The Atheist (update)

Due to expert editorial advice for which I am most grateful, all updates follow the post at the end.

Yesterday Janna suggested I read The Atheist, an interview with Richard Dawkins by Gordy Slack. I did. I cannot find the words to describe how excited I was to read the things Dawkins had to say. In this evangelical, fundamentalist world of America lately I have been feeling so alone, sometimes desperate, and often concerned. Much of what Richard Dawkins said in this interview are ideas I have been thinking, or voicing quietly (sometimes passionately) alone to Tom in the confines of our personal living space.  I feel validated and hopeful.

For example, in reply to "Still, so many people resist believing in evolution. Where does this resistance come from?" Dawkins replied:

It comes, I'm sorry to say, from religion. And from bad religion. You won't find any opposition to the idea of evolution among sophisticated, educated theologians. It comes from an exceedingly retarded primitive version of religion, which unfortunately is at present undergoing an epidemic in the United States. Not in Europe, not in Britain, but in the United States. My American friends tell me that you are slipping towards a theocratic Dark Age. Which is very disagreeable for the very large number of educated, intelligent and right-thinking people in America. Unfortunately, at present, it's slightly outnumbered by the ignorant, uneducated people who voted Bush in. But the broad direction of history is toward enlightenment, and so I think that what America is going through at the moment will prove to be a temporary reverse. I think there is great hope for the future. My advice would be, Don't despair, these things pass.

Gordy Slack asked: "Fifty years ago, philosophers like Bertrand Russell felt that the religious worldview would fade as science and reason emerged. Why hasn't it?"

That trend toward enlightenment has indeed continued in Europe and Britain. It just has not continued in the US. and not in the Islamic world. We're seeing a rather unholy alliance between the burgeoning theocracy in the U.S. and its allies, the theocrats in the Islamic world. They are fighting the same battle: Christian on the one side, Muslim on the other. The very large numbers of people in the United States and in Europe who don't subscribe to that worldview are caught in the middle. Actually, holy alliance would be a better phrase. Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional "next world" is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.

On the child mind and raising children in a religious tradition ... as a form of abuse [Ah - Janna knew I would adore this answer!], Dawkins replied:

From a biological point of view, there are lots of different theories about why we have this extraordinary predisposition to believe in supernatural things. One suggestion is that the child mind is, for very good Darwinian reasons, susceptible to infection the same way a computer is. In order to be useful, a computer has to be programmable, to obey whatever it's told to do. That automatically makes it vulnerable to computer viruses, which are programs that say, "Spread me, copy me, pass me on." Once a viral program gets started, there is nothing to stop it. Similarly, the child's brain is preprogrammed by natural selection to obey and believe what parents and other adults tell it. In general, it's a good thing that child brains should be susceptible to being taught what to do and what to believe by adults. But this necessarily carries the down side that bad ideas, useless ideas, waste of time ideas like rain dances and other religious customs, will also be passed down the generations. The child brain is very susceptible to this kind of infection. And it also spreads sideways by cross infection when a charismatic preacher goes around infecting new minds that were previously uninfected.

What I think may be abuse is labeling children with religious labels like Catholic child and Muslim child. It think it very odd that in our civilization we're quite happy to speak of a Catholic child that is 4 years old or a Muslim child that is is 4, when these children are much too young to know what they think about the cosmos, life and morality. We wouldn't dream of speaking of a Keynesian child or a Marxist child. An yet, for some reason we make a privileged exception of religion. And, by the way, I think it would also be abuse to talk about an atheist child.

And finally, in answer to How would we better off without religion?

We'd all be free to concentrate on the only life we are ever going to have. We'd be free to exult in the privilege - the remarkable good fortune - that each one of us enjoys through having been born. An astronomically overwhelming majority of the people who could be born never will be. You are one of the tiny minority whose number came up. Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. The world would be a better place if we all had this positive attitude to life. It would also be a better place if morality was all about doing good to others and refraining from hurting them, rather than religion's morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment.

and the scientific worldview?

... the scientific worldview is a poetic worldview, it is almost a transcendental worldview. We are amazingly privileged to be born at all and to be granted a few decades - before we die forever - in which we can understand, appreciate and enjoy the universe. And those of us fortunate enough to be living today are even more privileged than those of earlier times. We have the benefit of those earlier centuries of scientific exploration. Through no talent of our own, we have the privilege of knowing far more than past centuries. Aristotle would be blown away by what any schoolchild could tell him today. And the fact that my life is finite, and that it's the only life I've got, makes me all the more eager to get up each morning and set about the business of understanding more about the world into which I am so privileged to have been born.

