New improved atheism with added antagonism
Quote for the day, from Oliver Kamm.
I reject – in the sense that I’m antagonistic towards them, not just that I don’t accept them – all religious claims to truth.
Precisely. That is no doubt what put the ‘new’ in ‘new atheism’ – the addition of antagonism to non-acceptance. The move from plain unbelief to unbelief plus dislike. The adoption of Kingsley Amis’s ‘Yes [I’m an atheist] but it’s more that I hate him.’ The brazen unapologetic frank hostility to all religious claims to truth, because they are religious claims to truth, and therefore not only worthless but also harmful, because religion is not the way to get at truth, and pretending it is just trains people to learn bad non-functional ways to think.
We are allowed to do that. Call it new or call it old, it makes no difference; we are still allowed to do that. Othering, shunning, name-calling, finger-pointing, ‘framing’ – none of them are going to convince us otherwise. Genuinely good arguments might, but all that other crap isn’t going to do the job.
Have a nice day.
Yes, this is what distinguishes the New atheism, and a good thing too. We don’t only dissent. We take dissent to the next level. We condemn, deny, repudiate, oppose, impugn, abjure all religious bleiefs, because religion consists of indemonstrable, undistinguished nonsense which makes universal claims for itself, and so is a standing danger to anyone who gets in the way. I’m beginning to like the term ‘New Atheist.’
All it means is we’re giving ourselves permission to be as dismissive of beliefs we find false as we have always been about political ideas we think are wrong, music that gives us no pleasure, art that we think is a con, etc. As Dawkins has been good at pointing out, in a different formulation. All the anti-New Atheists who criticise us for not holding back our criticism of religion have no problem being shrill, strident, outraged and dismissive about us. Our “advantage” over them is that we make no claim that we should be above criticism, so we’re not losing the immunity to it of which we are now depriving them.
I agree, as long as it against the ideas and not the person. ‘Hating him’ should not be in our repertoire.
No! Why buy in to the caricature and let it define you? I think this is like a teenage rebel who at first really sees the damage impersonal institutions and authority structures can have on individuality, but who slowly moves toward antagonism and abrasive personality in general, losing their innocence in the process. In every case he would be met with indignation from authorities who misinterpret the struggle as mere antagonism for the sake of antagonism. But the more we make an effort to rebut this argument we inadvertently internalize its backhanded fundamental assumptions (we argue over whether it is right to be antagonistic, or whether it has positive affects, ceding the point that honestly laying out the problems of religion is an inherently antagonistic behavior).
The problem with someone like Robert Wright is that it is fundamentally false that atheists should be characterized by some intangible attitude they have (every group has such people), and its immaterial to the actual discussion, and reflects a wildly off base set of priorities you have if you are, like Wright are more interested in personality issues than the damage religion is doing to society. If the rightness or wrongness of hostile temperament is the basis of dispute, the larger point has already been lost and they’ve (partially) succeeded in character assassination.
I don’t want atheism ever to be characterized by a method of its proponents (indeed its problematic enough, I think, to refer to it as a monolithic entity), and I don’t ever want for the discussion to be primarily characterized by its participants rather than its content. It needs to be about the actual fact that uncritical faith really does do harm. It really can harm democracy. It really can lead to a lack of respect for empiricism. It really can harm society. It really can and does facilitate the worst in human nature. Even if all that weren’t true, it also just happens to be false. If they think it’s indignant to point these things out, that’s a reflection of their own insecurity, not a personality trait on the part of the person pointing it out.
Oh bugger. Finding myself agreeing with the windbag Kamm. There should be a law against it.
I’m with Josef. If this is the line in the sand, then it’s a pretty boring one. Isn’t life more interesting when you focus on interesting arguments instead of buying into the “nasty” side of the “nasty vs. nice” divide?
“Why buy in to the caricature and let it define you?”
Why buy into your opponents’ characterisation of you as intolerant if you express your healthy opposition to harmful nonsense?
Kamm? Windbag? I’ve always rather liked him.
Josef and Ben, surely you’re the ones buying into the assumptions of Wright and co. I didn’t say a word about being nasty, or about hostile temperament. All I said was that we are allowed to be antagonistic to all religious claims to truth. You two added the extra ingredients.
“It needs to be about the actual fact that uncritical faith really does do harm. It really can harm democracy. It really can lead to a lack of respect for empiricism. It really can harm society. It really can and does facilitate the worst in human nature.”
But that’s what I’m saying! It really does do harm and therefore I’m antagonistic to it. I don’t consider that nasty – that is the point.
Oh, honestly, Benjamin. Please go back and rethink that for a few minutes. The “nasty vs. nice” dichotomy is a false appeal to emotionalism foisted upon outspoken atheists , not something we’re “buying into.” It’s about the fact that outspoken criticism of faith – the kind of thing that happens on this blog – is maliciously characterized as “nasty.”
I don’t accept that. But furthermore, I don’t a tinker’s damn if other people do. I reserve the right – the intellectual and ethical right – to point these things out even if someone wants to try to discursively sideline me with the accusation of being “nasty.”
In fact, I’m likely to fight even harder – and yes, more nastily – when so mischaracterized.
You’re an insightful, intelligent contributor here. I know you get this.
Whoops. That should have read:
“I don’t give a tinker’s damn. . .”
And I don’t.
Right, but approving use of the quote ‘Yes [I’m an atheist] but it’s more that I hate him’ has fewer charms on the soporific soul than one might think.
And anyway even if the attitude is expressed towards propositions and not people, I don’t see it as being a very interesting way of speaking. To me, “post-9/11 atheism/activism” makes sense as a demarcation line. Universally antagonistic atheism (ala Kamm) isn’t good enough; it includes George Carlin and Mario Bunge, though they were precursors to new atheism.
Also, universally antagonistic atheism excludes any atheists who merely recognise what we might call ‘the problem of evil religions’, even though they stop short of deeming all religions evil. If we remember that Dawkins himself was working with his own idiosyncratic formulation of religion which does not apply to its standard usage, we find that he makes no case at all against many religions (under the standard definition of the term). So if we go by Kamm’s formulation, Dawkins is not a new atheist, because he lacks that universal antagonism towards religion we’re looking for.
NewEnglandBob wrote:
I agree, as long as it against the ideas and not the person.
That does not seem to be possible when it comes to religion. Religionists are so entwined with their belief systems that any discussion of that system is usually taken as a personal attack and brings a response like, “why are you attacking Christianity?”
