Why are the New Atheists so preachy?

I don't agree with Dawkins, Hitchens, et al, but how is this placard campaign any different from the pro-life billboards one sees, declaring "Life Begins At Conception!"? They're just as fanatical in their atheism as Pat Robertson is with his Christianity.

I hear they're doing this because they oppose all "mass" transit. Too Catholic!

Gina-- Bingo! The New Atheists are actually anti-Theists.

"Life Begins At Conception" is different because it's true.

And don't you think that the atheists putting up the "There's probably no God" billboards also believe that statement to be true? Just because you might disagree doesn't make them insincere.

I've seen plenty of billboards by the side of the road proclaiming that Jesus is the only way to God. Billions of people in the word do not share in that belief. Why is it that the atheist ad branded is as "fanatical" and generates world-wide commentary, but the Christian ad that directly contradicts the beliefs of all the Jews, Hindus, and atheists who see it every day doesn't get that same publicity and criticism?

Larry seems to think that secularism is waning and religious belief ascendant. You need to get out more my superstitious friend. Secularists have one trump card...the truth. Only time will tell whether or not the human propensity toward belief in the supernatural is so strong that some sort of religious belief will persist despite the increasingly fluid nature of reliable data and access to education. Supernatural belief must wane. Much history is yet to be written.

The campaign is interesting in that it illustrates the immense gap in worldview between the backers of the campaign and religious believers who are presumably the target of the campaign. I can vaguely imagine that someone raised in an environment where they wouldn't have been exposed to any kind of challenge to the religious dogma they had been taught -- e.g., old Puritan Boston, although I'm not even sure that would have qualified -- might really be shocked by the bus placards and might start to question their religious views. (After they got over the novelty of seeing a bus, that is.) I cannot imagine religious believers in the modern USA and Europe having a similar reaction. My moments of doubt don't look anything like those bus placards, and they are wasted on me.

A couple of observations:

1) The arguments of the so-called "New Atheists" for atheism and against religion aren't especially new or original. Indeed, they are basically the same as late nineteenth century Positivists. They don't , however, seem aware that many critics of Positivism in recent times have pointed out that it is a self-defeating epistemology i.e. there is no way to prove scientifically that the only knowledge that really counts is scientific knowledge.

2) What is new about the "New Atheists" is their shrill, preachy tone and their penchant for moralizing and labeling religion as "evil." On the one hand, it is a bit strange that they are so aggressive. The elites in the Western world are pretty secular, and Europe isn’t exactly a very religious place. On the other hand, while few go to church in Europe, few are dogmatic atheists in the vein of Dawkins or Hitchens. Most people in Europe simply don’t bother with religious questions in general. Instead, they subscribe to some vague therapeutic Deism or New Age type spirituality and primarily seek to enjoy the fruits of consumerism. At the same time, European birth rates are below replacement levels, Islam is on the rise in Europe, and religion is booming in the rest of the world. So perhaps the “New Atheists” are so shrill because they do fear that their view of dogmatic, Positivistic atheism is indeed becoming increasingly irrelevant.

3) The “New Atheists” seem either unaware or overly dismissive of the “evil” done in the twentieth century in the name of atheistic regimes and science (ex: eugenics). The twentieth century was the bloodiest century in human history. Yet the vast majority of the century’s wars and atrocities had nothing to do with religion. Instead, they were directly tied to secular and even officially atheistic (Communist) regimes and ideologies. And while twentieth century science made some remarkable discoveries, it also helped make the centuries wars and atrocities so awful and most famously came up with the atomic bomb, which has made it possible for mankind to destroy the world.
For people who claim to be educated and open minded, the “New Atheists” are remarkably ignorant and uncritically about modernity and twentieth century history.

