Wired has an interesting article this month about the ‘new’ atheists, who hold that religion is not just wrong, it’s evil. Wired’s cover tag line reads ‘No Heaven, No Hell, Just Science.’ The article is based on interviews with scientists Richard Dawkins and Sam Haris, and philosopher Daniel Dennett.
Right after 9/11, at least one secular then-colleague at The Independent in London said that 9/11 proved it was time to outlaw religion. Veteran observers of Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Gaza and everywhere else that extremists claimed that God was telling them to kill innocents, or steal land or commit whatever horror said it was time to end religion, citing centuries of horrors from the crusades and Inquisition to suicide bombers and the 9/11 pilots.
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and, really for a couple years now. My therapist recently commissioned me to write about my faith, an essay tentatively tited ‘The Rules of the Universe’ (title suggested by my analyst). The essay, which I’m writing using Google’s Writely (how better to learn this new class of app?) starts with a quote from Albert Einstein: “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”
Spinoza is Baruch Spinoza, a rationalist philosopher and ethicist of the 17th Century, who was excommunicated from the Jewish community in Amsterdam for his view that God was not personal but, rather, the mechanism of nature. He also believed that the Bible was metaphorical and allegorical. Anyway, this should, at least, liven up the blog a bit: religion and politics usually inspire controversy…
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Don’t they just?
> “extremists claimed that God was telling them to kill innocents, or steal land or commit whatever horror”
True, but that’s just people, isn’t it? Plenty of people do plenty of bad stuff without citing religion. People will do bad things whatever excuses you allow them to use, and always have done. People will always try to understand how the universe works, and always have done.
I hope we don’t start thinking banning religion is a good idea. Religion is an idea, and I wouldn’t want to live in a society that bans ideas. Evolution, Islam, or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: I want a society where we can have them all. Killing innocents and stealing land is bad. “Outlawing” specific ideas won’t help.
I agree Paul. Banning religion – or any other idea – is itself a very bad idea. We already have laws, reasonable ones for the most part, against behaviors like murder.
I guess what I’m getting to is that perhaps it’s time for the global village to take another step on the road to maturity… perhaps we need a mini-reformation, in which we begin to leave behind the notion of a personal God – God like a human who punishes evil and rewards good on a personal level – and move to a new understanding.
Clearly, either the Palestinins and Israelies (and Catholics, and Protestants et al.) who make claims that God gives them alone the right to kill, can’t all be right, at least not if there is only one God. The notion that there is an one God for extremists of a given faith, another god for moderates, not to mention a Jewish, Islamic, Protestant and Catholic version difies all that I know about faith.
Anyway, bear with me while I work through this… it will be very interesting to hear others’ thoughts as I make my way.
Ah, Chris, another challenge that leads to fascinating reading, though to what productive purpose has yet to be determined . . .
I found Gary Wolf’s piece summed nicely by:
‘Myself, I’ve decided to refuse the call. The irony of the New Atheism — this prophetic attack on prophecy, this extremism in opposition to extremism — is too much for me.’
And then at the end, faith is seemingly doubt:
‘Or, you might say, our bedrock faith: the faith that no matter how confident we are in our beliefs, there’s always a chance we could turn out to be wrong.’
Thus, what an old Unitarian once said to the congregation comes to mind – religion is about two things, knowing that we are going to die and deciding what are we going to do about it during our lives. Where’s the solid ground there?
(Yesterday was the funeral service for ol’ pal Robert C. Reinders, 80, who after years of Parkinsonism succumbed to pneumonia. In his self-penned obit,
http://www.legacy.com/jsonline/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=19653093
and follow-up newspaper obit:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=521787
no mention was made of atheism, yet there was an oft-repeated surprise of attendees that he was not cremated as they had heard he himself suggest, but was rather laid out in mortuary make-up and hardwood coffin, and that in contrast to a life of non-theism, his brother, a Roman Catholic deacon, conducted a prayer service. Thus seemingly, end-of-life trials provide surprises.)
To suggest that the stew of stories from cultures’ centuries, whether gods or communism or whatever else is written or spoken, will pass from any psychic influence, individually or collectively, in the larger society of today, suffused as it is with gods or god, religions or religion, philosophies or philosophy, is futile. The stories’ questionable validities, in translation or mistranslation from Greek, Aramaic, etc. erode or expand messages, as with oral transfers. Add in psychoactive interactions with brews (said to have helped cause the rise of civilization) and plants, with tribal/family politics, and reason, civic law, and scientific observation are valiant efforts at setting a relative anchor in the mental and physical winds of knowledge. Atheists’ efforts are perfectly within bounds in these struggles and in the face of religions’ shortcomings and politics’ manipulations. But why the label, ‘atheism’, meaning godless? Given the cultural milieu, that seems an absurd proposition. How about ‘rationalist’?
