Dangerous Atheism
Hallelujah; finally a person who takes the New Atheists to task, and criticizes them for what they are. Extremists. Fundamentalists in their own right. Intolerant. Dangerous. Chris Hedges does, mostly, a superb job explaining what’s wrong with the New Atheism school and why people like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens are, when push comes to shove, dangerous.
The New Atheists embrace a belief system as intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists. They propose a route to collective salvation and the moral advancement of the human species through science and reason. The utopian dream of a perfect society and a perfect human being, the idea that we are moving towards collective salvation, is one of the most dangerous legacies of the Christian faith and the Enlightenment. Those who believe in the possibility of this perfection often call for the silencing or eradication of human beings who are impediments to human progress. They turn their particular good into a universal good. They are blind to their own corruption and capacity for evil. They soon commit evil, not for evil’s sake but to make a better world…
There is nothing in human nature or human history to support the idea that we are morally advancing as a species or that we will overcome the flaws of human nature. We progress technologically and scientifically, but not morally. We use the newest instruments of technological and scientific progress to create more efficient forms of killing, repression and economic exploitation, and to accelerate environmental degradation. There is a good and a bad side to human progress. We are not moving towards a glorious utopia. We are not moving anywhere…
Many of these atheists, like the Christian fundamentalists, support the imperialist projects and preemptive wars of the United States as a necessity in the battle against terrorism and irrational religion. They divide the world into superior and inferior races, those who are enlightened by reason and knowledge and those who are governed by irrational and dangerous religious beliefs. Hitchens and Harris describe the Muslim world, where I spent seven years, most of them as the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times, in language that is as racist, crude and intolerant as that used by Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell. They are a secular version of the religious right. They misuse Darwin and evolutionary biology, just as the Christian fundamentalists misuse the Bible, by trying to argue that we can evolve morally — something Darwin never asserted. They are as anti-intellectual as the Christian Right.
And while the atheists do not have much power and are not a threat to the democratic state, they engage in the same chauvinism and call for the same violent utopianism of the radical Christian Right. They sell this under secular banners, but this does not excuse it. They believe, like the Christian Right, that we are moving forward to a paradise, a state of human perfection made possible by science and reason. They argue, like these Christian radicals, that some human beings, maybe many human beings, have to be eradicated to achieve this better world.
Basically, what these people ignore is that, when it boils down to it, we are all sinners and we will always be sinners. There’s no changing human nature. Yes, the Enlightenment has learned us a couple of things, but science and progress haven’t made us more moral people as such. We’ve abolished some moral evil practices, yet have replaced them with others, for instance.
So that’s the major mistake of New Atheism (aside from denying there’s a God, from my perspective at least): New Atheists simply ignore human nature.
The folly of humankind, however, is pervasive. It infects all human endeavors. It has not exempted itself from institutional religion or the cult of science and reason. The greatest danger that besets us does not come from believers or atheists. It comes from those who, under the guise of religion, science or reason, imagine that we can free ourselves from the limitations of human nature and perfect the human species. Those who insist we are morally advancing as a species are deluding themselves. There is nothing in science or human history to support this idea. Human individuals can make moral advances, as can human societies, but they also make moral reverses. Our personal and collective histories are not linear.
There’s also some stuff in the column I don’t agree with - for instance that the belief that in the end Jesus will come back and we’ll live in paradise (on earth) is just as dangerous as the belief that we can create paradise on earth by following science, logic, etc. - but overall a good piece.
Explanation: I don’t agree with that, because I think that such a belief, the first one, doesn’t automatically mean that one does everything in one’s power to force the world and human nature to change; in the end, it’s a belief that we’ll be sinner until Jesus returns. That’s a different kind of belief; less oppressive, less intolerant. It only becomes oppressive and intolerant when people believe that they’ve got to make the world ‘perfect’ before Jesus returns (to hasten his arrival, etc.).
But the gross majority of Christians and Muslims don’t believe that. So the comparison is off.
In Hitchens defence he was one of the first people with the courage to stand-up to the rubbish of multicultaralism. While the CoE were sucking up to Islamists he was standing up to them and calling them out for what they really are in the end…religious facists.
