Melting, melting, all my beautiful wickedness…
Berlinerblau is back in the trenches battling the Monstrous Regiment of Gnus. Not much of a battle, he just agrees with another warrior that there haven’t been many “atheist martyrs”; what that’s supposed to prove is somewhat mysterious. Do any gnus talk nonsense about piles of atheist corpses? Not that I recall.
Never mind, the point is, it’s all over. We should pack up our gnu megaphones and our gnu pepper spray and go home. The tide of history done turned against us.
Hoffmann represents a rapidly growing contingent of atheists and agnostics who, for a variety of different reasons, are expressing increasing frustration with the New Atheist world-view. Many of them are affiliated with the school of “Secular Humanism.” I hope to write about this split at a later date.
The Hoffmann he quotes is even more optimistic.
Have there been atheist martyrs–women and men who suffered and died as a consequence of their rejection of God?
This thoughtful question came up when I recently suggested that I detect a trend in the small but dwindling new atheist community to pad the bona fides of their young tradition with things that didn’t really happen. We know that real Gnus love science and aren’t too keen on history…
A rapidly growing contingent versus a small but dwindling community. We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell you! Thanks to the perspicacity and determination of the frustrated atheists and agnostics, the new atheist community is on the verge of disappearing in a puff of sulphur.
Puff of sulphur? We’ll smell like rotten eggs? I bet perspicacious and determined non-gnu atheists have germs! Icky.
Sorry, but that seems to be about the level of Hoffman and Krapfenblau.
Dwindling and dying? Really? Does this guy work for the Discovery Institute? Because he sounds more like Casey Luskin and William Dembski every day…
Still waiting for the evidence in favor of religious claims. Now I’m sure I’ll also have to wait for the evidence that atheists as a group are desperately looking for martyrs, real or fictional, to make us feel better about not believing the unfounded claims of religion.
No, he works for Paul Kurtz’s new Institute.
Awaiting Moderation, I wrote (to Hoffman):
<i>You know Doc, for someone who has chided others for not reading up on the history of atheism, you’ve really failed with this rhetorical device. I can think of at least three rather famous people killed by Christians because they were atheists.
The were, of course, killed as ‘heretics’ because that was the term used. They were, of course, slandered as in league with Satan and purveyors of lurid charms and beguilements.
But they were, in fact, atheists. Killed by Christians. And in very brutal fashions.</i>
The fact that he’s a religious historian/professor and can’t seem to answer his god-awful rhetorical question is amusing. Ironically amusing since he was on a ‘gnu atheist you need to read history’ rant quite recently.
(Delete my original comment #5, if you can, at let this properly formatted comment stand instead, please.)
Awaiting Moderation, I wrote (to Hoffman):
You know Doc, for someone who has chided others for not reading up on the history of atheism, you’ve really failed with this rhetorical device. I can think of at least three rather famous people killed by Christians because they were atheists.
The were, of course, killed as ‘heretics’ because that was the term used. They were, of course, slandered as in league with Satan and purveyors of lurid charms and beguilements.
But they were, in fact, atheists. Killed by Christians. And in very brutal fashions.
The fact that he’s a religious historian/professor and can’t seem to answer his god-awful rhetorical question is amusing. Ironically amusing since he was on a ‘gnu atheist you need to read history’ rant quite recently.
Excuse me, is that relevant? If someone died for an idea, that makes it more true or less true? I’d say the validity of an argument doesn’t depend on whether people died by saying it.
He says, “I understand that Gnu atheists … crave the legitimacy that comes from being able to show it has suffered.” Well, I don’t understand that. How exactly suffering gives you legitimacy? I mean, I have a wrong idea, then someone tortures me, and now magically my idea is somehow right?
What I understand about Gnu atheists is that they seek legitimacy in sound arguments, not in suffering.