4) As with atheism in general, the “New Atheists” fail to give any logical reason as to why morality matters in a world without God. Dawkins writes in his “The God Delusion” that people who wouldn’t believe in ethics in a world without God already show themselves to be immoral. Of course, that is sheer nonsense as it doesn’t even address the question of why “good” and “evil” really exist if there is no God. As with the American Humanist Association (AHA) ad slogan ‘Why believe in god? Just be good for goodness’ sake’ Dawkins’ argument boils down to “just be good.” But beyond sentimentalism, this isn’t much of a reason at all. So not only do the “New Atheists” base their ideas on a self-refuting epistemology, but they attack religion as “evil” without any justifications for the existence of “good” and “evil” in the first place.

rr

Therese Z January 7, 2009 9:58 AM "Life Begins At Conception" is different because it's true. The individual is as much an individual and contains every ability to develop into an individual human male or female baby at the moment of conception. Just because they're small and don't look like people at that moment, doesn't make them not people.

But of course! Per the eminent theologian Theodore Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss: "A person's a person, no matter how small." ;^)

The secularization theory, someone had to bust that out, thank you warrenwormhole. As Larry notes, the secularization theory has never held as much weight as people have tried to throw on it, and the idea that the rise in "reliable data and access to education" inevitably spells the demise of religion has nowhere played out neatly.

Coincidentally, this very topic is discussed today at First Things' "on the square"...

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1272

Daniel pretty much nailed it - when atheists were quiet & composed, the loud, charismatic preachers just drown them out with their nonsense. I don't really agree with the agressive tactics of the "new atheists," but they certainly are getting results.

"Don't be silly, secularists have no basis for forming any kind of truth claims, absent the supernatural and revelation all you have is opinion."

That's just absurd. The "baselss" truth claims of secular knowledge are what rule nations, keep economies running & drive all technological innovations. In what way are supernatural events or revelations supposed to be better than scientific discoveries & logic? At least we can verify that the things we learn through science and reason aren't just the ramblings of a madman. Revelations are worthless if they can't be confirmed in some empirical fashion, so I would say they rank dead last as useful information goes.

Seculariasm may not offer absolutes, but theism can only offer alleged absolutes (how are we supposed to know an absolute when we see one without absolute knowledge, after all?) that have no real basis themselves (God's absolute morality, for instance, is hopelessly crippled by the Euthyphro dilemma). I'll take verifiable relativism over unsubstantiated absolutism any day.

quote: "The "baselss" truth claims of secular knowledge are what rule nations, keep economies running & drive all technological innovations. In what way are supernatural events or revelations supposed to be better than scientific discoveries & logic? At least we can verify that the things we learn through science and reason aren't just the ramblings of a madman. Revelations are worthless if they can't be confirmed in some empirical fashion, so I would say they rank dead last as useful information goes."

First, science and logic are not inherently good. They are tools. The same secular knowledge that keeps economies going and drives technological innovations can also be used to create the weaponry that makes modern wars so bloody, not to mention WMDs.

More importantly, science is completely incapable of answering the most important questions that confront humanity, namely the meaning of life, love, ethics, art, and so forth. These things simply aren't in the competency of scientific inquiry. Asking a scientist about deep philosophical issues is akin to asking ones accountant how to do open heart surgery. Whether it is correct or not, religion DOES offer answers to these kinds of questions. That in part accounts for why religion endures to this day and why secularist attempts to apply "science" to issues where it doesn't apply, especially religion, is misplaced and often based on the faulty, self-refuting epistemology of Positivism.

rr

That's just absurd. The "baselss" truth claims of secular knowledge are what rule nations, keep economies running

This puts secularism at the same level as Roman emperor worship and the system of pater familias, along with every other mythology that people have used to oppress one another. This hardly provides a warrant for believing that is "true" in any but a utilitarian sense.

drive all technological innovations

Right, there was no innovation before secularists came along. Right.

Revelations are worthless if they can't be confirmed in some empirical fashion, so I would say they rank dead last as useful information goes.

Perhaps you would like to try to empirically confirm the validity of the scientific method? Good luck with that.