It is not much comfort that Hitchens embraced opposition to Islamic extremism when that opposition was only incidental to his broader bigotry and hatred against anyone and everyone who happens to believe in ANY religion.
Exactly Jason, well said.
Crazies of any belief system are just that: crazy.
I’m somewhere between agnosticism and atheism myself, but subscribe to the "Different strokes for different folks" school of thought.
LMAO, the description of the "New Atheists" is hilarious. Basically the guy is saying that Sam Harris (!!!!) is Stalin, which is so ridiculous it’s actually very funny. No one who has heard Sam Harris talk for more than a minute could ever see him reflected in those paragraphs. Even Hitchens, who I personally dislike, is nowhere near it. This is simply fiction.
I’ve read and heard Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennet quite a bit. Nowhere is this apocalyptic fundamentalism whereby religion will be violently forbidden and morality will come from science. It’s a caricature so bad it hurts. These men, to different degrees and in differing ways, believe religion to be a generally negative influence, that morality does not require religion, and that overall, the world would be better off without it.
How do they propose it’s elimination?
Through education, as it’s been shown time and again that more educated populaces are less religious.
Terrorists! Extremists! They want to….have people read books? Not even be forced to, just try to make it available.
Yeah, really dangerous.
I like that different strokes for different folks philosophy. Remember people- the Wehrmacht aren’t evil, just different… Yeah, I hate bloody relativists.
The part I find hilarious is that one of the few things antitheists and hardline Christians agree on is the threat of Islam.
I also like the writer’s "tolerant theology". Because you just aren’t a true Christian until you insist you are "different"… and than procede to lie, slander and misrepresent people. Heck, it has gotten so repetative some atheists have gotten one word descriptors for both certain arguments and their rebuttals (although naming was designed early). In your case massive strawman. I also like your "can’t improve morally". I guess we still kill indians for the heck of it- wait, we don’t. The world may be crudy, but its getting better- you don’t have to worry that every complete stranger will try to kill you (This isn’t an exageration- read Oedipus). Plus we’ve stopped crusifying people and… there is a whole list really. We have abolished some practices (slavery), eliminated others (flaying alive) and developed some new evils (killing for organs comes to mind). Guess what? The good out weighs the evil.
" Those who believe in the possibility of this perfection often call for the silencing or eradication of human beings who are impediments to human progress. They turn their particular good into a universal good. They are blind to their own corruption and capacity for evil. They soon commit evil, not for evil’s sake but to make a better world…"
Hedges, you moron; This is where you quote examples of Harris and those scary folks showing incapacity of introspection and self-awareness rather than assume they see themselves as flawless just because they are atheists.
"We progress technologically and scientifically, but not morally."
This statement strikes against religion as well as atheism - if we are so crass and unchanging then obviously religion hasn’t helped one bit. Hedges shows complete unawareness of the fact that a) The capacity of perfection and reason-based living in humans is not a central tenet in political atheism and b) Religion has been central to all western cultures for a good while yet seemingly hasn’t done more good than harm according to his own assessment of our history…
"Hitchens and Harris describe the Muslim world, where I spent seven years, most of them as the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times, in language that is as racist, crude and intolerant as that used by Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell."
Strawman - they attack aspects and facets of these regions in harsh words, yet recognize that all their targets of criticisms are not directly descending from Islam or muslims in general.
"They are as anti-intellectual as the Christian Right."
This is like being colder than absolute zero.
"They argue, like these Christian radicals, that some human beings, maybe many human beings, have to be eradicated to achieve this better world."
Strawman, and a pretty vile one at that. Hitchens and Harris are not representative of political atheism. They simply argue that living in a secular society is a human right, and that those that attack this notion could just as well be attacking the right of free speech.
"It is not much comfort that Hitchens embraced opposition to Islamic extremism when that opposition was only incidental to his broader bigotry and hatred against anyone and everyone who happens to believe in ANY religion."
More like frustration and light antagonism at most. He, like I, reserve his true ire for those that corrupt politics with religion.
Claudia, I think the point is, what kind of education are people receiving. If it begins to take the form of propaganda against religion (as some of those atheists’ writings do, because they criticize the most extreme forms of religion-a strawman, and they they create the illusion that religion and science are in opposition to each other, that they’re natural enemies.)
