I've bashed Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion repeatedly on this blog. I'll probably do it again. And I dissed another crappy blog at ScienceBlogs because it consists of far more "atheist chest-beating" than science or scientific commentary.
All this might give the impression that I don't like atheists, or that I object when they get loud and feisty, or that a prominent aim of this blog is the debunking of atheist claims or the engagement of atheist polemics. Let me be clear: none of the above is true.
My primary audience — the group of people for whom I intend to write — is Christian, and especially evangelical. This doesn't mean that I assume that only Christians will read or appreciate the blog, but it does mean that I nearly always write with thinking Christians in mind. I am working to discredit the anti-evolution folk science of Reasons To Believe because I want evangelicals to abandon apologetics that damage the reputation of Christ and the church, and so I'm writing about their elementary errors for the sake of Christian integrity. Debunking nonsense and disarming attacks of various kinds are major goals of mine, but the targets aren't atheists — they're Christians.
But still, you might wonder what I think of the New Atheists. In short: I think they're a welcome addition to the public square. Here are a few of my reasons.
1. Christianity (perhaps I should say Christendom) needs opposition.
For one thing, such opposition is a bit like peer review. The New Atheists aren't merely announcing their unbelief. They're saying, "we think your belief is idiotic." And they're saying, "we think your belief is harmful." I say we think of those challenges as negative comments from a manuscript reviewer. In science, when you get a nasty review of a manuscript, you either revise the manuscript or you explain to the editor why the reviewer is mistaken. (Or both. Usually both.) Even if the reviewer is a butthead, her/his critique must be effectively dealt with if the editor is to be convinced that the paper is worthy of publication. As I've mentioned before, peer review often makes the original article much better.
Moreover, active opposition can expose weaknesses that the church is otherwise unable to see or unwilling to acknowledge. These flaws might be noted by the critics, or they might be revealed in the ways Christians respond to the attack.
2. Unbelievers should be represented in the public square, in the same way that various faiths are (or ought to be).
The Christian Right has its culture warriors, other faiths have their well-known organizations and representatives. Right-wing Christians can applaud James Dobson, and thereby contribute to the cultural conversation; others of us can oppose him, and similarly stake a claim. How can it be unhealthy or inappropriate for atheist voices to speak similarly on behalf of like-minded persons?
3. The New Atheists are providing atheists an opportunity to clarify their various cultural positions, individually and collectively.
I suspect that many atheists don't care to be identified with an "atheist community" at all, but to whatever extent they do, they can use the New Atheists as a starting point for identifying areas of specific interest in public discourse. The New Atheists are speaking loudly in the public square, and some of them have staked out positions that may not represent anything remotely resembling a generalized "atheist" position.
I am eager to know, for example, whether most atheists would find Francis Collins' description of his conversion to represent a religious attack on science. Sam Harris apparently does. Is this a typical position for an atheist? For an atheist scientist? I would prefer to work with unbelievers who reject such warmongering, just as I would prefer to work with Christians who denounce and disavow just about everything Pat Robertson has ever said. The New Atheists, if nothing else, have created new topics for discussion, and given everyone new opportunities to weigh in on those questions.
4. The attack of the New Atheists has encouraged me as a Christian.
Wait...huh? I'm dead serious. I've read most of Dennett's Breaking the Spell, as well as his Darwin's Dangerous Idea and much of Consciousness Explained. (I really enjoy his writing and his arguments.) I haven't read any of Sam Harris other than that sickening letter to Nature, nor have I read Hitchens (outside my ravenous consumption of everything he writes in the Atlantic Monthly). But I've read almost everything Dawkins has ever written, including The God Delusion, and I've seen the hilariously sycophantic pleading on his behalf by Dennett and Michael Shermer. And this is my response:
That's it?! That's all you got?!Now don't get me wrong. I don't think the New Atheists are stupid for doubting, or even for considering Christianity to be rubbish. I just don't find anything in their writing that is a threat to my belief.
So...here's to the New Atheists. May God richly bless them.
9 comments:
To that I would add, for my own part and one that I occasionally mention on my blog, is that Dawkins and the others have done a service by highlighting what I consider to be the worrisome complacency (when it isn't fear) that too many American Christians seem to have about science.
