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Open letter to the New Athiests

“Keep it up and even if you do get my job, you’ll never run this place. You’ll die in that corner office: a mid-level account executive with a little bit of hair, who women go home with out of pity. And you know why? Because no one will like you.”
-Don Draper – from the first episode of Mad Men

This is an open letter to all Athiests, but most especially the “New Athiests”, “Aggressive Athiests and whatever other monikers you guys are either using or being maligned with.

While not an Athiest myself, I am with you on most issues that matter. I am pro-science in all cases. When religion does things like spread teachings in Africa that AIDS is cured by laying on of hands or by sex with virgins, I am as appalled as you are. When the RCC preaches against condom use and other types of safe sex, I am absolutely outraged. When Christian groups in the U.S. lobby against teaching evolution in biology class, or for teaching creationism as science, I am just as embarrassed to live here as you are.

If, heavens forbid, the culture wars ever erupted into violent sides, I would probably be on the same side you are on. What you fail to realize though is that so would a lot of religious people.

You are an athiest. I am happy for you. You want to spread your message, go right ahead, you have the right to be an evangelist just like everyone else. But this is what I want to talk to you about, my friend. There is a good way and a bad way to spread a message and right now, the message that you are sending is not so much that you don’t believe in God and that is OK. It is not even that you don’t believe in god, and want a secular government.

Your message is that you don’t believe in God, but you DO believe in being an asshole about not believing in God.

Lets take a look at some of the slogans and images that you guys send around, and which you seem to be so tickled by:

“Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what is right.”

Ooooooooh. Thats deep man. Here’s the thing though. Doing what you are told regardless of what is right has nothing to do with religion. It happens within religions and it happens outside of religions. It happens period. If anything, I would argue that religion has moved a lot more people to put themselves in harms way in the name of doing what is right despite what they have been told a lot more than most Athiests would be comfortable with. For every kiddie-diddling Priest, there is another one who is staying on in a hostile zone where even the UN and aid agencies have bailed out, so that he can do gods work and tend to the sick and poor. For every dipshit who thinks that evolution needs to be taken out of our schools, there is a nun or even just a regular pious individual going to offer aid to those in need. Sometimes they are even the same person.

We could go on and on deconstructing these, but really there are two points I want to make:

  1. You have confused religion with a host of things that it is not. Religion is not anti-science, most people that are religious are also pro-science and accept science as evidence over religious doctrine. In Buddhism for instance, the Dalai Lama has insisted that when religion and science come head to head, science must be held true. Religion is not about hate, it has been used to promote hate, but it has also been used to promote love and peace. We don’t get rid of hammers just because they can be used to crack a skull. Religion is not fundamentalism. Fundamentalism and literal interpretation of scripture is not part and parcel to religion for MOST people. Even Augustine said so!

    By taking your the worst aspects of the worst religious people, and then doggedly insisting that this IS religion, you have made yourselves absolutely useless in the public debate at large because you simply refuse to engage in any kind of understanding of what religion is to most people.

    This kind of straw man enemy is no different than those created by political parties or the very religions that you argue against. It is good to rally the troops against, easy to excite the base with, gains the attention of many smart and angry young people looking for something to be smart and angry about. It also makes you completely unsuited for appealing to the populace at large who can see right through your straw man.

  2. The argument of “I am in the right and everyone must do what I say” never works well, even when you are in fact right. Athiests are right on SO many social issues, but rather than trying to engage in an honest discourse with people, you seem much happier to celebrate your righteousness with smarmy slogans and vitriol. If in the case of fighting against the anti-evolution forces of the Christian right, you were able to dialogue with people from from the Christian left, center, and yes even the right who also believe in evolution (more than you think) you would get way further. Lots of non-athiests who are agnostic, or spiritual, or even members of organized religions agree with you on many of these points.

In short, you have a lot of important things to say but as long as you continue to prenent yourselves like obnoxious zealots far keener to argue than discuss and talk at rather than with, you will actually only set yourselves further back and make the word “Athiest” into an even more misunderstood word than it already is. It wont be because you are wrong necessarily. It will just be because no one likes you.