You can believe as you wish, that religion will just naturally die away- but what some of these writers are doing is trying to kill it through the way they attempt to ‘educate’.
For instance, Claudia, you say their methods are to have people read books. OK, then, are they asking people to study the great writings of world religious thinkers, not only the Bible and Koran but also to read Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, Chesterton, Merton, C. S. Lewis, and philosophers/theologians of other religious faiths?
If education means showing people the information and teaching them to think critically about whether or not to accept a belief system, then it should be thorough enough to not dismiss the information that might lead to a different conclusion. Having people educated only in the secular, and then telling them all the bad qualities of religion, is nothing but indoctrination. Of course it may well work, as you are correct about many people who are educated in a secular system and lack exposure to works that might persuade them of the value of religion, often become atheists/agnostics. But don’t kid yourself that this is a true education, or that it represents a natural evolution.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that those atheists are attempting to ban the writings that I mentioned- but I don’t see evidence that they allow for the possibility of any value in those works, or that they’d encourage people to read them and then make up their mind.
C. Stanley, your question on education is a good one. In fact, it’s good enough that I think it merits a post of it’s own. I’ll work on it a bit and get it up later. For now suffice it to say that the article Michael cites is so much Ostrich doo-doo in terms of the so-called intentions of the so-called "new atheists". I’ll elaborate later.
Fair enough, Claudia, and I look forward to reading it (may not be around much today but if I miss it I’ll check in tomorrow.)
One thing that struck me is that your reaction to these atheists’ writings being mischaracterized is the other side of the coin for the way we feel that religion is often mischaracterized. I know that I’ve read some writings from the authors mentioned that I feel does that, though I can’t say I’ve read extensively enough of them to know if that’s generally true or if they do, for example, address some of the great theologians and religious philosophers instead of pretending that they didn’t exist, and whether or not they do explain their thoughts on the positive contributions that religion has made on morality, ethics, social justice and even science.
Please cite any instance where atheists killed anyone for a belief/heresy, bombed an abortion clinic or killed someone for a cartoon or movie. I don’t recall any violent atheist extremists, only an occasional rant or two.
Why should anyone cite something that they haven’t claimed, Rudi?
I think Rudy is pointing out there aren’t "extreme atheists" like this post implies (I mean, come on, the title is dangerous atheism!). So unless you feel "offended" like Muslims you don’t have a leg to stand on… not that offense is anything but BS.
Also, by definition atheists don’t see any value in theology. If you don’t believe in god, why are arguments for his existance valuable except in showing logical thinking errors? All current atheists (at least the strong ones and antitheists), by definition, have found those arguments lacking.
Samuel: Most Christians have no problem accepting that some people disagree with us about religion- that they, as you say, find the arguments lacking. But from our perspective, the arguments for atheism are lacking as well (they can no more prove that God doesn’t exist than we can prove that He does, and furthermore, they can’t prove that belief is inconsistent with rationality as they often try to claim (in fact that’s what the group being discussed here does claim- they criticize religion not by saying that they find the arguments lacking, but instead they argue that religion is irrational and that it has harmful, dangerous effects.)
It’s not the Christians who have trouble agreeing to disagree with people like this. That attitude is coming from the atheists, who are often behaving as anti-theists rather than simply expressing their own disagreement with our beliefs.
BTW, what are the logical thinking errors in believing that God exists?
That is sort of… odd. Don’t people who disagree burn in Hell? So you… don’t care about that or do you insist that reality has to conform to your wishes?
Arguments for weak atheism is lack of evidence. The arguments for strong atheism are
lack of evidence
logical impossibility
existance
causal problems
anamorphatisism
natural explanations… could be more- don’t have them of the top of my head.
I believe the reason they are arguing it is irrational and harmful is they are talking to fence sitting atheists who view faith as a good thing (it will keep poor people from killing me reasoning).
Yes, I am an antitheist. And some atheists do act as antitheists- I’m not sure what you mean though- antitheists haven’t done more than disagree with your beliefs and give reasons why you are wrong and your beliefs are dangerous.
