Feed on this...
Stick it in your email
What the hell's a Feed?
God’s Assassin
UPDATED 12/25: New York Review of Books’ take on The God Delusion (link at end of this post).
Forty years ago, Time magazine detonated a bombshell with [a cover story] on the decline of religion in America. Caused quite a stir back in the day. Reading it today, the article is remarkable for, among other things, the contrast with the world as we know it: back then not only were lay people comparatively unreligious (they quote a Harris poll showing that though 90+ percent of respondents professed belief in God, less than a third considered themselves very religious), but theologians and leaders of mainstream churches were actively moving away from the concept of a personal God in order to fall into step with congregants. Forty years later we know how long that lasted. And yet, just recently it seems, voices of radical dissent are bubbling up. Atheists like [Sam Harris], Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins are suddenly everywhere, writing books, giving talks, appearing on television and YouTube. Following them is a phalanx of suddenly animated scientists and intellectuals decrying the dangerous effects of religious faith. The New York Times, in a [story] on a conference of scientific apostates recently held at the Salk Institute in California, quotes Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg as saying, “anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in the end be our greatest contribution to civilization.” Deicide is the new new thing.
Why now? Probably because of 9/11 and Iraq. For the past five years Americans have been witnessing the results of fundamentalist faith — ours and theirs — on our lives and they don’t like what they see. This is worse than a bunch of loony Bible-beaters trying to teach the kids of Kansas that Adam and Eve chased dinosaurs around the Garden of Eden — it’s life and death. Dangerous times call for radical remedies and, so, dissenting voices that might otherwise have remained unheard are given an opportunity to blunt the effects of radical faith. I see it as akin to the Democratic sweep of Congress — not really a signal that people are walking away from conservatism so much as angling for mental breathing room.
Into the breach steps Richard Dawkins of Oxford University. Until recently Dawkins was known as an evolutionary biologist whose major contribution was as a popularizer of Darwinian theory in books like [The Selfish Gene] and [The Blind Watchmaker]. He’s always been an ardent atheist, more than willing to lace into his religious adversaries with a lancet-like tongue, but since the runaway success of his book [The God Delusion], he’s turned into a freethinking entrepreneur. His very elaborate [website] doubles as a portal of sorts to all things atheist, including lists of local chapters of atheist organizations, backlists of lectures and videos, forums and event calendars — even an online store (”Coming soon!”). Dawkins is the de facto leader of the new atheist movement and he’s traveling far and wide to spread the good word on God’s bleak fate — even to Lynchburg Virginia — hometown of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University:
This video is the 70 minute Q&A session that Dawkins held at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg. The session consisted of many visiting students from Liberty trying to best Dawkins with not-very-subtle challenges to his statements about the illogic of religious belief. As might be expected, Liberty University doesn’t attract the most intellectually gifted youngsters in America, so Dawkins deflects their pathetic challenges without breaking a sweat — but a few interesting things happen that offer insights into Dawkins himself. At one point a young woman from Randolph-Macon asks if it is common for people experiencing “deconversion”, or loss of faith, to feel angry. Dawkins professes naive ignorance of what she means. He asks the crowd if they share her experience and there is a resounding chorus of agreement. He seems baffled at the idea of anger as the result of enlightenment. It’s a remarkable moment, not just because it betrays a profound ignorance of the psychological complexity of others but a stunning lack of self-awareness. The man is driven by anger.
I’ve often wondered why public atheists — people who make an issue of other people’s faith — are so exercised by what others believe. It’s a small minority — in any culture — that are really crazy with religion and pose a threat of intellectual or bodily harm and they can (and should) be dealt with through legal methods and public ridicule. But we all know that most people wear their faith like a suit of sturdy clothes. They take it out of the closet a few times a year for ritual purposes, march up the aisle in it, then, when the candles have been snuffed and the holy books put away, return it to the closet and go about their lives rationally, comforted in the knowledge that God is there if they need him. Why rob them of something benign and comforting — to what end? Why are atheists so angry at God? Do they ever ask themselves this question?
