The new atheist response to being told to quiet down
Greg Laden puts the matter neatly:
The “new” part of “New Atheism” to me has always been this: You are willing to get up into some[one’s] face to make your argument because religion, with its centuries of experience in being on the scene for every aspect of everyone’s life every minute of every day, is already there in the face making its argument. The new atheist response to being told to quiet down is to point out that being told to quiet down (or be more civil or follow certain rules) is step one (or two) in a series of steps that the established religio-normative culture routinely uses to end the argument and let things get back to what they think is normal.
Precisely. And the settled idea that the silence of the atheists is both normal and desirable is the very idea that new atheists want to discredit and dispute and disrupt, so energetic attempts to re-impose the idea are naturally going to irritate. It’s like telling The People’s Campaign for XYZ, “stop campaigning for XYZ.” It’s not going to be taken as useful advice or a friendly tip or a minor disagreement among allies. It’s going to be taken as what it is: rejection of and enmity toward The People’s Campaign.
So it’s not a matter of, we’re all atheists, so don’t take it amiss if some atheists tell other atheists to be atheists in a more covert and unobtrusive way. It’s not a disagreement about a minor side issue. We, gnu atheists, think it is of the essence for atheists to be free to talk back. We don’t consider atheists who 1) tell us not to or 2) call us rude names for doing so, to be On the Same Team.
Absolutely. But Ruse et al will declare that Greg is a ‘junior’ atheist.
Hear, Hear!
Yeah!!! :) We will not be silenced!!! WOLVERINES!!!
…sorry.
Sometimes we lose track of what might be the main issue and is certainly an important one, which is whether or not religious claims are remotely related to reality in any meaningful sense. The only way we can determine the truth or falsehood of ANY claim is to challenge those claims, ask questions and seek evidence freely and openly, without fear of reprisal. Part of that investigation is to judge both the claims and evidence for them, and to level criticism towards both where it is merited. When we find that a claim is false, or is so fundamentally unsupported by evidence that it should never be treated as true by honest and rational people, it is our duty as human beings to point it out to other people.
This standard seems to apply to everything except religion. For example, no one except the most viciously extreme political partisan will attack basic simple fact-checking, but theists and their accommodationist cronies see even mild criticism of religion as being completely out of bounds. Cute little soft-spoken Richard Dawkins is seen as some sort of raging fundamentalist for loudly proclaiming that he doesn’t accept religious claims as true, which puts him somehow in the same boat as religious fundamentalists that restrict freedoms and murder people.
I guess my point is that there is an obvious double standard involved when atheism is concerned, that applies to no other subject. It is some sort of weird amplification of negative traits that treats criticisms of Christianity from Muslims or Jews as being a minor tiff between fellow travelers, and the same criticisms from atheists as being evil fundamentalism. At a basic level, my hunch is that the religious folks understand that as long as they all agree that some Magic Man exists, they can play on a level field and all feel holy and self-important and whatever, and although they all compete at least the game continues. Atheists are saying that the entire game is nonsense, and are asking people to step off the field. They cannot tolerate that, so we have to be demonized and silenced.
Ohh… and I guess is religion is some sort of game, the accommodationists are like the folks running the concession stand. They don’t care who wins, but the can and do profit from the existence of the game and really don’t want anyone interfering with things.
Yeah, I’m crazy stretching that analogy.
Yes, it’s important to be crystal-clear about this. I (and I suspect some others here, but I can’t speak for them) consider people like Rosenau, Ruse, Mooney, Nick Matzke and the like as adversaries and opponents just as thoroughly as the religionists. In fact, they’re more problematic because they apppear to outsiders to be part of “us,” and thus have an outsized influence on the discourse.
Passive atheists simply don’t believe in God, and are content to leave it at that. Active atheists – the “gnu” sort – are anti-theistic. They intend to actively critique theism as an intellectual and moral failure. You can’t do that while pretending that theism is okie-dokie. Why is this so blinking hard for passive atheists to get? Not your agenda? Fine. But don’t imagine you can harmonize your position with ours by misconstruing it as a question of tactics or tact. It is a difference of aims.
Precisely Ophelia, well said.
