Atheist rejects neo-atheism

P.Z. Myers and his sort have managed to convert Freddie the Atheist into an anti-atheist. Oh, Freddie's not suddenly a theist. Here's what he means:

If someone was a political commentator, and operated the way Meyers, Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens did, would anyone listen to them? No. As much as the success of the Ann Coulters of the world suggests otherwise, we largely understand that a basic level of decorum, mutual respect, and the assumption of good faith should under gird our national dialogue. Indeed, without these assumptions, the dialogue is not worth having.

But then there is atheism, where it is apparently the case that you can always come closer to righteousness by expressing still-greater contempt for those with which you don't agree. Now, this is all very strange; though growing, the atheist minority is stilled dwarfed in this country and in this world by the religious. And how can you possibly change people's minds if you're constantly ridiculing them? Doesn't make much sense.

But I suspect that it makes perfect sense. It makes sense because the goal of the new atheism has never been to convert. It has never been to include. It has never been to change minds. The ridicule is the goal; the contempt is the end; the sheer fun of sanctimony, self-righteousness and loathing are the purpose.

Read the whole thing. Freddie says he happily doesn't believe in God, but if having to be a horse's ass (and to harbor "contempt, loathing and fear" of religious people) is the requirement for being an atheist these days, he wants no part of it.

Oh, and you won't want to miss Spengler's extraordinary take on spirituality, atheism and the human mind. Excerpt:

This brings us to the aspect of human consciousness that the kindergartners never will explain, namely its penchant for self-destruction when its life loses hope of continuity. At least half of extant cultures (defined by languages) will cease to exist during the next century, and perhaps nine-tenths of all spoken languages will become extinct a century later. Thousands of years of human consciousness simply will expire for lack of desire to continue. No barbarian invasion, no drought or famine or pestilence has brought about the Great Extinction of the Peoples, but rather a desire to perish.

How many thousands of cases of cultural extinction are required to impress the self-styled empiricists of human consciousness is a question to which I expect no answer. Nonetheless it does prove something important, namely the existence of Free Will. At very least human communities can choose to will themselves out of existence. One can explain behaviors based economics, geography, genetics or some other material circumstance with a degree of plausibility - American Jared Diamond attempts to do so in Guns, Germs and Steel - but the singular and unrepeatable act of cultural suicide can find no material explanation whatever.

It goes without saying that the self-annihilation of nations also makes short work of what passed for "natural theology" during the Enlightenment, for it shatters the premise that humankind has an animal instinct of self-preservation. Saint Augustine's anthropology - that the heart is restless until if finds God - also can imagine a heart that sickens unto death in the absence of God.

That is one thing you have to hand the Africans. They may not be producing a Richard Dawkins. But England is not producing a Peter Akinola. In the long run, I'd bet on the culture that produces an Akinola, not a Dawkins.

UPDATE: Here's a fascinating recent dialogue between Tom Wolfe and Michael Gazzaniga about neuroscience, free will and the human soul.