The people look like ants
So how about that Jacques Berlinerblau eh?
He totally agrees with Michael Ruse that “new” atheists are equatable to the Tea Party, and wishes he’d said it first.
For those not familiar with their world-view, let me help you understand their central and timeless insight: Unless you as an atheist are willing to disparage all religious people, describe them all as imbeciles and creeps, mock every text and thinker they have ever produced, then you must be some sort of deluded, self-hating, sellout, subverting the rise of the Mighty Atheist Political Juggernaut (about which more anon).
Goodness; how very vulgar. Miss Manners does not, on second thought, believe she has very much to say about sheer vulgarity. Miss Manners is forced to conclude that Mr Berlinerblau is beneath her notice.
At least Michael Ruse is jealous of interesting people like Dawkins, Coyne, Benson, and such like, but Jacques Berlinerblau seems to be jealous of that sliver of attention Michael Ruse is getting being jealous of the Gnus. Really pathetic, I’d say.
Ummmm…. hold on a second, did I really read that?
“New” Atheists are too rude, therefore it is required that Berlinerblau call us as many names as possible in a short and nearly content-free screed?
The burden is on Atheists to become scholars of both Atheistic and Theistic history and philosophy, but we must also respect the 99.99% of Theists who have no knowledge of either, and who have provided no evidence to support their claims?
I’m still waiting for somebody to provide the Theistic thinking that is so intellectually sound and reasonable that we Atheists can be called fools and cowards for not addressing it.
Did Berlinerblau just claim that secularism and the Enlightenment were fundamentally religious in nature? Really?
I’m going to need to go soak my brain in Scotch for a few hours…
I attended the lecture Dawkins gave for his most recent book at Duke University, and for whatever reason, the religious person asking him why he was so mean to religion was the last one. His reply was simply ‘by all means, lets be friends, but that doesn’t mean that you are right’. And so many people simply won’t be satisfied or friendly unless atheists cave to that desire they have to be fawned over because of their deeply held beliefs, because of how much they go to church, or what not, even though atheists don’t find those things at all impressive. I do think that the many people whose faith motivates them to do good works are very impressive, but I would find it more impressive still if they did these things without disrupting gay rights, women’s health and equality, and science research and education. And the atheists that want to get on the good side of religion (and religious cash) by using the good works to hide the bad can just get a big ole raspberry.
Had I waited five seconds I could have refrained from posting on the previous post….
I am left wondering, is it ok for me to criticize religion if I read Berlinerblau’s and Ruse’s books? Is there a quiz I can take to demonstrate I know enough about religion to criticize it? How about a quiz to demonstrate one knows enough to practice it?
Just for the record, Ruse may be jealous of Dawkins and Coyne, for all I know, but he’s certainly not jealous of me. I mean – he’s telling the truth about testifying for evolution and against creationism; I think he mentions it too often but he really does have that to his credit, along with a stack of books and however many hundreds of students.
“When I read Professor Ruse’s recent Brainstorm post equating the Tea Party with the New Atheists I was overcome by feelings of anger, surprise, and resentment.”
Jealous of Ruse, of all people, that’s pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel.
I read the comments there. At the risk of being branded shrill, strident, arrogant, or whatever, what a bunch of idiots there. Hell, they even had a tea-party-racist-denier there. I guess a diatribe so filled with strawmen and other fallacies is bound to attract flies, but…ugh.
I did want to point out the misconception about “liberal” religious people who do not take their religion literally – they still have no evidence for their claims. I’m not sure why these anti-atheist hacks never seem to understand that point. Well, that and the fact that these moderates still support the delusions of their farther-out-there fellows. Is it just the extremist fundamentalists who voted for HB – crap, can’t find it – the one that wants us to immortalize “In God We Trust” as our national motto and force it to be put up everywhere. Is it just the fundies who voted for this violation of church-state separation?
The only way that hyperbolic rant makes sense is if Berlinerblau was writing not about “atheism” as we might understand it but about some rarified academic topic – ‘the atheism of philosophy’ perhaps.
