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diggAtheism becomes fashionable
Passionate tracts by the new missionaries of unbelief are selling like hotcakes. But are they rational?
Over the past half century, the dominant view among the chattering classes has been either that there is no God (atheism) or that one should go about one’s life as if the question of God’s existence cannot be answered (agnosticism) and thus is of no concern. Most of those who share the atheistic view also think that its propagation is best achieved by treating it as an accepted and comfortable fact of life, in keeping with Freud’s famous dictum that "the more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief".
However, it seems that this low key approach has turned out to be less convincing for millions of people who just as comfortably accept advances in science and technology alongside a growing interest for religious faith. So a new strategy based on open proselytising in favour of atheism is now gradually taking shape. That at least is the impression given by the publication in recent months of a spate of books by reputed atheists -- among them Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel C. Dennett, The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, God is not Great, by Christopher Hitchens and The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist, by Victor Stenger. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, these authors have collectively sold about one million books over the past 12 months.
The irony of this new desire to further the spread of atheism is that, unlike the cool and laid-back atheists of an earlier age, these new atheists write like true believers... This impatient zeal surely stems from the fact that, for them, history has not unfolded exactly as intended.
The intent of these authors is to accelerate the elimination of all remnants of the Judeo-Christian tradition. As Sam Harris puts it, the name of the game is "to demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity." As for Hitchens, he seeks to show "how religion poisons everything".
The irony of this new desire to further the spread of atheism is that, unlike the cool and laid-back atheists of an earlier age, these new atheists write like true believers. There is, in fact, a missionary and, at times, severe, tone to their writings. Indeed, reading them produces the feeling of being lectured, hectored, and scolded by atheist fundamentalists. This impatient zeal surely stems from the fact that, for them, history has not unfolded exactly as intended.
Accordingly, Sam Harris ends his Letter to a Christian Nation with something that smacks of a personal confession: "This letter is the product of failure – the failure of the many brilliant attacks upon religion that preceded it, the failure of our schools to announce the death of God in a way that each generation can understand, the failure of the media to criticise the abject religious certainties of our public figures – failures great and small that have kept almost every society on this earth muddling over God and despising those who muddle differently".
From people who claim to be driven solely by reason and to have liberated themselves from ignorance and "blind faith", one would normally expect at least some attempt to understand the deeper human reasons for refusing to bury God, as demanded. But such an attempt has yet to be undertaken.
For Christians who take their faith seriously, there is both a downside and an upside to this new wave of atheistic proselytising, with the latter probably outweighing the former. The downside is that it will reinforce already widespread liberal prejudices according to which there is no point in trying to know God. Instead of encouraging people to maintain an open mind about religion (the least to be expected from true liberals), these books will further encourage a closing of the mind to any possibility of the supernatural, which they gratuitously equate with superstition.
The upside is that these books help draw more clearly than ever before the battle lines in the ongoing culture wars. Until recently, most Christians were inclined to assume that modern culture was at least neutral with respect to the basic tenets of Christianity, and that it was possible to adhere to the creed while at the same time accepting the philosophical heritage of the "modern" age. In short, it was more or less taken for granted that one could view oneself as being both a child of God and a child of the Enlightenment.
Thanks in part to these books and others of the same ilk, it is now becoming increasingly clear that Nietzsche was right: the only true alternative to Christianity is nihilism and atheism. Nietzsche inferred from this that morality can only be based on the human will. Anyone familiar with European history of the 20th century will know the disastrous outcome of that alternative. It is in this sense that the new atheists help us to understand why the 150-year old attempt by "progressive" Christians to find some accommodation between the Christian creed and the basic tenets of the Enlightenment have led to a gradual erosion of the faith. This perhaps explains why, at the outset of the 21st century, many Christians are coming to realise that the only meaningful choice is between traditional Christianity and atheism. As the intellectual dust and confusion caused by the collapse of the numerous variations of liberal Protestantism and "progressive" Catholicism settles, we find there is no way around this choice.
