Oh hai, why can’t the new atheists be nice?
Why can’t they, asks “interfaith” atheist (don’t ask me, I don’t know how that works) Chris Stedman via a guest post on his blog by someone called Karla McLaren. He says “It’s a hugely informative and clear-eyed assessment of the state of the atheist movement.” I don’t agree. I think it’s just the 14 millionth installment of “new atheists are bad and mean ick.”
Atheism, McLaren informs us, is more visible thanks to those books by the four New Ones, or as she calls them, “the Fractious Four.” Yes really.
I call them the Fractious Four, which has a cool superhero ring to it (even though their superpower is to argue with everybody).
Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris have written polemics against religion, and true to the polemical form, they’ve taken a moral absolutist stance which asserts that religion is orders of magnitude more harmful than it is beneficial (if it is beneficial at all). Dennett is a philosopher, and his work is nuanced and, well, philosophical – and I often wonder why he’s included with the polemicists. However, he is, so on we go.
We do? Why do we? Why not not include Dennett if you think he doesn’t belong? Why swallow the clichés whole in order to barf them back at us, even the ones you don’t agree with?
The Fractious Four have put forward some very attention-grabbing ideas in a post-Twin Towers world, where many of us have seriously questioned the purpose and limits of faith and supernaturalism. However, the Four (Dennett excluded) have put those ideas forward at the end of a fist, and in a way that questions the sanity and morality of anyone who disagrees with them. But see, that’s the point of a polemic … you put forward the most extreme version of your argument, and you don’t make any room for moderating views.
A polemic is a deeply emotional appeal made not just with anger, but with rage; not just with sadness, but with despair; not just with fear, but with gut-wrenching terror. If it’s done skillfully, a truly masterful polemic is melded with a careful overlay of logic, scholarship, and verbal skill. A polemic is made to be powerful and arresting, and it can be a very beautiful thing indeed. But it’s not something you should make a career of, because it’s exhausting (both to create, and eventually, to witness).
And so on, and so on. It’s all like that – treacly and belligerent at the same time, and of course wildly inaccurate in the usual way of gnu-haters. This is the basin of warm sick that Stedman urges on our attention.
The Four Horsemen of New Atheism did their work well, but they cannot help us clean up the battlefields they created. That’s not their job. The clean-up, the strategizing, the community rebuilding, the future imagining, and the alliance-making — this is not a job for bomb makers.
In order to move forward, we need to rely on more than mere polemics. How about if we try dialectics?[iii] Dialectics can be just as fun as polemics (and they require just as much skill), but dialectics have the added benefit of creating community, building intelligent synthesis out of seemingly intractable positions, and teaching people how to manage – rather than merely weaponize – their emotions.
It’s one long “shut up, ur doin it rong, stop doin it the way ur doin it and do it the way I do it, stop arguing and get busy creating community.” It’s written in a fey style so that it perhaps comes across as friendly, but it is in fact very unfriendly indeed. It’s packed with fiercely hostile language about argumentative atheists and their rage and extremism. With friends like these we’ve already got all the enemies we could possibly find room for.
Yes, yes, that’s it. Absolutely typical of someone who was once (she said it herself) a New Age Healer. New Agey types share much in common with accommodationists; they think they’re friendly, and they use a lot of Oprah-ish language, but they sho do love them some substantive invective at the more outspoken.
Peoples’ personality types, I think, push them in certain directions, and even when their politics or beliefs change, some of the core traits don’t. Hence the now-not-a-New-Ager still sounds just like a prissy New Ager, hence the former evangelical Stedman still displays a huge emotional commitment to churchy-servicey things, and finds those who don’t prioritize that morally suspect.
Different script, same actors.
Funny. I’m reading Dennett right now — “Freedom Evolves”. Interesting — but I’m not sure I buy his arguments (I wonder if I’ll be excommunicated).
Yes, he’s a philosopher…according to OTHERS (cough-Kazez, Pigliucci-cough), only philosophers are allowed to have an opinion on matters related to metaphysics.
You can’t win. If someone with unabashed credentials in the discipline speaks, they’re somehow not allowed to be in the Gnutheist “club”.
Josh – yeh – it just brims with passive-aggression. All that coy vocabulary. ICK. Ick ick ickitty ick.
She’s actually explicit in a comment about saying “no there aren’t multiple ways”
Right – we pounce on them in dark allies and beat them to a pulp so fine you could drink it through a straw.
Looks to me as if the one-trick pony just got a new (equally uninteresting) rider.
Suffice it to say that I won’t be giving her web site any hits.
Can’t someone in this group PLEASE address the fundamental issues? Or is it just too easy to get by (intellectually for sure) on whinging about tone?
Yuck – I hadn’t noticed that sentence until you pointed it out. You see, yes, that her sympathies really still are with the New Agey crap. “Spiritual people” indeed. Smug, holier-than-thou gits who preen and prance and wear their “compassion” like a red corsage on their lapel, if she keeps company with people like herself.
Such people remind me of the kid in school who was absolutely nasty (and, on some level, knew it, though he/she would take pains not to be conscious of it) and managed to remain blameless by affecting a wounded sorrow.
We’ll get James and John in here again telling us not to be so mean to Chris. Don’t even try it, guys. This crap is not the work of an ally.
Ophelia, do you think it is worth addressing her argument concerning the utility of polemics, or is it more productive to merely dwell on the fact that she disagrees with gnu tactics?
Oh, Jesus Christ Lovley.
If you’d been reading years of BW posts, years of posts by Jerry Coyne and Russell Blackford, and years of comments by people who hang out in their forums, you’d know we’ve engaged this. Ad nauseum. It’s not new, it’s not been neglected. It’s the familiar “why are you so angry,” complete with mischaracterizing even moderate criticism as rage-filled.
No one is willing to waste their time dancing to this tune anymore. But I know that no matter, you’ll continue your schtick, because a fair, charitable reading of this conflict is not what you’re interested in. You just don’t like the way we talk, and you never will.
I justgot done reading the whole thing. It didn’t take very long to realize gnus aren’t the intended audience which isn’t necesarily a bad thing but it sorta undermines (what I thought at least) was the point of a piece like this: to figure out what is that’s keeping us all from seeing eye to eye. Ms. McLaren sounds like she’s writing to a less aware and informed audience, one who has been a part of the ‘conflict.’ The only thing that could possibly accomplish is push ‘newbies’ and the less active away from gnu atheism.
@ Josh: My bad for not reading every historical piece of literature and their associated comments relating to this issue. I will keep this lesson in mind before I ever ask a question about anything again.
Cripes. I’m afraid I’m just reduced to saying “Chris – grow up you wimp. That’s how ideas are dealt with in the real world”.
No, Andrew, just no. You know enough about why we feel the way we do that you have an intellectual obligation to give us a little more credit at this point, even if you disagree. Your post was snotty and dismissive.
If you really didn’t mean it that way, then you might want to reexamine the way you phrase things. Ophelia and others have pointed out before that you have a singularly stuff and condescending way of writing (I’m saying this to be clear, not to be insulting). It gets in the way.
Steve Zara, how strident of you! I will no longer consider any argument from you, unless it wholly endorses my point of view, because you’ve put my nose out of joint.
@Josh
I haven’t been following BW or most gnu sites consistently. I think I missed the polemics discussions though it does ring a bell. Would it be possible to get pointed in the right direction for that?
My biggest complaint about Ms. McLaren’s post is that despite all the talking about how poor a foundation for any movement or philosophy anger is, there wasn’t any evidence provided. No parrallels (and given just how chaotic the world always is there should be plenty). Nothing. Just Ms. McLaren’s view that passion while useful has outlived it’s usefullness in atheist activism.
#7 was an honest question. The last thing that needs to happen here is a derailing into some bitter battle about each other’s style of writing. The point of McLaren’s post is to discuss the utility of polemics and the point of Ophelia’s post is to point out that yet another person disagrees with gnu tactics. The least that could have been done is point to some real substance rather than just merely dismiss it all without refutation.
I’ll say the same thing here that I said over there: when “New Age Healer Karla McLaren” admits to and apologizes for being a con artist and returns all the money she made from being a fraud, she can go ahead and whine and bitch about my tone. Until then she can “STFU and SAFBD.
Julian, I don’t know if the specific word “polemic” has been discussed as such here, but that’s beside the point. McLaren’s argument is not a different, or new, or more nuanced analysis of the issues. It’s the same thing we’ve been banging on about for years:
Gnu Critic: Hay wai so angry?
Gnu: We have legitimate reasons to be angry about the encroachment of religion on public policy.
Gnu Critic: Hay wai u sez haitful thingz and stuffzz!??!
Gnu: Pointing out that there’s no evidence for a God, and that it’s outrageous to try to implement “His” will in policy issues such as standing for political office or women’s reproductive rights is not hateful.
Gnu Critic: Hay wai so bitter?
As Ophelia would say, rinse and repeat.
You might want to browse through the past few years of Notes and Comments here. Not only is it fun reading, but you’ll see how many times we’ve dealt with this.
Hello,
I think that Ophelia’s post is fair. While I am a big supporter of the interfaith movement, I do not think that this post contributes in any meaningful way to the progression of ANY belief/movement.
However, Ophelia does say:
I don’t think you realize that this applies completely to what you have to say about Humanistic approaches. Your more recent posts dealing with interfaith have essentially been “shut up, ur doin it rong, stop doin it the way ur doin it and do it the way I do it, stop promoting community and argue on the internet.”Why is it so hard to recognize your own hypocrisy?
Andrew:
1. I don’t accept McLaren’s characterization of the conversation, that it’s all polemic and nothing more.
2. I don’t accept her definition of polemic – to her, it’s about inchoate rage, even though she professes to accept that that has its place.
3. I don’t believe McLaren actually admires well-done polemic, and I don’t believe she actually recognizes its utility. I think she affects to in order to appear “balanced” and reasonable in her critiique.
4. I don’t accept her sweeping characterization of Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Harris as doing nothing but furious bluster. Anyone who’s read those books without a preconceived bias could not seriously make that claim.
I think she’s peddling bullshit, and I don’t think any of us has a responsibility to debate her unserious arguments, when we’ve done it a thousand times before.
Improbable Joe, isn’t that a bit, um, I don’t know the correct word so I’ll say anachronistic? I mean, if she truly believed that New Age shit worked, then she wasn’t a fraud nor liar at that time. If she believed that tripe, she was acting in good faith. She now says she doesn’t believe it. But, back then, she did, and the people she ‘treated’ probably did, so it was a legitimate transaction. Just one based on fairy-tales.
Is there a historian in the house? I have some serious doubts about this proposition of hers that polemicism is “not something you can build a movement upon”. Suffragists were hella polemical — and yet a movement was built. I was in the queer movement in the early 1990s, and I can tell you that some of the rhetoric flying around in those circles makes us Gnus look like sweet little milquetoasts — and yet a movement was built. I’m no scholar of historical movement politics, but I’m getting the impression that a healthy ferment of polemicism is what happens when a movement is building.
Wasn’t the French Revolution polemical? And they built a movement of cheese-eating surrender monkeys!
Exactly, Cam. I was there too, and I’ve banged on about so many times folks are probably sick of hearing it. But it chaps my ass that people like Stedman and Lovley, who weren’t there and apparently have no interest in learning anything about recent history and what did and didn’t work, see fit to prescribe our behavior, or tell us we’re not helping.
Oh, yeah, you’re welcome for the ground we broke for you by being loudmouth queers, by the way. Just sayin’.
Huh, and here I thought “The Fractious Four” were Ditchkins, P.J. Coyers, That One Commenter On That One Website (You Know The One), and *mumblemumblemumble*. Learn something new every day.
Well, I gave it a shot. Unlike most of the works McLaren attacks, my comment is a polemic. In case Stedman memory-holes it, here’s what I posted over there:
@Improbable Joe
That seems a little excessive.
We don’t (or at least I don’t) know how she practiced… whatever that is or even what it is.
Can anyone telling us to STFU please take their own advice.
Josh (also speaking for Cam, I think):
Hey, you’ve certainly got my thanks. Gnu Queers are awesome.
