Francesca Stravrakopoulou - Think Week

Of the events that I attended in Oxford Think Week, Saturday afternoon's talk by Professor Francesca Stravrakopoulou was the most interesting, comprehensible and entertaining.  (Peter Atkins was a close contender though!)

She explained how much she loved studying the bible.  As an atheist she claimed that anyone suggesting that the bible should only be studied by religious scholars was doing a disservice to it.

She started with an amusing tale about a conversation with her grandmother who told her that the classical demi-gods, the Greek heroes, were the offspring of a god and a human.  She said "Oh, like Jesus then?"  Apparently though, the suggestion that Jesus is a demi-god doesn't go down well with Christians, and this was the beginning of her rejection of Christianity and fascination with the bible as a human-written book.  After some years of study in Oxford in the minority position of being an atheist in a community of theologians she has risen to the position of Professor of Biblical Studies in Exeter.

From this position she was asked to host a short BBC series called The Bible's Buried Secrets, (e.g. here) which I remember enjoying.  The seemingly controversial claims of the series led to something of a furore.  The BBC was inundated with complaints that it was not appropriate for a series about the bible to be presented by an atheist.  She received a lot of personal hate mail which was rather disturbing, but on balance the 'love mail' was even more disturbing!  She has also been accused of being anti-semitic, anti Israeli, and more amusingly, 'really stupid' because she has read the bible and knows it well but apparently hasn't understood it.  I think she has understood it very well!

Worse still, some have said that she was 'too young-looking', complained about what she was wearing, that she was a woman and worst of all an atheist!  One fellow scholar claimed that she had 'betrayed the guild' and another said that she had 'discussed things on TV that should only be examined in the safety of the lecture theatre'.

She likes to show her students the core and difficult stuff in the bible, like the partly hidden presence of a wife of Yahweh, namely the goddess Asherah.  In particular she is interested in the tension between biblical views and historical realities.

For the remainder of the talk she moved on to the subject of Think Week's theme - namely 'Death'.

The concept of hell has only become so widely believed because of Christianity.  Before that time it was believed that you would go to the underworld and you would be united with the ancestors or 'gathered to the ancestors'.  The way that material remains were treated was important.  The very idea that the dead are unclean is a modern one.  In ancient times the period of decomposition was an important part of confirming your place in the underworld, and your bones would have been gathered into an ossuary some time after your death.

Furthermore, death was not regarded as breaking the bond with the living, and rituals were important to maintain this link.  Now we are increasingly segregating the living and dead and she teaches that this is completely different from the ways of ancient people.

In one special case, namely that of Jesus, his resurrection and the lack of a verifiable tomb to venerate diminishes the value of what it is to be human.

Summarising, she emphasised again that biblical texts are incredibly alien to modern eyes, but that, on the other hand, the bible and religions that gave rise to the bible are incredibly important to human society.

I suppose that last claim is a matter of opinion, but it is one that I can respect and not reject out of hand. 

All told, this was the best Think Week event that I attended.  How sad that the audience was only 29 people.  I for one am looking forward to any new TV series involving Francesca's fascinating insights into the bible.

BBC might resist controversy . . . 

Go to Channel 4!

No point in listening to peasants

From my own point of view, Peter Atkins was the star guest on a panel in the Grove Auditorium of Magdalene (pronounced 'Maudlin') College, Oxford, on 21st February.  He had the general approval of the audience to a greater extent than the other members.

The splendid 'Grove Auditorium'
(complete with a piano that was not visible yesterday).

Stephen Law was the other atheist, being part of 'team philosophy' with the christian Richard Swinburne.  I can't bring myself to comment much on Swinburne's words as they were barely comprehensible "unadulterated professorial claptrap" as Atkins said. "A world without suffering is a world where we would not have choice" and things like that poured from Swinburne's mouth - if I understood him correctly. I was told that Richard Dawkins has previously described Swinburne's work as being 'beyond satire'.  I could hardly disagree with either point of view!  The fourth member of the panel, theoretical physicist Ard Louis, spoke well about science but still seemed to require intervention from god - or particularly the christian God.

