Atheist Fundamentalists?
Offline A new fundamentalism? Some decry strident tone of fellow atheists
March 31, 2007 BY JAY LINDSAY Associated Press
BOSTON -- Atheists are under attack these days for being too militant, for not just disbelieving in religious faith but for trying to eradicate it. And who's leveling these accusations? Other atheists, it turns out.
Among the millions of Americans who don't believe God exists, there's a split between people such as Greg Epstein, who holds the partially endowed post of humanist chaplain at Harvard University, and so-called ''New Atheists.''
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Harvard University Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein appears on the schools campus, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP)
Epstein and other humanists feel their movement is on the verge of explosive growth, but are concerned it will be dragged down by what they see as the militancy of New Atheism.
The most pre-eminent New Atheists include best-selling authors Richard Dawkins, who has called the God of the Old Testament ''a psychotic delinquent,'' and Sam Harris, who foresees global catastrophe unless faith is renounced. They say religious belief is so harmful it must be defeated and replaced by science and reason.
Epstein calls them ''atheist fundamentalists.'' He sees them as rigid in their dogma, and as intolerant as some of the faith leaders with whom atheists share the most obvious differences.
Next month, as Harvard celebrates the 30th anniversary of its humanist chaplaincy -- part of the school's chaplaincy corps -- Epstein will use the occasion to provide a counterpoint to the New Atheists.
''Humanism is not about erasing religion,'' he said. ''It's an embracing philosophy.''
In general, humanism rejects supernaturalism, while stressing principles such as dignity of the individual, equality and social justice. If there's no God to help humanity, it holds, people better do the work.
The celebration of a ''New Humanism'' will emphasize inclusion and diversity within the movement, and will include Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist E.O. Wilson, a humanist who has made well-chronicled efforts to team with evangelical Christians to fight global warming.
Part of the New Humanism, Wilson said, is ''an invitation to a common search for morally based action in areas agreement can be reached in.''
The tone of the New Atheists will only alienate important faith groups whose help is needed to solve the world's problems, Wilson said.
''I would suggest possibly that while there is use in the critiques by Dawkins and Harris, that they've overdone it,'' he said.
Harris, author of ''Letter to a Christian Nation,'' sees the disagreement as overblown. He thinks there's room for multiple arguments in the debate between scientific rationalism and religious dogmatism. ''I don't think everyone needs to take as uncompromising a stance as I have against faith,'' he said.
But, he added, an intellectual intolerance of people who strongly believe things on bad evidence is just ''basic human sanity.''
''We do not jail people for being stupid, but we do stop listening to them after a while,'' he said in e-mailed comments.
Harris also rejected the term ''atheist fundamentalist,'' calling it ''a silly play upon words.'' He noted that, when it comes to the ancient Greek gods, everyone is an atheist and no one is asked to justify that to pagans who want to believe in Zeus.
''Likewise with the God of Abraham,'' he said. ''There is nothing 'fundamentalist' about finding the claims of religious demagogues implausible.''
Some of the participants in Harvard's celebration of its humanist chaplaincy have no problem with the New Atheists' tone.
Harvard psychologist and author Steven Pinker said the forcefulness of their criticism is standard in scientific and political debate, and ''far milder than what we accept in book and movie reviews.''
''It's only the sense that religion deserves special respect -- the exact taboo that Dawkins and Harris are arguing against -- that people feel that those guys are being meanies when applying ordinary standards of evaluation to religion,'' Pinker said in e-mailed comments.
Dawkins did not respond to requests for comment. He has questioned whether teaching children they could go to hell is worse in the long term than sexually abusing them, and compares the evidence of God to evidence for unicorns, fairies and a ''Flying Spaghetti Monster.'' His attempt to win converts is clear in ''The God Delusion,'' when he writes of his hope that ''religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.''
A 2006 Baylor University survey estimates about 15 million atheists in the United States.
Not all nonbelievers identify as humanists or atheists, with some calling themselves agnostics, freethinkers or skeptics. But humanists see the potential for unifying the groups under their banner, creating a large, powerful minority that can't be ignored or disdained by mainstream political and social thinkers.
Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition of America, sees a growing public acceptance of people who don't believe in God, pointing to California U.S. Rep. Pete Stark's statement this month that he doesn't believe in a supreme being. Stark is the first congressman to acknowledge being an atheist.
