Liberal Debutante

1 | Ian

July 14th, 2008 at 10:36 am

Hey Katie,

Thanks for the needed rebuttal. I don’t think I left my post open-ended enough and likely sounded like an ass by the end of it. What I was hoping to do was elicit a well articulated response as to why the friendly position isn’t hypocritical, because although I had the idea that it was, doesn’t mean I fully believe it (if that makes sense).

Thanks again,

Ian

2 | Friendly hypocrisy « Terahertz

July 14th, 2008 at 10:39 am

[...] Kish has a good rebuttal to my post that you should [...]

3 | Alon Levy

July 14th, 2008 at 9:09 pm

Dawkins at al have been very effective in making atheism more “main stream” and well known.

Really? I thought atheism was pretty well-known even before 2004; all Dawkins and his ilk have done is convince people that atheists really do hate everyone who’s different from them.

4 | King

July 14th, 2008 at 9:36 pm

you’re an idiot if you ignore the obvious increase in press and attention being pointed toward atheism post-dawkins and his crew breaking in.

5 | Ryan

July 20th, 2008 at 8:04 pm

Not sure atheism is more “mainstream” than it was before. Levy is right about the fact that atheism was pretty well known beforehand. In Canada, at least, I don’t think atheism has become any more socially acceptable in the last few years than it was before. However, Dawkins has been very, shall we say, evangelical about atheism. He’s turned it into an active, rather than passive belief system. Seems to me that he views atheists in terms of some sort of connected group of people, which wasn’t really the case before–with faith in the scientific method and utilitarianism the connecting factor.

6 | Brian

July 21st, 2008 at 10:53 am

I agree that the atheist conversations of religion and faith could probably stand to be more even-tempered, but I think that should apply only to the tone we use to debate our beliefs, not the content of that debate. Our tone should be patient and receptive, but resolute and unapologetic. We should talk with religious folks, not at them, but we should be prepared to ask others to back up their claims with examples and proofs.

In my opinion this is often where religious people choose to take offense, saying that it is unfair or pointless to question things that they “just know”. The best way to counter this is by calmly giving your counterargument, bolstered by evidence and proof, and leaving the question open ended as requested - “Here’s both sides of the story. Consider them and weigh them and think to yourself, if not aloud, which argument holds more water.”

Why do I say to be so resolute and firm with the atheist point of view? Because you’re an atheist! The word means “no god”. Period. If you call yourself an atheist then you’ve chosen to live on one side of that fence. It’s great to talk to people on the other side and to learn their motivations, but you have to make it clear that you made your choice based on evidence and you’re only willing to believe whatever is plausible. Prepare to offend the other person by telling them their argument makes no sense to you. Prepare for damage control.

7 | Alon Levy

July 21st, 2008 at 8:51 pm

There’s a third aspect in addition to tone and content, subject. The subject of a conversation doesn’t have to be whether God exists. Christians can often hold conversations with atheists or with Muslims about religion without telling them to convert or preaching about the superiority of Christian morality to all others. Those who can’t are generally mocked - compare the non-Catholic public’s views of Benedict XVI and its views of John Paul II.

Besides, there’s a lot of content-based criticism to be made of new atheism. For example, Harris believes that the Serbian and Arab-Israeli conflicts are about religion, and atheism will immediately cure them. This betrays wanton ignorance of these regions’ politics. Dawkins says there’s no such thing as a Christian child; I wonder if by the same argument he’ll say there’s no such thing as a Francophone baby, concluding that it’ll be better for the world if everyone abandons their native language and adopts Esperanto. Kurtz believes postmodernism is a threat to academic integrity; his description of what postmodernists believe is generally unrecognizable to people who’ve read, say, Habermas.

8 | Ryan

July 22nd, 2008 at 11:05 pm

“Prepare to offend the other person by telling them their argument makes no sense to you.”

See that’s the problem. “Making no sense” does not equal incorrect. If you simply can’t understand something, does it make it wrong? If someone were to say “I’ve felt the divine” they can’t really prove that can they? Nor if a Sufi mystic says they spoke to God in a dream. You could come up with plenty of rational explanations, but would you really disprove anything? I mean, I could tell you I’m in love, which you would probably accept with minimal questioning. But would you like me to prove it? Could I prove it? Could I prove something that is not explainable completely in the rational sense? I mean, you could say “bullshit!” You could call them a liar. But can you prove that they didn’t feel something that is only articulated through the lens of religion?

Yep, you don’t understand. That’s about it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t discount religious belief, feeling or sentiment. It’s easy to deconstruct a bearded old man who lives in the sky. If that’s what atheism is about, then call me, a practicing, self identifying Christian who goes to church and believes in the gospel of Jesus Christ one, too.

9 | Michael

August 9th, 2008 at 1:41 am

the world needs more people who think like you, whether they be atheists, agnostics, christians, jews, hindus, or yes, perhaps even scientologists (??!).