Calling it a “world-view” is a tad misleading, since the “new atheist world-view” isn’t, as worldviews go, noticeably different from the Humanist-Gnubasher worldview. What’s noticeable is that we say it out loud. The difference comes down to candor versus caginess: where the they will hem and haw and rattle off caveat after caveat—terrified at the thought that their words might offend someone kneeling in a pew somewhere—we answer the questions directly, and honestly—yes, religion is B.S.; yes, it should be resisted; no, “faith” and science are in no way compatible. We’re called un-nuanced not because we’re un-nuanced, but because we state it plain.
What is the source of this “atheist martyrdom” meme, other than Hoffmann and Berlinerblau themselves? There are plenty of atheists who have noted that atheists are in many societies a despised minority, and that it is worthwhile fighting vocally against religious privilege (particularly the widely unnoticed variety), but I haven’t seen anyone claiming the status of a martyr. Does anyone know of any examples?
Hello? Hello anybody? Could you please direct me to the barricades?
Andy-
I love it: candor vs. caginess. That pretty much sums it up. Although you could be a little more nuanced…is there a metaphor you could use to expound a little more? ;-)
Hoffman and Belinerblau must be consulting the same oracle that the anti-evolutionists have been for the past 150 years. Next they will be stealing book titles such as: “New Atheism: Its Collapse in View.”
I don’t see how it matters whether there have been atheist martyrs or not. I think it’s revealing that it is (apparently) so hard to find atheists in the modern meaning of the term throughout history. Either it is very difficult not to be religious in theocratic societies simply because dissent has so often been punished with death, or your typical atheist throughout history has been damn good at hiding it. So modern atheists not only have no “opportunity” to be martyred, we wouldn’t expect any to be because societies have to be liberalized before people can begin to really be atheists. Hoffman concludes with this:
Who does? So much focus on this point, but I see no evidence adduced that this is even an argument.
I don’t understand why Hoffman thinks it’s significant what gnus think about martyrdom. His claim about “padding the young tradition” is just plain weird, especially since he follows it with a discussion of martyrdom through the ages which, while informative, has no relevance to gnus at all. Is he complaining that we say all the noble sufferers were gnus? We don’t say that. Is he merely pointing out that we weren’t around back then?
It follows from the fact that gnus weren’t around a thousand years ago that we weren’t martyrs back then. Our intellectual ancestors, who are also Hoffmans, were around, and some of them did suffer. If Hoffman has a serious point to make what is it? The only thing I can come up with is that he really dislikes gnu atheists, has no intellectually respectable reason for it, and flails around using scraps of his formidable historical knowledge to justify his malice, hoping no one will notice that it makes no sense.
Not at all, even remotely, not a BIT like that small number of increasingly condescending members of the self-proclaimed Atheist Decency Patrol who attribute, without source or evidence (almost as if from nothing!), views to well-known atheists that those atheists do not hold, have not endorsed, implicitly or otherwise and have, on occasion, even directly refuted. I mean, it’s almost as if some of the Virtue & Vice Squad haven’t even read the books and articles written by the people they’re slandering, have made no attempt to actually digest their actual points of veiw and have simply constructed caricatures of the people they for some reason despise, and are now throwing fruit at them for the amusement of semi-interested passers-by.
What’s in it for these Nu-Framers anyway? Apart from pats on the head from the robed, collared & silly-hatted classes, what do these guys hope to achieve by their constant harrassment of their (on-paper) peers?
I think Hoffmann will self-destruct when he gets around (“at a later date”) to writing about the Terrible School of “Secular Humanism” (his quotes). When he realises that almost every atheist is a secular humanist, not just those identified as gnus, and that a very large number of liberal Christians are also secular humanists, he’s going to find his support base* wavering. When he tries to distinguish his version of Benighted Atheism from secular humanism and is obliged to criticise the ethics of secular humanism, then his support base* will disappear almost entirely.
