Those god-damn atheists are at the door again, with their pamphlets
About this meta-discussion. H E Baber sees things differently.
But then there’s the meta-disussion–when self-appointed referees (particularly when they’re also players) complain that all that bashing is too, too nasty or that this rough play is hurtful to “despised minorities.” Of course I think it’s perfectly ok for atheists to proselytize, irritating as it is, just as I think it’s perfectly ok for Mormans to come knocking on my door, which I find equally irritating.
I don’t normally say things like “all that bashing is too, too nasty” or “this rough play is hurtful to ‘despised minorities’.” I didn’t say it this time, either. I said something a little different. I agreed with Russell Blackford that Dennett and Dawkins “have been demonised with some success” and added that “the myth-perpetuating and demonization are if anything getting louder and more pervasive.” I then named a whole slew of names by way of example. I then said there was a good deal of the witch hunt about this, because of the exaggeration and the scapegoating.
Now – notice that Baber says she thinks it’s perfectly ok for atheists to proselytize, and also that their doing so is just as irritating as Mormons’ knocking on her door. But of course atheists don’t knock on people’s door – and we don’t do what is normally considered proselytizing, either. So already we’re in double standard country – already we’re being told we’re allowed to do what we’re doing, but it’s just as irritating as knocking on people’s doors in order to tell them what to believe.
Well this is exactly the hyperbole I was talking about – it’s also exactly the charge that Chris Mooney and the other Atheist-haters like to fling around: that we want to pry into what people believe, we want to force people to think correctly. This is the double standard. We do much less in the way of intrusion and attempted forcing and proselytizing than throngs and hordes of theists do – yet we get told we are equally irritating.
The rest of the comment is equally careful and well-informed.
As far as accuracy goes, it’s at best an exaggeration to suggest that people who criticize the New Atheists and their followers hold that religion deserves some special respect–I don’t think it does–or that religious claims shouldn’t be criticized in public or that atheists should be deferential or remain closeted.
But Chris Mooney has been saying all of that for weeks, on his blog, in Newsweek, in other news outlets, in the wake of having said it in his book. Many other people say it too – I listed several in my post. How does Baber know it’s an exaggeration to say that they say that? Beats me! Frankly, I think she just made it up. It apparently doesn’t sound plausible to her, so she just announces it isn’t true. Well – that’s not good enough.
It’s also inaccurate to suggest that the New Atheists’ critics want to impose a double standard s.t. religious folk are allowed to trumpet their views publicly and evangelize but atheists aren’t. Some I suppose would hold that both atheists and religious people should be more polite and should avoid proselytizing and inflammatory rhetoric.
But again – it’s not a matter of supposing – it’s a matter of the public record. The “New Atheists'” critics shout the place down about the irritating noisiness of the “New Atheists” while not saying a word about thousands of years of noisiness from Old Theists. That is a double standard. It’s not that they spell it out, obviously, but then double standards never are – that’s why they’re called that! The word indicates an unacknowledged inequality. That’s the point.
I wouldn’t say all this – but there is a rude dismissiveness in the Comment is Free piece, in the comments here, and in ‘The New Atheists’ at The Enlightenment Project that, frankly, I have had enough of. I think H E is dead wrong on a whole bunch of facts, and that she’s either unaware of or ignoring a whole bunch of realities; given that, I think she should be less quick to scold other people.
Here’s one such blind spot:
I suppose I can understand some of the hostility to religion. There are still a few people around who were raised as fundamentalists and got beat up by it or who live in backwaters where conservative evangelical Christianity is the religion du jour, religious participation is de facto mandatory and non-participants get flak.
A few people who live in backwaters where conservative evangelical Christianity is the religion du jour etcetera. Er – no. It’s more than a few.
Have a pleasant evening.
I agree with all your criticisms of HE’s philosophical position. But (I’m an atheist, but…), but she was open enough to venture into our livingroom and maybe we could treat her as an honored guest. Maybe we could try to convince her, politely and discretely, that she’s wrong: she is wrong about many things. However, she is a potential ally, not a potential foe, and potential allies should be wooed.
But amos, she LIKES to “bash and bash back”, as many of us here probably do too. So she will feel perfectly at home getting bashed in our living room, and get a chance to throw a few punches herself. I think as long as no-one gets personally insulting, and I don’t think anyone has, it’s all par for the course.
PS. I used to comment under the name “Rose” but wanted something a bit more interesting.
Well, Parrhesia, ex-Rose, I’m a wimpy type person who doesn’t like to bash or be bashed, who wears a wool cap indoors and out all winter long to avoid catching cold, so all you bashers just go ahead and bash each other. Happy bashing. You know, when I had to box as a child, I made a deal with another kid to pretend to hit each other, with as much noise and as little force as possible.
Then quitch’er bitchin’ when you get socked, conversationally speaking.
Affectionately,
J
Congrats on the salubrious new name Parrhesia!