Greta Christina for President!
Thanks Rieux, but ya didn’t have to:) My ire is directed at young gay men who take for granted what they have today, then have the nerve to complain about the “strident tone” that helped win it for them (you know who you are). And no, it doesn’t matter that you’re not specifically talking about queer issues; the same dynamics apply to raising the respectability of any marginalized group, including atheists.
You need people who won’t be bootlickers to give you space to be the bootlickers you so want to be.
Love,
Josh
In the early 90’s I was a not-so-young gay man who did complain about the strident tone of other gay men and lesbians, who I really thought at the time were not helping. I was an accommodationist. There were many like me. How wrong I was. One reason for such complaining can be a form of self-hatred, as when you realise you are gay, but haven’t quite come to terms with it. I think that was true in my case. I wonder if this is true for some accommodationists – they feel either embarassed or ashamed of their lack of faith, their absence of belief. They would rather Gnus would just shut up and not make a fuss because they don’t want their (the accommodationists) atheism to be to noticed too much. I do wonder if this is the case for someone like Martin Rees, who seems to go through all the motions of being a believer, but just can’t manage the actual belief.
Steve:
No.
Thanks so much for saying so, Steve, I appreciate that. I think it comes down to fear — fear that what little safety we have will be taken away if the loudmouths get any louder. It’s an understandable fear, but it becomes a trap. Self-loathing is part of it, I’m sure, but I’m betting it’s more about “OMG, I have at least this much, please don’t provoke the dragon in the next room.” But that’s just a supposition, and it may not reflect your experience.
You can do better.
Could I remind you what you posted above:
I can personally imagine being an accommodationist and having that response, so I think what I said was not that trivially dismissed. But there you go.
Would she likewise care to write a whole ‘nother post about how A Call for Unity contributed to the dialectic?
I wonder if Andrew Loveley could point to any genuine addressing, on the part of such as Chris Stedman and himself and Ms McLaren, of, for example, that Scottish Catholic bishop’s recent complaint about secularism, or the Pope’s remarks about secularism, or other obvious problems connected with religion. It is my impression that the ‘accommodationists’ seem to spend most of their time complaining about Gnus and very little time actually addressing what is important and genuinely at issue.
Point taken, Steve.
I do not think it is necessary to be anti-theistic in order to be an integrous, fearless, and unashamed atheist.
@ Tim:Drawing attention to anti-atheism is important. However it seems that there might be other ways to address anti-atheism than by merely responding back with anti-theism.
It’s odd, then, that accommodationists have such a tough time ever finding those “other ways.” Gnubashing is easy; standing up for atheists appears to be far too hard. How strange.
I say “merely responding back with anti-theism” because religion does deserve a lot of criticism, but stand-alone criticism without any effort to promote positive alternatives seems to be insufficient for bringing about constructive change. I am a big proponent of secular humanism because it balances critique of religion with the promotion of a very positive philosophical outlook and way of life.
Andrew,
Man, if only Gnu Atheists promoted positive alternatives! It’s not like Dawkins or Dennett have ever written at length about the wonders of godless living… oh. Wait.
Man, if only I had suggested that Dawkins and Dennett have never written at length about the wonders of godless living…Oh. Wait.
Andrew sez: ” there might be other ways to address anti-atheism than by merely responding back with anti-theism. […] stand-alone criticism without any effort to promote positive alternatives seems to be insufficient for bringing about constructive change.”
My snarky point was that Gnu Atheists do this all the time, but somehow never get any credit for it. Odd, that.
Lovley:
What evidence is there to support that proposition? Within the past several decades, numerous nations in Europe, East Asia and Oceania have undergone overwhelmingly “constructive change”—i.e., their populaces’ levels of religious identification and belief have cratered—without any meaningful “promotion” of “positive alternatives” to religion. Evidently such promotion isn’t in fact necessary at all. (And the U.S. is following the same demographic path, though we’re a generation or so behind chronologically.)
Shibboleths like that one from Andrew certainly appear to be based on blind faith, not sound analysis.
Not that I do not believe you, but would you be willing to point at the last time(s) a “gnu atheist” made a substantial appeal for constructive change? I’ll happily give credit when I see it.
You know what? Fuck you Andrew.
People here have gone over this territory umpteen million times. We repeatedly say we recognize that there needs to be a multiplicity of approaches.
But you don’t listen. You keep on bleating about how we’re not doing enough, and we need to do more. When we tell you we’re interested in being firebrands who shift the Overton Window so that people like you can move in to do the work you do, you ignore it. Your only interest is in chastising us for not doing just what Andrew Lovley would do.
Fuck off.
It’s not necessary, but I think it is morally responsible to be anti-theistic. Sorry to go on about myself so much, but I was a much milder atheist until the disgraceful visit of the Pope to the UK last year. That really was the last straw. The Pope didn’t just visit as a Head of State (and what a strange state the Vatican is!) but he was given quite extraordinary privileges, such as a public platform to say how Britian was in danger from secularists and atheists who would end up handing our country over to extremists. He also went on about how Christianity underpinned freedoms while his blasted church was trying to do more to hold back freedoms than anyone else. This was while saying nothing about the child abuse situation, when if it had been any other head of state they would have been immediately taken into arrest for criminal conspiracy. My temper has never recovered. Theism is not some soppy benign and neutral presence as twits like Martin Rees thinks, it tails and corrupts so much of our lives. Sometimes we can get so fixated on the issue of creationism we forget how awful and indeed fundamentalist the views of the supposed science-supporting faiths can be.
The only moral way to react to theism is to be anti-theistic. It’s wrong to support faith-based justifications for views in principle, and not just when they are overtly nasty.
‘scuse spelling: ‘Britain’, ‘taints and corrupts’ etc.
Quoted for truth.
Besides the afore-mentioned Dawkins and Dennett, I’ll add Harris’ book on morality (flawed as it is, it is an appeal for a change in public perception of morality); almost half the essays on Ebon’s Musings (sister site of Daylight Atheism); Greta Christina (at her own blog, on alternet, and in public speaking appearances); the people behind the summer camps for atheist kids (don’t know or care about their “gnu” status, but i like what they’re doing and i’ve seen nothing but praise from other Gnus); the folks behind atheist billboards and bus ads (which includes humanist groups iirc, but the Gnus have been very supportive as well).
Anyone else with other examples? This was all off the top of my head, so I’m sure I missed some.
Rieux: The decline in religiosity in Europe is an interesting phenomenon. Are we able to say that criticism of religion is mainly responsible for that? Might it be the ubiquity of substantive social-services instead? Both? Both + other things?
Josh: Greta Christina is the only ‘firebrand’ atheist I’ve seen say anything approvingly of the diplomat types. Can you point me toward more examples?
McLaren:
Cripes that makes me angry. First, the idea that we’re intellectual sadists—that we enjoy attacking religious people—is horribly unfair. At least give us the benefit of the doubt that, yes, we do actually care about the harm religion does to our world. Also, something isn’t a meme just because you call it a meme: there is a fact of the matter here. There are various approaches. There just are. She thinks ours is dumb. Fine. That’s her view. I could play the same game; I could just as easily say that the meme of accommodationism “gives special license” to “spiritual people” to peddle whatever demonstrably false garbage they want without fear of someone with a backbone actually calling bullshit. Which it does.
Besides, gnus don’t need special license to attack (by which she means “criticize”) religion. We have the same right to speak out about matters that affect our society that everyone else does. As Hitchens likes to say, we don’t require anyone’s permission to criticize religion
Again I say: fuck you.
You’ve been around here long enough to know there’s a variety of opinion, and a lot of thought that goes into the posts Ophelia puts up, and that commenters discuss. Cut your passive-aggressive shit.
Then can you say, Andrew, what ‘positive alternatives’ you and your pals have come up with, or what positive alternatives you advocate? What are these ‘other ways’ of addressing theism you talk about? And can you explain these positive alternatives and other ways without making vague and meaningless appeals to ‘dialectic’? And can you say whether you think, say, Richard Dawkins’ series of programmes about ‘faith schools’ in England and the issues they raise was merely an exercise in polemic or a positive and responsible approach to a thorny matter, and if you think the former, can you say why?
Oh, boy! I’m the good cop now!
Don’t worry, Andrew, I’ll protect you from these big meanies!
Gladly!
Here’s prominent and proud Gnu Jerry Coyne, only four days ago, making a substantial appeal for constructive change:
As the list of signatories attests, a whole lot of us would like to see the NCSE (it’s not clear that the BCSE is anything more than one dude and his personal website) cut it out with the gnubashing and instead practice actual neutrality regarding theology. That’s constructive change, Jerry’s letter is a substantial appeal, and it’s extremely recent.
Glad I could be of help!
But, but, but, but. . .Rieux, that was strident and off-putting! How do you expect to help with that kind of discursive violence?
Lovley:
No, “we” are not “able to say that,” which is why “we” said nothing of the kind.
At the risk of forfeiting my good-cop credentials minutes after receiving them, please cut out the idiotic goalpost-shifting. You declared that the “promot[ion]” of “positive alternatives” was necessary for “constructive change.” What you said was false, and I demonstrated that it was false. Rather than conceding the point or retracting your baseless statement, you’ve decided to change the subject. Stop doing that.
Yes, there is every indication that socioeconomic factors are what is responsible for the collapse of religion in most of Europe, East Asia, and Oceania. That just happens to demonstrate that overtly promoted “positive alternatives” are in fact totally unnecessary. Religion dies when it’s denied its wellsprings, ignorance and fear—not when a slick salesman figures out a way to sell believers a New and Improved Product that does religion’s job with fewer calories, cleaner fuel injectors, and a wider library of apps.
Surprisingly enough, people who (and societies that) have shed the shackles of religion have never required folks like you to sell them “positive alternatives.”
No, no, no, Josh, my comment #54 was sunny and nice.
(Dude! The bad cop’s not supposed to whine at the good cop! You’re supposed to be snarling stuff like “LEMME AT LOVLEY!” and clawing wildly as I gallantly hold you back. Did you lose your script or something?)
Tim: I think that atheists engaged in organizing respectful dialogues between religious and non-religious people, organizing community service (with or without religious people), appealing to coexistence and religious pluralism, and promoting humanism are offering good alternatives for dealing with anti-atheism. I have not seen Dawkin’s program on faith schools, but to be honest the whole idea of particularist faith schools unsettles me, so I suspect that I would appreciate Dawkins’ addressing of them.
Rieux: Thank you for the valid example.
Thank you, Rieux: you’ve done it for me. I was just going to bring up Jerry Coyne’s very responsible letter and its addressing of a genuine and serious issue and ask AL whether that, too, merely constituted ‘anti-theist polemic’.
Rieux and Josh are just demonstrating that gnu atheists don’t even know what gnu atheists believe in. This is typical of gnu atheism and why good internet citizens like Josh Rosenau have to toil and labour (repetitive?) at the thankless task of defining the base, vulgar, irredemably quarrelsome, abject position that gnu atheism is. What a guy.
themann:
I was a counselor at the original Camp Quest, in northern Kentucky; my bosses, CQ founders Ed and (the late) Helen Kagin, definitely are/were Gnus. (Ed was also responsible for a silly “de-baptism” convention event that picked up sneers from gnubashers a little while back.) Good and constructive Gnus indeed. I miss Helen.
From my vulgar, unreflective, popularity-obsessed cave, Brian, I’m happy to help!
I’d also like to remind Andrew that not so very long ago Jerry Coyne did precisely what Andrew is advocating and engaged in respectful dialogue with a group of Methodists.
Me:
Rieux:
I did not declare, I speculated. Although I will go out on a limb and suggest that promoting social services can be thought of as the conscious application of secular humanistic values to society, which are positive alternatives to a theistic ethos / way of life. Either way, if socioeconomic factors are responsible for the decline of religion, as you suggest:
it does belittle the significance of anti-theism in the general decline in religiosity.
Gee, Brian, tell us how you really feel.
Exactly how are Josh and I “demonstrating that gnu atheists don’t even know what gnu atheists believe in”?
