Bared walruses? Paired galoshes?
Oh hooray hooray hooray, Chris Stedman gives us more advice on how to be a Good™ atheist instead of a Bad atheist. I’m so pleased to have more because I can’t ever seem to get it straight in my head, you know? What is it they think we should do – shout a little louder was it? Start the chainsaw earlier?
I spoke with a Christian friend about my budding efforts as an atheist promoting religious tolerance and interfaith work. She too was excited about the idea of bringing people together around shared values in spite of religious differences…
Oh yes that was it! Not shouting louder, no no; bringing people together around shared values in spite of religious differences. I totally get it now.
It’s bringing people together around shared values in spite of religious differences. Stinging people together around shared poison ivy in spite of religious differences. Kicking people together around shared buckets of blood in spite of not having enough guns. Stabbing people and then shooting them with guns – oh dammit I’ve lost it again.
Oh hooray, here’s Matthew Nisbet to help!
On one side, “accommodationists” argue that non-believers should build bridges with others around shared values in order to work on common problems such as climate change and failing schools.
Yes, yes, yes! That was it – build bridges with others around shared values in order to work on common problems. I won’t forget it this time, I promise. Shared values – just remember that part. Shared values, shared values, shared values.
I get it!
Stedman asks a pensive question.
I wonder if fewer nonreligious people would actively try to dismantle religious communities if we had a more coherent community of our own. Perhaps if we spend less energy negatively “evangelizing,” we’ll find ourselves well positioned to reach out in ways that build bridges instead of tearing them down.
Hmmmmmm I don’t know. I wonder if fewer bridge-builders would actively tell falsehoods about explicit atheists if they weren’t so eager to ingratiate themselves with the mainstream community. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never in my life actively tried to dismantle a community, nor have I ever torn down a bridge. I also haven’t bombed any nursery schools, or hacked to death any children on their way to Sunday school, or put broken glass in the potato salad at the Baptist Picnic.
How come the “shared values” never seem to include a rational discussion of the evidence for and against any proposition, with a commitment to fairness and intellectual honesty?
The only shared value I have with religious people is reality. Of course, I fully understand that their religion conflicts with reality.
Hmm, no. Because this horrible little debate isn’t about atheism, but about naturalism. Atheists can have religious beliefs, but naturalists do not. Naturalists can be ‘spiritual’ and woo woo of course.
Hmm. I think the confusion continues. It’s not about atheism but naturalism. Yes, there are communities of naturalists: scientists and intellectuals.
Some naturalists believe that there is no conflict between religion and science, I like to call them ‘ostriches’. While others, that live that little bit closer to reality fully recognise that religion does indeed conflict with science and everything else.
Hmm, which side will win, time will tell.
John 8:32: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
P Z Myers: “But is it true?” (Oct 13)
So we do have shared values. There might will be disputes about how we know the truth, and what the truth is, but with PZ the eirenic face of gnu atheism anything is possible. :)
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Bared walruses? Paired galoshes? http://dlvr.it/7G1qs […]
By “shared values”, does he mean things like, as far as possible, having a world free of violent conflict, where everyone has enough to eat and a decent home, and a set of rights and freedoms that lets each of us pursue whatever we think will make our respective lives happy and fulfilled, and leave the planet habitable for future generations, etc, etc? Those values? ‘Cuz those are my values now. Funny thing is, those were also my values when I was a Christian (obviously, I wasn’t one of the deep-crazy theocratic kind). So sure, I don’t see any reason I can’t get together with religious people who share those values, and I know that lots do. And I don’t recall that PZ or Sam Harris or Hitchens or Dawkins or any of the rest have said otherwise.
This is an interesting concession from Stedman:
We might think that if it’s working we ought to keep it up, but no:
In other words, a little bit of shrillness helped, so we should stop that and go back to what we were doing before. It’s disingenuous, or mendacious, to suggest that we haven’t always been engaged with others.
“Be a yaytheist, not a naytheist!”
Or something.
How do you negatively evangelize? Sit in a darkened room not telling anyone the Good News?
How does pointing out that you provide no evidence for your invisible sky fairy equate to actively trying to dismantle religious communities ?
Where are the shared values when you use your holy books, confabulated by bronze age nomadic goat herders, to justify rolling back centuries of scientific progress, stripping women and gays of hard won rights (in the countries where they actually have any) and teaching fairy stories in science class rooms ?
Dammit. Lost me at the finish line.
Obviously, the shared values are those of not examining too closely the principles by which you organise your thought.
A shared commitment to being too polite to ask any really important questions will ease a lot of potential conflicts, right up to the point at which it becomes too late to ask whether there ought to be that smell of smoke, and what is that man doing with that axe…
To expand on bad Jim’s point – a problem with this forced choice of either go on frankly disagreeing with religious claims OR stfu about that and “reach out” to believers instead is that if we do that we will be abandoning people who want us to go on frankly disagreeing with religious claims. We will be abandoning each other, and also people who have just found gnu atheism and consider it an oasis in a sea of bullshit. Those people do exist. I heard from one just a couple of days ago.
Why should we do that? There are already plenty of believers – why do we need to imitate them in order to “reach out” to them at the expense of people who would like to escape and find that a lot easier if there are others to talk to? We can’t do both, after all. We can’t be conspicuous, available, unapologetic, explicit, frank atheists who are a resource for other atheists and new-minted atheists, and be evasive, closeted, tactful, secretive atheists who are indistinguishable from theists and thus of no use at all to other atheists and new-minted atheists. We have to choose one, so I (obviously) choose the first.
As Ebon said over at Daylight Atheism, the accomodationists have a simplistic, binary view of things: either we’re servile allies to religious folk, or we refuse to work with them on anything! None of us are like that! We work with the liberal religious all the time on shared goals, even though we disagree on other goals. Our brains on complex enough to handle “we agree with your goals A through Q and we will work with you to achieve them, but we don’t agree with R through Z and will voice our disagreements when you pursue those goals.” And we think the religious can handle the same. Why do accomodationists have such a low opinion of religious people?
This is a strikingly bad-tempered and off-the-wall response to what seemed to me a measured and rational article. There is something extremely odd about your characterization of Stedman’s position. You say “We can’t be conspicuous, available, unapologetic, explicit, frank atheists who are a resource for other atheists and new-minted atheists, and be evasive, closeted, tactful, secretive atheists who are indistinguishable from theists and thus of no use at all to other atheists and new-minted atheists.” I agree. But who is arguing for the latter option? Certainly not Stedman.
themann1086 makes a similar error, setting up an utterly false dichotomy and then erroneously claiming that someone is actually arguing in favour of “servility to religious folks”. Both his and your response represents either a grotesque misunderstanding on your part, or a wilful misrepresentation of his position. Is this the usual quality of your work, or did you make an exception to journalistic standards in just this case?
I can’t wait to share my awe at the beauty of universe with a member of Taliban.
James,
Talk about misunderstanding someone’s position…. Are you aware how often Chris’ argument is trotted out? Look at me I am doing it right.
Are you defending Chris or yourself – given that you just published him in TNM?
James Croft,
Well thank you, and good morning to you too. You’re a bit bad-tempered yourself.
Yes, the post is irritable; I like being irritable; it amuses me. I don’t know what you mean by “journalistic standards” – does this look like a newspaper to you? This section of B&W is a blog; blogs are free to be opinionated.
As for Stedman’s article – it may be measured and rational, but that doesn’t mean it’s right, or well argued, or well written. I think it’s glib, and full of banal assumptions and stale rhetoric.
He starts with the idea that virtuous atheists should be promoting “religious tolerance and interfaith work,” which is a claim that pretty much nullifies atheism. He goes on to agree that atheists are (“seen as” – weasel wording) almost evangelical; he quotes approvingly another banal glib article that makes the same endlessly-recycled claim, he says new atheism is zealous and that it’s our own fault that we’re seen as extreme and aggressive.
Then he goes in for some quiet self-flattery (“I said with a chuckle” – who can read those words without a cringe?) and says how great religion is for motivating social justice work. He claims to be promoting an end to Us and Them thinking but he does it by making a distinction between people like him, with their quiet chuckles, and the bad noisy atheists that everyone already hates. He ends by saying we have to change our approach and reach out to religious liberals and moderates – in other words we have to stop being atheists in order to do something else.
In other words he says the same thing that countless other pundits have been saying for the last few years: overt atheists have to stop doing what they’re doing and do something else instead. Overt atheists have to “reach out to” religious people as opposed to saying what is wrong with religious truth claims.
Here’s the thing: I don’t want to do what Stedman says I must do, I want to do what I’m doing. I’m tired of people like Stedman telling me to stop doing what I’m doing and do something else instead. I’m tired of their stupid sentimental majoritarian reasons. I’m tired of their double standard. I’m tired of their obvious panic about being mistaken for overt atheists. I’m tired of the staggering banality of their vocabulary.
Oh, I get it – The New Humanism is Greg Epstein and the Harvard “chaplaincy.” That helps to explain.
Look, James Croft, I don’t know what to tell you – I’m afraid your front page simply repels me. It’s just plain religious. Maybe some people just love this kind of atheism-lite godless religion thing, but I don’t; it turns my stomach. It strikes me as both shifty and cowardly. Shifty because you are godless but you’re pretending not to be; cowardly for pretty much the same reason. (“You” there means you at this new humanist thingy.)
I just don’t see the point. Let religious people do the “interfaith” stuff – it’s not as if there aren’t enough of them. I think faith is a mistake, so why would I be interested in “interfaith” whatevers? I wouldn’t. I’m not.
So don’t be surprised if your conformist project turns off people of a different mindset. That’s inevitable. You can’t have everything. You can’t both “reach out” to the believers and hang on to all the non-believers, not when “reaching out” means saying how extreme and militant and chuckle-free the non-believers are. Some of us just aren’t going to like you. You don’t like us; we return the favor. So it goes.
@Michael – I am trying to promote reasoned discussion about an important issue, both here and at The New Humanism. In my view the original post here did not do that, and relied of gross mischaracterization of Stedman’s position to make a cheap point. I note you do not respond to the substance of my response at all.
@Ophelia – Sharp I may be, but bad-tempered I am not. Your post made me laugh, actually. It’s interesting how much more specific, reasoned and evidenced your response to me is than your response to Stedman was originally, so you are clearly capable of arguing your point. Why not do it to begin with? Regardless of what form of journalism this is (blog or otherwise) I think you should at least hold yourself to the same standards you hold others too – others like David Gibson, from whom you withheld a cookie (I’m willing to be he wept bitter tears over that), calling him “uncivil and inaccurate”. I rather think that your initial response was both. If you wish to assert that “snark and sneer is not all we do” (something which, in the abstract, I entirely agree with), then perhaps you should endeavour to do more yourself? You are certainly free to be opinionated, but to be boorishly so, without presenting accurate readings of others, is to add little to the conversation.
On to the substance of your response. You claim that if atheists promote “religious tolerance and interfaith work”, this “pretty much nullifies atheism”. What on earth do you mean? I am an atheist, and I wish to promote religious tolerance and interfaith work. Is my atheism thereby nullified, and what could this possibly mean?
You also use this odd term “overt atheists”. What do you mean by this? Stedman is an “overt atheist” in the sense that he is very clear that he is an atheist and tell people so. Indeed, in his interfaith work he has had occasion to tell very many people. In what way is he not “overt”? Am I an “overt atheist”? You also set up a dichotomy between “saying what is wrong with religious truth claims” and “reaching out to” religious people. I don’t see these as opposed. In fact I see them as essentially connected. People who profoundly disagree with us are unlikely to shift their position unless we reach out to them, help them understand who we are. At the very least the dichotomy is false.
James – you said to Michael
There was no substance. Look at it again. There is only assertion.
I utterly reject that. I pointed out clearly, using a quote from your post, a specific way in which you had mischaracterized Stedman’s position. I did the same for themann1086, where I also provide a quote to show precisely what it was that I disagreed with. Michael’s response neither defends nor justifies the characterization I questioned in either your or themann1086’s posts.
I see you have added another response as I was responding to your first. I’ll get to that now!
Now, why didn’t I do a more argumentative version of the post in the first place? Because I’m not always full-on serious here. Because it was late in the day and I was short on time. Because I found a lot to laugh at in Stedman’s piece. Because a lot of readers here already know the substance, and I don’t need to repeat it in detail every time. Because this is a blog.
I do – and I simply disagree with you that I misrepresented Stedman.
Uh oh, we’re cross-posting. Right: I’ll wait now and let you finish before I reply further.
