South Park does Dawkins

Richard Dawkins: Ms Garrison, this isn't theory, it's scientific fact.

Mrs Garrison: What about the fact that if you believe in this crap you're gonna go to hell?! Doesn't that bother you a little?

Dawkins: Actually, no. Because I'm an atheist.

Garrison: Ah-ha! I got you, you snake in the grass! I found you out!

This is just the sentiment that I'm worried about in my students. None of them believe that atheism is a necessary consequence of evolution, but they seem to think that it would be a problem if it were like that. I tried to discuss this some more in class today by showing how Pascal's Wager doesn't work too well on something testable like evolution (it's only good when your conception of god is untestable, and even then it's bad). I had to admit that one could just ignore all evidence, given that scientific arguments are contingent and finite (unlike mathematical proofs, say) and that the infinity of the reward or punishment might still outweigh that finite certainty. But I immediately pointed out that the question of "Which god?" still ruins the wager.

Even better, I got to recap my earlier account of Biblical Higher Criticism. Again no response, so I got to say, "If you believe the Bible word-for-word, then you believe that Moses was a genocidal tyrant." One girl joked, "Yeah, but no one cares about Midianites anyway!" So I replied, "Yes, it's fine for you to be flippant about it now, with no Midianites around to be offended. But I really don't see any moral difference between that genocide and the Holocaust, except that there are no Midianites left to be offended." The class collectively flinched at the mention of the Holocaust but no one said anything and I don't think it's just because I prefaced it with "If you believe...". If it weren't so off-topic I would have elaborated, "Imagine we're having a conversation with no Jews in the room (and no one in the room even knows any Jews). Would it then be appropriate to scoff at the Holocaust the way you scoff at the Mosaic genocide?" I really wish there had been a vocal Christian or Jew to give the obvious response that "God told them to commit genocide, therefore it wasn't a sin." The best I could slip in was, "This isn't an ethics class but I for one would say that it's never morally appropriate to commit genocide." (I just hope a bunch of Americans can appreciate my use of understatement!)

Yet still I can't get them to really debate it with me. I think my teaching style has become a bit like David Miller (and less like Peter Slezak). That is, David reaches his radical conclusions so gradually and politely that you don't see it coming and find it hard to object. I guess it's a good way to teach, if that is what I'm doing; I hope it's not some sort of intimidation that keeps them from debating with me.