*assuming his support base isn’t entirely imaginary
I think the support base for Hoffman and the like-minded consists largely of patches of academia where “interfaith” is another form of “interdisciplinary”. On this model religion is a subject to be expert in, not a set of beliefs. I’ll bet if you trace the background of gnu critics you’ll find institutional ties explain quite a bit of the motivation. It’s also a continuation of the old science vs humanities war to some extent.
I think we can claim anyone executed for heresy, no matter what their beliefs. Socrates and Hypatia are ours, as are Servetus and Hus. Perhaps Aikenhead in 1697 was the last Brit to be hanged for atheism as such, but the general disapprobation was sufficient to make life difficult for the likes of Diderot and Hume.
“We know that real Gnus love science and aren’t too keen on history…”
Ahem, this is a point made seriously? By an academic? He must know that Christians have spent 2,000 years doing their level best to ignore history, preferring their own oft-rewritten religious fantasies. Or that Muslim history blanks (literally and metaphorically) signs of pre-existing Arabian beliefs, even where they sit in clear sight (Black Stone, anyone?).
Surely one of the the most striking things about believers, with whom we’ve surely wasted too much time arguing, is that they know little to nothing of history. In the same way academics know little to nothing of believers as they are outside the college, where the real world lies.
Not that suffering or dying for one’s disbelief is or should be a sine qua non for ethically-upstanding atheism, but . . .
To the list containing Michael Servetus and Thomas Aikenhead, we can add an “almost killed,” from Oklahoma in 1981: Bell v. Little Axe Independent School District, 766 F.2d 1391 (10th Cir. 1985). Joann Bell (member of a Church of the Nazarene, not an atheist, but publicly accused of being one) complained about religious literature and Gideon Bibles that her children brought home from school (which was running an unconstitutional relgious program on school grounds with public money and direct teacher participation, during regular school hours). Her house was fire-bombed and burned to the ground; her children’s prize pet goats had their throats slashed; and Bell herself was brutally assaulted by a school cafeteria worker, who smashed her head against a car door.
http://blog.au.org/2008/11/25/hell-in-little-axe-an-oklahoma-moms-chilling-battle-with-religious-bigotry/
This case is just one of several similar cases cited and discussed on pp. 14-16 of an amicus brief in one of the two Ten Commandments “public display” cases (Van Orden v. Perry; the other was ACLU v. McCreary County) decided by the U. S. Supreme Court 2 or 3 years ago.
http://www.jenner.com/files/tbl_s18News/RelatedDocuments147/1438/VanOrden_v_Perry_amicusbrief.pdf
I thought that Jacques Berlinerblau was supposed to be a professor at Georgetown. Perhaps one of his problems is that he has not read enough, or remembered enough.
During the war on “The God Delusion” (hey, hyperbole feels good! I see why they do it…) I had to laugh when a couple of its detractors made arguments about its contents that I could provide page numbers to disprove.
Berlinerblau and Hoffman I think are arguing that there is no true religion without its martyrs. bad Jim has submitted a short list at #18. But what the hell? Maybe atheism does not qualify as a religion. Anyway, does it matter?
Don’t call us. We’ll call you.
Next please!
bad Jim
I think we can claim anyone executed for heresy, no matter what their beliefs. Socrates and Hypatia are ours, as are Servetus and Hus. Perhaps Aikenhead in 1697 was the last Brit to be hanged for atheism as such, but the general disapprobation was sufficient to make life difficult for the likes of Diderot and Hume.
I wondered how Herr Doktor Professor could miss those easy examples after having the gall to chide others for not reading history. Even something more recent where Hitler put the atheists in his Nazi death camps for the sin of being atheist.
What’s the preoccupation with martyrdom? We are concerned about the over-reaching influence of religion on the private lives of non religious people, not on whether one is likely to be put to death for admitting atheism. The fact that atheists are not stoned to death (in the non islamic world) for their lack of religious beliefs does not mean there are no problems. I don’t know of any country where simply being female is enough to warrant a death sentence but does that mean we n
eed not concern ourself with sex discrimination?