Professor Peter Atkins - a 'defunct chemist'
but not a defunct speaker (photo from here)

I'm only going to speak further on Peter Atkins' contribution, because his words delighted me and they are the only ones that I actually want to talk about and paraphrase.  He described himself as "a defunct physical chemist".  He started by saying that there are three ways of learning about the world:

• Think about it - or 'sit around inventing crazy ideas'
• Rely on authoritative books  - written by peasants, or
• Experiment!

There is no point in sitting thinking what the world should be like, and no point listening to peasants. [A little harsh perhaps] It is almost surprising that it took until the 17th century to develop the idea of experimental science. Since then the reticulation of ideas - the complex interactions between the different disciplines of science - has been one of the greatest strengths of science.  Ideas from the different islands of science reinforce each other.  They are mutually supportive, testable and most importantly, public. And science works!

There are questions which can distinguish the wheat from the chaff.  "What is the purpose of . . . " type questions are definitely in the chaff category, as is 'What is the nature of the afterlife?'  Apparently the answer to that is easy.  It will be exactly like it was before you were born, in spite of the rantings of the aforementioned peasants.

There are other questions that have not been answered yet and may never be answered, but they are still in the wheat category.  Where does it all come from?  What is the nature of consciousness, aesthetics and morality?  On topics like this, science illuminates, philosophy does something else, and religion obfuscates.

There was plenty of applause.  After the other panel members had spoken, Atkins professed a 'deep distress at the dismal views of the rest of this panel'.  I'm tempted to ask who could disagree - but there were some in the audience who would say that they would. 

Having made admiring comments about Atkins, I wouldn't say that he was the most approachable person in the room.  Then again, I am just a peasant and my feelings are not very badly hurt.

Aren't people interesting?

Think Week off to a good start

Oxford Think Week 2012 got off to a good start last night, with an event called 'In Conversation with Richard Dawkins'.  The other gentleman in the conversation was Benjamin Krishna, Chair of Oxford Atheists, Secularists and Humanists and student at Oxford University.  Oxford Town Hall was nearly filled to capacity, with an audience of about 600 people - which was said to be a larger audience than for any of the events in a week of meetings by the Oxford University Christian Union recently.

Richard Dawkins and Ben Krishna

Here are a few highlights - by no means intended to be a full transcript of the event, but just some things that I liked.

Naturally the recent results of the Isos Mori poll, (see here and here), sponsored by the RDFRS, were first on the agenda.  Much of the discussion mirrored the conversations that many people in UK will have heard on radio and TV recently.  Dawkins mentioned that most vicars and bishops were nice people who you might like to have tea with.  He said "I have only met one nasty bishop . . . quite recently actually" presumably in reference to his debate with Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali on BBC's Newsnight programme last Tuesday.

He recommended a new book by Steven Pinker, called "The Better Angels of our Nature" which sets out to demonstrate that the past was a much nastier time than the present. 

He also suggested that it would be possible to date almost any book written in the last century to the nearest decade simply by analysing the morals contained in it.  These morals come from somewhere complicated, and it is not fair to think of humans as intrinsically good or bad.  However, christianity is very good at assuming that we are intrinsically sinful

Speaking about his latest book Dawkins said that The Magic of Reality is not an atheist book - but if you read between the lines and you are a child of some intelligence you might begin to get the message.

When one of the audience questions went on longer than welcome - Dawkins replied politely "Thank you.  There's quite a lot there." and then he went on to answer the salient points.

Asked about whether his outspoken views on the burqa were helpful or not, he answered that he personally had a visceral hatred of it, and that it was abusive to women.  He said that he refused to hold back from criticising merely for fear of being branded islamophobic.

Another questioner said that he had two questions, and when asked by the chairman to choose just one of them he asked it.   Dawkins said "Oh no! Not free will! What is your other question?" which brought a round of applause. 

A good evening!  Maybe this has given you a taste of what it was like to be in the audience.  When the video is released - as I am sure it will be - I will post a link here.