All this does not mean, however, that Christians and atheists are soon to find themselves locked into some kind of unrelenting battle. Whether the more zealous atheists who have adopted the missionary posture of these books like it or not, there are other atheists who do not subscribe to their views and who even seek a dialogue with Christianity. Jürgen Habermas, considered by many as a most "methodical atheist" and an icon of postmodernism, wrote in a 2004 essay titled A time of transition that "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilisation. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter." A similar view is held by atheist Marcello Pera, professor of philosophy and President of the Italian Senate in a book published jointly with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) and titled Without Roots.
It is also worth noting that the new atheists, as mentioned, fail to provide any solid argument in support of the non-existence of God. This is not because of some lack of intellectual sophistication on their part, but rather because, as most philosophers will readily admit, non-existence is something that can never be proven. Christopher Hitchens, generally considered the most knowledgeable and entertaining of the five authors mentioned, argues that God does not exist because "all attempts to reconcile faith with science and reason are consigned to failure and ridicule".
In making this claim, Hitchens makes two mistakes. First, he fails to account for the fact that a large proportion of scientists (as many as 50 per cent according to the late Stephen Jay Gould, a leading spokesman for evolutionary theory) do believe in God. Second, and more importantly, he is totally oblivious to the fact that, in the order of natural (ie, non-revealed) knowledge, the idea that God exists can only make sense as a philosophical answer to a metaphysical question. Throughout history, the concept of God has always appeared as one having to do with the why of a certain existence. And the question as to why something exists is not a scientific one because whatever its answer might be, it does not lend itself to empirical verification, ie, it is not falsifiable through experimentation. Anyone wondering whether God exists is well aware that he is not raising a scientific question because all scientific enquiries are geared to what a given thing actually is, rather than to why it exists. In short, religion has nothing to do with what things are – that is the realm of natural science -, but rather with why they happen to be at all.
But there is an even deeper flaw in the thinking of the new atheists. All assume that in the debate on God, the basic distinction is that between believers and unbelievers. Yet, as Blaise Pascal, a 17th Century mathematician, scientist and inventor of the first working computer, notes in his Pensées, the true absolute distinction is between "seeking" and "unseeking" unbelievers, between unhappy atheists who seek and eventually become believers, and happy atheists who simply don’t care. Pascal reminds us that God judges atheists, not by the supernatural standard of faith, but rather by the natural standard of reason.
Anyone reading Pascal’s Pensées cannot help but find them eminently reasonable. What they tell us is that we are hard-wired to seek happiness, perfection and certainty. It is impossible for us not to seek these things. And yet we fail miserably at getting even near them. Each of us is a living self-contradiction. The consequence, Pascal says, is that "one needs no great sublimity of soul to realise that in this life there is no true and solid satisfaction… that our afflictions are infinite, and finally that death… must… infallibly face us with the inescapable and appalling alternative of being annihilated or wretched throughout eternity". This means that we would be foolish not to reflect on whether there is an afterlife. "The immortality of the soul is something of such vital importance to us…that one must have lost all feeling not to care about knowing the facts of the matter". Because it is our "chief interest" to seek the truth on this matter, we must make "an absolute distinction between those who strive with all their might to learn and those who live without troubling themselves or thinking about it".
Here Pascal is still arguing on the basis, not of some revealed truth, but of natural reason. He says that the negligence shown by the happy unseeking atheists about their ultimate destiny "seems quite monstrous to me. I do not say this prompted by the pious zeal of spiritual devotion. I mean on the contrary that we ought to have this feeling from principles of human interest and self-esteem. For that we need only see what the least enlightened see" (n. 427).This means that the choice between belief and unbelief is a matter, not primarily of the head, but of the heart.
If one accepts Pascal’s basic premise –- the absolute certainty that we will die some day – then there is no way we can refute his logic. And that logic dictates that the proselytising of the new happy atheists is not only intellectually flawed, but so downright irrational we may well wonder who, 50 years from now, will enjoy the greatest readership: Pascal or Hitchens? The answer seems obvious.