BTW, I hear you when it comes to some of the other Sb blogs. Comments are often wasted there. I once made the mistake of posting a quip at PZ's blog one Friday evening after a cocktail.
(was that ever a major mistake)
:)
Merry Christmas, Steve to you and your family--and here's to a 2008 of more interesting posts at QD!
I agree that our public discourse is much healthier when everyone has a voice even if you don't agree with it.
I do wonder though if these new atheists are merely helping you to apophatically mutate your theistic meme into complete and utter unfalsifiability. Is it really a badge of honor if their writings could never even in theory touch the subject? I'm just guessing obviously. Perhaps you could send them a letter detailing your specific claims of faith and see if they can manage to level a direct criticism. ;)
ARU
First off, well said. I disagree with some of what you say, but I think your thrust is correct.
The "New Atheists" are a welcome addition to the marketplace of ideas, and any "faith" that can't stand up to them doesn't deserve to continue. However, I have one major beef with them.
"We think your belief is idiotic" is cool. "We think your belief is dangerous" is a claim that can be studied. (I particularly like Dawkins' claim that "decent, understated religion" is "numerically negligible", stated without providing any numbers.)
However, the claim that I hear a lot of is that religion is particularly dangerous, or the biggest danger. I know that Dawkins didn't approve of the title "The Root of All Evil?", but I think it's telling: That's what people think he's saying.
I'm reminded of the poem by Les Murray:
Brutal policy,
like inferior art, knows
whose fault it all is.
I'm deeply suspicious of anyone who thinks they know "whose fault it all is". It's often a sign of crankery.
It would be nice to have some stats on just what the religious situation is like. In their recent video, I wasn't very impressed by their appraisal of the moderate situation. But how do you even ask a question like that in a poll? "Are you a Jesusbot or do you have a decent measure of sophistication going on as well?" Naturally you'd have to design a fairly long series of questions that were carefully crafted to avoid bumping into the person's ego and aimed at gauging their actual status with some objective-esque rubric. While I wasn’t entirely impressed with Hitchens interest in “the sport of it” as though he were a hunter interested in preserving the game, it seemed he did have a point that there’s no telling what adherence to some set of otherworldly claims can do in this world and that it should pretty much always be a staple of society I would imagine to “preach” against it to some degree. What kind of culture are we breeding if fact checking gets the boot? Some of our biggest problems do have a bit of a religious shine, to them, though. Perhaps here though we could note the “irreducible complexity” and that plausibly you could pull something other than the religious component out of our problem with terrorism, and at least temporarily alleviate the situation. I don’t know. Religion is more and more going to be granted less margins for error given that it pretty much needs to always resemble an all win situation to make up for its at least apparent lack of basis in reality. Wagering your own life on the improbable is fine…but not everyone else’s, thanks.
>I am eager to know, for example, whether most atheists would find Francis Collins' description of his conversion to represent a religious attack on science. Sam Harris apparently does. Is this a typical position for an atheist? For an atheist scientist?
Speaking as the latter, no, I don't. But I don't think Harris suggested it was. He cited it to illustrate that Collins's religious beliefs are not consistent with a scientific mode of thought. (And, based on various excerpts I've seen from Collins's book, I tend to agree.)
Of course, it's true that Harris consideres religion to be a threat to science. He explains the threat (as he sees it) quite clearly in the penultimate paragraph of his letter.
To qetzal:
Like I said, I haven't read much of Harris (although it seems that about 15% of the pathetic God Delusion is quoted from Harris) and after reading that letter in Nature I wouldn't consider reading him on any subject other than fMRI. So I don't know whether his writing and thought is typical of that letter. If it is, then he's a warmongering thug, and his ideas are a sickness. Here is what I saw in that letter, with the understanding that your mileage may differ.
First, Harris' reference to "mode of thinking" is a grotesque distortion of what Nature was actually saying about Collins' book, and you can see that clearly right in Harris' letter. Look again.
If Harris thinks that he's onto something when he contrasts a conversion experience with a scientific "mode of thinking," then his books should be moved to the "Young Readers" section. My (cynical) view is that Harris just wanted to quote that passage so he could get the attention of like-minded readers of Nature, meaning those who think that belief and science can't coexist. Funny thing, that's exactly what Nature was celebrating in Collins' book in the first place.
