A few years ago, as a newbie assistant professor, I was visited in my office by an editor at The Free Press. He was basically trolling the corridors, looking for people who had interesting ideas for popular-science books. I said that I liked the idea of writing a book, but I didn’t really want to do a straight-up cosmology tome. I had a better idea: I could write a book explaining how, when you really think about things scientifically, you come to realize that God doesn’t exist. I even had a spiffy title picked out — God Remains Dead: Reason, Religion, and the Pointless Universe. It’s not any old book that manages to reference both Steven Weinberg and Friedrich Nietzsche right there on the cover. Box office, baby.
The editor was actually intrigued by the idea, and he took it back to his bosses. Ultimately, however, they decided not to offer me a contract, and I went on to write another book with more equations. (Now on sale at Amazon!)
All of which is to say: I totally could have been in on the ground floor of all this atheism chic. These days, between Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Victor Stenger, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a prominent publicly-outspoken atheist of one form or another. That could have been me, I tell you.
These guys have gotten a lot of attention — especially Dawkins, who was recently voted Person of the Year by at least one reputable organization. Of course, some of the attention has been negative, especially from folks who are unsympathetic to the notion of a harsh, materialistic, godless universe. But even among self-professed atheists and agnostics (not to mention your wishy-washy liberal religionists), some discomfort has been expressed over the tone of Dawkins’s approach. People have been known to call him arrogant. Even if you don’t believe in God, so the argument goes, it can be a bad strategy to be upfront and in-your-face in public about one’s atheism. People are very committed to their religious beliefs, and telling them that science proves them wrong will lead them away from science, not way from God. And if you must be a die-hard materialist, at least be polite about it and respect others’ beliefs — to be obnoxious and insulting is simply counterproductive. Apart from any deep issues of what we actually should believe, this is a separate matter of how we could best persuade others to agree with us.
I’m sympathetic to the argument that atheists shouldn’t be obnoxious and insulting; in fact, I think it’s a good strategy in all sorts of situations. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, etc. But it does not follow that we should keep quiet about comforting illusions because those are the only things standing between the poor dears and overwhelming existential anxiety. If people ask whether, as scientists, we believe in God, we should respect them enough to tell the truth — whatever we think that is. That doesn’t mean we have to go door-to-door spreading the good word of the laws of nature. It just means that we should be honest about what we actually think, giving the best arguments we have for whatever that may be, and let people decide for themselves what to believe.
Arrogant or not, as a matter of fact Dawkins and company have done a great service to the cause of atheism: they have significantly shifted the Overton Window. That’s the notion, borrowed from public-policy debates, of the spectrum of “acceptable opinion” on an issue. At any given time, on any particular question, the public discourse will implicitly deem certain positions to be respectable and worthy of civilized debate, and other positions to be crazy and laughable. The crucial part of this idea is that the window can be shifted by vigorous advocacy of positions on one extreme. And that’s just what Dawkins has done.
In other words, by being arrogant and uncompromising in his atheism, Dawkins has done a tremendous amount to make the very concept of atheism a respectable part of the public debate, even if you find him personally obnoxious. Evidence: a few years ago, major newsmagazines (prompted in part by the efforts of the Templeton Foundation) were running cover stories with titles like Science Finds God (Newsweek, July 20, 1998). Pure moonshine, of course — come down where you will on the whole God debate, it remains pretty clear that science hasn’t found Him. But, within the range of acceptable public discourse, both science and God were considered to be undeniably good things — it wasn’t a stretch to put them together. 
Nowadays, in contrast, we find cover stories with titles like God vs. Science (Time, Nov 13, 2006). You never would have seen such a story just a few years ago.
This is a huge step forward. Keep in mind, the typical American thinks of atheists as fundamentally untrustworthy people. A major network like CNN will think nothing of hosting a roundtable discussion on atheism and not asking any atheists to participate. But, unlike a short while ago, they will eventually be shamed into admitting that was a mistake, and make up for it by inviting some atheists to defend their ideas. Baby steps. Professional news anchors may still seem a little befuddled at the notion that a clean, articulate person may not believe in God. But at least that notion is getting a decent public hearing. Once people actually hear what atheists have to say, perhaps they will get the idea that one need not be an amoral baby-killer just because one doesn’t believe in God.
For that, Richard Dawkins, thank you.