Of course, there is so much more that he has to say about religious extremism and violence, evolution, delusion, belief in God and, even, "intelligent design."

And so, to conclude my past "meme" I add another question: Which book will you buy next? and reply:

I already did (through RLC's Amazon link) - The Blind Watchmaker, by Richard Dawkins.

(didn't you, Pure Land Mountain?)

__________________________________________________________________

Updates:

Over at True Ancestor is more. I particularly love this:

But in the meantime, knowledge -- not just knowledge of one's own "beliefs," but literacy in more than one philosophical and religious system of thought -- knowledge, not belief -- is the best medicine.

See my comment to Danny over at Amba. I thought it would go well here too:

Danny, This has been a great discussion, I agree. Thanks for letting me know that I haven't offended anyone. I knew that Dawkins would have an affect on people because he sounds so harsh, unrelenting and radical. I have been honored that you all have shared your views so totally and completely. But more than that, it forced me to try and clarify what it is *I* think and feel about all of this. And I am happy to say that I still am "wandering" and don't feel "lost." I know that puts me at risk for all the sides and "isms" and "ists" to grab me for *their* camp. However, I love that people share with me what they believe and feel about stuff because that enhances the human connection and relationships - i.e. the more I know about you the more I can share about me. I guess using Dawkins to shield me, was a tad provocative. I have suffered from an extreme purist education and for now I need to bend towards confusion and against absolute truths.

I have not mistaken passion for anger in this discussion and do not lump you in with friends and colleagues who have been wanting me to take on their faith. Oh Danny, you are the least smug person I have ever had the good fortune to meet.

And why don't we get all riled up about Doris Day and Waltons, I wonder!

Danny's comment (to which I replied above) is here.

Blaugustine has an answer for us ... here

This just in - an e-mail from a friend:

You wrote on your blog: "In this evangelical, fundamentalist world of America lately I have been feeling so alone, sometimes desperate, and often concerned." Have you read this article (from NYT Magazine, Jan. 2001)? "The Bush Years; Confessions of a Lonely Atheist", By Natalie Angier
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20010114mag-atheism.html

You're not alone, but you're certainly in the minority.

Also of interest (especially the tables-- note how low the US ranked in evolution knowledge, and I think this was before the more recent pushes to remove evolution from the science curriculum): "What Americans Really Believe And Why Faith Isn't As Universal As They Think"
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/bishop_19_3.html

And a family member sent this e-mail right now:

You know me. I don't have to read it all to know whether I agree with you or anyone else there. As soon as I see the word "God" in any news report, as in "my commitment before God to her was the day I bought that ring and put it on her finger, and I'm not backing down from that, Mason said," I go SOUTH! I can't bear to read any more, because I feel like I can't believe fully anything else the person says. The most sacrilegious use of "God" is when there's been some big tragedy, like a tsunami or a train crash or something and someone survived out of dozens and you hear "God wanted him to live" or some other [stuff]. What about the rest? God DIDN'T want them to live? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM? Do you have an answer for that? If so, please write it in the space provided below.

Plus, check out Amba's viewpoint:

it makes you feel weary and depressed, as you sink into the barren, shell pocked quicksand of the DMZ between fundamentalist religion and dogmatic scientism, each in its own way so literal-minded. In that DMZ a subtler truth, at once scientific and mystical, keeps trying to take root, but every time it rears its head it's mistaken by each side for the other.

There's more here.

Comments

[david]

**Sigh**

I cannot tell you how depressed I am by what this guy has to say. For longer than any of us can imagine, the human being has had some kind of extrasensory perception of the larger forces that brought him into being. Let's say that the way we express that awareness, and try to force it upon others, is primitive. Let's grant that.

That would just be calling it a necessary step in our evolution, wouldn't it? Wasn't our every concept and advancement germinated under primitive conditions? And haven't any advancements come as a result of the forces of our human and planetary environment **forcing** us to adapt?

So why dismiss religion altogether? Why presume, or wish, to be able to do so? Why not see it as another something that's unique to us because it is an evolutionary opportunity -- a tool that, like any tool, can be used to destroy as well as to build, and that must advance in order to reach its full potential?

This extends to the political: would an atheist political regime be any better than, or substantially different from, a fundamentalist one?

This guy's views appear to me to be about as fraught with rigid viewpoint and unverifiable dogma as any Cardinal's or Baptist preacher's. Or many rabbis.