As for logical errors… first one that comes to mind is the idea god is necesary to explain things (argument from ignorance). My personal favorite logical error is using god as an explanation for the start of the universe. Why would god create the universe. I never got an answer to that… well one that wasn’t immediately illogical. Not to mention the entire free will idea. It isn’t an alternative between free will and determinism- it is between determinism and randomness.
All of this noise about religion vs. secularism, Hitchens vs. Hedges, science vs. faith is achieving something very helpful to believers: It distracts from the fundamental issue of whether or not gods are even real.
To date, there is no evidence and no compelling argument for the existence of any gods. This should be the focus, not bickering over relatively trivial side issues.
–Guy P. Harrison, author of 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (Prometheus Books)
Two different aspects of ‘caring’ coming into play here. Yes, I ‘care’ in the sense that I don’t want people to be damned, and my belief is that if they deliberately reject any possibility of God then that is the consequence. But I don’t ‘care’ in the sense that I’m accepting and respecting the other person’s free will- I’m willing to agree to disagree with him/her; I won’t accept that without asking him/her to give religion a fair look though.
Claudia: it’s not a matter of caring or not caring. Why do you think Christians and Muslims try to convert people? It’s because they care.
However, the basic idea of most religious people such as myself is that you can’t receive the gift against your will. Heaven isn’t something you ‘earn,’ it’s something God gives. But God can’t give it to you unless you accept it by your own free will. In order to accept a gift from God, well, it’s quite handy if you believe he exists in the first place.
How can you accept a gift from an entity you believe doesn’t exist?
No, actually it’s very helpful to distract from the fundamental issue that God or no god are both plausible alternatives, from a strictly logical persepective. Neither the religious believers nor the atheists have proof of how we got here or why, and it’s no more or less logical to presume a Creator than to assume that matter and energy have existed backwards into eternity. This is the point at which I can never depart; my mind can (barely) grasp the idea of a Supreme Being who is eternal, but not that our universe in some form has existed forever. There would have to be an origin of space and time at some point- and just as Samuel finds it illogical that God would have created the universe, I find it equally illogical that it randomly came into existence out of nothingness.
I’m willing to entertain the idea that these limits of my mind may mean that I’m wrong, but of the two possibilities, the Creator one is more plausible- particularly because the understanding of the relationship between God and man, when fully studied and comprehended, winds up explaining a lot of the human condition much better than any atheistic framework does IMO.
As for the ‘logical errors’: atheism can’t explain anything. It can’t. Religion explains, atheism does not. When it boils down to it, atheism is less logical than religion.
For instance the idea that the universe has a beginning: atheists believed it didn’t. It was always there and would always be. Now we know that not to be the case. So what created the universe, how did it come into existence? Right.
Atheists, then, argue that something created itself out of nothing. But that’s not possible. That is illogical.
But the early atheists were on to something when they argued that the universe has always been and will always be; they just mistook the universe for… God
"No, actually it’s very helpful to distract from the fundamental issue that God or no god are both plausible alternatives, from a strictly logical persepective. Neither the religious believers nor the atheists have proof of how we got here or why, and it’s no more or less logical to presume a Creator than to assume that matter and energy have existed backwards into eternity. This is the point at which I can never depart; my mind can (barely) grasp the idea of a Supreme Being who is eternal, but not that our universe in some form has existed forever. There would have to be an origin of space and time at some point- and just as Samuel finds it illogical that God would have created the universe, I find it equally illogical that it randomly came into existence out of nothingness."
That is actually materially an impossibility. Something cannot be created out of nothing in the material world. It’s just impossible. Unless, of course, etc.
Nothing is… just that; nothing. No.thing. Nothing. Nothing to work with. Empty.
Very well put, Michael. I find that’s exactly what atheists and agnostics do- they believe that if they study the universe and find natural explanations for its processes, that they’re disproving that the supernatural exists as well.
But that’s like saying that if someone understands computer technology and how the internet works, that they could study this post and conclude that I don’t exist.
Basically, yeah. It’s awkward when you think about it. They look at the material world in an attempt to disprove the existence of a spiritual being. It’s like people saying that we have no soul because we’ve got a brain and a heart. What?
