While I am not a Facebooker, I was informed by somebody of the discussion at the Facebook page of the Society of Edmonton Atheists regarding my November 1st visit. (Incidentally, be sure to befriend the SEA page; for the most part they are indeed friendly.) The comment came from “Rodrigo de la Jara” who commented as follows:
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“Although I already linked to this other video as a comment, I saw that it had a part relevant to the Flying Spaghetti presentation we saw this week. At least one of us atheists accepted that it was fair to criticize Richard Dawkins for avoiding sophisticated theology. Eminent philosopher Dan Dennett comments on this specific accusation starting at 48 min, 1 sec in this video.”
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Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bwe7TIv4LY#t=48m01s
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What should we think of this? Well it is interesting, because what we have here is an appeal to the authority of Daniel Dennett as a way to marginalize my entire presentation. Philosophical theologians and philosophers of religion don’t know what they’re talking about. Why? Because Dennett said so and Rodrigo linked to it! That’s all you need right?
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If you have a lot of faith in Dennett and Rodrigo perhaps.
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But what if you have your doubts about these authorities? What if you’re an independent thinker and you’d like some actual evidence before you marginalize Randal and his entire presentation? Alas, this isn’t the place for such free thinkers. Just take Daniel’s unsubstantiated word for it. After all, Rodrigo provided the link.
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Or maybe not. I have a high degree of confidence that SEA breeds independent thinkers who will ask for evidence of the futility of a particular knowledge discourse (and the slighting of all those who partake in that knowledge discourse) rather than acting like lemmings that blindly follow internet links over a cliff and into the fundamentalist abyss.
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Of course Rodrigo is always welcome to come on over and defend his views here in the court of public opinion rather than hiding in the coattails of the aging bearded doyen of philosophical naturalists. But I offer him a warning: we don’t look favorably upon unquestioning dogmatism, even if it is granted to one’s cherished secular philosophical authority.
