Pharisee? Moi?
And now, for a different take on the whole ‘why are you telling atheists to shut up when we’ve barely had time to open our mouths?’ question, we can consider how these things should be done. With a little panache, that’s how.
[F]reethought thrives on contrarian impulses. The whole “Who says so?” attitude of many secular humanists leads to purist rigor, one-upsman-ship, even soteriology: The God I don’t believe in is bigger than the God you don’t believe in. The harm religion did me was more serious than the harm religion did you. The full-frontal unbelief I represent is truer and purer than the unbelief you’re espousing. Reason saves, faith enslaves. (That’s pretty good: try it on a coffee mug.) In the past, I’ve used the word “Pharisaic” humanism to describe this posture, but because the culprits don’t know who the Pharisees were the allusion has not become…code.
That’s pretty funny, and it’s not made any less so by the fact that I can’t entirely repudiate the picture.
I once repeated a Woody Allen joke in front of a heavily atheist audience, having just told it the week before at a local, liberal temple. “I don’t believe in an afterlife but just in case I’m taking a change of underwear.” My Jewish audience was tickled pink. My atheist friends looked at me as though to say, “Are you saying you do believe in an afterlife”? Twice-born atheists can make an outsider feel as unwelcome in the Temple of Bright as a secular humanist would feel in a tent meeting down in Tuscaloosa. (You know, where Groucho says they take the elephants because it’s easier to remove the ivory there).
Well I can entirely repudiate that picture, because that joke and that kind of joke always makes me laugh. But the whole thing is still pretty funny. If only all critics had that much wit.
I wasn’t all that amused, although I’ll grant that Hoffmann is a vastly more entertaining writer than the deadly dull and deadly serious tut-tutters who usually launch sweeping, evidence-free broadsides against atheists. But I didn’t think his wit did all that much to ameliorate the fact that his post was very much another sweeping, evidence-free broadside against atheists.
In any case, I think we’ll discover how much of a sense of humor Dr. Hoffmann actually has. His blog is moderated, and I’ll be curious to see if my comment appears. This is what I wrote:
A sweeping and rather insulting statement without a shred of evidence (or even a cherry-picked example) on offer would seem to put you in a rather… delicate position with respect to criticizing the purported failures of others to rely on evidence. I may not remember all that clearly what some ancient wandering preacher had to say about the Pharisees off the top of my head – the phrase “whited sepulchre” rings a bell, but the nuance escapes me at the moment – but I’m almost sure I remember the same preacher making some comment or other about motes and beams. Or was it sawdust and logs? Something like that. Surely you’ll remember the reference, you being an expert on the subject and all.
Again, you might have a little trouble claiming the high ground on this humility thing when you oh-so-humbly, with obvious good humor and no trace of venomous hostility, characterize those with whom you disagree as “arrogant, carping, smirking,” and “puerile.” Now if I were the sort of person to accuse someone with whom I disagreed of being arrogant, carping, smirking and puerile – and I assure you I am not – I would want to at least point to some specific instance of behavior consistent with the accusation. Say, hypothetically, by linking to this blog post.
Apparently quite a few Jews find the use of the word “Pharisee” as a term of abuse to be offensive, since the rabbinical Judaism of roughly the past 2000 years is derived directly from the Pharisees’ “version” of Judaism.
(Just to be “Pharisaic” about the whole thing…it just seems slightly ironic to me that Hoffman’s remarks could themselves be taken as “offensive” by at least one religious group!)
Stuck in moderation too. Here’s what I wrote:
I trust that the irony isn’t lost on you that you have just written a whole piece yourself telling others how to properly be a freethinker?
Then again, the loudest atheist I know is also one of the wittiest: PZ Myers. He clearly doesn’t take himself too seriously either.
Is this “no sense of humour” notion an American thing? I’m just thinking back to the two “godless” comedy shows I’ve attended, not to mention the careers of Jonathan Miller and the late Linda Smith and I’m wondering where this comes from?
@Ken: yeah, you’d almost think that he’s only saying that because people didn’t laugh at his Woody Allen-joke.
Huh, didn’t know you could do that: my comment is still in moderation, but I did get a reply:
I wonder what Pharyngula he reads. PZ pokes fun at himself all the time.
One of the things which got me there was he used a Woody Allen quote to illustrate the difference between the atheists and the rabbis – Woody Allen is an atheist.
Quite open about it too.
Ah, yes, but see, the people at the temple thought is was funny, and the atheist didn’t, so therefore the atheists are humorless. Unless they make fun of the religious. But that doesn’t count, they must make fun of themselves too. Unless they’re called Woody Allen or PZ Myers, then it doesn’t count either.
No, I don’t get his point either.
Ah well, that seems to have fallen flat. I guess a surfeit of De Dora left me a sucker for something a little more lively – even if it is just as evidence-free.
The atheist Seinfeld. But Seinfeld is the atheist Seinfeld! There was certainly no bending the knee on that show – and there was the time Elaine freaked out at Puddy because he kept changing the car radio to Christian rock.
Or how about Ricky Gervais for the atheist Seinfeld? Will that do? Or Stephen Fry? And come on – Hitchens is hardly unamusing. Do admit, Joe.
I think that Julia Sweeney is the “atheist Seinfield.”
And although Woody Allen is an atheist, he knows how to milk agnosticism for a laugh, such as in one of the lines that his character (Boris, I think) speaks at the very end of “Love and Death”:
“if it turns out that there IS a God, I don’t think that He’s evil. I think that the worst you can say about Him is that basically He’s an underachiever.”
I just popped over and satisfied my curiosity. Apparently Dr. Hoffman’s own humility – and his willingness to accept either criticism or humor at his expense – are exactly as I expected. My rejoinder to his post (see first comment above) from yesterday is “still in moderation” long after 13 (and counting) posts made later than mine have been published. Quelle surprise!
I guess my willingness to point out his rather blatant hypocrisy was too arrogant, carping, smirking, and puerile for him.
I thought the point about Seinfeld [the show anyway] was that they were all assholes. Since we already have the atheist Woody Allen, Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry, Ben Elton [back when he was good], etc etc ad infinitum, what’s the point of wanting more?
@G Felis: mine hasn’t been published either, although it his reply to it (the one dated March 30, 2010 at 12:39 pm) and my counter are visible – although it doesn’t make much sense without the first comment. Maybe he’s having technical problems?
@Dave: I thought Dr. Hoffman’s point wasn’t so much that atheists didn’t have a sense of humor, but that they took themselves too seriously. But after offering many counter-examples of that as well, I’m starting to wonder: what if he literally meant that atheists should argue that their world view is ridiculous? Maybe atheists aren’t just not self-relativating enough for him, maybe it’s that they’re not self-loathing enough for his taste.
They were all assholes and yet they had their assholeish insights. Even George.