Roland Burris's monument to himself

This is the grave of Roland Burris, listing his many achievements including being the first African-American Attorney General in Illinois. The thing is, Burris isn't dead; he built this himself. It's a good thing he's left some space, because he's now been named as the next senator from Illinois, but he shouldn't call the stonemasons just yet - we don't know if the Senate and/or the courts will allow him to take the seat. (more stories and pictures)

Background: Obama has of course resigned from the Senate in order to take up his new job, and Illinois governer Rod "Blago" Blagojevich has the power to name his successor, who will sit until elections in 2010. Blago has now been arrested by the FBI for trying to sell the seat to the highest bidder, based in part on wiretap evidence that includes him saying "I’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden, and, uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for fuckin’ nothing. I’m not gonna do it. And, and I can always use it. I can parachute me there."

Defying calls from all quarters to step down and allow Obama's replacement to be decided by his successor or a special election, Blago has brazenly (and while out on bail) nominated Burris to the seat. He faces a rough ride since most parties had vowed to oppose anyone that Blago nominated, but Burris appears to be a relatively "clean" choice - there's no suggestion he had any part in Blago's corruption.

This weirds me right out. What has to be in your head to think that could be a good idea?

George H Smith, "Atheism: The Case Against God"

I've read all four of the recent books by the "four horsemen", and for the most part none have made me feel "yes, this is the book I want to press into the hands of believers". I would like there to be at least one book that I might be able to recommend, and having heard good things about this 1974 book, I ordered it from Amazon on a whim.

It certainly comes a *lot* closer than any of those four. It has a very dry style; there are no witty personal stories, few anecdotes, and only a smattering of historical background. But all four of the horsemen books seem somewhat scattershot in their approach, except perhaps Dennett, whose book seems like not so much an attack on religion as a hastily-repurposed discussion of religion originally intended for an atheist audience. This book is much more bulldozer than scattershot, and methodically dismantles the "sophisticated" defences of religion I actually hear from believers.

Its bulldozer-like nature may be seen in its chapter structure; first, clarify what atheism is and establish that the burden of proof lies with the theist; then tear down obfuscation as a means to confound rational discussion of the issue; demolish the idea that faith and revelation can supplement reason as guides to the truth (discussing and destroying a variety of attempts to defend the idea of faith). Only then are the traditional arguments for the existence of God, such as the cosmological argument, painstakingly taken apart; and only after that are the negative moral consequences of religion discussed.

There are a few problems. Smith is (or at least was) an Objectivist, and this leads to some sad errors; his defence of the idea of moral facts in Chapter 11 Section 2, for example, is just embarrassing. And it seems a shame to discuss the argument from design without even mentioning evolution; I can see that as a philosopher you want to show that the argument is *inherently* flawed, and of course it is, but it's evolution that robs it of its emotional impact. I still find myself thinking that I may have to write my ultimate book on the subject, but I have quite a few other books I'd have to read first to know if there was a gap in the market, and I can't afford quite that many whims :-)

No argument, no matter how good, can turn the head of someone who is prepared to say in terms that they intend to cling to an idea no matter how much they have to embrace irrationality in order to do so, as many sophisticated believers openly say. But still, when I read the four horsemen books, I felt I knew how believers were going to evade the conclusions they were pushing for, and I would love to know how a serious, philosophically knowledgable believer would go about avoiding the conclusions of this book.



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