By Erich Vieth on July 12th, 201 Redefining science
Rightardia has condensed parts 1 and 2 of this article.
I do not believe in any sort of sentient “God.” I do not believe in any sort of personified “Creator” of the universe. I never had any such beliefs. Nor do I think that science has all of the “answers” (as though we know how to ask the right questions).
Looking back over my past few years of writings, however, I can see that I have come a long way regarding my approach to religion. Prior to 2001, I was mostly in the live-and-let-live camp. Then came 9/11 when the destructive power of many religions (including American religions) came front and center.
Out of mouths allegedly professing the words of God Himself, we heard plenty of bigotry (often aimed at gays, non-believers, people of Middle Eastern ancestry and, of course, members of other religions), war-mongering, anti-science, pro-ignorance, and biblical literalism.
I pushed back forcefully–one of my prime motivations for starting Dangerous Intersection was my strong reaction to the rise of conservative religions in the United States. Eventually, though, I came to realize that my reaction was overboard.
My concern should not so much have been against religion, but against those specific religious communities that encourage their members to engage in destructive behavior. I think that I understand why I made this error; following 9/11, almost all American religions chose to be silent in the face of the destructive behavior by competitor religions.
I viewed that widespread silence as general approval. I assumed, based somewhat on the increasingly conservative views of several close acquaintances who had been religious moderates, that even moderate religious beliefs too often served as slippery slopes to fundamentalism.
Over the past year, I spent many hours writing a long article on my own “spiritual” journey. Writing this chapter was an intense exercise in self-discovery that drew from many of the posts I’ve made at this blog.
I originally planned to publish my article as a book chapter that was to be called “Mending Fences with Believers and Moving On.” My chapter eventually grew to an unwieldy length that branched off into several distinct (but related) topics. What follows is list of each of the Parts of “Mending Fences with Believers and Moving On.”
When Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the other “new atheists” first launched their attacks on religion a few years ago, I was delighted. After decades of relative silence, the mass media was finally giving some atheists a chance to present my view that virgins don’t have babies and that dead people don’t regain consciousness.
Harris, Dawkins and other new atheists dared to argue in public that there is no sentient version of God; they reminded believers that all believers were atheists regarding Zeus, as well as all of the purported gods other than their own God.
The writings of the new atheists energized considerable discussion, much of it thoughtful. Even a cursory review of the many websites and YouTube videos considering religion makes it clear that many teenagers and young adults have actively joined discussions triggered by the new atheists.
In the wake of this energized discussion, many of us became proficient at pointing out the hundreds of contradictions and absurdities in the Bible. We repeatedly called foul whenever we spotted theists cherry-picking the Bible (none of you are wearing clothes made of linen and wool, I hope!).
We repeatedly reminded believers of Carl Sagan’s caveat that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Many of us dug even deeper, studying the philosophy of science, so that we could clearly explain to believers that to be meaningful, claims had to be falsifiable.
Not that these arguments actually convinced believers (at least, not in my personal experience), but they did serve to announce our view that religious claims must no longer be privileged—they shouldn’t be assumed to be true and that they must be put under the microscope (as Daniel Dennett urged in Breaking the Spell) like every other natural phenomenon.
Thanks to the arrival of the new atheists, all of these important issues started receiving unflinching media attention.
These past few years have been emotionally and intellectually exhilarating for skeptics of all stripes. Those of us who have maintained skeptical websites have become further energized and intellectually sharpened by reading each others’ posts and by carefully re-reading the Bible and the Koran armed with knives rather than intellectual queasiness.
The books and media appearances of the new atheists, as well as the many websites by hundreds of newly awakened atheists, have created a community where there had previously been only isolated individuals.
The work of the new atheists thus revealed to each of us that none of us was alone in scrutinizing and criticizing the supernatural claims of religions. Many energized atheists have boldly stepped out of their closets and started becoming vocal as a group, especially when believers callously asserted that all atheists are ipso facto immoral and hell-bound.
Who among us doesn’t still feel the intense emotional sting when reminded of the following statement by George H. W. Bush, speaking as the Vice-President of the United States on August 27, 1987 while running for President) :
“No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God.”
No wonder the new atheists counter-attacked with such vigor!
The writings of the new atheists didn’t merely attack the people who mindlessly characterized us as second-class citizens, however. Their attacks went much further.
Sam Harris argued (again, this resonated with me) that as a result of their religious beliefs, all religions were absurd and dangerous and that all religious moderates have been giving cover and encouragement to the destructive practices of religious extremists.
Similarly, Richard Dawkins argued that religious moderates make the world safe for fundamentalists by promoting faith as a virtue and by enforcing an overly pious respect for religion.
In a 2006 interview published by Time Magazine, Dawkins, referring to fundamentalists, stated: “
Why bother with these clowns?” Harris and Dawkins, joined by Christopher Hitchens and others of similar temperament, have attacked every sort of faith and every type of religion.
In this article, I’ll refer to these writers and their supporters as the “anti-religion” new atheists.
Not all new atheists are “anti-religion” new atheists. For example, Daniel Dennett gets his well-considered points across clearly and forcefully without calling for the elimination of all religions. Instead, Dennett has proposed that parents may teach their children any religion they want, as long as it is not likely to close their minds:
A) through fear or hatred or
B) by disabling them from inquiry (by denying them an education, for instance, or keeping them entirely isolated from the world.
