Dr. Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution Is True (a fine addition to my library) and proprietor of a blog of the same name, sometimes strays from his usual posts about evolution and atheism into the realm of politics. These, unfortunately, are almost always disasters, exhibiting the kind of awful reasoning one typically finds among religious apologists.
Today Dr. Coyne was upset about comments made by Rand Paul, who won the Republican nomination for the Senate in Kentucky on Tuesday, on private business’s right to discriminate, which Dr. Paul believes falls under the general right to freedom of speech and association. This, charges Dr. Coyne, makes him a bigot and a racist.
Were any actual comments by Dr. Paul stating an opinion on the alleged superiority of one race over another–you know, the kind of sentiment usually expressed by bigots and racists–ever cited? No.
Were any actual deeds by Dr. Paul demonstrating bigoted or racist behavior ever cited? Again no.
It seems there’s quite a paucity of evidence for the claim that Dr. Paul is a bigot and racist. And the reasoning used to brand him as such is quite…malleable. It seems if you don’t support laws outlawing [insert behavior you don't like here], that makes you a proponent! By that “logic,” if because Dr. Coyne doesn’t support laws outlawing, say, Christianity, then that makes him in reality a supporter of Christianity.
I pointed out in a post on his blog that chastising others for making claims based on flimsy or unsubstantiated evidence while doing the same yourself is hypocritical. As of now, the post has not yet seen the light of day. For as long as Dr. Coyne continues to maintain that Dr. Paul is a bigot and racist without providing any evidence to support his claim, he’s a hypocrite in my book.
If people like Dr. Coyne are truly rational skeptics as they claim, measuring their beliefs according to the evidence, then they should apply that stance consistently. Religion, it seems, is not the only phenomenon that causes one to abandon rational thinking.
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Good post! I completely agree. I’ve run across a handful of atheists who were not consistent with their beliefs so I know from first hand experience that religion isn’t the only cause of irrational or hypocritical beliefs. I think it’s often a never ending battle against irrational beliefs. Humans oftentimes, by our very nature, are not wholly rational creatures and we have to constantly keep the irrational parts of our brain in check.
This is very much the point made by David Eller in his book Atheism Advanced. Our focus is not so much on religion, but on irrational thought in general. Faith is just a species of a more general problem.
Glad you like the new look
Yes, that’s true, and that was a very good book. I read it quite a while back.