You also seem to misunderstand the importance I place on revelation. Any purely human system is going to be self-contained, self-referential, and self-validating. Hopelessly circular. Our only hope is for something from outside to reveal "himself" to us. Of course this isn't without problems, as well, validating that the revelation is really from outside, interpreting it using our own limited symbols (is it even possible to interpret revelation without hopelessly contaminating it?) and so on. But revelation is still our only hope of sure knowledge.

"Right, there was no innovation before secularists came along. Right."

Actually, what I meant was that secular truths (chemistry, physics, etc) are what drive technoligcal advances. How many breaktroughs have we had thanks to "revealed" knowledge?

"But revelation is still our only hope of sure knowledge."

Really...and how do you know that? If something is revealed but cannot be confirmed by the methods you disregard so easily, how do you know you haven't been fed a lie? Unconfirmed revelations are the exact opposite of knowledge. Reason, science, logic, etc. may not be able to provide us with absolute knowledge, but they offer us the closest thing to it we can hope for.

quote: "I'm actually a little surprised that you would so readily admit that it doesn't matter if religion is right or wrong as long as it throws some sort of answer out there."

You misunderstood me. I said religion CAN provide answers to these kinds of questions while science CANNOT. I don't think all religious answers to these questions are correct (I believe only the Christian ones are), nor do I believe that it doesn't matter if religion is right or wrong as long as it gives some sort of answer.

quote: "I could give you an answer for any question under the sun, but I assume most people would want those answers to be correct. If what I said couldn't be verified in some way, you would have no way of knowing if I was telling the truth or just making stuff up, and that's what separates science from religion, knowledge from faith."

Well, the central claim of Christianity, the resurrection of Christ, is based on the accounts of numerous eyewitnesses, many of whom were willing to suffer all kinds of hardships and even death for their beliefs. And it doesn't make sense that people would die for something they knew was false or made up, especially since they had nothing to gain from it such as money, power, or sex. At any rate, the idea that Christianity can in no way be verified simply isn't true.

I grant that Christianity requires faith. But it doesn't require blind faith. I also grant that Christianity can't be proven "scientifically." But so what? Many things in life that are important can't be proven "scientifically" and require some level of faith. I can't prove that my mother loves me "scientifically." That doesn't mean it isn't true.

rr

rr

rr, I don't think you're quite seeing what I'm driving at. Our knowledge of the material world is the only thing we can even come close to being certain about. The meaning of life, the nature of love, beauty, etc., don't have certain answers because the truth of any answer given can't be confirmed. I just want to draw a distinction between what we can have knowledge about and what we must accept on faith. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with faith, but it's important that we recognize the difference.

Incidently, science can provide answers to life's big questions, but since those answers are also unverifiable, people are free to reject them. For instance, a scientific explanation of what love is would be to say that it is the response our brains have to certain hormone combinations. Not a very romantic answer, but it is no more or less "true" than the explanation that love is what we feel when we draw closer to God.

"Why are the New Atheists so preachy?"

Why not? Is proclaiming ones beliefs loudly only allowed if they confirm the existance of a God?. The Atheist Bus Campaign as an exmaple was a response to some chrstian preaching in the form of London bus adverts linking to this website (and warning). It just makes a change to see adverts opposing the religious stuff.

TRF

Why are atheists so preachy? Simple, I guess - we learnt it from the Christians.
Seriously - do you have atheists coming to your door? Are you expected to go to atheist conventions and listen to, ahem, sermons about atheism? Are shops shut on certain days because of atheism? Do atheists, with a straight face and conviction in their voices, tell you atheism is the true way and all other ways are false? That morality is from atheism. That we should do things becuase it says that in our book (pick one - I can't think of an equivalent to the Bible/Koran/Etc).
Atheists can only be preachy because that's how our religious "masters" have taught us :-)
It's all your fault!

Quote: “Actually an agnostic non-theist does an excellent job, read Michael Shermers, "The Science of Good and Evil".”

