I find it fascinating that atheism has its own mythos.

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Well, it's an atheist mythos. Or, more precisely, it's the mythos of Science and Heroic Martyrs of Science. It's not inherent in the concept of atheism, nor is it part of atheism dogma. It's more a folk belief. Every system of ideas has those. The theory that "all atheists believe X untrue thing" is about as well founded as the theory that "all medieval Catholics believed in witches/persecuted the Jews/rejected scientific inquiry." Which is not to say that when an individual atheist believes some untrue thing, there is anything wrong with pointing that out, or anything that a rational atheist should have any ground for objecting to!

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Right. There are several sects in the atheist church, and not all are compatible with one another. One sort ascribes everything to chance; another sort ascribes everything to fate, or determinism as they sometimes call it. Full-monty Nietzscheans regard Russellians as "flatheads," and so on.

Mr. Walker's mythos is derived (ironically) from the extreme left-wing Protestantism known as fundamentalism. (You will note that he puts great weight on the variety of individual understandings versus the dogmas of the traditional churches.) I once read an Eastern Orthodox article that viewed atheism as simply a form of fundamentalism and predictable from it.

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:: dons flame-proof undies, wanders into the fray ::

I'm not familiar with any "atheist church"; who (or what) is the object (or objects) of worship in this church?

I'm an atheist because I lack a compelling reason to believe that deities, spirits, demons, angels, and other such entities exist.

But that's just me.

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That's okay. The debate question is whether science arose from medieval Christianity, not whether medieval Christianity is true. A belief need not be true in order to be fruitful.

Example: the Newtonians believed in an infinite, unbounded, and empty space. This was a fruitful belief, but it turned out that our space-time continuum has a "beginning-in-time," cannot for that reason be infinite in extent, and cannot be empty. Per Einstein, space and time have no objective existence, but are properties of matter. Therefore, there cannot be space or time without matter/energy. Current theory "stuffs" the "empty" space with something called "dark matter," but which Aristotelians called the "aether" or "quint essence."

In the same manner, certain Christian beliefs facilitated the emergence of science in ways that other belief systems did not or even inhibited. We'll be coming to that in the next post.

+ + +
Some fellow named Gray described five varieties of atheism thusly. The notes were taken by an attendee at the conference and posted on the web at some point:
1. Science-Oriented Atheism. An atheism that grounds itself in scientific modes of understanding, and the discourse of science. [This is the heir of the Positivist movement, which was anti-liberal.]

2. Ultra-Protestant Atheism. This kind of atheism rests strongly on the idea of individual autonomy, and holds that one shouldn't take anything on authority. Gray thinks this is rooted in Protestantism. [But there are hints of Nietzsche and the triumph of the will, the bold assertion that "I choose!" is all that is necessary.]

3. Non-Humanist Atheism. Schopenhauer didn't like Christianity or the churches, but he also believed that atheism is its own thing, and owes nothing to science. Science and atheism are "non-overlapping magisteria." One doesn't have anything to do with the other.

4. Anti-Liberal Atheism. Nietzsche, for example. Actively anti-liberal, and contemptuous of liberal values. In Gray's view, this is completely logical. Liberal values - ideals of toleration - come straight out of Judaism and Christianity. Nietzsche attacked liberalism precisely because of its Christian values (it pitied the weak, for example, and was a slave religion that honored what was contemptible in man). [Nietzsche also mocked the Russellian English atheists who believed they could maintain a Judaeo-Christian morality after dispensing with the Judaeo-Christian theology. He called them the "English flatheads" in Twilight of the Idols.]

5. Naturalistic Atheism. The idea that if you try to eliminate the religious sense from life, you're going to repress natural instincts. It's a benign or favorable attitude toward religion as a natural expression of what it means to be human. It's interesting to reflect, says Gray, on how atheist regimes -- Revolutionary France, Soviet Russia, the Third Reich -- adapted a secular sacerdotal gloss, with their own pantheons of saints and sacraments, to speak to the religious sense within man. This sort of atheist isn't threatened by religion, and in fact sees religion as satisfying an important instinct within human beings -- but it must be kept in its place.