Richard Bastien is a Canadian freelance writer.
Greetings, David Fairthorne,
As for the reasons Christianity can’t be true, etc. You mentioned The Virgin Birth of Christ, and the Resurrection of Christ and the very idea of God becoming man.
What about birth itself, and a sperm and an egg becoming a screaming kid with an intense personality? What about the very idea of man?
In a crazy tale, rivers run with wine. In our world the rivers run with water.
Read http://www.gutenberg.org/files/130/130.txt
its incredibly entertaining; you’ll have alot of fun.
Because 60 years is way too little time to begin thinking though everything....
Oh, and Christ be with you,
Blessings,
Rivka the daughter of Raibert the son of Ahuva the daughter of John.
Savageduck said:
“I have no problem accepting those who have a strong belief in whatever faith they choose. My hackles rise though, when an aggressive, militant and disrespectful evangelist seeks to impose his beliefs on someone who has moved on from that thinking.”
Then, I guess, you don’t support Hitchens, Dawkins and company who consider all religious people either retarded or insane?
Mariusz W.
I certainly did not present the Menckenisms as arguments, you might have noticed I described them as “observations”.
Regardless, speaking for myself, I have a CofE background, and with my exposure to the logical thinking the sciences demand, over time I have found it more and more difficult to blythly accept the foundations of theism. I first used agnosticism as a temporary alibi and can now describe myself as an atheist, without a belief in the supernatural or creative powers of any god. For me those gods reside in the minds of their faithful.
I have no problem accepting those who have a strong belief in whatever faith they choose. My hackles rise though, when an aggressive, militant and disrespectful evangelist seeks to impose his beliefs on someone who has moved on from that thinking.
One of the good thing about strong atheists is that they feel strongly about God (or his absence). I read recently in the London “Catholic Herald” that Richard Dawkins has recently been seen attending Catholic Mass in Oxford. I was not excessively surprised - prayer is an effective way of getting God to bring his world back to its senses. But we need to keep praying!
Yves Menard said:
“Religions, however, and in this I include those “atheist religions” of the 20th Century, i.e. Communism, Nazism and Fascism, have a horrible track record based on one inescapable fact: you’re either a believer or you’re not!”
This is the favorite sleight-of-hand of the atheists: once an atheistic regime starts killing believers, it turns into a “religion”!
“How can anybody disprove God?
You cannot disprove something that has never been proven.”
Sorry, you’ve lost me there. Can you elaborate, please?
David F.,
Thank you for these facts but I am familiar with them. Perhaps you should try to explain them to Hitchens.
Savageduck,
Bon-mots are not arguments, although they are mistaken for them by shallow people. Besides, for every saying by Mencken there is one equally cute by Chesterton…
H. L. Mencken had several appropriate observations regarding this matter:
“Such a thing as a truly enlightened Christian is hard to imagine. Either he is enlightened or he is Christian, and the louder he protests that he is the former the more apparent it becomes that he is really the latter.”
“The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.”
“The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woes, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.”
“Theology: An effort to explain the unknowable by putting it into terms of the not worth knowing.”
Mariusz, I accept that Hitchens’s book contains errors, and I think it’s good to point them out. Perhaps they can be corrected in future revisions. Hitchens is neither a Biblical scholar nor a philosopher. He is a distinguished journalist and a talented writer, his main theme being the harm done in the name of God.
Tracing the origins of the Gospels and when they were written may reflect on their authenticity. My understanding is that three of the four canonical Gospels (the synoptic Gospels) cover much of the same ground, and are partly attributed to an unknown author called “Q”, whereas St. John’s Gospel contains material from another source.