If you want a synopsis of what Gnus believe from me, I’m going to refer back to Paul W.’s classic Comment #29:
In shorter but less nuanced form, I’d say Gnus are openly opposed to religious faith, religious authority, and (most distinctively) religious privilege. I seriously doubt that Josh, or any other Gnu around these parts, is going to take serious issue with any of the above. (Minor issue is a different matter; I’ve already taken some of that myself with regard to some statements in the passage quoted above.)
Come on, Andrew, define “anti-theism”. Give it your best shot. Tell us why it’s awful-n-bad, and so totally different from the other, nice things we all want: human rights, human welfare, without regard to what people profess to believe in.
Tell us. How miserable are we, and in what ways?
Sorry Rieux, I thought the over the top anti-gnu hyperbole (repetitive again?) might have given a hint that there was more than a double lashing of irony in my comment. Josh seemed to get it. Unless of course you’re returning the irony with interest to which I must grant you the internets for the day. :)
What is the gnu version of poe? Gnupoe?
Well, the criticisms of Gnus are so frequently over the top, Brian, that I think we can cut Rieux some slack for thinking you were writing for the Times, not the Onion. :))))
Lovley:
Oh, I see.
Next time, do you think you could make a clearer demarcation between (1) the things you’re saying that have some actual basis, such that anyone else ought to care the slightest bit about them, and (2) arbitrary, baseless nonsense that you’ve pulled out of your ear and thus ought to be disregarded? It could save us some time.
Ah, yes, the “redefine all the words so that I can pretend I didn’t lose the argument” gambit. Ingenious.
Sorry, but basic economic progressivism is not actually the product you were selling. That’s just disingenuous nonsense.
Clearly you don’t know what “belittle” means, but I invite you to find anywhere in which I or any prominent Gnu has claimed that anti-theism has been a significant contributor to “the general decline in religiosity.”
The strawman Gnus you build are notably stupid.
Nope, Brian, you got me.
Curses!
That’s cool Rieux. I find it ludicrous that the anti-gnus seem to use up years worth of straw building their own Burning Man of what it is to be a gnu and why that’s bad. Gnus seem to have a pretty good idea of what they believe in, pace Rosenau et al. When you said Josh didn’t get that he was bad cop (i.e. a gnu who doesn’t do gnuish stuff) I thought I’d channel my inner Rosenau for ironic effect. But perhaps all I did was make my own Burning homonculus?
While some gnus appear to want to convince accomos that we are nice and helpful, I’m not among them. The evidence is clear that the abuse will not stop, and I wonder if it’s really worth the effort to make them stop it. Basically I don’t think accomos are people we need or even really want on our side, for the reason that they are not on our side in any meaningful or useful way. They don’t think it’s important to attack religious power, they want to appease “good” religion and be thought well of by religious liberals, which requires them (so it appears) to attack any expression of atheism that doesn’t play their servile game.
So, let the accomos pursue their goals while we pursue ours. Let them continue to attack us, and continue to look foolish, ignorant and spiteful doing it. It helps us and hurts them, I’m happy to say. No, I’m not confused in the slightest about which approach I think is best. I won’t dissemble or triangulate for anyone. And I’ll ally with anyone who wishes to accomplish something worthwhile on the basis of equality, not appeasement. So, no interfaith, not ever. These are my opinions and decisions, so accomos are on notice that we aren’t all “like that”. It’s just me, at least for now.
Andrew Lovley wrote:
I think the problem with this is that, as Rieux has pointed out extremely well (both here and elsewhere) over the last few days, the religious have such an ingrained sense of privilege regarding their beliefs that a sizeable proportion of them consider the very idea of having a dialogue to be inherently disrespectful; i.e. that they are personally offended by the suggestion that they might actually be wrong in believing what they believe.
So we’ve got two options: 1) work extra hard to find a way to criticise their ideas in such a way that removes (or at least minimises) the offence, or 2) refuse the privilege, treat the religious like adults and point out to them that their views on religion are no more immune to criticism than their views on whether Twilight author Stephenie Meyer is an underrated genius or a talentless, barely-literate hack.
For the most part the only ‘offense’ involved is that being invented in the minds of those unaccustomed to criticism.
Rieux I think you’re mistaken to dismiss speculation as “baseless nonsense that you’ve pulled out of your ear and thus ought to be disregarded.” Aren’t hypotheses speculative? Aren’t hypotheses a fundamental component to science? Surely speculation is warranted and useful.
A commitment to economic progressivism is an expression of secular humanist values: it addresses the needs of members of society in a substantive way, in this life, rather than simply promoting a hope for salvation after one dies after a life of suffering, or claiming that God puts the faithful through hardships in order to test their faith. A commitment to economic progressivism is born of compassion for all people regardless of superficial categories, it is predicated on the belief that all people have an inherent dignity and ought to be cared for by society.
Belittle, from M-W: : to cause (a person or thing) to seem little or less
If socioeconomic factors are responsible for the decline in religiosity, then that fact causes anti-theism to seem less significant in the decline in religiosity.
The idea that gnus believe anti-theism to be a significant contributor to the decline in religiosity is implied by the gnu’s mode: anti-theism, and their goal: the decline in religiosity.
To put it shortly (and to sound like a broken record)
The problem is the privilege.
Without the privilege, religion suddenly becomes something much less harmful in our society. Even potentially something positive. (At least my opinion). However, splitting religion from privilege, at least in my eyes will require a divorcing of religion from theism. Something that there’s little support for even among potential allies.
The privilege is built into the belief in an authoritarian monotheistic deity. You simply cannot separate it easily, unless the religion was specifically designed that way, which isn’t the case for none of the religions we deal with.
Lovley:
It can be, sure. But the statements of yours that you flattered as “speculation” were actually just thoughtless prattling. Speculation, in any praiseworthy sense, requires more than tossing off empty shibboleths the way you do.
Whatever. You referred to “positive alternatives” to religion. Pretending that economic progressivism was the referent of your remark is just a comical falsehood.
Yeah, you don’t get it. To belittle someone or something is to demean it, to put it down. The word is pejorative; it’s simply nonsensical in a dry statistical context. Back to basic vocab for you.
Oh, god. Arguments that are that obtuse make Josh’s approach @45 look awfully tempting.
Buddy, you haven’t shown that you have the slightest clue what Gnus’ “mode” and “goal” are, much less that you’re capable of deriving what they “imply.” The notion that “anti-theism” (whatever that’s supposed to mean—you ignored Josh’s question @66 about it) is responsible for any particular “decline in religiosity” is an assertion of fact that has been made in your “implied” imagination, not in any actual Gnu’s work.
Gnus have many modes and many goals. After your logical flourishes on this blog and others, I wouldn’t trust you to deduce which gases we breathe, much less what causes we credit for the decline in worldwide religiosity.
And if my goal is honesty, and my mode is anti-theism because I am honestly an anti-theist?
No, you think gnus believe etc, you imply the gnus mode, you say the gnus goal is such and such.
What gnus say is different, that they want to fight religious power and authority, that they oppose religion because it’s false and nonsensical and harmful. We don’t need your reinterpretation. You make it sound like we have a dislike for religious people, somewhat like your dislike for atheists with strong principles. But no, dislike of religious people isn’t actually common among gnus or atheists generally. We generally practice the virtues that accomos preach but don’t practice with atheists. One must wonder who benefits from your theoretical humanism. And one must wonder, too, what opinion of your fellow interfaithers you choose to cloak with your diplomacy. I know, it’s a secret, but still…
I’m with Ophelia on this one. Let’s spend less time telling each other what to do and more time getting things done. And this preachy marginalizing of us New Atheists has got to stop.
There’s no need to turn on each other if we’re trying to build Humanist communities. It defeats the purpose of talking about how important Humanist communities are, to then insult a significant population of those Humanist communities!
The difference between gnus and accomos can be shown by example. Take William Lane Craig, the theologian who says religious inspired genocide is good because:
and he goes on:
Now, two things should be noted. First, Craig is not one of the crazies. He is, therefore, suitable for interfaithing, whether or not any accomo has actually attempted such a thing. Second, the rationale that Craig provides for the slaughter of infants is exactly the same as that offered by the worst terrorists. If you ever wanted evidence that ordinary religious belief enables the most evil kind, all you have to do is read the headlines.
That’s why religion must be opposed as it seeks to maintain its grip on power. That’s why the sense of entitlement the accomos work hard to defend (unwittingly?) and the presumptive superiority to all the unchurched must be broken.
We say, for the most excellent reason, that Craig is evil. His words condemn him. What do the accomos say? What will their triangulation permit them to say?
“… you put forward the most extreme version of your argument, and you don’t make any room for moderating views.”
Oh, OK. Here goes. God/s probably don’t exist. There, hope I didn’t offend anyone. Sheesh….Gnus are about as aggressive as frequently as scientists use the large hardon collider to microwave their lunches.
All the gnus I’ve met in person (quite a number), have been unfailingly warm hearted, generous, thoughtful, kind, intelligent, witty, polite and generally lovely people to be with. End of a fist indeed….give us a break!
I don’t know, as someone who is pro-interfaith, I would not work with someone so deranged. We can do responsible interfaith. We don’t have to work with the delusional such as WLC.
Jonathan, by the standards of orthodox religion Craig is not deranged, he’s conservative. The point is, the argument that Craig makes is the argument for the gods evil actions. That’s what’s so frustrating about the way people take religious ideas as the norm. Craig is saying what is, and in fact must be the rationale, and the tradition backs him, not the liberal obfuscators. In religious terms, Craig is right!
I think it’s useful to recognize some of the rhetorical techniques being applied here against the gnus.
The term “anti-theism” sounds very similar to expressions like “anti-slavery” or “anti-child pornography” – essentially something we must do all we can, including legislatively, if possible, to remove from society.
The reality for the average gnu (that would be me!) is a lot different. I have no interest in banning Catholicism or Hinduism or any other religion the way I would support laws against slavery of child porn.
What I am interested in is having a society where I am not subjected to other peoples superstitious beliefs in a way that denies my ability to live as I want. If a person cannot provide an evidential basis for a particular claim then I and other people in society should not be subject to behaving as if that claim is a fact.
I should also not be restrained from asking for evidence for a claim and, if none is provided, from concluding that the matter lacks evidential merit.
This type of behavior (an absolute requirement for evidence about religious claims that affect society etc) is at heart the basis for gnu atheism. It is also what gets called anti-theism. I admit that it’s not just gnus who use the term, Hitchens I know uses it to describe himself, but it’s important to realize that ‘anti-theism’ in the gnu sense is closer to a free speech issue and so is very different from the sort of ‘anti-theism’ associated with, say, communist societies that pursued policied of actively banning religion.
As for the lack of support for (even milder forms of) theism amongst gnus?
This seems to be completely misunderstood by the accomodationists.
Gnus are philosophical naturalists. This is a conclusion from the evidence rather than a ‘faith’ position. As such we see no evidence of Gods existing not or in the past. Everything that occurs in the natural world has a natural cause that also exists in the same natural world. There is no evidence for such things as ‘miracles’ – where the natural laws are suspended to allow for a supernatural event. It follows that stories of religious miracles are without factual basis and that the very idea of religious books being revealed by a deity is itself a miracle and is therefore without evidential merit – or more accurately is about as factually reliable as any other work of historical fiction.
It is therefore not a question of wanting to ban theism but rather a question of treating theistic claims exactly the same way you treat claims of a supporter of any superstitious belief (pagan, flying spaghetti monster, fairies, leprechauns).
Gnus advocate publicly treating theistic claims in that way. Accomodationists do not – although many of them personally treat theistic claims that way in private.
You’re going awful far out of your way to disagree with me, considering that I agree with you. The Bible is mostly an immoral book of fairy tales with a few decent to very good moral lessons haphazardly scattered in there , creating massive inconsistencies. I agree that liberal theologians mostly re-write the Bible in their interpretations.
How is telling the non-religious that they are evil and destructive “respectful”? How is not answering that “dialog[ue]”?
And Rieux is right: economic progress etc. are socially productive alternatives to religion. I would go further and point out that they are alternatives that can easily be impeded by religion. And historically have been.