Atheist martyrdoms a strawman that Berlinerblau has constructed out of hot air.
As for how atheists are regarded by moderate religious individuals in the US I suggest you read some words from the evangelical christian Frank Fredericks from a couple of days ago.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-fredericks/god-we-need-atheists_b_845516.html
That’s not an atheist claiming this, it’s a moderate christian!
Oh look, I think I found where they got the idea that atheism is all about martyrs, somewher in the comments to that HP piece you linked ;)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/ScottishScript/god-we-need-atheists_b_845516_84051959.html
What can we do if there is some view that we just don’t like? Take, for example, Evolution. Well, we could campaign for “teaching the controversy”, couldn’t we? What controversy? Why, the one we’ve made up, of course! Just bang on and on about it till enough people start accepting the idea. So what about the Gnasty Gnus, then? What a pain. I know, we’ll just lie about them. Make it all up. Invent anything, really, just as long as it’s the sort of thing enough people would like to believe. Did you know that supplies of gnus are dwindling? No? Well, now you do. Fixed. Simple.
To “pad the bona fides of their young tradition with things that didn’t really happen” is a strong accusation. One should probably not make such a claim without at the very least some specific examples.
Perhaps Hoffman supplied them in the article, but I will not be checking; I have found that the more recent anti-gnu screeds do nothing but raise my blood pressure. (Waaaay back when, Josh Rosenau would occasionally write something that would make me think a little bit — but he has since gone so far over the deep end, I just don’t understand how people can think like that) I’m not all that worried that I’m getting a distorted “echo chamber” picture of things either, because when I do subject my circulatory system to that added punishment, I often find the totality of the article is even stupider than the selected quotes fellow gnus have lifted.
Perhaps Hoffman did not intend it to be a factual statement. (Channeling Jon Kyl…)
I don’t know about anyone else here, in my view anyone who has ever suffered because they thought differently than the those in power (even Christians when they were persecuted by the Romans) is someone who one might call a “freethought martyr”. But, so what? Even if the goal were to preemptively prevent suffering it would still be worthwhile – though perhaps not as much so.
That said, however, the narrow interpretation of what was mentioned is also true, especially if we play the silly Fulleresque game of making an atheist anyone who denies the *local* gods. (They can’t have it both ways – I wonder if there’s anyone who has claimed both yet?)
Dammit! – I had to read all through that piece by Hoffmann to find what I knew I would find; that after accusing us of making up history he corrects us by giving us a short tour of the self same history with exactly the same viewpoint as ours and exactly the same facts. He never did come up with anything whatever to support his accusation. This man is losing it.
As for Berlinerblau isn’t it time he stopped being the parrot on Hoffmann’s shoulder. For an intellectual he appears to be remarkably stupid and unoriginal. But maybe plagiarism, the appropriation of someone else’s writings with or without repackaging, is accepted by intellectuals these days.
As for martyrdom, who but a lunatic would want it? What is there in atheism to die for? a shortcut to heaven? I think not! Besides if you get martyred they win! I’d rather continue to live and continue, in my own small way, to confound them.
Yeah, movements come and movements go. Why, I remember back, it was in the oughts I think. there were a bunch of people who had the crazy idea that atheism ain’t rocket science. Yeah, atheism, what they study at the Hoffman Institute. Anyway, I’m sure you never heard ‘a Richard Dawkins, but he was quite a character back then…
I keep reading statements like “Dawkins/PZ/Coyne/Any-Other-Gnus-You-Care-to-Mention-and-for-the-matter-of-that-All-theRest assert x, y, or z without a shred of evidence”. When has that ever been true? Is this not an assertion made in defiance of the evidence? The trick is, just say it – there are always plenty of people who will agree, who like to have things made easy for them: therefore, it’s true. It’s the technique of get-enough-people-on-your-side-by-whatever-means-and-you-have-a-case. Contempt for rational thought, and for one’s audience’s capacity for it, is the underlying agenda. Well, no, the underlying agenda is probably “I want to be the influential fellow around here, so let’s bugger any merely reasonable person who won’t shut up”.