OT – from The Chronicle – Anthropology article
Said Ms. Dreger: “Forms of scholarship that deny evidence, that deny truth, that deny the importance of facts, even when performed in the name of good, are dangerous, not only to science and to ethics but to democracy.”
Wow ! this took my breath away. RIGHT ON – could not be said any better. Its democracy that is at danger from these “well intentioned” but totalitarian impulses. Its not just the issue of science, but that of liberal democracy.
Is there any doubt that cultural anthropology, environmentalism, activism, and other forms of isms where facts and evidence is denigrated by the excuse of “good intentions” — are just another form of insidious religion?
In environmentalism, mother nature or the species become the god(s). So how is that different from traditional religion?
Its the same.
But Benjamin, OB didn’t approve the quote you cited. She approved the precise point SHE quoted from Kamm’s argument: “I reject – in the sense that I’m antagonistic towards them, not just that I don’t accept them – all religious claims to truth.” This phrase was the real point of Kamm’s short essay, and the literary allusion you cite is frankly a red herring.
Religious claims to truth – that is, utterly baseless claims to truth – deserve antagonism. In addition to their baseless nature – already ample grounds for criticism if not outright antagonism – such claims have the further problem of their widely assumed (and always claimed) privileged status, a status which puts them beyond all questioning and criticism. This second feature is more than sufficient to justify outright antagonism even if completely baseless, utterly fervent convictions were not in themselves problematic enough to justify antagonism (and I frankly think that they are).
When you decry the perfectly reasonable antagonism to all (privileged, baseless) religious claims, you very much seem to be supporting and buying into the “atheists are mean ol’ bullies” theme rather than opposing it. Maybe that is not your intent – but it is a plausible reading of your comments’ content. As Josh says, you seem to be accepting and endorsing the false dichotomy rather than opposing it. If you don’t intend that, you must express yourself more clearly.
I’m at a bit of a loss as to why something so simple has become so complicated. If beliefs seem baseless to you, you can reject them. If, in addition, you have grounds to believe that they cause harm, it would be strange if you were not antagonistic to them. Behaving like this doesn’t make one nasty; it makes one rational. This is a game in which one has opponents and they try to paint one in the worst possible colours.
Cultural conditioning, it seems to me, is a key element. Atheism has so long been a term with negative (putting it mildly) connotations, that even today, some atheists are having a hard time with the notion that they are actually the good guys.
Are we back to patrolling the borders, with Archangel Ophelia wielding the flaming sword?
I’m on board to about the extent of Thomas Jefferson’s “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man” (minus the “God” and the altar and the swearing). The news that the Episcopalians in L.A. are about to get a lesbian bishop suggests that they’re already mostly on our side.
At the very least, a bigger tent gives us more opportunities for recruiting.
Fine – bigger tent – more allies. Sounds great, but should anyone be required to hold their tongue about what they think is stupid and/or dangerous in order to achieve this?
No, but it’s nice to have friends, and it isn’t necessary to start every possible fight.
Atheism isn’t the only issue. Sexism is a particularly pernicious problem, and we’re far from done with racism. A more egalitarian society would go a long way to solving America’s problems. There’s a long row to hoe between here and there, and I’m not inclined to assault anyone who might show up to help.
Well, who would have thought that something so simple – a firm stand against religions and their obfuscations and pretensions – would have ended up in a dispute about… Well, about what, really? About Kingsley Amis’ remark? Well, what is Kingsley Amis’ remark? Who was it directed at? And why? Well, it was directed against ‘God’. (Which is the great thing about Google.) He’s not so much an atheist, but he hates Him. (And the caps are necessary just to show who is being hated.)
So, we’re not talking people here, we’re talking beliefs, and hating them, and finding them restrictive and dangerous, unsupported and insidious. And if it comes down to reckless people who use their religious beliefs to harm and to despoil, well, we can even manage a bit of real hatred, but that’s not the theme. The theme is hatred of religion and what it does to people, what it continues to do to people around the world, suppressing women, victimising gays and lesbians, giving false hope to the elderly and the dying, and pretending to be holy the better to trap and abuse children’s bodies and minds.
Why has this perfectly legitimate hatred of one of humankind’s worst inclinations become a matter of political double-think (in this short thread)?
And, by the way, the Anglican Church having elected a lesbian bishop is less an achievement than you might think. I know lesbian clergy, and some of them, anyway, are as benighted and literal in their understanding of faith as the pope. They just choose different texts. So, I’ll say it again. Any religion with a sacred text is a perennial danger, because, while it can be read liberally, it is almost certain to find literal readers, and they are dangerous. Kingsley Amis didn’t hate God for nothing.
bad Jim,
This sounds like a really good time for a reminder: we didn’t start this problem. Long before pretty much anyone dared to come out as an atheist, even in the most private and mild way, “sacred” texts were full of condemnations of anyone who didn’t toe the precise line prescribed by that particular religion. These take the form of stories about god killing those who don’t worship him, threats of eternal hellfire, and orders to dispose of infidels. I’m not aware of anything in any of these texts being revoked by those claiming to live by them. At best, we get a wishy-washy line about not having to take everything literally. Pointing out that this is nonsense and dangerous is, by comparison, so mild on the part of the “militant” atheists that the complaints against them, when looked at seriously, all become utterly absurd.
Mentioning atheism, racism and sexism as “issues” in such close proximity to each other is something I find… striking. To me, it is important that someone who shows up to “help” does not personally subscribe to any of prejudices exacerbated by religious doctrines. Is that hard to understand?
Ben – what is this about ‘universally antagonistic atheism’? I didn’t say anything about that, so why are you introducing it?
“Are we back to patrolling the borders, with Archangel Ophelia wielding the flaming sword?”
What is that about? Where did I say anything about patrolling the borders? I said we’re allowed to be antagonistic – that doesn’t entail saying we’re not allowed to be not antagonistic. I don’t see ‘we’re allowed to be antagonistic’ as patrolling any borders, with or without a flaming sword.
“Sexism is a particularly pernicious problem”
Aaaaand…you think I don’t pay enough attention to it? Seriously?
I read this blog quite often. I don’t actually agree with a lot of what is said. I don’t understand most of the articles, or the comments. I would therefore like to ask two questions, without being verbally abused for doing so. Here goes :
1. Are the contributors and respondents a small clique who only speak to each other?
2. Is it possible to be an atheist without having a leftwing view of life?
Yes. Kingsley Amis, for instance, was famously right wing. H L Mencken, who had a sneaking fondness for fascism, was a stringent atheist. Also, believers can be/ have been left wing.
Sorry to be persistent, but Fascism is a left-wing ideology and Kingsley Amis was a member of the Communist party.
