No More Mr. Nice Guy!

Atheists and doubters

I find it a little ironic that Maha uses the headline "The Wisdom of Doubt" to attack atheists, specifically Christopher Hitchens who is the latest "fundamentalist atheist" to be piled on by the religious left. I've previously blogged about the disproportionate backlash by the religious left (to say nothing of the right) against those uppity atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris etc. who have the temerity to criticize religion and stand up for the validity of atheism, after decades of being shut out of the debate.

First of all, a little context. I've known people in various parts of the US (not just the Deep South) who've had one or more of the following happen to them: cars keyed; pets tortured and/or killed; house windows broken; fired from their jobs; hate mail; death threats; beatings - just because they happen to be atheists. They weren't trying to convert anyone, just trying to mind their own business and get on with their lives, but apparently their mere existence is enough to provoke fear, hatred, loathing and threatened or actual violence by believers. Then of course there's the discriminatory laws, the forcible conversions, the car bombings, suicide bombings, mosque bombings, health clinic bombings and similar atrocities in every day's headlines. It's pretty clear to me which side the fundamentalism is on.

Are there atheists who are a little too certain that the supernatural doesn't exist, and/or are personally obnoxious? Certainly. That doesn't invalidate atheism as a philosophical position. Likewise, the horrific acts of believers doesn't invalidate religious belief - except, and to the extent that, religion directly commands those horrific acts.

Here we get to the heart of the difference between religion and atheism. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in the supernatural. It doesn't tell you what you should believe, or how you should act. It certainly doesn't tell you to kill believers. (Please don't bother bringing up the old canard about Hitler and Stalin killing millions in the name of atheism. Hitler was a devout Christian, and embraced as such by the Catholic church, until the end of his days. Stalin was a paranoid megalomaniac who killed anyone he felt threatened his power, and he benefited from a long Russian tradition of autocratic and theocratic emperors who were the head of both church and state.)

Religion, by contrast, frequently does advocate violence and killing - depending on whose interpretation you believe. Taking Islam for example, for every quote supporting the proposition that it is a religion of peace, you can find another one explicitly commanding death to infidels. Likewise, Jesus preaches peace and love, but also says: "I came not to send peace, but a sword." Which interpretation are you to believe? There is no rational basis for choosing between them - it's a matter of faith, i.e. an arbitrary choice. Which is precisely why religious wars are always the bloodiest, because there is no objective way of settling the differences that inspire them.

People often say that atheism is "just another religion" whose practitioners have faith in reason and science. Yeah, and health is just another disease. Speaking for myself, I don't have faith in reason or science; I have confidence in them, based on their track record. Let's put it this way. I don't have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow, I have confidence that it will, because it always has in the past. Besides, I can't think of a physical process that would reduce the earth's angular momentum to zero overnight without sending everyone flying into space and probably splitting the planet apart. Okay, so I'm way over-analyzing the analogy, but I hope you see my point.

Similarly, I have confidence in reason and science because of what they have accomplished so far, as opposed to blind "faith" in the absence of evidence or in the face of evidence against one's position. When you get right down to it, reason and science are all we have. Without them, we would still be living in caves and worshiping tree spirits, rain spirits and what have you. Reason and science allow us to reach consensus, with disputes being settled peacefully because one side eventually admits that the evidence is against them, and adopts the other position. Reason and science thrive on doubt and skepticism, with assumptions being examined, evidence being weighed, and the strongest theory prevailing.

Reason and science allow us to accumulate knowledge and build on our progress with more progress. Religion allows no such progress, no such peaceful resolution of disputes, because as I mentioned above, there is simply no objective basis for choosing one sacred scroll over another.

Religion has to be about faith rather than confidence, because there is no evidence - just assertions and arguments from authority - and no track record of increasing our knowledge and improving our technology. In fact, religion makes a virtue of faith in the absence of evidence - believing the unbelievable makes you a virtuous person. In any other sphere of human activity, we call this gullibility.

Part of Maha's argument is that it is counterproductive for atheists to criticize religion, and she gets quite defensive, snippy and condescending with her commenters when they venture down this path. My feeling is that religion is a human construct, and it is fair game for scrutiny, criticism, and even ridicule if warranted, just like any other human construct. The polite and cautious convention that we should never criticize someone else's religious beliefs, however bizarre and deluded they may be, only allows ignorance and fanaticism to fester.

Every parent knows that if you reward a child's tantrums, you'll get more tantrums. The predictable convulsions of outrage and violence which wrack religious communities worldwide, whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian, at some real or perceived slight to their beliefs, are nothing but large-scale tantrums. So what if someone draws a cartoon of Mohammed or sculpts a chocolate Jesus? As Thomas Jefferson would say, it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket. People choose to take offense at some act that has absolutely no effect on them, and if we had to censor ourselves every time we were about to speak, write, or act, lest we hurt someone's delicate religious sensibilities, we might as well lie down and die. We would have a far healthier society, in my view, if religionists simply grew up and learned to shrug off the opinions of those who believe differently. (And if you want to criticize my atheism, knock yourself out - I'll be impressed if you can come up with anything I haven't seen and refuted a hundred times before.)

Religion deserves, in fact needs, to be criticized because it dissuades believers from thinking for themselves and encourages them to blindly swallow some package deal of beliefs and knee-jerk prejudices. As Voltaire wrote, he who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. Let religion's assumptions be exposed to the light of day, let them be critically examined - if a religion is worth its salt, it has nothing to fear from such a process. And with the world getting smaller and more interconnected by the day, we cannot afford dogmatic and intolerant religions that preach or encourage violence in any way - not that we ever could.

So at heart I agree with Maha - doubt is a good thing, absolute certainty in your position is undesirable and often dangerous. One should always question one's assumptions and revise them in the light of new facts. That's what scientists do every day. Yes, Christopher Hitchens may be arrogant and closed-minded in some areas, but balance him in the scales against centuries of religious certitude and the bloodshed and suffering it has led to - it's no contest. True, he seems to be emotionally invested in attacking religion, just as Maha seems emotionally invested in defending it. I don't necessarily consider him the best spokesman for atheism.

But the "new atheists" (a rather condescending title, in my opinion, since atheists have been around for centuries - it's only in the last few years that they've started to get a word in edgeways) are simply saying, if I read them correctly (and to borrow Lucy's admirably succinct summary): "Let's try to look at this thing objectively, as we would at science, without all this reverence that's expected." This is NOT necessarily the same as hostility to religion. Do they want to abolish religion from the world, or think it's even possible? That's not what I take from their writings. They're just saying there are legitimate grounds for criticizing religion. It's up to religionists how they choose to respond. If they react defensively and shoot the messenger, then their religion hardens and fossilizes. If they can take deserved criticism on board, then their religion can become more humane and more relevant to the changing society they live in. This is merely the continuation of a process that has been going on for centuries. As someone once said, religion doesn't make people better so much as people make religion better.

I'd better call a halt or I will go on writing all night. If there are any religionists who have made it this far, here's a word of advice: it's not the end of the world if someone criticizes your beliefs. The criticism may or may not be valid - don't automatically assume that it isn't. And don't kill the messenger - that's not the best way of answering criticism that your religion is intolerant. Just sayin'.