The 21st century atheist

[_TJ_]

The 21st century atheist

Not believing in God is no excuse for being virulently anti-religious or naively pro-science

Dylan Evans
Monday May 2, 2005
The Guardian

There are many species of atheism, just as there are many species of religion. But while many religions still thrive, most of the atheisms that have ever existed are now extinct.

The non-religious person today is, therefore, rather like a person who wanders into a shop to buy a breakfast cereal and finds only one variety is for sale. Moreover, this variety isn't very tasty, because the kind of atheism that flourishes today is old and tired.

Today's prominent atheists - people such as Jonathan Miller and Richard Dawkins - hawk around a belief system that reeks of the 19th century, which is not surprising, for that is when it was born. Dawkins is virulently anti-religious, passionately pro-science and artistically illiterate - thus manifesting all three of the main characteristics of the old atheism in a particularly pure form. His attacks on religion are so vitriolic and bad-tempered that they alienate the sensitive reader and give atheism a bad name. As a friend of mine once commented, no other atheist has done more for the cause of religion than Richard Dawkins.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1474570,00.html

[phantom power]

1. I guess Evans can only stomache atheism when it's apologetic.

We wouldn't want anyone to become too "passionately pro-science", now would we...

[sinkingfeeling]

2. When I read your snips, I began to get riled up, thinking that the things

he's saying about non-religious people are just as true, in not more so, for the religious. Then I read the rest of the article. I agree with his description of religion.

[wtbymark]

3. "one type of Atheism"

my ass! what a crock this idiot is. I don't even want to comment on that anymore because ignorance writes as ignorance is. If that statement were anymore blanket (and illinformed) it would cover the earth. Fackin' dumbass.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

4. Interesting article

Although the thing I love about Dawkins, which the writer sees as a liability, is that he is a no BS get to the point guy, which I relate to better than the, as another poster pointed out, apologetic approach.

While I will agree it is civilized to be tolerant of those of a religious persuasion, which to me is what freedom of religion is about, that only goes up to a point. When we have religious fanatics, as we do today, who are threating the very foundations of our society, the time for being a nice guy has come to an end.

[shrike]

14. I thought it was interesting, too

And I'm a Christian. However, I'm comfortable enough in my faith to hear other points-of-view.

I read a similar viewpoint about two years ago: that religion and its stories are a form of Magic Realism, which is the term critics use for the fantastical literature that has come out of Latin and South America, and elsewhere. The author used the television series, "Joan of Arcadia," as an example of contemporary Magic Realism.

[MrModerate]

5. I'm searching for the appropriate superlative for . . .

"World's largest load of hooey." I'm open to suggestions.

"Species of atheism," which have died in some clumsy anti-Darwinian metaphoric muddle? Atheism as a mechanism for describing non-religiousness? The longing for transencdance which exists in every human heart?

This guy presents himself as a non-believer in the supernatural, and then bloviates on about the supernatural ability of art to present truthful fictions while religion presents fictive truths -- or some such horse manure.

It's really much more simple than that. For atheists (at least as I define it), there is no supernatural explanation for the universe or anything in it. Once you realize that, religion can be painlessly dismissed -- except as a social force.

I'm happen to be of the school that believes religion is often a positive social good, as a unifying element in communities, a conduit for moral instruction, and a fulcrum for leveraging the power of the individual to do good works. (I also acknowledge, of course, that there's very little in the catalog of evils that hasn't been done in religion's name, so there's clearly some downside here.)

But mostly, atheism is a way to ignore religion EXCEPT as a social force. It's not a "set of Lego blocks" or a path to "imagine even more ways to be nonreligious." It's a point of view that says "I don't believe this claptrap and I have better things to do than waste my time effing the ineffable."

"If you want to believe, please be my guest. I'll be polite about it, but don't get your feelings hurt if you see me laughing behind my hand."

[ladjf]

6. I think it all boils down to one issue.

Is your value system based on realistic, objective observation or rather fabricated out of emotional depths, producing answers that one either desires or fears could be true?

In the long run, fabricating values relating to existence will prove to be very hazardous to you health. Nature doesn't treat falsehoods kindly.

[Book Lover]

7. And no other theist has done more for the cause of atheism than

Oh, gee, fill in the blank here. Me, I'd vote for JP II, not for his stand on social issues, but rather his administration's rigid sex- and gender-related policies (realized at the highest political levels) that affected the daily lives of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, helping turn away many from theism altogether (at least in the "West"). Any other suggestions?

[shrike]

10. That's a bit of a stretch

JP II's policies turned many away from the Church, yes. But from theism? Nah. Many just found other churches.

[Book Lover]

11. OK

It was off the top of my head. I'm not going to argue over it :-)

[Demeter]

8. My Bullshit Detector Just Went Haywire

There are many very good reasons to be virulently anti-religious: namely, every religion that supports war. There are a few that don't, but many religions have a hard time recognizing them.

And there is nothing wrong with science. Science is the study of reality. It is how one applies that knowledge, one's moral fiber, if you will, that determines Good and Evil.

[stevebreeze]

9. yesterday, after I didn't go to church, I didn't go door to door telling

people that when they die they are dead so the better clean up their act now, this is their one and only chance to do good things in the world.

One more snotty comment, well joke actually by Emo Phillips;" I used to pray to God to make me rich, then I realized God doesn't work that way, so now I steal what I want and pray for forgiveness".

[muchacho]

12. memealicious

The religion meme is much more robust than the atheism meme. Magical thinking in one form or another will always outnumber fact-based thinking.

[bemildred]

13. Name calling is not an argument.

And that is all this guy has, it seems.

[MaineYooper]

15. bs alarm just went off screaming...

How about this snippet?

(... snip) But I do think there is one respect in which religion is more truthful than science - in its depiction of the long ing for transcendent meaning that lies in man's heart. No scientific theory has ever done justice to this longing, and in this respect religions paint more faithful pictures of the human mind. (snip ...)

To use a really horrible metaphor, that's like criticising a bicycle for failing to float like a boat can. It's just not what the bicycle is for.

Not many scientists that I know are interested in using theories to "... depict the longing for transcendent meaning.." Science is an approach to understanding, explaining, modeling, and predicting the phenomenon we see in the world around us. Transcendental meanings, for those who need them, have to come from other places.

sheesh.

[edhopper]

16. He's a wanker!

He says that science does not provide the "transcendent meaning that lies in man's heart. No scientific theory has ever done justice to this longing, and in this respect religions paint more faithful pictures of the human mind."
For pity's sake read Lewis Thomas or "A Brief History of Time". Read Carl Sagan or Dawkins for that matter. It's not that scientific thought can't deal with this. It's that he doesn't like the answer.