George

Can you be more specific, like give an example of what these atheists have done that is bothering you excactly? I only see them arguing with those who wish to push their religiously fundamental points like teaching creationism. It is because of these ahteists pushing against them that we don’t have more science being taking out of school. You’re welcome.
If you are the moderate that you say you are, then really they aren’t talking to you or about you, so why get in the way, why put yourself in the firing line then? You can just go home.

    Inominandum

    It is the message that all religion equals fundamentalist anti-science immorality that bothers me.

    The tone of your response exemplifies the attitude of which I speak: if I don’t fall into the neat little category that you have divided the world into I should just thank you and go home?

    Atheist push back has had no effect on science being taken out of school. It simply is not being attempted anywhere that there are large numbers of liberals – most of whom are not Athiests.

      George

      The categories I put people in are those who push creationism, and those who don’t, religious or not. My arguments are for example, against those who do push creationism. If that is not you then I’m talking to or about you, so you need not take offense. Yet you do. The argument that I may make about how religion was/is used to influence people to believe in and push creationism is all completely valid, but you somehow mistake that for an attack on all religious people. I think what it really is is an attack, and a valid one at that, on religious thought.

        Inominandum

        Well George, when I wrote a post talking about an Athiest movement, it implies the actions of more than just you and your personal arguments, something that apparently you cannot differentiate.

        I take no offense at arguing against the push of creationism, it is you who are putting those words in my mouth.

        I took offense at the tone of your first post telling me to thank you and go home. As I said, whatever points you may or may not have get lost in the smarmy self-righteous schtick.

          Zorku

          His actions are those of the general Atheist community. A simple majority of us don’t take it further than that, but I think you might be a bit confused about another message that’s common. The religious people who aren’t so extreme give an approval of silence at the actions of those we both agree are nuts. I very much want religious people to be more aware of the people doing really terrible things and shout them down instead of so often sweeping that under the rug. You don’t have to stop believing in gods to do some good in the world.

        Inominandum

        Or to use your own words…

        My arguments are against those who do push the idea of religion itself as inherently evil and misrepresent it when doing so. If that is not you than I am not talking about you so no need to take offense. Yet you do.

          George

          If you mean that we argue that the system or way of thinking that religion comes from or causes people to think is flawed, then yes, you are correct. We do say that it is flawed, but if you are religious and didn’t end up flawed, good for you, but please let argue against those who did use the flawed system of religious thought and ended up flawed. Please? When I ‘self-righteously’ said you can go home, it’s because I meant you don’t have to put your self in the crossfire, it’s only you doing that. Your religion may be in the crossfire automatically, but not you. While I can’t speark for others, I have’t gotten the impression that that is actually taking place, yet I have heard this plea of yours before, directed at these people.

          Zorku

          In your own words: This is an open letter to all Athiests, but most especially the “New Athiests”

          If you’re saying that the new atheists are misrepresenting religion seems like a good reason for me, and others, to take offense. Honestly it looks like the common silencing tactics that were used against groups that fought even stronger oppression like women, African Americans, and homosexuals.

      Elf M. Sternberg

      Winemakers have a saying: a teaspoon of sewage in a barrel of wine gives you a barrel of sewage. The pernicious nonsense that is belief in the supernatural is a teaspoon of sewage in an otherwise fine mind.

George

Since my point got lost in my smarmy self-righteous schtick, I will start again.
Person A) The Earth is round.
Person B)The Earth is flat.
Person C (that’s you) Hey, I went to the same school as person B, the one that taught that the Earth is flat, but I don’t think the Earth is flat, I think it is round.
Person A) Great, I’m not talking to you then. You’re awesome.

If a car is overheating and you want to fix it, and you find that it really gets hot when you take it on the highway in southern California, and you also find that the radiator is faulty, what do you do? Arrogant auto mechanic says we should replace the faulty radiator. You could use your argument and say “well, it’s gonna overheat no matter what we do”. But the problem is, we don’t absolutely need the faulty radiator, we could use a working one and then deal with the next problem and maybe we can actually get somewhere. This is reasonable.

    Inominandum

    But you see George that is your fundamental misunderstanding. Religion does not teach the things you say it does. SOME Religions teach the things you say it does. Not all or even most do. It is the painting of all religion as some monolithic backward approach that I object to, and quite frankly again fail to grasp your own arguments when applied to my end of the conversation.

    Person A) Realizes that most people on earth do hold some kind of spiritual view or religious affiliation without being a wacko. For most people religion seeks to answer fundamentally different questions than science does.