I’ve not read this book, but the title is as asinine as the bus slogan “just be good for goodness sake.” Science can’t even begin to tell you what good and evil are in the first place, much less measure them in any meaningful way. Evolution, for example, is amoral and deals with survival, not objective notions of right and wrong. One might as well write a book called “The accounting of open heart surgery.”

Quote: “As far as ignorance of history goes, tying up all secular values as just class warfare is a logical fallacy. This would be like not making a distinction between Trinitarian Christianity, Arianism, and Gnostic Christianity. As Hitchens has asked many a time, name one commi regime that based their society on the values of Lucretius, Democritus, Spinoza, Paine, Einstein, etc., and not on taking up the ol' auspices(i.e.deified leaders, agro-economic 'miracles', witch hunts) of the formerly abusive theocratic regime?”

Of course there are varieties of non-religious thought and action just as there are varieties of religious thought and action. But atheists such as Hitchens and Dawkins frequently label all religion as “evil.” While they apply such a broad brush to religion, they refuse to allow the same logic to be applied to atheism. Considering the crimes of Communism, which again did in fact represent the majority of atheism in the twentieth century (not to mention the fact that Hitchens was once a Trotskite), it’s no wonder they engage in such double-standards.

And the trappings of Communism far more resembled those of modern atheism, especially of the leftist variety than it does religion. Communists claimed that Marxism was “scientific” and religion was “superstition.” They glorified the French Revolution and the Enlightenment as the precursors to the modern industrial age and ultimately the "revolution." They claimed that with the “proper education” that society would improve. As with modern secular leftists, they also had a great faith (faith because they didn’t have any evidence) in “progress.”

No, I don’t see most atheist today in the same light as Stalin, Mao or even Mussolini (who wasn’t a Communist, but was an atheist). But if they want to call all religion “evil” and go on and on about things such as the inquisition and crusades, they have some explaining to do when it comes to the crimes of Communism. And when you paint with a broad brush, claiming “oh, we aren’t those kinds of atheists” won’t do.

rr

Why are atheists so preachy? Well perhaps it’s because we are sick to death of being preached at by people like you, you are on the TV, get 10 mins in the morning on ToDay, enshrined in our laws, get automatic places in government, stuff your rubbish down the throats of our children, etc, etc, etc…

And when you get just a little comeback off you go like it’s the end of your world. Times my friend are a changing, you and the rest of this particular god-squad are on the way out. Halleluiah to that!

rr wrote "I grant that Christianity requires faith. But it doesn't require blind faith."

The Christian death cult requires a very sick mind. Being gullible and not very bright also helps a lot. The Christian beliefs are way beyond insane. An example is the Resurrection which is the most important belief of Christianity. What could be more disgusting and more ridiculous than some god-man getting executed, decomposing for 3 days, and then becoming a zombie who later flies up to the clouds. It's pure stupidity. Christians are idiots. Also, Christians are extremely immoral because they brainwash their children with their idiotic medieval beliefs.

I doubt that Greentiger is actually naive enough to think that if you took away religion there would be only peace, love, and harmony in places like Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Kasmir, the Gaza Strip, etc. That is just ludicrous, and no serious thinking person really believes it. Secular Rwanda would still have Hutus mad at Tutsis; secular Northern Ireland (which is exactly what it is) would still have native Irish angry at Scotch interlopers.

Religion is just one more reason people give to get angry and do bad things...and history has shown time and again that if you take religion out of the equation, people find other reasons to do bad things. Humans do bad things because it is unfortunately part of human nature to do bad things. At the core of most religions - including Christianity - is an attempt to explain why humans are so rotten, not to perpetuate rottenness. But, given that we are so rotten, we misuse religion, just like we misuse everything else.

This whole idea that religion is the cause of human misery is a canard.

Whatever.

mdm@ “secular Northern Ireland (which is exactly what it is)” Oh thanks for that I have not laughed so much in a long time! I take it that you are an amateur comedian, do you write your own stuff or do you have help making it up?