That pretty much is the content of accomodationist pleading. “Stop disagreeing with religious allies or you’ll scare them off”. What? Who does that? It reminds me of the old “I use to be a Democrat, but since 9/11 I’m outraged by Chappaquiddick!” joke (popular on the Lawyers Guns & Money blog). “Well, I use to support the separation of church and state, but since the New Atheists said mean things about my religious beliefs I support a theocracy!” Look at what Nesbit (who was largely the inspiration for my post) wrote:
This is how Nesbit frames things: he lies about his opponents’ positions. So-called “confrontationalists” or “New Atheists” argue the same thing! We don’t scorn religious help on these issues; we welcome it! At the same time, we’re not going to stop arguing against religious influence in our politics, or against religion in general. It won’t stop me from working with religious people on common problems, and I respect them enough to think that they’ll be mature enough to do the same. That’s the essence of the Gnu Atheist position.
Just to clarify (aw, no edit button): I (and the point from Ebon that I paraphrased) were responding to Nisbet’s, er, “contribution” to this discussion. And in that case, I fully stand by my comments.
Okay, taking too long, probably gone to lunch, I’m not waiting any more.
James – your rejection of my claim that there was no substance – yes I know you quoted what I said and what themann said, but you didn’t show how the quotes misrepresented what Stedman said, you just asserted that they did. No substance, just assertion.
I mean that “religious tolerance” is at best ambiguous (at worst it’s just code) – it tends to mean “tolerance of religion” rather than “tolerance by religions and believers.” I mean that “interfaith work” is an interfaith project, so why would atheists be shoving their way into it unless to pretend that atheists are kind of sort of religious too? The idea of atheists doing “interfaith work” seems just obviously absurd, to me, and also a way of taming or diverting atheism.
But he also, by his own account, makes a big point of distinguishing himself from the other, bad atheists.
<i>Build bridges around</i> shared values?
Such circular bridges-to-nowhere don’t seem all that useful to me.
(Yes, I mean that metaphorically as well as literally. Reinforcing a cycle of respect for goofy ideas is not the best way to protect values.)
The problem with Chris’ piece is that it is all personal anecdote. I had a conversation, I gave a lecture, I attended a meeting, I, I, I on and on.
Here is the end of his Huffington Post piece:
This is our choice? We can’t do both? The two can’t be connected?
The conclusion in the last sentence is so utterly facile that it must be a joke – right? This is the punchline for which we have all been waiting. And you have to ask why Ophelia’s piece is full of snark?
Thank you for waiting – I appreciate it! Let me get a couple of things clear. First, please call me James – it’s odd to be referred to by my full name! Second, I don’t dislike you or any part of the atheist / agnostic / Humanist movement. I honestly hadn’t encountered your (beautifully-designed) blog until today.
You make some comments regarding The New Humanism which I feel warrant a response. I said I didn’t dislike you or your work, and that is true. But there is one thing which I dislike very much, and that’s hypocrisy. In the “About Butterflies and Wheels” section of this website you articulate the philosophical grounding which you started this site to promote. I am entirely in agreement with the premises you espouse (apart from some small quibbling when it comes to higher-level epistemic questions, which are probably irrelevant to the current discussion, but which might be interesting to discuss sometime!). And it seems to me that part and parcel of these premises would be a commitment to reasoned discussion, to supporting your views with evidence, and to engaging honestly with the reasons provided by others.
I respectfully suggest your responses here haven’t met that standard. You look at The New Humanism and you say “your front page simply repels me. It’s just plain religious.” But you provide no reasons why. You give no specific instances as to what repels you and why it does so, or what you consider “religious” about it. Under my definition of “religious”, there is nothing religious about it. We do not believe in any god, and we do not seek to promote the adherence to any religious belief or doctrine through the site. We specifically counter religious claims and ideologies, and decry the oppressive aspects of religious practice. And yet you are “repelled”. Why?
You then go further and call me and my colleagues (and friends) “shifty and cowardly”. The only explanation you give for this is the following: “[My friends and I are] Shifty because [we] are godless but [we’re]’re pretending not to be; cowardly for pretty much the same reason.” Do you provide anything to back up this assertion? Any instance in which anyone on the site pretends not to be a nonbeliever? No. Perhaps by this point I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am, frankly. It’s shockingly intolerant of you, and irrational, and it seems to be below the level of discussion you would expect of others were they arguing for a position different to yours.
You then go on to say “I think faith is a mistake, so why would I be interested in “interfaith” whatevers?” It is precisely because I think faith is a mistake that I want to engage in interfaith discussion. Ultimately I hope people embrace naturalism. I realize, however, that it is unrealistic to expect people to do so without engaging them in dialogue.
The tone of your responses, to both Chris and to me (and TNH), seems to me to be deeply irrational. I would have thought you might consider this a problem, given your stated philosophical commitments.
James, fair point about the About page – I didn’t write it, and I keep meaning to change it. I should make it something like “an unfair polemical biased take on some issues.”
But I didn’t call you plural shifty and cowardly. I said
The atheism-lite thing strikes me as shifty and cowardly. Then I explain why it strikes me that way.
I thought it would be self-evident why your front page looks like atheism-lite – it’s got “faith” all over it. It uses sanctimonious language.
The phrase wasn’t interfaith discussion, it was interfaith work. But either way – if the idea is that you want to talk to or work with religious people, that’s not “interfaith” anything – interfaith means between faith-people, not between faith-people and no-faith-people.
How odd that the interfaith sessions at my sons school made not a single mention of secular routes to ‘values’ – and turned out to be, essentially, religious propaganda using thinly disguised arguments from authority and blatantly discriminatory rhetoric.
Sure I had to get involved in such work – but it was to point out in great detail to the headteacher that, however well intentioned, it was an attempt to tell the children what to think, not how to think.
As Ophelia points out, interfaith work is work between faiths – and their agenda is to promote faith.
Ah, you couldn’t wait for my response, quite. Well, here’s what I think about your latest: first, it is hard for me to give evidence that you misrepresented Stedman when the evidence is that he didn’t say what you say he said. The best thing I can do is pick out the bits that suggest he said something he didn’t and say “he never said this!”, which is precisely what I did. The evidence is the article itself, which does not include the sentiments you ascribe to Stedman.
You say:
I don’t see religious tolerance as meaning either of the things you say here. I see it as encouraging people of different religious faiths and none to respect each other even given their religious differences. We need not respect their views or their religion, but we can respect their person, and I think this is crucially important. That includes “tolerance by religions and believers” (which is a central aspect of interfaith work). You say “I mean that “interfaith work” is an interfaith project, so why would atheists be shoving their way into it unless to pretend that atheists are kind of sort of religious too?” The reason, at least for me, is simple: I don’t want to live in a world where a pastor threatens to burns Korans on a pyre, where protesters rent decommissioned missiles and point them at buildings in New York, or where young kids kills themselves instead of facing the horrifying prospect of growing up gay because of hateful religious rhetoric. Engaging with the religious is the only way I can think of to stop these things.
You still haven’t given a clear definition of “overt atheism”.
It is difficult to comprehend why you would feel so threatened, and respond so irately to such an innocuous and good-spirited editorial. Granted, the irateness is thinly disguised behind a veneer of sophomoric sarcasm and failed attempts at humor, but it shows. This was a downright nasty post, and it is absolutely dripping with insecurity. This is best evidenced by your repeated comments to the effect that “I could build bridges and get along with people if I wanted to, I just am not interested.” Honestly, who are you trying to convince with that: Chris Stedman? your readers? or yourself? Seems like the latter to me. Similarly, you employ the same strategy all ideologues do, which is to project blame onto others rather than critically reflecting upon and analyzing your own position. Since you dogmatically refuse to entertain the notion that a hardline, confrontational display of atheist ideas could have any detrimental impact, you are left pointing the finger at everyone else and implying that they just haven’t understood your position properly. It’s precisely this constant “It’s not me, it’s you” style tactic of projection that is causing you and your ilk to be labeled as evangelicals, whether you wish to admit it or not. Also, you are mirroring religious fundamentalism in that you refuse to acknowledge the potential for different ways of expressing ideas through behavior. You allege that Stedman’s criticism of a particular approach to atheism represents an abandonment of atheism itself. This is a category mistake – you are failing to separate a set of ideas from their manifestations in human behavior, precisely the way religious zealots do when they feel inclined to impose their lifestyle on others due to that lifestyle’s perceived identity with the ideas themselves. To you there is only one way of embodying atheism (your way), and any who disagree have sacrificed their claim to atheism or are just being disingenuous or inauthentic. Honestly, I can’t help but think here of Wahabbist Muslims who label all other Muslims as non-Muslims or apostates for not complying with their own narrow reading of the Qu’ran. Look, if you can’t fathom the idea of a different form of atheist expression without feeling like your ideas and principles are being compromised, that’s an indication of your own insecurity, not the weakness of others who happen to be experimenting with different methods of engagement while seeing no conflict with their ideals. This is what is happening in your post, and you are not fooling me or anyone else with your attempts to deflect this with your bad jokes and attempts at satire. No amount of snark will clothe the nakedness of your insecurity. I ask you to please stop deifying ‘Atheism’ by making it into a rigid principle immune to critique or diverse manifestations (remember, this is the reason we all ditched God in the first place?). Get some integrity.
Ophelia, you are now simply dodging the substantive issue, and continuing to display the very failings I think you would deplore in others. I’ve taken the time to give thoughtful and reasoned responses to your writing. The least you might do is attempt to do the same.
Work together on what exactly? Atheists, agnostics and the devoutly religious do work together every day eg at my place of work, where we work as a team to carry out the tasks the firm expects of us. They work together in politics. If you go to an, anti-war demonstration, there will be Christian groups, far left groups, Muslim groups and other odds and sods. Political parties in the UK are made up of believers and non-believers and work together. It would be the same if your neighbourhood was protesting about closing a local school or a new by-pass being built or anything else – you would work together because you would have something that unites you. If your country was menaced by invaders, you would work together, everyone from the far right to the far left and all of those with a religion or none. You can have a totally different philosophy and religion from someone and come to respect them if you work together on something specific and find that they are intelligent, resourceful, honest, have all sorts of virtues. But this “working together” seems to be making more or less accommodating grunts and soft-soaping each other‘s ideas or pulling the teeth out of your own so they won’t seem so sharklike. You can’t “work together” in a vacuum.
Ian,
Did you write that all in one breath?
Crikey! Did someone write an atheist manifesto when I wasn’t paying attention?
James, I am not dodging. That’s just not true.
In which case I would appreciate a response to the issues I have raised. You have, after all, very stridently attacked my publication and my outlook in extremely derogatory terms.
I responded, up to #31, which I haven’t replied to yet because I’ve had to do other things.
Perhaps it’s all down to differences in perception and reaction to the harm religious faith causes?
Frankly, I don’t much care who plays good cop or bad cop building the case. Do what you want; enough already of people telling us what to do and how to do it. Show me a mandate for that.
31: first para: sorry, that won’t do. Just saying “no he didn’t” can’t be considered substantive.
You have your own special definition of “religious tolerance” – ok fine, but you can’t expect people at large to understand the phrase that way, nor can Stedman.
“Interfaith work” and “interfaith dialogue” are not the same thing as atheists “engaging with the religious.” I didn’t understand “interfaith work” to mean that. If that’s what Stedman meant, he should have made it clearer.
I have to go out now, so don’t pitch another fit if you answer promptly and I don’t.
Then your responses are entirely inadequate – they simply ignore the majority of my points. I’d like you particularly to describe precisely what it is you find “cowardly” and “shifty” about the work presented on The New Humanism, where we pretend not to be atheists, and what about it is “religious”. Making such incendiary statements without justifying them is simply shameful.
I note that you co-authored a book called Why Truth Matters. Seeking the truth requires interrogating evidence and providing reasons for your beliefs. Perhaps the truth doesn’t matter so much after all?
James, Not speaking for anyone else, but Stedman lost me with the Reza Aslan quote that says
about which Stedman says
At that point, I decided that I—somebody who does interfaith work with progressive ministers—must be one of the fundamentalists.
Notice that we’re not just fundamentalists but particularly zealous fundamentalists, as fundamentalists go.
(Who do you think of when you think of a particularly zealous fundamentalist?)
That’s pretty zealous, you know. That puts us up there with Falwell and maybe Phelps or Osama bin Laden. People who don’t much believe in separation of Church and State, or civil rights, because they have indisputably, inarguably true texts that say who to stone to death. People who think that they have the right to impose their views on others, not by open and rational debate, but by divinely authorized force.
It’s simply false and inflammatory. The only sense in which many New Atheists are “fundamentalists” is in a very watered-down sense that you can use against anybody who insists on taking a principled stand on any subject.
It’s like casually calling a moderate conservative a Nazi, for being a little right of center.
If you call us fundamentalists, don’t be surprised if we don’t like you, and don’t complain if we call you cowards, or even Neville Chamberlain atheists or Quislings. You are lying about us to curry favor with the religious majority.
When somebody writes something like that in a forum like HuffPo, falsely accusing people they agree with of extremism, for an audience that’s likely to take that even more seriously than it’s meant, they are being cowardly and appeasing. They’re clearly stabbing us in the back to seem like the “good cop.”
Or they’re just stupid, stupid, stupid.