To bring the discussion from public to personal — I was talking to a friend-of-a-friend over dinner about religion. She was a Catholic whose children were going through confirmation and saying they didn’t believe in God. She was distressed about this. I began asking her questions about her beliefs — where you go when you die, how you get there, when the soul enters the body (she works in the health field and counsels people on abortion, which she thought would annoy her Church to no end). Inevitably, her response to all these questions was befuddlement: “I don’t know; nobody’s asked me that before; I’ve never thought about it.”
Unfortunately, dinner ended before the conversation did (or, you know, maybe these sorts of questions weren’t the kind she was willing to order dessert for) or I could have gone toward my Socratic de-conversion. But a few things struck me about the conversation:
1- I purposely hid my atheism to be able to engage the person.
2 – I didn’t explicitly attack any of her beliefs, only asked her to think about what they were and if they made sense to her.
I felt pretty good about those two. Then she told me her husband was “pretty much an atheist — if he thought about it.” (What an intellectually lazy family!) I immediately wanted to rush her husband a copy of “The God Delusion,” but thought that by doing so I’d be being “pushy” and crossing a line.
I consider myself a gnu atheist, but am I? Can I hold a hard-line against religion in debates, and take a more gentle, Socratic approach when exploring religion in less polarized settings? I honestly don’t care what people believe, as long as they’ve thought about it and can defend it (which, in my experience, excludes about 98% of religious believers). How do y’all conduct yourselves when you’re in a relaxed setting and the issue of personal religion comes up?
Well you are speaking for me Josh, but then I find you have often said what I think better than I could.
If I am at a dinner party with someone I happen to know is a particular religion, I don’t tend to challenge or try to deconvert if they keep their religion out of the conversation, but I do not hold my tongue if they make a religious claim (power of prayer, suggest that everyone believes in God or needs religion for morality etc). It’s the same situation with someone who believes in medical woo – if they make a claim I have the right (and I feel I have the duty) to ask for evidence.
I don’t happen to feel that deconversion of an older believer is likely in any event but I do feel that creating an atmosphere where all non evidenced claims are going to be challenged will make it a tough environment for religion to thrive in the next generation. Challenging religious claims will, in the end, make religious people wary about being public with their religious claims. It’s happened in Northern Europe. It can happen in the US too. There are still many religious people in Scandinavia, they just keep their faith private and don’t tend to assume that they are somehow more moral than the non religious population.
inkadu: Interesting story!
Wait, though—“family”? I think you’ve got the mother/wife on intellectual laziness, and the father/husband as well, if his spouse’s testimony is accurate… but what about the kids “going through confirmation and saying they didn’t believe in God”? They don’t sound intellectually lazy to me!
Of course you (we) can! Being a Gnu Atheist doesn’t mean being in-your-face all the time.
There are in fact times and contexts in which being overt and loud about one’s atheistic and anti-religious notions is a less-than-optimal strategy. Those times and contexts just aren’t as common (or universal) as gnubashers pretend they are.
At Thanksgiving, I don’t respond to my uncle’s “Pass the gravy, please” with “THERE IS NO GOD, YOU FUNDY LOON!” Even though he is one. But that doesn’t mean that I favor knuckling under to religious privilege when that’s what’s at issue; nor, it appears to me, do you.
Ditto.
I don’t hand out atheist leaflets at dinner parties, but if people make religious claims…well, it depends, but at any rate I don’t consider myself at all obligated to pretend to agree, or to let it pass. I may not use what I consider my ethical right to challenge, but I certainly think I have it.
Fortunately I’m a nerd, so it hardly ever comes up.
@inkadu
Well, it isn’t like when you sneeze in public and someone says “God bless you” you’re required to scream “THERE IS NO GOD, YOU NINNY!!!” at them and then spit at their feet. The point is that you don’t have to compromise when it matters to you. Like Jeff Dee over at the Atheist Experience show from Austin always says, it is your atheism so you do it however you are comfortable with it. Be as out and aggressive as you want to be, and keep it as private as you want to keep it.
Or, put it this way: I don’t like 90% of the popular music out there today. I manage to keep from screaming at people for listening to garbage. If someone asks my opinion, or there’s a public discussion about what sort of music should be played, I’m going to tell people what I prefer.
