The Boy Scouts, Atheism and AI
Image of the moon painted red and given the Coca-Cola logo (Image courtesy Deviant Art: CC BY-NC-ND 30) and “I want! I want” William Blake 17 May 1793 (Wikipedia; Creative Commons)
I have been reflecting on my recent blogs and the titles to date. My aim has been to try and bring together themes that appear somewhat discordant, but whether I have been successful I will let you judge. My reflections reminded me a little of a panel game on BBC’s Radio 4 based on the opposite of word association. In this game a panellist articulates a particular word, let’s say “moon”, and the following player must state another totally unrelated word, let’s say “Coca-Cola”. The other contestants can then buzz in and argue to make the connection between “moon” and “Coco-Cola”. If nobody agrees to a connection the game continues, but if someone articulates a connection, for example tells the joke of the Coco-Cola company sending astronauts to the moon to paint it red and add a Coca-Cola logo as an advertisement, the presenter awards points appropriately and the game resumes. The person with the most points is the winner. So now I will declare my interest and attempt to make a lucid connection The Boy Scouts, Atheism and AI. Perhaps I could have also included Coca-Cola as we have clearly wanted to visit the moon from the days of William Blake, but for now I’ll let that one go.
My becoming a Boy Scout was encouraged by my mother who had been a Girl Guide (sister organisation to the Boy Scouts) and, having joined I worked diligently away to get various proficiency badges. These badges were a mark of expertise and included things such as lighting fires with one match, making telephone calls, cooking a meal, amongst many other practical tasks. Indeed, I think I can say that my first cooking “for real” was experienced on a camping trip with the 37th Rochdale Scout Troop over an open fire. The Boy Scouts was the brainchild of Lord Baden Powell (1857 – 1941) former pupil of Charterhouse School (which incidentally was also where the band Genesis was formed), and who spent most of his professional life in the British Army as a colonial officer serving in India and Africa. He was therefore an establishment figure and part of the British Colonial system becoming a national hero at the Siege of Mafeking (now Mahikeng) during the Second Boer War. He was also a writer and while serving in the army he wrote a book Aids to Scouting, a book about army reconnaissance that became popular and adopted by various youth organisations including what would eventually become The Scouts.
Charterhouse School (left) where Lord Robert Baden-Powell founder of the Scout movement went to school, and a post card (right) with the inscription “Defender of Mafeking” together with “Either Conquer or Die” (Images courtesy: Wikipedia)
The Boy Scouts, together with The Girl Guides, grew into an international movement for young boys and girls between the ages of 11 – 18 and members would wear a uniform and follow the values expressed through a Promise and series of Laws which would be learned by heart. Traditionally the movement relied on self-education by doing things of value to the community combined with many activities usually being conducted in an outdoor setting close to nature. From my own experience this consisted of two main activities in addition to the weekly meetings. The first was Bob a Job Week, aimed at raising money for the troop by undertaking small jobs for people in the local community, and which, in addition, also helped to provide funds for the second and the most major activity of the year, that of going away on the annual camp. The whole troop went on the annual camp, and this took several months of preparation. Each troop was split into Patrols usually of six members headed by a Patrol Leader and a deputy called a Second, and the whole Patrol slept together in a tent. When the Camp was set up each Patrol was responsible for the area where the tent had been pitched and also for a kitchen area which consisted of canvas similar to the roof of a tent, which was also pitched between two poles, but had no walls or gables and was just pegged into place using guy ropes. Beneath this canvas would be a wooded table lashed together with rope. Nearby, and down from the prevailing wind, the turf would be removed to create a hearth for a fire which was used for cooking. Each Patrol had its own cooking utensils, pots, plates and pans and a large square lidded basket for storage.