Hoffmann wants to show that atheists he doesn’t like (the kind who ask him tricky questions) are cowards – on the grounds (because he’s a cunning fool) that they live in some places and not others; Berlinerblau wants to assert that there have not been any atheist martyrs – in other words, we’re cowards. The point being concealed, and by implication denied, is that gnus are first and foremost people who care deeply about reason and truth; atheism is not even the be-all-and-end-all, it’s simply a consequence: its profile is high only because the most important impediments to anyone’s living a rational and intelligent life free from the cruelty and arbitrariness of others are religion and the irrational fears that religion feeds on and encourages. But Hoffmann wants to be able to say things like
He actually wants to be allowed to say “religion knows this instinctively”. He probably thinks that this sort of thing is just made to get nods and cheers from the audience. To my mind, it concisely sums up his dedication to irrationality while also suggesting that his own pretence of rationality is no more than an egotistical flourish to impress the irrational. Religion is cheap authority, and offers a vast army of supporters to anyone who knows how to woo it, whether they are religious or self-confessed atheists.
I am convinced that this gnu-bashing is essentially about egotism. People don’t like atheists, so hit them and bank the cash (they’re the bad atheists, I’m a nice atheist; I’m your friend). Atheists tread on someone’s patch, so hit them and carve a nice respectable little niche. Where will all the egotists go if everyone starts being reasonable?
Gnu? Please decode. Thanks.
Here we are, Richard, with the full authority of the Urban Dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gnu%20Atheist
Basically, we atheists are not supposed to talk about it, and anyone who does is “New” (in us-speak, rhymes with “gnu”, though in my own uk-speech it doesn’t, but I have a foolish fondness for the absurd).
Does being the most widely disliked group in America count? Sure, there’s no martyring involved there, but everyday discrimination has to count for something right?
Eek! Do I have to figure out how to tweak the urban dictionary, register, jump through hoops etc etc? It wasn’t any of the three named, it was Hamilton Jacobi in a comment here. The three named and others helped to popularize it.
Bad dictionary. I’ll never believe it again. Huh.
Not sure if serious.
Hamiltion Jacobi posted it here at B&W as a backup copy of a comment he made at the Intersection during the sockfest there. Jerry then pounced on it. Then you ran with it. I shall call you Dances with Gnus.
Ironic that Hoffman would seize on this “there are no atheist martyrs” meme. Didn’t he recently whine about how he was manning the atheist barricades long before us upstart Gnus came along?
Thank you, GraemeL. What is a sockfest? Is it at all common, and ought I to want to know?
Sigmund @24: that piece you linked to is interesting. By evangelical Christian standards, I’d say it’s very good. Only a handful of sentences are absurd howlers, and several others are nicely well put.
Ho! Ha! QED? The kink in the tail of Hoffmann?
Graeme – [whines] I pounced on it before Jerry did! [talks normal-like] But in-house pouncing doesn’t really count I suppose; out-of-house [NB not outhouse] pouncing is what spreads the meme.
Irregular verb, you see. I man the barricades, you claim to be a martyr.
Never ever forget to deploy the irregular verbs. They’re indispensable.
“Manning the barricades” was my phrase, not his; he appears to prefer describing himself as a “laborer in the trenches,” though he’s not above using the “battle” metaphor. I think he’s said more in this vein, but here’s the one I found:
Do you hear that, people? Hoffman endured poor book sales for your sins!
Anyway, to get back to the OP, the important thing is that there are deep rifts in atheism.
Which reminds me, one of the reasons I am a Gnu Atheist is because I hate it when people lie to other people, especially to children (this barrier of honesty is what separates public education from religious indoctrination). I consider it my solemn duty to burst the bubble of theism whenever I can. They can have their mythology all they want, but as long as any Gnu are standing nearby, they won’t get to claim it is real without a loud snort and a challenge to them to present their evidence.