I also don’t understand the brotherhood of ‘team atheist’ in the Great Mission To Convert The Deluded. It seems to me that people delude themselves because they prefer it that way. They’ll find something else to delude themselves about and I don’t see any particular reason to assume that the next delusion will be any less ‘harmful’* than the last one.
*I say ‘harmful’ because I assume that the reason for all the zeal is based on the (entirely defensible) belief that religious beliefs, on average, do more harm than good.
Chris, Dawkins’ verbal skill is to a very large extent what you object to above, namely his ability to simplify complex issues to sound bites that get broadcast by CNN. Sure, you can be all thoughtful and try to do justice to the complexity of nuances. But that means you just won’t make an impact with the general public.
And to all the people who accuse Dawkins of oversimplifying and making unwarranted generalisations I would say: Read his latest book! (Because you obviously haven’t.) In The God Delusion he makes a convincing argument why the above criticism does not apply to his thinking.
That’s the issue, really: On TV you should use sound bites if you want to be effective. In a book you command a longer span of time, and you can effectively address the complexity of the issue.
“However, now that the victory has been achieved,”
A blog comment recently pointed out that there’s nothing new about the New Atheism. Voltaire, Democritus, the Carvaka — atheism is older than Christianity, but the battle’s continued. And polite, deferential, atheism was the US norm for the past few decades; where did it get us?
“I have never really understoood missionary zeal of any sort. ”
Then you don’t understand the beliefs. Missionary Christians genuinely believe they’re saving souls from ETERNAL TORMENT. It’s the same impulse that drives Medicine Sans Frontiers, but where beliefs cause suffering instead of intestinal worms. While missionary atheists see religious people attacking evolution, stem cell research, birth control, gay rights, women’s rights, and abortion rights, and thus need to counterattack. “Live and let live” doesn’t work when the other side won’t *let* you live, which it won’t because *it* believes its saving you from Hell. Or saving the souls of little unborn babies.
The media attention being given recently to articulate atheists (pick your term: free-thinkers, proponents of philosophical naturalism, rationalists, brights (ugh), etc.)–like Dawkins, Sam Harris, William Dennett (sp?)–prompted me to create a specific list of links relevant to the topic on both my personal blogand Religious Right Watch.
And it just keeps going. One night this week there was a segment on a CNN show called, I think, “Out of the Box,” that was a story about the discrimination faced by a particular family in the U.S. because they happened to be atheists. Discriminating against someone for being an atheist….To me, it makes as much since as discriminating against someone for being left-handed (or for preferring same-sex sex, or for having skin that’s darker than the average in the county, or for having narrow shoulders or small feet….)
“3. Christianity is a human tradition (or bundle of them) and asking whether they are true or false is a category mistake – like asking whether wearing trousers or wearing kilts is true or false.”
Bull. Christian traditions make clear claims about historical fact in a way which wearing kilts doesn’t. There was or was not a man called Jesus 2000 years ago who was at the root of Christianity. If he existed, he was or was not crucified. If he was, he did or did not get up again three days later. If he was crucified, there was or was not an eclipse and earthquake at the time. If he existed, he was or was not born in Bethlehem. When you die, you will or will not experience an afterlife. The Pope in 2007 is considering the sainthood of recently dead people, and whether or not miracles actually occurred in association with them. Etc.
There is no category mistake here; these are statements with well-defined, if not well-determinable, truth values, as quite a lot of religious people will tell you.
And as Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion, Non-Overlapping Magisteria would completely crumble if science ever found evidence *supporting* Christian claims. “Your methods of evidence don’t apply to us” is a defense against the absence of evidence.
Damien, well put. Indeed, I think one of the reasons Christianity both attracts and repels people (as a religion) is because it makes far more specific historical claims than, say, Taoism or Buddhism. Buddhism isn’t really undercut by whether or not Gautama lived. But if they unearth a skeleton in the cave which is supposed to have been Jesus’s tomb, and it dates to the time of his death…then Christianity is pretty much toast.
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“I have never really understoood missionary zeal of any sort. ”
Regardless of whether or not you meant to imply that all missionary zeal is the same (and you may not have been implying such), I think it may be useful to nonetheless point out that differences exist, of course. The zeal of a Richard Dawkins or of what I call a “placard-carrying” atheist (more than a metaphorically “card-carrying” type but not a public spokesman whose atheism is a large part of his or her persona or profession) is based on evidence, at least of a sort, and not theology.