    Person B) Rabid Athiest who believes all religions are evil and all religious people are fundamentalist anti-science wackos.

    Person C) (you) Hey I am an Athiest and don’t believe that all religions are evil

    Person A: Great, than I am not talking about you, you’re awesome.

runeworker

Having had some recent experience with an Athiest which matches what you describe, I fully understand where you are coming from. Some of my specific arguments that I have with them:

1) you say religions are evil and bad and then you describe why, and you only describe fundamentalist Christianity or militant Islam. Please stop being a Western or Abrahamic centrist and realize there is more to religion then that, and the majority of them don’t have the same belief, values or morals as these two groups
2)Science does not support Atheism. Materialistic empiricism as a philosophy is the support of Atheism. It is a choice, based in personal experience, emotional leanings, and internal logic to embrace atheism, just like the choice to embrace any religion.
3)Don’t quote Stephen Hawking and his statements about the Afterlife. It is as retarded as me quoting the Pope and his statements about HIV/AIDS. Neither one has spent thier life studying the subject and understanding it, so don’t bother using them as “experts”. Being an expert in one field, doesn’t automatically give you authority in one that is completely unrelated.

M.G.

I’m more sympathetic to the new atheists than you. Some of them, like Richard Dawkins, are unbearably snide, but others like the late Christopher Hitchens are more like humorists than logicians — and the dogmas and mythologies of most faiths really do make for great comedy. Debating society tactics are great, but there is a role for satire; and religious dogmas and mythologies do tend to be pretty silly, something even religious moderates probably should ponder a bit. I also have to say that the line between being funny and being an asshole – paging Bill Maher! – can be pretty thin, or entirely subjective.

In terms of varieties of religion, in an age of mass religious warfare the onus is on religious moderates to counter their own fundamentalists, and for the most part I can’t say I see them doing an especially great or persusasive job of it.

The ‘new athiest’ I find most interesting, Sam Harris, (who practices Dzogchen, btw), makes the valid point that not all religions are equally problematic, and that the nature of, say, Islam’s holy texts does make blind obedience to dangerous doctrines – “doing what you’re told and not what is right” in the worst sense – more likely then, say, the practice of Jainism, or secular doctrines which may command obedience.

    Inominandum

    I have always found Hitchens to be the biggest ass of the bunch. Not when he was being funny, but when he was being serious. His litany of charges against the Dalai Lama for instance is laughable.

    That said, I do in fact agree with almost all your points. Mythology is mythology and literal interpretation of most of it is pretty silly. I am did not write the above because I think that athiesm is wrong. I wrote it because I think it is a necessary force in society and would like to see it grow up a bit and stop using the silly tactics that they do, which ultimately are not very effective.

    Sam Harris point in regard to not all religions being equally problematic is exactly the type of point that they should be making, and the type of nuanced view that I am arguing for.

    Kenaz Filan

    [T]he nature of, say, Islam’s holy texts does make blind obedience to dangerous doctrines – “doing what you’re told and not what is right” in the worst sense – more likely then, say, the practice of Jainism, or secular doctrines which may command obedience.

    “Doing what’s right and not what you’re told” is a wonderful slogan. I’m sure the members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty agree with it 100%. Not to mention the members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, Baader-Minehof Gang, White Nationalist Party and various other secular groups whose actions range from controversial to despicable.

    As far as “doing what you’re told and not what’s right,” I have a one word answer to your claim: Stalinism. Followed by another word: Maoism. It’s entirely possible to have a secular and atheistic movement which privileges obedience to a party line over critical thinking, just as it is possible to have a religious and theistic movement which privileges critical thought and individual moral responsibility over adherence to dogma.

M.G.

Its funny with Hitchens – even though he hurled all kinds of scurrilous charges at the Dalai Lama (many of which I would agree were unfair) he actually praised him as having a uniquely powerful presence and dignity; a pretty impressive admission, considering the source! Hitchens was definitely an ass at times, although I suspect his anti-religious screeds probably did more good then harm by encouraging young readers to think critically. He reminds me a bit of Hunter Thompson or Crowley in that he was the sort of figure whose influence derived from a mix of prose and bohemian charisma.