Screech: Where did that quote come from?
Jerry, that’s from a comment that Hoffman posted on a Butterflies & Wheels thread here.
I hope I don’t disappoint anyone, but when they come to burn me at the stake for denying God, I’ll hit my knees quicker than Ted Haggard in a massage parlour and praise Jebus for as long as they want. I may be an atheist, but I’m not stupid.
I wrote a potential entry for “gnu atheist” for Urban Dictionary. It’s a bit dry, so I may not submit it. I also need an example usage, preferably both meaningful and funny, but I haven’t thought of one.
(BTW, Ophelia, it’s easy to add a definition.)
—
A lighthearted term for forthright atheists, who think that it’s important to criticize bad ideas underlying most if not all religion.
Gnu atheists are known for believing religion and science systematically conflict, and that religion is generally more socially harmful than most people suppose, due to insidious and pervasive effects of nearly ubiquitous religious beliefs, and inability or unwillingness of theological liberals and moderates to criticize orthodoxy effectively due to shared false premises.
Gnus also tend to believe that public atheism and blunt, thoroughgoing criticism of religion is socially important, to help shift the “Overton Window” of publicly acceptable beliefs about religion.
Noted gnu atheists include bestselling authors Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris (The “Four Horsemen”), Victor Stenger, and bloggers PZ Myers, Ophelia Benson, Jerry Coyne, Jason Rosenhouse, Greta Christina, and Russell Blackford.
The term itself is a pun on “New Atheist,” deflating the idea that there’s anything very new about the so-called “New Atheism,” aside from its popularity. It was coined by Hamilton Jacobi and popularized by Coyne, Benson, and Myers.
Ah, I didn’t check further down the thread to see if you had responded there. You should have elevated the comment of Hamilton to be a blog post of its own… [Grinning, ducking & running]
I think this quip is quite nice.
And while I think there is some jealousy of Coyne and Dawkins for their book sales, I think it’s more along the lines of an ‘old money/new money’ struggle at the atheist country club.
Hoffman considers himself ‘old money’ and damn well deserving of respect and the limelight. Whereas Dawkins, Coyne, etc., are (in his mind) ‘new money’ — brash, arrogant and lacking ‘culture,’ ‘history” and the ‘finer, gentlemanly arts’ and need to be in the wings while the ‘gentlemen’ lead the fray.
Every-time I read his crap, I am further cemented in my belief he really believes himself to be the very definition of the atheist patrician. Time and time again that arrogant condensation comes through.
Yep, that’s some high-proof triple-distilled arrogance.
(Can’t tolerate much of the strong stuff, myself. Makes me puke.)
Arrogant condensation; hee hee! I do love a good typo.
I think that is part of it, and I even understand it. I even agree with it – I should have been in the trenches sooner, for one. But…it’s understandable to have these dog in the manger feelings; it’s not so understandable to fail to compensate for them, try to tame them, realize they’re not the best most adult part of one’s repertoire. It’s really pretty absurd to try to treat them as serious, well-reasoned discourse.
I mean, when I was a teenager I used to resent it when lots of other people loved a movie I loved, because I wanted to be Special. I don’t go around pitching that kind of fit now!
What nonsense. Pure mental mush. Honestly, how in the world do these lightweight thinkers get any traction anywhere? …. oh wait, I forgot, we’re living during the Gnu Dark Ages, one where Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann are seen as credible and serious. Berlinerblau is casting his lot with that august company.
So, the atheists of the 1st through 18th centuries had the good sense to bow in the direction of where-ever the people with the swords told them to bow? And to keep their own counsel about their true beliefs?
And this is supposed to count against them … how, exactly?
To me, it’s a clear demonstration of evolutionary adaptation. If you want to survive to have and raise children, keep your yap shut in front of the priests and prigs and informants.