Those who proselytize (such as many evangelical Christians) or at least approve of proselytizing (such as evangelical Christians, by definition), cite the pending eternal damnation of the souls of the un-converted (or in the case of some Muslims, the impurity or evil of non-believers) as the reason for their missionary zeal (or in rare instances even homicidal zeal). Their reasoning, albeit ultimately circular, is sound within the scope of their worldview that does not give physical evidence and scientific research as much weight when defining ultimate reality.)
Those who have missionary zeal, as it were, for countering such a worldview (i.e., a worldview in which religious faith trumps what the scientific process usually recognizes as evidence), cite studies or (less convincingly, I think) cite moments in world history to bolster their argument that religious-based thinking on balance does humanity and the individual more harm than good.
The zeal of either type of person–one the religious and the other the philosophical materialist–might be considered distasteful by some. Perhaps by most. Yet, if no one ever had such zeal, some (many?) things most of us now deplore, such as slavery or even smoking, might be with us still. Improvements in things such as human rights and public health have in many instances throughout history not have not occurred without zealous advocates and activists.
Based on the above argument, I believe one should be more inclined to genuinely thank Dawkins than not to do so.
I know that the zealous religious missionaries believe that they are saving souls (including their own) but I don’t see where it fits with freedom of choice (also essential for salvation). It’s hardly a ‘we’ll show you what we believe, if you want to listen, then you decide’ approach that many people take. However, what I really meant to indicate is that I can’t find, in me, the enthusiasm for proselytizing about anything where, really, free choice is the thing. That would include spreading religious salvation or atheism, which are both only worth a damn if chosen freely; the biggest difference between the zealous missionaries (atheist or religious) and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen is the claimed longevity of the product.
On the other hand, missionaries who see their role as just explaining why they believe what they believe, that’s all cool. They are just engaging in a version of my favourite past-time, the pub conversation. Before I moved somewhere 3 miles from the nearest pub where the pubs don’t smell right because they banned smoking in them. Praise Gore for his internerd, I say.
I also don’t understand the brotherhood of ‘team atheist’ in the Great Mission To Convert The Deluded.
I see two motivations. First, we want everyone to be happy, and their beliefs which are ‘comforting’ are also sources of guilt, shame, hatred, violence, etc. If they would move to more ‘rational’ beliefs, maybe they would be happier.
The second motivation is self-defense. There are people who try to use the power of government (enforced at gunpoint) to make you behave in accordance with religious beliefs that they cannot convince you to adopt willingly. We need government and other social and cultural leaders to acknowledge that ‘doubt’ about religious claims is legitimate, in order to preserve freedom.
“I can’t find, in me, the enthusiasm for proselytizing about anything where, really, free choice is the thing.”
Okay. That makes sense. I can’t really find such enthusiasm in me, either. But I wonder if human societies would be better or worse if everyone lacked the zeal to proselytize about anything, and was phlegmatic with respect to proselytizing. (I suppose the phlegmatic answer to that would be, “Societies would be neither better nor worse. Probably.”)
🙂
these are statements with well-defined, if not well-determinable, truth values
But it would be foolish to think that these would be sufficient to establish the truth or falsity of the religion. As foolish as thinking some statement in Genesis establishes the falsity of science. Extrapolation of one’s finite knowledge to the infinite becomes arrogant when one stopping looking at the the unknown and one closes one’s eyes to possibility.
Sean said:
“… the spectrum of “acceptable opinion” … can be shifted by vigorous advocacy of positions on one extreme. And that’s just what Dawkins has done. …”.
Joseph Goebbles said:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. …”.
Perhaps Spinoza-Pantheists (see the web entry for pantheism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), one example being Einstein, might not be happy with Dawkins/Goebbels extremism.
Tony Smith
ronan #36: I think that if you set yourself the task of making people happy by stripping away their ‘false beliefs’, you are at best doomed to disappointment.
I can understand the self-defense motive, certainly in the case of Americans. It doesn’t apply to Dawkins, I don’t think, because he lives in a country where even most religious people aren’t that religious. However, I personally think that the self-defense is best achieved by individual examples of atheists being decent people, rather than trying to convince religious people to become atheists. I think that for various reasons, not least my aforementioned lack of enthusiasm for proselytizing. I also think that trying to effectively grab people from another ‘flock’ is exactly the sort of thing that tends to create conflicts; some may thing that is no bad thing, but I myself am not sure that now is the time to pick that fight.