If fundamentalist religion is restricted to the backwaters, what’s this ‘C street’ business then?
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/07/21/c_street/
amos: there’s nothing I like more than to start my day going a few rounds with some of the trainers and sparrers in this gym, then maybe a jog down to Louie’s Bar for breakfast. But as I agreee with most around here anyway, we all finish up punching in the same direction, and at people who are present in a virtual and cyber sense only.
It’s still worthwhile, as I have found long ago that which I had commenced looking for in my teens: which is a satisfactory and defensible ‘position’ in the intellectual scheme of things. Actually, it is not so much a position in the military sense as a ‘way’ in the Eastern sense; ever developing, but remaining pretty much the same in essentials.
It is always a pleasure to read OB’s threadstarters, as she is nobody’s fool and has as finely tuned crap detector as any. That’s what makes N&C what it is. I would hate to see it turn into some sort of analogue of a vicarage tea party, where the slightest disagreement or impatience with someone’s casual remark would bring a stunned silence to the place.
The only way the subjects of OB’s critique can operate serenely here is by everyone agreeing that certain topics are no-go areas. That still leaves ‘how has your day been, HE?’ and ‘what’s the weather like out there, Mr Mooney?’
It has possibilities.
Eric: I agree with what you say about metaphysics, but I think that a lot of convincing (we’re talking about convincing HE, not of convincing fundamentalists, who can’t be convinced) can go on in what Ian calls
“vicarage tea parties”. As a declared wimp, I prefer a vicarage tea party, with philosophical dialogue leading to getting others to see that one is right, to a sparring match in which both sides flex their muscles. But that’s my personal option and I recognize the right of those who want to box to box. The atmosphere of this blog is admittedly not one of a vicarage tea party (actually, I’ve never been to a vicarage tea party: some may have been orgies.), and OB does a very good job of getting her points across, with the tone that makes her so special, as do you, Eric. Thanks to everyone for that.
amos
“I agree with all your criticisms of HE’s philosophical position. But (I’m an atheist, but…), but she was open enough to venture into our livingroom and maybe we could treat her as an honored guest.”
Double standard again. I was polite, but H E was rude – so I have become slightly less polite (but still more polite than H E has been).
Part of what I mean by ‘polite’ and ‘rude’ here has to do with being careful to read the other party accurately. I think H E has failed to do that throughout; it doesn’t look to me as if she has even tried.
So that’s how that works.
Agreed. You’ve read her texts and positions with more care than she has read yours or those of the new atheists in general. You’re a very very careful reader (and writer), a rare virtue these days. (That was said sincerely)
The vicar eating cucumber sandwiches with his parishioners is an interesting mythology. No doubt there is something in the popular conception Church of England latitudinarian politeness and tolerance. For some time it allowed religion to fade into the rather picturesque background of rural England, a kind of anodyne nostalgic cultural religiousness that permitted people to be religious without any particular commitments save to the customs of the tribe.
The truth of course is that shades of opinion in the dear old C of E run from fundamentalist evangelicalism at one end, who manage to outdo the Puritans for plainness, austerity and enthusiasm, through varieties of liberal Christianity, which has its atheist or ‘religion as a human creation’ wing, to Anglo-Catholicism at the other end, with priests and people who can outdo the pope in orthodoxy and ornateness of vestments and liturgy.
But to reduce religion to metaphysics + cult, as though we need not attend to the outrages of religious intrusiveness in public and private life, and to express astonishment at the tone-deafness of people to the appeal of religion, or at some people’s hostility to religion, is really a disturbing piece of double-think. When people fly aircraft loaded with people into skyscrapers, or stone little girls to death, or excommunicate people who help raped little girls to terminate pregnancies, or consign dying people to intolerable pain and distress, all in the names of their gods, how can someone wonder at hostility to religion, or fail to understand why some people do not find religion appealing? Because religion is only metaphysics (which has nothing to do with the real world) plus cult (that is, liturgy, ritual, worship)? Religion impinges on the real world all the time, and, perhaps, for some, makes life manageable. But religion’s destructive spinoff effect is not negligible, and anyone who can’t see this simply does not understand what religion is.
H.E. Baber is amongst the latter, for she says, quite plainly, that “Beliefs about metaphysical issues, including the existence of God, are inconsequential.” Tell that to the girl whose mother and doctors and nurses were excommunicated. Tell that to those who died in the fireballs of 09.11.2001. Tell that to the person dying in intolerable pain in a nearby hospital. Beliefs in non-existent entities are perhaps the most consquential beliefs of all. Time for the gloves to come off, if the religious cannot understand this.
