Atheism’s Wrong Turn, or, The Atheist Dogma
Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 8:37 pmSam Harris recently posted Atheism’s Wrong Turn, an article by Damon Linker in The New Republic. I don’t want to address the entire thing, but at least part of the premise it’s built upon. As Linker puts it:
That’s because “the new atheism” is not particularly new. It belongs to an intellectual genealogy stretching back hundreds of years, to a moment when atheist thought split into two traditions: one primarily concerned with the dispassionate pursuit of truth, the other driven by a visceral contempt for the personal faith of others.
Today’s bellicose atheists are part of the second tradition.
He goes on to discuss the tactics of the Four Horsemen (Dawkins, Dennet, Harris, and Hitchens), and I’m not going to argue with his take on that. However, I want to point out something about us “new atheists.” I certainly don’t intend to speak for others, but this is my perception. I would say that most of us don’t have a “visceral contempt for the personal faith of others.” What bothers me is not other peoples’ personal faith; it’s the way their faith affects me that bothers me. Religion influences the laws in our country (and most others), terrorist attacks are largely motivated by religious faith, and how many conflicts and civil wars are the result of religious differences? My stance on religion is the same as my stance on drugs: do what you want, just leave the rest of us out of harm’s way. I don’t care if you do heroin, just don’t drive while you’re high and put everyone else in danger. You can believe that the Easter Bunny rose from the dead after three days and will come to Passover dinner if you set him a place, just so long as that belief doesn’t involve crotch-punching people who disagree with you. Fair enough?
The second thing I want to mention doesn’t really have anything to do with that, but it keeps coming up as I read stuff. Atheism is not a religion. We don’t all share the same set of beliefs, even if a lot of us agree with each other on most issues. Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color, like not collecting stamps is a hobby. Stop describing us as if you can tell what we all believe based on the Horsemen’s books. Catholics believe that the Eucharist is the physical body of Christ. Muslims believe that Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse. In general, we can talk about Catholics and Muslims with the assumption that they believe these things because they’re included in the dogma of those religions. Atheists don’t have a dogma. We have a couple of popular writers and philosophers that tend to speak for us, more or less, but that doesn’t mean we agree with everything they say. Anytime somebody starts an argument with “Well, atheists believe…” I cringe. Although we do all adhere to The Atheist’s Bible - particularly the last book - please stop making assumptions about us beyond that. Thanks much.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:14 pm
It’s funny. I think that if you swapped "athiesm" with "faith", I think this post would carry the same effect.
You advocate that not all athiests are the same, that some crazed vocal minority does not speak for the majority of the members at large, and that people should not make assumptions about you becuase of your involvement in that organization. I hear many people of faith espouse the same idea.
I think you flaunt your athiesm, which is fine. People flaunt their faith, their sexuality, their nationality, be it mainstream or counterculture. We can’t help it, it is who we are. I enjoy your posts, even if I don’t agree with them sometimes, because to me, that’s what the internet is all about, an exchange of ideas, and we try to keep the contempt to a minimum.
But there ARE contemptous athiests out there. And they are loud and horrible, as there are in every group of people. Religious communities have fundamentalist evangelicals, breastfeeding advocates become "Boob Nazis" and film fans become snarky and mean critics of anything they deem worthless and not what they agree with.
How can we, as semi reasonable people, trim the douchebaggery? How can we stop the insanity and just let people be people? Can we even? I think that is a more worthwhile question than the existance of a higher power. Can we take ourselves to a higher level, and how can we do it? (posted on LiveJournal)
December 4th, 2007 at 2:23 am
I totally agree.
I used to consider myself an athiest, but I’ve come to the realization that I don’t have enough data to really make such a decision. There are idiots on every side of the religious equation.
Raving lunatics who believe firmly in the word of the a 2000 year old book rewritten several times by humans are every bit as insane as the raving lunatics who preach athiesm with presumptions and wild accusations and attack on those who have faith in something different. (posted on LiveJournal)
December 4th, 2007 at 7:43 am
I completely agree with 100% of what you said. (posted on LiveJournal)