Our worst sin, the biggest impediment to our evolution, isn't our religions. It's that aspect of our being -- which spreads across all human disciplines, not just the religious -- that needs everyone else to adhere to the beliefs and systems upon which we each have staked our own identities.

[Tamar]

Oh I agree David that "the biggest impediment to our evolution ... it's that aspect of our being -- which spreads across all human disciplines, not just the religious -- that needs everyone else to adhere to the beliefs and systems upon which we each have staked our own identities." As an atheist I have religion thrust at me from every side and I have to be very careful stating my beliefs without being almost called a heretic. But let Dawkins respond here because you are questioning what he says and probably saddened by me in that I feel validated by what he is saying.

About "God Delusion" he says: A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence. Religion is scarcely distinguishable from childhood delusions like the imaginary friend and the bogeyman under the bed. Unfortunately, the God delusion possesses adults, and not just a minority of unfortunates in an asylum. The word "delusion" also carries negative connotations and religion has plenty of those ... [being] ...

A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means, which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

But you don't do that if you just know your holy book is the God-written truth and the other guys knows that his incompatible scripture is too. People brought up to believe in faith and revelation cannot be persuaded by evidence to change their minds. No wonder religious zealots throughout history have resorted to torture and execution, crusades and jihads, to holy wars and purges and pogroms, to the Inquisition and the burning of witches.

"The dark sides of religion today," according to Dawkins are:

Terrorism in the Middle East, militant Zionism, 9/11, the Northern Ireland "troubles," genocide, which turns out to be "credicide" in Yugoslavia, the subversion of American science education, oppression of women in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and the Roman Catholic Church, which thinks you can't be a valid priest without testicles.

David, when you say: "For longer than any of us can imagine, the human being has had some kind of extrasensory perception of the larger forces that brought him into being," couldn't that also be our child-mind unable to face that we just don't know what it all is yet, and there still is much to be learned, discovered, understood?

Besides, I love how Dawkins says: "the world would be a better place if ... morality was all about doing good to others and refraining from hurting them rather than religion's morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment."

[david]

Tamar:

1) The two religions I know a little something about -- Zen Buddhism and Judaism -- do not at all rail against "morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment." Sexual enjoyment -- under circumstances that do not hurt anyone -- are central to Buddhism. Sexual enjoyment -- under circumstances that celebrate life, albeit in a very utilitarian way -- are central to Judaism. Private sin seems to me a distinctly Christian preoccupation, and to ascribe this neurosis to all religions would be, if it were an observation applied to any individual ethnic group, an expression of blatant racism.

2) We could argue all day about whether there is "evidence" for the presence of the Divine in our lives. The mere fact that we can argue about the existence of evidence means one or the other of us may be mistaken. For one of us to say the other is suffering from "delusion" is delusion itself, suffused with arrogance.

3) The complex but unavoidable truth is that, even while religion has propagated the evils you list, it has also been the midwife and most insistent guardian of morality. The evils you list don't even begin to touch the sins or religion. But it doesn't even try to imagine the ills of lack of religion, to which one might ascribe the Holocaust, Columbine, corporate greed, the sufferings behind the Iron Curtain, drug abuse, gang warfare, and narcoterrorism, just to scratch the surface. The human animal always has had a unique talent for corrupting its most brilliant ideas. Morality in the absence of the Divine is completely relative -- in fact, in the absence of the Divine --even if it's only a childish delusion -- morality as we know it does not even exist.

4) Does Dawkins mean to suggest that no good scientist has religious beliefs? Or that no person of "faith" (an oft-misunderstood word) cannot adhere to and appreciate scientific principles? This is absurd.

In no way do I agree with anyone who begins a sentence with "The world would be a better place if..." and ends it with a blanket statement about wishing away one of the things that makes humanity unique -- even if that thing is sometimes corrupted. To me, wishing away anything uniquely human is not only futile whining, but, in failing to recognize the very similarities between its own views and those it derides, and to appreciate the differences -- and the origins of those differences promise the most interesting discoveries: are they borne of culture, vocabulary, even brain structure? -- is in itself corrupt.

[Tamar]

No, David, he does not suggest that no person of faith cannot adhere to and appreciate scientific principles. In the beginning I quoted him as saying: "You won't find any opposition to the idea of evolution among sophisticated, educated theologians." When you say "wishing away anything uniquely human" are you refering to how he says: "religion's morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment?" Because that is the context of his prefering the world to be without.

You say: "Morality in the absence of the Divine is completely relative." I say the concept of the divine is completely relative. And I think that morality does and can exist in the absence of the divine. I do agree that "We could argue all day about whether there is 'evidence' for the presence of the Divine in our lives."