So wipe that concerned look off your keyboard.
dirigible said:
That is definitely the case in Ireland, where the Catholic church promoted the banning of contraceptives and divorce (for everyone, not only of their religion), but also opposed the creation of a modern national health service – they were instrumental in preventing the Irish government from introducing what was called ‘The Mother and Child Act’ in the early 1950s because it opposed ‘socialized medicine’ which went against catholic ‘moral’ teaching. There was very high levels of child mortality and debilitating disease (such as tuberculosis) at that time and it took years (and many deaths) before the government was able to tackle the problem.
Andrew,
I would never refer to myself as anti-theist, and I doubt that people who do really are. Theism is a single proposition on the existence of a divine being, and a-theism is the non-acceptance of that proposition. Nothing more, nothing less. Neither position, alone, is capable of motivating somebody towards actions, good or bad.
I am anti-dogma. More specifically against dogma which is anti-gay, anti-women, or anti-human. More specifically dogma which seeks to discriminate against people that are out of their group, for what they are, or what they believe.
I can point to many examples of religious dogma which is repulsive, and is deserving of anger.
What atheist dogma is there? New-Atheism we are told. What can the anti-new-atheist point to that is deserving of criticism? That we are angry? Well, as I said there are many examples of religious dogma that are deserving of anger, so for the anti-new-atheist’s criticism to stick they need to show that we are repeatedly angry FOR NO REASON. I am not hearing any valid criticisms put forward, merely a request to shut the fuck up.
Sigmund:
Gnus are philosophical naturalists.
I did a double take for a second as I read it as: “Gnus are philosophical naturists”.
Why don’t they just give it a rest?
Well, one has to be extremely philosophical when looking at ones bits!
Why don’t they just give it a rest?
Coz then they’d have to do the hard work. Easier to pick nits from a friendly ally, then delouse a vicious dog.
Or could be I’m just misunderstanding it all.
I know why the accomodationists spend so much time on attacking the gnus. According to many of them and their ‘moderate’ religious allies, ‘militant fundamentalist atheists’ (I think they means us!) are just as bad as the worst sort of religious fundamentalists.
If you really see it that way then it becomes obvious why we need to be targeted.
Now personally I don’t see the equivalency of beheading Daniel Pearl on camera with a rusty knife or killing three thousand people in the twin towers, with PZ Myers calling Michael Ruse a clueless gobshite, but if they really are equivalent behavior then it makes sense to target us.
Perhaps I am too much of a ‘moral degenerate’ to be able to see how throwing a sacramental cracker in the garbage bin is the same thing as throwing acid in a schoolgirls face, or how telling Rob Knopp that his belief in a Jesus that rose from the dead and flew up to heaven and is as scientifically verified as a Leprechaun hiding his crock of gold at the end of the rainbow, well that just happens to be equivalent to executing someone for deciding they don’t believe in Islam.
Is our act of publicly pointing out that the catholic church have no right to be seen as ‘moral guardians’, particularly in the light of their global coverup of abusers, is that just as bad as the church’s action in actively preventing the use of condoms in HIV prevalent Africa?
I guess it must be! I just can’t see it.
I just thank my lucky stars that there are some nice accomodationists that CAN see this and do their utmost to stop me before I get to do much more damage.
Speaking as someone with a philosophy degree who has been a card-carrying naturist and is an atheist it is nice to get the recognition. Obviously you only carry the card when you aren’t actively practising.
So Karla McLaren writes a polemic against new atheists, telling new atheists to shut up and stop being polemical?
It was a well written piece of propaganda, and it shields Stedman nicely away from criticism as he sends in his troops to do the nasty work. Once again a master wizard at work.
It continues on with the game of framing Gnu Atheism as opposing accommodationism, when in fact we’re opposed to accommodationists telling us to shut up.
Stedman’s kind of accommodationism is now turning into a fifth column, intent on undermining the goal of the wider atheist movement itself. He’ll be your best friend while stabbing you in the back, be warned.
For an example of polemic helping greatly in the creation of a movement I give you the “gospel of john”. Hard to argue that that wasn’t successful, even if it doesn’t quite meet all the criteria in McLaren’s unique and bizarre definition of ‘polemic’.
Jonathan (#86) I wasn’t trying to disagree with you, I was just trying to make a point about how we need to remember how strange and horrific these ideas are.
Sigmund,
Well, I think the focus is more on the attitude than on the specific actions. The attitude of what could be called militant atheists seems to be quite similar to that of militant theists, but it’s just on the other end of the spectrum. That could suggest that it isn’t the views that stop atheists from committing similar actions, but just opportunity. And then we can point to the Soviet Union as an example of what happens when an anti-religious philosophy gets the power to do what it wants to religion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union
“The history of Christianity in the Soviet Union was not limited to repression and secularization. Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Soviet Union. Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and, ultimately, the elimination of religious beliefs”
Anti-theist and anti-religious views do seem to tend, at times, towards the latter, and some Gnus do seem to be anti-theist and anti-relligion. And if that’s the case, could that attitude spread to these sorts of actions:
“The state was committed to the destruction of religion[2][3], and to this effect it destroyed churches, mosques and temples, ridiculed, harassed and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with atheistic propaganda, and generally promoted ‘scientific atheism’ as the truth that society should accept”
Gnus do seem to promote the last one, and probably aren’t doing the others … yet. Now, they may well never do that, because there may be something else in their make-up that avoids that. But you will forgive people for being skeptical.
Obviously you only carry the card when you aren’t actively practising.
That’s why Jeebus gave us a bum-crack. Tell me that isn’t intelligent design!
Having re-read MacLaren’s piece, what a vacuous and dishonest piece of work I find it is. Andrew Lovley is telling us to engage with her arguments, but there is really no argument there, just a fluffy pretend-niceness that serves badly to conceal a pathetic arrogance and a contemptible ignorance, a refusal to address any serious issues, and, as Ophelia has pointed out, a general passive-aggressive nastines. If the accomodationists have something genuine to say, why can they do not better than this? Perhaps Chris Stedman (have I the blog-owner’s name right?) could explain precisely why he thinks this vicious and sickeningly sentimental little piece is worthy of being advertised on his blog.
Tim Harris said
If one of us had written such a bad tempered, insult laden attack piece it would immediately be held up by our opponents as an example of ‘acting the dick’. It is interesting to see Phil Plait, the Mooney Hoax denier himself, turn up in the comments section to not only congratulate the author but to state that he had wanted to say some of the same stuff in his inept DBAD speech but there wasn’t enough time! The hypocricy of the tone jockeys never ceases to amaze me.
This thread is extra-long already, but I’m chipping in to add my support to Steve Zara.
I was never involved in the gay or queer rights movements, but I had a similar move from accommodationism to anti-accommodationism on the subject of religion for exactly the reasons you put forward. I used to believe that there was no need for fiery rhetoric, that there was no need to upset people unnecessarily, etc., etc. In short, I was raised on the idea that respectful argumentation was the best way to push a progressive message. What I found was exactly the opposite. If one was polite and deferential to religious power figures, they took that as a sign that they had won the debate even if their logic had been shredded by any logical or moral standard.
And then I noticed that not only were they not playing fair in debates, they were pushing dubious moral claims onto the whole of society (not just their own followers) using their pre-Enlightenment sense of legislative entitlement. And after a while I got sick of being polite to people who were (a) refusing to play polite back, and (b) pushing to force women to die rather than have an abortion, forcing creationism into schools, blocking stem cell research, cutting funding to Planned Parenthood, acting as apologists for genocide, and [fill in your own example]. I came to realise that I had no interest in being polite to them. Fair, yes. I don’t want to lob false accusations at anyone — but when William Lane Craig openly espouses retributive infanticide as morally beneficent because it’s in the Bible, why in hell should I show him the slightest trace of deference or respect?
Getting back to the gay theme: it’s the same with opposition to gay marriage. There is no morally compelling argument against gay marriage. I have nothing but contempt for those who oppose it — and comparing them to the anti-miscegenist bigots in the southern US in the 1950s is not only fair play, it might even be effective at changing hearts and minds. (And that includes Templeton Prize winner Jerry Falwell, who preached in 1958 that mixed marriages would “destroy our race” and should continue to be illegal.)
To those coming late to the game, starting off as an accommodationist is natural and probably healthy. Try feeling that way, though, after a year or two of what you thought was a debate only to find out your opponents expect you to play perpetually the part of the pinata…
@Ophelia #6: “We’ll get James and John in here again telling us not to be so mean to Chris. Don’t even try it, guys. This crap is not the work of an ally”
I simply wish to point out my conspicuous absence from this thread in any defensive capacity. I AM preparing a post about why Blackford is wring re: the teaching of evolution in schools and it’s implications for religious instruction, so you can all pile on that instead if you wish. ;)
Yay John Figdor! I did you a rank injustice when I predicted you and James would be here telling us not to be mean to Chris. I apologize.
dirigible @87:
Actually it was Andrew Lovley (@64) who said that. And (as the work of Gregory S. Paul, among others, shows) it’s true, as far as it goes; it’s just that, in this thread, Lovley raised the point as an absurd retconning of what he had actually argued @39.
Our exchange with Lovley yesterday evening was dizzying, as exchanges with him often are. Sorry ’bout that.
>To those coming late to the game, starting off as an accommodationist is natural and probably healthy. Try feeling that way, though, after a year or two of what you thought was a debate only to find out your opponents expect you to play perpetually the part of the pinata…
Indeed, atheism really starts as a debate between belief and non-belief. And most atheists begin naively to engage with religious apologetics, as if a bit of reason and scientific understanding is going to change the minds of your opponent. After a decade or so of wasting your time, eventually you become interested in working out the psychology of your religious opponents, befriending them and showing that we’re all human, so let’s all get along. What happens next is that your efforts to become involved is a corrupting experience, as you’re from now on a friendly target for gentle conversion. You’ll turn eventually, promises your theistic friends. Meanwhile, you spend your time attacking those nasty atheists who don’t represent you at all, they must be irrational and prejudicial, so it goes. While your new theistic friends use you to promote their goals and interests. It can be an embarrassing and humiliating experience, realising that you’re a shill, a pawn in their game.
The befriending experience is yet another waste of time. Faith and reason cannot co-exist, they can only accept each other in the name of tolerance, and then do an about-face and head off into their respective directions.
Chris #103
I’m just a casual visitor here, but just wanted to say what a fantastic and eloquent summary.
The final paragraph made me spit my tea out in laughter, and will stick with me for some time. Expect to see me plagarise it on other blogs.
James
Noted! Ok then I apologize to you too. I do know you guys don’t march in lockstep and that you do disagree about some things, it’s just that you’re a bit defensive about Chris sometimes. Understandable; friend and colleague; I’m just explaining my unkind anticipations. (That piece got me really riled. It’s hilarious in a way – she wants us to be less cross, so she writes the most irritating post I’ve seen in at least a week. That went well!)
Oh and Stephen @ #18 –
No they have not. They have essentially been “stop telling us to stop doing it the way we are doing it.” I have never said stop promoting community and argue on the internet.
Jonathan’s my favorite “interfaith” atheist. His comment on the McLaren thread at Stedman’s place is a good one. Kudos, J.F.
To describe it like that is to miss the fact that accomodationism is a very useful niche for some people.
It hasn’t done Mooney much harm in his career (his credibility is another thing) and it seems to be obligatory for any skeptic who has thoughts of beginning a mainstream media career (yes Phil, I’m thinking of you) either in TV or in journalism (there always seem to be jobs going at the HuffPo anti-gnu production line). And how on Earth do you demonstrate you are serious about interfaith work without working with the religious to defeat the biggest challenge our society has to face – uppity atheists.
That’s not to say it’s easy. Fainting couches don’t come cheap these days.
And one must be careful of cholesterol overload when availing of the Templeton gravy train.
The important thing is to uphold the rights of religious people that are under threat by the actions of the gnus. The main right they are supporting, of course, is the right of the religious to say nasty things about atheists. They must love the accomodationists for that one – if it weren’t for them then criticising atheists would just sound like sectarian bigotry – rather than justified criticism of a group of ‘fundamentalist atheist extremists’ who are just as bad as the worst sort of religious extremists.