Gnu atheist aren’t extremists. We’re just outspoken. That’s the problem.
We “attack” religion in the same basic way we’d attack any other ideas that we think are false, such as political ideologies. That’s the problem.
We think it’s a bad thing to be more deferential to bad religious ideas than to any other bad and influential ideas. (I’m a liberal, and I’m no harder on religion than I am on conservatism, but I’ve never been called a fundamentalist liberal. Funny, that.) We think it’s a good thing not to treat religion with a kind of respect that you don’t treat other beliefs with.
Look up what “fundamentalist” actually means, in its core sense, not the watered down version that you can use to tar anybody you want to make look bad just because they’re outspoken. You know, like Martin Marty et al.’s Fundamentalism Project studies. The real stuff.
We know what “fundamentalist” means. Do you?
Read Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, if you haven’t, and tell me whether you actually think that New Atheists are fundamentalists.
I wouldn’t mind so much if accommodationist atheists actually sincerely criticized our strategies, and said that they think we’re too outspoken in saying the things they agree with. A serious and sincere argument about strategy could be interesting. I actually think there are good arguments both ways.
But when accommodationists stop sincerely addressing strategic issues and start falsely vilifying New Atheists as more extreme than they are, and more illiberal than they are, that argument is over. They’ve picked a side, and it’s against us. They apply a double standard, being more “tolerant” of the religious majority than of people they actually agree with.
Notice that a few years ago, New Atheists on the internet fairly often called accommodationists appeasers, which they literally are. (Appeasement isn’t always a bad thing; sometimes it works, especially as a short-term tactic.)
That term was too loaded, though. People objected, and we mostly dropped it. Now we usually use the term “accommodationist,” which sounds like a good thing—who wants to be unaccommodating. We didn’t need to prejudge accommodationism with an unflattering label—we’d rather make actual arguments.
Did the accommodationists likewise back off from calling us “fundamentalists,” which is a literally false and inflammatory description? Did they settle for, say, “hardliners,” which is maybe unflattering but not literally false?
Oh Hell no. It wasn’t insulting and exaggerated enough.
By the way, James, when a New Atheist is criticized by an accommodationist atheist for being outspoken about principled atheism, and called a particularly zealous fundamentalist, which one is actually being “strident”?
Further to Paul W’s comments: anyone who uses the term “fundamentalist atheist” loses me immediately. Any use of the term “fundamentalist” that does not show some fairly close parallel to the historical Protestant movement that gave rise to the term is prejudicial bullshit. And merely thinking that X is true and not-X therefore false, and being willing to say so forthrightly and publicly, doesn’t even come close to that standard. Wake me up when someone starts quoting Bertrand Russell as an infallible source.
@Paul
First, let’s start with a little intellectual honesty. The very first thing Stedman says in response to the Aslan quote is the following: “I’m not sure I’m in full agreement with Aslan”. Interesting how you chose to excise that from your version of his response. Further, it’s important to read others carefully. Stedman states agreement with the characterization of New Atheists as “zealous”. He does not explicitly endorse (here at least), the term “fundamentalist”. Whether he endorses that term or not, I do not, and you are talking to me.
So I profoundly resent it when you say:
I have never referred to any atheist as a “fundamentalist”, and nor does my publication. Here is a letter in a UK magazine which demonstrates my distaste for the term:
http://www.attitude.co.uk/news/viewnews.aspx?newsid=1311
So your argument here relies on ascribing a view to me which I do not hold and which I am in print, repeatedly, decrying. This is characteristic of the responses to my points in this thread (and in other fora where I have debated this issue, actually): those who wish to defend themselves do so on the basis of wholesale mischaracterization of opposing viewpoints, in direct conflict with their supposed rationalism.
It begins to depress me, I must admit.
I think that the best sort of world is one in which people are free to be whatever they wish to be, whatever internal motivation they might have for their choice.
‘They don’t know where their best interests lie, but we do’ is an ideological position that has appealed to many a control freak, from mediaeval clerics to more modern political types, and right across the right-left spectrum.
A variant on this is the Taliban’s justification for bombing schools, throwing acid in the faces of girl students, and killing their teachers. I think I do it justice when I put it in this form: ‘Whatever they might want for themselves has to be subordinated to the greater good, which is the society as we conceive it should be.’
It is the nature and inherent logic of sectarianism for sectarians to believe that they, and they alone, have The Truth. Modern western liberalism emerged as a sort of peace deal arrived at after viscious religious wars had shown where the intolerance born of this attitude can lead. I think it fair to say that the Islamic world is still in this phase of intolerance and wars between rival sects. But anyone who joins a cause claiming to have The Truth and with the long-term goal of converting the world into a monoculture of that idea, will get only limited cooperation out of me, and on very short-term projects. .
‘We will cooperate with you for now, but only as a means of overcoming you eventually’ is not a position tailor-made for the creation of harmonious relationships. But it can be assumed to be the position of much of modern Islam, and has until relatively recently been the not very well concealed position of much of the Catholic Church.
Sad, but true.
I reread all three articles, just to make sure I didn’t misunderstand. I personally find the articles some of the most patronizing vacuity I have read recently. I can only think of a kindergarden report card with the box marked checked “plays well with others.” Why interfaith groups? Why not just groups? Why should we work with faith groups and not just groups? Why bring faith into it? This is about working with individuals and respecting individuals not beliefs – we are not working with beliefs. Religions don’t have strangleholds on feeding the hungry or civil rights or everything good.
Do you really believe as Chris does that humanism is a religion?
Notice how humanist is capitalized. Do you have a statement of faith – or is it a statement of lack of faith?
And sprinkled throughout are attacks on anyone who criticizes religion. If you are criticizing religion, you are sabotaging the cause – whatever the cause may be.
So you can’t be critical of religion and do humanitarian work? Is this the take home message? Do faith groups celebrate his humanistic values or his unwillingness to criticize their beliefs? Chris certainly has no problem criticizing the beliefs of other atheists, but apparently only atheist beliefs are mistaken – or would he withhold criticizing atheists if they were helping him feed the hungry?
Or maybe he just doesn’t personally know any “so-called New Atheists” – because if he did maybe he would be more tolerant.
Should I stop here?
I’m not sure what relevance anything you posted has to our discussion, Michael. It certainly doesn’t adress any issue I’ve raised. In case you haven’t noticed, I am not Chris Stedman (and, for the record, I don’t think Humanism is a religion, although it certainly has a number of statements of belief, most recently Humanism and its Aspirations).
The quote regarding Stedman’s participation in interfaith dialogue seems to me very reasonable – he is merely describing the sorts of responses he has had and positing reasons for those responses, after all – and you seem to draw a conclusion from it that has no relation to its content. Who says anything about engaging in humanitarian work? You also assume, wrongly, that interfaith discussion entails not criticising religious beliefs. This is simply ignorance on your part. And the quote regarding the Gallup poll and gays is being used precisely to encourage interfaith dialogue – religious people will be less distrustful and bigoted towards the nonreligious if they actually meet some nonreligious people. Do you wish to deny this?
I get the impression, while discussing these issues on here, that I inhabit a rather different world to some of you folks. In my world discussions proceed by reasoned arguments, supported by evidence, centred on topics that have actually been raised. In this other world I seem to have entered, ad-hominem attacks based on misinterpretations and falsehoods are the rule, and points are raised that are entirely orthogonal to the central issues. Have I perhaps stepped through into Bizarro World?
Oh good grief, James – you’re all over the place. You’re not Chris Stedman. Fine, but then why were you so indignant about my take on his article? You’re in a rage because what we say about Stedman doesn’t apply to you – well we weren’t talking about you! My post was about Stedman’s article. I don’t know you; I’ve never heard of you before this thread; I wasn’t talking about you.
It’s awfully self-important to puff up like that because people say X about Stedman or the New Humanism site, and shout that it doesn’t describe you.
The Lady doth protest too much methinks.
Mr Croft –
#42 – Paul said it all, so I don’t need to.
#46 – Stedman disagreed with part of what Azlan said – not all of it, and not the part Paul cited.
Overall – dial it down. A lot. You’re brand new here – if you want to get a hearing, you can’t just start right in chastising everyone as if you were Jehovah. Calm down, get off the podium, get over yourself, and maybe you’ll persuade people of something. If you keep going on as you are, it seems most unlikely.
Really, You are not Chris Stedman? How the hell did I miss that when the name James Croft is at the top of your comments. Are you always this much of a dick or is it only today?
I honestly don’t think you have read any of the articles or if you have, then they are in a different language than the ones I read. You keep saying we are missing the point, but I honestly think the point Chris is trying to make is just ludicrously simple-minded. Is this really the level of your audience? Do they really need to be lectured on how to get along with others?
So it is ok to “other” atheists with whom you disagree? This is what Chris is saying. Can’t you see, he says if religious people meet atheists, then they will be less likely to mistrust them. Yet at the same time he mistrusts other atheists who have different views than he does. He knows nothing about the individuals he criticizes because he obviously hasn’t met them. He just lumps them into the evil new atheist cabal because they openly criticize religion.
I guess I am still missing your point – what was it again?
I am neither indignant nor in a rage – I am merely trying to hold you to some basic standards of honest and open discussion. I presume you post this stuff here because you want people to read it, and allow people to comment because you value discussion. Well, I’ve entered the discussion. Since then you’ve flung intemperate ad hominem attacks at me and my work which you are unable or unwilling to justify, and have simply ignored much of what has been written.
I am proud of our work at The New Humanism and I am willing to defend it against attacks which bear no relationship to reality whatsoever. You would do the same, I think, if it were your work being vilified.
So do you wish to defend the charges you made against my colleagues and I, or retract them?
Mr Croft – see #46 –
I’ve already replied once about what I said about the front page of the New Humanism. The word “faith” appears three times – the whole page looks like atheism trying to pass itself off as sort of kind of “faith.”
Yes, I value discussion. You’re not discussing. As I said: dial it down.
You’re implying I’m intellectually dishonest? Wow.
Note what you left out of that passage. (Now who could use a little “intellectual honesty”?)
Here’s the whole paragraph after the quote; I’ve emphasized the concluding two sentences:
It seems to me that the penultimate sentence—“But his critique of the zealous nature of “new atheism” is difficult to deny.”—makes it clear that he mostly agrees.
He does not, as your selective quoting seems to suggest, only agree with the term “zealous.” He says that Aslan’s “critique” [including the accusation of particularly zealous fundamentalism] is difficult to deny.
He could could deny it, and it wouldn’t be difficult. He could say it’s not true. Instead he chooses to agree on the zeal and generally approve of the characterization overall.
In the final sentence, he even makes Aslan’s case for him: “When a large and vocal number of atheists say that their number one goal is convincing people to abandon their faith, it comes as no surprise that our community is construed as extreme and aggressive.”
This implies that there is a large number of people whose #1 goal is deconverting the religious, which may be true for small values of “large,” and “number one goal,” but it’s just superficial fearmongering. And this apparently makes Aslan’s zealotry claim “difficult to deny.”
Why? Apparently because it’s pretty good evidence that Aslan’s claim is true.
Certainly, some Gnu atheists have made it a major goal to criticize religion and see who agrees with them. Is that actually so bad? Is it any worse than, say, a liberal who makes it his number #1 goal to criticize conservative ideology? Why is it okay to imply that atheists in particular are remarkably zealous, even fundamentalist, if they go to the trouble of taking a public stand?
And it doesn’t acknowledge that they think they have good reasons—e.g., a commitment to truth on a topic of great importance to many people, and a belief that on the whole, it’s actually beneficial for people to know that truth.
For many Gnu atheists, it’s important to tell the truth about religion because religion is important and because most people would want to know the truth, even if they don’t recognize it at first and are initially resistant.
And for many, like me, it’s important because they sincerely think that religion has pervasive harmful effects overall—e.g., supporting sexism, homophobia, resistance to abortion rights and gay rights, an unholy alliance between religious conservatives and economic conservatives, etc., etc., etc.
Stedman’s framing makes it clear he agrees that too many Gnu atheists find atheism too important; people think we’re loudmouthed assholes because—well, I guess because so many of us are, or close enough that it’s basically true. Why else would he say it makes Aslan’s extreme critique hard to deny? (More on its extremism and inaccuracy later.)
Stedman basically reassures HuffPo readers (mostly nonatheists) they’re right to dismiss vocal atheists as selfish opinionated assholes, rather than sincere, thoughtful, and well-meaning people who think it’s reasonable to be outspoken on the subject.
Notice that’s missing the main point of Gnu athieism. That point is that it is reasonable to talk about atheism and criticize religion publicly, as you would critique any other ideas. It’s precisely to “break the spell” of “tolerance” of religion that goes so far as to exempt it from criticism like other ideas.
Stedman instead implicitly reinforces that spell, by using Gnu atheists’s outspoken criticism of religion as examples of their apparently intolerant zealotry. There’s a huge difference between tolerance and self-censorship. Gnu atheists are generally for tolerance, but against the degree of self-censorship normally expected about religion. We think that we should be tolerant of religion in the same way we are tolerant of other differences of opinion, but not a whole lot more.