I’m honestly not sure what effect the new atheism will have, although I note its still a very young phenomenon and already seems to have encouraged people to more openly critique religion, a positive development.

M.G.

Hitchens was definitely an ass at times, although I think overall his biting wit and the quality of his prose probably outweigh his temperamental failures. He reminds me a bit of Hunter S. Thompson or Crowley – all hugely flawed figures whose influence derive from a mix of well-crafted prose and a certain bohemian lifestyle charisma. I actually agree that many of his comments about the Dalai Lama were unfair and scurrilous, although I note that Hitchens also praised him as having a unique charisma and dignified presence – no small words, considering the source! When he was alive he was one of the few public intellectuals really willing to jump into the gutter with Christian and Muslim fundamentalists and get in a mudfight, which tickled me enormously and I consider to have been a real public service.

The new atheism is still pretty young, so I don’t know what its lasting effects will be, but I note it has encouraged more people to openly speak out against religion and religious indoctrination, which is good.

M.G.

(Sorry about the double post – thought one was erased.)

ColonelZen

Definition of an asshole: someone who won’t change what he’s saying to accomodate your sensibilities.

Yes we’re assholes. Reality is what doesn’t change no matter how you feel about it. We’re arguing that that the reality is more important than fairy tales.

Ok, we’re assholes. We know it. We won’t change what we’re saying to make you feel better.

Reality doesn’t care. We may care but can’t change it. Recognising that requires that we be assholes.

So we’re assholes. So is reality. Get over it.

— TWZ

ColonelZen

Yes a lot of religious people wind up with the right answers on a lot of things.

But a lot of religious people wind up with wrong answers on a lot of things. And because they have religious notions invested in their answers they feel “justified” in claiming (and proclaiming) the rightness of their answers even when there material contrary evidence.

That a person gets right answers and is religious doesn’t make religion the right way to address the questions. But religion says it is.

THAT is what is wrong with religion.

— TWZ

Connor

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/03/31/athiests-actually-is-a-misunderstood-word/

Congratulations on being quoted in Comic Sans on PZ’s blog. It requires a certain level of stupid to make that cut.

M.G.

One last thing I’ll add is that Hitchens (and other new atheists) have correctly pointed out the inverse of your valid argument that fundamentalists are often the religionists most driven to perform charitable work – quite often, religious moderates do in fact cause big problems in the name of their faith. I have relatives, for instance, who would be considered Jewish moderates in the sense that they live a modern lifestyle and are tolerant of others’ sexual freedom but who also give financial and political support to the ugliest West Bank Settlers and would probably assault someone who suggested that the Palestinians had any valid claims to what they consider Israeli land. So while I would agree with you that while religion is not fundamentalism, very often religion and not fundamentalism IS the problem.

shane

None of you are getting the point of the problem with the new atheism. Numbers are precisely as made up as gods. Or not. Either way you can find neither a zero or a one in the objective universe.

But you can do amazing calculus if you start with zeros, ones, points, lines and circles. ALL of which DO NOT exist in the material universe whatsoever in any way ever anywhere.

Show me how the gods are different.

EITHER A) the material universe is ALL THAT IS, as the atheists say and gods and numbers(and therefore science itself) are foolish fantasies, or

B) there is something other to the universe than only matter and zeros and gods dwell there. Odds are, it’s symbolized by a little mercury and sulfur and our gods and zeros dwell in the mercury bit.

But that is the problem, right?

Atheists can lecture you all day long about a ton of asshole topics, but one thing they never address, because they cannot: Consciousness.

File Atheists away with Theists of the most dogmatic order. After all, they never even question the Zero. Or the One.

    Ambidexter

    Mind/brain dualism was a hot topic in the 17th Century when philosophers like Descartes and Blaise Pascal were discussing it. Nowadays, the majority of philosophers and psychologists don’t accept mind/brain dualism. The generally accepted theory is that the mind is entirely a product of the brain, and that psychology is built on a physical substrate.

    If you disagree, then trot out some evidence to support your idea that the mind (what you call “consciousness”) is a separate thing from the brain. And then explain why your beliefs should be taken seriously by the people who actually study that sort of thing.

    ColonelZen

    At least on alternate days, I too have problems with the ontologic status of numbers and like abstractions. Nothing in our phenomenal awareness is “real” other than as a representation within its context.

