They’re sneering, he sneered
Andrew Sullivan really does have a down on Jerry Coyne, doesn’t he. He quotes from Jerry’s post on the Atheist shindig and then comments:
They’re really charming, aren’t they? It is as if everything arrogant about the academy and everything sneering about cable news culture is combined into one big snarky smugfest. Maybe these atheists will indeed help push back the fundamentalist right. Maybe they will remind people that between these atheist bigots and these fundamentalist bigots, the appeal of the Christianity of the Gospels shines like the sun.
Or maybe they will remind (different) people that some of us are tired of theists telling everyone what’s what without a whisper of (public, unapologetic) opposition. Who knows – the future is hidden from our mortal eyes. But the more people like Sullivan blow a gasket merely because atheists are atheists, the more obvious the social pressure will become. Next step – The Revolution.
(I’m kidding, Sully.)
Maybe Sullivan will self destruct and then we wont have to see his nonsense and hate [edit]. I will help if it makes him go apoplectic.
Actually, he did publish several reader responses today. I thought they were all satisfying, though I doubt that they will change his mind.
And claiming to be arbiter of what constitutes “the Christianity of the Gospels” ain’t arrogant at all, no sir.
It’s equally amusing and tiresome that this is Sullivan’s response to an evisceration of the prized super-transcendent, deeply vague godishness of the modern sophisticated theist.
The awesomely splendid, and yet totally beyond understanding, vague god who is behind all things is apparently just as good as the old-fashioned god at inspiring knee-jerk whining in its followers.
Jerry Coyne makes what is, as far as I can see, an excellent point about the vacuity and uselessness of the kind of mushy kenotic apophatic deity that all PROPER religious people apparently believe in. However I, and I’m sure everyone else here, would be more than willing to consider some decent arguments against Coyne’s view.
So what does Sullivan do? Does he offer such arguments? No, he just whinges. “These atheists are so meeeeann! They’re as bad as those nasty fundies, and Skeletor and Megatron and even Darth Vader! If you’re scared of Darth Vader, then try Christianity! But only my version is right. If you disagree, then YOU’RE Darth Vader!”
How wonderfully moderate and sophisticated.
And his “apology” is ridiculous in a different way. He’s “a little battered by t he constant barrage of atheist argument”? Constant barrage? Maybe he should tot up all the copies of The Bible, Qur’an, Torah, etc sold over, say, the last 4 years, add every copy of the Left Behind books and DVDs (and Apocalypse 4: Judgement featuring Mr T) sold, every minute of airtime given over to unopposed sectarian religious promotion or attempts to inject religion into politics, every religious billboard put up, every religious bus ad and train station ad, every religious blog post, every apologetics book put out in that time, every Hollywood film that portrays atheists as joyless and broken and compare that massive mountain of stuff with the “constant barrage of atheist argument”. I have a feeling the “constant barrage of atheist argument” would begin to seem less like a constant barrage and more like an air pistol being fired just at the edge of hearing, if you could hear it at all.
These are the moderate, sophisticated ones, remember. These are the guys who look down on the fundamentalists and say to atheists “you never deal with my more sensible kind of faith”.
Mr. Sullivan doesn’t even achieve Dennett’s wonderful “deepity”, does he?
It’s just shallow, reason-free bile..which I take it he gets *paid* for?
(if so, I’m clearly in the wrong business)
More about the fundamentalist atheists, or is it atheist fundamentalists?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100012851/atheist-clubs-are-springing-up-in-american-high-schools-warns-head-of-us-catholic-bishops/#
Dennettian neologisms haven’t always been particularly felicitous, but I think ‘deepity’ more than makes up for ‘bright’.
“Constant barrage?”
Yeah – this is something that drives me crazy. He should just step into a bookstore and compare the shelf space devoted to religion and that devoted to atheism. The “constant barrage” adds up to about a foot of shelf space.
“Bright” wasn’t Dennett’s coinage – he was mad to have endorsed it, but he didn’t invent it.
John,
Dennett did not coin ‘bright’. That was Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell.
So is Sullivan ok with the closeted atheist, then? He’s not complaining against atheism per se, just against any mention or reminder that ‘those people’ exist, right? I really do not get this man.
Sully and Glen Beck should get together for a good cry over how the nasty tricksy atheists are ruining America.
(Glen Beck’s poignant thoughts on the matter can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEuAVgmWt0U&feature=player_embedded)