Atheism:The New Intolerance

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Atheism is in trouble. You can tell because its most eloquent spokesmen are receiving icily critical reviews in the very mainstream press that Christians often dismiss for liberal bias.

Take, for example, the reviews of Richard Dawkins's book The God Delusion that appeared in The New York Times, the London Review of Books, and Harper's. No one would mistake those journals for members of the Evangelical Press Association, but the Times reviewer, science and philosophy writer Jim Holt, upbraided Dawkins for not fully appreciating the intellectual force of classical arguments for God, especially in light of the more sophisticated versions presented by today's theistic philosophers: "Shirking the intellectual hard work," Holt wrote, "Dawkins prefers to move on to parodic 'proofs' that he has found on the internet."

"Those books really haven't dealt with compelling evidence for the existence of God," says Craig Hazen of Dawkins's God Delusion and its close cousin, Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation. Hazen, who directs Biola University's M.A. program in Christian apologetics, told Christianity Today, "It's a stronger form of fundamentalism than you can find anywhere."

In the London Review of Books, Terry Eagleton complained that Dawkins reduces complex social problems to simplistic narratives in which religion is the villain. Take Northern Ireland. Dawkins thinks that "the ethno-political conflict" there "would evaporate if religion did."

And Islamist terrorism? Dawkins apparently "holds, against a good deal of the available evidence, that Islamic terrorism is inspired by religion rather than by politics."

But politically inspired Islamist terrorism provides the opening for this new antitheism, says Biola's Hazen. "They are taking advantage of Islamic radicalism to tap into subterranean American fears about religion. There's this notion that religious people will end up strapping dynamite to themselves, and this has got to be stopped."

Reducing the wide spectrum of faiths to a single unfashionable color. Refusing to give the arguments for faith the respect they deserve. These are just the first in a litany of weaknesses in the current antitheism rhetoric.

You can also tell that atheism is in trouble because it is becoming increasingly intolerant. In the past, atheists (or secular humanists or freethinkers) were often condescendingly tolerant of their less-enlightened fellow citizens. While they disdained religion, they treated their religious neighbors as good-hearted, if misguided.

But now key activists are urging a less civil approach. At a recent forum sponsored by the Science Network at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, the tone of intolerance reached such a peak that anthropologist Melvin J. Konner commented: "The viewpoints have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?"

This newly aggressive mood (Dawkins calls religious education "brainwashing" and "child abuse") is in danger of undermining civil society.

Christianity Today columnist David Aikman recently sounded a warning in a commentary for the Trinity Forum. Sam Harris, he noted, not only advocates a shift from viewing religion as harmless to treating it as dangerous, but he also wants to suppress religion. Aikman evoked images of Mao's China and Stalin's Russia as the future of America—if liberals ever abandon true liberalism.

Make no mistake; it is that potential abandonment of liberalism that Harris and Dawkins are calling for. Dawkins told the forum in La Jolla, "I am utterly fed up with the respect that we—all of us, including the secular among us—are brainwashed into bestowing on religion." In a blog post cited by Aikman, Harris wrote that he is as "wary" of his fellow liberals as he is of "demagogues on the Christian Right."

Christians have long disdained what Eagleton calls the "mealy-mouthed liberalism which believes that one has to respect other people's silly or obnoxious ideas just because they are other people's." But we have also understood it to be a safeguard in civil society. Despite its vapid quality, such liberalism has been a blessing. The antitheistic rhetoric that erodes the ethos of respect is a clear and present danger. Atheists may be a minority (from 8 percent to 27 percent of the American population, depending on the poll and the questions asked), but they tend to dominate elite institutions.

The new atheistic rhetoric betrays panic, another sign of weakness. Atheism knows that it is losing both arguments and the global tide. Stories of the global vibrancy of religion are everywhere trumping the grand narrative of evolutionary progress. And the best philosophers are still taking the God-hypothesis seriously.

Christians should learn from the confident work of apologists who frame for our time arguments for God's existence. (Witness Antony Flew's conversion to theism, reported in Chrisianity Today's April 2005 issue.)