The Arian heresy was part of a dispute about the unique relationship between God the Father and God the Son. I understand that the Arian view was deemed heretical because it was at odds with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The Council of Nicaea upheld the Trinity, but that didn’t end the dispute, which has been the cause of controversy for a large part of Christian history. It is hardly surprising that such strange relationships are difficult for theologians, or anyone else, to explain! Religious scholar Karen Armstrong, author of “A History of God” explains all this, but I find it quite confusing.
One historical episode that Hitchens could have added to his book is the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) in China. The Taiping Heavenly Army, representing a heretical form of Christianity, rebelled against the Confucian values of the corrupt ruling Qing dynasty. The aim was to establish the “Heavenly Kingdom of Peace” with the visionary leader and absolute ruler Hong Xiuquan (who claimed to be the new Messiah and the younger brother of Jesus Christ). An estimated 20 million people died in this holy war, making it the second deadliest conflict in history.
Mariusz Wesolowski said…
“If this were true, sidewalks in front of the churches, mosques and synagogues would be covered in corpses every single day. It is precisely such hysterics that make atheism look silly (and many other things besides...)”
Obviously (at least I thought so!) the Georges Carlin quote was meant to be taken as a caricature.
Again, obviously, people don’t kill each other in fron of churches, synagogues and what not every day.
Religions, however, and in this I include those “atheist religions” of the 20th Century, i.e. Communism, Nazism and Fascism, have a horrible track record based on one inescapable fact: you’re either a believer or you’re not!
If you’re not, then, by definition you’re a sinner and bound to hell unless you convert.
The fact that religions, save for Islam, are mostly relatively peaceful now and do not torture, maim and slay what each defines as non-believers is more due to the fact that they’ve been for the most part brought under the control of civil society, not to the fact that they’ve become resonable.
Religion, by definition, cannot be reasonable. You’re either in or out.
In fact, listen to the rantings of some born again christians, especially the rapture faction, and you’ll realize that we’re not that far from the rack. Same thing with fundamentalist hinduists in India. And should I go on about muslims? If you’re a suni, better not live in a shiite neighbourhood!
P.S. You also say, in another comment : “In order to disprove God’s existence one must define God first;”
How can anybody disprove God?
You cannot disprove something that has never been proven.
For which, in fact, we have never seen the beginning of a shadow of a sliver of evidence
I was raised a catholic and, by the age of 17, back in 1961, I had already realized that postulating a God to explain the universe led one to infinite regression, and did not make much sense.
I think that the true argument against atheism is, why would people create a belief in deity and lie to themselves than just going on knowing what is real. It wouldn’t be to comfort themselves because how is a manifestation of imagination going to help anyone.
David Fairthorne said:
“In answer to Mariusz Wesolowski, the “Hitchens Hubris” criticism says: “The main arguments that Hitchens offers against Christianity are that evolution explains the origin of life on earth, that portions of the Bible are not literally true, and that the four Gospels are not mathematical reproductions of each other.”
Funnily enough the above sentence itself contains a factual error. Evolution does not explain the origin of life on earth, but only its subsequent evolution.”
David F. chose not to quote any of Hitchens’ boo-boos, in comparison with which Tom Piatak’s inaccurate statement pales into insignificance. Here are some examples (taken from “Hitchens’ Hubris"):
“The Gnostic gospels are not of the “same period and provenance” as the canonical Gospels, but were written several decades later; the “synoptic” Gospels are not synonymous with the “canonical” Gospels; “Q” is an assumed source for the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, but not Mark and John; the process of deciding which books to include in the New Testament was not one in which “many a life was horribly lost;” “the Vulgate” was what the Reformers were trying to get away from, not what they were attempting to translate the Bible into; Luther declared “Here I stand, I can do no other” at Worms, not Wittenberg; John Adams was not a slaveholder, nor was T. S. Eliot a Catholic; the amount of wood from relics of the True Cross would not be sufficient if gathered together to recreate the Cross, much less create a “thousand – foot cross;” Christians have never practiced animal sacrifice, nor did the Arian heresy teach that the Father and the Son were “two incarnations of the same person;”
Thank you for your book recommendation, David, but atheism is not a particularly versatile or rich philosophy and books written by its adherents tend to be awfully repetitive. Of course, all of them contain the same ignorance and closemindedness.