Maybe not. At one point in the Q&A a meaty fellow from Liberty gets up to answer one of Dawkins’ challenges to God’s existence based upon the laws of nature by basically saying, “God plays by different rules.” The inability or unwillingness of the young man to engage his critical faculties in argument is almost too much for Dawkins to bear and he dismisses the young man by saying, “well if you want to believe that it’s up to you.” Then, just a few minutes later a young woman stands up and timidly asks what may have been the most subtle and profound challenge of the evening to Dawkins’ tirade against faith. “What if you’re wrong?” she says very quietly.
“What if YOU’RE wrong?!” he barks back at her. The young woman stands quietly as he stares her down and is too gracious (or perhaps intimidated) to mention that his response is not an argument.
UPDATE 12/25: ‘Tis the season — Edge.org posts [photos] of Dawkins, Dan Dennett and Sam Harris posing by their (*gasp*) Christmas trees.
More importantly, The New York Review of Books [reviews] The God Delusion and finds Dawkins… underwhelming.
Posted in Religion 11/27/06 | 
Email this |
Share/Save this: 
Why are you so angry at Dawkins? You misconstrue his Q&A and betray your own feelings against him. Watch the clips that you quote! As for why atheists care about religion and the beliefs of others, it is quite obvious–religious beliefs affect our lives (holding public office, stem cell research, etc.). Believe what you want, but don’t let your beliefs affect what should be purely rational laws of society.
Comment by cay enns — December 18, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
Dawkins can come off as an impatient and condescending pedant. He may be right — there is no God — but speaking down to your audience is not the way to win converts. Even in print, it seems he arrives at a point where he is simply yelling to get his opinion across (the debate in Time magazine between Dawkins and Francis Collins is a good example). I don’t care if Dawkins doesn’t believe in God. My experience is different, so is it ok if I do? I don’t use it as a club, I don’t talk about it, and I don’t vote the way my church would hope I do. We all need to show more respect for people of opposing and differing opinions. We may learn something in the process.
Comment by William — December 18, 2006 @ 2:24 pm
Cay, I wouldn’t have been able to pull quotes if I hadn’t watched the clip. I’m not angry at Dawkins — frankly he doesn’t impress me enough to elicit that kind of response. I tend to avoid zealots of whatever type — religious or secular — because they seem more interested in molding the world to their point of view than in trying to understand the complexity of the world they live in.
William, I’m with you — there’s more to appreciate in religious experience than the atheist zealots can fathom. And that’s coming from a godless rat.
Comment by Sprague Dawley — December 18, 2006 @ 5:45 pm
“I’ve often wondered why public atheists — people who make an issue of other people’s faith — are so excercised by what others believe. It’s a small minority — in any culture — that are really crazy with religion and pose a threat of intellectual or bodily harm and they can (and should) be dealt with through legal methods and public ridicule.”
In America these days that minority is not very small at all; they are a controlling faction of the Republican party. And their influence is palpable and harmful.
“But we all know that most people wear their faith like a suit of sturdy clothes. They take it out of the closet a few times a year for ritual purposes, march up the aisle in it, then, when the candles have been snuffed and the holy books put away, return it to the closet and go about their lives rationally, comforted in the knowledge that God is there if they need him. Why rob them of something benign and comforting — to what end?”
Because their belief isn’t benign, however comforting it is. They believe in a lie, and they give cover and sometimes support to the fanatics you reference just above.
“Why are atheists so angry at God?”
We can’t be, since there is no God to be angry at. We’re angry (when we’re angry) at the obstinate deludedness of a world full of believers.
“Do they ever ask themselves this question?”
Every time it’s asked, for about the half a second it takes to answer it.
Williaim wrote: “…speaking down to your audience is not the way to win converts”.
We are using the “Malcom X / Martin Luther King, Jr” strategy. Some atheists are all gentle persuation and calm reason, and others (e.g. Harris and Dawkins) are derision and venom. One needs both.
Sprague wrote: “there’s more to appreciate in religious experience than the atheist zealots can fathom”.
Many of us are former believers, and have partaken of the full range of religious experience. We know full well what we are rejecting.