This ‘atheism of philosophy’ is a subject that one must not dare speak of, not unless one has read “Lucien Febvre, The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century: The Religion of Rabelais.”
I don’t see any problem with bringing it up each time he talks to a mass audience (which is always unlikely to be terribly familiar with him), it is germane to situating his views and allegiances to know that he has fought the good fight against creationism in the classroom. If he is to be a critic of other defenders of evolution and of atheism, establishing his bona fides as a genuine contributor to the cause of evolution education, of secular autonomy, of critical thinking, etc., this political engagement is relevant, regardless of whether his positions on how to relate to religious beliefs or his attacks on the New Atheists are themselves good or bad. He is establishing the ways in which he has earned a say, proven his allegiances, and established his credibility as an expert on these engagement issues.
I have doubts about the jealousy angle for Ruse’s motivations for his anti-new stance. He may see this battle as a parlour game for the intelligensia/upper class, not the unwashed. And as he points out, he won the battle against the creationists, as the winner he thinks he can set terms for how to continue the battle.
Thank you Mr. Ruse for your past contributions, maybe you can be wheeled out in the future when you may be needed again, but presently you are holding many of us back by your present stance.
For the record, I don’t disparage all religious people, just their silly beliefs. And, to paraphrase Larry David: Sure, I hate myself, but it’s not because I’m atheist.
Have you ever read anything that so well represents the kind of cluelessness common to the theology-friendly intellectuals?
Do you admire the abolitionists of the 19th century? Well, without slavery…
> Mighty Atheist Political Juggernaut
It’s just not fair. I have never heard of this Juggernaut. Someone is having fun and I have not been invited!
Oh, by the way, if we are going all political, who is our Great Leader? I’ll vote for anyone, given the right bribe.
Mighty Atheist Political Juggernaut…
That’d make a great sn. For someone with a lot more atheist cred then me of course.
We’re the Juggernaut, bitch!
Well, someone had to ;)
Whoops, smiley fail. :-(
I like the juggernaut motif. Sound the horn! We’re rolling through. Ophelia and the Juggernauts sounds quite mythical; or maybe it’s an emo band.
@Mark – yes, it has a certain feel to it, like Florence and the Machine
Berlinerblau:
Yes, and… The roots of the political ideology of civil rights, as any graduate student in the field can tell you, are profoundly and unambigously bigoted. Without bigotry it is awfully hard to imagine how ideas like civil rights and equal protection could have come to fruition.
It’s certainly true that without the dominance of Christianity for over a millenium, the Enlightenment wouldn’t have been possible; arguably, it wouldn’t even have been necessary.
I find it funny that Berlinerblau thinks carefully delving into that history would weaken the New Atheist case.
Truly, many good ideas are very old, and occurred to at least some people long ago even if they were Christian. Most of the really good ideas occurred to the ancient Greeks, before Christianity, too, and were suppressed by Christians.
If we really spent a lot of time explaining that history, we’d just be accused of dredging up old grievances, so we don’t. We don’t generally need to distract from the actual merits of the ideas with arguments over their pedigrees.
It’s unfair to ancient pagans, though, I have to admit. Unfair to Christianity? Not so much.
Ken,
That is, without the various factions of Christians fighting hammer and tongs to maintain Church power in and over the State (and each other at the same time) there would have been no secularism. It arose not out of Christian theology, but from Christian practice.
And this is somehow a theist body-blow to atheism?
Must read more of Jacques Berlinerblau around bedtime. Unlike Improbable Joe, I haven’t got any Scotch to soak my brain in, and I can’t find my book of Zen koans.
Dan,
Hmm. It doesn’t work. He publishes in these venues often, so it just doesn’t work to keep repeating his credentials. Actually much of what he writes in these venues is just plain recycled; I think it’s possible that he literally pastes in some of it. I don’t think he should do that – it’s lazy, boring, self-important, and a kind of cheat. Mind you, I don’t think the editors should let him, either. I think it’s their job to tell him to do better or hit the road.