Does Berlinerblau suppose that we have to face death threats in order to be considered “true” atheists? Does he have to face death threats to be considered a “true” historian?
He of all people should know that the first atheists published under pseudonyms precisely because they faced execution as heretics were their real identities known.
Let’s be very clear: If someone someday told me I had to face Mecca and pray to Allah or face execution, well then I’ll face Mecca and pray to Allah. I won’t mean or believe a WORD of it. But I’ll go through the motions. And work under-cover to overthrow such a system.
You can force behavior, you can’t force belief.
Berlinerblau seems to not understand the difference.
Hoffman doesn’t care about how many gnu atheists are willing to be martyrs for their unbelief. He cares only about how many of them came close to being one (or escaped being one, if you will). Apparently, you cannot comprehend the threat of Islamic terrorism if you haven’t narrowly escaped the fate that befell Daniel Pearl.
I posted a comment at Hoffman’s place. It did not survive moderation.
I asked him why, in what I thought was an otherwise pretty good post, he found it necessary to bash “new” atheists (at least he’s not calling them EZ’s anymore) in both the intro and conclusion to his piece.
I said his diatribes were beginning to make him look small.
And the thing that probably got my comment killed was a pointing out that he had no evidence for his assertion that the “new” atheist community was dwindling.
@57 The thing that almost surely got your comment killed was that you disagreed with him.
But I guess that’s what happens when you have a bona fide admirer who ‘likes’ almost anything that you think, see, hear or say.
What exactly is he meaning when he keeps referring to Gnus as “EZs”? I seem to have missed that somehow.
Oops, just read my last post, Sorry about that, I really must be more careful before I click the button. Terrible writing, I hope you understand my question.
“EZs” is a tiresome joke he came up with along with Nathan Bupp – I can’t remember which first said it and which cheered it on; one did one and t’other did t’other. It rhymes with PZ; geddit? Right up there with Alexander Pope.
I agree with #28: anyone pursued for religious reason was persecuted for a lack of belief in the “right” god/s. Their belief in an other god is just a sign of their lack of belief in the right god. Methinks e.g. Spinoza had similar problems. And Aristotle. And a couple of Iranians hanged for “atheism”.
But actually, martyrdom is not a criterion for truth. Suicide bombers are martyrs, too, and I don’t think we should value them…
Hoffman:
I’m curious about this. I don’t have the impression that “the Dawkins revolution” was enabled to any great extent by Hoffman and his many associates. I could well be wrong, and am curious why Hoffman and his many in-the-know friends actually think so.
My own impression is that the atheism and humanism stuff promoted by e.g., Kurtz’s Prometheus Press has made disappointingly little impact on academic philosophy, which does atheism just fine thank you, and had little lasting effect on the popular imagination.
I would expect that there would be people like Dawkins and Dennett and Harris in academia at roughly the same level irrespective of whether or not Kurtz and Hoffman and CFI and Prometheus Press ever existed. It’s inevitable that evolutionary biologists and philosophers and cognitive scientists will be mostly atheists, and that’s been the trend for a very long time. Likewise I’m curious whether the humanist movement per se had any real effect on Hitchens. If you go to elite schools in Britain, you’re likely to pick up some atheism. That’s been brewing a very long time too.
Given that, something like gnu atheism could happen any time, if the time is right, as it seems to be right now.
I’m curious who among Hoffman and his associates has had the most impact either in academia or on public beliefs and attitudes, and what their most significant works are—and whether that has anything much to do with the success of the “New” Atheism.
The null hypothesis is that on the relevant timescale there have always been village atheists, and there have always been lots of atheists in philosophy and science and modern literature, and there have always been atheistic and humanistic trends in academia and the broader culture, and with certain social changes, somewhere along the line you get a certain critical mass and pow, there’s this “New” Atheism.