To this taxonomy should be added those who are atheist, but who have not thought through the implications. These are the equivalent of the "social Christians" who went to church on Sunday because it was the "done thing."

John Adams, as I said, distinguished those atheists who believed everything was the result of chance and those who believed everything was determined by scientific-like laws. The two are incompatible.

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Yes, I was overgeneralizing. But it's still fascinating.

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So are you using TOF more than the LJ?

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I'm posting here, copying it to over there. Some folks may find blogger easier to access. So far, not many comments there. It doesn't autotell me about comments by email like LJ does. But it's easier to insert a break to hide text "below the fold". Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

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You might want to check your options-- my blog updates me for all new comments.

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Excellently and fascinatingly said - I look forward to reading the next part. You do have a broken link to the article in The Atlantic - I believe you meant it to direct here.

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Correct. My bookmark goes there, and I copied the URL. Maybe I forgot to do something internetty. There is a response article here:
Is Stupid Making Us Google?
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/is-stupid-making-us-google

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I read the response article first and the Carr second.

One of my coworkers boasts that he never reads. Meanwhile, he complains that he never understands my allusions to what I perceive as the cultural commonstock.

Mostly, I regard myself as fairly, if repentently, ignorant.

Yet I thrill in losing myself in a book as much as I refuse to own a television or a cellphone. I find deep silences essential.

Over my cousins' Christmas, one of the high school set selected the Travel Channel [???] and a series titled Man vs. Food. As a lesson in perverse banality, the show I watched was, if not nonpareil, unexceeded in this capacity.

JJB

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I am currently reading "The Legacy of Rome", which in the introduction gives us quite a bit on the revival (or new surge?) of interest in the Early Middle Ages as worth studying in its own right. I myself started with a standard college course in Medieval History, and followed the part that interested me into a History of Anglo-Saxon England.

"Legacy" to the contrary, the Roman influence in the Germanic and outer Celtic countries was a lot less marked than in the former Roman Empire, with England, as always, in the middle. Which simply means we have more of the older lore, since it was less buried under the Romanitas of, say, Gaul.

But it is a fascinating period in its own right. And a student could do far, far worse than reading Bede for history and the biography of Alfred for a character who could stand on the shoulders of giants with the best. (As his successors - militarily - stood on his shoulders!) What??? A systematic thinker of high quality in the DARK AGES?!? Oh, horrors!!!!

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I have already far too many things I absolutely must read before I die, and subscribe to far too many blogs - and now, because Mark Shea linked to your post on the whole mediaeval thing, I have (1) subscribed to your blog, and (even worse) (2) ordered Eifelheim from Amazon.

And (sob!) I see you have written even more books. When will it stop??!!

Maybe the book will be rotten and I will never have to buy another one - please, please, God!

Bt I look forward to it with keen anticipation.

John Thayer Jensen
http://inquietumcor.blogspot.com

PS - I am in love with Sigrid Undset.

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That's pretty serious, all right. But you can also order The January Dancer, which is not medieval, but merely ieval. That way you can be prepped for the forthcoming Up Jim RIver. Mwahahaha

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I will restrain myself until I have read Eifelheim - can you tell Amazon to hurry up, please? New Zealand is the beginning of the world - and the US, where I assume the book will come from, is pretty close to the end (I suppose Hawai'i is the end, or pretty close to it).

John Thayer Jensen
http://inquietumcor.blogspot.com

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IN the spirit of being fair, I went over to read Mr. Walker's rebuttal of your response.

In the spirit of mocking the arse off him, I quote:

"Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus) wrote several scientific treatises on astronomy, math and geography. Galen was an accomplished medical researcher of the Roman period. There are dozens of accounts of Roman writings mentioned by contemporary historians but their works are either fragmentary or they no longer exist. Where did they go? So much for Christian preservation of antiquity!"