Well, duh; I think I read it more carefully than you did, and with more of an eye toward how its audience would inevitably take it. It’s a HuffPo piece, for chrissakes. Do you think those people read particularly carefully? Do you think most of them have the background knowledge about atheism to make sense of what Stedman’s saying, other than that he generally agrees with Aslan’s critique of clearly too “zealous” (and more or less “fundamentalist”) atheists?
it wasn’t written for us. It was written largely to slam us, for an audience that’s mostly biased against us already, and believes certain stereotypes. What ideas seem to be endorsed is what’s important, especially if they confirm negative stereotypes, not what is or isn’t literally and strictly implied.
If Stedman doesn’t understand that, he’s got no business writing for an outlet like HuffPo. If he does, it’s pretty much a biased hatchet job.
I think it’s inevitable that his remarks will be mostly interpreted as general agreement on that.
Read it again, carefully. He says that he disagrees with Aslan about whether atheists are discriminated against, but that Aslan’s case about zealotry is difficult to deny. That sounds pretty close to rejecting the former and accepting the latter, and the latter included a claim of particularly zealous fundamentalism. On a casual read, that seems like the obvious interpretation. If Stedman didn’t mean that, he should have objected to the “fundamentalism” claim, as he did about the discrimination issue.
Remember that statistics show that atheists are about as reviled a minority as there is—more so than, say, blacks and Jews.
Now imagine similar comments, playing into a negative stereotype about blacks:
Suppose Aslan said that blacks aren’t discriminated against, and are so lazy as to be useless, and Stedman disagreed about the discrimination, but said that the case about laziness was difficult to deny, and proceeded to agree that “large numbers” of blacks are really lazy. Would not explicitly agreeing that they’re so lazy as to be useless make it okay?
I think not. That’s some pretty damningly faint disagreement there.
But that’s not the worst of it. The passage that he quotes with general approval continues thus:
Wow. Do you not see the problems there? Do you see the problem with the slant, the exaggerations, and the falsehoods? Do you not see a problem with Stedman quoting this with general approval, and failing to correct the problems with it?
What’s this about the New Atheists being “convinced they’re in sole possession of the truth”?
Well, yeah, we do think atheism is true. (Not that we know there’s no god, of course, just that we’re pretty sure nobody else knows there is one, and we seriously doubt it.) So? Is that such a bad thing? Is it false? Doesn’t Stedman think atheism is true in that sense? Isn’t he being “tolerant” of people he too thinks are mistaken? Is it really such a crime for the New Atheists to call them like they see them?
I think evolution is true, and I say so publicly, and will rebut creationist arguments. Likewise I’ll make a case for progressive taxes, and rebut libertarian arguments. Does that make me intolerant? If not, why is it any different if I clearly state my opinion about atheism vs. religion? Does “tolerance” mean refraining from disagreement, generally, or only about religion?
Consider “the troubling lack of tolerance for the views of their critics (Dawkins has compared creationists to Holocaust deniers)”; what’s up with that? Maybe Dawkins did compare creationists to holocaust deniers. The point is that there’s overwhelming evidence that the Earth is more than a few thousand years old, and we evolved from other life forms—the degree of denial it takes to reject that is comparable to holocaust denial. And the similarities Dawkins points out are quite real—e.g., that most of the deniers are ignorant dupes, not especially stupid, just misled by a cottage industry of denialism. It’s a really good point, doncha think?
And then there’s “the insistence on a literalist reading of scripture (more literalist, in fact, than one finds among most religious fundamentalists).”
That’s just false. It’s a canard about New Atheists, promoted by accommodationists, to falsely make them look simplistic. The New Atheist’s main arguments are not against literalism per se, but against middle-of-the-road religious orthodoxy in general—the kind of religion that the overwhelming majority of religious people believe in. Things like immortal souls, disembodied minds with supernatural powers, and ominpotent omnibenevolent gods. The single most important argument in the New Atheist books is probably the Problem of Evil, precisely because it’s not about literalism, or even about nonliteralist inerrancy, which is more common. It’s about central religious tenets of “moderate” religion as well as inerrantist fundamentalist religion. Likewise, arguments about the nature of the mind and the implausibility of immortal or disembodied souls aren’t about literalism. They’re about what the overwhelming majority of religious people actually believe. (Heck—it’s not really even about omnipotence and omnibenevolence—just basic Godly competence and not being a vicious capricious asshole.)
Accommodationists make its sound like there is nobody in between Jerry Falwell and Karen Armstrong, and that the New Atheists’ main arguments only apply to the former kind of “fundamentalist,” and not to the majority, which is like the latter.
That’s utter bullshit; most people are solidly in between, and the New Atheist arguments are aimed mostly at their extremely common beliefs shared with fundamentalists. Not because the New Atheists aren’t hip to aphophatic theology or whatever, but because to a first approximation, nobody in the pews believes that stuff anyway. They believe in a God who is a very powerful person who you owe worship to, and who is a moral authority that you should morally defer to and vote accordingly.
To say that New Atheists “insist on a literal reading of scripture” is just a lie. What New Atheist argue is that scriptures are far more unreliable than being nonliteral or even ambiguous in places—they’re not reliable at all about anything really important, because they’re mostly myths and screeds by sadly benighted humans. (But good and beautiful in places, too, sure.)
The main reasons New Atheists address literalism at all are that 1) a large minority does believe that stuff, 2) those people have frightening political power, 3) the fact that such kooks can have such power shows that we’re too deferential to religion qua religion, and 4) the problems with literalism are also problems with most moderately orthodox religion.
I won’t go into “the simplistic reductionism of the religious phenomenon”… that’d be a long discussion. Suffice it to say that I don’t think that the New Atheists are nearly as simplistic as they’re being accused of being, and their critics are typically far more simplistic—e.g., pretending that most religious people aren’t basically orthodox, and that “literalism” is the major issue, rather than addressing whether the NA’s are right about factual problems with central orthodox tenets, and what that says about religion that those tenets are so widely held. If you disagree, we can discuss that.
On the whole, I that Stedman royally screwed up by citing a simplistic and tremendously unfair anti-New Atheist passage from Aslan and generally approving of it. If that wasn’t just a hatchet job, it was gross negligence.
OK. i’m glad to know you’d stop short of calling us fundamentalists.
Do realize that you did come in here defending Stedman’s HuffPo piece as reasonable and rational, and making it sound like people here were unreasonable to be so offhandedly negative about it.
I hope it’s clearer now why it seems obvious to us that it’s a hatchet job, and deserving of some casual slams—and that I haven’t been too offhand about it. :-)
JC –
I said the front page at the new humanist (not to be confused with the UK magazine) turns my stomach and that it strikes me as both shifty and cowardly. That’s because of all the emphasis on “faith.” “Faith” is a religious word; if a humanist outfit brandishes it three times on the front page, it looks as if that outfit is trying to lure believers at the expense of resembling religion. That seems shifty because it’s not the usual goal of humanists; it seems cowardly because there is a social cost to public atheism while there is not really a social cost to public theism (except maybe in a few tiny enclaves).
I did not however mean to say that you or your colleagues strike me as personally shifty and cowardly. I meant that your approach, your spin, your framing, whatever you want to call it, strikes me that way.
(Paul’s comment has probably made mine supererogatory, but here it is anyway.)
I thought that was really cool until I looked it up.
I didn’t mean to beat it to death.
Wot?! You must have looked it up in a funny place.
I think I was thrown by the “ero” part.
Super-ero sounds really cool, but missing an s.
Ok, I need a cigarette, Paul’s post was THAT good!
I’ve had a few hours to think about this (it occupied me all through my choir practice!) and I’ve taken the opportunity since I got back to reread the original article, the original response by Ophelia, and all the responses posted here. I’ve tried to honestly assess if anything I’ve posted here merits the fierce response it has received, and I’ve identified one place where, in retrospect, I would have liked to have phrased my words differently: I think it was premature to suggest Paul W. was being intellectually dishonest. As your follow-up post shows, Paul, you have put a lot of thought into this, and I am willing to respect that and retract what I said. I do not think the same level of thought was evident in the post which provoked my response, but I think I should have been more gracious, and I apologize.
As for the rest of it, I am honestly shocked and a little disturbed by the nature of the reaction. I think what Stedman posted was not entirely outrageous or offensive to atheists. Nor do I think it represents anything like “appeasement”. I need to be aware that I am good friends with Chris, and so I might be reading his words more leniently than I would read others. On the other hand, I am also good friends with MANY other figures in the nonreligious movement who take a different position, and I think I respect their views too. I don’t feel that my views have been treated with respect here, or have been responded too, generally, with the level of care I demonstrated in my responses to others. This disappoints me, because it seems to me that atheists and Humanists should be at the vanguard of constructive, critical dialogue, rather than falling into old traps of divisive rhetoric which unfairly miscategorize another.
Some of the responses here read to me as if a camp called “accomodationists” has been constructed in the minds of the posters, and that I have been lumped into that camp, without due consideration of what I have actually said (and, perhaps more important, what I have not said). This is not constructive or even honest debate – it’s simply mindless sectarianism running rampant and poisoning the discussion.
This is why I appreciate Ophelia and Paul’s two most recent longer posts. Here an actual argument is presented, and clarity given as to what the nature of the criticism actually is. I still (predictably) do not agree entirely, but I at least know precisely what it is I (and Stedman) are being accused of. So let me respond to those in as positive spirit as I can, in the hope that it will lead to a more nuanced discussion than hitherto.
Paul W:
First, let me say I detest the Aslan piece from which Stedman draws, and I really wish he wouldn’t keep using it. As I think I demonstrated through the link I posted earlier, I have no truck whatsoever with using the term “fundamentalist” to describe any atheist. It should be clear from that letter that it’s not that I just “stop short” of calling atheists fundamentalists – I actively campaign for an end to that offensive and inaccurate practice. In this I think we are entirely agreed, and since a significant portion of the last section of your post addresses the Aslan quote rather than the Stedman piece in full, I feel no need to say anything other than “I agree entirely”.
As for your general reading of Stedman’s piece, if I am guilty of reading it too positively, I think you may be guilty of reading it too negatively. You spend a significant portion of your reply, after all, attacking Alan’s piece. It seems to me you are using that piece (which, as I’ve said, I really hate) as a lens through which to read the whole of Stedman’s. I don’t think that is necessarily a fair or balanced reading, and nor is it one likely to be made by the general readers of the article – I prefer to look more closely at what Chris has written and not what Aslan wrote. Taken on its own merits, although there are things I disagree with in it (like citing the Aslan piece at all (does anyone else find it odd to continually refer to a talking lion?)), I think it makes a reasonable point, which is well-made by the quote Stedman offers from Sagan: many religious people feel like they are under attack by an atheist movement (however inaccurate their feeling is). One response to this is to sit around a table and talk with them. I think that is an eminently reasonable proposal. It may not be something you would like to do, and that’s fine. There is a place in the world for many expressions of atheist and humanist thought. But Stedman’s is one view, and in my eyes it is legitimate and likely to be constructive.
One thing that jumps out at me, that has come up in a few posts in this thread, is the following: “For many Gnu atheists, it’s important to tell the truth about religion because religion is important and because most people would want to know the truth, even if they don’t recognize it at first and are initially resistant.” This seems to suggest that Stedman does not wish to “tell the truth” about religion. I’m not sure precisely what you mean by this, but I find it a strange assumption. Whenever I have observed Chris talking with religious individuals he is not at all shy about saying what he believes to be true (and, by implication, what he believes to be false). He is an atheist and a naturalist and is very clear about that with the religious people he meets. This takes significant courage, incidentally, when leading interfaith discussions, since most people who do it are religious, and most people who engage in it expect a religious facilitator. That he stands up in front of them and tells them openly and clearly that he does not believe in any God strikes me as exactly the sort of “overt atheism” Ophelia advocates for. For my part, I am extremely vocal about the dangerous nature of religious belief in general, and particularly about dehumanizing religious practices. Is that truthy-enough for you? =D
You end with the following:
I did come in here doing that, and I still do, and I always think that offhanded dismissal is an unproductive way to respond to people one disagrees with. I do not engage in “casual slams” when I am on form, since I think they do nothing to move the discussion forward. However, it is certainly clearer to me now where you are coming from, and the specific critique you are offering. I am extremely appreciative that you took the time to explain.
Ophelia:
First, thank you for clarifying what precisely you were calling “shifty and cowardly”. I suppose I take some comfort from the fact you weren’t intending to slop those terms over me.