As more prominent people such as Stark publicly acknowledge they don't believe in God, ''I think it will make it more palatable,'' Brown said.
But Epstein worries the attacks on religion by the New Atheists will keep converts away.
''The philosophy of the future is not going to be one that tries to erase its enemies,'' he said. ''The future is going to be people coming together from what motivates them.''
"The powerful have always created false images of the weak."
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I have to agree that religion definitely does not deserve respect.
Personally, I think religion is a harmful phenomenon. I think it stops people from looking at what is really out there, which is absolutely amazing and fascinating. I'm not out to destroy it, if it were to disappear I would be very happy. I have no problems with liberal, thinking religious people who embrace science - I don't think their philosophy holds up very well it's kind of like sitting on a fence. What I hate is dogmatic religion, the kind that is rife in America. I personally think that Richard Dawkins' RDSRS does very important work in trying to teach people about science and about actually trying to think. There is nothing wrong with false belief per se if it makes a single individual happy and if it will not lead him to harm or mislead others. What is wrong is the teaching of false belief as fact.
I think the name fundamentalist applied to atheists is a bad description. There is a core difference between science and religion. That is that science looks to find what actually exists and how things actually work, religion tries to explain things on prima facie evidence i.e. "Oh look at this world, it's so beautiful I wonder who designed it?" and so over millenia wacky and wonderful theories become built upon and built upon and seem to fit the prima facie evidence of our existence so well. Fundamentalism is taking these kinds of fallacious beliefs too seriously and not taking any notice of a) any other fallacious beliefs or b) the factual beliefs of science. Science on the other hand delves beyond the prima facie, and realises that religion actually doesn't fit the evidence as well as it originally seemed to. The discovery that the world is round, of gravity, of evolution all begin to tap away at religious doctrine. Atheists and scientists do not know the truth, we do not in fact claim to, but we are a hell of a lot closer simply because we look at all the evidence available and if some evidence makes a theory wrong we will change our minds and find a new theory. There is no dogma, we just want others to have the opportunity to discover instead of live in the blindness of religion. A religious person is like a 40 year old virgin who still lives with his mum.
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I don't really have a problem with people believing as long as they don't try forcing their shit on everyone else - besides just the Christian War On Science there's also the anti-choice movement, "blue laws", discrimination against women and gays, etc.
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I've been hearing more and more of this crap recently. Atheists voice their disbelief, theists accuse them of being "meanies", and then the holier-than-thou agnostics and humanists sieze the opportunity to make themselves look good. "Look at us. We're not intolerant like those people." They're trying to capitalize on society's negative perception of atheists for their own gain.
"You are 'atheist' simply you are PSYCHO or IGNORANCE. That's why even youself feel like not EXIST on this world."
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Definately. I'm certainly less hardcore than Dawkins. I do think he has a point about childhood indoctrination. I think education should be about trying to get children to think for themselves and to undo the negative effects that overly religious parents can have. I'm hopeful that it will become a taboo to talk of Christian children. The very notion of that has made me feel queasy for years now.
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This "atheist fundamentalism" has been on my mind lately.
"Atheist fundamentalists" don't exist because atheism has no fundamentals. You can be an atheist even if you don't accept evolution. You can be an atheist and not be anti-theism. You can be an atheist and believe in paranormal things. There isn't even one fundamental precept for atheism.
Remember the oxymoron fundy atheist? I believe it was Sir-Think-A-Lot that said (at FreeThinkingTeens) that a "fundy atheist" is an atheist that studies the Bible in order to debate with theists.
To me, that's like calling a Creationist an Evolutionist Creationist just because he studies evolution to see what stuff he can "refute".
Douchebag.
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Yes, I remember that. I linked them to an article about why fundie atheists cannot exist, but they totally ignored it and created some list (about fundie atheists) and didn't bother to respond to my post. Morons.
I wrote an essay on the subject. this is what I had to say:
A criticism of remarkable abundance is that we are somehow atheist fundamentalists, as if such a term meant anything. The criticism is that we are somehow just as intolerant and bigoted as the faithful of the Midwest and the Middle East.
This essay is two pronged. It deals with the above issue, and part two deals with the history of religious fundamentalism.
I have studied atheism very extensively and come to the conclusion that “atheist fundamentalism” is a ridiculous notion that attempts poorly to equate two polar opposite thought systems.
