Please
forgive this rather hastily written blog but I feel I need to write something down
quickly. There’s been a bit of chat about our next speaker at Birmingham
Skeptics in the Pub on Twitter, which in itself isn’t bad but some of it I’ve
found, a bit confusing and a little insulting.
I’m the person that invited Andy McIntosh to speak. He is a physicist and a Young Earth Creationist. I find it incredible that he can be both and I’m interested to hear how he can hold such apparently disparate positions together. The title of his talk is “A Skeptical View of Atheism”. I want to hear him speak and I think that in all likelihood I, and many of the regular skeptics, will disagree with his views, but hopefully it will be interesting to hear them nonetheless.
It’s been suggested that we have invited him to set him up for ridicule. That’s not true. Other people seem to think there may be trouble of some sort. What do they imagine, a mob of angry skeptics, torches blazing, carrying the limp body of the creationist away for a lynching? The speaker knows the audience and he is willing to come and talk. I respect him for that.
Last year Intelligent Design proponent Steve Fuller asked us what we were skeptical about? He called us “polite angry people”. Maybe we don’t have to be so polite, but surely the main weapon of the skeptic is logic and reason (or is that a Vulcan?). I don’t think that the content of that talk was world changing but it certainly created a buzz that lasted a good while. People still talk about it. I would be shocked and disappointed if there were people in the room that resorted to plain rudeness and I don’t think it will happen and it wouldn’t be allowed to happen. Argument, yes, debate, yes, disagreement of course, rudeness and troublemaking, no. In my latest podcast Becs O’Neill describes skepticism as something like “the examination of extraordinary claims.” I like that definition and sometimes it’s worth inviting those claims in to have a look at them.
What is Skeptics in the Pub for? It’s a debate that I usually keep out of, but for the record here are my views. It’s a place where you can be challenged or where you can go to be with people you know think similar things to you. It’s a place where you might learn things and it’s a place where you will hopefully be entertained. Everybody should be able to come through that door and I have invited people from evangelical churches to come and join in. Should they be worried if they come? Of course not! We are Skeptics in the Pub not fanatical factual fascists in the boozer. I think that this has the potential of being a very interesting evening and I hope that you’ll come. If you do you’ll be very welcome, whoever you are.
This rather hasty blog was put together by Patrick Redmond (@paddyrex) and doesn’t attempt to reflect the views of any other @Brum_Skeptics organiser or anybody else in particular.
I’m the person that invited Andy McIntosh to speak. He is a physicist and a Young Earth Creationist. I find it incredible that he can be both and I’m interested to hear how he can hold such apparently disparate positions together. The title of his talk is “A Skeptical View of Atheism”. I want to hear him speak and I think that in all likelihood I, and many of the regular skeptics, will disagree with his views, but hopefully it will be interesting to hear them nonetheless.
It’s been suggested that we have invited him to set him up for ridicule. That’s not true. Other people seem to think there may be trouble of some sort. What do they imagine, a mob of angry skeptics, torches blazing, carrying the limp body of the creationist away for a lynching? The speaker knows the audience and he is willing to come and talk. I respect him for that.
Last year Intelligent Design proponent Steve Fuller asked us what we were skeptical about? He called us “polite angry people”. Maybe we don’t have to be so polite, but surely the main weapon of the skeptic is logic and reason (or is that a Vulcan?). I don’t think that the content of that talk was world changing but it certainly created a buzz that lasted a good while. People still talk about it. I would be shocked and disappointed if there were people in the room that resorted to plain rudeness and I don’t think it will happen and it wouldn’t be allowed to happen. Argument, yes, debate, yes, disagreement of course, rudeness and troublemaking, no. In my latest podcast Becs O’Neill describes skepticism as something like “the examination of extraordinary claims.” I like that definition and sometimes it’s worth inviting those claims in to have a look at them.
What is Skeptics in the Pub for? It’s a debate that I usually keep out of, but for the record here are my views. It’s a place where you can be challenged or where you can go to be with people you know think similar things to you. It’s a place where you might learn things and it’s a place where you will hopefully be entertained. Everybody should be able to come through that door and I have invited people from evangelical churches to come and join in. Should they be worried if they come? Of course not! We are Skeptics in the Pub not fanatical factual fascists in the boozer. I think that this has the potential of being a very interesting evening and I hope that you’ll come. If you do you’ll be very welcome, whoever you are.
This rather hasty blog was put together by Patrick Redmond (@paddyrex) and doesn’t attempt to reflect the views of any other @Brum_Skeptics organiser or anybody else in particular.