Leaving aside the snarky first question (it’s amazing how people think they can indulge in snark while self-righteously asking not to be “verbally abused” for it), what does “right wing” mean?
If it means something like “putting a lot of emphasis on fiscal prudence at the levels of government”, of course an atheist can be right wing. I put a fair bit of emphasis on fiscal prudence myself – more than a lot of supposedly right wing governments seem to do in practice.
If it means “religious”, well obviously not.
Before taking a stab at answering your questions, one of my own popped into my head: if you understand as little as you say, what keeps you coming back for more?
1. There are informal regulars among us (as I expect you’ve noticed yourself), but many are networked far more widely. Your impression of us only speaking to each other may derive from the fact that most who contribute more frequently share broadly similar worldviews.
2. Yes. Atheism does not have anything (directly) to do with politics. My impression (possibly similar to your own) is that the political right wing is less free of religion than the left, which is in keeping with a literal reading of a term such as “conservative,” in which one of the aspects of earlier society to be “conserved” would be a large degree of authority granted to those holding religious power.
I can think of a couple of regulars here who could phrase it better (or disagree with both my answers), but that is my superficial take on it.
Kingsley Amis was a member of the Communist Party up to about 1956. After that he moved further and further to the right. He wrote loads of denunciations of Leftism eg his essay “Why Lucky Jim turned right”.
As for “Fascism being a left wing ideology” you are mistaken.
Your statement on Amis seems to imply that that was the extent of his lifelong political affiliation. Is that what you intended?
As to Fascism being a left-wing ideology, you are entitled to your view, but I trust you at least acknowledge that it is one held by a minority.
I don’t think people who contribute here are generally subjected to verbal abuse.
Answering your questions: This is one of the better-known sites in the atheist/rationalist part of the web. I think you’ll find that a number of the participants are also active elsewhere.
Although religious fundamentalism is an exteme right-wing position (sticking my neck out here), some of the worst apologists for it are on the left, while apparently not being believers themselves. Sticking my neck out even further, I could venture that there may be a historical association between having left-wing views and being an atheist, as both are against the “establishment”.
As Stewart has said, political orientation and being an atheist are not really directly connected.
Last I heard, Richard Dawkins was a member of Britain’s Conservative party. He belongs to its “humanist” group.
No they’re not. In fact I’ve been holding up B&W as an example of a site where threads don’t degenerate into a lot of name calling and swearing. There’s abrasiveness sometimes but not what I’d call abuse, compared to some of the shouting and swearing hang outs in the blogosphere.
Seconded. I check out both the Dawkins site and Pharyngula about as regularly as I do B&W and, though I often take a quick peek at the comments on the former and sometimes contribute, it’s much rougher and cliquey than here. And that goes double for the latter (and I’ve contributed much less often, too).
john in cheshire wrote:
Are the contributors and respondents a small clique who only speak to each other?
How could they only speak to each other when anyone and everyone can make comments? Do you mean some people comment more than others? So what? Speaking for myself only, if a comment of mine goes unanswered (I guess you would assume the “clique” doesn’t want to speak to me), I just assume my comment was reasoned out so perfectly that no one could dispute it.
As for the comment above about Pharyngula and Dawkins.net, I would heartily disagree. Since anyone can argue any side of any question on both sites, I don’t understand the complaint. In fact, unless a blog owner severely restricts who can comment, the whole idea of “cliques” on a blog is ridiculous.
Is it possible to be an atheist without having a leftwing view of life?
Yes, it is. I am a strange sort of libertarian who also believes in strong government action in certain areas – i.e., I realize that the market doesn’t always work.
I am also quite concerned about the new environmental religion which is taking over, and the unholy alliance that is being formed between the greens and fundamentalist Christians.
I think this is all tied up in widespread feelings of guilt in western societies, and some wierd need to do pennance for every sin ever committed against everyone and anyone. These people need to get a life, but for now they seem to be getting their jollies running the MSM.
tomh,
It wasn’t really a complaint. I find that on both of the others a lot more winking among those who have one-upped each other in previous skirmishes goes on. Maybe it’s also that on RDF the graphics and avatars etc add to the feel of tumult (relative to sober old B&W). And there’s the sheer difference in numbers. It’s not rare for a popular piece on RDF to get a couple of hundred comments and on Pharyngula there seem to be dozens within minutes of any new posting (think of how quickly and devastatingly online polls get “pharyngulated” – if we ever need to raise a standing atheist army, I’d start by asking PZ to lend a hand). B&W comments don’t reach that volume, as a rule, but I find that a higher percentage of what there is is really on target. I’m a fan of both the others I mentioned; I’m just aware of the different characters they have.
Well that got a conversation going!
“Are the contributors and respondents a small clique who only speak to each other?”
What do you mean by contributors? The only contributor on this page is Archangel me. Contributors on the main page are a broad mix – they’re certainly not a small clique, or any kind of clique. Respondents on this page agree on some things and disagree on others.
Now, it is true that B&W has been around for more than seven years, and inevitably it has some long-standing fans, readers, commenters, as well as more recent ones. Naturally a certain sense of friendship (or community or likemindedness or whatever you want to call it) develops – but that doesn’t have to mean, and in this case does not mean, that we “only speak to each other.”
In other words there are regulars, and you can think of that as a clique if you want to, but the reality is that discussion is open.
There is a school of thought, or at any rate one person, that thinks I’m a bully and that I tolerate absolutely no dissent and chase away anybody who disagrees with me and that I have “collected disciples” who help me do this. But I (you will be astonished to learn) think that is bullshit, especially the part about “collecting disciples.” How the hell would anyone go about doing that? One writes what one writes, and then some people like it. That’s it.
It is true, obviously, that there are some shared core views here – but I don’t see that as a wicked thing, much less as a matter of tolerating no dissent. B&W is about something, or about several things; therefore it naturally attracts some people who are interested in those things. I’m not going to apologize for that!
If you want to make a case for (or against) something, go ahead. On the other hand, as a few people have said, if you don’t understand most of the articles and the comments, I’m not sure why you’re interested. But if you are, by all means make a case.
Annoying pedantry – but “verbal abuse”. The “verbal” is redundant since, after all, you can’t carry out physical abuse on a blog, much as you’d like to sometimes.
Looks like I’m in trouble. Alas.