Also: The idea is that God is a spiritual being who created everything within a certain order, and how do they conclude he doesn’t exist? Right, that everything is orderly, etc.
Yes, you see a lot of that in some of the scientific attempts to study the religious experience and near death experiences. Some scientists seem to think that if they prove a physical location in the brain as a locus for these experiences, that it will prove that the experiences are unreal. Well, no. It’ll simply prove that we have a locus in our brain that functions to receive the experiences, just as we have areas to receive sensory experiences that are pleasant to us.
And of course, we believe that these are all features that were hard wired into us by our Creator. They’re features, not bugs.
C Stanley, here is the flaw in your argument "Neither the religious believers nor the atheists have proof of how we got here or why, and it’s no more or less logical to presume a Creator than to assume that matter and energy have existed backwards into eternity. This is the point at which I can never depart; my mind can (barely) grasp the idea of a Supreme Being who is eternal, but not that our universe in some form has existed forever." First you cannot logically or scientifically prove a negative. Hence, when you assert that God exists, the burden of proof is on you to convince me that your claim is valid. To make my point more clear, consider the following argument. I will presume that you do not believe in Pink Unicorns, yet by your argument there is just as much likely hood that Pink Unicorns exist as they do not, since its "just as logical to presume" a Pink Unicorn as not. I, nor you, cannot prove that Pink Unicorns don’t exist. An atheist does not believe in God (or gods) because there is simply no rational evidence for it. So, why presume that just because I can’t disprove it I should accept the possibility? This leaves the door open to every possible absurd idea my mind, and anyone else’s, can conjure: our world and Universe is a computer simulation (prove it isn’t), there is a Galactic Federation of alien races watching earth to see if we are yet ready to join or be quarantined (prove this is not true), the flying spaghetti monster created all the Universe with his glorious noodly appendages …. As to the nature of our Universe, scientists can make measurements of the starlight and microwave radiation (the same thing you find in your microwave oven) that pretty conclusively indicate that it originated about 14 billion years ago from a "big bang" (with the right instrumentation and training you could verify this yourself). Before that we don’t have a clue as to what did or did not exist, and until there is some experimental evidence that can give us some idea, it is pointless to speculate. However, it is a logical fallacy to assume that because something cannot be explained, we must invoke a God to give an explanation. This is a complete non-sequitur.
Like hell it is. There’s no such thing as scientific proof of God, and never will be, and no one is claiming that there is. I’ve never accepted a belief in God as a reality that can be proven scientifically, and never asked anyone else to consider it in those terms- so no, no burden of proof as you suggest. The point has been made and conceded- our belief isn’t based on direct physical evidence.
An analogy to that process can be made though, in that we accept this belief on the indirect evidence. Look here, we have a universe made up of matter and energy. Oh, look, that universe is ordered according to immutable laws. Oh, and one of those laws is conservation of matter and energy. No matter can come into existence spontaneously out of nothingness- only through conversion from energy to matter. At some very distant point in the past though, scientists do believe that matter and energy which did not previously exist, began to exist. Thus a process occurred which does not follow our natural laws. Thus a supernatural process occurred.
That’s the basis for the hypothesis of a God. Doesn’t prove that this supernatural force really is a Supreme Being of course, let alone one who cares about us and wants a relationship with us, but when we put that part together with the way that religious revelation explains the relationship of man to Creator, life begins to make a lot more sense for us.
If you’ve thought all that through and found some different hypotheses to explain things, great, but this is what informs my beliefs. I’m not trying to prove God to you, I’ve done the indirect proof for my own decision-making process, and I’m satisfied with the result as it plays out in my life and relationships. Sometimes that also ends up providing indirect proof for other people who are on their own journey to search for understanding. If it doesn’t do that for you, if you’ve never known religious people who inspired you to think "maybe it is true," then there’s no words I can say that would be effective. All I know is that I’m a better person for believing than I would be if I was a nonbeliever; the meditation on my relationship to God keeps me more humble, more aware of my responsibilities to others, and more focused on what is most important.