[…] http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/oh-hai-why-cant-the-new-atheists-be-nice/ […]
Wow, that is one disgusting piece of shit blog post by Verbose Stoic. Gnus “ridicule religion” and promote a “scientific atheism,” ergo it is reasonable to suspect we might turn to Soviet-style oppression of religious believers if given the opportunity.
Disgraceful.
Yes; very good, forthright comment by J Figdor on that post. (J Figdor is a bit confusing – he’s Jonathan/John – not Jon. You’re confusing us, John!)
Verbose – about the last para on that post – your comment was held because of the links, that’s all. I let it out as soon as I checked the spam filter. It’s # 99.
Ophelia,
Thanks for that.
@Ophelia I appreciate your understanding. I do think that when I defend Chris and his approach it is for good reasons – I try not to do so out of blind adherence to his position. Looking over the two times I have come here to defend him I still think I was broadly right to do so on both occasions. I understand that others disagree.
As for this article, it did not read to me as the condescending and sickly post it clearly seemed to some here. I think that our differing expectations regarding tone when we approach a piece affect how we read it, and this one came across to me as more playful than snide (particularly the “Fractious Four” designation – “fractious” seems to me more a funny word than a denigrating one). This is not to say that other readings aren’t entirely legitimate – it just did not make me angry or feel icky.
Further, the author does try to make it clear that she thinks the sort of voice she is describing (whether accurately described as polemical or not) has an important role. She doesn’t say that New Atheists should shut up – she is quite about this in the paragraph beginning “There is a fear among New Atheists…”
One point that I think is well made is that there does seem to exist a tacit assumption, sometimes made explicit, that ” if you don’t continually and loudly protest all things religious, spiritual, and supernatural, then you are tacitly agreeing with and supporting them.” I have certainly encountered that sentiment. I think there are echoes of something similar in Ron Lindsay’s recent post on interfaith work, when he says “In participating in interfaith coalitions, atheists are implicitly allowing atheism to be considered just another religion”. I don’t think that follows – it’s a clear non-sequitur, because you can participate in interfaith coalitions while being very loud and explicit about the fact that humanism is not another religion. Which has an extremely destabilizing effect on the whole enterprise and ultimately, I believe, works in our favor.
But that’s one small point out of many.
In general I think it poorly-argued. I do not agree that the Four Horsemen deal only (or even primarily) in polemic (though at times they are polemical, and proudly so), or that atheism is de facto a polemical position. This rather undermines the entire premise of the piece.
There’s little evidence that the author has engaged seriously with the arguments of Harris, Hitchens et al. Nor do I think their positions necessarily “extreme” (although on occasion, again, they say things that can be read as extreme).
I do not appreciate the idea that the works of the New Atheists are driven by “rage, despair and terror” – that seems to me extremely unfair and dismissive. Nor do I think a call for poorly-understood “dialectics” is a useful move.
So in general I reject the piece, although it doesn’t quite make me sick.
Yes; that’s a disgusting comment and now post (Verbose’s). We’ll “forgive” you for publicly suspecting that we would murder religious believers if we could? No I won’t.
Rieux,
You missed the point. The point is that at least some of the atheists being called fundmentalists express attitudes that seem to moderates on all sides as being close to those of the fundamentalist theists. I — and I think others — think that the attitudes are the problem and are what cause fundamentalist behaviour. And then we can look at what I think we can all agree is “bad anti-religious behaviour” and not the similarities in position and at some points even in behaviour. And then we can wonder — quite reasonably — if it really is the same attitude and if it will lead to the more extreme behaviours.
As I was exceptionally careful to point out in the comment and in the post, I’m not saying that it will lead to that; there may be some other philosophy involved here that will prevent that. But I’m getting cynical and no longer believe that there is any movement or philosophy no matter how will intentioned that is immune to abuse. And thus, the concerns about attitudes stay in play.
Why, Rieux, do you think that the anti-religious views of the Gnu atheists will not promote the same abuses as the anti-religious views of Marxist-Leninism? Marxist philosophy’s biggest problem is that it is impractical, not that it is inherently dogmatic or abusive. Presuming — which, I think is a safe assumption — that humanist/atheist philosophies are also not inherently dogmatic or abusive, I don’t see what protections they have that Marxism didn’t at least try to have. Marxism does seem well-intentioned, just as humanist/atheist philosophies are. How do you guard against abuse?
I guess we just can’t, which is why all the Christians in atheist majority Scandinavia have been carted off to the killing fjords.
Oh wait…
James – well I daresay the post didn’t make you angry because it’s not directed at you. It’s not aimed at you.
It’s true that at this point stuff like what McLaren wrote triggers an almost automatic reaction in me…but then that’s because it’s just the latest in a long long long string of nasty coercive conformist attacks. It makes me angry that people who obviously think of themselves as good right-on type people are so cheerfully eager to smear a group of people who are not doing anything wrong.
You are of course right that the tone can be read as cute and perky and funny and all of that, but that’s just what’s so irritating – it’s aggression and smearing hiding behind a cute perky style.
The point you say is well made is not well made, because it is wildly exaggerated. You say you have often encountered the sentiment “if you don’t continually and loudly protest all things religious, spiritual, and supernatural, then you are tacitly agreeing with and supporting them.” I don’t believe you. I think you’ve fallen into McLaren’s trap. I don’t believe you’ve encountered anyone who says you have to protest all things religious continually and loudly. That’s ridiculous, and I don’t believe it.
And this is how the backlash works. Wild exaggeration, repeated and repeated and repeated, until people come to believe it.
I use my title, “the Very Reverend Jonathan P. Figdor, B.A., MDiv.” when I want to be pretentious. I’m John with my students and friends.
PS: My Mom thinks I got the Rev. title to make her happy, but just between us, I use the Rev. title when arguing with disrespectful Christian clergy because it bothers them.
Sigmund,
Is Scandinavia anti-theist and anti-religious? The term “atheist” does not imply those, and it is those attitudes that were prevalent in Marxist philosophy.
See, that’s kinda the issue that people are missing. Ophelia, I think history has shown that militant and fundamentalist attitudes about anything — especially since those tend to be dogmatic — lead to really bad things. They rarely turn out well. So my concerns about the attitudes are:
1) Militant and fundamentalist attitudes. You could try to demonstrate that Gnu atheists don’t have them or that those attitudes aren’t necessarily problematic.
2) Strong anti-religious attitudes. Again. you could show that Gnu atheists don’t express those — which would be somewhat more difficult than the first case — or that they aren’t necessarily problematic.
I’m not accusing anyone in particular of wanting to murder people. My concern is for anything that can be considered a movement or a philosophy, as allowing it to be defined by fundamentalist or militant attitudes rarely ends well. But I could be wrong. Some might use feminism as an example, but then the fact that most women today refuse to associate with that movement might count against it being a good example.
It does no good to simply call claims that at least some Gnus are holding attitudes that have led to probelms in the past disgusting. You need to address why those attitudes are either not held or not held in a problematic way. If I can stomach claims that religious people want to impose their religion on others when I clearly don’t, you can stomach someone asking this question.
@Ophelia 122: You’re right, in the sense that I gave the author the benefit of the doubt, and tried to find a reasonable point behind a certain amount of exaggeration. I tend to try to do this when reading others’ work (including yours, even!). What I should have said is not that the point is “well made”, but rather that there is something of a good point lurking in there somewhere, which I recognize is not the same. Sometimes I am too generous.
You also say “I daresay the post didn’t make you angry because it’s not directed at you. It’s not aimed at you.” I wonder why you say that. I have many times been considered and designated a “New Atheist”. Anyone who reads my work carefully could not be under the impression that I don’t loudly and consistently criticize religious faith. And I have publicly expressed great reservations regarding “interfaith” work. So why do you suggest I shouldn’t see this as directed at me? Because sometimes I think Chris Stedman has a point?
I am a happy warrior, but a warrior still.
They aren’t. There is this silly view that there is some kind of centre of gravity of reasonableness that is half way between strict atheism and fundamentalist belief.
It isn’t. If we were starting with a blank slate and coming across the claims of religion, the reasonable position would be entirely that of the strict but questioning atheist. The “fundamentalist” atheist, who expresses their ‘stridency’ with requests for explanations and evidence, and shows some astonishment at what is presented to them.
James…good question. Maybe I was thinking that your association with the Harvard chaplaincy and Humanists protects you from the smearing. Something like that anyway. Point taken.
There are of course shadows of reasonable claims within the post – but I think that degree of hostile rhetoric makes a charitable reading just a surrender. I don’t think she earned any kind of charitable reading.
[takes deep breath. thinks loving thoughts.]
Verbose – I’d like you to drop this. I don’t want you verbosely “arguing” the case for a slippery slope which will tumble us into murdering believers. Go be verbose about it at your own place.
VS:
Oh, no, I didn’t. You’re just trying to hide nasty atheophobic bigotry behind a fog of handwaving and circumlocution.
…by clueless people who neither know nor care the first thing about what fundamentalism actually is…
They “seem to [‘]moderates[’]” that way because said “moderates” are so buried in religious privilege that the mildest skeptical critique of religious belief sounds to them like a feverish assault.
Blind and privileged misconceptions such as the way Gnu Atheism “seems” to self-declared privileged “moderates” are useless as evidence of anything. You can’t build a sociological case on that garbage.
You can “wonder” it, but there’s nothing the slightest bit reasonable about it. It’s just privilege and atheophobia talking.
Oh, no, of course not! You were only suggesting that maybe if we let one of those darkies into the White House, every Caucasian American would be in shackles toiling on watermelon plantations by July 2009. How could I have been so blind as to mistake your “exceptionally careful” airy hypotheses about Gnu Atheism leading to Stalinist oppression for something offensive? Shame, shame on me.
Buddy, your post isn’t about “abuse,” it’s about Stalinist autocracy. Don’t insult us with that minimizing, goalpost-moving bullshit.
You can stick your whining about “attitudes” up your ass. Stalinism is not an “attitude,” it is a form of totalitarianism. Pretending that you can extrapolate from “ridicule of religion” and “scientific atheism” to autocracy and mass murder is obscene.
Gee, I don’t know; maybe it’s because Marxism demanded the revolutionary overthrow of governments it opposed in order to install a dictatorship of the proletariat, you dumbass. Whereas no Gnu Atheist has ever even sought political power in the name of Gnu ideology, much less advocated violating anyone’s civil rights.
The whining about “attitude” you build your entire obscene case on is nothing more than a privileged and bigoted backlash against atheists who have refused to obey the unjust dictates that we stay in “our place” and not trouble our religious betters. Gnu Atheism won’t lead to brutal dictatorship for the same reasons that abolitionism hasn’t lead to a brutal dictatorship, nor has feminism, nor has the union movement, nor has the Civil Rights movement, nor has the GLBT rights movement, nor has the collapse of religion in most of Europe, East Asia, and Oceania. All of the above have prompted similar moaning and wailing about gauche “attitudes,” but it was all bullshit concocted by a self-satisfied hegemon that desperately wanted to retain its heedless power.
You took a hateful backlash against a group of atheists who dare to speak their minds, who do so without the slightest hint of violence or political aspirations, and pretended that it’s serious and “reasonable” to worry about the targets of that bigotry resorting to Stalinist tyranny. As I said, your post is one disgusting piece of shit.
VS,
You know, just because we don’t respect the content of theists’ beliefs, doesn’t mean we don’t respect their right to believe it. Atheists in America are one of the most liberal demographics (along with Unitarians and Buddhists) (all data from Pew Forum); to accuse them of authoritarian leanings is just stupid and offensive.
Steve Zara,
That’s not really the attitude that I call fundamentalist, though. Massively anti-religious attitudes are the ones I’m going after. How common are they? I don’t really know. I’ve come across enough — mostly from people who are not the leading lights, to be fair — to worry me a bit. And the anti-religious attitudes really are there, even in the leading lights.
It may be that the Gnus’ commitment to liberal democracy will make things work out better, but I’m sure that if you asked Marx if he thought his anti-religious attitudes could lead to what the Soviet Union did I’m sure he’d have been equally appalled by the suggestion.
