Evangelical atheism
More strange reaction to atheism, more bizarre confusion and surprise where no surprise should be.
And herein lies one of the central paradoxes of Richard Dawkins. Fervent atheist he may be, but he’s also a curiously evangelical figure. It requires no great leap of the imagination to envisage him declaiming from a pulpit, lambasting sinners for their moral laxity.
That’s not a paradox at all. It’s silly to think it is. Atheism is one thing and moral indifference is quite quite another. It’s simply a blank and rather stupid misconception to think that atheism entails lack of moral energy or that passion requires religion. It’s getting increasingly depressing to discover what inane ideas many people have of what atheism is.
Yet Dawkins’s dislike of any notion of God – along with his scorn for anyone who persists in believing in God – is so strong that at times it threatens to unbalance him. As anyone who saw his two-part television documentary The Root of All Evil? will recall, moderation tends to drop away. In its place comes a kind of wintery exasperation at the foolishness and primitivism he sees all around.
I don’t recall that, actually. What I recall is that moderation did not tend to drop away except during the moment when the ineffable (and, we now know, closeted) Ted Haggard decided to tell Dawkins what’s what about evolution. It wasn’t the theism that caused moderation to drop away, it was the (theism-motivated) combined ignorance and presumption of the claim that evolutionists say things developed ‘just sort of by accident.’ The rest of the time, Dawkins was pretty dang polite. So…what does the journalist mean by ‘moderation’? Politely agreeing with everything theists say? That would be asking rather a lot, wouldn’t it? Not raising the issue in the first place? But is it really non-moderate to ask questions about religion? Probably the journalist had no exact meaning in mind, just a formula. The formula is: Dawkins is a rude or harsh or extreme or scornful or unbalanced or fervent or evangelical atheist. Start from there, then embroider. Journalism has its recipes.
If you think that’s annoying, there’s a programme on Channel 4 in the UK now which is really irritating me. It’s called ‘the Trouble with Atheism’ and presented by Rod Liddle.
His main point (made several times in several minutes) is that refusing to believe in God is arrogant, and that atheists are the same as religious fundamentalists. I’ve counted another two fallacious arguments in the last two minutes.
Oh and this piece by Theo Hobson is an object lesson in creating a strawman.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/theo_hobson/2006/12/an_open_letter_not_from_richar.html
The article looks bad, but the Liddle programme is much worse. He’s told us that Darwin led to death camps. He’s talked about the nazis, but not the Spanish Inquisition. I don’t think it’s clear which version of god he’s in favour of or how he thinks one should chose between competing religions.
Actually, Little’s main point seemed to be that atheists are all closet Eugenicists or malevolent types waiting to unleash Stalnist style purges.
Incidentally, my main recollection of Dawkins was of him looking horrified at various religious bigots and their ideologies – but we don’t need to mention their lack of moderation.
Liddle was appalling, slick misrepresentation from the word go. Shabby, shabby stuff.
er…what more could we have expected from Rod Liddle?
At what point did he offer any real evidence of being capable of anything more rigorous, or even (whisper it), perhaps, balanced?
All from a guy who went round claiming that morality can only derive from supernatural authority, while at the same time jetting home from his honeymoon so that he could hook up with his mistress…
harharharharhar
He was never much cop on Call My Bluff, either.
But he very obviously THOUGHT he was at the time.
:-)
“jetting home from his honeymoon so that he could hook up with his mistress…”
Ha! That’s hilarious. Good thing he’s not at all arrogant.
I bet he thinks women aren’t funny, too.
He was probably just taking his example from his boss at The Spectator…
Because she was the boss’s mistress too? She was a receptionist at the Spectator, apparently – I read it at Wikipedia.
Why didn’t he just simplify things and take her on his honeymoon? Surely his wife wouldn’t have minded, and then he wouldn’t have had to rush off.
Scuse me for lurking. I missed the Liddle programme but it all sounds dreadfully predictable.
A few years ago I saw another programme he made for C4 about his attachment to (I think) the CofE. Anyone remember that? It was truly awful. This was the gist of it: raise a few questions about God-belief. But then say, hey, science “makes mistakes too”. “So it’s back to religion for us then”.
And I remember thinking Oh dear Oh dear Oh dear Oh dear … Liddle chap – that’s the whole point about scientific method – it’s falibilist. So of course science makes f*****g mistakes. It admits them, it exposes them, it learns from them – tremendously successfully. And this is precisely what relgion doesn’t do. Reglious belief is impervious to contrary evidence and sweet reason alike. I see the same ridiculous line of thinking in his recent review for the Sunday Times of Dawkins’ TGD. Gist: Darwin might be wrong because science “makes mistakes”. Therefore I believe in God.
Hey, ‘lurk’ more often, WB. Anyway I reject the whole concept of lurking: it’s reading, not lurking. There’s no requirement to comment!