The routine of the day revolved around three cooked meals, breakfast, dinner and supper, and all of which were produced on the open fire which relied on firewood collected in nearby woods. The whole day passed by with what can only be described as military precision and with a discipline underpinned by the scout moto Be Prepared. The scout moto was in its turn imbued with the values of the Scout Promise which in my time, and in its English form as I remember it, stated: On my Honour, I promise to do my best to do my duty to God and the Queen, to help other people and to keep the Scout Law. Looking back from today I find this quite interesting because when I was around fifteen I was invited to an interview, conducted by Rochdale’s great and good of the Scouting world, as a possible representative to attend the 13th World Scout Jamboree in Japan.
Regarding the interview, I can remember very little in detail other than I had a bit of a spat with one of the rather elderly interviewers. He was probably not really that old, but just appeared so to me as a teenager. As I remember it, the spat revolved around the Scout Promise where I had had to promise to “…do my duty to God and the Queen,” as she was then, in order to be a Scout. The issue of the spat was about my understanding regarding the nature of God and the fact that I did not like all the flag waving stuff! With respect to God, Richard Dawkins would have been proud of my atheism, but I cannot remember the details, although I do remember the interviewer’s final parting shot, which was along the lines that on my deathbed I would renounce my atheism and return to Christianity. I had been Christened as a baby but my parents were adamant that confirmation would be my decision. Clearly, by questioning the existence of God I had blotted my copybook for I was not selected to go on further through the interview processes. I was later to find out, Japan has two major religions, Shinto, a polytheistic religion, and Buddhism, which can be either atheistic or polytheistic depending on interpretation, but indeed, and more to the point, less than two percent of the Japanese population are Christian. Interestingly, in the Japanese Scout promise the word God can be substituted with Buddha, and today different faith groups have slightly different wordings.
Richard Dawkins and Ariane Sherine launching the Atheist Bus Campaign (left, Wikipedia) and Karen Armstrong’s book A History of God.
Today, writing in my increasingly advancing years, I can reflect on all this with a certain objectivity, and it brings to my face a certain wry, or perhaps mischievous, smile. So, and to put the question bluntly, have I renounced my atheism? The answer is interesting, because I’m of the view that you can only become dedicated to something that you are unsure about and over the years I have become increasingly dedicated to the nature of religion, and in particular its relationship to the nature of knowledge. It seems to me that the meaning of the word God is problematic, and it’s noteworthy that Richard Dawkins, during the Atheist Bus Campaign, is seen endorsing the slogan, “There’s Probably No God.” He is clearly not one hundred percent sure! And neither am I. It clearly depends on definition, and I’ve been reading Karen Armstrong’s book A History of God in which she traces the roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam back to their Zoroastrian and pagan roots. In this book she convincingly argues that the birth of monotheism lies with the perennial philosophy; a philosophy that has a mystical tradition which does not abandon reason and arose in Persia at the centre of the Middle East.
As a practicing scientist I know that without that monotheistic base, modern-day science would be impossible, and we would remain in the land of the fairies. I don’t mean that flippantly, to do a controlled experiment requires a world view that has a monotheistic foundation and from which rational conclusions can be drawn. This contrasts with a polytheistic world view that remains in the realm of intuition and fancy. Have I again arrived at CP Snow’s two cultures debate between science and art, between reason and imagination and the nature of knowledge?
Creation of Adam by Michelangelo in his painting of the Sistine Chapel (circa 1508-12; Wikipedia)
My major theme for this web site is to attempt to reconcile the tension between art and science. In my section Zones of Inhibition where there’s the image of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam (see above), I have superimposed the words of John Sulston, “when you move to the big ideas the two [science and art] are indistinguishable.” I relate this to the observation that Michelangelo’s image of God sits within a cloud of drapery that the physician Frank Lynn Meshberger, persuasively, suggests has similarities to a cross-section of the human brain. This begs the question whether God is the creator of man, or man the creator of God? It is quite clear that the printer, poet and artist William Blake has sympathies with the later, for he thinks, “All deities reside in the human breast.” Blake an artisan living in Regency London had developed his own printing technology for bringing his own artistic work to the public’s consciousness, and it is noteworthy that he also said, “The true method of knowledge is experiment.” Make of this what you will, but to me, as an experimental scientist and enthusiast of Blake, I find it fitting that in his Marriage of Heaven and Hell he sees reason and imagination as fundamental contrary aspects of human nature that are, to my mind, two sides of the same coin.