To be fair, I should say Verbose can reply. Verbose can reply. But drop this “but you just might end up supervising the killing fields” crap. It’s over the line.
Well I needn’t have bothered.
Verbose you’re on a short tether.
Also to the degree where such “attitude” might exist, it’s something that’s been normalized in our society by religious extremists for a much longer time than the Gnu atheists have been around. Considering the invective that’s hurled our way, to be frank, I think that Gnu’s are quite well behaved all things considered.
Now if you want to remove that attitude from our society. That’s great. I actually agree. That said, atheists are not the problem. It’s the exclusivist religionists that are the problem. Go tell them to stop it, and stop wasting our time.
Ophelia:
ITYM, first against the wall when the revolution comes. ;-)
Also: Gnu Atheists aren’t the ones defending genocide and infanticide. More here.
Ophelia,
I hadn’t seen your comments before my latest ones, so I’ll bow out. If people want to continue on my blog, that’s fair enough; I still stand by my statements.
I’m having coffee with Chris Stedman to talk about this piece in a few minutes. Anybody got something you want me to ask him?
What massive anti-religious attitudes? From whom? I haven’t come across one person who is insisting that we should make anyone give up their religion. I haven’t come across one person who doesn’t support freedom of thought and personal belief. Not one, in years of being an on-line atheist. Not one.
So who are you talking about? What are these attitudes?
Seriously, Rieux, even if you don’t actually start blogging for real, perhaps you can link your nym to some page with an up-to-date list of “blogs where I tend to comment these days,” so I can be sure to watch the comment threads at the right sites. Or even just a blog with entries that are “Comment thread activity alert: [specific Rosenau {or whatever} thread X].” This stuff’s too good to miss.
Really, Verbose, you DO need a spell in a concentration camp to learn how to pay attention! Cut the use of fundamentalist out – it ain’t applicable. Give instances of atheists who have said private belief should be forcibly repressed. Just how many times have you heard the New Atheists say you can believe what the fuck you like in private…you just don’t get to load it on the rest of us.
I apologize for messing up Ophelia’s living room last night with my exasperation at Andrew Lovley. I am not, however, sorry to him.
Steve:
As usual, the only response to [Citation needed] will be <crickets>…</crickets>. Followed by a brief pause and then the same accusations resurfacing.
If a response does come, it will be of the same kind of innocuous example given in the “deliberately and ridiculously playing the Nazi card against religion” nonsense. Only looks good if you take it entirely out of context and don’t actually bother to listen to what the speaker is actually saying.
Every gnu that I know would only respond with scorn and criticism to anybody who suggested any sort of coercion or threat of violence towards the religious. This sort of nonsense really is way beyond pathetic and Ophelia rightly kicked it into touch as soon as it appeared.
I’m too late for John’s question but I’ll answer it anyway – dude whaddayou think you’re doing?!
:- )
Verbose, your fears are unfounded. New Atheism is not an ideological based movement, unlike Marxism or Stalinism. While there are ideologically inclined atheists among us (Harris and Hitchens come to mind), the movement is based on criticism and reason, and not principles or doctrine.
As for Rieux, his tireless effort across the webs is amazing, I just hope he does not burn himself out.
Verbo @ 120 referring to comment @ 99
Verbo @ 99
See, you actually did say what you insist you didn’t say by arguing for the historical if not logical conclusion of such “attitudes.” If you hold these unsavory generalization of others why not just admit it?
Chris and I had a very productive conversation and will be working on a joint blog post about how New Atheists and Humanists can work together in the coming weeks. Keep your eyes peeled.
Will keep eyes open if not peeled, but I have no plans to work with Chris Stedman on anything. He’s said what he thinks of people like me, so shared projects would be tricky.
Chris needs to understand that no one is going to want to work with anyone who keeps slinging mud at us and mischaracterizing us, or telling us (however “nicely”) to shut up, and that we’re not helping. That’s step one. Stop it. I don’t want any instruction or suggestions from Chris about anything until he cuts the slag fest.
That is the basic subject of our blog post. Thanks for your frank and honest comments.
Thank you, John.
@Josh #150
which is basically telling Chris to shut up about us if he wants to work with us?
I’d rather we just point out the places where his criticisms and (mis)characterizations have been answered – at which point he can admit he’s wrong , come up with better criticisms or continue as he is doing – And if he chooses the latter then its fairly obvious he has no intention of actually working with gnu’s.
Deepak, you’re splitting recursive hairs.
His mind tricks are working on you too, I see Jonathan.
Nope. I am immune to both Jedi mind tricks and faitheist rhetoric.
I hope you will bear in mind that, at least as far as I can see, the Gnus (and their humble acolytes such as I) seem to be actually quite busy and productive as things are now. Any suggestions of additional work and collaborations is going to have to be quite tempting, I would imagine!
Late to this comment party again :( but thought I’d share my comment to McLaren’s article, which might not make it through moderation. Hope it might be helpful to others. Begin quote:
[See below, # 160]
Oh geez! Paragraph fail! Sorry guys. I swear there were paragraphs in the original. Shoulda previewed…
Here Wonderist, I’m on break at work and really liked what you had to say. I cleaned it up so it looks a little more like your actual comment:
In Wonderists words:
The first few paragraphs of this piece just about made me want to puke. I had to take a break and come back to read it again later.
Ms. McLaren, what do you call the approach where you make false claims and characterizations of your opponents, put forth the idea that these are accurate and representative of them, and then ‘demolish’ this false image? Is that polemics? Dialectics? I call it a fallacious argument: The Straw Man Fallacy, to be specific (or Straw Person, as I’ve been starting to call it).
Is it ‘polemical’ to forthrightly and unapologetically state my reaction (wanting to puke) and disagreement with your position? I don’t think it is. I think it’s just honest free-speech. I don’t *need* to exaggerate or rely upon purely-emotional appeals in order to argue against you. All I have to do is say what I think is true, and back it up with rational argument and evidence. Since this is essentially what the gnu atheists have been doing from the beginning, it seems to me that you would probably label such honest, unapologetic speech as ‘polemical’, although it truly does not fit your stated definition of polemics.
Your article is filled, from the second paragraph to the end, with false claims, exaggerations, and purely-emotional appeals. Not *once* did you actually point to any specific instance of this terrible ‘polemics’ you claim is so prevalent. Unfortunately, as we’ve so often seen (esp. with the incredible Tom Johnson affair), the facts and evidence have so far acquitted well-known new/gnu atheists from the ‘crimes’ they have been accused of, and usually point toward more serious irresponsible or even malicious smearing from the accusers themselves. I suspect, based on much past experience, that this is the case with your claims as well.
I would like to see you back up your claims with evidence. Show us this rampant ‘polemicism’ among gnu atheism. If it turns out that, like Phil Plait and his DBAD diatribe, you can’t even give us one example of ‘being a dick’, then what are we to make of your smears against gnu atheists? Are they only irresponsible, or are they also dishonest? Sometimes, it’s very hard to tell.
Here are some claims that you made that need to be backed up with real evidence:
False. Ridiculously false.
Hyperbolically false. The enormously vast majority Gnus are non-violent, and I can’t think of any that advocate violence or force as a legitimate tactic.
False. Gnus are open to disagreement and debate. But they demand evidence. We question the sanity of those severly deluded by some religious beliefs/dogmas, and the morality of anyone who seriously bases their morality on the Bible, Quran, or other dogma, but this does not apply to “anyone who disagrees with us.”
False. We make room for such views, we just strongly argue against some of those views when we think that they are actually wrong. You are free to argue back, of course, nobody’s stopping you.
1) Begging the question. You have yet to establish the ‘polemical’ nature of the gnu’s arguments.
2) False. The vast majority of gnus do not ‘rage’, though they do rightly make use of strategic anger. See http://www.rationalresponders.com/strategic_anger
False. Most gnus I know have an abiding hope for the future, which is the opposite of despair.
False. Most gnus I know channel their fear into awe, wonder, and curiosity, looking for ways to overcome social problems with dialogue, scientific research, community building, and activism. We reject terror/terrorism, and prefer wonder/wonderism.
False. While this may be true of the straw person ‘polemical atheist’ of your imagination, it is not true of *real*, *actual*, gnu atheists, or the gnu atheist approach. We can, and do, use our methods (our real methods, not the ones you falsely attribute to us) in relationships and conversations. And we *already are* building a movement upon it.
False. Again, straw person. Our actual position and arguments do none of the above. We don’t ‘dramatize an extreme position’, we simply *state* our *actual*, non-extreme position. We just do so unapologetically. Also, we welcome open and honest disagreement from anyone. It’s when we are lied to, or lied about (in the case of articles such as this one), that we challenge people and ask them to stop lying or repeating false claims about us.
Straw person. Examples, please.
There, I fixed it for you. You had mistakenly written ‘polemic’ instead of ‘straw person’. Love the ‘burning brightly’ metaphor there, by the way. Straw people sure do burn brightly when you set them on fire. Etc. Etc. Nearly every single paragraph of this article is loaded with such falsehoods, fallacies, and mischaracterizations.
Thanks, but we *have all that already*. I am *already* part of a sustainable community of gnu atheists. I, and many others, have been going for years, and our movement is growing at a healthy pace. We are making inroads into the mainstream, at an ever-accelerating pace. And we don’t need to be anything other than Galvanized, Non-violent, and Unapologetic to keep our momentum going. That is, after all, what GNU atheism is *actually* about. Also, for more on what Gnu Atheism is about, see Comment 29: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/comment-29/
If by dialectics you mean things like the Socratic method of dialogue, then that is exactly what we’ve been doing from the very beginning. Asking questions, questions, questions. It’s amazing how ‘offended’ and defensive some people get when you simply ask them, “Well, how do you know that?” They tend to call us ‘strident’, ‘militant’, or even ‘polemical’ when we do that.
I have a better suggestion: How about we try rational discourse, and scientifically informed, evidence-based reasoning? In fact, why don’t we try to promote *that* in itself! That is what we are doing. You can call it ‘polemics’, but then that would only make you demonstrably wrong.
It’s kind of ironic that on the one hand Roger Stanyard and the BCSE crowd berate New Atheists for political impotence, but on the other Verbose foresees a New Atheist World Order, where presumably every church has been converted to a bookshop selling coldly rational lifestyle guides, with log tables to work out what to do in any moral dilemma.
I’m not sure which is more offensive.
Or more emotionally motivated, militant, and extremist. /sarcasm.
Josh
Im pointing out what your comment comes across as , whereas I’m pretty sure you mean it differently.
Great comment, Wonderist. Thanks for the fix, Doug! I was away, and now I don’t have to fix anything.
Mark Jones,
Have a look through the history of Roger Stanyard’s comments on RichardDawkins.net, you’ll see he’ll happily use vulgarisms such as cretinists (for creationists) and other juvenile language. Hypocrisy and unpleasant come to mind.
And the added benefit of Stalinist connotations! That’s awesome PR!
Snerk!
If Josh has to apologize for messing Ophelia’s place up, the so must I. I get a little carried away sometimes. Mea culpa.
Late to the party (lousy southern hemisphere and its time difference), but I just have to show my appreciation for Sigmund’s comment, way upthread:
He’s pining for the fjords!
Ha!
I don’t know, Brian and Josh; I didn’t see anything especially living room-messing. Mind you I didn’t read every word – it was over 100 comments by the time I got here.
Re 148 & 151, I for one trust Jonathan. For now. Though it’s going to take a very serious effort to convince me that any of us should see these matters any differently than Ophelia @149 and Josh @150 do right now.
McLaren’s post, for example, is not the most recent one on Stedman’s blog. There’s been a new round of gnubashing (this one based on our legendary “juvenile” ignorance of theology and religious history, dontcha know) posted since this morning. Is there really any hope for dialogue with Stedman?
Hey, I see from Wonderist’s offering above that the estimable Comment 29 has its own B&W page! Good stuff.
(this one based on our legendary “juvenile” ignorance of theology and religious history, dontcha know)
Which reminds me – I was a practicing Catholic for… it must be about 20 years, I guess, from baptism to being too bored to continue. I went to a Catholic school, I had my first communion, my first confession and so on.