As the old ‘100 arguments for the existence of God’ site might have (and may have) put it –
Science makes mistakes, therefore God exists.
I dunno about religion being TOTALLY immune to ‘sweet reason’.
Most of the contemporaneous people who accepted Darwin’s work were conventional Christians. They were the ones who accepted evidence enough to let the next generation be taught something different, and so on, leading to the wonder of enlightened rationalism today!
Now we are free we can choose Christ, Mohammed, Wicca, New Age spiritualism, Scientology, chiropractic, naturopathy, Trotskyism, satanic ritual abuse, repressed memory, Freud, Deepak Chopra… Yes, a generation with minds so open their brains could fall out.
Dawkins gets a short block of time on British television and one book published and somehow he’s supposed to be posing a threat to the entire worldwide fundagelical media empire? Are they trying to admit that they live in a house of straw and there’s a wind stirring?
Doesn’t Liddle also write in the Grauniad? (sometimes) ??
If so, wait for “commentisfree” again, and shoot him down.
Or is it the Indipondent (deliberate mis-spell, btw)?
In which case forget it, ’cause it’s a bad joke
WB It was worse. Liddle asserts (paraphrasing): “SO! Atheists believe that science can explain things. So you DO beleive in something! AHA! You’re just the same as beleivers! And Origin of the Species is your bible! Ner Ner Ner” It was deliberately misrepresentative, with highly edited snippettes of interviews that could have been cut any old way, and as if the sole purpose was to annoy Dawkins, and many other atheists, rather than bring insight. Hang on… I think ‘m onto something
The Liddle prog was annoying and wrong but but it was annoying and wrong in exactly the same ways as the Dawkins programme that it is obviously intended to be a response to. I think that was his point.
John M – I take the allegation (with reservations) that Dawkins got some backs up with his occasionally strident two-parter, but to produce in response, as Liddle has, what was merely an irritating pastiche that purports to be a serious argument, but fails, and cleary cost a large amount of time and money, is itself arrogant, not to say self-regarding.
I enjoyed the bit where he called New York “the heartland of America”.
ChrisPer:”Now we are free we can choose Christ, Mohammed, Wicca, New Age spiritualism, Scientology, chiropractic, naturopathy, Trotskyism, satanic ritual abuse, repressed memory, Freud, Deepak Chopra… Yes, a generation with minds so open their brains could fall out.”
But their freedom to believe nonsense is my freedom to be rational. The realistic alternative to the above isn’t a world of benevolent, rational secular humanism; but a world where all religious debate is settled by inquisition, crusade and jihad.
Chris Per: “I dunno about religion being TOTALLY immune to ‘sweet reason’.”
Point accepted, Chris, up to a point. Reason can change religion but surely only on the periphery of doctrine – limbo springs to mind as well as evolution. The core remains immune cos it’s faith. The periphery is occaisonally sacrificed to reason in order to save the core, as mores change and knowledge advances (at least the core gets smaller).
Different point, I know, but I have always thought that GK Chesterton’s much repeated aphorism misses the mark wildly – the one that says “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything”. The real point is surely “When people stop using their critical faculties (or never bother with them in the first place), they’ll believe in anything, of which “God” (here fill in name of preferred deity/ies) is just one of those “anythings”.” Not so punchy but truer – at least in the 20th/21st centuries; I accept that belief in deities may have been reasonable in times past.
“Atheists beleive that science can explain things!”
Well, that is because science CAN explain things.
I believe the stock phrase is “the proof of the pudding”.
And Liddle was on a TV programme, 100% depedent upon electronics, and spouting this nonsense?
Re:
…a kind of wintery exasperation at the foolishness and primitivism he sees all around…
… Ummm… and even if it were true that Dawkins’ moderation had dropped away to reveal such a thing, what, exactly, would be wrong with that, anyway?
‘Cos, y’know, I feel that pretty much all the time.
… and, come to think of it, I’m thinkin’ that ‘…a kind of wintery exasperation at the foolishness and primitivism he sees all around…’ pretty much sums up everything I’ve ever written on the subject of religion and slightly less institutionalized superstitions…
Yep. I do believe I’ve just found the long-sought ‘summary quote’ for my blog. Thank you, John Preston.
Yes, I did wonder if the journalist equated wintery exasperation with the dropping away of moderation, and if so, why. Dawkins did convey wintery exasperation at times, although usually in the voiceover, which I think is important; he was very civil to everyone he talked to except Haggard; he didn’t shout at people or roll his eyes at them. So what would ‘moderation’ be, exactly? Just not disagreeing at all?
I rather got the impression that Dawkins’ ‘wintery exasperation’ with Haggard was due more to the scientist in him than the atheist.