(As partial motivators for their ‘new’ efforts, consider a little volume called ‘Understanding Iraq’ by William R. Polk, along with the extended treatment, ‘Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad’, that passed my reading recently, which details the looting of Cradle of Civilization and burning of the Iraq National Library, among other outrages caused by ‘religionist’ Team Bush/Cheney war neglects, and David Koh’s ‘Tempting Faith’, which tells of less-than-sincere behavior toward their ‘faith’ base.)
And with science using terms such as ‘doping’ and ‘effects’ and ‘change’, while largely quantifiable, are not in all cases precisely understood and thus occasion to some arguments caused by discontinuous data or observational shortcomings. Final comprehensive truth comes up short again.
A religion, a god, or, religion or god, does not provide ‘the’ answer, or ‘an’ answer, and so being presented with yet unsolved dilemmas and being insatiably curious and seeking of harmony, ‘non-theism’ or ‘anti-theism’ or ‘rationalism’ remain viable as a ways of thinking about how to approach that answer. What I’d say is certain is that war is hell and should be minimized.
Enough. Good luck with your inquiries.
Hi Chris,
Hi Chris,
I went to your blog to see how you were doing as I understand through the Oxy grapevine that one of our own is ailing. I was looking for information and wanted to wish you my best but came accross your “Atheism, The New Faith” and immediatly got sucked in. I have three suggestions……The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian, The God Delusion….on the other hand, according to Andrew Sullivan, “Montaigne wrote that G-d is incomprehensigble and that everything we think we know about him is a projection of ourselves. We need to acknowledge that he and his truth are beyond our categories.” I agree with this in that we are all simply indulging in speculation.
I hope you are doing OK and just wanted to say hello.
Jon Merksamer
Some interesting food for thought throughout these comments. Having been to the “edge” myself (read: clinically deceased), I could not agree more with “God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings” thesis. I do, however, believe in fate and destiny and that these things are shaped by the forces of nature, much like stones are shaped by the waves of the ocean. That said, I’m opposed to “fighting” organized religion (even though I’m not a huge fan of it for the most part) as I firmly believe in the notion that if you disagree with something don’t try to destroy it, simply do not support it. Do I agree with the notion that everyone that doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ/Yahweh/Allah/etc. is going to hell? Absolutely not. But again I believe that people have the right to believe whatever they’d like so long as they aren’t trying to push their ideology/values/dogma on me. That said, I will always fight for the right to think for myself no matter who is pushing a predetermined belief system whether it be religious groups or governments.
> “bear with me while I work through this… it will be very interesting to hear others’ thoughts as I make my way.”
Whoops, forgot I hadn’t replied. I’ll do more than bear with you, I’ll read with interest and enjoyment. Always nice to see reasoned, thoughtful, calm thinking on the web. Makes a change from all the flames.
The idea that 9/11 was a good enough reason to outlaw religion is the most absurd comment I have ever heard of. By following that train of logic we can conclude that evolution is even worse. Hitler justified the Holocaust because he believed that he needed to accelerate the evolutionary process. I believe that the New Atheists are also doing the same thing. It also is not fair to judge every religion based on the way that Osama Bin Laden interprets his beliefs about God. This is known as a stereotype and it is completely unfair. It is also a mistake to believe that the Muslims in the Middle East hate America because we are a Christian nation. It is actually the exact opposite. The Muslims hate the irresponsible and secular lifestyle that results from ideas and philosophical ways of thinking like New Atheism. They look at America and see evil, and their actions resulted from the very same intolerance that New Atheists bring to the table to combat religious beliefs. The idea of religious intolerance is not acceptable until atheists can prove that there is no God. New Atheism also has a sense of elitism that is seen in all other religions, but in the end it is even more hypocritical than all of the other religions because it denounces religion, while it is itself a religion that depends on faith in man. The new atheists also say that the smarter and the elite tend be atheists. This is true. There is even biblical evidence. The bible says that the chances of a rich man getting to heaven are equivalent to the chances of a camel walking through the eye of a needle. The frustrations of the New Atheists are even mentioned in the bible. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will see God.” To say that there is no evidence for the existence of God is absurd. All you have to do look for it, and there is evidence in the bible, not to mention the world around us. The New Atheists even agree with the statement that it is an arrogant position to believe that anyone knows the will of God. Although scientific evidence may seem to contradict a belief in God, Atheists fail to realize that we can never really fully comprehend God, if he exisits, and thinking that we can fully understand God’s masterplan for the creation of the universe millions and billions of years after the fact is a fool’s errand. This bugs the atheists more than anything, but God, if he existed, would be far above the reaches of human reasoning.
Hope I made a good case that gives plenty of reasons for tolerance.
McLeod