That Galen fella he mentions has, of course, nothing whatsoever to do with the Galen who was touted throughout Western Christendom as the premier medical authority and crammed down the throats of medical students up to the 19th century.

Because the Ebol! Christians destroyed and utterly did away with all having to do with the Great Minds of the Past.

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Also, he overlooks the fact that both Ptolemy and Galen were Greeks, not Romans. And, yes, not only did Galen's works comprise 20% of the ancient Greeks that were copied in the Middle Ages -- they had a preference for technical, medical, and natural philosophical treatises, not for the literature that enthralled the Renaissance humanists -- but of course, Ptolemy's astronomy also held sway into the 17th century.

Ptolemy is a good example of the double standard. On the one hand folks are criticized for ignoring the Greeks; and on the other side for depending too long on those same Greeks.

He does not seem to consider purely materialistic causes for the loss of many manuscripts. Eratosthenes' Geography was likely not recopied because Strabo's Geography was more recent, and better informed. Especially when parchment had to be used, who was going to waste time copying an obsolete book? It's like asking why we don't "migrate media" for early television wrestling shows.

Then, too, all of the big cities were sacked and burned multiple times. The Palace district of Alexandria - where the Museum once stood - went up during Aurelian's campaigns, and earlier still during J. Caesar's campaign against Ptolemy. It's a wonder anything survived!

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He never seems to have considered that the turmoil within the over-extended Empire, with all the political chicanery, assassinations, and king-making by the armies, plus the division of the empire in the third century which meant two sets of emperors, East and West, with two sets of heirs, coupled with the pressure of mass migrations on the borders turning into invasions by the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals and Huns (to name but a few) meant that just maybe people weren't all that concerned with copying manuscripts but were fleeing for their lives from burning cities.

No, it was hordes of black-hooded fanatical Christian monks going around knocking people's doors down, invading their houses, and burning their carefully-hidden cherished copies of SCIENCE!!!! works what done it.
At least, that's the impression I get from how he puts it :-)

He seems not to consider that (1) time and circumstances affect what survives and what doesn't (2) people keep what they consider important, which is not what we might consider important (3) it took a long time for things to circulate. He forgets that general mobility and the dissemination of multiple copies of printed material are modern things.

To quote from an introduction to an early 20th century English translation of a 14th-15th century Irish version of a 13th century Latin text of an 8th century Arabic astronomical treatise:

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G600030/index.html

"Two-thirds of the tract are part paraphrase and part translation according to Mr. Close, of a Latin version of an Arabic treatise by Messahalah or Mascha Allah, a Jewish astronomer of Alexandria, who flourished shortly before 800 A.D. This work was translated into Latin by Gerard of Sabionetta, near Cremona, in the thirteenth century, and, edited by J. Stabius, was printed at Nuremburg in 1504 under the title De Scientia Motus Orbis.
...It is, however, unlikely that the Irish translation should follow so quickly on the Latin translation. It would have to get to Ireland, be translated and copied. This process might take place in a few years, and, on the other hand, might take a century to come about."

Odd how the Ebol! Christians seemed to have missed this one in their purge of SCIENCE!!! ;-)

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"No, it was hordes of black-hooded fanatical Christian monks going around knocking people's doors down, invading their houses, and burning their carefully-hidden cherished copies of SCIENCE!!!! works what done it."

That is: The awesomest mental image I will have all day, and it's only 11:06 AM as I type it. For the record my specific image has the monks somberly burning books that say "SCIENCE!!!!" on the cover.

- Dan Lower

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I do get the impression from some (not all) of the rationalists that they really do think of it that way, in all caps and festooned with exclaimation marks - imagine the kind of booming, reverberant voice announcing the latest action-thriller cinematic blockbuster: "From the director of ________ and the writers of __________, produced by the same guy what did ___________, we bring you the super smash hit of this millenium:

SCIENCE!!!!"

The knock-down,killer, unanswerable retort to any and all questions, comments, or remarks:

"Yeah, but this is SCIENCE!!!!"

"SCIENCE!!!! locuta est, causa finita est!"