Come to think of it, maybe that’s a better analogy for the whole issue…
It is like everyone else likes classical music, and they have discussions about Baroque versus Romantic. When one of us steps in and says something about Led Zeppelin, they ALL jump in to scream at us to STFU and stop attacking their classical music. They attack because the idea of other music automatically diminishes their preference as the only possible preference, and is therefore treated as an attack no matter how polite you might be about it.
I suppose I myself am a passive atheist by nature, and and the more I see people defining “gnu atheist” the less sure that I am one. At least, I don’t see myself in Bruce’s definition. Frankly, I have much more interesting things to do than to go around smashing theism. I’d rather be riding my bike or perfecting my pie-baking skills or maybe teaching my chickens to hop through little hoops.
But it’s like the old saw: “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.” I keep forgetting that, as an atheist, I’m so generally supposed to be morally bankrupt and socially incompetent. So I am constantly being caught up short in shock at the bald-faced sanctimonious nastiness of people who are prejudiced against open atheists. Remove the privilege, remove the prejudice, and I will be as quiet and content as anyone could hope for. I regret that there’s a fight that needs fightin’.
There’s a difference between quiet and silenced. I may be on the quiet side most of the time, but I’m in no hurry to be silenced.
Inkadu, I pretty much always come out as an atheist. But I try to be less, “I am an atheist and YOU ARE WRONG,” and more, “Well, I’m an atheist, so that’s where my perspective in this conversation is coming from.” I’m not recommending that you feel obliged to reveal your atheism to every distressed Catholic you meet, but I do think you can be gentle and Socratic without hiding your atheism. In fact, I’d say that stating my atheism reminds me to be gentle; at the very least, it’s an interesting way to push a little cognitive dissonance at someone who suspects that atheists bite. As a soft-voiced woman, I look very different from a lot of people’s conceptions of atheists, and I think — I hope — that’s useful.
The only really surprising backfires have come from a very particular, odd subset of male theists that I’ve started thinking of as the Plastic Medicine Men of the Divine Feminine. Those guys seem to feel personally betrayed by the fact of my atheism. These days, if I can easily imagine a fellow leading a sacred labyrinth walk, I back away. YMMV.
@Improbable Joe:
I lol’d.
I lol’d.
The Plastic Medicine Men of the Divine Feminine is an interesting concept. It’s probably connected to the fact that all the women the local NPR station hires as presenters have creepily warm, nurturing, gentle voices. One of them is so exaggeratedly that way that hearing even a second of her makes me feel as if I’m trussed up in a hospital bed able to move only one eyelid.
This is one reason I’m so nasty. Somebody has to chip away at this myth/stereotype that Real Women are Divine Feminine Mummy Nursies.
Good, then, I think we’re all in agreement.
I’m just a bit puzzled by gnu atheist detractors, who seem to think we are coughing “bullshit!” all through funeral sermons. So maybe my idea of what a “true gnu” has been a bit muddled by this ridiculous accomodationist/gnu debate. It’s really more offensive to tell us to “shut up” when you think about it in a personal context.
Cam – I am probably too reluctant to mention my lack of belief. It might be a good exercise to work it in earlier and more often.
Improbable Joe – Exactly!
The original Plastic Medicine Men are an interesting phenomenon too. (And by interesting I mean awful.)
You get these emotionally wounded folks who are so desperate for spiritual authority that they go and identify some marginalized, romanticized Other to stripmine for a spirituality that they can package and use. And then they actually try talking to some of these people in whose name they’re being all Spiritually Authoritative, and the fur flies. Because the Other is a real person who does not exist to be commodified or used, and probably does not much resemble the Plastic Medicine Man’s conception of them anyway. No matter how polite they are (and I have seen some extraordinary politeness on the part of Lummi elders) the PMM will erupt in petulant grief and fury at being denied recognition of his special snowflake nature. Sometimes he’ll put his racism on display as he flips out. It ain’t pretty.
The history of Western femininity is not identical to the history of Native Americans and NA spiritualities, and I’m not saying it is. I’m saying that last time I saw some guy who was all into the Divine Feminine flip out on me for being a withholding rationalist bitch who was not about to validate and nourish his Authentic Important Spiritual Experience with my Nurturing Pink Energy, I thought, “This particular creepy entitled nonsense is strangely familiar. Where have I seen this kind of creepy entitled nonsense before?” Oh yeah…
You are a witholding whatsit, Cam! Every damn word you write is a gem and you don’t write here nearly often enough. My special snowflake entitled self is outraged.
