No Responses to “Advent Beach Huts”

Comments

1. 

   Martin

   On September 19, 2008 at 6:12 pm

   Criticism of an institution for removing someone from a senior post for views it considers incompatible might be taken more seriously from someone who doesn’t profess allegiance to an organisation that denies senior jobs to women or gay men.

2. 

   David Rudel

   On September 27, 2008 at 9:23 pm

   I disagree. If the substance of the Criticism is sound, factual, and complete [rather than obviously biased or half-truthed], it doesn’t really matter who the author is.
   I could be a miser and at the same time criticize other Christians of not giving to the poor. While this would make me a hypocrite, it would not reduce by one iota the correctness of my admonition.
   It is this sort of refocusing of attention onto the source instead of the content that allows observers to distract themselves from criticism of positions they cannot otherwise meet.
   Furthermore, since being a woman or being gay is not a philosophy, I hardly see how that is relevant.

3. 

   Martin

   On September 28, 2008 at 6:17 pm

   David, your point about making an ad hominem attack is understood, but it was indeed hypocrisy that I was alleging. Is it not immeasurably worse to exclude people from senior posts for aspects of their identity (including gender and sexuality) rather than views? In fact no secular organisation could get away with it.
   Who was it who said something about removing beams in ones own eye? Dawkins? Hitchins?
   By the way, I as an atheist who is persuaded that theism is incompatible with the scientific method (although I know many in both camps would disagree), think the Royal Society were wrong if they indeed did force him out on the basis of what I understand he said.
   I was about to ask if the CofE would allow an atheist in a senior post, but then thought better of it

4. 

   David Rudel

   On October 7, 2008 at 8:28 am

   Hi Martin,
   So, the substance of your remark really has nothing to do with the ruling itself, but rather is/was an opportunity to redirect attention to a situation you find ironic/appalling [the prohibition of women/gays from high-level posts.]
   It is, of course, hard to answer such an objection, but I would like to try (with the understanding that I am not actually agreeing/endorsing the ordinances of the CofE so much as supporting their right to have said ordinates.]
   You claim that secular institutions would never be able to disqualify or prohibit people taking certain posts based on things such as their gender or sexual preference. I contend otherwise.
   For example, the Constitution of the United States of America stipulates that only those born in the US can hold the office of President. If you are a citizen through some other means [even born a citizen], you are disqualified from the post. This seems to me a clear example of someone being forbidden due to an organic factor outside their control.
   Another example: Gallaudet University is a school created by an act of congress for the deaf. In 1988, a protest, Deaf President now was held, forcing the resignation of the president for no other reason than that he had normal hearing.
   Hooters restaurants do not allow men waiters.
   The world is replete with women-only or men-only clubs, organizations, etc.
   In general, one has to ask whether the organization has a viable reason for making whatever selectivity requirements [and some people also desire to ask whether the discriminated demographic is significantly hurt by the given discrimination...in general the question is whether there are reasonable alternatives.]
   Given that understandable readings of Scripture prohibit homosexuality as well as women holding positions of authority, it seems perfectly reasonable for the church to have the ordinances it does. They may not be the only plausible readings of the Bible, but they are certainly reasonable ones, and as such it is understandable that the CofE has the stance it does.
   However, this is not the case for the Royal Society. A key part of the Philosophy of Science is that Science never proves anything, it merely models reality and can disprove certain models of reality.
   Since creationism, intelligent design, and the various forms of common-descent macroevolutionism are not theories of how the Universe works but rather historical reconstructions, it is doubly inappropriate to sanction someone based on their beliefs regarding the question of origin of species: macroevolution is not a theory that can be tested in the same way as, say, Gravity…and even if it were, scientists would be misunderstanding their own discipline were they to suggest that disagreeing with the prevailing viewpoint somehow disqualified someone from science.
   Einstein disagreed with the prevailing viewpoint on gravity and motion…and even after giving the establishment reason to believe their cherished paradigm was wrong, his views on relativity did not gain acceptance for many years.
   Given how many “theories” of evolution have at first been embraced and then shown to be in critical need of emending, one should hardly be attacked for feeling Common Descent is just wrong.
   From day one, respected scientists have taken issue with common descent evolution…including agnostics and atheists who were not wooed by a “theory that explained after the fact.”
   Gould eventually had to scuttle the prevailing Neo-darwinistic view because he just could not continue to pretend textbook orthodoxy had roots in reality.
   If this were any other topic, one less philosophically important to scientists, less dangerous to their view on reality, you would not hear the cries of heresy you hear when anything approaching the questioning of Common Descent is voiced.

5. 

   Martin

   On October 11, 2008 at 4:46 pm

   Some reasonable examples of other institutions excluding people from posts because of aspects of their identity. I am btw writing from the UK where the situation is slightly different. I woudnt defend Hooters restaurants (or the CofE) but would defend the right of organisations to specifically represent otherwise disadvanted groups, inluding the deaf to use your example, to self-organise. I probably agree with your criteria of ‘viable reason’. Your thology might give particular status to hetrosexual men. Interested to know if you woul also support the right of another church with a different reading of theology to only appoint white men?
   Another example of why if the theology is correct and the christian god exists I would have to declare myself his (sic) enemy.
   But that’s not really the issue here is it.
   Of course evolution is testable (and was not disputed by Reiss which is why I dont think it was right to force him out). Even Popper, the great proponent of falsifiability to define science, supported that view after earlier doubts. And a theory (in the scientific not common-use sense) which intelligent design/crationism most certainly is not. Common desent is actually taken to be a fact with the theory of evolution explaining the mechanism. It makes predictions on what will be found in the evidence. The evidence (from geology, genetics, biology etc etc etc) overwhelmingly supports it.
   To suggest that Stephen Gould disputed common decent is just plain wrong. Gould’s position ‘punctured equilibrium’ is a technical argument about periods of stasis in otherwise gradual evolution. Not about evolution through variation and natural selection per se. And that’s how science works. The theory of evolution has developed since before Darwins day in response to further findings. But the fundemental ideas of the modern synthesis remain solid. One of the times he and Dawkins, who were otherwise scientific rivals, cooperated was to present a common front on this to creationists. Interestingly Gould also proposed the idea of non-overlapping magisteria to explain how theism and science could co-exist. You and I would both seem to disagree with him on there not being competition for the same ground.