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.
You know what rankles me? The anti-ghost fundamentalists. Those people who keep saying that ghosts don’t exist, even though they can’t rigorously prove it. (How can you possibly prove a negative???) Someday they will wake up to the silent majority of ghost-believers, and cease their pointless anti-ghost crusade. There are only so many talk shows you can appear on, anyway.
Sean,
Bad analogy, since I didn’t claim the silent majority was majority of believers. It’s a majority (in the case of scientists) who don’t care whether their colleagues are believers or atheists. In science, this group dwarfs those who do care about such matters, a little group of drones who are being led by the nose by Dawkins. It’s not a sexy idea, collaboration across belief systems, hence it has no books or media icons. But it has been, is, and will remain the orthodox position in science: show me your work, beyond that I don’t give a rat’s ass. For now and evermore the majority of scientists, believers or not, would rather collaborate with a productive Miller or Collins than an unproductive PZ Myers.
Let me go on record as saying that I don’t care if people believe in ghosts, either, so long as they don’t try to teach it in science lessons or claim that it’s a scientific belief.
I am worried that if I continue to find so many thing about which I don’t care, I am going to turn into Paul Feyerabend. Without being dead. Hopefully.
False dichotomy, David: Dawkins and Myers can collaborate with productive believer scientists as well. All that ink isn’t being spilled to call for a pogrom, purging believers from the ranks of scientists; it’s being spilled to make the case for atheism to society as a whole, and to fight Creationism in particular. Jerry Falwell is not the only person who argues for the truth of religion, or for making decisions based on Biblical values.
“Materialists can see no further than what is before them. Let them raise their eyes.”
Yeah? To what?
To that holiest of holies for the scientist, the unknown. Scientists are believers too. They believe in a rational, comprehensible universe. The public thinks science is about knowledge. The scientist knows it is about the unknown. The search for truth is a noble quest. The belief one has found it is neither.
Why should we hail Dawkins when all that he has done is pontificate on the consequences of an unprovable worldview? I am not saying that theism, in contradistinction with ‘science,’ is provable, but merely that there is so much ‘certainty’ that science disproves God’s existence when science itself cannot even prove its own ontological presuppositions, but clings to them with as much fervor as any theist.
Being an atheist doesn’t amount to beans, it is simply the dialectical reaction to theism. Gautama the Buddha was such, or at least beyond the god/no-god question, which is basically a mechanized concepts question.
The problem is the fraudulent attempt to foundationalize this with Darwinian junk science, and the successful brainwashing of a whole generation of science students has done immense harm, creating a cadre of stupid technical experts.
To combat religion at least requires studying it. It is an immensely complicated question and deserves something better than the Dawkins/Dennett brand of scientism.
Meanwhile, beyond the Bible Belt, the forces of religion in the world find someone like Dawkins a puzzle. This kind of temper tantrum on God doesn’t really touch the issue of religion, and corrupts science with its stale Darwinian ideology.
Dawkins take here is a groupie phenomenon for students who manage to graduate from college with a narrow specialty and then go onto live in a cocoon of reductionist shibboleths, with no contact with the real world.
The results will backfire in the end.
Meanwhile, it is possible to talk a good game string theory and be a complete idiot. Raise you hand here if you qualify.
Get your Rss feeds going on Darwiniana. You guys need help.
I guess it’s easy for Richard Dawkins to get headlines in the US: who could be more annoying to “da bibleheadz” than an arrogant British atheist? Maybe he is designed to do that. Actually his professorship sounds like a propaganda operation: Charles Simonyi Chair in the “Public Understanding of Science” (hello-o!) at the University of Oxford.
To me the situation looks a lot like “Emperor’s new clothes” as everybody seems to think that Dawkins should be considered as a thought leader but then he has no real substance for it. Atleast I didn’t find any in “The God Delusion”, the book that at its worst decends to the level of juvenile snickering. Dawkins uses arrogance to appeal. He’s a hack.
The philosophical position Dawkins inhabits – materialist reductionism – is old as the sky. The point is that materialist reductionism serves totalitarianism perfectly because it lays the groundwork for a society run by science (which in turn is run by ideology). For example Leon Trotsky digged materialist reductionism.
Religious beliefs can also be used to support totalitarianism.
It’s almost as if we have would-be totalitarians amongst us, looking for an ideological lever.