I want to get to the bottom of your problem with the magazine I work for because it’s extremely important to me as a project, and because I am honestly quite baffled by your violent response. you say:
So, you have a problem with the word “faith” because you construe it as a “religious word”. It appears three times on the front page, and you deduce from that that we are “trying to lure believers at the expense of resembling religion. ”
First, let me point out how utterly inadequate and indescribably facile I find that “reasoning”. Without reading any of the articles (at least as far as I can see), without engaging with any of the video content (some of which I think you might like – there’s a fantastic talk by Joss Whedon and the Mythbusters), without reading any editorials, or the introduction to the magazine, you feel content to write off the entire enterprise, and to ascribe bad faith (sorry!) to the contributors and editors. We are trying, in your view, to conduct a sinister bait-and-switch, luring religious people in with nice words like “faith”, and thereby sacrificing a clear atheist identity.
What bollocks.
If anyone tried the same tactic when talking about your site you would realize it for the nonsense it was. It just so happens that the word “religion” currently appears three times on your homepage. Are you trying to lure in religious readers with that inviting word, perhaps? Should I call your approach “shifty” and “cowardly”. I would never dare be so outrageously unfair to another’s work, so brazenly uninterested and closed-minded that I would pass judgement without venturing to read a little of what I found here. But this seems to be precisely what you have done when it comes to my work at TNH.
Second, let’s talk about this word “faith” which you claim appears three times on the front page. First, it seems only fair to point out that the word which actually appears is “interfaith”, which might, one would think, cause you take make some distinction. But no, to you “faith” and “interfaith” are one and the same. And why are those words on there? because we currently feature two linked articles about the role of atheists in interfaith work. We are about to post another, designed explicitly to counter Chris’ arguments and offer an opposing view. You see, that’s what we do – we offer opposing views so that our readers can make informed decisions.
Those offending articles, which made you so mad, are only 2 out of 8 currently featured on the front page. Those 8 represent only a third of the young magazine’s output to date. The other articles, which you didn’t bother to look at, take many different perspectives (all of them atheistic) to questions of interest to nonreligious people of all temperaments. But you are too busy dismissing all this out of hand, and throwing about suggestive slurs, too see any of this.
So what do I think after all this kerfuffle? I’m not sure you are so interested in discussion as you claim. You give no indication of wishing to entertain differing views to your own, as your astonishingly brazen dismissal of all the tens of thousands of words printed on TNH after reading three of them aptly demonstrates. I expect rather more from my interloctors than this. I have to say, no religious person I’ve directed to the site has ever been so closed-minded…
I think prig may be the correct word; it is clear you know you are right and can’t see how any could think differently. You really are quite patronizing and so is Chris – maybe that is why you are friends. It can’t possibly be you missing the point – no it has to be everyone else. Can your head fit through a normal sized door or do they need to be specially made?
Again with the ad hominem attacks! It seems like this isn’t a place to get reasoned discussion around important issues. You say I “can’t see how any[one] could think differently.” I think any fair-minded reader would accept I have done a thorough job in articulating where I agree and disagree with the people I’ve been discussing with. They will note I spend a paragraph outlining areas of agreement Paul W, and that I accept I may have judged his earlier posts to harshly. I also mention how I appreciate the most recent posts of those whom I disagree with on this point, and again I say how much I appreciate Paul W’s more extensive comments.
I don’t think these are the actions of someone who is either patronizing or who is incapable of engagin with those who think differently to them. People who are incapable of dealing with others’ differing viewpoints tend to rely on personal attacks and name-calling rather than dealing with the substantive issues raised. I don’t do that, and have not done that. You do. Go figure.
James, a lot of this comes down to context and recent history. In the past few months, there has been what seems an endless stream of “nice atheists” lining up to await their turn to unzip their pants and take a dump all over the bad “new atheists”. Ophelia published an article in New Humanist magazine not long ago on precisely this topic, in response to someone by the name of Caspar Melville, who happened to be a few places in line ahead of Chris Stedman.
In your response in #62 above, I still think you are dismissing Stedman’s use of Aslan’s words too lightly. When he says, “I’m not sure I’m in full agreement with Aslan”, almost any reader will take that to imply that Stedman agrees more or less with the gist (but perhaps not the details) of everything in Aslan’s statement that Stedman does not explicitly object to. And there’s a hell of a lot in Aslan’s statement that deserves strong criticism. Stedman’s failure to do so is, if not intentional, a huge blunder in a venue such as Huffington Post, and the commenters here were not wrong to react strongly to this.
Apologies for a very tardy comment.
It’s certainly the case that we atheists are quick to take affront whenever anyone suggests we’re doing more harm than good without adducing any evidence in support. James Croft is responding in like manner, but it’s hard to see exactly what, except our tone, he finds objectionable. It’s to his credit that he apologizes for Stedman’s link to Aslan’s piece (God exists, so why object?) but for the rest of it, as far as I can tell, all he’s doing is counterpunching, tu quoque at best.
We the godless have been footsoldiers in liberal causes since the Enlightenment — since forever, probably. We are slowly coming to the realization that we might better serve our cause by stating our case frankly and publicly, even if it frightens the horses. If it is essential that the horses must not under any circumstances be startled, the reasons why that is so ought to be clearly stated.
Different people have different objectives. I have no objection to Stedman’s efforts to cooperate with religious types nor his frustration at the fact that the evangelism of some other atheists may seem to him to be making that more difficult. And it certainly seems reasonable to me for him to ask them to stop. (He can also ask me to go jump off a bridge if he likes, but I probably won’t.) I also understand why others may feel that his attitude is annoying and ask him to stop. Indeed, if he ever achieved his “community of non-believers” with a common agenda and a team of “chaplains” to keep them in line then it would then be just another religion for us to have to get rid of. So I agree that his article is somewhat ridiculous and definitely “not helping”. But although what he quotes from Reza Aslan might reasonably be characterized as including “falsehoods” I am not clear how he has actively told them himself.
I appreciate you comment, Hamilton – their has been a rather frustrating smattering of sanctimoniousness directed towards what people call on here “Gnu Atheists”. I found Melville’s article trite and unhelpful. I hadn’t seen Ophelia’s response before you linked it, but I like it very much. It is an extremely perceptive and even quite a hopeful piece, and I thank you for linking it, and Ophelia for writing it.
There are in fact some very particular things I agree with in Ophelia’s piece. I agree that “Useful well-conducted dissent – accurate, careful, reasonable – is vital for getting at the truth, and that kind of dissent among atheists is of course all to the good.” I agree that ” in general it’s a good thing to be sceptical of one’s own commitments as well as other people’s.” I agree that “inter-atheist loyalty should [not] rule out reasoned dissent and criticism”. And I certainly agree that “Blog comments, especially on popular sites, can very quickly generate an atmosphere of mobbing, simply because most regular readers share a point of view.”
I think it is an extraordinary shame that, having stated so clearly a commitment to reasoned criticism, scepticism, and accurate and careful reporting, those ideals are present nowhere in this thread, particularly in Ophelia’s (astonishing) response to The New Humanism (in case you haven’t seen, she calls the enterprise “cowardly” and “shifty” on the basis of misreading three words – see #s 17, 29 and 57). bad Jim considers this “tu quoque”, but I would suggest this is to misunderstand either my critique or the term.
In #28, and above, I specifically cite value positions that Ophelia can be expected to hold on the basis of her published content on this site and elsewhere. I then suggest that what is happening here is inconsistent with those value positions. I am not defending Stedman (or myself) by saying “But Ophelia does this too!” My defence of Stedman is different – simply that he doesn’t articulate, in the article under discussion, the extreme versions of the views that some have attributed to him on here. I have quoted those extreme views and responded to them in #13 and #18 (where I take on the idea that doing interfaith work “nullifies atheism” – a point which has not received a satisfactory response, and question what is meant by “overt atheism” – again an unanswered query).
I am not, therefore, using the charge of hypocrisy to irrelevantly dismiss an unrelated argument, but to point out a damaging inconsistency between the stated values and actual practice of Ophelia’s posts. It is the hypocrisy which motivates my desire to present a strong defence, but it is not part of that defence, and thus no tu quoque arguments have been presented.
Finally, I wan to clarify, bad Jim, that I am not in a position to make an apology for Stedman’s linking of Aslan’s article, nor did I offer one. What I expressed was my feeling that it is not a good idea to link that article, and my distaste for that article, in the context of expressing my agreement with Paul W. on that point.
You end with the following:
I agree entirely. However, this is a response to a point nobody (not Stedman, not I) is making. It is characteristic of the discussion here that you simply assume that your discussant takes whatever position you think most objectionable, and then require they defend it. I think it is absolutely essential to be frank and public when speaking about atheism and Humanism. We shouldn’t dilute our message, or dumb it down, because others might find it distasteful. I agree with you – what did I say here that makes you think I do not? I’d really like to know.
James Croft,
There is no way I can divorce the Aslan quote from what Stedman himself is saying.
Stedman uses Aslan to establish the premises of his own argument by proxy.
The title of the article is ‘Evangelical Atheism’: Pushing for What?
Stedman starts in by talking about the pushiness controversy, anecdotally reinforcing the idea that atheists are perceived as being pushy. Then he uses Aslan, who “states the case well” to diagnose the problem more precisely—the large number of vocal atheists are perceived as pushy because they are pushy. They’re ignorant blowhards who don’t understand religion.
Then Stedman goes on to present a false choice: we can push for atheism, or make the world a better place.
Along the way he points out tht religious people (King, Gandhi, etc.) have done a lot of good, and attributed that to their religiosity. Stedman evidently thinks we should not only believe this, but agree that religion is not on the whole a bad thing for the world, so we shouldn’t be opposed. He chucklingly condescends to those who think that atheism is rather important, and important enough they’d like to disabuse people of their religious beliefs.
Given his false premises and his false choice, the answer is of course obvious: we should stop being so darned ignorantly and zealously pushy, and start trying to make the world a better place, like enlightened, tolerant religion-appreciating types like him, for whom atheism is neither intrinsically very important nor a means to a beneficial end.
Here’s his concluding paragraph:
Notice that Stedman never acknowledges the New Atheists reasons for being pushy and for thinking that accommodationism doesn’t actually work in the long run.
The article is based on false premises and is quite one-sided, with just enough acknowledgement of this or that—e.g., incomplete agreement with Aslan—to make it less obvious how one-sided it is.
It doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know. It doesn’t change our minds in the least.
It just annoys us by telling us we’re wrong and doing the wrong things, without acknowledge our actual goals and actual strategies.
Our goals are somewhat different, but overlapping. Our strategies are quite different, and not because we don’t care about about making the world a better place, but because we do care and we think that religion is one of the world’s biggest problems, which underpins many other problems.
If you think we should read this article and not be annoyed by its simplistic condescension, you must think we’re stupid.
That is why you haven’t gotten the reception you wanted here. Stedman was talking past us and talking down to us, starting from premises we consider false and using arguments we don’t consider valid, to tell us that we shouldn’t do what we do, and should be more like his chucklingly condescendeng self.
We’ve heard this sort of thing over and over and over again, and we have counterarguments we’ve made over and over and over again, for years on end.
Get a clue who you’re talking to.
You are certainly taking this very personally, when I have taken great pains to demonstrate that I don’t have any problem with your position in itself, and have noted numerous areas of staunch agreement.
You say “There is no way I can divorce the Aslan quote from what Stedman himself is saying.” Fine – I do not ask you too. I just found it interesting that you spent most of your response to me focussing on that quote ,and not on the article that Stedman himself wrote. As I’ve said, I really hate that Aslan piece in its entirety and wish Stedman wouldn’t quote it.
There’s another thing in your comment, Paul, that I think is worth investigating, because it seems to be at the root of some of the things you, Ophelia, bad Jim and others are taking offence at. You say “Stedman goes on to present a false choice: we can push for atheism, or make the world a better place.”
Now, it seems to me he expresses the decision in terms of priorities, while you might have interpreted his words in terms of a dichotomy – although I could be misinterpreting you, since your words are not absolutely clear to me. One might argue that one’s first priority should be pushing for the well-being of all people, and that one’s second priority might be encouraging everyone to be an atheist. One would then work toward both goals, but prioritize well-being over atheism if one has to make the choice. In other words, it is not clear to me that Stedman is suggesting that those who take a more confrontational line don’t care about making the world a better place, as you seem to have interpreted.
It seems to me, further, that to disagree with this position one might be put in the uncomfortable position of saying that sometimes human well-being takes second place to having the correct metaphysical commitments. My Humanism cautions me against taking such a tack. Or, otherwise, one might try to claim that a world without religion would necessarily be better than a world with religion. I’m not sure I would be willing to make that statement, as I can imagine plenty of non-religious dogmatic worldviews which would be quite as objectionable as religious ones.
So you can see, perhaps, why I don’t see anything too objectionable in Stedman’s framing of the task here?
Towards the end you say:
It seems to me you find slights where none exist. I don’t expect you to have any particular response at all to any article. I do expect certain standards of critique and discussion to be upheld, especially in a venue where others are excoriated for not living up to those standards. Your recent posts on this issue have done just that, and I am grateful to you for it.