Josh, the reason that motivates my argument is exactly that, emotionalism. To say “antagonism” is just to say “nasty”, there’s no difference, they’re synonyms. You can be nasty towards mere propositions and not people, but it’s still nasty. In that sense, there’s nothing to buy into from Wright, there’s no malice. It’s just a restatement of the honest opinions expressed here. And I don’t begrudge a person their feelings and dispositions over the internet. That doesn’t change the fact that I am bored by this dividing line. What’s more interesting, I think, is talking about the historical context, thinking of new atheism as a post-9/11 movement that has been through the most ecumenical liberal attempts at reconciliation and ultimately found them to be an epic failure. But also, and more seriously, it doesn’t work in Kamm’s formulation, because it includes people who ought to be excluded (Bunge, Carlin) and excludes people who ought to be included (Dawkins).
G Felis, let me put it this way: if I were a speaker at this event, I’d probably be sitting with the atheists even though I’m not one. To the extent that I agree with Wright, it is only in the sense articulated by Stephen Fry (@41:40). In the way I’m using it, nasty is just antagonism. Is it sometimes necessary? Unlike Wright, I think it probably is. You can’t just lie down and be slaughtered when the lunatics have taken over the asylum. Does it make for a very interesting cause celebre? No, I don’t think so. I think it’s boring, and (more importantly) wrong.
Eric, thanks, that clears up the quote quite a bit. Without the capitalization of “him” it seemed like it was an attack on a person.
Ophelia, “universally antagonistic atheism” is another one of my cumbersome locutions that is meant to summarise Kamm. I am just taking Kamm at his word. “I reject – in the sense that I’m antagonistic towards them, not just that I don’t accept them – all religious claims to truth.” (emphasis added) The antagonism is universal, unlike, say, for Dawkins, who is at pains to put the non-Abrahamic religions (and Spinozan pantheism) off to the side. Once we translate his way of speaking into less idiosyncratic terms, we find he comes up short of Kamm’s lofty expectations. He may think the Spinozans or Buddhists are bullshitters, and maybe he can write a book about that some day, but so far he has refrained from antagonism there, and thinks he cannot (or has decided he must not, will not) complain.
John in cheshire, Ayn Rand.
“if a comment of mine goes unanswered”
Ow! Sore point! Just kidding – but I am chronically anxious about that. Often there will be ten or fifteen interesting comments by the time I see them and I usually say something about only one or two – and I do feel as if I’m snubbing the others, especially ones by first-time commenters or less frequent commenters. But it looks idiotic and nannyish to answer everything, like a nursery school teacher giving everyone a gold star. But I feel guilty and anxious.
Is this tragic or what?!
Another tragedy by the way is that something is wrong with the database (I don’t know what), so I can’t post anything – not even a note saying I can’t post anything. Sorry.
Ben are you just being provocative or Oscar Wildeish or something? ‘Antagonistic’ is not the same thing as ‘nasty’ – so what am I missing?
Furthermore –
“You can be nasty towards mere propositions and not people, but it’s still nasty.”
Nonsense. You can, at a stretch, be nasty about propositions. But towards them? Come on.
I do not see why explicitly rejecting an idea would necessarily be nasty. That would rather depend on the nature of the objection. If the objection takes the form of: “That is the kind of deluded drivel I would expect from a loonie like you” then, obviously, it is nasty, as well as unlikely to contribute to the conversation. However, if it is done in the way of: “I think you are mistaken for the following reasons:…” then I cannot see why that should be considered as nasty. The person whose ideas are being questioned might have an emotional reaction, obviously, that is especially likely if it his religious worldview which is being questioned. This, in my view, does not mean that the person criticising was being nasty.
Benjamin, you wrote:
I’m curious – did you mean to say that you are a believer? If you are, may I ask what you believe in, and why?
As for the legitimate discussions here, one basic conceptual mistake (or sometimes deliberate tactic) that always bothers me when it is brought up by the faithful – someone has already alluded to it – is that while I completely agree that one must always proceed from a basic level of respect for an individual human being, confusing this respect for the person with respect for his or her ideas or convictions is simply a huge category error.
However, I must concede that in reality this is often a distinction without a difference since so many people strongly define themselves by these very ideals and worlviews that an attack on them is inevitable perceived as a “nasty” attack on the person.
But there really isn’t anything I can do about that, if I don’t want their “offendedness” – if there is such a word – be a univeral gag rule for me.
Frankly, I am not even sure about myself in this context, i.e. how forcefully would someone have to attack certain convictions of mine for me to perceive it as a personal attack?
From experience I can say it often doesn’t take much. Heated arguments often evoke strong emotional responses – none of us is immune to that.
In the end all we can do is defend our views to the best of our abilites and let the chips fall where they may.
This was the inspiration for the archangel remark. I’m sorry, I think I misunderstood, but I’m inclined to take amiss anything that looks like a creedal text. Then of course I went on to insist that good atheists should be generally liberal about such issues as sexism and economic inequality, patrolling the borders myself.
These issues are somewhat orthogonal to atheism; objectivists celebrate selfishness and Communists reify History. For the most part, though, I hope we’re members of the reality-based community, since, with only one life to live, our happiness depends in no small part on the health of our neighbors.
Well I think everyone should be generally liberal about such issues as sexism and economic inequality – so I’m not patrolling borders, I’m just stating a commitment.
Bruce yes it’s in News now, and I plan to mutter about it. The database was down yesterday so I’m behind with updating. (Thanks to Jerry S for fixing it.)
Ophelia, I like the Wilde comparison! Yes, nasty towards propositions is the same as being antagonistic towards propositions. As a rallying point, I find this boring. I don’t think I’m othering when I say that, I’m just saying this dividing line makes me sleepy.
Josh, I reject two-valued logic as a natural or meaningful assessment of belief and non-belief for many forms of agnosticism, because folk psychology is (at least in many cases) scientifically nebulous. Intuition is the inclination to believe; doubt is the disinclination to believe; I have both. If you really want to know what my inner life is like, you’ll have to first understand that belief-talk is impoverished from the start.
There are two reasons to think a person’s intuitions are actually beliefs. One is when you have a rich and stable body of inferences that you think you’re willing to assent to, with respect to some ontology. God is the first cause, etc. Another is when you publicly endorse belief or non-belief as adequate descriptions of their inner states. Since I think that any religious talk worth tolerating is of the “recreational bullshit” sort, I don’t think there’s much benefit in positing a stable body of inferences. Also, I refuse to acknowledge either belief or non-belief as adequate descriptions of my inner states. Intuitions and doubts, fine, but not beliefs.