…and I’m still seething at Liddle’s piffle. Apparently we atheists have failed to deliver a perfect world. I don’t remember that being in the job description.
Seething at Liddle’s piffle. Could be a jingle, or an advert for a spa. Come and seethe at Liddle’s Piffle, the nicest spa in Kidderminster.
[warbles]
Seething, seething, seething in the everlasting arms.
[shrieks with laughter]
:-)
Or Liffle’s Piddle?
You know this whole ‘offensive atheist evangelism’ schtick strikes me as bollocks, but it seems to be persistent bollocks.
I commented above on the seventies opening our minds so far our brains could fall out. Andy White noted that he is also now free to choose rationality, for which I… cheer.
(SLAP for self.. mustn’t say ‘thank God’ for Andy’s intellectual freedom in case misread as snark.. SLAP)
But I wonder if the snark against Dawkins is for something different to what we think – not for its affront to religious ideas but for its affront to the ‘public tolerance’ value that demands people ‘be nice’ to the ideas of every charlatan from Uri Geller to Erich Von Daniken, at least in the public forum.
ChrisPer – I think it’s anything they can throw at him frankly.
Also, what’s going on in India at the moment ? A million Hindu untouchables have converted to either Budhism or Christianity in the last couple of years… for economic reasons. Clearly the Indian state won’t recognise atheism. Not as a valid demographic group. Not as a ‘religion’. If I were getting on telly with that Liddle fellow, I wouldn’t let that go until he cried like a baby.
OB, my comment waaaay back up near the top regarding liddle’s boss alluded to Boris (Spectator Editor) Johnson’s extra-marital escapades (while again, simultaneously making moralising pronouncements).
Anyone unfamiliar with the carnal goings-on at the “Sexlater” (sorry), should read Private Eye on a regular basis…
come to think of it, EVERYONE should read the Eye…!
:-)
First time I have ever seen a programme critiquing aetheism and it was fun -hillarious. If those aetheists are the best of the bunch no wonder they are such a narrow sect. Definitely programme of the year.
Niconoclast, could you perhaps explain(a)why and in what sense you think atheists are a “sect” and then (b) why and in what sense you think athesists are a “narrow” “sect”.
Perhaps you didn’t really mean “narrow sect” and it was just an idle form of abuse that popped into head, meaning nothing in particular? (Don’t worry – we all do that sometimes!)
No, do worry. Even if we do all do it sometimes, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about it. Random abuse that doesn’t mean anything is a worrying symptom.
Neo-Con. Iconoclast. Impressive. Like, trash those libril “atheist icons” dude !
OK, I was maybe being too patient.
Niconoclast, atheism is a lack of belief in gods. It’s what atheists have in common. Apart from that atheists can and do have any number of beliefs and opinions on any subject you care to think of. If, having had that explained to you, you still think atheism is a “sect” you are simply misunderstanding the English language. Do you call people who don’t believe in fairies a “sect”?
If you mean by “narrow” that not many people are atheists, you are wrong. Do some research on the matter – a recent MORI poll in the UK, for example, found that 41% of people believed that there was no afterlife – which rather implies that they are atheists as regards all the more commonly believed in gods.
PS Welcome to the “sect”: you too are an atheist as regards all the hundreds of gods and goddesses that you don’t believe in.
I only saw a few bits of the Liddle programme but was particularly amused by the guy with a revolutionary alternative to Darwinism that was 100% compatible with it. Even got my missus shouting at the tv.
PM. Yeah, shouting. Standing on a chair and throwing slippers at it too.
I too find Liddle deeply annoying. Which prompts the question: if as non-religionists we get angry when people like Liddle disagree with us, what makes us different from the religionist who gets mightily offended when her or his own views are criticised?
For me, and I would guess many others, the difference is that I welcome, and indeed enjoy, rational debate. What annoys is not disgreement with my views, it’s all the logical flaws, straw men, question-avoidance, silly ignorance and name calling that seem to pass for debate in the mind of far too many religionists. Religionists, on the other hand, often seem to take offence at the fact of criticism itself, however carefully reasoned. That’s intellectually immature.
To be honest, Liddle is a smug twat, irrespective of whether or not he disagrees with atheism, so it was never going to a particularly edifying spectacle.
I don’t mind the thickos and meally-mouthed columnists so much, that’s what they do, it’s the otherwise perfectly respectable intellects… as if it’s the new rock and roll or something… it’s not good enough now to look on in bewildered awe at the cathedrals and art, music and occasional very good deeds inspired by religion and done in its name… you have to approve of the emperor’s new clothes too.
The ‘atheism is just the same as religion’ meme is just the latest easy platitude that our essentially empty-headed commentariat have jumped on to produce more column inches and mockumentaries.
It’ll pass when something else catches their fancy, maybe a new MMR controversy, or something new about Muslims.