You may have missed that I addressed the same point made by Claudia already. I’m not arguing that we should view existence of anything that we can imagine in this way. Only that it isn’t illogical to presume a Creator (or supernatural creative force, if you prefer) for the reasons I stated in the comment above this one.
Also, I’m well aware of the debating point that you brought up, that the one who makes the assertion is the one with burden of proof. Note that first off, this doesn’t necessarily mean scientific evidence as proof, and second, what I’m saying is that antitheists are the ones who are affirming that religion is incompatible with rationality, and that’s the affirmative statement that leads to THEIR burden of proof. Their response to this is that rational thought requires direct scientific evidence before we can accept that something MIGHT exist- and even the scientific record has plenty of examples to show that this isn’t the case (celestial bodies that have never been observed, but are presumed to exist because of their gravitational pull on other celestial bodies, for example.)
Greetings again C Stanley: I’m glad that you concede that there is no scientific proof of God. And while you may agree that no scientific proof exits or is possible, there are many Christians who falsely believe otherwise, for example those who follow the idea of Intelligent Design or that the earth is only 6000 years old.
Now, your conclusion that God does exist based on indirect evidence is not very convincing nor compelling. I hope I’m not misrepresenting your point, but it seems that your are claiming that since the Universe exists, it must come from something and that something must be a God. Again, this is a complete non-sequitur. Be very careful with arguments like conservation of energy, they apply ONLY to that which resides in our Universe. Such a law cannot be extrapolated out to before our Universe existed. With the amount of experimental evidence we presently have, scientists can say absolutely nothing factual about the period preceding the big bang. So I would argue that your claim "scientists do believe that matter and energy which did not previously exist, began to exist. Thus a process occurred which does not follow our natural laws. Thus a supernatural process occurred" is disingenuous in that these scientists would simply say that at present we don’t have enough information to know what, if anything, preceded the big bang and not that something came from nothing. Very few would argue that a supernatural process occurred. Incidentally there are some theoretical physicist that have put forth the idea that our universe was created by two colliding branes (multidimensional structures based on string theory, see e.g. http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20010922/bob9.asp). Now, my response to this is I’ll believe it when I see the experimental evidence. Note, however, this is a scheme that attempts to explain the origin of the big bang without invoking God. Whether we are eventually able to deduce what happened prior to the big bang is yet to be seen. However, that lack of knowledge is not what I would call indirect evidence for God. Without evidence, it’s pointless to speculate. Your statement about indirect evidence, "celestial bodies that have never been observed, but are presumed to exist because of their gravitational pull on other celestial bodies, for example" simply cannot put placed in the same category as ‘I see a Universe there fore a God must exist’. You can measure gravitational forces, they are what give you weight after all and what keeps the earth moving around the sun. So the fact that celestial bodies can be inferred by their gravitational effect on other objects is evidence that is just as sound as observing them with a telescope. This after all is how black holes have been "observed" because they don’t emit electromagnetic radiation, visible or otherwise, that allows them to be seen in a telescope.
So finally, your argument for the existence of God really doesn’t come down to any physical evidence at all, direct or indirect. It comes down to faith and your own personal emotional state. The only point I’m really trying to make here, and I think you might concede this, is that your belief in God ultimately does not rely on any physical evidence.
Finally, I’ll just make one final comment in this post about religion in general. I certainly don’t ascribe to Christopher Hitchen’s position that religion poisons everything. I think, religion is a very mixed bag, having said and accomplished some very good things, but also having said and accomplished some, very, very bad things. Hence, the problem is that one is relying on a system where just about anything can be justified by a particular interpretation of a certain scriptural passage. This is no way to run modern society and this is in part what the "new atheists", Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens are saying. Personally, I think that we as humans would be much better off without religion, and I would like to see us as a species move beyond it.
Pointless to speculate from your point of view, which thanks to redfish I now have the vocabulary to describe as a positivist point of view. I am not a positivist, though, so for me it is not pointless.
And you’ll note that at the beginning of my paragraph where I compared my belief to a scientific one based on indirect evidence, I stated that this was an analogy. I again was not claiming that I’d be giving a scientific syllogism, but instead that I was giving an analogy of that type of logic but applied to the philosophical, not the physical universe.