It is true, some religious faith is, or at least seems to be irrational.
But the work of philosophers throughout history, including Thomas Aquinas, and more recently, Peter Kreeft, have shown that faith in God is not unreasonable. It may not be definitively provable, but it is certainly not irrational BY DEFINITION.
Unfortunately the new guard of atheist authors cast ALL who believe in God as subscribing to an irrational behaviour.
On what authority do they make this judgment?
After all, the idea that there is no God is also unprovable. And to many minds, far less probable.
In answer to Sr Joeyanna, regardless of whether or not God or gods really exist, no responsible person should ignore the influence of religion on the way people think and act. This is particularly important in the case of politicians, many of whom pursue a religious agenda.
In the USA, almost all politicians claim to be religious. President Bush, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, proclaimed a “crusade”, and although that may have been a politically incorrect characterization, the “war on terror” is a holy war against Islamic jihadists who follow the dictates of their own religion.
In answer to Mariusz Wesolowski, the “Hitchens Hubris” criticism says: “The main arguments that Hitchens offers against Christianity are that evolution explains the origin of life on earth, that portions of the Bible are not literally true, and that the four Gospels are not mathematical reproductions of each other.”
Funnily enough the above sentence itself contains a factual error. Evolution does not explain the origin of life on earth, but only its subsequent evolution. There is no general agreement among scientists about the actual mechanism by which life on earth originated. This is the problem of “abiogenesis”, the formation of life from non-living matter. According to Wikipedia “The current models of abiogenesis are still being scientifically tested.”
If you would prefer a less empassioned and more philosophical approach the subject, I recommend “Atheism: the case against God” by George H. Smith.
The neo-atheist comedy of errors, particularly in case of Christopher Hitchens, has been neatly summed up by Father Cantalamessa in a recent Zenit newsletter (see
http://www.zenit.org/article-20578?l=english ) Here are some excerpts:
“...Hitchens, in my view, makes a mountain out of every molehill. He claims to follow the Gospel principle of judging the tree by its fruits, but as for the tree of religion, he only considers the rotten fruits, never the good ones…
Using the same principles… one could write a “black book” about any of the great human realities: the family; medicine (just think what it was used for at Auschwitz); politics and science, and about the author’s own profession, journalism...”
“[Hitchens] does not demolish the true faith, but a caricature of it. Reading the book, I was reminded of the sport of clay pigeon shooting: The ready-made targets are hurled into the air, and the marksman, aiming his shots with fine precision, blasts them to bits effortlessly.
“Hitchens shows signs of another kind of fundamentalism too: Although with the opposite intention, he reads Scripture, especially the Old Testament, in exactly the same way as certain biblical fundamentalists of the American evangelical variety—literally, without any effort to contextualize or interpret the text historically. This enables him to speak of “the nightmare of the New Testament.”
But Christopher Hitchens is an intelligent man. He foresees that religion will survive even his attack, just as it has survived countless others before it...” (end of quotes)
Curiously, both Father Cantalamessa and Richard Bastien speak of Hitchens’ erudition while in fact his book is full of embarrassing factual errors - for a partial discussion of these please see http://www.takimag.com/site/article/hitchens_hubris/
David Fairthorne, I didn’t realize Canada provided financial support to Catholic Schools. It may seem like a good idea when you first do it but the problems arise when other groups, who may not respect the values of democracy, want their piece of the pie. I understand that England now has state funded schools who do not teach in the best interests of Western society.
When I lived in England for the first time in the late Sixties
I was struck by their willingness to accept immigrants who were openly unwilling to live by the Laws and Customs of their
adopted country. Multiculturalism is dangerous nonsense. It can only lead to the erosion of individual rights. It reminds me of how the Soviet Union used to talk about the ‘rights of peoples’ but never about peoples rights.
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