No, we’re not jealous
Having lost their own belief in progress and liberation, secular intellectuals are irked by their encounters with people who, on whatever basis, retain a vision of the good society and a commitment to realising it.
No; that’s wrong; that could hardly be wronger. That neatly gets the matter exactly backwards. It is because I have not lost my belief in (the desirability of) progress and liberation, because in fact that belief has considerably strengthened and sharpened as I’ve learned more about its pervasive enemies, I am, not irked, but repelled and horrified by my encounters with people who retain a vision of the bad society and a commitment to realising it.
They clearly feel rebuked by the undaunted practice of those who have not given up.
No. That’s not it. It’s not that they’re so dedicated and people like me are so indifferent. No – it’s that they want the wrong things, and they want them for people like me (atheist secular feminist women who cling to their own freedom and autonomy with bared teeth). I haven’t given up, and I don’t feel abashed or rebuked by the undaunted practice of misogynist theocrats.
I normally enjoy Fitzpatricks writing; he has argued forcibly and rationally against the whole MMR/autism scare specifically and bad science and “alternative” medicine generally. Remember, Hitchins did write that piece on women and humor. We all have bad days I suppose.
I know; I linked to at least some of his MMR stuff here. But I think that particular claim is just dead wrong and also unpleasant. He didn’t make the claim just about Hitchens, he made a broad generalization out of it.
The header is the give-away in the article …
“baiting the devout”
Again, he has got it exactly. completly wrong way around.
I, and many like me are so thoroughly hacked-off with the “believers” precisely because they won’t leave us alone …..
It is getting difficault to walk down the road round here on some days, without being acosted by some god-botherer or other. Then there are the muslims.
And people wonder why atheism is on the increase.
I note that Hitchens has picked up on my point: “by their fruits shall ye know them” – what do christains (etc) DO ?
And my & Russell’s point – communism is a classic religion.
I shall have to buy the book, now, I suppose.
He is talking nonsense.
Fitzpatrick’s argument rests on a slovenly use of the concept of a “good society”, as if it makes no difference what the actual qualities are that are called “good”.
What Pat Robertson regards as a good society is what I regard as Hell on Earth. I haven’t at all “given up” on Robertson’s good society; on the contrary, I am alarmed that it might actually be substantially realised.
I also just loved how Fitzpatrick blithely dismisses Christian and Islamic fundamentalism from the realm of important phenomena worthy of attention and criticism – by putting them in parentheses, no less! In the U.S., it is well established demographic fact that moderate-to-liberal denominations of Christianity are shrinking and that conservative-to-downright-theocratic denominations are growing – and the actual influence of fundamentalist Christians on public policy has grown even faster than their numbers. The importance of Islamic fundamentalism on the world stage I won’t belabor, as it is obvious – or at least, it is obvious to everyone with their head located somewhere outside of their their colon, which appears not to include Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick.
Oh, and he compares environmentalism to millenarianism, too – because the heavily researched and evidence-driven projections about global warming are EXACTLY LIKE the apocalyptic ravings of Revelations, obviously. And WTF does the “heat death of the universe,” a prediction of COSMOLOGY, have to do with environmentalism? Anyone? The fact that Hitchens discusses personal death, species extinction, and the eventual end of the universe in one sentence does not mean that they are connected in any way other than the obvious ways Hitchens is discussing in that sentence. Individuals, species and universes are all finite, and Hitchens is addressing the emotional resonance of confronting these facts: They offer “scant comfort,” and by implication the denial of these facts is a way of people to comfort themselves. Doesn’t change the facts, though, does it?
Fitzpatrick is not merely wrong on this subject: He’s willfully stupid about it. And an ass about it to boot. His entire criticism of Hitchens’ book is nothing more than a personal attack on Hitchens’ politics and psychology. It’s actually quite an achievement, in a way: An entire “argument” consisting of only ad hominem fallacies, never stooping to offer even a single substantial premise or criticism.
Dr. Fitzpatrick clearly needs a whistle-stop tour of the wonderful world of authoritarian supernaturalism.
To accuse the “New Atheists” of ignorance of religion at the same time as parading his complete lack of awareness of what’s going on at the moment is quite breathtaking in its arrogance…
Maybe he just doesn’t get out much from his nice cosy little bubble…?