And yet I was never taught anything at all about theology and religions history. Nothing at all. No mention of Aristotle, or Augustine. Nothing about past Popes. Nothing. It seems that we commoners weren’t in need of such sophisticated religion.
So, this is what I want to ask. Once we Gnu atheists have overcome our ignorance of theology and history in order to engage with the religious, are the accommodationists going to insist that the laity is up to the same standard?
It might take some time, with them numbering in the billions. I think the accommodationists should get started right away, and we agree to participate when this is done. I give it a few centuries.
VB @120:
No, really, Marxism’s biggest problem is that it is inherently dogmatic. The abusive part comes later, but also stems from its dogmatism. The impracticality as well: Dogmas, by definition, do not adapt to reality, and will always stagnate and become impractical as conditions in the world change and make reality incompatible with the dogma that is enforced.
The dogma of Marxism is its basis in Hegelian dialectic, morphed into Marxist dialectic, and which forms the basis of historical materialism, and later, dialectical materialism. All of these are dogmas, pure and simple, with no basis in fact, only wishful thinking. But they were treated as givens, true without question, and part and parcel of the entire philosophy. You can’t be a Marxist without accepting the dogma of ‘dialectic’ as conceived by Marx (via Hegel, as distinct from Socrates et al.).
The dogma of Marxist dialectic, for example, is the basis for the claim that all effective social change must/should occur through revolution, instead of more patient/peaceful methods of social evolution (e.g. democracy) which are promoted by today’s democratic socialists. Hence you get the violent revolutions and totalitarian ‘revolutionary’ governments of the Soviets et al.
Problem: Dogma, not ‘anti-religion’. Gnu atheists: anti-dogma, as well as anti-religion.
BTW, people, this is one of the reasons I propose that GNU atheists are is Galvanized, Non-violent, and Unapologetic. If we put that right in our name, WTF can the anti-gnus say to that except, “Well, you say you’re non-violent, but I secretly think you just want to kill everyone who disagrees with you!”
Thank you, Doug Kirk, that was much appreciated!
Steve Zara wrote:
I’ve asked this question on many occasions, and am yet to receive an answer. It’s just another example of the privileging of religious claims allowing them a double-standard, i.e. you’re allowed to adhere to a faith despite knowing no more about it than to answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘are you a Christian?’; you’re not, however, entitled to criticise any aspect of it unless you meet some unspecified standard of expertise.
Sadly, this position also seems popular amongst the anti-gnu atheists – particularly those with philosophy backgrounds.
Extreme antitheist Bakunin on a major problem with Marxism:
Statism and Anarchy was written in 1873. Do try to keep up.
Wonderist
Paraphrased for awesomeness.
Every time I read one of these hit-pieces aimed at GNUs I just find myself shouting, internally:YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION.
Seriously, this should not be so difficult to understand: we want unearned religious privilege to end, for legislation & public education & science to be secular (neutral to religion, not pro-atheist!), for nonreligious people to stop being marginalised (especially by their alleged comrades) and for people to stop treating faith with kid gloves so it can be discussed maturely and honestly, warts n’ all, without people wailing about how we’re going to seize power in the name of No Gods At All and throw all those nice vicars in a gulag and not give them any Milk Arrowroots with their cups of Earl Grey.
I am also struck by the resemblance some (some! Before you get carried away, O moderate ones, SOME) of these self-appointed standard-bearers for “let’s all have a nice chat” bear to the kind of creationist muppets many of them purport to oppose as strongly as we do. What are these similarities? The simultaneous ignorance of GNU writing and misrepresentation of what we say, the stubborn refusal to provide, when requested, actual examples of our vicious hatred and shrieking stridency and yawping militancy, the goalpost-shifting when challenged on same, the frequent conflation of a pro-evolution stance/secularism with atheism/anti-theism and many other golden memories that honestly shit me to tears and are hallmark tactics of those banana-masturbating clowns for Jesus that we’ve all come to know and laugh at. Different side of the fence, perhaps, but similar tactics.
Then we have the accusations that we’re anti-community (despite people like PZ, Dawkins, Coyne, Hemant and Ebonmuse being the centres of thriving, robust online communities), the constant use of “New Atheism” either in scare quotes or as a pejorative, the seeming ignorance that the only “new” thing about this new atheism is its recent explosion in popularity (which may in itself just annoy some people), the complaint we’re not putting forward any alternatives to faith as part of our militant fundamentalist crusade to eliminate it (despite the fact that many of us see no need to do so considering that countries which are more secular – not anti-religious, secular) are doing just fine, the yada yada yada.
So GNUs are angry, yes. So what? It’s justifiable (and for the most part measured). We’re angry about the undeniable harm religion causes, not just within brutal theocracies and not just in its extremist explode-y forms, but via everyday ignorance and discrimination and flat-out ethical & moral torpitude displayed & championed by organisations like the Vatican. We’re also angry that much faith-based harm goes unremarked upon, either by religious people themselves, our leaders or our major press outlets, due in large part to the undeserved, millennia-old privilege religion is used to. Is it not reasonable to be angry about creationists constantly trying to undermine education, about womens’ and childrens’ rights & sexual freedom in Islamic dictatorships, about marriage equality, about the need for a secular state, about religious groups receiving enormous financial privilege purely by virtue of being religious?We’re further incensed that a small group of atheists and agnostics seem to spend inordinate amounts of time hanging wet bags of shit on GNUs for our outspokenness, “theological ignorance” and alleged abusive, bigoted rhetoric & unfair generalisations, all the while making absurdly false generalisations about us in return & capping it off by telling us to just stop because we’re not helping and our horrid, nasty rants are “turning people away from teh Science” (an absurd proposition which has yet to be demonstrated).
The interesting thing is this: if it’s the desire of the Gnu Bashers that we stop with our criticisms, it will remain unfulfilled. If it’s their intent that, at their behest, we just pack up and not say anything critical, not hold any ridiculous beliefs up to the light and not at least attempt to hold people accountable for harm they cause in the name of faith, they won’t succeed. But I don’t know if that’s what they want, because it’s implausible in the extreme that any self-respecting GNU Atheist is going to read yet another ill-considered, unsupported GNU-bash and suddenly have the scales fall from her eyes and exclaim “Ploontzke’s right! I AM A DICK!”
Of course, that leaves me wondering: what the fuck do these people want?
Steve Zara,
“So, this is what I want to ask. Once we Gnu atheists have overcome our ignorance of theology and history in order to engage with the religious, are the accommodationists going to insist that the laity is up to the same standard?”
There’s a difference between the knowledge required to simply practice something and the knowledge required to discuss it. Your example is kinda like asking why someone would have to know some physics to discuss QM properly if people can use computers and TVs without knowing physics at all.
Should the laity know their religion better than they do? Probably. I probably should know my religion better than I do. But to simply go about practicing it and using it doesn’t really demand that you know details. Talking about it — either while trying to convert someone, criticize it, or defend it — does. I think it perfectly valid when you discuss religion with someone who is religious to point out that they don’t know enough about their doctrine to discuss that aspect or that they’re getting it wrong, as long as you provide the evidence. I have been corrected on doctrine before, and it doesn’t turn me into a raving lunatic (unless the person refuses to give the proof [grin]). But the same thing applies on the other side. Yes, those asking you to get more educated should provide the means to do so, and it’s quite rude when they don’t, but the comment itself isn’t invalid, because it is a reasonable demand if it’s true.
No, not in this case. The vast majority of believers believe what they do for very simple reasons, and those reasons are wrong, and are more than adequately dealt with in books such as “The God Delusion”. We can see what these reasons are because they are also given in the responses to “The God Delusion”, such as “The Dawkins Letters” or “The Irrational Atheist”.
Those requiring that we “get more educated” are attempting to distract discussion from the belief systems of the vast majority, and wanting to deal with theological issues, which are either just the beliefs of the majority put into different language, or have absolutely nothing whatever to do with the beliefs of the majority.
Even familiarity has not prevented me from being frequently astonished that Gnu Atheists are supposed to deal with theological arguments which have no more connection with the beliefs of the majority than does atheism. And yet, unless we deal with these arguments, we are scolded if we try and deal with mainstream beliefs.
Another matter is that theological arguments are not just obscure, and outdated (usually by at least centuries, if not more), but often flatly contradict each other. If Gnu atheists were to deal with each theologian it would be centuries before we got around to what was preached in the typical Church or Mosque.
I think, therefore, it is only fair to insist that the theologians and believers sort out between themselves what it is they think they believe in, and meanwhile Gnu atheists can be forgiven for dealing with religion as practiced by billions.
VC, I think there can be valid criticisms of lack of theological knowledge if one is faced with examples of factual errors – for example someone stating that Jesus said something or other in the bible when the bible demonstrates that the statement was not attributed to Jesus but to some other biblical figure.
Likewise one could criticise a mistaken claim about a point of teaching of a religion – for instance stating that the Catholic church regards some particular action as an unforgiveable sin when the truth is that that is not the current position of the Catholic church.
To make those sorts of claims one does need an adequate knowledge of scripture and the rules of the religion you are dealing with.
Where it is invalid to criticise atheists for a lack of knowledge of theology is regarding the question of whether the bible can be the ‘proof’ of what it teaches.
“It says so in the bible” convinces nobody apart from committed Christians. Its not just atheists that are not convinced, its also agnostics and believers of other religions.
For atheists the bible is like ‘The Lord of the Rings’ – or more accurately the collected works of Homer. Certainly someone can be an expert on the characters and tales of any of these works but there is little or no evidence that there is any factual basis to their stories and one should not need to be an expert about hobbits, elves and dwarves or minotaurs and harpies in order to point out that these are fictional tales rather than life instructions from on high.
Mandrellian:
What they want, I suppose, is some combination of (i) all the easy publications (it seems HuffPo has an infinite appetite for gnu-bashing articles), (ii) all the easy Templeton money, (iii) the personal satisfaction of being superior to both sides of an argument by comparing themselves to an extremist position that they have to invent.
Verbose:
Surely if you practice, for example, a martial art, you’ll have sufficient understanding of it to be able to discuss its details with almost anyone else. If you’re a politician or just a party member, it’s expected you’ll have an understanding of your party’s policies, goals and ideology. But then I think most religious people don’t think about their faith as much as a party member or sensei think about their fields of expertise.
That’s not really a valid analogy – in fact it’s a bit of a non-sequitur! No, you don’t need to know how something works at a subatomic level in order to use it, but a computer is separated from raw physics by several degrees. Religion, to stick with the analogy, IS the raw physics!
You’re right – even the small number people of who’ve tried to convert me (on my sodding doorstep at 8am on a Saturday, mind you) knew less about their faith than I did and were unprepared to even discuss it, let alone defend it. In fact, most of the people I’ve argued with about religion in the last few years haven’t seemed to have any more than a very basic knowledge of their faith – or, for that matter, of atheism, evolution or science in general, one a combination of which were usually the reasons for the argument to begin with.
Steve Zara,
If an atheist engages in a theological argument as opposed to simply going after the simple beliefs of the laity, they are then quite reasonably vulnerable to a demand that they have to know the argument(s) they are engaging. So if they talk about Augustine or Aquineas or bring up the Problem of Evil, they are indeed open to a reply that they don’t know the argument well enough to properly criticize it if they really don’t. A retreat from here to “Well, I’m just after the simple beliefs of the laity” is invalid; if you didn’t want to address theology, no one asked you to actually do that.
Also, if an atheist claims that there is no reason to think that any sort of God exists, they are also quite reasonably vulnerable to charges that they have missed a really good argument for one, even if that isn’t quite what the common people believe. To retreat to “Well, that’s not the God most people believe in” from THAT position is akin to someone saying that quantum particles don’t exist because everything has to follow causation, and then dismissing the physics by saying that by folk physics all things have to follow causation. It’s totally invalid.
However, I did say in my comment that the person who is asking you to read more has the obligation to tell you what to read, and I’d even say why, so you don’t have to read everything BEFORE getting into the debate, which seems to be what you’re implying is the case.