“if as non-religionists we get angry when people like Liddle disagree with us, what makes us different from the religionist who gets mightily offended when her or his own views are criticised?”
As you say – the quality of the disagreement is what makes us angry. Bad arguments can make one physically uncomfortable. JS and I talked about this at some point in the past. He said he has a physical reaction to bad arguments even before he’s worked out what’s wrong with them. I didn’t recognize the phenomenon at first, but then I mentioned that bad arguments sometimes make me feel squirmy, and he said squirmy, that’s exactly it. Oh ah, I said, then I do know what you mean.
It just riles, somehow. Saying ‘X so Y’ when Y simply doesn’t follow from X just does make one twitch or squirm or writhe. I’ve just been reading an incredibly stupid non-argument at Pharyngula (snowgeese fly in a V which is god’s sign to remind us of The Virgin at this time of the year), so I know.
Ah, the God speaks English line of argument.
Yers, not to mention the ignoring god’s nastier signs argument, and the ignoring the real reason birds fly in angle formations argument, and the why do we need to be reminded of the virgin anyway question, and so on.
The ‘atheism is just the same as religion’ meme is just the latest easy platitude that our essentially empty-headed commentariat have jumped on…
Indeed. Saying (i) ‘I believe Elvis is (a) divine, and (b) alive and well and living in a bubble city on the far side of the moon with space aliens… this I believe because it was written in a book Elvis himself wrote… and since he is divine and doth not lie, verily it is so*’ and saying (ii) ‘Given the utter lack of evidence for any such contention and the generally absurd nature of your argumentation, I think you’re a nutter’ are exactly the same thing…
I mean, how irrational and religious of you to call the absurd absurd. Merely because they spout spectacularly silly things because they, apparently, wish to believe it… you do so utterly overreach yourself in merely pointing out that they have done so. You fundamentalist, you.
Oh… and not collecting stamps? Also a hobby… Not taking drugs? An addiction. And a dangerous one, I might add…
And don’t get me started on people who don’t have polio. Poor things. We really must develop a vaccine for that.
(*I was, alternately, gonna put some stuff about Elvis’ death and resurrection redeeming humankind from an omninpresent eeevil they all share by virtue of having been born… but come now… let’s not be silly.)
Name calling WB. You mean like ‘smug twat’? (PM)
Criminals ‘twitch and squirm and writhe’ when they see a policeman OB (or at least they used to). Perhaps there is such a thing as spiritual criminals…
Are aetheists so insecure and up themselves at the same time that they cannot take a bit of joshing? Twould seem so.
‘Narrow sect’ is negotiable. How about narrow minded bigots?
Nick S, I am always trashing liberal aetheist icons – hence the monnicker.
Maybe we would listen to aetheists a bit more respectfully if they didn’t all sound so chippy petulant and contemptible of those lesser beings who have a different take on things.
I meant to add at the end: why are most aetheists also leftists? If you are a conservative like me that is one more reason to think aetheism is suspect. If they can be wrong about something so obvious as politics the chances are they are going to be wrong about things beyond the concrete bound.
“Criminals ‘twitch and squirm and writhe’ when they see a policeman OB (or at least they used to).”
Very true! Very true, indeed! (Unless it’s not, of course. I have a feeling most criminals don’t do any such thing, since they know ‘policemen’ don’t have x-ray vision. But no matter – it’s probably a theological insight.) Very true! And it therefore follows that no one twitches or squirms under any other circumstances, therefore, people who squirm when they hear or read bad arguments are criminals. I understand it all now! How could I have been so wrong. I’ll give up all this skeptical nonsense at once and humbly believe in the one true god. That way I’ll never squirm when I hear or read a stupid, broken, illogical, fatuous argument again. Life will be all vanilla custard. I can’t wait.
niconoclast, did you read what I said? I was pointing out that Liddle is annoying irrespective of his views on atheism – which, if you think about it, is an argument that it is not necessarily the opposition to atheism that made the programme annoying, sort of the opposite of an ad hominem.
Much like Liddle, niconoclast is a very poor representative of the view he/she seeks to defend.
I have no idea of the correlation between political views and belief in god, but it seems a very US-centric view that atheists are all leftwingers, certainly there is a very strong atheist tendency on the right in Europe, and a very strong Christian tendency on the left.
But funnily enough, it doesn’t normally occur to me to wonder about the political affiliations that underly factual claims about the existence or non-existence of divine beings, I’m rather more interested in the evidence being proffered. I guess that’s my blinkered leftist materialism speaking.
Liddle is annoying and his arguments run the gamut from poor to non-existent. I am very relieved that such a weak approach was not employed in defence of atheism. His wishy-washy manner is its own argument in favour of whatever he may choose to argue against.
niconoclast
The implied term “Atheist icon” is oxymoronic. I understated this perhaps.
Have a Happy Christmas.