The context of "delusion" for Dawkins is in a rational sense: i.e. "A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence." He is not being offensive when he uses that terminology. That is to say, he is not calling *you* delusional. I don't think he is being arrogant - just rational. And if he is sounding arrogant, it is no more than the religious arrogance out there being hurled at people who prefer not to believe in a god and don't usually say how they feel for fear of the terrible wrath it incurs. In fact, Gordy Slack opens his interview by saying: "Richard Dawkins is the world's most famous out-of-the-closet living atheist." People who come out of closets have great courage, I think!

The list that I made was Dawkins' and yes there is a lot of evil outside of religion as well. I agree with you about that. And I can certainly see how you would think he is being racist when it comes to Buddhism and Judaism although Christians don't agree with him either re: private sin and shame about sexual pleasure.

[david]

1) No, Tamar. When I am referring to something uniquely human, I am referring to a search for a unifying principle, a code of conduct and a source of origin larger than our rationality. I am talking about religion.
2) If you do agree that we could argue about the presence of the Divine in our lives, then why wish to dispense with it? Or with religion, which seeks it? All we're talking about -- or all I'm talking about -- in using the word "religion" is a systematized search for truths bearing on the origins of, ethics of and reasons for our existence.
3) It's not for you to judge whether he's being offensive or not. I'm offended. To say there's not a scrap of evidence for the Divine is widely disagreed with -- even by you, when you concur that we could argue about whether such evidence exists.
4) Let's lay off the "na-na-na-boo-boo" stuff. Of course his arrogance is no worse than that of the pompously pious, nor of his other co-religionists (that's what they are). That in no way excuses his bigoted and, it seems, uninformed view of the complexity, the diversity and the utility of the systematized searching of religion or the hunger of the spirit.

People who come out of the closet do have courage. Some of them are bigots.

[Danny]

I certainly believe that in many ways this country seems headed back to the Dark Ages and that religious extremism is at the root of much of the world's misery. But "fundamentalist atheists" make me squirm just as much (not you, Tamar, you are the most spiritual atheist I know!).

Arguments like the ones excerpted here only convince me that this guy is painting with way too broad a brush, thus diluting his points at every turn. But maybe that's the only way to get people's attention and I know it's unfair of me to comment on something without knowing the full context.

I think there is a world of difference between the kind of "I am right, you are wrong" extremism that produces the ills he outlines and BELIEF in general. My eyes involuntarily roll into my head when I hear hear people dismiss all beliefs that can't be "proven" by "evidence." Oy, I could never live like that. What evidence? At that point why should even the evidence be "believed?" That need seems like just as dangerous a form of extremism to me! I think it can be the height of human maturity to reach for beliefs and understandings that go beyond what we can "prove."

I've met many self-described religious folks in my life, including the miserably intolerant and dangerous variety, but the ones that I always feel are the most "religious" are the people who have no interest in converting others to their beliefs but for whom their faith adds an incredible richness to their lives and the lives of everyone they come in contact with. I don't mean to sound defensive (but I'm sure I do) because I love reading such provocative stuff that makes me think about where I stand. I understand that declaring yourself as an atheist must not always seem comfortable or safe these days so I can see why reading these views would provide some relief for you.

I think so many of these words have been polluted by misuse--I bet we're all hearing very different things when the word "religion" is used. I guess I'm just saying that I am very cautious of the religious fundamentalism that can often exist in an anti-religious worldview! You know what I think about Bush and the religous right, but I wouldn't necessarily breathe a sigh of relief if an atheist became president (fat chance of that!). Jimmy Carter would probably be considered a religous fundamentalist by many but I suggest that his beliefs are the type that can help, not hinder, a person's sense of responsibility and his or her understanding of the world. (Does it sound like I'm saying that religious people are okay only if I agree with their politics?)

This guy is presenting such a one-sided and small view of religious belief. The religion I follow, for example, while obsessed with many things, is NOT obsessed with "private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment." If anything, Judaism places a lot of importance of both partners being sexually satisfied.

I also happen to believe that we do experience "lives" other than the ones we're living now and while I don't need anyone else to share that point of view, it is such a turn-off to hear people state as an indisputable fact that this is the only life we're ever going to have. How is that belief any less rigid than the ones held by people who think atheists are "wrong" for not believing in God? I'd like to read more about this guy but in truth I'd rather read YOUR book on atheism, Tamar! Maybe you should write one--but only AFTER your next Heinemann book!