Best Hitchens quote I saw lately, was this one, broadcast live on Fox News two days after the death of Jerry Falwell. He shouted it over the voice of the creepy, patronising host as he tried to move on to the next piece.
“If you gave Falwell an enema, you could bury him in a matchbox”
G. what precicly is the influence of fundamentalist christianity on U.S. public policy? I am blessed if I can see any.
Richard,
How about the fact that US funding to combat AIDS comes with a requirement that the recipients accept the fundamentalist agenda on sexual morality.
For starters.
Or the fact that the fundies are hot for Armageddon. I think we all know where that’s scheduled to happen.
Yes you are right about that but that only aplies outside the U.S.I was talking about public policy in the U.S.
On a similar theme Alexander Chancellor writing in today’s Guardian says of the continued success of books by Hitchens, Dawkins et al:
“The explanation [for their success] may lie in the fact that non-believers feel guilty about their non-belief and cannot get enough reassurance that it is OK to be an atheist. For even in our overwhelmingly secular society, belief in God is still regarded, even by those who don’t have it, as evidence of a person’s respectability.”
I feel guilty and Ratzinger, Williams, Sentanu etc are respectable. I think he’s got us banged to rights.
p.s Quelle surprise, Chancellor was one of those who thought that while the protests of Rage Boy and others were rather distasteful, Salman Rushdie should have declined the kinighthood because he had already done enough damage(!).
OK then, how about the bombing of abortion clinics and the killing of doctors who practice it?
Or the continuing campaign to get creationism or ID into school curricula?
Or every presidential candidate having to claim to be godly?
Gimme a break…
More sleight of hand:
Fitzpatrics wilfully, mischievously casts Hitchens’ assertion that in terms of cosmic timescale, our species will die, and eventually the universe will experience heat death as pure ‘hell-fire’ bombast. Well, except for one enormous difference. That on the best assessment of all the evidence available to us as an entire species, these outcomes are the most probable out of a set of rationally arrived at alternatives. They’re more probable for the species, than the outcomes predicted by religions, such as Judgment Day, or the personal heavenly rewards of martyrdom. But hey, that is the “only” difference. On the one hand billions of data assessed and formulated in a melting pot of disciplines of knowledge, developed over millennia into structured theory and argument, selflessly, by a species essentuially working as a whole, towards a common understanding. The other: injunctions based on political interpretations and sinister regional accretions of archaic dogmas, prosecuted with gusto in considerable pockets around the planet, only – but only – through blind faith, and with clearly shitty outcomes for an untold many. These religionists keep wilfully miscasting this rather f@cking enormous difference as similitude, despite all the evidence in front of their myopic, milky lenses… G Tingey, sometimes I get as angry as you and would invoke that L word.
Eric Rudolph,Randal Tery or Fred Phelps are not making public policy for the U.S. federal goverment Chris!have they acheived I.D. in the school curriculem? I sugest looking at what they acheive not what they ask for.As for presidential candidates having to claim to be godly that is just typical pandering nothing more.
I’m not an American but from what I know of the place you don’t have much of a chance of getting US government funding for health education programmes if you want to mention the ‘C’ word let alone the ‘A’ word. That applies as much inside the US as to foreign aid. It just that the foreign aid policy is a bit more upfront.
People are dying because of the fundies influence and it’s not just people who work in abortion clinics. If that’s not a real influence I don’t know what is.
I would not disagree with that but that is not relevant to U.S. public policy,public policy would be what happens in the day to day workings of the U.S. federal goverment, for instance there is no mention of I.D. in the no child left behind act and that is the most recent legislation relating to education, it is no good people saying that fundamentalist christians have this huge influence and the when asked for examples citing vague things like the bombing of abortion clinics!
People are dying because of their own behavior although it is not helped by this policy,look if all these guys can acheive is a minor change in how the U.S. distributes over seas aid(even though it has caused major problems)they are hardly running America!
That only means that faith based organisations are not discriminated against when federal services are dilivered it has nothing to do with the disemination of religious teaching.
Because of cause ‘faith’ based organisations are sooo discriminated against in the good ol’ US of A. As Chris said – Gimme a break…
Because of the seperation between church and state faith based groups were blocked from getting federal money in order to run things like methadone programes or homeless shelters ect,as this is something they do quite well this legislation alows them to aply for fedral money,but they are forbiden from prosletising.