Benjamin: How can you take the clearly flexible position that you “reject two-valued logic as a natural or meaningful assessment of belief and non-belief” on the one hand, and then read Kamm’s claim to “reject – in the sense that I’m antagonistic towards them, not just that I don’t accept them – all religious claims to truth” in such a very rigid fashion on the other hand? You are NOT “just taking Kamm at his word,” but imposing a very strict and limited interpretation on his words. Do Spinozist deists and Buddhists – your cited examples – really even make religious claims to truth? I’d say they don’t, or at least not in in any straightforward sense – and there’s nothing in Kamm’s essay that commits him to antagonism towards Buddhists or Buddhism, or Spinozans, or atheist Hasidim (yes, they exist), or…
I smell a double standard lurking behind the position you’ve outlined on this thread. I use the word “smell” because, frankly, I find much of what you’ve written awfully vague on the key points at issue. What, exactly, are you objecting to in Kamm’s essay or Ophelia’s comment on it? Your talk above about some rallying point making you sleepy is not clear. WTF rallying point are you talking about? That religious claims to truth are odious, bullying claptrap that deserve the antagonism of all rational people? All of your talk about what constitutes actual “beliefs” as opposed to intuitions or feelings seems rather beside the point, because what outspoken atheists are objecting to – what Kamm objected to, and OB expressed enthusiastic agreement with him about about – are CLAIMS ABOUT THE WORLD BASED ON RELIGIOUS FAIH. Just because *you* don’t happen to make such claims, and many other religious adherents don’t make such claims (arguably – I’m not sure you’re right about this) doesn’t change the fact that a large and loud and influential percentage of religious adherents and religious leaders DO make such faith-based claims about the world – universally unsupported claims (because that’s what faith means), and very frequently false and harmful claims. And worse, even the religious adherents who don’t make such claims are all-too-often inclined to be influenced by the false and harmful claims of those who do: I hold up everyone who takes what the Pope has to say about moral matters seriously simply because he is the Pope as examples.
So to be quite frank, I don’t see how whether you acknowledge belief or non-belief as adequate descriptions of your inner states has fuck-all to do with the matter at hand. It sounds like another cheap dodge of legitimate criticism. In fact, it sounds a lot like the kind of cheap dodges of legitimate criticism that shape so much anti-atheist rhetoric these days. Again, I’m not entirely sure that you intend to make such a maneuver; but if you don’t, you must write more clearly, because that’s the impression you’re (still) giving.
Be-en, don’t be tiresome. No, [being] nasty towards propositions is the same as being antagonistic towards propositions. Being nasty towards propositions is meaningless, for one thing! It’s like Tom Good teasing the fleece by calling it silly old fleece. And anyway, as I said, antagonistic isn’t the same thing as nasty – you just saying it is doesn’t make it so. Look it up if you don’t believe me. They are not synonyms. Opposition is not necessarily and inherently nasty.
Ohh, I see – having gone back to the beginning I see that some of the confusion comes from the Kingsley Amis quote. I’ve quoted it so many times I thought it was familiar, so I didn’t bother to gloss it. He wasn’t talking about hating a person! He was at a party or gathering for Yevtushenko, and the latter asked him ‘You atheist?’ and KA said ‘Yes but it’s more that I hate him.’
Honestly, wasn’t that obvious? If he’d been talking about a person I would have said who the person was! Sheesh.
G, Kamm uses bold terms that must be taken as a sincere challenge and be taken literally. So I do. The same expectation applies to my statement, “I reject two-valued logic as a natural or meaningful assessment of belief and non-belief”, which itself is to be taken literally. It is a statement about how a certain class of other statements, those involving folk psychology, are a very poor fit when they describe the stuff happening in my mind and asserted without proper evidence. You are right that there are different kinds of interpretation going on here, between the statement and the other class of statements it’s talking about (those of folk psychology, directed at religious talk). One demands bivalence (true or false), the other doesn’t (true or false or indeterminate). But that’s the very point — that’s exactly how it ought to be.
So look: if you’re reading charitably, then maybe you want to default on reading people as either one or the other, true or false and no middle. That would be fine. But I’m explicitly telling you: if you read me with bivalence, and if you label me on one side or the other, with respect to these terms and these subjects without appropriate evidence (i.e., by appealing to what I endorse and what I infer), then you get everything wrong. And this wrongness is not just about me, but probably a lot of other people too. And I don’t just assert this, foot-stamping and special pleading, I gave you a story about why that’s the case. So there should be more than just a “smell” to my conclusion. I’ve been explicit and even uncharacteristically brief (so far).
Anyway, if you think Kamm has an idiosyncratic sense of religion that is like Dawkins’s, then it turns out that I would have misread and my claims would misfire. But part of a charitable reading in real interpretation involves the default assumption that the speaker aims to work on enough common ground to get their point across. If you think there’s an idiosyncratic definition of a key term that lies beneath the surface of Kamm’s essay, then by all means you can set out to show that. And maybe you’re right. But as a policy, I won’t assume it, and I don’t think anyone should, if the aim is mutual understanding.
What’s the rallying point I contest? The addition of antagonism to non-acceptance of all religious claims, which adds the “new” to “new atheism”. I think that probably describes some people, and fine. I’m just saying, I find that boring. That doesn’t mean I’m not myself antagonistic towards certain classes of propositions. I’m hostile to many kinds of propositions. But it also doesn’t mean I self-identify as antagonistic (in this area), because it’s about as reactionary as calling yourself a “neo-” or “post-” something. It makes me feel co-dependent with the freaks I despise instead of standing on my own. Personal preference, results may vary.
More importantly, I have an alternative formulation of new atheism: post-9/11 activist atheism. I think it fits better with Dawkins.
Spinozans. Well: are you seriously saying that Spinoza did not believe he was making a claim to truth? For my part, I am absolutely convinced that he was. I am absolutely convinced that a person would not go into exile and become a universally reviled figure across the continent unless he felt that his interpretation was true. What do you think, he was conning all along, just a jovial bullshitter whose secret ambition was just to whittle his days away crafting lenses? Of course not. As for his followers — well, I don’t know who we’re talking about, so I don’t know how you’d prove or disprove either way. But anyway, Dawkins sees them as beyond reproach, almost fellow-travellers.
Buddhists. Do I know the character of what they believe? Do they aim to make truth-claims instead of therapeutic claims? Again, I don’t know who we’re talking about. People hold different kinds of convictions, and we have different kinds of evidence to weigh here and there. I do know that they are conventionally classified as a religion, and would have to defer to experts on those practices in order to justify that convention. But I do know that Dawkins does not provide an informed case for changing classification, by his own admission. Again, charity leans us towards conventional use of terms until we have reason to go another way.