Just wondering what this crap from Roose and Berlinerblau is doing in the Journal of Higher Education. And whatever the point is supposed to be, what does it actually have to do with the Tea Party? There’s a classic fail here but I don’t happen to remember its name right now….
BTW I have read all the comments (on all three articles) and not one of them approaches, even remotely, the gratuitous feces-flinging of professors Roose and Berlinerblau. Such hostility! I’d suggest anger management class or some counselling but I’m sure they’d refuse to go.
@Badger3k #7
Isn’t that exactly the thing – I know this atheist’s problem with religion is the faulty reasoning more than anything else. Of course I hate fundamentalists more than liberal believers because their beliefs and actions are so anti-human and hateful, but I think both are equally wrong, and that’s the key point, which so many religious people don’t seem to get. In scientific reasoning it is the evidence which counts, not the mere holding of beliefs in isolation – a believer may be very nice and do charitable works and everything, which is great, but I’d still have a problem with how they arrived at their conclusions, and I believe secular reasoning can arrive at the same conclusions without all the attendant muddled thinking, spiritual woo and potential for nasty interpretative tangents that religion has.
Ooh, I can play this game.
Without diseases it is awfully hard to imagine how ideas like medicine could have come to fruition. Without wildfires it is awfully hard to imagine how ideas like firefighters could have come to fruition. Without hunger it is awfully hard to imagine how ideas like agriculture could have come to fruition. Without cold it is awfully hard to imagine how ideas like wool sweaters could have come to fruition. Without pain it is awfully hard to imagine how ideas like analgesics could have come to fruition.
Without a problem it is awfully hard to imagine how solutions could have come to fruition. True. If there had been no Christianity or other theism and its attendant theocracy, we would have had no secularism, because there would have been no need for it. Very true. And?
No kidding, I read the entire post and could not decide whether it was real or Poe.
Since I have never before heard of Mr. Berlinerblau, would someone be so kind as to tell me which is more likely to be true?
To get away from the previously pointed outed flaw in the reasoning behind this point I think it’s worth noting that we see here a classic example of the problem of correlation and causation. Why I think its useful to think about this is that this problem is something that those of a scientific training deal with on a daily basis and a lot of our work, in research and reviewing others research, involves tackling.
The standard way to scientifically approach the question is to ask whether there could be another solution to the problem and then check whether that alternative solution or model fits the data better.
For example, Christianity might be behind secularism but one should ask if aspects of secularism existed prior to the arrival of Christianity (and examination of the cultures of Greece and Rome indicate that they did). Additionally one could ask whether the arrival of Christianity was concurrent with the arrival of secularism – in the same way that the arrival of HIV was concurrent with the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. With Christianity we see a lag of nearly a millenium and a half before the enlightenment begun. Posed as a scientific question the hypothesis that Christianity is behind the birth of secularism is easily falsified.
Damnit, you beat me to it. It reminds me of the point Tony Blair tried to make about how wonderful it was that religion was healing the divide between Catholicism and Protestantism in Ireland, prompting Hitchens to bring up the peculiarity of giving credit to religion for cleaning of problems it created.
Oh Sigmund you’re so reductionist, so scientistickist, so materalistic, so unspiritual, so obstructive. How can we invent chains of causation with people like you around? It’s so unfair.
(On the upside – I’ve noticed lately several journalists having the wit to say “Yes but we don’t know if this is causation or correlation.” I think this is a good sign.)
What abrades my tush is the presumption that “atheism” is some intrinsically complicated idea with a deep and storied history that must be fully, academically chewed over before one can observe that theism is a load of crap, at face value.
Maybe these good gentleman of the “Atheist-Butter” cohort have to go the long way around the barn to achieve the solid position we adamant anti-theists already occupy. Maybe they have some battery of pro-theistic argument not already neutralized by Gnus repeatedly and soundly. If so, let them bag the ad hominem and “bring it” themselves. We’re ready. We’ve read more than they suppose and are eager to hear something authentically potent and novel. I doubt they are more than professorial poseurs and sniveling chest beaters, though.
