Big debate Friday 5th March (i.e. this coming Friday) 2010 5.30-7.30 [CORRECTION NOW STARTS 6PM]
Clattern Lecture Hall
Penrhyn Rd
Kingston Upn Thames
KT1 2EE
(not too far from rail station)
Hamza Andreas Tzortzis vs Stephen Law
I am anticipating this will be a largely Muslim audience.
PS IMPORTANT IF YOU ARE COMING BOOK OR YOU WON'T GET IN: CONTACT M.Thorpe@kingston.ac.uk OR ruwayda.m@live.co.uk
Comments
I'd be interested in your impressions on the good of these sorts of debates. Having watched, listened, or read transcripts to dozens of these debates, I'm not sure they do much good; the audience is so set on rooting for their home team that their judgment of intellectual stuff (already sub-par in many cases) becomes hopelessly bad. And I think most debaters, on the secular side, miss the importance of the fact that most religious believers are 1) dogmatic, and 2) motivated to be dogmatic for basically social or psychological reasons. These facts make it unlikely that any set of arguments aimed at disputing the content of religious beliefs/claims, no matter how technically proficient or however well presented, will actually change minds. I doubt most religious people maintain their religious beliefs because the content of religious belief is independently compelling (contrary protestations notwithstanding), but for other reasons, usually to do with fear: because they're afraid that, but for religious belief, they would lose their place in their family, their culture, their soceity, the universe. (And because we're social creatures, the fear of being unconnected from others really resonates.) And maybe there are other fears to: that, but for religion, there goes morality; but for religion, there goes any possibility of answering certain Big Questions (why does anything exist? what grounds morality?). I imagine the real trick would be to overcome and challenge these motivating fears which are the real source of religion's staying power; and I'm not sure a debate format is the way to do this, where one side is almost required to do everything to play on and gin up those fears to fever-pitch.
It might be a long evening by the time you get through all of them and finally to us tree-worshippers, who will happily put them all straight on which is the non-deluded religion.
Furthermore, if we extend the term delusion to cover belief in God(s) then the term 'delusion' loses diagnostic specificity and becomes redundant!
I simply urge caution. If any false statement or belief can be called a delusion, the term 'delusion' is emptied of meaning.
It loses utility.
Moreover, if you believe 'delusion' should be used to refer to merely false belief, then why not simply use the term 'false belief'?
Furthermore, do you really want a situation where we routinely refer to false beliefs as 'delusions'?
I do not believe all delusions are the concern of the psychiatric community. However I might suggest, tentatively, that the term 'delusion' is a psychiatric one.
chris sivewright, you repeat other peoples revolting threats, then cowardly delete your comment. How sick are you?
So if the debate is really about the truth of religious beliefs, what does using the term delusion add?
I suppose the term could add a rhetorical flourish and attract a larger audience (and readership - thinking Dawkins here). I suppose it could also alienate and anger people who hold such beliefs (no-one wants to be delusional!).
However one of the main effects of using the term might be to shift people towards seeing the religious as ill in some way, or not fully autonomous. After all 'delusion' is used by some (although certainly not all) doctors to refer to what they believe are 'empty speech acts', devoid of meaning.
I guess I worry that calling a particular belief a 'delusion' is a sort of ad hominem manoevre. It calls into question the rationality or intellectual capacity of the believer.
No wonder theists can get a bit defensive.
Your opponent, Hamza Tzortzis, has links to the extremist Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain. Full details are on my blog here.
By taking part in the debate, you will only be giving Tzortzis’ organisation a platform to spread its insane totalitarian ideology
In addition, a humanist speaker sharing a platform with a front man for a radical Islamist group debating the merits of Western secular society against those of Shariah Islam would give the public the false impression that there was an argument to be had at all.
Richard James
I hope the debate goes well Stephen.
Regards,
A Muslim
Paul seems unwilling to speak a truth because it may spark an awkward emotion. If you say that someone is wrong about something, it is precisely their rationality and intellectual capacity that you challenge.
Contact ruwayda.m@live.co.uk or M.Thorpe@kingston.ac.uk
ALSO IT STARTS AT 6PM NOT 5.30 AS ADVERTIZED.
Many thanks for drawing my attention to Tzortzis’ statement clarifying his association with Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain. I have taken up your challenge to my “intellectual honesty” and posted it on my blog.
Rest assured that I am upholding every word of my original post.
@Stephen
I hope last night’s debate went well and there was no trouble. I also hope you managed to contain Tzortzis’ underhand tactics which he employs to distract his opponents. The man seems to like the sound of his own voice rather too much.
Richard James
Pikeamus - the debate you are referring to was not god as I was told immediately before it started that my father had been rushed into hospital and was about to be operated on. This one went better.