Firstly, how would we define a religious fundamentalist? The label, after all, is a postmodern expression of the overwhelming secularization of religion, to the point where far fewer believers cling to a conservative, revisionist interpretation of the Scripture. If you read my essay on Morality without God, you will realize that “literalism” is inherently meaningless. All believers interpret, fundamentalists too. Thus I would say that fundamentalism is defined by society, whereby it is considered an “outdated” or perhaps “Orthodox” following of scriptural tenets.
One thing that does make fundamentalists differ from moderates and liberals is that they adhere to a lot of scripture which is thrown out by most because it is considered unpalatable or overly demanding. Again, you can refer to my essay Morality without God for a better explanation.
If you read my essay “does atheism require faith”, then this discussion about atheist fundamentalism is already half over. We already know that atheism is in and of itself not a stance, merely a denial of someone else’s. We know that should religion cease to exist, the term atheist would disappear from the lexicon simply because it would have no inherent meaning.
From this, we can deduce why atheist fundamentalism is ridiculous. There is no doctrine for which to subscribe. There are no Holy Books for atheist philosophers to bend their backs over. There are no schools of theocratic law for atheists to butcher each other over (a mocking of the Four schools of Islamic Shar’ia) and there are no compilations of ancient documents for atheists to squabble over. Quite simply, an atheist cannot be a fundamentalist because there is no doctrine for an atheist to subscribe a fundamentalist stance to.
The other objection I have to the comparison is that is totally invalid. A fundamentalist has no genuine choice in the matter. Almost always they are brought up in Orthodox religious communities, sometimes under forced theocratic governments. Their worldview is constrained by self-constructed barriers that are rigidly maintained for fear of their vengeful deity.
If you read my essay “Deconstructionalism versus dogmatism”, you will already realize this. On the other hand, most atheists I have met are either ex-theists, thus there is no validity in the claims that they have not examined “the other side”, or if not (I am not ex-theist) they have at least spent vast amounts of time deeply pondering their worldview. Unlike religious fundamentalists, atheists have no self-imposed barriers on the thoughts and concepts they envision. Thus, free thought is championed above all by the atheist. Because it lacks any sort of stance that is set down by any doctrine, there is nothing for an atheist to adopt a fundamentalist stance to. The argument is meaningless.
The other objection is another arm of the attack, namely that outspoken atheists are “extremists”. If someone says this, they are essentially defeating their own argument because they are freely admitting to the disgraceful public shields around sane discourse of religion. Political debates have no limit of epitaphs to hurl, in academia a researcher can be disgraced for a ridiculous publishing. But in religion, open your mouth to criticize and you are shouted down as an atheist extremist.
Look, I’m not suggesting we should hold up sings saying “There is no God or way to heaven”, we should not stop people in the streets and demand they renounce Jesus. We should not force our beliefs on others. We reserve such boorishness for religious extremists, evangelizers and proselytizers. But we cannot tolerate this stifling attitude. We have every right to criticize whatever we wish, regardless of whomever’s sacredly held beliefs we may be treading on. How many theist blogs get hate mail from atheists? We call only for some discourse and this is shot down by teeming masses insisting we are extremists? Do they not realize how deadly dangerous this mindset is?
I think in this regard, people are confusing extremism with passion. An atheist cannot really be extreme in their beliefs because there is no doctrine to adopt an extreme stance to! The test, then, for someone to determine whether an atheist is “extremist” or not, is how outspoken they are on religion. This is hardly a fair stance.
Does this in itself not seem to be an extreme stance: Criticize faith and be ostracized?
Atheism seems to receive no limit of criticism. Consider this: When a Jew or Muslim denies the Holy Spirit (they reject the trinity) it is considered “a part of their religious faith to be respected”, yet when an atheist does the same, it is considered “an attack on faith” and “an evil manipulation”. No later than this happens that a Christian would gleefully tell the atheist that they will burn in hellfire. Would they say the same to a person of equal devoutness but another faith, I wonder?