Sigmund,
If you say that the Bible does not or should not count as evidence, you have to be prepared for people to ask you what counts as evidence. That’s a philosophical discussion, and it’s a detail that you do have to answer. And “It’s not convincing” doesn’t seem to fit, since people say that about evolution, too. It’s perfectly fine for you to find in unconvincing, but if you’re going further and implying that no one should consider it evidence, you do take on a greater burden of proof to demonstrate that as such and differentiate from similar works that we take as evidence.
It’s okay to say that you think it fictional, but that’s not enough to say that it just IS fictional.
Chris:
1. there’s certainly no shortage of woo-friendly material over at the Puff n’ Stuff
2. possibly – I believe there is precedent!
3. xckd has that in a nutshell [LINK] :D
http://verbosestoic.wordpress.com/
“So, my latest post seems to have generated a fair amount of heat, and since I’m not replying at Butterflies and Wheels at the somewhat request of Ophelia — I’m not sure where the line would be in what would be a reasonable reply and one that isn’t, and have no interest in working under those constraints — I’ll reply to some of them here.”
“Rieux is a very frequent commenter all over the place, and people really seem to like his comments. I, personally, have not found them that impressive, because to me a lot of the time they are light on argument and analysis and long on ranting and rhetoric, and his comment to me is no exception:”
#138 – “so I’ll bow out. If people want to continue on my blog, that’s fair enough; I still stand by my statements.”
Priceless Verbocity: Seems to me you’re continuing to bait? No?
Chris Lawson said:
That is certainly a point that we should dispute with them.
I can easily describe several different and recognizable atheist positions.
1. Totalitarian atheism
Basically the sort of atheism that Verbose Stoic helpfully described above. Essentially this is a sort of Stalinist belief that religion should be eradicated from society through legal measures (close churches, arrest clerics, ban the private practice of religion, ban parents from speaking to their children about religion). In real life I have never met an atheist like this but they clearly inhabit the minds of religious people and if there are ever going to be atheists that we could call fundamentalists it would be someone from this group.
2. Gnu atheism
Look at Paul Ws post 29. Basically atheists who think followers of religion should have to justify their claims if they want to impose them on the non religious. – Essentially it is a subsection of the skepticism movement. Gnu atheists do not see a positive value in the religious ‘faith’ position – that is simply an argument from authority, an authority based on claimed but unproven religious revelation. We believe in full religious freedom as a private personal right and part of this right is the right not to be subjected to a religious obligation that one doesn’t personally hold.
3. Accomodationist atheism
A position where despite not finding evidential truth in the fact claims of religion, one feels that some theistic religions – specifically those that are more liberal on certain topics (such as not executing atheists) are regarded as a positive force in society. One should be willing to overlook key aspects of the factual basis for the teachings of these liberal religions in areas such as birth control, divorce and homosexual rights. It is important to avoid antagonising members of these religions. We need to keep them on our side as allies to deal with pressing matters such as climate change, which are much more important than birth control, use of condoms in Africa, or homosexual marriage rights.
I suggest that we start to point out the overall positions within atheism have shifted.
WE are the moderate centre of modern atheism.
It is the accomodationists that lie at one extreme.
Not really, because there is theology, and there is theology. What happens is that after any mention of Aquinas, the theologian will drag the atheist into dealing with their particular interpretation, whereas the actual arguments put forward are really quite simple.
No, again. The problem here is that theologians have literally endless different definitions of God. What an atheist means (and should say so) is that there is no basis for belief in ‘God’, for various reasons, such as that the personal god of virtually all believers is factually and philosophically impossible, and also because theology has been goalpost-moving regarding definitions of gods for centuries at least.
This is all a very large dishonest shell-game. Atheists are told that they must chase endless phantoms of beliefs, when the reality is that when believers and theologians say that they believe in God, their statement has no useful truth value, and is certainly nothing on which moral and political frameworks should (and are) based.
So VS, fair enough, you can invite people to yours to discuss whatever you want to get into, but it seems to me that here you are somewhat OT. Guess that’s up to Ophelia though.
Mandrellian,
I don’t think your analogies work. For martial arts, practicing a martial art includes studying it; that is not the case for religion. And politicians themselves don’t map to the laity, but to the clergy. Party members is a bit less obvious, but I also think you overestimate their knowledge; a lot of them know vaguely what the policies are, but not the details of them, like where the money will come from or how it all fits together. This seems to map well to religion, but doesn’t support your case.
As for whether the theology detail is “the raw physics” of religion, I disagree. The key for religious practice is basically attending the services and following the rules. The theological details — like how to deal with the Problem of Evil or evolution or whatever — aren’t the concern at that level, anymore than in general philosophy of science is not a concern for practicing scientists. Those details are left to the clergy and the theologians and the philosophers. Religious people just want to know enough to get through their daily lives; they don’t need the details that they aren’t going to use.
But, yes, attempts to convert would require more knowledge, but for the every day religious believer — ie the one not normally going around door-to-door — at some point they’re just going to refer the skeptic to the clergy and theologians to address the really hard questions.
Verbose:
My two cents & short answer to that: it’s not just that I find the Bible unconvincing. I also find it no more or less so than any other scripture that’s claimed to be divinely inspired. Further, any method for confirming the Bible’s claims when compared to other contradictory holy texts from the same time period from rest of the world has yet to be explained. So it’s not just unconvincing & implausible on its face, but it can’t be relied on as a source of fact – how do you tell which supernatural events occurred, which gods exist, which scriptures are to accepted literally and which didn’t, don’t and aren’t? How does one reconcile those momentous things which are said to have happened with contemporary historical accounts which make no mention of them at all (e.g. Exodus)?
I think there are weaker and stronger types of evidence. The more external corroboration you have then the stronger you can say your evidence is.
In the case of the bible this means that some aspects have other sources that back certain stories so we take those particular points as more factual (certain kings and towns mentioned seem to fit archaelogical evidence so we can surmise that those parts of the bible have some basis in historical fact.
The same thing with Homer – the story about Troy is at least partially backed by the discovery of the ruins of the city itself (we can say nothing about the individuals involved or wooden horses however because there is no corroborating evidence for those aspects but it looks like Homer may at least have been writing about a real siege event.)
So Jerusalem is a real place as is Troy. They are backed by evidence outside the books.
Does that mean the minotaur was real or that Jesus came back from the dead?
Both of these latter stories have the same amount of corroborating evidence – nothing.
That doesn’t make them untrue, but it puts them in the same category of evidence as each other and in the same category as many other religious stories (such as the Roman or Scandinavian Gods, Aztek or Inca religions or far eastern religions). Indeed it puts the stories, in terms of evidential backing, in the same category as any historical myth be it about a religion or a leprechaun.
This reminds me somewhat of Danielos?
Verbose:
I certainly can’t argue with that. But I do find it sad that people just go through the motions. I’m the kind of person who likes to know what he’s getting into, especially the history of it, and perhaps that’s where my analogies, flawed as they may have been, came from (for the record I also find it sad when people join a political party and not bother to learn anything about it). And religion, basically, is about your eternal fate, right? Why take the word of some nice man in a robe that you’re in the right one and that you’re doing it correctly? Then again, I think many religions discovered long ago that people asking questions, and having them answered, very often leads to people leaving the faith altogether. I think laity are happy to refer people to clergy and theologians precisely because they’ve been encouraged to. Growing up in a particular faith might also make one so comfortable that the thought of asking any questions wouldn’t even occur to you.BTW what I meant by religion being “raw physics” wasn’t so much about theology, sophisticated or otherwise. I think believers would do well just to have a better understanding of scriptures themselves, not so much extensive interpretations and detailed rationalisations thereof by people with doctorates (especially if they’re going to start internet arguments!). Like I said, I’ve often had better understanding of a religion than the believer I was arguing with but my knowledge of theology is, frankly, pants.
Oh please no!
This reminds me somewhat of Danielos?
Oh fuck me dead with a rusty crowbar that has spurs perpendicular to the bar via my urethra!
It would be a mercy killing.
The platonist who thought that because God looked down upon the son who looked down upon the spirit he had good reason to look down upon his kids (I hope I misinterpreted that wrong at the time).
The guy who would acknowledge that all of science didn’t point to God, but then say, ‘hey! you’re reading the map wrong, or mistaking the map for the territory?
The guy who has his arguments refuted the asks for better arguments?
The guy who in the end I could only respond with ‘it’s a brute fact’ to his moronic assertion that electrons ‘know’ how to maintain the Pauli exclusion principle. ?
Bring forth the nasty crowbar……
Nooooo…Brian, don’t do it. I don’t really think it is….just has echoes of him, a bit, maybe. Certainly stoic!
Clod, don’t pick on the stoics! Just pick on the incorrectly self-title Verbose Stoic. He is in fact a Verbose complainer. He’s never stoic. Never rides the waves of fortune with an understanding that in the end, it’s all a part of natures ‘plan’. No, it just winge after winge after winge. No stoicism at all.
At least Dianelos, pace my crowbar, was what he claimed to be. A platonist who would condem us all to a shitty life because we were’nt philosopher kings.
I’d just add that I believe that I’m correctly addressing Verbose Stoic as a ‘him’ because in my experience only men can just, I don’t know how to put it, shit on all of humanity, and act like they are somehow exemplarary.
In any case, I’ll go to bed leaving this disclaimer:
I’m a man, I hope I raise my son better than this rubbish. Seriously, the shit that Ophelia gets not for poor argumentation, but because she’s not deformed genitaly ( all humans are female, until certain hormones kick in, so we all began as female ) beggars belief. I can’t see much other explanation. Because her thinking is impeccable, and when she makes a mistake, she tells you before you’ve had a chance to see it. She’s a man’s man, only not a man. She’s above that tripe.
OK. I should leave now. :)
…and on that note and in full agreement with Brian, I will leave it too, but to go to Liverpool to see Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella :-)
It’s frustrating. The theology we are supposed to get educated about has nothing at all to do with the beliefs of the worshiping public. It’s not very encouraging of atheists to be nice when the more we look at this absurd nonsense, the more it is clear that it’s all a deliberately maintained fraud. All of it. No wonder they are so scared of anyone wanting to start to criticise. It’s not like the accommodationists are supporting a system that’s got any honesty or integrity. They are part of the same fraud, with their ideas of science compatibility just another falsehood amongst so very, very many.
I’m convinced that what we are dealing with is simply a case of tribal identification processes. It’s an elaborate way of generating an us-and-them situation. The religious ingroup is a politically powerful one and even some atheists see the benefit of a seat on that gravy train. If the price of admission is maligning their fellow non-believers, well I guess that’s a price we’ll have to pay.
Which is ironic, Sigmund, since tribalism is one of the charges against the gnus. There is some truth in it, certainly, but (ironically) much of the energy of the gnu tribalism is provided precisely by the relentless barrage of unreasonable “criticism” and trash-talk.
Joe Hoffmann’s latest comment at his place, in an exchange with Pixie Steph about the woeful stupidity and nothingness of Eric MacDonald (bit of a breakdown in scholarship on Joe’s part, there), is of a filthiness that beggars even my much-practiced belief. He uses a word I’d never even seen or heard before. I didn’t need to learn it.
@204: I found the Shakespeare quote in the original post more disturbing… humanists are like Juliet despairing at an atheist Romeo? (Or atheists are Juliet?) Either way, creepy.
Steve Zara wrote:
Exactly – I liken it to Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, i.e. the gnus are told that a new book contains the ultimate winning argument for religion and they have to read it; by the time they’ve done so and pointed out its flaws, another book has appeared, and the cycle starts over again, never to end.
And yet not agreeing to play this game results in accusations that the gnus are incapable of engaging with the ‘good arguments’ for religion.
windy – Er. Yes. I hadn’t seen that. I skimmed the original post, because I don’t like Pixie Steph’s style. That’s quite something.
Hoffmann’s taken the post down now. I was arguing with Stedman at Facebook, and Hoffmann joined in, deriding the idea that atheists are subject to insult, so I mentioned his insults aimed at Eric – and poof, into thin air went the whole thing. But a certain reader saved it beforehand, and shared it with a couple of people, so it ain’t gone.
Honestly. It’s like a non-stop self-parody.