(Hat-tip Dale from Faith in Honest Doubt) Although I intensely dislike the rabid intolerant atheism of people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, it’s certainly no worse than the propaganda of some of the more cretinous American God-botherers:
OTO I really love this song about Christmas by Kate Miller-Heidke, although it doesn’t quite capture the Christmas our blended family has in store … (hat-tip Values Australia)
God, don’t those Christians love to stereotype an atheist.
I do wish people would stop lumping Dawkins and Hitchens together.
Ken – can you quote for me some ‘rabid intolerant atheism’ from Dawkins?
False equivalence.
God botherers drive Dawkins mad but Dawkins does nothing to add to their insanity.
In this new found spirit of intolerance I’ve decided to hate (sorry “intensely dislike”) rabid, intolerant Dawkins and Hitchens haters.
Enjoy.
“I do wish people would stop lumping Dawkins and Hitchens together.
Ken – can you quote for me some ‘rabid intolerant atheism’ from Dawkins?”
Apart from this obvious and recent example of extremist stunts in which the antics of Dawkins and Hitchens are indistinguishable, I regard the approach of both in their respective books as in itself similarly rabid and intolerant, although Dawkins typically uses slightly less extreme language; Hitchens’ schtick has always been provocation.
These propositions about the existence or otherwise of a Supreme Being are entirely justified (and even accepted by thoughtful Christians):
(1) The existence of a Supreme Being can neither be proven nor disproven at least in the current state of scientific knowledge i.e. the theism versus atheism debate cannot be definitively resolved, so abusing one’s opponents is basically pointless (this applies as much to the God-bothers as the militant atheists). Agnosticism is thus the most logically defendable position, but agnostics usually don’t become aggressively abusive because we accept that this is a question that we don’t and can’t know the answer to.
(2) Scientific knowledge has reached the point where one can confidently say that there is no need to posit any sort of Supreme Being to explain the development of the universe and everything in it (at least from a moment after the Big Bang anyway).
(3) In that situation, application of Occam’s Razor might well lead many to conclude that the non-existence of a God is the more likely proposition, but that’s as high as one can put it.
Of course, the above propositions aren’t enough to fill a book, so Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett et al are forced to fill up their works with material pointing out the apparent silliness of many theist beliefs/superstitions (of all faiths) and the bizarre, cruel and downright evil acts committed over time in the name of religion. Those arguments are in themselves rabid and intolerant as well as irrelevant to the argument. None of those things actually does anything at all to strengthen the basic atheist position i.e. that God doesn’t exist. The same sorts of bizarre, cruel and downright evil acts previously committed in the name of a God have more recently been committed in the name of communism, Nazism and a variety of other -isms not involving any God at all. They flow from the nature of humanity rather than the nature of religion of whatever type.
Most Christians these days do not demonise those who don’t share their beliefs; the sorts of God-botherers responsible for the movie extracted in this post are much more common in the US than Australia. It is impossible to read Dawkins (I’ve actually read The God Delusion, I wonder whether FDB, Alphonse or Stephen have?) without noting that he returns fire and demonises religion just as the extreme God-botherers do to atheists. To regard this as “false equivalence” is simply to disclose your own prejudice/predisposition about a question that can’t be proven either way.
The thing that annoys me about the Dawkins / Hitchens mindset is not to do with the non existence of God or the winning position of science, or spurious connections that ascribe evil acts to the existence of a belief. Its their complete non recognition that what they themselves subscribe to is a belief. It might be a well founded belief, but it is still the ultimate in foolishness to say “I have the facts, you have a belief”.
None of us could possibly function without a comprehensive belief system that gives us a shorthand answer to how the bits of the world that we don’t really understand, work (like say how plasma TV’s work, or whether gene sequencing turns up valid results, or what politicians should do to stop aboriginal violence). We tend to think, especially with reference to technology that the explanation must be scientific, but that’s an act of faith. Given what I empirically know about the innards of my iPhone, it may as well be a ouija board making the connections. At least Christians have the decency to call what they do a belief or an act of faith.
I was really just commenting that being intolerant of people for being intolerant of other people being intolerant was a bit silly but I’m happy for anyone else to be intolerant of me for saying so.
@Ken – You think saying you want someone arrested for facilitating child abuse is extreme?
I’m not especially familiar with the details of the claim but I understand he was personally responsible for the appalling handling of priests who had committed these acts and preventing them being brought to civil justice.
In what world is saying you’d like to arrest someone for this more extreme than saying he should be immune to prosecution?
@Julia – you honestly can’t see the difference in believing something on the basis of theory and tested hypotheses with evidence evaluated sceptically vs. because it was dictated by an iron age bloke with a migraine/schizophrenia/on a drug high?
What Steven said.
Arresting the Pope seems to make some people freak out – but to an atheist he’s just a man. One who personally protected known child molesters from the consequences of their crimes, and facillitated further crimes.
Ken, Dawkins says that the spur to his radical atheism is the immense harm done by scientifially disproven fetishism of literalists and church bureaucracies. A subsidiary point is that the harm is perpetuated when respect for faith bleeds into respect for said fetishist bureaucracies (not to mention the US fundies you single out to the unwarranted near-exclusion of the wider problem).
Science can’t disprove the supernatural – it is rigorously and modestly only about the natural, as Dawkins points out – but it sure can tell the fetishists where to get off. As it should.
This from an agnostic (ok this ‘teapot agnostic’ – I’m sure you’ll catch the reference) who HAS read The God Delusion and who sings in a church choir. I might add that plenty of my fellow choristers, regular churchgoers, are every bit as caustic about some of their primates as Dawkins is, even if they don’t go to his step 3 – Ockham’s Razor.
Central point – religion gets too much respect. Part of the antidote is disrespect a la Dawkins and Hitchens – even if they do create the odd antibody. They could be more nuanced, but that’s no reason to caricature them, Dawkins especially.
And please explain why you think the reason I gave for perceiving false equivalence is invalid. Because you haven’t yet.
Ken @5, GK Chesterton pointed out that agnosticism comprises two quite separate positions – (1) “I do not know whether god exists; or (2) no one can know whether God exists.
If you combine (2) with your line that “application of Occam’s Razor might well lead many to conclude that the non-existence of a God is the more likely proposition” then your position is in fact indistinguishable from that of the so-called “dogmatic atheist” Dawkins. Because you are actually saying god is an unecessary hypothesis.
One could, for instance, write “application of Occam’s Razor might well lead many to conclude that the non-existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden is the more likely proposition“, because one can always multiply auxiliary hypothese to maintain the possibility of fairies existing in the face of disproving evidence of each individual hypothesis (eg “fairies are capable of warping perceptions so that only believers can see them” – comparable to the common position of believers in ESP that ESP “signals” are interfered with presence of negative sceptical energy). But those of use who don’t believe in such fairies do not consider ourselves agnostic about them – we consider ourselves non-believers.
Rabid intolerance done proper.
FDB and Stephen, the lies presented against Pope Benedict have been clearly exposed. You might need to broaden your pool of media sources.