Giving atheism a Bad name

Politics International Politics
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Interesting article, What do you think? I think this is spot on!

[quote]What’s in a name? Quite a lot it seems. Seeing the title of this article many readers will have assumed that this will be (yet another) article remonstrating with Richard Dawkins and his ilk for their brand of “new”, “aggressive” Atheism. Actually it’s not; it’s quite the opposite. This week, as the Pope flies into town there will, no doubt, be many comments about militant atheists attempting to ruin the party, not least with their threats to have the pontiff arrested. Just today A Vatican expert on the COE lamented the “aggressive new atheism” that has spread through Britain and a Google search of the word “militant” helpfully suggests “atheism” just one notch above “Islam”.

I’m not exactly sure what the word is for this tactic but I’d like to call it pigeon-holing. It worked with the words “politically correct”, “health and safety” and “feminist” and it’s working again here. The tactic involves rebranding something and making it so negative that people will be desperate to avoid being associated with that label. It has also worked in the US with “socialist” and when successful, people will scramble over themselves to avoid being associated with the whatever the label of the day is.

What exactly is “militant” or “aggressive” or even “new” about people like Dawkins, Hitchens or Dennet is not clear. Do they tell people how to behave sexually or proscribe diets and clothing? Do they send other atheists to your house to try doorstep conversions? Do they suggest, perhaps, that people who don’t believe them are evil and will spend eternity in hell? Do they protest soldier’s funerals, recommend cutting babies genitals, warned people off condoms or suggested an abortion for a 9 year old rape victim was immoral…all while getting charity tax exemption? If not then isn’t there something odd with this label? Who exactly are the militant party in this picture? Perhaps “militant theists” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it?

The answer is well explained by Dawkins, we’re all just too used to being deferential to religion. How else can you explain the mismatch between the reaction to religious trespasses and the (over)reaction to a few books? Take the “atheist bus” campaign last year as an example. Putting signs up buses had many people, including many atheists up in arms. This surely was more evidence of the so-called “new wave” of aggressive atheism. The point that was conveniently overlooked, was that the ads were a direct response to similar Christian ads with a message that people who didn’t believe in God would burn in hell for eternity. Similarly Dawkins, high priest of the army of angry atheists, is a response. Dawkins is a scientist. Only one of his books has dealt directly with Christianity and that was a response to the huge number of denials, and the backsliding occurring in UK and US schools, with regard to the teaching of evolution. So how is the response the only part which is ever considered to be shrill, or aggressive, -why not the stimulus?

Despite the facts, the stories continue and headlines like “Aggressive atheists” (Guardian) are common place. The pope, who allegedly tried to hush up cases of paedophile priests, seems to get lighter treatment in the press than Dawkins. A number of commentators have expressed their support for the idea of “arresting the pope” but added that people like Dawkins and Hitchens were not the right men to be doing it. Presumably this is because their names are too sullied as ‘aggressive, militant’ atheists to do the job of arresting those who covered up child sex-abuse.
Similarly, the notion that “aggressive atheism” is a new breed of disbelief is also a popular meme. Leaving aside the obvious irony of the term (new ways to not believe?) there is nothing new about the things that these writers expound. Bertrand Russell’s “why I am not a Christian (1927) covers almost exactly the same ground as Dawkins and celebrates the (at that time) seeming decline in religious belief in the 20th century. The only new part of the equation seems to be the upsurge in fundamentalist believers in recent times. It seems doubtful that parents in Russell’s time were not attempting to get Creationism taught in science classes. If anything is new, it’s surely the creeping movements like AI (which even has a posh new name) not Atheism –a belief system which must by its very nature, predate religion.

The rebranding of atheism is proving very successful. No doubt not as successful as calling someone a witch or a heretic would have been in the past, but no doubt enough to silence those who dare to criticize religion for the time being. It’s not Dawkins or Hitchens who are giving atheists a bad name, it’s those who would like to silence them and are willing to employ any tactic to achieve that end. Because isn’t that what religions like at the end of the day -quiet, submissive, believers ready to take everything on faith and not ask questions[/quote]

mallingual.blogspot.com/

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Tsk, tsk. Violation of forum rules to post without a comment. :no-no:

I take it you strenuously disagree with the article?