It’s amazing how they seem to feel that the best way to combat people who are “over-generalizing” is to over-generalize about them. They do it every time. The idea that gnus over-generalize is, itself, a generalization based on what is in the first place a gross exaggeration.
I agree with Polly-oh!
The Tea Party is in the news. That’s all this is about.
What I did find very strange about the article is the accusations of:
What exactly is non-hyper-materialism supposed to look like? Or not-very-hyper empiricism? Is there some sort of semi-materialism that we are supposed to support in order to be reasonable? Or should we try and be nice by accepting claims that aren’t backed by empiricism?
I’m also not that much in the mood for hermeneutics when an ancient man in a dress comes cover from Rome, gets away without prosecution for covering up child rape, agrees with his co-rulers of Catholicism that secularists are Nazis and gays are a source of evil
I’m not inclined towards subtle interpretations of holy books when girls are sliced, and women and gays live in oppression and fear of violence.
If Ruse and Berlinerblau want to get cosy with theologians then they are actively supporting the social and political frameworks that provide shelter for such disgusting views and behaviours.
Yeah, I’m pissed (annoyed, not inebriated)
What’s funny is that the gnu-hating cabal is busy tweeting and Facebook-updating these two gems of wit and wisdom. They hate us because ooooooooh we’re so rude and mean and morally repugnant, but they think this crap is right on the money.
In his review of God Is Not Great, JB said
He’s obviously never been to Oxford…
Reading his review is like deja vu all over again. Pretty much the usual ‘you don’t understand the subtleties of religion’ strawman attack.
His next book is How to be Secular: A Field Guide for Religious Moderates, Atheists and Agnostics which is obviously going to give us some much needed advice. Can’t wait for Josh’s review ;)
Eric MacDonald has had a good dip at this. Excellent, as usual.
Yes, in the history of philosophy, the second person to think of a dumb idea is seldom worthy of note.
All this “without x we wouldn’t have not x” reminds me of Jon Stewart:
[…] MacDonald and Ophelia Benson have beaten me to the punch on this. I’ll just say that I think I understand what the […]
sign – no place for me in this Mighty Atheist Political Juggernaut then? no place for you too Ophelia.
Has Jeremy Stangroom banged on any pots lately?
“Unbelievable Amounts of White Dudes” Oh. This comes in nice timing, given Greta Christina’s recent list of non-white atheists! I don’t know if any of them are gnus, though. Deepak, are you a gnu? And isn’t the word “Juggernaut” derived from some Hindu term? Bugger what they say, let’s climb on!
The atheist juggernaut could not exist without hinduism.
Pol Pot, Mao, Hitler and Stalin. They all had one thing in common.
None of them was a Hindu.
Hah! For my blog post on the topic, I also quoted that paragraph and then asserted there was no reason for me to read further, and ended it there. Yep, pretty much.
By the same token, if I were to right an article about accomodationists which said, “Their central and timeless insight is that anyone who suggests that faith and science might not be compatible in every way is a traitor to the human race, probably eats babies, and should be locked up immediately less their ill-exercised freedom of speech cause someone somewhere to cry.” if I started a post like that, I would not expect people who disagreed with me to read past that sentence. Same with this.
It’s especially hilarious for him to say something like that, while calling us dicks. Maybe he’s secretly a gnu himself and is trying to clandestinely undermine the accomodationist position, by making it look too extreme? I mean — dare I say it? — he comes across as a “militant accomodationist!” GASP!
(To be clear, I oppose the figurative use of the word ‘militant’ in all contexts, because I think it’s a shitty analogy, it downplays the dangers of actual militancy, and is almost always used for the express purpose of implying that some minority group should STFU and take it, without actually saying so directly. I kid when I use it here.)
That’s interesting about the relationship between Hinduism and atheism. Jennifer Hecht wrote an entire chapter in Doubt on the Carvaka, and ancient Indian atheist sect. According to her they directly influenced Buddhism, then pretty much disappeared from history.