    But that does not change the fact that numbers and many, many other absstract metaphysical constructs (colors, gravity, time, space) are discretely and distinctly representable and shareable along with very well defined and repeatable rules for manipulating their tokens.

    And when combined with a tight epistemology, we find that these well defined syntactic rules applied with and over semantic tokens allow us to generrate algorithms and formulae which correspond well with our ongoing phenomenal experience of the material world in which we find ourselves.

    In simpler language, numbers and the larger body of science work. Provably and demonstrably, reliably and repetably. Gods and similar fairy tales don’t.

    Whether utility qualifies your ontology or you reserve “real” only for that only mappable to the hypothetically noumenal is up to you. But there certainly is a difference between belief in science that most athiests subscribe and faith in the supernatural that characerizes religion.

    The notion that science and religion are somehow equivalent descriptions of reality is ignorant nonsense.

    See Tim Minchin’s “Storm”.

    — TWZ

Ashley

Inominandum,

If I may summarize your post, one of your chief complaints is that atheists conflate fundamentalism with all religion. By doing so, they create a religious strawman.

Do you not see that you are committing the exact same error by claiming this and by accusing atheists of using tactics that you find aggressive and ineffective? Not only is the angry, religion-hating, “Your message is that you don’t believe in God, but you DO believe in being an asshole about not believing in God.” atheist a strawman, it’s not a particularly original strawman. I can turn on Fox News or tune to a gospel channel to hear the same caricature any day of the week.

All communities have variations and nuance that is rarely captured by the dominant narratives that outsiders use to organize their views of those communities. Atheism is no different. We have been having discussions and disagreements over our view of religion and the tactics we should employ since antiquity, and with far more sophistication than you present. Psychology, political theory (eg, the Overton Window), and postmodern social critiques are just a few of the elements of this discussion.

I would suggest to you that before writing an “open letter to all Athiests” or to any community, you should try to gain a more extensive understanding of that community. In this case, the first step would be to engage with atheists in a meaningful and extensive way. You might find, for instance, that your perception of an atheist obsession with fundamentalism might reflect the issues we care about and who are our enemies on those issues rather than a broad misunderstanding of religion.

John Dee

Let me be the first to address the elephant in the blog. It is written by a man who apparently believes magic is real. So real, in fact, he can’t actually spell the word. Is his inability to spell things systematic? Maybe, since he has consistently failed to spell ‘atheist’ correct. But then again, we’re talking about a fellow who casts spells. Perhaps he is denying we atheists power by misnaming us with his bad spelling? In any case, the ‘new’ atheist movement is far from new. There have been out and loud atheists for a long time. Check out Bertram Russell and his magic teapot.

Enough with that, I wanna know about ‘magick’. If you’re a wizard, why aren’t you rich and powerful? I mean if you can bend the forces of nature to your will surely you’d have place at the big boy table with the kings, presidents and other world leaders.

    shane

    Because your materialist objectivist world is not all that exists. Enjoy your loot.

      Ambidexter

      What a crushing rebuttal. You forgot to add, “So there, NYAH!”

      You goddists would do a whole lot better in talking to atheists if you didn’t sound like a five year old on a playground.

Ambidexter

First of all, I can’t be too impressed by whines against atheists by someone who misspells “atheist” throughout his screed.

Second, when a sign that just reads “Atheists.” (and has a couple of organizations’ names and websites) is considered “too controversial” to put on the side of a bus, then obviously just our existence is upsetting to some people.

Well guess what, we may not have a snappy motto like the gays’ “we’re here, we’re queer” but the sentiment is the same. We’re out of the closet and we’ll be asking rude and embarrassing questions like “do you have any evidence for gods?” If you don’t like it, that’s your problem, not ours.

But your concern is noted.

    shane

    What an asshole.

      shane

      Do you have any evidence for the number One?

        Ambidexter

        You got a different spelling of atheist? Or are you just being stupid?

Don Gwinn

I’m not going to sugarcoat this: I’m far too athy to care what a sorcerer thinks. I mean, I try to be humble about it, but I’m pretty athy, you know? Like really, really athy.

I think there’s a case to be made that I’m the athiest. If I’m not the athiest, I’m certainly athier than anybody you know. I’m not even kidding, man, I’m so athy, you don’t even know.

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