Seriously. If I had a special Make This Gold tool, I would make that comment Gold.
Dang, now I’m blushing.
Nurturing Pink Energy…
snort, cackle
I truly despise the term “new” atheist. It automatically implies that you’re pushy and rude when it comes to interactions with theists or theistic arguments. I think the new atheist movement is referring to young people that are being more outspoken about it without really doing anything but venting their frustrations at religious belief. It is adding to the stigma surrounding the term “atheist” and giving all other atheists a bad name.
What is a “new” atheist? What’s changed? A lack of shame? Atheism is still only about not believing in a god or supernatural being. Nothing else. There is no specific way to act if you’re an atheist. Like Improbable Joe pointed out, “Jeff Dee over at the Atheist Experience show from Austin always says, it is your atheism so you do it however you are comfortable with it. Be as out and aggressive as you want to be, and keep it as private as you want to keep it.”
There are no rules. It is simply a lack of belief in the supernatural. It’s not a religion, so we shouldn’t treat it that way.
When there is an intelligent debate, I defend my position with science and reason. If someone asks about my position personally, I will answer them. If someone makes a religious claim in a conversation I’m having, I will respond to it with reason and logic as well. Outside of these situations, I don’t see why any atheist would feel the need to jump down someone’s throat with their atheism. It’s a lack of belief. There’s nothing to jump down anyone’s throat about, except science. And there’s no reason to do that, as scientific fact defends itself. That’s the beauty of science.
What really offends me is that I AM pushy and rude… and somehow you guys are called rude, and I’m painted as a giant monster! :)
I’m just a garden-variety jerk, and I’m blown up into Godzilla because I’m an atheist. It just isn’t fair!
Accommodationists have successfully derailed the discussion, rather like trolls successfully derails a discussion thread, and everyone forgets what the original post was all about.
It all comes down to Professor Dawkin’s Ted talk back in 2002 (probably still raging from 9/11 the year before). He ends his talk saying “Let’s all stop being so damn respectful.”
And that is new atheism.
Just in case any accomodationist is reading this and thinks we’ve all gone soft I think I should let them know that they can stop worrying- at conservation events with church groups it’s still shouted forced laughter all the way!
;)
I agree with Polly-O!
I don’t think it’s “accommodationist” to believe in intellectual discourse that doesn’t resort to playground insults. We are supposed to be evolving beings. To speak with anger is not going to do anything but close religious minds even further. You can be a strong atheist like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, by having civilized debates on religion using science and reason to back your arguments rather than taking petty shots. Religion is a weak thing to resort to – and I do believe that – but saying so to a religious person won’t do anything but make them angry. Science does not have bias or emotions – it only has facts. That makes it our strongest ally as atheists. If all atheists kept that in mind and stopped taking shots at one another, perhaps we could prove we’ve evolved past childish inclinations like we claim.
Liz,
You seem to coming late to the party. Almost everything you have said fits the accommodationist line — AND IT’S WRONG. It is not true that New Atheism is defined by anger. The key strategy that gets people labelled “New Atheist” is speaking directly and without genuflection to religious authority. So while it’s fair to say that Hitchens and PZ Myers often write in anger, it is not true of Dennett or Blackford. Even Dawkins, if you actually look at his writing and public speaking, rarely projects anger. I would even say that on the anger scale, it’s the accommodationists who come out more strongly with abuse, condescension, misrepresentation, and othering.
Also, one of your statements (that speaking with anger automatically makes your message less convincing to others) is not supported by good evidence. In fact, any reading of history will show that firebrands can be very influential.
Oh yes, I forgot to add that “playground insults” is an unsupported insult of its own. Where have any of the well-known gnus ever said anything that counts as a playground insult? Where do you get off telling other people to be polite while you get to call them names? in the same friggin’ post.
(I was also going to argue against your statement that “Science does not have bias or emotions – it only has facts.” But I ran out of interest.)
I wholeheartedly agree. But may I suggest that we bring this “in your face” attitude to interfaith dialogue? Eventually, we must get down to brass tacks, namely: religious delusions.