Ophelia, I just use the words differently. Though I’ll admit that “nasty towards this class of propositions” is awkward, I think it’s because “nasty” is awkward when it comes to adverbial use. “Joe behaves nastily towards idealism” sounds weird. “Joe is antagonistic towards idealism” is perfectly fine. In ordinary speech we talk about propositions or classes of propositions as if they were objects all the time.
So, pick whatever words are best — antagonistic vs. conciliatory, say. The point remains the same however you wrap your tongue around it.
About Amis — I’m not as much of a literary man as I used to be/want to be. That misreading is entirely my fault. To make things worse, the next novel I read will probably be pulp fantasy, because evidently Auto-De-Fe and The Near and the Far haven’t sat on my bookshelf long enough for me to start reading them.
Ben,
You need an editor, badly. Not just someone to fix up the occasional piece, but an intelligent mentor, and a clear writer, to work with you to help you develop a more coherent style. Your syntax is often vague, your grammar uncertain. Much of the time, I find your prose impenetrable – I have no idea what you’re trying to say, and it’s not because I’m poorly read or unsophisticated.
There are few complicated ideas that cannot be expressed in clear language. Sure, one needs to understand something about quantum physics and its associated maths in order to make sense of high-level papers on the subject. But there’s a difference between the reader not having a sufficient background, and obscurantist writing. Academia is full of that, and it’s not a mark of sophistication, it’s an embarrassing deficit.
I am obviously not The World’s Best Writer (TM), but I am usually cogent and clear. I wasn’t always – the cold red pen of my undergraduate advisor, and then years of constructive, relentless criticism by supervising editors while I worked in journalism, tightened my writing.
I wince a little at this because it’s going to come off as sharp and personal, and I really, really don’t want to be sharp and personal. But you’re likely going to continue to be frustrated with conversational partners who don’t “get you” if you don’t address some of the mechanical problems in your writing.
Benjamin, I urge you to re-read what I said about Spinozists and Buddhists, and at least acknowledge the very clear added phrase “at least not in in any straightforward sense.” Nothing is straightforward about Spinozan metaphysics. Citing the lengths to which someone goes in advancing or defending an idea does not actually speak to whether or not that idea constitutes a straightforward true/false claim about the world. People are often willing to die for empty deepities, more’s the pity. But enough side issues.
Given the substance and focus of Kamm’s comments, the problem is NOT how one defines ‘religious’ in the phrase “religious claims to truth” – and that remains a red herring no matter how many times you return to it. Whether Kamm has an idiosyncratic definition of religion like Dawkins’ is quite beside the point: What he finds objectionable (and what I and OB and many others find objectionable) is the “claims to truth” part, and all that matters about adjective “religious” can be reduced, in this context, to this – religious claims to truth are entirely without grounds (supporting evidence & reasons) and yet are taken very, very seriously. Many of those claims are also very harmful, which is especially problematic because they are taken so very seriously. That’s all very straightforward, and the folk psychology of belief and related matters you wrote about don’t seem to have the slightest bearing on it.
If you don’t personally find widely influential and harmful ungrounded claims to be objectionable or worthy of your antagonism, or if you have some objection to being defined by your opposition to such claims, bully for you! As you say, personal preference, results may vary. I certainly couldn’t care less. But when you snarkily talk about how *bored* you are with antagonism towards bogus religious claims and make negative comments about other people’s different personal preference on the matter – such as pushing your strange insistence that antagonism equates to nastiness, all dictionaries and thesauruses and common usages to the contrary – you are clearly attempting to say something rather more than just the expression of a “your results may vary” personal preference. Unfortunately, your comments are so all over the place that it isn’t obvious WHAT that something more is. If you have a point that’s more than a difference in personal taste or style about how to oppose religious dogma, you might try speaking directly to that point in some fashion.
And if I might add to Josh’s attempt at constructive criticism – sincerely not wishing to give the impression that I’m “piling on” – you should note that I concluded both of my prior responses to your comments with a caveat about being unsure what you were saying, and I took care to say that my comments were directed at the impression I was getting, and that I would welcome clarification. I made a point of adding that because I’ve also had problems figuring out what you were getting at – with great regularity, to be honest. And at this point in my academic career, I have enough confidence in my ability to parse some pretty arcane and convoluted prose – Hell, I can sort out what Judith Butler is actually trying to say most of the time (which ought to be the basis for awarding some sort of medal) – to conclude that the clarity problem is definitely on your end, not mine.
Ach…I wrote a reply to something Ben said before I read any further, because I wanted to get the thought down – but now that I’ve read further I see that G said it and I could have saved myself the trouble. But since I did write it, I’ll just put it here anyway. It will at least clarify what I meant from the outset.
—-
“The addition of antagonism to non-acceptance of all religious claims”
No – that’s not what’s at issue – it’s the addition of antagonism to non-acceptance of all religious claims to truth. I read that (perhaps idiosyncratically) to mean religious epistemology as such – in other words, all religious claims to be able to get at the truth via specifically religious ‘ways of knowing’ which don’t need to bother with pesky old evidence or logic or argument or careful thinking or any kind of check at all. At any rate, whether my reading is right or not, ‘all religious claims’ is a much bigger category, and I wouldn’t hooray antagonism to that, and I didn’t.
Fascism is not a left wing ideology.
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2009/06/fascism-is-not-liberal-profound.html
Josh, maybe. I never claimed to spend hours on each post.
But here, I think it’s equally plausible that you’re so motivated to find something to disagree with that you’ve lost interest in interpreting fairly. You can’t expect a window to be clear when you’re close to the glass and breathing heavily. That’s too bad — for me, more than anyone. But as a basis for criticism I take it with a grain of salt.
I do apologize if I’ve been curt or dismissive, for what it’s worth.
G. I dissent from the self-identification with antagonism, the idea that antagonism is what puts the New in New Atheism. I said I think that’s boring because I think it’s reactionary. Also, I think it’s descriptively wrong. You probably disagree on both points. But if you honestly look at the initial post, and what I’ve written, then you should not be mystified with the places we disagree.
Your responses to the descriptive part of my argument just create a lot of questions without answering them. Fine, crazy narcissists and mystics might exile themselves over deepities. Do you put Spinoza in that category or not? And how can the definition of “religious” not matter when we’re talking about “religious claims to truth”? If we’re willing to treat some “religious claim to truth” with kid gloves, then it surely matters quite a lot.
What you’ve gotten caught up on was my treatment of “nastiness” as synonymous with “antagonism”. I don’t see what the relevant difference is that you’re latching onto. You might think that one is more morally kosher than the other. If so, say so. Or you might think they’re stylistically or syntactically different. Well, say how. For my part, I’m willing to just drop the “nasty” comment, since my point is just against self-identifying with “antagonism”.