Here, and when you describe opposition to literalists who use Scripture to claim validity for Creationism, I’d completely agree with you. If you and Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens would stick to criticizing those practices instead of religious belief in general, you’d be on much firmer intellectual footing and you’d find more allies than you think among religious believers.
Godless Cheesehead, you just saved me a whole lot of text, and I thank you for that. Our positions on the issue at hand are, so far as I gather from your comment, nearly identical. I think though that I’m dealing someone from the realms of physics, while I’m of the more biological bent. Still, thanks for the comment, and I hope you stick around, I could use the help LOL
The reason I criticize religious belief in general is because there is no method, as far as I’m aware, for an individual to make the "correct" interpretation of a religious passage, where the wrong interpretation can have terrible consequences. If there is, I would like to know how you do it, and then explain why their are so many different interpretations of some aspects of the Bible (this argument can be applied to any religion, not just Christianity), most of which must be wrong for they often very clearly contradict each other. For example, during the Civil War both the South and abolitionists quoted different parts of the Bible to justify their point of view on slavery? So who was correct based on scripture only? Today you have a significant schism in modern Christianity regarding homosexuality. Many Christians believe it is a mortal sin that would condemn you to hell unless you can some how become straight, and others that believe that as a gay person (no conversion to straightdom necessary) one can still accept Jesus and achieve immortal life with God. So which is it? Until religious scholars come up with a method (in analogy to the scientific method) that can unambiguously guide individuals as to how to correctly interpret their Holy book, you have a big problem. Such a method must also be able to distinguish between which religion is the correct religion. The wrong choice pretty much condemns you to someone’s hell. Both Christianity and Islam are pretty clear about which religion you MUST believe in order to achieve eternal life with God. Needless to say they don’t agree with each other on how that is achieved.
C Stanley, I would still like to know if you agree with my assertion that your belief in God "really doesn’t come down to any physical evidence at all, direct or indirect. It comes down to faith and your own personal emotional state. The only point I’m really trying to make here, and I think you might concede this, is that your belief in God ultimately does not rely on any physical evidence."
Claudia, thanks for the positive feedback. Probably not too hard to tell that, yes, I am a physicist.
Godless Cheesehead: Still, in that first paragraph, what you are criticizing is a misapplication of religion. I’d never endorse anyone using Scripture (no matter which interpretation of it) as a justification for a particular political stance. We shouldn’t (and I don’t) confuse our religious beliefs which derive from Scripture passages with politically convincing arguments. I don’t say abortion is wrong because God says so (which is a shaky thing to say based on trying to cherry pick Scripture passages anyway) but because my religiously informed viewpoint tells me that the conceptus is already a living being which will grow to autonomy if that process isn’t deliberately interrupted or interrupted by natural death. Thus, I see abortion as murder, and this should be a viewpoint which is permissible in secular political debate, though I don’t deny that it derives from a religious view of self determination from the time of conception (some secularists view it that way too though.)
I’m not sure how many different ways you want me to say what you are asking me to say about the evidence of my beliefs. I concede that neither direct nor indirect physical evidence forms the basis for my belief, but when one is open to the possibility of other ways of understanding the universe besides the scientific approach of studying the physical universe, that is when one can find the direct (experiential) and indirect (observation of effects) evidence. So no, I don’t assert any physical evidence, but I don’t feel it is necessary to do so in order for the belief to be compatible with rational thought.
Politics is based on how you view the world. The differance between liberals and conservatives isn’t because one side is evil- its because the view the world differently and so have differant causes and goals. Religion will always influence politics as long as it claims to be about reality.
There is no such things as a "misapplication" of religion. Faith has no objective basis- and hence your criticisms of anothers faith are groundless.
Andrew Sullivan, a believer, finds some spiritual qualities to Harris and Hitchens work. Hitchens admittedly is an anti-theist, and in truth we need more contrarians in our society to keep tyrrany in check. What true believer would evangelize for a cause without acknowledging the abuses?
No, let the atheists and others have their time on the stage. Its called democracy, and its time we behaved better with those who disagree with us.
And as for Hedges, I think he has lost his mind on this one. He seems to now be a fundamentalist for moderacy.