Remember that comments are often for third parties who happen to be following the discussion, as Dawkins has often said.
#19 ROTFLMAO X 2
OK Clod, I give up.I’ll play your silly game. Say what?
Dave.B.
GIYF (Google is your friend).
Now I’m playing “silly” games.
@ Chris,
Where have any of the well-known gnus ever said anything that counts as a playground insult?
I think that playground insults is an apt description of terms like ‘faith-heads’. Dawkins has used that one. Pharangula doesn’t spare any insults ranging from the witty and erudite to the vulgar and crude. Coyne called the Archbishop of Canterbury a “pompous old gasbag” in the title of one his recent (Apr 29) posts. That’s a personal attack on the level of playground insults.
Would it be better if Coyne had never used pompous old gasbag or Dawkins didn’t use faith-head? Sure. Is there a difference between a response to religious arguments which is specific and reasoned but accompanied by a few playground insults and one which is composed of nothing but? Absolutely. Dawkins, Coyne, Myers if either are guilty of the second, not the first. Coyne’s article on the Archbishop didn’t consist solely of that insult, nor did Myers response to Michael Ruse’s silliness consist only of clueless gobshite. Same thing goes for Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens.
That first para should be quoted…my bad.
Andrew
Would it be better if Coyne had never used pompous old gasbag or Dawkins didn’t use faith-head? Sure.
I’m not so sure of that. I think the use of such terminology is deliberate, not accidental. Whether you care for their tactics or not, they have been effective at getting attention and moving the public discussion into areas that were previously unexplored.
Is there a difference between a response to religious arguments which is specific and reasoned but accompanied by a few playground insults and one which is composed of nothing but? Absolutely.
Yes, I agree. It was the denial by Chris of the use of such tactics and accusing Liz of using playground tactics herself for saying so that bugged me.
How about the term “dick”?
“Dick” is fine. Phil wasn’t being disrespectful; he was just asking us to be more careful when pointing a loaded shotgun at religious believers.
Yet I’m almost accused of doing that at dinner parties. Still, a pretty good idea though. ;-)
I’ve been to dinner parties where religious arguments come up and almost always it’s accepted without criticism and universally. I’ve gotten some odd looks when I even dare to challenge the assertions about God and morality. I can write the script every single time: There is that awkward silence, the blank stares with glazed looks, then the polite cough as if I farted in front of the queen or something that signals it’s time to change the subject.
I’ve found the atheist blogosphere extremely helpful in changing my thinking about ideas I’ve been told to accept.
It’s so virulent that it’s largely responsible for the so called “accomodationism” you see in many atheists today as if conflating an idea with people isn’t all that absurd.
I’m a very shy person by nature but … wine gives me superpowers ;-)
I’m a nice guy (though not a Nice Guy™) so when someone says grace or offers a pious sentiment I wouldn’t dream of raising an objection, yet it’s generally been understood by my acquaintances that I’m an uncompromising skeptic, scientific to the bone. Whether the work is done by the judicious use of the hairy eyeball or the family reputation I couldn’t say. It’s often enough to withhold assent or stand aside.
Or not. In high school, only one person remarked that I didn’t intone “under God” during the pledge. Recently I was looked at askance because I was singing the words to “Anacreon” instead of “The Star Spangled Banner”, but perhaps it was only my tuneless voice that gave offense.
Beth @ 36,
What exactly is wrong with Jerry Coyne saying that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a pompous old gasbag?
He is a pompous old gasbag on the subject of evolution, and deserves to be called one, even if he is the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Jerry’s point is that Atkinson is ignorant of what he’s talking about, and spewing ignorant, condescending nonsense, and that he gets away with doing so very publicly because he is the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Rowan Atkinson doesn’t deserve any more respect for his cranky views on evolution than any other prominent crank, does he?
Notice that Jerry wasn’t name-calling in the obvious sense, or making an ad hominem argument. He was arguing that in fact the Archbishop of Canterbury is a pompous old gasbag, and that his pompous gasbaggery should be recognized as such. Atkinson’s being a pompous old gasbag was not a premise of an ad hominem argument, but the conclusion of an informative argument.
