Beating a dead horse

The “are atheists assholes?” debate continues on this week with this column by David Penberthy. Interestingly, this is a debate which takes place largely from within the agnostic and atheist community, since most people who identify as religious can easily unite under the banner of “YES.” Although this has been talked about so much it is doubtful I can add anything here which has not already been offered, nonetheless I feel compelled to clarify (again) a few distinctions.

First, there is a difference between being a jerk and being a “fundamentalist,” a word that many who dislike the new atheism like to throw around. Almost all complaints about new atheism’s “fundamentalism,” revolve around people being dismissive or condescending, not being violent or attempting to restrict the civil liberties of other human beings. While the behavior of some atheists is not conducive to high quality, thoughtful discourse, neither should it be described with the same adjectives that are used to account for suicide bombings and the murder of physicians who provide abortions.

Second, it seems doubtful to me that the proportion of atheist jerks greatly outnumbers the proportion of jerks in general. Because they cause offense and receive a lot of attention, they unfortunately overshadow the more thoughtful rest. But there is nothing inherent in atheism that is going to greatly alter the distribution of human characteristics – assholes come in all shapes, sizes, and beliefs. And when you start to consider what the motivations of the more offensive atheists might be, it seems to me that this is not a situation of some people being dangerously closed minded, but of some people being rather immature. If only I knew how to eliminate immaturity, I would, but in the meantime the best approach is to simply ignore their provocations, as outrage is precisely the high that the immature seek.*

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* Penberthy has some notably weak examples, however, for an argument he could have found better ammunition for. Dawkins is dismissive, I grant you, but hardly a raving ideologue. And I don’t know how you can fault Bobby Anderson for delighting fully in the Flying Spaghetti Monster; the FSM is a wonderful and hilarious satirical device, and there is no point in denying it or restricting the uses to which it can be put.

Atheist vs. theist and agnostic vs. gnostic

This article has been rattling around the internet lately and has been widely commented on and responded to by the atheist community. I think that youtube user ZinniaJones does a great job of refuting it point by point. In any case, I think this would be a great opportunity to repost a clear, concise blog post from The Freethinker. Basically, Agnostic and Gnostic are opposites on a continuum and deal with whether we can know that a particular god exists. Theist and Atheist are opposites on a continuum and describe a particular person’s beliefs about whether a particular god exists. So if Mr. Rosenbaum does not affirm the belief in a god, he is an atheist with respect to that god. It makes me think that Mr. Roenbaum is in the not-too-unique position of an agnostic atheist who doesn’t know he is an agnostic atheist. For shame! However, it is worth pointing out that he was paid a $15,000 fellowship by the Templeton Foundation to write this article. Yes, that Templeton foundation! The one that awards the “Templeton Prize” which Richard Dawkins has derisively called “a very large sum of money given…usually to a scientist who is prepared to say something nice about religion.” If the Templeton Foundation would like to pay me $15,000 to write an article entitled “An “Old” atheist explains to Ron Rosenbaum that he is actually a confused agnostic atheist” I would be happy to oblige.

New atheists are hypocrites, says Kentucky minister

In a column from the Lexington Herald-Leader, Paul Prather asserts new atheists embody the very things they hate, which is, he says, fundamentalism (though I’d say the thing we hate is the use of religion to brainwash and convince people that science and observation based reasoning is bunk).

He says, “These particular atheists [Dawkins, Hitchens, etc] are zealots on the subject of faith who see no shadings of gray, only black and white. They’re dead-set against religion but weirdly obsessed with it.” Really? Only black and white? If black is science and white is religion, then yeah, I’d say he’s right there, because I believe there is no compromise between the two. You can’t have both and you can’t have both taught as equally valid because one is observation based and the other is “faith” based. Continue reading…

A Philosophical Overview of ‘New Atheism’

Urbanphilosophy.net has an excellent (and long!) overview of the ‘New Atheism’. From the article:

While it seems a given as to what atheism actually means, one must carefully consider that in any worldview or philosophy, there are variations. Not only that, but there are often different attitudes and personalities within a worldview. While many critics of theism within this camp are quite pleased to lump all theistic activity within one ubiquitous whole, one should not respond in kind, no matter how tempting. This is a logical fallacy of hastily generalizing a worldview and can often lead to posting it up as an easily defeated “straw man.”

Opinion: The Appropiate Attitude

We’re expanding here at An American Atheist. We’ve been looking for new writers and new readers. We’re eager to do our part for the community of New Atheism. But perhaps what we’re actually doing is discovering ourselves and discovering the community at large.

And it is a community’s attitude and the cohesion of their opinions which I think best ages their movement. That movement may exist for weeks and have the foresight of the American Founding Fathers, or it may exist for decades and barely have agreed on a thesis.

In inviting new writers to our site, I’ve discovered a very important division in the community which may affix our age to the cradle: some of us are atheists, and some of us are anti-theists. I am not an anti-theist — Wait! Don’t leave just yet, many of my colleagues here at the blog disagree with me. And I think it’s important that you be on my side.

Continue reading…