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[at op] So what’s your take on it? Do you have an opinion?

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whoops, I added a comment.

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I think that Dawkins and his ilk do give atheism a bad name in much the same way that radicals of any belief give the silent majority a bad name. Believe what you want but STFU about it. It’s not the belief in an Omnipotent being that is the problem but the people that preach about it. Atheist preachers are the same.

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Militant atheism is just so…so…narrow-minded and one-sided.

What are they so afraid of?

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That’s not entirely true, SC. Many many people keep their religion to themselves but also go out and give money to religious causes that have political effects, and they often vote partially based on their religious beliefs. That means that these beliefs are affecting or have the potential to affect me and you, even if we think they are irrational or whatever.

I agree that as an atheist, it’s important to keep your tone level and be strong but calm when debating or speaking, but let’s face it: a couple of firebrand atheists are a very VERY small drop in the bucket compared to the fundamentalist religionists. And to say Atheist “preachers” are the same, when they are fighting against irrationality in social and government life that affects everyone - which is very clearly what Dawkins does - is VERY much needed. Dawkins wouldn’t have an audience if “radical” religionists didn’t have an everyday effect on the government and society of American, or the Islamic nutjobs out there trying to destroy America. If everyone REALLY kept their religion to t

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I agree that the word “atheist” has a bad name, but this is nothing new. It’s been an “ugly” word for centuries. That’s why many atheists have taken other descriptors, such as “freethinker” or “non-theist”. The addition of the word “militant”, completely unwarranted, is used by opponents of atheists to scare people.

What’s new is that there are now people who are finally bringing the topic of atheism into the popular arena. There have long been atheist authors writing about and propounding atheism, but it’s only with Hitchens, Dawkins and a few others that it has reached the level of popular culture, something not achieved since the time of Robert G. Ingersoll (and he was an agnostic). Even Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould, renowned atheists, didn’t make as bold a step as Hitchens or Dawkins did.

Another “new” development is that the Internet has become a tool allowing atheists, often isolated in their families and communities, to contact each other and discuss atheism-related issues, to learn how to debate with theists, come “out of the closet” to their families, and much more. One of the most popular Usenet newsgroups was (and is) alt.atheism, still going strong now, even as Usenet has faded in popularity.

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Reading that article, SC, I don’t really see a whole lot of facts, just namecalling - a lot of “militant”, “aggressive”, and “radical” atheist, but he only real action presented is Dawkins’ Atheist bus - and the only complaint about it is that “some atheists are up in arms”. It’s a blog really.

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It just shows how skewed in one direction things are when people who talk about science are viewed as radicals and militant. Something fairly central to science is Popper’s idea of falsifiability. Science asks under what conditions or situations theory X would be proven wrong or need to be fine-tuned. Nothing can ever be proven, as we haven’t encountered every possible condition or situation, so there’s always the possibility that we might find counter-evidence. As such, something like the theory of evolution could actually be proven to be not true, or require major-reworking. There is that possibility, but what we’ve seen so far isn’t counter to the theory, so we take the theory as “true” with a very small t for purely pragmatic reasons. Science does get reworked all the time to accurately reflect new data that may run counter to previous data. Two examples off the top of my head would be the way our knowledge and definitions of the bodies of our solar system has changed just in my lifetime, and also the idea that mammals give birth to live young – presumably the first echidna and platypus baffled the shit out of naturalists, but the definition of mammal was adjusted. The problem with religion is that it doesn’t even allow for the possibility of it being untrue under certain conditions. It claims, unconditionally, to be true. Yet people get called militant or radical for pointing out that at its core, religion brooks no dissent and allows no possibility of revision without major schism and claims of heresy.

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I think the article is great. It points out the hypocrisy of it all!

What is “militant” or “aggresive” about what Dawkins does…can anyone explain? Especially in the light of what religions do.