It’s important to keep in mind that everything I’ve said here is a response tailored to specific people who had specific questions or comments. For a while it seemed like you’d gotten caught up in Josh’s question of why I said I’m not an atheist. My answer was: because belief/non-belief are inadequate descriptions of what’s going on. That was the extent of it, until you accused me of being guilty of the same dogmatic literalism that I accused Kamm of; which required another digression, a long one, which has evidently impressed no-one. But I did answer your criticism. In fact, if anything, I’ve been too responsive. But that comes from respect for the conversation.
The relevant difference between antagonism and nastiness: antagonism is opposition, which may or may not be aggressive, ‘nasty’ etc. Nastiness is just nastiness. The difference is highly relevant, because the root of the whole systematic campaign against ‘new’ atheism boils down to equating opposition with nastiness. It really ought to be possible to oppose something without being accused of nastiness and its cognates. The elision of the two ideas is part of the ‘framing’ of the othering campaign. It’s a way of making explicit atheism seem morally vicious.
Ben wrote:
Ben, stop for a second. Put your pride down. I meant what I said in a friendly way, as an attempt at constructive criticism. I’m not breathing heavily on the glass. I’m not motivated to find something to disagree with you on – because I literally can’t understand your position much of the time.
I tried to make it clear – and I tried to soften my post – by admitting to having been in the same situation when I was honing my skills as a writer. It’s not personal Ben. You seem not to have noticed that.
You can let your ego get in the way and convince yourself I’m your enemy and a knee-jerk critic, but that’s not true.
But, if you do want snotty, curt, dismissive and tart, you’ll get plenty of that in return. Don’t state that you don’t mean your post to be dismissive and curt when you obviously did. Own your snottiness, at least.
Josh Slocum – your piece on clear writing was excellent ! And thanks.
The problem with those who over-rationalize and/or obscure – and make short shrift of rigor and meaningful language is not that they simply are doing a disservice to others (and ultimately to themselves) – the problem is that they believe that social truths are complex and “nuanced” (that weasel word) to the point that if you dont obscuratize, then you cannot possibly be saying the truth.
In other words, obscurantism is their methodology, and “truth is in obscurantism”.
I find this most prevalent with the dishonest left, who maintain a self-righteous arrogance as they are sooo sure of their own pure intentions.
Benjamin, you can’t claim to be giving specific responses to specific comments and ignore the most important (and most repeated, in various ways by both myself and others) part of my comment in your response. Or rather, you clearly can – and just did – but I wish you wouldn’t. For example, this bit:
I said EXACTLY what part of the concept ‘religious’ mattered and how:
On reflection, I would add this for even more clarity (not that I don’t think it was already pretty clear): The fact that *some* of those claims are not harmful, and some are even beneficent, does not redeem or in any way mitigate the fundamentally flawed nature of religious (non-)epistemology. That is, the sheer groundlessness of the claims is in itself odious, especially when it is viewed as a virtue.
I can only see two alternatives. Either (1) you are simply refusing to address this point, or (2) you think you *are* addressing this point, but you are doing so in such an obtuse, unclear manner that neither I (nor apparently anyone else participating in this discussion) can see how you are addressing it. You, I suspect, see a third alternative – but I get the distinct impression that this third alternative involves a the conviction that you are being very clear and articulate, whereas anyone who fails to grasp your point is being obtuse or obstinate. I do not find that conviction plausible on the evidence.
Ophelia, you’re making it sound like antagonism is emotion-neutral. If that’s indistinct from being an activist about non-acceptance, a synonym of “rejection”, then we have no disagreement. But that seems like a strange way of talking to me. In every other context, I use the word “antagonism” to describe hostility. That’s the point of using the term, at least as it’s useful. Maybe we have different lexicons. But I’m not trying to frame anybody. The use of the word was well entrenched prior to this discussion, and will continue to be.
G, you keep narrowly referring to the grounds for claims. But our issue is antagonism towards religious claims, not just warrant for acceptance or non-acceptance of them. These are distinct issues. At least as far as Dawkins is concerned, when he’s spelling out the things he’s prepared to assent and dissent from, it’s not just an epistemic question having to do with senses of truth. It’s also a question of disposition, a sense of what’s worth treating with an aggressive stance and what isn’t. (Does that distinction clear anything up?)
Dawkins views Spinoza’s religious views as worthy of belief and is eager to align himself with those views. He is religious in the Spinozan sense, and certainly non-antagonistic towards Spinoza (via Einstein). Also, in the case of the Oriental religions, it’s not clear what he believes. I don’t doubt he suspects they’re hogwash, or at least he probably would if he knew more about their particulars. But he is willing to give them enough praise to call them ethical systems or philosophies of life, which is non-antagonistic. As I put it, kid gloves.
The key point, which I return back to, is that self-identification with antagonism (in the conventional meaning of “antagonism”) is reactionary. My calling this ‘uninteresting’ may have been snarky, I admit. But this is the only way for me to put the point without misrepresenting my own views, either by being othering, mean-spirited, and dismissive, OR by being othered, bullied, and dismissed. This is just to say that Josef had it right on. So does Fry. So, for that matter, does Dawkins, and probably Dennett.
On the other hand, I’ve had a bit too much of Hitchens’s “let there be blood” speeches, even if his heart is in approximately the right place. As I put it, results may vary.
Ben wrote:
OK, Ben, I’m calling bullshit on you. This is a prime example of your writing style: it’s word salad. Full stop.
Ignore me if you want, that’s your prerogative. I tried to be nice to you, but you got all three-year-old temper-tantrumy. Fact is, your prose is convoluted and sloppy.
Learn to express your ideas clearly, or stop throwing hissy fits about people “othering” you. Clear grammar and syntax are *good things*. You’re all up on your high horse about people not “getting you,” but you pay scant attention to how obtuse and obscure your writing style is. Get the beam out of your own eye and stop whining.
Sorry if I’ve been “curt and dismissive,” and Ophelia can certainly cull my comments if they’re out of line. But you, Ben, are impossible to parse. Your problem, not anyone else’s.
You want people to engage you? Write as if you’re addressing native English speakers of average or above intelligence. And cut the self-righteous wounded bitching.
“But our issue is antagonism towards religious claims, not just warrant for acceptance or non-acceptance of them.”
Ben…I told you yesterday that that was wrong. See above. That’s the second time you’ve left out the ‘to truth’ part – but that part is crucial. You’re wrestling with a phantom of your own making, and much of the time you’re doing it way too cryptically.