#107: “Gautama the Buddha was such, or at least beyond the god/no-god question, which is basically a mechanized concepts question.”
This is inaccurate. The Buddha assumes a will to be liberated from ignorance to follow his teachings. I don’t see how this will is a mechanical concept. Another point that gets missed when talking about Buddhism is the influence of other Indian philosophies on the Buddha; he was heavily influenced by the Upanishads. He left Hinduism because of the caste system and unnecessary ritualism- still annoying many to this day 😉 .
The “many” include me, of course.
Chinmaya Sheth,
Don’t forget that we need to specify which school of Buddhist we are talking about: Hinayana, Mahayana, or Vajrayana. But you are right: the Buddhist understanding of ‘causation’ and ‘conditioned genesis’ are not the mechanistic causation of some forms of physics.
The most heavily influenced was the Mahayana.
What a good morning for religion. Today, at Mass, we saw a cute little baptism. What a cute baby! I wish I took pictures. Also, several fully grown, rational, well-read, and educated adults (who are preparing to be fully initiated into the Church) received this type of oil on their foreheads. It was pretty cool.
What a great day it’s been so far.
Peace, everyone.
The Buddha himself was, of course, aware of the issues of I brought up. And I am not trying ot advocate any of these philosophies.
I found myself speed reading through Dawkin’s trite and predictable arguments, which are consistently presented at a about a junior-high level. The writing is rather witless too; Dawkins could probably make even physics seem dull. Nevertheless, I’m glad to see this book which is perfectly attuned to the intellectual level of those who need it most.
Cleis, insulting Dawkins’ communication abilities, his ability to write a book and express arguments, just makes your own judgement look suspect. I don’t think that anyone who approached it with an open mind would deny that he can express sophisticated arguments clearly, nor that he does. He annoys the Hell out of me, but he’s clear as a bell and he’s not peddling juvenalia.
“I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.” (Richard Dawkins).
“This very law which the logicians would impose upon us–if I may give the name of logicians to those who would rule out our willing nature here–is based on nothing but their own natural wish to exclude all elements for which they, in their professional quality of logicians, can find no use.” (William James)
Sorry to interrupt the flow, but in #110 I might be overstating the influence of Upanishads. It was probably more of a stepping stone.
Karmadrive, nice quote from Willam James, but when you put it besides Dawkins, it seems like being an atheist you’ve to deny will, emotions, etc.
Chinmaya, being an atheist and being “dawkinian” are two different things. Dawkins is much more than an atheist — he is a hard core materialist reductionist and that matters more than his theological position. The problem with materialist reductionism is that it takes existence for granted. It is like half-baked scepticism. As William James puts it: “There is but one indefectibly certain truth, and that is the truth that pyrrhonistic scepticism itself leaves standing,–the truth that the present phenomenon of consciousness exists.”
Ok. This is very interesting and timely:
“The global public believes that tensions between Islam and the West arise from conflicts over political power and interests and not from differences of religion and culture, according to a BBC World Service poll across 27 countries.”
Dawkins goes a long way on blaming religions for violence and wars. That was one of the gross simplifications he makes in “The God Delusion”. Basically almost the opposite is true: isn’t it just too easy to use religion as a smoke screen and keep the real business hidden when bombing the s**t out of people somewhere? But the people seem to know better than him: follow the money.
tyler:
I have never understood the position that atheism is a scientific stance. Isn’t claiming to prove a negative the essence of logical fallacy?
Not at all. It’s a common exercise to ask students to prove that there is no rational number that’s a solution to the equation x^2 – 2 = 0.
It seems to me that – in the absence of gnosis – agnosticism is the only scientifically valid position.
Atheism is simply a lack of belief in deities. Agnosticism is a subset of atheism. There’s also a small subset of atheists who claim to be able to disprove deities, which seems to be the group you think makes up the majority. There are other subsets, such as the one that I belong to, which thinks the whole question of the existence of deities is meaningless.
#121: “Chinmaya, being an atheist and being “dawkinian” are two different things.”
Yes, I always thought so. But when you read the two quotes together and Richard Dawkins being a public figure for atheism (I am an atheist myself) I just wanted to make sure that it was clear that not all atheists find “materialist reductionism” satisfying.
In fact, I am not even sure if Dawkins can be classified as a materialist reductionist; I don’t know much about him.