(Coyne wasn’t saying that he’s pompous old gasbag and therefore wrong; he was showing that Atkinson irresponsibly, condescendingly, and and crankily wrong, and taking advantage of his “respected” position to get away with it for a broad and insufficiently critical audience, therefore a pompous old gasbag.)
If somebody like Coyne or Myers says such things about, say, Discovery Institute liars who conveniently misrepresent evolution for their purposes, accommodationists generally don’t bat an eyelash—calling a pompous old gasbag a pompous old gasbag apparently isn’t terribly objectionable if he’s not somebody we’re supposed to show respect to, like the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Coyne is right that we generally shouldn’t show extra “respect” for pompous old gasbags just because a lot of other people show automatic interest and respect, due to their “respected” positions.
People like Coyne and Myers speak bluntly. If somebody’s being a pompous old gasbag, they say so, in vivid terms. Is that so wrong?
Notice that Coyne did not call Atkinson a liar, or call him a dick. Accommodationists don’t seem to mind gnus calling certain people “liars.” They also don’t seem to mind accommodationists calling gnus “dicks.” But if a powerful religious “moderate” demonstrably engages in pompous gasbaggery, they’re simply aghast at someone calling a spade a spade.
That is part of the problem that gnus are addressing, by refusing, on principle, to show religious people undue respect. They’re quite intentionally breaking the taboo on bluntly characterizing religious people or religious authorities as they would anyone else.
Gnus are not terribly uncivil to religious people. They mainly refused to be extra civil to them.
Nobody is surprised or shocked if a politician or pundit or celebrity is called a pompous old gasbag, if a serious case is being made that they’re actually engaging in pompous gasbaggery. Nobody would be surprised if a liberal argued that John McCain has become a pompous old gasbag, or if a conservative argued that Teddy Kennedy was a pompous old gasbag. The choice of that vivid term would not become a major focus of conversation—the argument would be about whether McCain or Kennedy was in fact a pompous old gasbag, spewing pretentious condescending nonsense, or was in fact making reasonable points reasonably.
We should not pretend that leading religious figures, like the Archbishop or the Pope or the Dalai Lama, are not similarly intensely political animals, prone to the much same sort of pompous gasbaggery as politicians, and often accorded undue respect when doing so.
I’m not saying that everybody should use such vivid language. If you wouldn’t call John McCain or Teddy Kennedy (your choice) a pompous old gasbag, then you probably shouldn’t call Rowan Atkinson one, either. But if you would, maybe you should be fair and call Rowan Atkinson one too. Religious people don’t have a right to special kid-gloves treatment, and they should be regularly reminded of that.
Forthright irreligious people don’t have an obligation to accept second-class treatment, being called vivid things like “fundamentalist atheists” or “militant atheists” or “dicks,” but not being allowed to call a pompous old gasbag a pompous old gasbag.
We also don’t appreciate accommodationist hypocritically playing the “grownup” card.
Grow the fuck up, people. Sometimes pompous old gasbags get called pompous old gasbags, whether they’re US senators, or college professors, or religious leaders. It’s not a breakdown of civility—it’s the way things have been with regard to everything but religion, forever. The only think that’s even the least bit unusual about it is not applying a double standard with regard to religion, specifically.
That’s not a bug in our understanding of civility; it’s a feature. If you don’t understand that enforcing a double standard is profoundly uncivil, you need a lesson in civility and civilization and civics—maybe one involving some choice words, like hypocritical, knee-jerk, selective enforcement of unjust norms in defense of the status quo.
Paul, I think Beth said in 39 that actually she thinks it’s useful for people to use a certain amount of name-calling.
And [whispers] the ABC isn’t Atkinson, it’s Williams. Atkinson is the other Rowan – Rowan the Good.
Ophelia,
Yes, I apparently misread Beth to some extent, and confused what she said with an earlier poster’s comments.
Still, I do take exception to her using that as an example of gnus engaging in playground insults.
Coyne wasn’t engaging in playground insults. He was speaking vividly and forcefully, but making his case rather than just tossing insults or ad hominems, in a way that wouldn’t be particularly remarkable if he did it about a politician like McCain, or a Famous Expert like Henry Kissinger or Arthur Laffer or Stanley Fish, or any sort of non-religious talking head he thinks needs to be taken down a notch, about any subject other than religion, as long as he’s making a serious case that they’re actually engaged in pompous gasbaggery.