(I trust your mental monks were appropriately gaunt, fiery-eyed from long fasting and mortifications, and fanatically zealous?) ;-)

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and albino. Don't forget albino. When you're looking for an assassin who can really blend into a crowd there is nothing like a pasty-faced, red-eyed albino wearing monk's robes.

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Actually, my monks looked rather calm and robotic. But fiery-eyed works too.
(I should really recover my LJ password.)

- Dan Lower

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It's like asking why we don't "migrate media" for early television wrestling shows.

As a lifelong aficionado of same, I must protest.
Haystack Calhoun, and that Hawaiian guy who could hypnotize himself, were cultural giants. Milestones on the path to progress.

Don't think so? I'll offer you a time machine ride to 3010 AD, and you can see for yourself whose loss-of-video is mourned.

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I, too, remember the estimable Haystack Calhoun, as well as the great Australian tag-team known as the Kangaroos. They cheated.

When our generation passes away, none will recall these giants of the past on whose shoulders the likes of Hulk Hogan and Jesse the Body stood.

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To be fair to Mr. Walker, I scanned some of his other writings and the man is not an idiot. He understands at least some aspects of science well. His problem is that he has such a personal bias against Christianity that he apparently cannot help himself in cherry picking historical data to confirm his preconceived conclusions about how loathsome and anti-intellectual it must be. Hence he will hang on to the pejorative term Dark Ages to describe the time between the fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the Renaissance even though objective historians no longer use the term. He will struggle mightily to not credit the Middle Ages with any of its developments at all instead choosing to believe everything came either before or after without intermediate advances. I doubt this exchange will alter his opinions and could end up with the characteristic casting of aspersions as he huffs off.

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. . .but this is the most awesome academic takedown I've read in quite a while. I actually hope he's obstinate enough to reply to your reply so you may slap him about intellectually a bit more.

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It's not uncommon for people with deeply-held beliefs to hang onto comforting myths and legends. Fundamentalist literalists are another sort of the same type. One common tactic is to take an accidental attribute and extend it. For example, to point to the ever-popular Crusades. Nothing need be actually asserted factually. One need only say, "and then there were the Crusades," in that knowing manner. Fellow-believers will nod, skeptics will have nothing to object to, since you haven't actually said anything substantive. But the gist of it is that it is bad to make war with religious motives while it is perfectly fine to do so over tuppence difference in the tariff on lace (or for the control of African colonies, to ensure Germany's place in the sun, for Manifest Destiny, etc.) You get the picture. Find something that everyone in history has been guilty of and then pretend only the Hate Object has ever done so - or is "double-plus" guilty, or something.

Naturally, without religion, there would be no wars of religion. That does not mean there would be no wars. Without fathers, there would be no abusive fathers. Without families, there would be no dysfunctional families. But the problem is in the adjectives, not the nouns. Pfui, sez I.

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So, let me set out Mr. Walker's position as I understand it:

"However, none of Flynn's criticisms affects the central theme, namely that Christianity does not deserve the credit for founding science or medicine."

Now, it is certainly true that the Middle Ages and Renaissance built upon the works of those who had gone before them. And it is certainly true that human ingenuity has discovered the same thing in multiple locations. If Mr. Flynn was maintaining that, for example, only a Christian monk in the fifteenth century knew about the necessity for hygiene when dealing with the sick, then Mr. Walker would have a point: Christianity alone did not found science or medicine.

However, I understand Mr. Flynn to be addressing the common notion that up until Christianity (and let us mention the much-abused name of Constantine here) became the dominant force in Western Europe (and by the bye, let me veer off on a tangent here - what about the Eastern Empire, hey? What were they, chopped liver?) we had astounding discoveries by the pagans, which were systematically destroyed/denied/buried by fanatical Christians, until with the dawn of liberty and reason sometime in the fourteenth century, Renaissance man arose and threw off the shackles of the Church to re-discover the wonders of the past and stride forward in shining progress based upon scientific thinking, not musty old fairytales.

(cont.)