I’ve been pouring my heart and soul into a scientific manuscript all week long, proofreading like mad, searching PubMed over and over for any late-breaking reports in my field that could affect the conclusions I’m making from my own data. It’s a labor of love, but labor it is. I must admit it takes the wind out of my sails just a bit to hear of so many people lately who are happily engaged in publishing wholly fabricated opinions, with no requirement or motivation to support any of their claims with a single fact. I can scarcely imagine how H.E. Baber can hold such a sheltered opinion about the effect of religion on society in the first place, let alone how such uninformed drivel can make it to print form without the benefit of the most cursory fact checking. And they wonder why we atheist scientists are so grumpy all the time :)
P.S. What is with the fortune cookie spam? Here’s mine:
‘You are black-hearted and inhospitable; cheerless and loathed by all’
HE really does need to get out more. I live <150km from her and work at a ~20,000 student public university. I can't walk across campus or drive through town without being bombarded by Christian advertisements whether it is fellowships on campus or 1 in 10 cars with a NOTW, megachurch, megachurch stadium crusade, Jesus fish, truth fish eating a Darwin fish, God bless our troops or America, Pray for America, Calvin and Hobbes praying, etc. sticker. Plus the postcards inviting me to so&so's megachurch. The anti-marriage equality bigots were on every street corner last November. Not to mention our local newspaper loves to give free advertisement to megachurch crusades by writing precrusade puff pieces.
Atheist advertisements just do not exist – oh, an occasional Darwin fish, but a bus campaign or billboard never.
Quite. “A few people” – I wish.
Eric, I have had first hand experience of Anglican vicarage tea parties.
The tea party image is of polite and conflict-free middle class chatter, and though ours were held in the Rectory, they were true to their class and kind. The word ‘vicarage’ has crept into common use probably thanks to English comedians.)
I still attend a few tea-soaked gatherings of the religiously inclined, and things haven’t changed much. The vicarage tea party is usually contrasted with arenas more vigorous and deadly. Say ‘World War 3 will make World War 2 look like…’
After my tea party phase was over I began to frequent bohemian pubs in Sydney where the standard beverage was different, the language conventions less restricted, and the only Christian influence seemed to be the occasional appearance of a Salvation Army lassie with her collection box. (Yes, always and invariably the Army’s shock troops were female.)
I suppose the moral of this story is that not all mythologies are mythical. ;-)
The Church of England in England has passed the mitre to Rowan Williams, who has used his position to call for accomodation with Islam up to and including the introduction of Sharia Law; as has been discussed on this site. That is moving with the times. Appeasement of totalitarians was never mentioned at the tea parties, nor sexual abuse in Christian orphanages, however much they may have been favoured or practiced on the quiet.
Though most Christians in my experience are honest and decent people, parsons and priests if they want to rise in their churches have to be politicians. So hypocrisy and piety come to find much common ground.
Ian, as I said, there probably is something in the myth of broad church tolerance and politeness, and the timelessness of tribal afternoons of, as you say, ‘conflict free chatter’, where the social gods are appeased, and where politics, deferences and resentments, are hidden behind the illusion of good will and Christian fellowship.
A bit of clarification, though, on the term ‘vicar’. It’s not only a comic term, though vicars often lived in rectories (otherwise parsonages or vicarages). A vicar, of course, is, like a lieutenant, a place-holder, viz., someone who stands in for someone else. ‘Vicar’ became a common term in the C of E during the days of plurality of livings,when rectors (who could be either clerical or lay) could hold the livings (the greater tithes) of several parishes. (Livings were property, and could be bought and sold. Rectors had rector’s freehold tenancy, and the right to the greater tithes of the parish, but tenancy conditions for vicars and curates, and their means of remuneration differed.) In either case the person appointed to do the day to day work was known as a vicar, and was paid a stipend from the tithes of the parish (often a pittance from the lesser tithes). (Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield gives the social context.) The term was further extended in the 19th century when many new churches were built in growing urban and industrial areas, and their incumbents given the title ‘vicar’. In fact, in the 19th century, in the C of E, by act of parliament, perpetual curates (incumbents of parishes which could not afford to pay a priest) were given the right to the title of ‘vicar’. The terms ‘rector’, ‘vicar’ and ‘curate’ were canonical designations, and in the old days marked very distinct social gradations. (Clerical rectors tended to be third sons of the nobility – second sons tended to go into the army or navy – or sons of lesser gentry.)
The whole thing was incredibly feudal, and this apparently unchanging world is reflected in the myth of tea-soaked afternoons on the vicarage lawn. The tea parties, of course, were real. The myth of timeless order was, and still is, a myth. Of course, hypocrisy and piety are mixed, by definition, in any gathering which pretends to embody imaginary religious realms of peace and brotherhood. It is precisely this tendency to conceal politics behind a screen of timelessness which makes religions so dangerous.
Actually, Amos, come to think of it, I think I personally prefer duels to bash-fests and vicarage tea parties. A swashbuckling, dashing duel, with skill, subtlety, sportsmanship and the odd witty aside, but still nonetheless lethal. I think I prefer the Three Musketeers to Miss Marple.