Kids on playgrounds don’t make extended arguments like Coyne’s to justify their use of loaded terminology, and adults on blogs generally aren’t held to the supposedly “grown-up” standards Coyne is being held to, unless the subject is religion.
And as a rule, I think that both Coyne and PZ are much more judicious in their use of loaded language than their accommodationists critics give them credit for. You generally have to quote-mine them to make their most insulting language look like it applies to religious people generally, and/or to look like sheer name-calling or ad hominem arguments.
As for the two Rowans, doh. Of course I knew that, but sometimes I forget which one says silly things you’re not supposed to laugh at.
Hee. I know; everyone does; I do. It’s quite funny having two Rowans, doing such similar yet different things.
Ok, here is my issue. I am a horrible, truly awful debater. Whenever I get into it with someone over religion, I seem to completely lose my ability to reason and recall any information whatsoever. So the main reason for me being non-confrontational is I guess…I’m a pussy lol. If I had even a fraction of the devastating talent that is Christopher Hitchens, I would be a lot more vocal about my stance, especially when pushed. Also, there is a very real issue with people assuming that atheists= amoral, dishonest, untrustworthy. They really can’t comprehend how I could be a good person if I am not threatened with eternal torture or promised an everlasting mind-numbingly dull spot in heaven. I work in jewelry and with money. I would hate to have undue suspicion cast over me for something as stupid as this. So yeah, I try to keep my mouth shut more often than I would like.
Not many people have the talent of Christopher Hitchens!
Jeanine, there is one simple rule that you can use whenever you hear a religious person make a statement based on their religion rather than facts. In fact it’s not confined to religion – it also works with woo-mongers.
What you do is ask the person what is the basis for their statement. Is there any evidence to support their claim.
There is, you hear! Well that IS fascinating.
What is this evidence then?
I find this approach is far more successful than a confrontational argument since you are not taking a firm position yourself, merely interested in getting the religious person to explain their position.
And since they never have a firm reason to base their claims (other than faith – which is always countered by either firm evidence in the opposite direction – or by the simple fact that without evidence one way or the other the most reasonable position to take is that of non-belief (or agnosticism in the matter in hand) then it is unreasonable to appear certain of the claim.
The point with this type of interaction is that your objective is not to convince the other person to change their mind, rather it is to get them to realize that making religious claims in public will not necessarily be accepted without question. At the moment asking questions is seen as rude by the religious but it is our job to create a ‘cost’ for making religious claims- the cost being that someone will ask: “whats the evidence for that?”
[…] No one likes to be told to shut up. And, to be fair to Greg, he is primarily describing the way “so-called New Atheists” feel, not saying that this represents some objective reality. The rest of the post includes an excellent discussion of the beneficial diversity of opinions and approaches. […]
#13
I have a time reconciling those two statements of yours.
The first one presumes that if you don’t like it, or it does nothing for you, then it is garbage.
The second statement seems to show your anger at people who display pretty much that same attitude.
People talk about their religion, sports team, favorite music, favorite automobiles all the time. Normally (unless they’re trying to shove something down our throat) there is no reason to appoint ourselves to disabuse them of they follies.
[BTW, speaking of music: I have paid very little attention to Lady Gaga but her current video (available on the net) ‘Judas’ has some interestingly striking quasi religious imagery]
What Sigmund says bears repeating, in bold.
The point with this type of interaction is that your objective is not to convince the other person to change their mind, rather it is to get them to realize that making religious claims in public will not necessarily be accepted without question. At the moment asking questions is seen as rude by the religious but it is our job to create a ‘cost’ for making religious claims- the cost being that someone will ask: “whats the evidence for that?”
Yeah.
Sigmund, thank you very much. That is indeed a good approach, and one I always forget about because I get caught up in specifics. Although I am often surrounded by people that think revelation in and of itself “evidence”, and powerful “evidence” at that .
The last funeral I went to, I was “congratulated” afterwards for not making a scene during the religious service.
That’s thst sort of thing that makes you want to backhand somebody.
The irony is, the priest gave the least religious service I had ever heard: not one word about the afterlife. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was liberal or because he thought the deceased was burning in hell.