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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Greg is a friend of mine, and he wasn't very happy with the way the NY Times quoted "atheist fundamentalists." This is what he has to say about it:
"A small quibble with the article in the Times– I did not actually call bestselling authors Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris “atheist fundamentalists.” That part of the story was taken from the press release about our conference, (many thanks to the very talented Duncan Crary of the wonderful NY-based think tank, The Institute for Humanist Studies, for once again helping to place a Humanism-related story in the international media) in which Dawkins and Harris are referred to not as “atheist fundamentalists” but as atheist “fundamentalists,” scare quotes intending to denote that we know there is a major difference between Harris and Dawkins– whom we respect but also respectfully disagree on some issues about how to advance Humanism– and actual religious fundamentalists, who can be incalculably worse. The Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard proudly hosted Richard Dawkins for a fruitful, intimate discussion this past October, and we were gratified by his kind response to the experience. We would be happy to host Dr. Dawkins again."
Greg knows that "atheist fundamentalists" is a shitty term, and it's unfortunate it had to be published that way. He does want to stand by the claim, though, that the approach he is taking is intentionally different from that of Dawkins and Harris. Honestly, I can't complain. I'm just glad this is getting publicity
The Enlightenment wounded the beast, but the killing blow has yet to land...
You know, I can't recall the soft approach as working. It seems to me more gains have been made in the last year, since Dawkins and Harris wrote their controversial best-sellers. What other big atheist names have been in the news? Let's see...Brian Sapient...can you think of others? Usually, they are on the bandwagon with us atheist fundamentalists. (Tomcat, I understand your friend's quibble with how he was quoted. Still, a lot of people see us as unbending dogmatists.)
Question: Had Dawkins' and Harris's tomes not been published and widely-sold, would Pete Stark have come out of the closet?
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I agree, Iruka. This soft tolerant approach will not help. Such a policy of appeasement will only strengthen the fundamentalists who already have a rather tight grip over the United States. I cannot understand why we would be criticized by other atheist. This fractioning cannot be good, for a simple reason that in the United States, we are hated enough that we need no internal strife. Frankly, lying down and saying I respect your beliefs will get no one nowhere because they sure as hell don't respect ours.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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I think there's room for a kinder gentler atheism.
I just don't see many people converted by an-in-your face approach. I also think that some large number of humanity doesn't and won't think enough about issues like this to realize their belief system is backed by nothing but faith. To get them to give up their security blankets, we must convince the policy makers first. Perhaps then, the rest will follow.
We need more and more people with influence to come out of the closet...jmo.
I'm gonna be at the conference-- who else is coming; it would be cool to meet some of you. I can't believe it's just over two weeks away!
I'd never seen anyone deconverted until I came here.
Damn...who was it who said not to underestimate the power of ridicule? I read it fairly recently, so I think it was either Harris or Dawkins quoting someone else.
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As far as I'm concerned there's room for both militant and moderate positions. And having both is the best way to convert the most. 1 2 combination punches always work better than a single blow. Never underestimate the power of the good cop/bad cop strategy. Though if there were only one to choose from, militant would be the one to garner the most converts. You don't usually convert people by not discussing things, and you don't usually discuss things if you aren't up front about them.
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You fail to mention Daniel Dennet's Breaking the Spell. I'm currently reading it. I think it is a much more reasoned approach, aimed much more at those most devout believers. An all out attack would only enfuriate someone like Fred Phelps. Dennet also fills the gaps on some of Dawkins' bad arguments, and there are some pretty poor arguments in The GD. While it is written in a much more courteous manner, Dennet is still up front and scathing of religion using the analogy of an ant carrying a parasitic lancet fluke which makes him put his own life in danger to get the fluke into the stomach of a cow to reproduce.
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I would think that all this doom and gloom is America-based. Europe? No religion. (They give it too much respect though) Asia? No Religion. Even the holiest place in all of monotheism, Israel, is overwhelmingly secular. The fact of the matter is, we keep talking about the "eventual" fall of religion, in fact, this is already reality across much of the world. The fact that America hasn't made this leap is a little embarassing, but with the recent slew of atheist books and the increasing power of the non-religious, I feel that even in devout America, it is inevitable.
Don't know about Islam though, that'll be tough to break for sure.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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I don't think it's that America didn't make the leap, look at the history and the founding fathers and all that, they were secularists. I think it's that America has reverted into this mess of extreme religiosity we see today. You're right religion is dying out here, but I think we still pay far too much respect for it. I for one am still whole-heartedly pissed-off with the way that myself and others like me are shouted down for attacking faith. My own mother (who isn't religious) was trying to defend parents' rights to bring their child up in a faith to me.
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