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Well, pshaw! says I to that. As regards his use of the term "Dark Ages", he says that:

"Petrarch during the early Renaissance coined the term and I will continue to use it because it fits better than Middle Ages. Why? Because some historians use "Middle Ages" in a generic sense to refer to other non-Christian countries such as China, India, Persia, etc. Also, the Renaissance is considered by some as the "Upper Middle Ages." The Dark Ages is thought of as only referring to Christianized Western Europe, before the Renaissance, thus there is less confusion. I also use it in a similar sense that Petrarch meant as a time of darkness compared to earlier classical antiquity. I encourage others to use the term. It is valid and to the point. Nor is not a term I use to disparage any advancements (the few that they were) that were made during this time but as a comparison to the advances made earlier in history. Apologists always miss that central point."

Petrarch. Uh-huh. So we are to ignore all the historians and what they may have to say since 14th century Avignon, hmmm? And I thought we were supposed to be the ones addicted to ancient authorities superceded by modern scholarship? I won't even address the rest of it, which boils down to "I'm using this term because I like it and it means what I want it to mean".

Anyway, since in Mr. Walker's opinion the Dark Ages run from about the early 4th to the late 13th century, what were those benighted Christians doing all that time? Here's another quote, from the introduction to an Irish translation of a 14th century Latin medical text:

"The monastery of Monte-Casino, nearly half-way between Naples and Rome, was founded by St. Benedict himself A.D. 529, as is said upon the old site of a temple of Apollo. Centuries later with the return of learning an infirmary was added and a school of medicine.

Monks from foreign lands came there for instruction, and eminent invalids from foreign parts for treatment. The most famous teacher of the School was Constantinus Africanus of Carthage (1018-1087). He introduced Arabic science and learning into Italy and Europe, and because of his universal travel and influence he was called ‘Orientis et Occidentis Doctor’. He taught for some time at Salerno, and then became monk at Monte-Casino, where he continued his work of translating from Arabic into Latin. Among his works of this kind was Hali's compendium, which he rendered under the title of Pantegni. It is frequently referred to in our text.

Salerno (old Salernum) on the bay of the same name, some thirty miles south of Naples, was founded as a school of Philosophy and Medicine A.D. 1150, and was for five hundred years at the top of medical schools in Europe. It was for this reason that it was nick-named 'Civitas Hippocratica'. It was a practical University, studying the symptoms of disease, diet, materia medica, and treatment in its fullest expression—not giving much attention to physiology or anatomy. The school had a very excellent effect in that its teaching mitigated and naturalised the rather severe doctrines of the older Greek methods of treatment; and this, without doubt, came by Arabic influence.

...Montpellier, the chief town of the province of Herault in Southern France on the Gulf of Lyons, was, like Salerno, a school of general learning, with Medicine as perhaps its highest feature. The University was established by papal bull in 1289...Montpellier was strongly under the Arabic influence, which explains how we find so many Arabic terms in such of our Manuscripts as came by this way—especially in the names of medicinal plants and in Materia Medica generally."

What? Popes founding universities? Monasteries as the sites of medical schools? All this before the official date of the Renaissance and during the 'Dark Ages'? Something surely wrong with this picture!

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Not only that, but not burning the works of infidels but valuing them and building upon them?!

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If Mr. Flynn was maintaining that, for example, only a Christian monk in the fifteenth century knew about the necessity for hygiene when dealing with the sick, then Mr. Walker would have a point

Indeed. But the question is not who discovered this or that nugget of fact that we now classify as science, but how and why the process we know as science arose. It is a meta-question, so to speak. In plain fact, it did so in Latin Europe in the 17th century and unless you believe in the virgin birth of science, its gestation took place in the centuries before.

The odd thing is that the Renaissance, with its emphasis on humanism and the arts, saw virtually no progress in the sciences, let alone in Science.

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Richard Carrier has posted a response on his blog, so I think you have material for some more posts of your own.

http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2010/01/flynns-pile-of-boners.html

sincerely,
Alphonsus

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