But most importantly, I think your focus on the penultimate paragraph in the letter misses the point that Harris surely meant you to get, which is that Collins' faith is at war with science. Nature, quoted by Harris, commends Collins for "building bridges." Harris' parting shot is this: "There are bridges and there are gangplanks, and it is the business of journals such as Nature to know the difference."
That's a disturbing bit of warmongering. I'm not sure Harris deserves the respect I would show him if I urged him to reconsider his words. But I'll do you that courtesy. If you think Collins is wrong or even way off base, you'll find me quite open to your criticisms. But if you think that the suggestion that Christian faith and science can coexist is a "gangplank," then you're either not a scientist at all, or you're on a ship of fools, with Harris as a trigger-happy and dangerously irrational captain. Before he hoists the colors, have another look at his flag -- and at his map.
sfmatheson,
The original post said Harris finds Collins' description of his conversion to represent a religious attack on science. In fact, Harris did not say or imply that in the NEJM letter. He did say that Collin's description represents a 'mode of thought' that is foreign to science.
I think that's absolutely true. Accepting Jesus as one's savior based on one's emotional reaction to a waterfall has nothing in common with the scientific mode of thought. Note that I'm not saying that automatically makes it wrong or bad, or that Harris being correct here supports his larger point.
Harris may well have grotesquely distorted what Nature was actually saying. I don't see how anyone can clearly see that in Harris's letter though, given that he only quotes part of one sentence. I can certainly see that Harris may be quoting out of context, but the letter itself isn't enough to know.
In any case, if it's unfair for Harris to distort Nature's meaning, isn't it equally unfair for the original post to distort Harris's meaning?
My own opinions on the general matter are essentially as follows. Religion per se is not a direct threat to science, or need not be. However, certain religions and/or certain religious people can be (and in some cases, clearly are).
I think much of what Collins has apparently said regarding religion is clearly unscientific, and scientifically unsupportable. (I say 'apparently' to acknowledge, again, that I haven't read Collins's book. I'm basing my current opinion on various quotes and excerpts. If those aren't accurate, my opinion could change.)
I don't think the Christian faith in every form is necessarily incompatible with and/or at "war" with science. (In general, I find the whole "at war with X" rhetoric highly annoying.)
I do think there are versions of the Christian faith that are inherently at odds with science. The is true for any version that says "the" Bible is the inerrant word of God, that any scientific finding that conflicts with "the" Bible must be rejected and suppressed, that the Earth is <= 10,000 years old, that a global flood created the Grand Canyon and all fossils, etc.
qetzal--
It seems to me that we find ourselves in substantial agreement about the issues that matter here. I will make another attempt to explain why I interpret Harris differently than you do, then I'll let you have the last word if you wish. As I've said a few times, I'm mostly interested in discussing science and not religion, especially not atheism, and most especially not the vacuous anti-religiosity of the New Atheists.
I think you are objecting to my claim that Harris means to characterize Collins' description of his conversion as an attack on science per se. It strikes me as a largely semantic point, but you're right: Harris did not actually say that. What he did is, in my view, more pernicious and disgusting. He embedded the conversion story in a letter that castigated Nature for failing to distinguish bridges from gangplanks. You acknowledge that Harris' "being correct here" doesn't mean his "larger point" is right; but why the hell was it included? I have my theory, which I mentioned in my previous comment.
The point I'd like to leave you with is this: my third reason for appreciating the New Atheists was written with thuggery like Harris' in mind. The evangelistic screeds of the Dawkins et al. frequently indulge in precisely the abuses that are regularly practiced by unscrupulous Christian apologists. From the despicable rhetoric of Pat Robertson to the duplicity of RTB and Lee Strobel, I have a lot to answer for when I self-identify as an evangelical. It's simple enough to disclaim this crap, but I think it's important: given that so many of my fellow evangelicals eat it all up, a non-Christian colleague or friend or reader of my blog might reasonably worry about my loyalties. After all, I certainly don't deny that lots of religious folks are busy building gangplanks.
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