I want to apologise for the frequent use of “too” when I want to type “to”. My keyboard has an odd propensity to double or triple letters…
James Croft – I do not “call the enterprise “cowardly” and “shifty”” – I said it strikes me that way. There’s a difference. Yes it’s a subtle difference, but you are lavishing a great deal of energy on rebuking me for bad “journalistic standards” and the like, so you should use some of that energy on your own standards of accuracy.
No name-calling here – just accusing everyone of being unreasoned, not using evidence, missing the point, using ad hominem attacks, lying, willfully misinterpreting and inhabiting a Bizarro World – but no name-calling.
James Croft,
I think you’re basically mistaken to say that Stedman isn’t saying that people shouldn’t be making serious critiques of religion.
By straw-manning the New Atheism as ignorant, pushy, and overzealous, and presenting a false choice between what the New Atheist are doing and “making the world a better place” like the people who don’t want to talk people out of their religions, he is pretty clearly saying that the New Atheists should basically stop what they’re doing now, and do instead what he’s doing.
What the New Atheists are actually doing is just seriously criticizing religion. That is what the controversy is all about. They just won’t shut up about religion being wrong. No matter how civilly they point out that religion is wrong, it’s interpreted as uncivil and a cruel attack on people’s precious identities.
The New Atheism isn’t actually particularly strident, unless persisting in bluntly criticizing religion is strident by definition.
That’s why we are utterly unimpressed by a lot of this vague talk about treating religious people with “respect.”
We do treat people with respect—we respect them enough not to humor them about their religious beliefs as much as we’re told to; we just don’t treat them like children who can’t handle the truth.
That is the main reason that “New” Atheists are perceived as striden or even militant—they have the temerity to challenge the status quo, and don’t treat religious opinions with the special deference people are used to.
That is precisely why Stedman quotes Aslan and says he states the case well.
Stedman is using Aslan to establish the straw man that Gnu Atheists are strident and uncivil and don’t have proper respect for religious people and a proper appreciation for religion’s beneficial aspects. Their concern for the truth or untruth of ideas is something he just quietly chuckles over, because they’re so naive and misguided.
That is the kind of smug bullshit we are well and truly sick of.
We’re told that we can of course criticize religion seriously and responsibly, and that maybe it’s even a good thing. But when we do, it is invariably portrayed as something else—an ignorant and/or mean-spirited personal attack on religious people, which is Not Helping
This is usually accompanied by a grating lecture about how we’d catch more flies with honey, which is pretty clearly historically false. Movements generally don’t succeed by playing nice by the standards of the status quo. They do it by going ahead and changing the standards of what is considered nice. To succeed, movements need radicals—or at least, people who are perceived as radicals by the mainstream. You don’t succeed by silencing the radicals.
A quick look at US politics over the last few decades shows that. The gay rights movement didn’t get any traction until after Stonewall, and didn’t really take off until people were radicalized by the AIDS crisis. Likewise the religious right didn’t come to prominence and power by being moderate and playing did it by constantly pushing the envelope and shifting the center of public opinion until previously radical ideas didn’t seem radical anymore.
The history of secularization in Sweden is also instructive. That’s the kind of thing were aiming for, and you don’t get there by being overly afraid of ruffling religious people’s feathers.
Overton and Rove know a few things about politics. (If you’re not familiar with the concept of Overton Windows, you should be.) One thing they know is that fears of backlash are often overrated, and that you don’t get where you want to go in the long run by playing to the center. Playing to the center is a losing strategy in the long run, because it does amount to appeasement and giving ground inch by inch.
Accommodationists make it sound like New Atheists aren’t sufficiently aware of the collateral damage they create by aleinating religious “moderates” or “liberals.”
Most of us do take that collateral damage very seriously, but still think it’s probably worth it in the long run.
If anybody is being politically naive, it’s the ones who are overly afraid of collateral damage and who think that playing to the center is the safe strategy. That is just not how public opinion actually works
That’s why we are so unimpressed by pieces like Stedman’s, that make seemingly reasonable arguments about playing nice and building coalitions and so on.
Not because we don’t understand the argument—who wouldn’t?—but because we know it’s wrong. We know more about public opinion and political strategy than the people who are always criticizing and condescending to us.
It gets really, really old.
Especially since we know for a fact that many of the people who do that—maybe not Stedman or you—are being dishonest. They know that there are strategic counterarguments, and important counterexamples, but act as though there are not.
That’s why Stedman’s false choice argument is so fucking annoying to us. We get it all the time, and we’ve refuted it every time, but our critics just keep making it as though we’d never pointed out its very severe problems.
Either Stedman is clueless about Overton Windows, which makes him utterly unqualified to condescend to us as he does, or he’s dishonest, and playing on his audiences naivete. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s the former, but either way, it’s really annoying.
We are sick unto death of Monday morning quarterbacks who clearly don’t know what they’re talking about or choose to misrepresent the issues.
James,
(My last comment was written before I saw your comment that preceded it. Sorry if that confuses anything.)
Sorry, I think the Aslan quote is critical to the Stedman piece. It sets up the false premises very solidly, and that has a big effect on the significance and plausibility of what he says later. Context matters a whole lot, and that is the context whether you like it or not.
If you detest the Aslan quote, you should detest Stedman’s use of it, too. Saying that you personally wish he would stop using it doesn’t change the fact that he did use it, or the fact of how he used it. If you’ve expressed that sentiment to him, and explained it well, it makes it worse that he repeatedly chooses to use that quote.
Given that he says Aslan states the case well, and the case Aslan states is a bunch of false, exaggerated, or slanted assertions, Stedman is fully responsible for what it says.
If you think that the Aslan quote doesn’t state the case well, say so.
Then acknowledge that Stedman was straw-manning the New Atheists, and making them seem more ignorant and strident than they are.
How hard is that?
If you can’t do that, something is seriously wrong. I have to guess that you too agree that Aslan states the case fairly well, though maybe as well as Stedman thinks—your agreement with Aslan is just somewhat less complete.
On one hand, I agree that Stedman overtly talks about priorities. On the other hand, he also states it as an issue of a choice, and the Aslan quote is entirely relevant to understanding what kind of choice he’s presenting it as. So is the part about chuckling at the idea of wanting to change people’s minds about religion.
I think it’s reasonable to interpret him as saying that his straw-man new atheists aren’t doing anything that’s particularly constructive. Given that he talks about how religious people have led political change, and chuckles at the idea of debunking religion, he’s really not just saying it’s a subtle matter of priorities.
He’s falsely making it out to be a no-brainer.
And please, don’t get all literalistic on me, about what he strictly literally says or doesn’t. It’s not that kind of piece. It’s not a philosophical argument, or a subtle strategic argument. He’s painting a picture, to support an emotional appeal, and he’s entirely responsible for that picture.
Look at his conclusion:
Let’s ask ourselves: What are we pushing for? Does he really think that the New Atheists he straw-mans haven’t asked themselves that, and acted accordingly? Does he think they haven’t written about it repeatedy and at length? If he does, he should say so, explicitly. Instead he makes it obvious that he thinks they haven’t—he chuckles and condescends, and tells them they should think about it. (Presumably, if they’re reasonable and well-meaning, they’ll come to the same conclusion he has, for the oh-so-obvious reasons he’s given. And if they don’t, they’re not reasonable, or not well-meaning like his chuckling self.)
This is just dishonest, isn’t it? Don’t all of the New Atheist books present the religion issue as vitally important, precisely because of its pervasive effects on human well-being? Did he miss the fact that Harris’s new book is titled The Moral Landscape, for example? Does he not know that the whole book is about exactly that, and it’s what his earlier books sketched and led up to? Doesn’t he know that all the New Atheists demonstrate similar concerns, and cite them as motivations?
(Funny how he cites some leaders’ religious motivations, but doesn’t acknowledge that New Atheists are critically concerned with morality and others’ well being, and cite that as a major motivation if not their primary motivation. I guess that just wouldn’t fit with his frame.)
One could, as many accommodationists often do. They are wrong. They are not independent goals.
Putting it that way is like asking whether to simply “prioritize” somebody’s physical well-being, or their mental well-being, or the happiness. It’s stupid. It’s pretty hard to be well-adjusted and happy if you’re dead, for example.
Likewise, it’s hard to make truly moral decisions if you think your primary moral function is to save nonexistent souls for your nonexistent god, or if you think that God somehow told you that your daughter’s sexuality is so dangerous you should cut her naughty bits off.
A major controversy about the New Atheism is about whether atheism is good for people, or not so bad for them, such that the New Atheists aren’t being irresponsible in pushing for atheism, or perhaps doing the best thing they can possibly do for others, by exposing them to useful and helpful ideas. If religion is a major cause of a lot of serious problems, then maybe eroding the influence of religion is the most effective way of helping people.
Given what all of the prominent New Atheists have clearly said about this, to present it as a simple choice of priorities is ridiculous, if not simply dishonest. It’s entirely question-begging.
It’s like saying that people arguing about for the morality of progressive taxes should go work in soup kitchens if they really want to help people. It’s just dumb, dumb, dumb.
No, that’s not what you would do if you want to maximize helping people. If one activity is just way better at helping people than another, you’d put all of your do-gooding into that, and any time put into the other would mostly be a waste.
I think that’s an intuition that will come to mind for many people reading Stedman’s piece. He’s making the New Atheism look so bad, and “helping people” by interfaith work look so darned helpful that it would almost be a sin not to prioritize the latter way above the former, if you’re a good person who really wants to help people.
Perhaps not, but that’s not really the issue, is it?
He’s painting a simplistic picture where helping people through interfaith work is just more helpful than, say, promoting atheism, and that if you want to help people, you should obviously go help people, instead of spouting ignorant and unfair things about religion.
(I’ll continue in another comment… the formatting software is acting weird and I’m afraid of losing this.)
Ophelia:
I note you’ve gone back to addressing me using my first and last name – James is absolutely fine! Thank you for clarifying your comments regarding TNH. I do indeed see the distinction you are raising and will be more careful to address it in the future. It was not entirely clear in #17 you seem to shift from the “it strikes me” mode into a more declarative statement in the next sentence:
If you now accept that it is not “shifty and cowardly”, but that it merely struck you to be so (and you now recognize this as an inaccurate or impartial “striking”), then I appreciate that clarification, and would be interested to know what you actually think of the site.
Michael:
I note again that you do not rise above the level of the personal. In contrast to calling someone a “prig”, I think my (in my view accurate) characterization of the quality of responses to my criticisms is hardly objectionable. You will notice, if you read carefully, that the section of mine you quote does not call anyone a name or indeed refer to anyone specific at all. It was merely a description of the sorts of replies that were being made (and continue to be made by some) to my posts. Feel free to question that description, but it is most certainly not name-calling. I would point out too that I absolutely never accused anyone of “lying”, or of “wilfully misinterpreting”. That is just another misinterpretation.
Paul:
First, I agree with an awful lot of what you are saying, and I don’t feel the need to defend positions I haven’t taken. I agree, for example, when you say:
If that were what was happening in this case I’d be the first to decry it, but I don’t see that it is. I understand that it might be a common phenomenon (though you cite no instances), but that is not what I see happening in this case.
I think your general historical point about the necessity of radicals and the requirement to ruffle feathers and challenge the status-quo is well-made, though you make rather sweeping and unsophisticated claims about the gay rights movement (something I have a very personal interest in knowing about and am myself active in – as you might be, I don’t know. If you are interested in my activism, you can go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM-fxPrSZZ8 (evidence!)).
A more nuanced appreciation of seminal figures like Harvey Milk, for instance, would recognize that while he was certainly unafraid to ruffle feathers, and went further than many power-players in the gay community thought he should go, he also constructed unlikely coalitions with, for instance, unions, who had little history of gay rights activism. I see this tactic – open, honest statement of who you are and what you will not stand for, along with intelligent coalition-building with those who might traditionally be opposed to you – to be the model I would like for the atheist and Humanist movement. So I see myself as trying to take the strongest aspects from both the “camps” that are talked about here, and fashioning something better than either. That requires I recognize not only that some of your critiques of Stedman are valid (I’ve already weighed in on what I think of the Aslan piece), but also that some of the critiques are flawed (I think I’ve been clear on that too).
I note too that you again suggest that Stedman is “presenting a false choice between what the New Atheist are doing and “making the world a better place” like the people who don’twant to talk people out of their religions”. I just don’t read him in this way, for the reasons I explained at length in #70. I don’t see that you’ve said anything which should trouble the position I take there.
It’s this false-dichotomizing which I want to point out most forcefully here, and which both parties are to some extent engaging in: either you are an “overt atheist” who doesn’t get involved in interfaith work, which would “nullify atheism”, or you are an “accommodationist” who never speaks out to criticize religion. It’s a very simplistic view and it perverts the discussion, which is why I spend so much time trying to defeat it!
James,
Don’t take it amiss that people refer to you by first-and-last names. It’s a habit developed to avoid confusion.