Blake’s two contraries symbolised by good and evil angels
(circa 1795 - ?1805: Courtesy Tate CC BY-NC-ND)
But what about Dawkins’ support of the slogan on the London bus, “There’s Probably No God.” So, following Blake’s advice, I thought I would run an experiment and consult artificial intelligence (AI, ChatGPT). Here is the output and see what you think:
William Blake and Richard Dawkins, though separated by centuries, represent contrasting perspectives on spirituality, religion, and the nature of existence. Let’s delve into their divergent views:
William Blake, a visionary poet, artist, and mystic of the Romantic era, believed in the interconnectedness of the material and spiritual worlds. His works, such as “Songs of Innocence and Experience,” explore themes of innocence, experience, and the divine. Blake saw the divine not as a distant, judgmental deity, but as an immanent force within all creation. His poetry celebrated the beauty of nature, the human imagination, and the soul’s journey toward enlightenment.
Blake’s radical individualism rejected organized religion and institutionalized dogmas. He criticized the Church for stifling spiritual freedom and reducing God to a distant abstraction. Instead, he advocated for direct mystical experiences and personal revelation. His famous line, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite,” encapsulates his belief in transcending conventional limitations to perceive deeper truths.
Richard Dawkins, a contemporary evolutionary biologist and author, stands at the forefront of the New Atheist movement. His influential book, “The God Delusion,” challenges religious beliefs and argues for atheism. Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator—God—almost certainly does not exist. He defines belief in a personal god as a delusion, a persistent false belief held despite contradictory evidence.
In “The God Delusion,” Dawkins dissects religious claims, scrutinizing arguments for the existence of God. He emphasizes the power of science and reason in understanding the natural world. For Dawkins, morality need not rely on religious dogmas; secular ethics can provide a solid foundation. He echoes Robert Pirsig’s statement that when one person suffers from a delusion, it’s called insanity, but when many people suffer from the same delusion, it’s called religion.
Clash of Perspectives:
Blake’s mystical visions and Dawkins’ scientific rigor represent opposing poles. Blake’s reverence for imagination, creativity, and spiritual experience contrasts sharply with Dawkins’ empirical scepticism. While Blake sought unity between the earthly and divine, Dawkins dismisses the supernatural as wishful thinking.
Their clash extends beyond theology. Blake’s art and poetry celebrate the human spirit, while Dawkins’ scientific pursuits seek to demystify the universe. Blake’s Jerusalem and Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene” epitomize their divergent paths—one mystical, the other rational.
In the end, Blake and Dawkins exemplify the eternal tension between faith and reason, mysticism and empiricism. Their legacies continue to shape our understanding of existence, inviting us to explore the profound questions that lie at the heart of human experience.123
So, what do I think? I was hugely impressed by the AI output and thought it had summarised the polarised views pretty well. It would be a good answer to an academic examination question like, “Compare and contrast the views of William Blake a theist who lived over 200 years ago against those of Richard Dawkins an atheist of today”.
However, reading the AI output I found it rather dry, and it lacked all the human idiosyncrasies that engage a reader. Interestingly, after having written this blog I had some more fun playing around with AI again. Amusingly, I found out that the Boy Scouts of America added a further point to the Scout Law that says, “A Scout is Human.” This addition, which became effective earlier this year, addresses the notion of AI membership within the Scout organization. Why is it that we appreciated human idiosyncrasy at the expense of Richard Dawkins’ reasonableness? Does human evolutionary success rest on something other than pure reason? I’ll leave you with those tantalising questions, but I think Immanuel Kant had something to say in that regard.