The influences I hear older atheists talking about are likely to be Bertrand Russell, or Madalyn O’Hair and American Atheists, or more often general exposure to an atheistic literature milieu like biology or physics or philosophy, or modern literature, or the 60’s counterculture or the political left. Atheism has been a big part of the zeitgeist in the intelligentsia for a very long time, and I don’t know that the organized humanist movement had much to do with that—it seems more like popular offshoot that never actually achieved much popularity.
Is giving those people much credit for the possibility or popularity of New Atheism kinda like giving Mensa the credit for promoting intelligence and a popular appreciation of smartness?
I hope not. I’d like to think that humanist activists and “humanist”-identified scholars have in fact promoted ideas that have potentiated the recent changes, rather than just followed/cheered the cultural trends that would have happened anyhow. It’s just not obvious to me that there’s been that kind of effect; perhaps most of the people laboring in the trenches didn’t achieve much beyond what they achieved then—and their efforts, while admirable and positive and worthy of considerable appreciation, may not have led to much beyond that, because the time was not yet right, for other reasons.
I think you’re right, Paul. My own impression is that Dawkins et al have been simply doing their own thing, and are not beholden to the “spadework” of Hoffmann and his confreres. All you need is someone who, for example, takes very seriously being in the Chair of the Public Understanding of Science and a lot of religious cranks trying to obstruct the particular someone’s life work, coupled with a brilliant reputation and the moral courage to fight back. Add a passionate and outspoken journalist, a courageous woman making a principled stand against direct oppression…I could go on and on, but the main thing is, Hoffmann & Co were never in it from the start. Not even spadework. This has happened because of a greater and more general belief in human rights, the dissemination of scientific knowledge, the internet, and some very brave and clever people prepared to speak out.
I hope this doesn’t read like ill-formed drivvel. I suspect it does, but my unsocial working hours have this effect on my aging brain.
Paul:
It’s got to be Kurtz, unless Hoffman has some kind of connection to the O’Hair/Murray family and American Atheists… or perhaps Dan Barker, the Gaylors, and the FFRF. And you’re right that none of the above have had the impact on the public that the big four Gnus (as a unit, anyway) have, though O’Hair comes close.
Presumably so. As a basically incidental note, Dawkins was the American Humanist Association’s Humanist of the Year for 1996, a decade before The God Delusion. (Though of course Kurtz/CFI/Prometheus are very much not associated with the AHA. Old bad blood there.)
I suspect your null hypothesis is correct, and modern Gnu Atheism owes very little, causally, to Kurtz and other leaders of late-Twentieth Century atheism. Still, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m kinda sorta sympathetic to the complaint that gnus could stand to be more literate about the recent history of atheism. It’s just that the fact that many of us aren’t doesn’t discredit the whole exercise.
Paul Kurtz and others like him did valuable work and fought the good fight in an era when that was generally more difficult than it is today (and it isn’t all that easy today). Their contributions deserve genuine respect and some gratitude, but not deference.
I wonder what sense of the word “invisible” Hoffman had in mind there ?
Presumably not the “concealed from public knowledge” or “not perceptible or discernible by the mind” definition.
Well, gee. Why haven’t any of you silly Gnus noticed how all that revered martyrdom has made religion true?
Only because believers, almost by definition, are unable to understand that killing people doesn’t make anything true that wasn’t true before.
[…] god to see I’m not alone in rejecting their entire premise. Both Jerry Coyne and Ophelia Benson express similar sentiments. There really is a coherent and consistent Gnu Atheist consensus that […]
Ophelia,
I noticed you haven’t posted a definition of “gnu atheist” to Urban Dictionary… are you still planning to?
I haven’t posted the one in my comment at #50, above, which I’m not especially thrilled with. Should I?
(I still need and example usage, and haven’t thought of one.)
Paul – ah – I was thinking only of augmenting the existing one, as one would at Wikipedia, not doing a whole new one. Sure, by all means you should. Yours is informative!
OK.
I still need an example use. (It’s required.)
I’m sure there’s some nice quote about gnus that would be informative and funny, but my mind’s a total blank.