“Ophelia, you’re making it sound like antagonism is emotion-neutral.”
Noooooo – opposition is not emotion-neutral. How could it be? You have to care in order to oppose. But ‘not nasty’ is not the same thing as emotion-neutral. You insisted that antagonism is synonymous with nastiness, and I insisted that it is not and that one can oppose without being nasty. I didn’t say one can oppose without emotion.
Frankly it looks as if you’ve bought into the bullshit yourself – the bullshit that substantive disagreement with the truth claims of theism is inherently, automatically, always mean, nasty, aggressive, strident, shrill, assaultive, etc etc etc. That is a highly political claim, and I’m surprised that you seem to be taking it at face value.
Ophelia, you’re jumping at shadows! It was a shorthand that applies to religious claim to truth. That’s part of the point of bringing up Dawkins, Spinoza, and the Oriental religions. Dawkins is not hostile to Spinozan religious truth-claims, and is (at least at the time of writing of TGD) indifferent to the Oriental religious truth-claims. You’re focusing on a turn of phrase instead of on the argument in context.
You can reject something while still being serene about it. But you can’t be antagonistic towards something without being a bit of a bastard towards it. You seem to mean “antagonism” as synonymous with “disposed to reject”, I mean it as synonymous with “hostile”. I think your use is unnatural, and misrepresents itself. Ordinarily this would be the part of the conversation where I would say, “oh, okay, I see what you mean and that’s all that matters”, and to hell with convention. Unfortunately, my point here is that when you purposefully identify yourself in a reactionary way, you’re doing something that is primarily social. This deserves comment by looking at how relatively innocent people who have no stake in this discussion would most naturally use the term. If that’s framing, then it’s framing in the banal sense of code-switching that you have mentioned on another occasion.
You keep worrying about Wright having cast a spell over me. Putting aside the fact that Wright has all the charisma of a log, note that unlike Wright or Mooney or their kind, I don’t claim:
a) “Rejection of all religious truth-claims is mean-spirited, etc.”
b) “Identifying yourself through your rejection of all religious truth-claims is mean-spirited, etc.”
I believe neither. But I do say that:
c) It is boring and reactionary to identify yourself with antagonism towards all religious truth-claims.
Which I think is different from b), on the most natural reading. And it’s certainly different from:
d) “It is immoral to identify yourself with antagonism towards all religious truth-claims.” Which I never said. Hence, no deep rift, no othering, etc.
Well, Ben, if it’s taken this many words and this many comments for you to make clear what you’re saying, maybe that really is because you spent a lot of words and a lot of comments not making it clear.
It remains unclear why you bothered. Why should I care that you consider a particular claim boring? Why should anyone? Why should anyone care about anyone else’s taste in blog posts? Declarations about taste are just conversation-stoppers. They’re also vaguely irritating in places where the offering is a free gift. This isn’t a restaurant, I didn’t serve you a bad plate of paella! I said something; take it or leave it; I’ve never promised to keep Ben Nelson amused and interested!
I don’t know what you mean by ‘reactionary.’ Perhaps you mean ‘reactive’ – which would be true enough, but then religion does give us stuff to react to, after all. If you mean reactionary in the usual sense, I have no idea what you’re getting at.
By the way I don’t keep worrying about Wright having cast a spell over you. I don’t recall mentioning Wright, and anyway I don’t keep worrying about it – I just answer particular claims you’ve made in particular ways.
Ophelia, I was reasonably clear all along, of course. If we were talking about the weather, the conversation never would have ended at 23:18:27. One problem is that there were some sideroads, having to do with (say) whether or not I call myself an atheist or not, which evidently led to confusion. (But that was my attempt to give an answer to an inquiry into my views.) Another problem is that people can’t accept the point for what it is, and grasp at straws and gnash their teeth, when faced with a vaguely unpleasant objection that they haven’t encountered before. So I go from being a valuable poster who cuts right to the heart of the matter to an obfuscatory ivory-tower “worse than Judith Butler” type overnight. So it goes, happy holidays.
Do I have such an ego that I expect anyone to care what interests me? Not much, no. It’s just how it is, that’s my self-report, no more no less. Why did I bother saying anything, if that’s all it is? I bothered because I was impressed by Josef’s comments at 17:35:59, which are genuine good sense, and are much more deserving of attention than mine, and to which I wanted to draw attention. Why did I mention Wright? Because you wrote: “Josef and Ben, surely you’re the ones buying into the assumptions of Wright and co.”, in brief reply.
If you continue use an unnatural formulation of “antagonism” then of course my claim about being “reactionary” (in the usual sense) will seem peculiar. But most rational and disinterested people do not use “antagonism” in that way, and would not countenance reading Kamm’s quote that way. And in this case, on the subject of how you self-identify, I think it matters what rational yet disinterested people would say. It doesn’t matter a lot — it’s not a deep rift, not a gamechanger, a dealbreaker. But it does matter to me, just as I’d imagine that it matters to Stephen Fry, and that’s the extent of it. Maybe it ends the conversation, but that doesn’t change the content of what needed saying.
Mmph. There’s more than a whiff of self-importance in all this, I’m afraid (though I’m thrilled to know that it matters to Stephen Fry – I had no idea he’d ever heard of B&W!).
I paid attention to Josef’s comments; the only trouble is, they agree with what I said! As I pointed out.
You’re still a valuable poster who lalalala, but you do also…say more than you’re really saying, at times. You complicate.
How do you know how most rational and disinterested people use ‘antagonism’? I don’t think you do know that, any more than I do; I think you just made it up. But I am not the one using an eccentric definition: it does not mean nastiness, it means opposition. Saying ‘we are antagonistic’ doesn’t mean we are nasty to each other, it means we disagree, we see things differently, we’re opposites. It can include hostility, but even hostility is not necessarily nasty.
You’ve been muddled about this from the beginning. The post mentions antagonism and dislike and hostility – and those are what they are, but they are not necessarily ‘nasty’ – they can be but they don’t have to be. We are allowed to dislike things! This is the whole issue, surely – we are allowed to dislike religion, for the reasons Josef cites among others. We are allowed to dislike religion, and disliking religion doesn’t automatically mean we are nasty.
I tell you what; I can agree that my post sounded as if I meant ‘Hooray let’s be nasty!’, at least if one read it hastily. But that isn’t what I meant and if one looks, it also turns out not to be what I said. And I seem to be most unwilling to let you have the last word when all you’re doing is insisting on the same claim over and over again.
Ben –
I want to apologize for my last post. It was unnecessarily harsh, and I wish I hadn’t written it.