E.g., we sometimes have 3 “Paul”s in a thread around here, and I appreciate people habitually using full handles.
Even so, as “Paul W.” am frequently confused with “Paul” and “Dave W.”, which is why I often put in the “OM” at the end, to make my name more distinctive.
James, the front page still strikes me that way. It still conveys, to me, a strong whiff of pandering; of treacly religious and quasi-religious language that is aimed at mollifying believers and “spiritual” types and anyone else who dislikes unadorned atheism. I do not like it. It is not my kind of thiing. I think it is, at least, sentimental and slushy.
Interfaith interfaith interfaith, mindful, holy, heart of Buddhism. The only link under “other sites we enjoy” is to Tikkun. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s not a bit shifty and cowardly, maybe all that has nothing to do with wanting to avoid the opprobrium constantly heaped on unabashed atheists. If so then it’s just straightforwardly faithy, like Tikkun, and I still don’t like it.
Falsehood – the state of being untrue; a lie.
James – in comment 73 Michael directly quoted you saying “In this other world I seem to have entered, ad-hominem attacks based on misinterpretations and falsehoods are the rule”. It is therefore absurd for you to say in reply (#76) “I would point out too that I absolutely never accused anyone of “lying”, or of “wilfully misinterpreting”. That is just another misinterpretation.”
Absurd, and worse than absurd.
I would point out that what you have said, James, is that “falsehoods are the rule” here. In other words everyone who has posted on this thread (apart from you) tells lies most of the time.
James,
You accused me, and Ophelia, of being either ignorant or a liar in your first post. I responded by pointing out that my characterization of Matt Nisbet was fully accurate and stood by my points. You subsequently ignored that, without acknowledging that you were mistaken (or refuting my description of Nisbet) and frankly that annoyed me. I was gonna let it go, it wouldn’t be the first nor the last time I’d been called “stupid or a liar” in big words and not gotten an apology. But your continued passive aggressive “I’ve taken great pains to not make this personal” at others is pissing me off. No, you made this personal in your first post here, if you want to apologize (a real one, not “I’m sorry if you were insulted by what I said”) now that’s fine, but let’s drop the sanctimony. The only person you’re fooling is yourself.
On Stedman, I think he misrepresented “New Atheist” views in order to position himself as the “Reasonable Moderate”, or “Very Serious Person”, as opposed to those unreasonable atheists who won’t work with religiously different people on shared values. It’s a strawman New Atheist, it’s common as hell coming from people trying to ingratiate themselves to religious people, and it’s annoying.
Michael:
Yes. Those are two different things. there are untruths which are not lies.
Ophelia:
This is a critique I can actually work with. I think the fact that you don’t like the site, that it’s not your kind of thing, is fine! We get that a lot, believe me. But we don’t do what we do in opposition to or instead of other atheist voices. People who want The Reason Project or RDNet have places to go. We want to provide something for people who feel the need for the sorts of community that religions often provide, who want the space to ask existential questions, and seek somewhere to explore their experience of this life with others. If this sounds “religiousy” that is probably because we seek to fulfil some of the human needs that religions tend to fulfil in a nonreligious way. We think that’s absolutely in line with both atheism and Humanism, and strategically complimentary to New Atheism (since it provides a place for people to go once they leave their religious communities behind).
We get letter from lots of people, after they find our site, that suggest their path to atheism has been eased in knowing that, being an atheist, they need not give up community, some sense of ritual etc. I think that’s very productive, but it is certainly not for everyone. And we are not “pandering”. We are trying to satisfy people’s actual needs in a honestly atheistic way. We are very “overt” about it. Why Tikkun is our only link I have no idea – thank you for bringing that to my attention!
Paul:
Well now we’re cross-posting – predictable! I feel it is unlikely we will find agreement over the substantive issue, and I think that’s fine – it is in the nature of written pieces that they will have multiple reasonable interpretations. I think you give too much weight to the Aslan piece and it is clear to you that this colors the whole argument. I tend to bracket the fact that I disagree with that section and see if I agree with the rest. What I will do is clarify where I agree with you, in the hope of making this constructive for us both. I agree with all these things:
Aslan does not make a defensible case. The article sucks, and should not be cited by anyone who wishes to give a fair shake to New Atheists (or atheists in general).
It was and is a mistake for Stedman to use that article to establish his premise.
This weakens the argument significantly.
It can be interpreted as setting up a straw man, which is not a fair practice
It is of inherent benefit to, ultimately, to work toward a world in which no one holds an insupportable religious belief system
Chris should be clearer about the nature of his disagreements with people like Aslan if he wants the support of this segment of the atheist community
I’m aware this will not satisfy you, but it should at least make it clear how much common ground there is beneath our feet!
James – okay. We’ve reached agreement! Qué sorpresa. It’s not a dodge or framing, it’s what you (you plural) want to do. I withdraw the imputation.
My it’s getting difficult to respond to everything. Let’s get this falsehood thing out of the way. If I say there are a lot of falsehoods being bandied about here, that doesn’t mean I think people are necessarily lying in the sense that they are intentionally spreading falsehoods. What I mean by that is that people are misinterpreting things in a way that compromises the legitimacy of their interpretation. The interpretation is false, but it isn’t a lie. It’s just wrong. That’s what I was trying to express.
themann1086:
I’ve read and re-read your first post, and I still don’t see where you limit your critique to Matt Nisbet. Am I missing something? As for your subsequent clarification, I simply didn’t see it until you pointed it out. My apologies. There are a lot of posts on this thread an I missed that short one. The particular issue I took with your response was that it suggested that someone was arguing in favour of “servility” to religious folks. I don’t see anything like that in the Nisbet article. What are you referring to specifically?
James,
(continuing where I left off, not yet responding to the intervening comment)
As I think I said above, I don’t think that’s quite the issue. Intentionally or not, he’s making it sound like they don’t care, or don’t care enough, or are clearly Doing It Wrong. That to me seems like a false assumption, and it’s key to the significance of his thesis, and how to interpret his “advice.”
Maybe it’s just regrettably ambiguous, but if so, he really blew it by framing things with the Aslan quote and reinforcing it with his simplistic one-sided comments, chuckles, etc.
Depending on what you mean by that, of course it wouldn’t, or of course it would.
If it makes my kid unhappy to learn that there’s no Santa—or if I think she’ll blab to other kids and get in hot water for it—I might delay breaking the news for a while.
On the other hand, at some point she needs to ditch that metaphysical commitment—she needs a more realistic ontology of what kinds of beings she does and doesn’t deal with. If that makes her unhappy in the short run, that’s unfortunate, but it’s too important a subject to remain deluded about.
How so? I really don’t know what you mean, or how you think it’s different from my position, or others’ here.
Are you saying something weak, like my concerns about disabusing my child about Santa too soon, or something stronger, like an epistemic relativism that makes it wrong to think you’re right about such things and that others are mistaken?
I’m a humanist. (Although maybe not a Humanist or not a New Humanist.) My humanism tells me that truth is pretty important, and usually beneficial, and that lack of truth (e.g., about God and his preferences) causes a lot of suffering in a way that makes it moral to publicly disagree with the majority about the value of religion.
Who said anything about necessarily? I think that democracy could turn out worse than monarchy, but given what I know, I make the educated guess that defending democratic ideals is a Good Thing.
Likewise, I make the guess that debunking religion is a good thing to do. I could be wrong, but so what? Don’t you base your priorities and strategies on similar informed guesswork? Isn’t that what a humanist has to do?
No. You really need to make it much clearer. Why do you think your Humanism tells you something different than what our humanism tells us? And is that a basic moral difference, or a strategic one based on different guesses about likely outcomes of your actions?
You seem to be worried that if we dramatically erode the acceptance and influence of religion, Bad Things May Happen, e.g. like what happened in Communist Russia or Cambodia.
It’s not that I don’t think that’s a legitimate concern—the likely consequences of people accepting different ideas are exactly what’s most important.
I just think that if the US became a lot less religious, it’s far more likely to end up like Denmark or Sweden than like communist Russia or Cambodia.
Given that I think the likely good outcomes outweigh the bad ones, my humanist values tell me that promoting atheism is a moral good. I might be wrong, and it might turn out badly, but I have to call them as I see them and act accordingly. What else can a humanist do?
Or maybe you’re worried that if we go around trying to erode religiosity directly, we’ll get more backlash than positive change. Again, educated guesses vary; what can we do but think about it a lot—and we have—and go with ours.
(Aargh, the formatting’s getting wonky again, so I’ll continue in yet another comment…)
My major objection to the articles is they imply that only one correct way for atheists to “make the world a better place” exists and that is the one employed by the author. The problem is he has only ever used one approach so he has no means to evaluate whether it is better or worse than any other approach. He has no way of assessing the efficacy of what he is doing. How does he know the world is now a better place?
If the author had said “here is an approach I have used and it has worked for me” without saying that atheists taking a different approach are not helping. He did not need to do that and frankly he presents no evidence that they are not helping. He made the contrast – he suggested the dichotomy.
Oh goodness there is just so much here! It;s worthy of a real discussion in a real place. There’s a couple of places where I’m not sure you’re receiving the intended meaning of my comments. When I talk about establishing priorities, and what my Humanism leads me to think (I admit this a clunky way of phrasing things), all I mean is that there are conceivable situations where making it priority number one to get rid of religious faith, and only priority number 2 to promote human well-being, could lead to quite terrible outcomes. Let’s say, for instance (I’m only offering this as a theoretical illustration of the principle behind my argument), we decide to eradicate religious belief by killing all the religious people. That satisfies priority 1 and, since priority 2 is subordinate, it doesn’t contradict our value-system.
I would rather say that human well-being and flourishing (and here I mean a much fuller notion than simple “happiness”) should be our number one priority, always, and this will lead to and include challenging religious belief. But I;d want to put the priorities that way round (and I read Chris as advocating that position).
When I talked about whether getting religious belief out of the way would “necessarily” make a better world or not I was simply articulating a possible position consistent to what seemed to be your thesis. I wasn’t suggesting anyone actually holds that position. I’m not worried in the slightest about Cambodia-esque outcomes.
I agree that promoting atheism is a moral good, which is why I seek to promote it. But it is a moral good because of an antecedent commitment to human welfare. Stedman is saying, in my view, let’s not forget that the ultimate goal is human welfare and not the eradication of religion for its own sake.
I think we actually agree here pretty much entirely.
And some are reinforcing it here. I’m trying to break it down from both ends, you see…
My point is if one is going to set goals, then you need to define terms like well-being, better place, religion, etc. If you don’t know what these mean, then how can you accomplish anything? Since Chris states humanism is a religion, he certainly wouldn’t make eliminating religion a top priority.
There are at least two different arguments going on in this whole “accommodationism” debate.
There is “accommodationism” on the inter-personal/community level, and really that just seems to be about tolerance – i.e. you don’t be unpleasant to somebody just because you think they made a philosophical mistake (assuming that’s all they’ve done, and they’re not trying to kill homosexuals or anything).
And there is “accommodationism” in the sense of whether or not faith and reason are compatible, or related, or complementary, or whatever, or perhaps whether scientific findings, or scientific method, have any bearing on religious beliefs in particular or religious faith in general, or are irrelevant. Can you consistently be both genuinely and sincerely religious and genuinely and sincerely scientific? And if so, how and to what extent? Should someone who holds to the standard of scientific inquiry apply that standard to their religious ideas? And if they should, what would happen if they did?
Seems to me there’s quite a lot of unpacking to be done here.
But fundamentally, clearly an accommodationist in the latter sense could or should be perfectly capable of getting along with, or working with, or collaborating with, or living with, or having sex with, or whatever with, religionists. There is no necessity to slide from an uncompromising position on those questions, into uncompromising inter-personal hatred or prejudice.
Seems to me that the arguments we hear slide all over the place around the fault lines.
Dan
Sorry, “accommodationist in the latter sense” obviously ought to be “non-accommodationist in the latter sense”.
Dan
See? It’s not so bad here after all, is it! :- )
I think you make a good point Dan, and that the distinction there is important.
Good grief…..do atheists do that!
The tricky part is learning how to misinterpret things in a way that does not compromise the legitimacy of your interpretation. Only a top-rank bull-goose bodhisattva is capable of that.
James, I’m not really buying what you’re saying about only accusing people here of saying falsehoods, as a rule, rather than lying.
You have clearly been moralistically condemning people’s standards of behavior, not just whether they happen to be mistaken.
If you only meant that there are a lot of misconceptions flying around, you wouldn’t have been so indignant and talked the way you did about standards. You’d have said something like “I think there’s some miscommunication here, and a lot of people have important misconceptions about X and Y. Maybe I can clear that up…”
It seems pretty clear to me that you were implying that people here—apparently most of us, though you excepted me—were spouting falsehoods as a rule because they choose to, either willfully or at least due to culpable negligence.
I think you were mistaken, and more mistaken than you probably realize yet.