And cf. Meera Nanda.
Check out Sean’s hilarious comment on the Berlinerblau outburst.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/new-atheismthe-tea-party-reflections-on-professors-ruse-and-barash/33501?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en#comment-170779523
Followed by a classic courtier’s reply.
Oh yes – that page has a lot of courtiers.
This essay is just awful. I don’t know where to begin. But this one passage seems worth pointing out:
Oh, well, if religious believers think the New Atheists are loony, ignorant, and mean-spirited, then it must be so.
And, someday, those believers are going to want atheists’ support in opposing fundamentalist political power.
So what do you think happens when you spit in someone’s face, mock them openly, figuratively throw them to the ground and kick dirt in their face – and then ask “now we really need your help!!”?
@Ophelia in #33,
It’s both ironic and depressing. I told you the unfortunate story about that fellow who likes to consider him one of those nice humanist types. I had asked someone on my blog to post specific examples of New Atheist behavior that reflects contempt, disdain, or a lack of civility toward their opponents. He saw the question, and messaged me to inform me that I’d “sold out,” and that I lacked “intellectual courage.” He then unfriended me on Facebook.
Real nice guy.
Michael,
Really. He keeps bombarding me with Facebook messages that link to things like…this very article. Oh right, it’s so eloquent and persuasive, I’m totally convinced! Not to mention a Laurence O’Donnell item about Glenn Beck that has nothing whatever to do with “new” atheists yet is somehow supposed to “demonstrate” that new atheists need to rethink everything. Oy.
Funny how it takes waaaay more courage to be an “out” gnu atheist than it does to be a gnubasher. Gnubashing/anti-atheist attitudes, I will never stop pointing out, is one of those few varieties of bigotry that is acceptable in polite company. You can bash atheists, regurgitate the most bigoted slanders against them, without any fear of reproach from right-thinking people.
Andy – I know. It never stops surprising me how cheerfully people I thought of as liberals resort to that bigotry and its safeness. My jaw drops every time.
@53 Yeah, O’Donnell was basically celebrating the fact that according to recent polling data Catholics, despite what their church teaches, have more enlightened attitudes about LGBT issues (and other social issues) than one might predict. In other words, a more “enlightened” Catholic would be one that doesn’t pay any mind to what her church teaches.
I thought it was funny ho, toward the end of his let’s-appreciate-the-nuance-of-religious-believers homily, he managed to sneak in a swipe at Mormonism. Ha! The Mormons are almost like the atheists of the Christian denominations: it’s seen as OK to beat up on them!
That should be “how,” obviously. Not “ho.” He he, sorry.
For some time, I regretted posting that ill-conceived rant about atheism on the CFI blog a couple years back. But it forced me to rethink many of my positions for the better, and for that I am grateful. Unfortunately many others refuse to do the same. It’s really depressing, because we’re all generally on the same team.
Well, I’m not entirely complacent about all of my criticisms of that “rant.” (I remember it as advice rather than a rant by the way. I mean, on the Berlinerblau scale of rants, it barely gets a score.)
Cath the canberra cook
I think gnu agnostic is closer to what applies to me – But hey if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck… I dont see any practical differences on the views gnu’s express and mine.
The only Juggernaut i know is from X-Men. Though now that you mention it there is a hindu god Jagannath – one of the may thousand Vishnu names.
Michael, as someone who criticized you quite harshly, I must say how glad I am to hear you’ve re-thought your position since that first essay. Thank you very much for saying so. It’s not often that anyone who participates in the unjustified othering of explicit atheists actually admits said atheists are not the ignorant wackos they thought they were, and admits they were misguided. It’s very, very much appreciated.
This reminds me of the closing lines from one of PZ’s Sunday Sacrilege pieces from a few months ago which immediately went into my quote file:
Thanks for your marvelous posting! I seriously enjoyed reading it, you will be a great author.I will make
certain to bookmark your blog and will often come
back in the future. I want to encourage that you
continue your great writing, have a nice morning!