky enough to do science for a living. We come with all the human foibles found in the professions. If Krauss was a house painter, would he now be an embarrassment to house painters everywhere? Dumb.

As an aside, PZ--having just given LK a big ole' soap box--now faced a dillema--not totally unlike Krauss's situation, though different in scale. In my opinion he approached in a rather cowardly way. Without ever mentioning Krauss by name he made a post about himself (well, no surprise there) with oblique links to other bloggers who were doing the heavy lifting, such as Rebecca Watson. Go on, read his post and tell me, apart from following the links, would you have any clue what the hell PZ was discussing?

Among the Pharyngula regulars there is very little wiggle room granted Krauss due to the circumstance that he was defending a friend. The friend's crime was indeed repulsive--but what really prevented the Gnus from any sort of nuanced look at Krauss (not at the friend who committed the crimes who deserves no nuance, but at Krauss who was dumb and evasive in his lukewarm denouncement) are the feminist-flag-raising overtones of Krauss's attitude. Now the Gnu atheists are a tough crowd when it comes to feminism. On Pharyngula they even engaged in atheist blasphemy: His Worshipfullness Dick the Dawk was deemed sexist¹ because of high crimes such as attributing gender differences too much to biology and too little to culture, and using "man" and "female" too close together. (I don't know if order matters, or if {man, woman} is preferred over {male, female}, but I do know that {man, female} in too close proximity is the Unpardonable Sin.

I'm not sure I worded that clearly, so here is a summary of what I am trying to say:

1. Krauss has a scumbag friend who has exploited child prostitutes for sex.
   
2. Krauss was an imbecile in the manner he chose to defend his friend.
   
3. Since the pedophile is Krauss's friend, Krauss's behavior might be looked at through the lens: it is never easy to throw a friend under the bus--even when he richly deserves it.
   
4. The free-thinking Gnu crowd is incapable of such nuance, because what Krauss did strikes them as anti-feminist, and nothing anti-feminist deserves a nuanced look.

---

¹ Much of that discussion can be found by wading knee deep through this thread of pure gnu atheist open mindedness and free thinking. A couple back-to-back examples of free-thinking directed at Dawkins. From free-thinking commenter Ing:

The offensiveness and bad science in some of your [Dawkins's] latest displays is not that there is are differences between the sexes or even currently seen differences in behavior. The problem is that you uncritically contribute those to genetics rather than culture. For one, your million dollar chanalge things ignores the HUGE cultural difference between a women asking a stranger for sex and a random MAN asking a woman for sex. (HINT: ONE SENDS OFF RAPE ALARM BELLS).

This is followed by Phodopus's reply, again directed at Richard Dawkins who foolishly asked "Why is the word 'female' insulting?"

Do you not agree that having women referred to as females while in the same conversation men are referred to as men, has a connotation of the former being a kind of object of study rather than fellow human beings, if only slightly?

Lawrence Krauss: No, I won!!!

Lawrence Krauss, in a guest post on Pharyngula, is in a hissy-fit over a debate he had with William Lane Craig. I haven't watched the debate—debates are usually unedifying matters of style over substance. Unless I get a critical mass of recommendations to watch, my going in assumption is that any given debate is ignorable.

Furthermore, given that, as I understand it, this debate was not about, say, the self-consistency of a world view assuming the Christian god but rather about scientific evidence for god I would have, reluctantly, been on Krauss's side. I don't believe there is any direct scientific evidence for god or any satisfying philosophical "proofs" for god. Good thing I’m a confirmed presuppositionalist, eh?

Krauss is whining, as near as I can tell, about Craig's post-debate behavior. Apparently LK is miffed that Craig has been going about declaring victory to his own supporters. To counter this unspeakable breach of ethics, Krauss has penned a guest post on Pharyngula to, well, declare victory to his supporters.

If Krauss debates like he writes I am certain he must have lost on style points. His Pharyngula essay is ponderous and sleep-inducing. Prop you eyelids open with toothpicks before reading.

One of several topics about which Krauss declares himself the winner is, unsurprisingly, fine-tuning. His writing on the subject, though better than Coyne’s (at least Krauss knows what he is talking about) is far from laudable. He starts:

The appearance of design is one of the most subtle and confusing aspects of our Universe.

which is bit of a strawman. Fine-tuning is not an "appearance of design" but a question about whether and why the universe's ability to synthesize metals (heavy elements) is sensitive to the values of the fundamental constants and the strengths of the basic forces. Some theists philosophically interpret fine-tuning as prima facie design evidence. Some scientists philosophically interpret fine-tuning as multiverse evidence. But if we stick to just science and ignore philosophy (always a good idea!) fine-tuning is agnostic with regards to any particular apologetic claim. Krauss calls Craig disingenuous—but here it is Krauss being disingenuous—sneakily setting up fine-tuning as, out-of-the-box, a religious argument.

He proceeds down this path, transitioning willfully or ignorantly into the common error of conflating fine-tuning with the anthropic principle. He concludes with a bloody awful example embedded in some hideous prose:

And, beyond this, just as bees are fine tuned to see the colors of flowers which they can pollinate as they go about their business does not indicate design, but rather natural selection, we currently have no idea if the conditions of our universe represent a kind of cosmic natural selection. If there are many universes, for example, as may be the case, and as are predicted in a variety of models, none of which were developed to address God issues, we would certainly expect to find ourselves only in those in which we can live.

Ahhhhhhreh? LK, go to the board and write 500 times: cosmological fine-tuning is not the same as the anthropic principle.

If past experience is a reliable guide Pharyngula's commenters, on the question of fine-tuning, will be as clueless as Jerry's kids, At the time I write this there is only one relevant comment, from a Kevin:

Fine-tuning. Really? In a universe that is 13.7 billion years old and 40+ billion light years across, that required the death of not one but two stars -- one in a supernova -- where humans have appeared in the last 0.00004% of that time, the entire enterprise was built with US in mind? Unbelievable arrogant self-centered narcissism.

No Kevin, what is unbelievable is that you think that the fine-tuning argument is the same as "the universe was made for us" argument.

I guess you can blame Krauss--since he couched his fine-tuning comments in a like manner.

Scandalous!

When we moved to Virginia and joined our present church, I was tapped almost immediately to teach adult Sunday School. The topic was the compatibility of science and Christianity. My bride, having heard me teach on that topic before, was not all that enthusiastic about repeating the course.

On the first class she arrived late. In no time great laughter erupted from near where she sat. I only found out why later. When she sat down the woman she sat next to (who didn't know us all that well, at the time) said, "You're late!" To this my wife responded, "It's OK, I'm sleeping with the teacher."

Here is another scandalous post involving my wife, from 2005.