I think you are seriously misreading the Stedman piece. He says a lot of things that you can’t defend, and it’s not incidental stuff—it’s the gist of the piece.
Unlike you, he is clearly contrasting his approach with the approach of the large numbers of loudmouthed falsehood-spouting pushy New Atheists who do not appreciate that religion is often a good thing, and who criticize religion invalidly, and don’t work with progressive religious types. He criticizes their hubris, their shockingly naive “literalism”, their “intolerance,”
He is also clearly contrasting his well-meaning priorities with theirs, which are clearly either not nearly as well-meaning, or are rather stupidly ineffective.
Along the way, he casually tosses in a bunch of spurious claims and expressions of attitude that make it clear that this is exactly what he’s doing—and that he really does mostly agree with Aslan.
He chuckles at the kind of “evangelizing” New Atheists do.
He emphasizes how New Atheists are trying to “dismantle religious communities” because they have no communities of their own.
He casts them as tearing down bridges.
He doesn’t just say this sort of thing once. He says it systematically, all through the piece. While he disgrees with Aslan a little, he confirms Aslan’s view a lot, with his own words.
You can quibble about how to interpret his talk of priorities, but the metaphors he chooses make it clear he’s not talking about subtle strategizing of compatible priorities, e.g., promoting atheism as a means to an end vs. promoting those ends more directly but perhaps less effectively.
He says we’re at a crossroads. We must choose between these goals.
We can either choose to promote human welfare like well-meaning noble people like Gandhi and Stedman, or we can keep at what we’re doing: being chuckle-worthy hubristic, intolerant, naively literalistic, stupidly reductionistic, clearly unjustifiably pushy types who quite understandably alienate people because they’re all about dismantling other people’s communities and tearing down the bridges.
More succinctly, we’re stupid flaming assholes.
It’s a hit piece, James, start to finish. We’re the whipping boys he uses to make himself look cooler.
To the extent that you agree with us—and from what you’ve said, you largely do—you’re a stupid flaming asshole too!
That’s okay! We like that! Welcome to the club; there’s refreshments in the corner.
From Nisbet’s piece:
As I said before, Nisbet is lying, and he has a consistent history of doing so to smear outspoken atheists. Further on in the piece:
In other words, secular organizations should not affiliate with outspoken atheists. There’s no other conclusion to be gained except that atheists should shut-up and not rock the boat so that we can “work together” with religious allies. I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of being servile.
James,
Given that I think that Stedman’s piece was clearly a hit piece—at the very least, I think you should agree, rather unfair in a way that I think should be pretty obvious to us here by now—I don’t think Ophelia’s response to it was inappropriate.
She was right, and she knew she didn’t have to spell things out for most people here. We’re very familiar with that kind of thing, and know the arguments backwards and forwards. Unlike HuffPo, where Stedman published his piece, this is just a personal POV blog, for a fairly select audience that’s mostly knowledgeable about such things, and Ophelia has the right to write for her audience. She doesn’t have the time or the obligation to explain everything every time. Her usual readers can fill in the blanks—we don’t need it explained to us how Stedman was being inappropriately and simplistically condescending to us.
Consider Glen Beck’s recent pronouncements about how evolution is silly and he’s never seen a half monkey / half man walking around, and consider Jerry Coyne’s response to that.
Jerry basically just pointed and laughed. He called Beck a moron and moved on. He didn’t go into detail about why it’s stupid to expect a half-man half-monkey to be walking around now, in light of evolution, and even stupider to the lack of such an observation as a debunking of evolution. Pretty much all of Jerry’s readers know all that already, and he literally wrote the book on the subject, so it would have been a waste of effort.
That name-calling (“Beck is a Moron”) was not inappropriate, because while Beck is not literally a moron—he’s crazy, and not particularly bright but not particularly stupid—he was saying stupid things, and calling him a moron was an entirely appropriate nonliteral expression of disgust at his irresponsible smug ignorance.
Stedman isn’t nearly as bad or as completely wrong as Glen Beck, but I think a similar principle does apply.
People here are excruciatingly familiar with the kind of smug, condescending, and superficial advice Stedman was giving about how the ignorant, irresponsible, and destructive New Atheists should change their ways, and basically start acting like nice, responsible, well-meaning, and constructive grownups. (Yawn.)
If Ophelia had explained her dismissive attitude in the original post, for newbies, it would have been very redundant and likely relatively boring for most of us. We’re mostly veterans of the Accommodationism Wars, and many of us are veterans of the Framing Wars before that. We’ve seen something very much like this every week or two for literally years and years now, and for good reasons We Are Not Impressed.
Given that this is a personal POV blog for a particular kind of audience, I think you should have been more sensitive to clues scattered through Ophelia’s post, and less quick to criticize her and her usual readers in the way that you did.
Notice Ophelia’s opening sentences:
From that, I think it should be clear what kind of response she’s giving—she’s saying this is more of the same, and the sarcastic enthusiasm about it implies that she doesn’t find it particularly interesting or useful; it’s the same useless stuff we have already dealt with many times.
If you didn’t want to go off half-cocked, you should have inferred that she’s writing for people who’ve seen this sort of thing before, way too often, and were not impressed. She’s appealing to shared knowledge among most of her readers, and you should not assume that the shared knowledge is mistaken, and started accusing people of responding inappropriately.
It would have been much better to politely ask why people consider this old hat and obviously worthy of a snarky dismissal—what sort of thing they think it is, that they’ve seen too much of before, and what is systematically wrong with that sort of thing.
Basically I think you made a classic blog newbie mistake—assuming that if something is not obvious to you, but seems obvious to the old hands, the old hands must be wrong.
Sometimes, in that kind of situation, you are right and they are wrong—the blog regulars may be a group of people who agree on something false.
Still, if you don’t immediately display a subtle and sophisticated understanding of the issues they think are obviously important, without them needing to mention them, you will almost inevitably be perceived as going off half-cocked and assuming that the regulars are not only wrong but likely stupid.
In this case, it seems to me, you didn’t come here showing an understanding of our concerns—in particular, why we think pieces like Stedman’s are representative of a common and unfair pattern of stigmatization of outspoken atheists by less outspoken atheists, in which we get used as whipping boys, by unfair and false contrast, to curry favor with religious liberals.
Rightly or wrongly, we are pretty sure there is clearly such a pattern, and that Stedman’s piece does clearly fit right into it. (E.g., few weeks ago, John Shook of CFI did the same thing in a piece for HuffPo.) That was all implied by Ophelia’s opening sentences, so you were given fair warning that we are pretty confident of this kind of assessment, and that we think that we have a lot of relevant examples and experience to back it up.
Another way in which I think you took a misstep was by being what’s considered “priggish” by local standards.
You didn’t understand the local standards of civility before you started talking about standards of civility and criticizing others on that basis.
Gnu Atheists blogs tend to have a certain culture and attitude toward insults that is different from many other blogs that overtly value conventional “civility.”
It’s not that we don’t value civility, but that we value substance over style. An insult is just an insult, not necessarily an ad hominem—there’s a huge difference.
A direct or even crude insult is not necessarily worse than a seemingly civil one—often it’s better.
So, for example, I think that Stedman’s piece was tremendously insulting to New Atheists. He didn’t call us stupid flaming assholes in so many words—he did something much worse.
Stedman libeled us, substantively. Not in the legal sense—I don’t think it would be actionable—but in a moral sense. (He didn’t name names, or make quite clear exactly what he meant.) He made a whole slew of actual truth claims about what we think and what we do and what we value that are a bit vague but mostly false and damaging to our reputation.
IMHO that’s worse than simply calling us stupid flaming assholes in so many words. An insult is just an insult, but serious contentful falsehoods are defamatory.
That kind of defamation is just a sneaky way of insulting people that’s worse because you’re more likely to get away with it. I’m sure many of HuffPo’s readers would perceive Stedman as the nice guy, and us as not only stupid flaming assholes, but as a concrete danger in ways that confirm their suspicions about us. We are wantonly destructive, dismantling precious communities without offering anything in return that’s worth more than a chuckle, and tearing down bridges to make the damage permanent.
Beck is moron.
Stedman, to the extent that he portrays us as stupid flaming assholes—and that is quite an extent—is a stupid flaming asshole.
I thank you for both your substantial posts, Paul. I note that the sort of comments now being made about the piece are evidence-based and very different to the simplistic and inaccurate dismissals which characterized earlier posts. To that extent, the discussion here has improved immeasurably from the opening post and the start of the thread, in which words like “evasive”, “closeted” (an interesting way to describe an openly gay writer) and “secretive” were used to smear the opposing viewpoint. This makes me very happy that I posted what I posted, and with what has been achieved collectively by those responding.
Contrary to the implication in your post (although I thank you for the advice), I entirely understand the history which you describe – I’ve been doing this for a long time, too, read many of the same things you read, and have many of the same concerns. I understand, too, the desire to speak to one’s own troops, to fire them up through snarky dismissals of opposing views. I understand that local norms operate in different online spaces just as in other spaces (I have a paper under consideration right now which addresses just this issue!). So I post carefully and with consideration, and I pick my battles.
I thought, and I still think, your response, and the response of many here, is unfairly blinkered, focusing far too much on the Aslan piece and too little on Stedman’s actual position. When I read it, the following statements jump out at me:
Now, I can absolutely see how some aspects of the article frustrate or perhaps even infuriate some people here. I am at the same time capable of seeing there are many things in the article which I agree with, and that I think we should all agree with. Do we really want the dialogue to become a simplistic “Us Vs. Them”, eliding crucial distinctions between people of different faiths and denominations? Do we want to be equal-opportunity opponents of all faith-based claims, or focus particularly on the ones which infringe upon human liberty (this is not an exact characterization of what Stedman says, I realize, but I agree with the spirit which animates his words)? Do we really want to engage disrespectfully with others, in a way which alienates them, and would it further our cause to do so? Do we want to be a community defined by what we lack, rather than what we have, what we’re against, rather than what we’re for (this last is not just a danger but currently a reality, in my experience)?
I recognize, and have said so repeatedly, that the way this message has been conveyed (particularly the use of the Aslan piece) unfairly mischaracterizes some or many of the people who think more like you do. I recognize too that many might disagree with my answers to the questions above. But regardless of your answer to those questions, they are legitimate questions, and deserve to be raised, and are worth talking about in a respectful and considerate manner. That is what I came here to promote, and I think the course of the conversation has demonstrated it to be possible, despite (or perhaps because of) some sharpness along the way (as much on my part as anyone else’s).
It seems to me that what you have just posted is far more valuable to all of us – those who think like you, and those who think like Stedman, and those who think like me (and I tend to think like you and like Stedman) – than the initial responses by Ophelia and others. Whether it seems like a “newbie” discussion or not, it is a responsible discussion, and it benefits us all. When, instead, people respond with straw-men of their own (take a look all the way back to #13 to see the specific things I was responding to), the discussion isn’t furthered one jot. You may well say that the purpose of this blog isn’t to further the discussion, but to amuse and incite people who already think the same way. Fine, but I think that’s an awful waste – particularly when the writing’s as sharp and funny as Ophelia’s. What we’ve just done, together, is much more exciting. Long may it continue.
Hmmm. I’ve never commented here, in fact I’m not even a regular reader, but I’ve had just enough to drink and find James Croft just annoying enough that I will comment. Who is this “we” you all keep talking about? Are you talking about skeptics, or humanists, or simply atheists? I’m an atheist and a skeptic, but I am not a part of any organized groups even in these areas. I just don’t believe in any gods, and try not to believe in anything without solid evidence. I doubt I’d agree with most of you about many things, and although I had never heard of him before, I’m quite certain that I want no part of James Croft’s plans for saving humanity. He’s clearly an asshole. Is everyone else here part of some organization, or something? If not, who gives a shit what all these fucking idiots say about how you should behave? Is there grant money at stake? I don’t get it.
Allienne,
Well since you’re not a regular reader, you probably won’t see this, but I’ll reply anyway. No, “we” doesn’t refer to any organization. I think it usually means either atheists (or rather that subset of them that is not embarrassed by its own atheism) or regular readers. Some of the time it probably just means the participants in this particular discussion.
Taking “who gives a shit” to mean “why give a shit” – it’s because all these fucking idiots are poisoning the well. What people say about how everyone should behave does make a difference to how everyone feels able to behave, so it really is worth defending better ideas about how everyone should behave. The fucking idiots in question are the ones who publish in widely-read outlets.
I gladded I spurred Allienne to make her first comment! Welcome to the discussion. The “we” I am involved in, for my own part, is the Humanist Graduate Community and the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, where we strive to articulate a positive, naturalistic, (unashamedly) atheistic worldview which seeks to make positive change for humankind. If you’re ever in Cambridge and want to visit the Humanist Center I would be happy to give you a tour – and that goes for anyone who’s posted in this thread.
If this guy were any more self important he’d have kwok as a face book friend.