We should also pay attention to the state of civil society, being careful not to overreact to atheism's newly aggressive stance. In an already polarized culture, we cannot afford to destabilize the balance further. Most of all, we must be careful to live out our faith—with demonstrable neighbor love—rather than coasting along in a civil religion that blesses consumer culture and sings praises to the God of materialism. After all, the greatest apologia is love lived out.

Christianity Today editorial
January 25, 2007

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[m_the0ry]

There's no such thing as bad press.

The reason why there's innumerable "Atheism: Cult or just Goat Suckers?" shows on Fox News is because Atheism is becoming stronger. You never hear about something that doesn't threaten the status quo.

[Skidoo]

[ QUOTE ]
The reason why there's innumerable "Atheism: Cult or just Goat Suckers?" shows on Fox News is because Atheism is becoming stronger. You never hear about something that doesn't threaten the status quo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you suppose Christianity is brought up so often in this forum?

[ChrisV]

[ QUOTE ]
You can also tell that atheism is in trouble because it is becoming increasingly intolerant. In the past, atheists (or secular humanists or freethinkers) were often condescendingly tolerant of their less-enlightened fellow citizens. While they disdained religion, they treated their religious neighbors as good-hearted, if misguided.

[...]

The new atheistic rhetoric betrays panic, another sign of weakness. Atheism knows that it is losing both arguments and the global tide.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is all ridiculous. Atheists are becoming more militant because secular values are under siege. Do you expect atheists to react to the rise of fundamentalism with pacifistic smiles? Next time there's a war, I expect to read this guy editorialising on why a nation fighting back against invasion attempts "betrays panic" because they know they are "losing".

The difference between atheist "intolerance" and religious intolerance is that atheist intolerance comes in the form of harsh words. Religious intolerance comes in the form of substantive assaults on personal liberty, either privately or through the legislature.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
Atheists may be a minority (from 8 percent to 27 percent of the American population, depending on the poll and the questions asked), but they tend to dominate elite institutions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does anyone know why this is?
Do you have to sign the Atheist Creed to gain entry or is some other factor at play?

luckyme

[m_the0ry]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The reason why there's innumerable "Atheism: Cult or just Goat Suckers?" shows on Fox News is because Atheism is becoming stronger. You never hear about something that doesn't threaten the status quo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you suppose Christianity is brought up so often in this forum?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because atheism is the status quo here?

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Atheists may be a minority (from 8 percent to 27 percent of the American population, depending on the poll and the questions asked), but they tend to dominate elite institutions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does anyone know why this is?
Do you have to sign the Atheist Creed to gain entry or is some other factor at play?

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

DS might have some thoughts about it.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Atheists may be a minority (from 8 percent to 27 percent of the American population, depending on the poll and the questions asked), but they tend to dominate elite institutions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does anyone know why this is?
Do you have to sign the Atheist Creed to gain entry or is some other factor at play?

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

DS might have some thoughts about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would hypothesize two different factors. First of all, if you are a super fundamentalist theist, you won't question enough and think freely enough to get to this level of intellectualism. Second, the word "God" has so many connotations of an omnipotent and anthropomorphic being, that when one learns enough to make that seem exceedingly unlikely he rejects the whole idea of any sort of God.

[Alex-db]

[ QUOTE ]
You can also tell that atheism is in trouble because it is becoming increasingly intolerant. In the past, atheists (or secular humanists or freethinkers) were often condescendingly tolerant of their less-enlightened fellow citizens. While they disdained religion, they treated their religious neighbors as good-hearted, if misguided.

But now key activists are urging a less civil approach. At a recent forum sponsored by the Science Network at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, the tone of intolerance reached such a peak that anthropologist Melvin J. Konner commented: "The viewpoints have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?"


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Just as most progress against racist view points is made when we encourage intolerance against racism.

Most progress will be made against anti-knowledge (anti-science) viewpoints when we encourage intolerance towards people who (dangerously) refuse to accept commonly available knowledge in their dealings with the world.