[Tamar]

David, Dawkins talks mainly about evolution versus the divine. He is coming at it from a purely scientific perspective. Therefore he is not putting his argument forward as "excuses." He has a right to believe that if there is no evidence of the divine it is delusional in the rational sense. He does not say there is no hunger in the human spirit to explore, learn and discover. He says about scientists this:

When you meet a scientist who calls himself or herself religious, you'll often find that ... by "religious" they do not mean anything supernatural. They mean precisely the kind of emotional response to the natural world as [the intellectual enterprise of exploring the story of life on Earth}. Einstein had it very strongly. Unfortunately he used the word "God" to describe it, which has led to a great deal of misunderstanding. But Einstein had that feeling, I have that feeling, you'll find it in the writings of many scientists. It's a kind of quasi-religious feeling. And there are those who wish to call it religious and who therefore are annoyed when a scientist calls himself an atheist. They think, "No, you believe in this transcendental feeling, you can't be an atheist." That's a confusion of language.

[Tamar]

Ah Danny, you are giving away my "spiritual atheism" eh?

Dawkins, to be fair, writes a lot about evolution and I did not quote him here on that. He writes that in terms of the "evidence" and "proof" as well.

I, too, have met many self-described religious people in my life whose beliefs have enriched and enhanced their lives wonderfully - I write about them in my book as having major influence in my growing years as I was forming my identity - most of them Christian, actually. But I have also met people who do not ascribe to religion in the way you or David are talking about but in the way Dawkins is, and they were just as enriched, moral, responsible, kind and compassionate. Am thinking of Charlie as I say this.

For Dawkins, religion as a belief in a god, is delusional in the rational sense. He compares it to a "teapot in orbit around Mars." (now don't start yelling at me!) Dawkins goes on to say:

It's said that the only rational stance is agnosticism because you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the supernatural creator. I find that a weak position. It is true that you can't disprove anything but you can put a probability value on it. There's an infinite number of things that you can't disprove: unicorns, werewolves, and teapots in orbit around Mars. But we don't pay any heed to them unless there is some positive reason to think that they do exist.

For a long time it seemed clear to just about everybody that the beauty and elegance of the world seemed to be prima facie evidence for a divine creator. But the philosopher David Hume already realized three centuries ago that this was a bad argument. It leads to an infinite regression. You can't statistically explain improbable things like living creatures by saying that they must have been designed because you are still left to explain the designer, who must be, if anything, an even more statistically improbable and elegant thing. Design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything. It can only be a proximate explanation. A plane or car is explained by a designer but that's because the designer himself, the engineer, is explained by natural selection.

Dawkins goes on:
There is just no evidence for the existence of God. Evolution by natural selection is a process that works up from simple beginnings and simple beginnings are easy to explain. The engineer or any other living thing is difficult to explain - but it is explicable by evolution by natural selection. So the relevance of evolutionary biology to atheism is that evolutionary biology gives us the only known mechanism whereby the illusion of design, or apparent design, could ever come into the universe anywhere.

[Danny]

Why does the word "rational" get my goat so? I can't help wincing every time I read it in this discussion including the comment that "belief in a god is delusional in the rational sense." What is this so-called "rational sense"—this world where things are real because we can "prove" that they are? Again, I posit that this in itself is a kind of fantasy.

I was intrigued by this notion of "spiritual atheism" and discovered through a quick search that it is a concept adopted by many Unitarian Universalist churches. The first one that came up in Google states on its website that "there is no reason to believe in a god, higher power, designer or creator of the universe and life. Such belief only confounds and corrupts connection with the natural order of things." And that Jesus "is a poor example of morality and ethics." Oy.

I agree that the move to get evolution out of the textbooks or presented as a theory is an alarming sign of the current power of the religious right in this country.

[Tamar]

Yes, I think rational is a tough word that has associations with perfect clarity and cold rigidity. A stereotype of science as if emotion is not part of it. I think of it more in the sense of reason and not made of myths or fantasy.

Interesting what you discovered about "spiritual atheism" and that you found it in the Unitarian Universalist Church of which I once was a member for a few years! The one I belonged to did not talk of Jesus in that manner at all. The sermons were intellectual in nature and explored all the best philosophical and theological ideas of all the world's religions with great respect.

This statement of Dawkins: "And the fact that my life is finite, and that it's the only life I've got, makes me all the more eager to get up each morning and set about the business of understanding more about the world into which I am so privileged to have been born," doesn't make me feel he is arrogant or unemotional or against transcendental feelings about "the intellectual enterprise of exploring the story of life on Earth."