…and their ideas that some people seem to think they have.
PZ Myers commented recently on an article about religion. Specifically, it was about ways atheists are wrong about religion. He was not impressed.
Here’s my own examination:
5. Liberal and Moderate Religion Justifies Religious Extremism
Like PZ points out, the author of this “myth-busting” article has missed the point of atheists like Sam Harris here. It’s not that liberal religious people are directly supporting the extremists. Rather, the way faith and religious belief are held up as virtues to be respected, with moderate and benevolent examples being cited to support this, bolsters the cultural notion that religion in general should be respected and lauded, which makes it harder to see the obviously abhorrent aspects of fundamentalist religion.
4. Religion Requires a Belief in a Supernatural God
I understand why anti-religious atheists are so reluctant to accept the fact that being religious doesn’t mean belief in the supernatural. The simplistic and convenient myth they’ve constructed would be shattered.
That we’ve constructed?
Dude, you’re welcome to believe in a “healing and renewing power of existence” and call it God if you want, but have you talked to any Christians lately? They’re not going to church to worship a “creative principle in life”. They’ve read their Bible, and they know who God is, and for upwards of 40% of them he’s the conscious and deliberate agent who created humans in their present form in the last 10,000 years or so.
If you’re going to dismiss the whole idea of a personal god as a straw man, you’re either being pitifully disingenuous or you’re profoundly ignorant of what religion actually means to most people. Sure, plenty of people do deviate from that notion into a more vague “spiritual essence” kind of belief, but that’s only one faction. And it’s not like that faction goes uncritiqued by prominent atheists either, or by the godless community as a whole.
3. Religion Causes Bad Behavior
This is a weird one, because he cites Christopher Hitchens saying something very sensible which largely refutes it. As Hitch points out, religion often exacerbates, justifies, coordinates, and excuses many negative things done in its name, even if it can’t be directly blamed for the natural tendencies of our species.
But this doesn’t seem to give a lot of ground to the supposed myth-buster. It still admits that religion is a source of calamitous evil – but it’s also true that religion doesn’t prevent people from doing good things, or always inevitably lead to immorality. I don’t know any atheists who would disagree with this, but it’s still not exactly a recommendation. Religion is unnecessary for people to do good. On the other hand, I’ll let you come up with your own examples of atrocities which would never have been perpetrated were it not for a religious motivation.
2. Atheists are Anti-Religious
This is another one where the author effectively points to a few dried stalks sticking out of somebody’s collar and starts shouting “straw-man!”
A lot of atheists are anti-religious. I know I am. But it’s true that not every atheist is anti-religion, and even if you have no truck with faith systems, being an atheist doesn’t mean that you hold all people with religious beliefs in contempt.
Having said that, this is just stupid:
Atheism is not in any way shape or form related to an opinion about religion.
Really? Not in any way, shape, or form? You can’t see any correlation between atheism – a lack of belief in any god – and opinions on religion – a belief system typically centred around some sort of god? No? Not even a flexible, generally-indicative-if-not-100%-consistent link?
1. All Religions are the Same and are “Equally Crazy”
The author doesn’t link to the Greta Christina article he partially quotes here, but frankly I’m satisfied with her conclusions.
It’s certainly worth recognising the differences between religions, and the ways in which some are more destructive than others. It’s also important to note the psychological difference it makes to have your unsupported beliefs shared by a few billion people, and how this bears on the “crazy” label as applied to any particular person and their ideas.
Believing that you’re Napoleon will likely get you treated for mental health problems. Believing that you regularly commune with a 2000-year-old man-God who holds your eternal salvation in his capricious grasp is practically a requirement to be elected to the highest office of the world’s largest superpower. It’s legitimate to see one crazy idea as more strongly indicative of serious psychological issues than another.
But aside from their popularity, down at the actual level of rationality, all religious beliefs must be just as unfounded in reality as any other. If “faith” is such a virtue, they’re supposed to be believed without recourse to evidence or reason or the things we usual base our sane and sensible beliefs on.
It’s not that people are crazy. But religions themselves? Pretty much.
I suppose it’s possible that the author is right to complain that religions “which aren’t reliant upon any supernatural beliefs, miracles or magical claims” are being unfairly swept up with the others.
The problem there is that I have literally no idea what a religion like that would look like.
Answers on a postcard.
I dunno, this National Article does a good job at refuting Sam harris and Dawkins:
http://www.thenation.com/article/160236/same-old-new-atheism-sam-harris
I mean have you looked at what Dawkins has been promoting lately?:
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/02/selfish-gene-turns-racist.html
He even supported Christian Missionaries in Muslim countries if that meant getting rid of Islam. C’mon man.
I haven’t read the Nation’s article in full yet, because it’s early and I haven’t even had breakfast, but it doesn’t seem to have much bearing on the things said about atheists in the article PZ was criticising. And that second one makes a bizarre and apparently totally unfair connection, between Dawkins recognising that this religious memeplex is a great source of evil, and wanting immigrants to fuck off back home so he can get back to telling jokes about blacks. This has nothing to do with anything Dawkins has actually said.
Note. here’s the other link to Dawkin’s growing craziness:
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/05/unmitigated-evil.html
I don’t know why that link depicts a jpg screenshot rather than a link to where that text was supposedly posted, but assuming it’s a genuine post by Dawkins, it reads in part:
“…should we be supporting Christian missions in Africa? My answer is still no, but I thought it was worth raising the question.”
So, when you said that Dawkins “supported Christian Missionaries in Muslim countries”, you actually meant the exact opposite of that.
So? He still seems indecisive on it and at least considered it,
So? So what you said wasn’t true. I don’t follow the point you’re trying to make. Can you spell out for slow-ole-me what the problem is with what Dawkins said and how it’s got anything to do with the post we’re commenting on?
moreover, here’s what Dawkins actually said about the comedian:
http://richarddawkins.net/videos/476560-pat-condell-no-mosque-at-ground-zero/comments?page=2#comment_476687