At the government level, it seems to me that atheism, as a religious belief itself (in the sense that it’s a belief about the identity of God, to wit, there isn’t one), should be protected as any other religious belief is. Obviously, in this country, it’s not working quite like that because of politics. Changing that is, itself, a political effort. Good luck!
Tony, you just compared Richard Dawkins to Joseph Goebbels? Seriously?
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I have never understood the position that atheism is a scientific stance. Isn’t claiming to prove a negative the essence of logical fallacy? It seems to me that – in the absence of gnosis – agnosticism is the only scientifically valid position. Please remember that Occam’s Razor is not a valid basis for rigorous proof.
AFAIK, Buddhism (certain subsets thereof) is the only religion that claims to be able to produce, repeatably, “religious” or spiritual experiences by following a certain set of stringently defined steps, i.e. an experiment. But even in this case, the results are internal and subjective – enlightenment as opposed to miracles – and so not subject to peer review of the sort that we generally require.
Either:
1) repeatable, incontrivertible miracles have occured, perhaps proving God’s existence; or
2) God and religion are neither proven nor disproven, allowing one to either choose religion or atheism based on preference, or agnosticism based on logical rigor; or
3) someone has come up with a way to prove the nonexistence of God, in which case atheism is proven correct.
I think we’re still at #2.
I haven’t read Dawkin’s latest rant^H^H^H^Hbook, but if he has performed an experiment by which he has rigorously proven that all forms of religious experience are invalid, it has somehow escaped the attention of his media tempest.
It seems to me that atheists in general are as guilty of jumping to logically invalid conclusions that suit one’s personality or pre-established worldviews as any adherent of the milder, more temperate forms of religion. I’m sure some will take offense to that, though none is intended.
ooh, a timely link:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/14/healthscience/snsagan.php
“Carl Sagan, posthumously, rejoins debate on faith vs. science”
I read Dawkin’s `Blind Watchmaker’ and was very impressed by his arguments. The arguments I think were clear and rational, if only you open your mind. Calling him arrogant is just an ad hominem response…
adam, we had Tony Blair start faith-based schooling in the UK, and the BBC has reported that some of them teach creationism. Another faith-based school used books in which Jews were compared to monkeys and Christians to pigs. So even here there is a need for people to continue to bring light into the darkness.
Refs:creationism in schoolreligious intolerance
tyler, atheism does not assert faith that God does not exist. It holds that the evidence for a god is extremely thin, and such a being is therefore extremely unlikely. Just like Russell’s teapot.
One day I will grow tired of repeating these arguments over and over again. One day…
Those who are taking exception to Dawkins on the grounds that God cannot be disproved by science might be interested to know that he himself acknowlegdes that. He simply points out that toothfairies cannot be disproved, either. Maybe they should read his book before attacking his presumed premise. It was thought-provoking even for this life-long atheist.
PK, I myself taught at a church school in the UK and science there was taught exactly as you would expect, the same way as at the non-church schools at which I taught. Publically funded schools (like the one at which I taught) are bound by national curriculum and other legislation. If they aren’t publically, I don’t think that there’s anything that the government can do in mild cases, and in more extreme cases that you spoke about there may, in fact, be hate speech legislation.
The creationism at Emmanuel was taught in RE; there’s no problem with that, it’s a religious belief. It would be a problem if it was taught in science, but it isn’t. State-funded religious schools won’t go away in the UK because of the deal that was made between the Churches and the government, where the government took over a large part of the financing and the running of those schools.
The Islamic school is a different issue, because it’s private. If that’s the sort of problem, though, Dawkins is hardly the answer. It’s not an atheism vs religion issue, it’s a legal and moral issue, and that’s a game that atheists and believers can play.
Additionally, we can’t make a statement about probability of God’s existence based on evidence. We can just say that there’s no evidence for God’s existence and we could presumably rule out certain ‘models for God’, although not the ‘omnipotent, omniscient God’ model because that guy can do whatever he likes and we won’t know any better unless He wants us to. Occam’s razor can be applied, of course, but that’s just a rule about economy of effort. The question of God’s existence, it seems to me, isn’t a scientific question unless the believers choose to phrase it as one (and, no surprise, if they do that, they’ll lose the argument every time).
Toothfaries can’t be disproved, indeed, nate. We wouldn’t even make the effort.