I suspect that you have never been to NI, never seen Catholic priests spitting at the Security forces, forgotten how they blessed bombers on their way to plant nail bombs outside of a local McDonalds, (these are the same priests who refuse to bury suicide victims in "consecrated ground", seen the anti papal banners in the Protestant areas etc.

You are correct that if religion was to disappear we would not all become good kind people, but to argue that otherwise sane people do not do disgusting things in the name of religion that they would otherwise never think of doing flies in the face of the utter mountain, (growing daily, Gaza etc) of evidence.

Next time i am in NI you could join me for a tour of some of the trouble spots, until then perhaps you could restrict yourself to commenting on things that you have some idea about.

You are kidding aren't you?

How many times have you been stopped in the street by an atheist trying to give you a pamphlet? How many times have you had to get out of the bath to find an atheist and a child at your door who want to sell you on the benefits of atheism? How many full time preachers of atheism are you aware of? How about atheist, as opposed to faith schools? How many seats to atheists have in the House of Lords purely because they are atheists?

quote: "What do you think is going on in Gaza, Iraq, and Afghanistan right now? Thousands of people are killed for the magic god fairy every year. It's all for nothing."

Last time I checked Gaza, Iraq, and Afghanistan weren't part of the Western world. But even in those places tribal, ethnic, and national rivalries are as important if not more important role in conflicts than religion.

As has already been pointed out, most wars and conflicts aren't primarily if at all based on religion in the first place. Moreover, you take away religion and people will still have or find plenty of reasons to hate and kill each other. The simplistic idea that if religion only went away then the world would be at peace isn't based on reality. The history of twentieth century Europe proves this quite well. Europe became more and more secular in the twentieth century. Yet it was the bloodiest century in European history, with two awful world wars and a number of totalitarian regimes. All of these events tied back to secular and in the case of Communism atheistic ideologies.

quote: "Religious violence isn't the only problem. Just look at the number of brain-dead Americans who deny the facts of evolutionary biology. They all deny modern science for religious reasons. Religions make people stupid."

LOL! I'll let your simplistic statements speak for themselves here.

rr

"Really, atheistic persecution is just a fact."

"All of these events tied back to secular and in the case of Communism atheistic ideologies."

Now, I'd be willing to grant that most wars people call "religious" cannot actually be placed entirely at the feet of relgion. But if you are going to hold atheism accountable for things like social Darwinism & Communism, then religion must bear equal blame for northern Ireland, the 911 attacks, etc. The link between the Crusades & religion is no different than the link between Communism & atheism; either they both take the blame or neither do. Personally, I don't see why a Jew, Hindu or even a modern-day Christian should have to answer for the Inquisition, so I don't see why Humanists or other atheists should have to defend the actions of Stalin & his like.

Well, to perhaps guide these comments back towards the actual article, this is possibly the most hypocritical article I have ever seen. Why would you, of all people, ever, EVER criticize an atheist for preaching their beliefs? You call Dawkins fanatical!?! What is the difference between way he preaches and Christians preach? He is an atheist: Do he not breathe the same air or bleed the same blood, as a christian does? Does the fact he lacks a belief in something cause different rules to apply to him? Can you really say that he or any atheist is in the wrong by being "preachy" while Christians preach all the time?

If you truly believed that atheists have the same right to preach as Christians, you would not title your article "Why are the New Atheists so preachy?" It is so obviously charged and biased to your Christian beliefs that it is embarrassing for you to even say you actually believe that Atheists should have the same right to spreading their ideas as Christians.

I respectfully disapprove of your argument against "preachy" atheists, as it is hypocritical and simply unfair.

- Nocebo

Nocebo-

The difference between an Atheist preacher (eg Dawkins) and a Religious preacher (eg Dobson):

One of them thinks your belief system makes you a bit of a moron; the other thinks your belief system indicates your lack of morals, condemns you to eternal torment, damnation, and suffering, and disqualifies you from public office.