Comment by Craig Ewert — December 18, 2006 @ 8:26 pm
Sprague Dawley, you bring up an interesting point that I’ve been thinking of quite a lot, why are the Dawkinsites so upset that there are people who don’t just accept their point of view, that there is no God and that to believe in a God is disreputable. When religious fundamentalists do this they are, probably accurately, accused of being insecure in their professed belief and the fact that heathen exist is a direct challenge to their pretense.
I’m sure there might be some of that with the Dawkinsites, their position being no more logically or scientifically secure than fundamentalist religion, but I think there are several other layers. One is an issue of class, the condescending assumption that those who don’t disbelieve with them are ignorant, Deltas if not Epsilons whose existence is an aesthetic affront to their Alpha selves. But even more, they seem to see it is illegitimate for other people to have an opinion of their own, that these people are somehow assuming freedom to make up their own mind that doesn’t belong to them.
Sam Harris, I think it’s a career move by him. Has he published any science yet? Will he ever, now that he has this gig going?
Comment by olvlzl — December 19, 2006 @ 10:23 pm
ewert&olvlzl,
What Dawkins offers and defends is NOT point of view, but cogent rational arguements based in principles of logic and scientific method. Fundamentalists avoid logic and science fundamentally.
If some one were to ak me, “what if you’re wrong?”, my reply would be “I may be, please show me the error in my logic (or probability, method, etc.).
Comment by billyray — December 20, 2006 @ 12:46 pm
billyray, if “fundamentalists” avoided logic and science fundamentally, as you say, they wouldn’t be able to get through their lives. Everyone is rational when it comes to mundane quotidian matters — but there are some realms, particularly relating to issues not amenable to scientific approaches, such as ethics and philosophy, where most people turn to religion to settle issues they can’t settle any other way.
As I said in the post, most people do not wield their religion like a cudgel. They simply use it to get through their days. What bothers me about the current crop of radical atheists is their lack of compassion and empathy — that’s what I was trying to show in the post. Not everyone has the emotional wherewithal to maintain scientific equanimity in the face of unanswerable important questions like “Why am I here?” or “How should I live?”. If atheists really wanted to enlighten their fellow humans, they would work to relieve existential anxiety. But I don’t get the feeling that they act out of compassion as much as anger.
Comment by Sprague Dawley — December 20, 2006 @ 2:38 pm
I find Dawkins, in his anti-religious mode, pretty over the top. He lost me not because of his apparent anger but because of his insistence that without Religion the World’s history would have experienced a dearth of atrocities. A much more parsimonious theory would be that humans commit atrocities and justify them with whatever belief system is at hand - Religion, Socialism, Social Darwinism.
That said, I can understand his frustration with the Religious and Magical Thinking one encounters everyday as an Atheist living in Britain or America. It is all the more frustrating for the very reason that the vast majority of Believers exercise the very same skepticism in buying a car that they eschew on Sunday morning. I pointed out to my spouse how badly argued The Case for Christ was and she immediately became defensive, ending the discussion with a jerk.
I suppose that many Believers feel besieged by Western culture daily as well - a good sign that it is hostile to neither side but rather indifferent.
Comment by Scott Ferguson — December 20, 2006 @ 5:12 pm
I prefer Pascal’s rational wager, although much has been made of its weaknesses. Atheism is not rational, it is an article of faith that something sprang forth from nothing. A belief in God is not rational, it is an article of faith that there is a force we cannot comprehend acting in the universe in ways we cannot see or measure. The argument that atheists make that to believe that God begs the question of what created God is simplistic, since to the believer this is a non-question. God has always been, without origin.
But then, you know, God gave us brains to think with and to be rational with, so that we could argue this way and never resolve it rationally.
Comment by Carol — February 5, 2007 @ 9:17 pm
http://aatomsmith.typepad.com/aatombomb/2005/05/holygodlessheat.html
Comment by Aatom — June 5, 2007 @ 11:20 am
If there is no God? what is the point of all this argument. “Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you die”
Comment by Ken — July 15, 2007 @ 1:50 am