This also only brings them into line with what happens in the U.K. and Ireland and many other nations!
In God’s Name
Diana Henriques
New York Times
Articles in this series examine how
American religious organizations
benefit from an increasingly
accommodating government.
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/churchstate.html
_
oops, just read your post, G, you say it a deal better than I did…
Adam it may be me but I think those are only for subscribers that is what I got? plus N.Y.times usualy has a negative veiw of any Bush policy.that dose not mean it is not worth reading but it would not be the best source for an unbiased look at this isue.
Reviews like this can be rendered more accurate by adding the phrase “Oh how I wish that” to every sentence. Thus “the reader learns nothing about religion” becomes “Oh how I wish that the reader learns nothing about religion”, and so on.
Richard, don’t tell anyone but you can try the login dailykos with the same password if you want to look at those articles. Don’t abuse it though!
I like how Fitzpatrick, in his critique of Hitchens’ critique of Nazims, conflates non-Christian with godless. At no time did Hitler ever reject belief in a deity. In fact, in both his public speeches and his private “table talks”, he affirmed his belief in a deity. That doesn’t sound like godlessness to me.
Stalin was, of course, a different kettle of fish. But even there it’s interesting to note that Uncle Joe had once been a seminary student preparing for the priesthood, and that throughout his life he retained certain peasant-like superstitions (e.g., belief in signs and omens).
NYT subscriptions are free.
I looked this morning and it was 14.95 U.s. to read those articals!
This is brilliant.
[Sam Harris] “present[s] excerpts from actual reviews of recent atheist bestsellers, replacing terms like “religion,” “God,” and “atheist” with terms like “witchcraft,” “the Devil,” and “skeptic.” Observe how much intellectual progress we have made in the last five hundred years:”
http://tinyurl.com/34d2e6
Two examples for you, Richard: the stem cell research ban and the current furor over the human papilloma virus vaccine, both of which are directly attributable to bizarre fundie views on “life” and/or their sexual hang-ups. Neither of these have an immediate impact on anyone’s lives, so they’re quite easy to brush away, but the cumulative impact over decades will in all likelihood be staggering.
But go ahead, write off objections as Bush Derangement Syndrome or not being “fair and balanced” or whatever charming talking point you got from the right blogosphere.
Richard,
My in-laws are American creationist baptists. They work for the world’s largest creationist organisation in the USA.
Have you NEVER heard of the supreme court?
Did you fail to spot their judgement on so-called “partial birth abortion”, for one tiny example of what’s been going -on since Bush created a “conservative” majority…?
Of course, you inevitably missed out on hearing my in-laws crowing about how their votes helped God work through Bush to attack all the evil social liberality going on – especially by his Justice appointments.
Now, to be fair, many of the fundie right over there are extremely hacked off that Bush hasn’t delivered their agenda on a plate, but they do have a clear and damaging influence on science policy, abortion rights, etc,etc…
It gets even worse when you look at what goes on at a State, rather than Federal, level…
There is no ban on stem cell recerch in the U.S.the private sector does this very well! the goverment aproved the first round of stem cell tests but not the second a minor change,I was wondering when someone would come up with the supreme court justices Andy,Your baptist relatives got screwed again by the G.O.P.Roberts and Alito may both be pro life but in their confirmation hearings both made it crystal clear that they would not overturn previous precedents,that is American speak for we aint revisiting Roe!as to the p.b.a. ban you mean that deeply cotraversial measure that passed the senate by 99 votes to 1 vote?
Why do you think large numbers of dems voted for the two justices?answer above.
O.B. recently made the point about state level influence as well and that I would concede is a much stronger case than the national influence one Andy.
Richard
If you are simply going to redefine every example I or anyone else provides as ‘not US public policy’ then it is clear that we are not having a genuine discussion but just, as often before, helping you with some strange need to boost your ego via this website.
This conversation is over.
Richard – really: try to slow down and think a little (or even a lot) more before you comment. This hail of un-backed-up assertions is clearly irritating regular readers, so please stop doing it. Slow down. Think before typing. Give arguments, not just assertions. Stop trying to provoke. Provocation is all very well, but not if it’s all unargued.
I protest I did back up all my assertions but I didnt mean to piss people of.I just had more time on my hands than usual,most of what I stated is public record for instance the Roberts Alito hearings are in c.span archives,I also cited the no child left behind act and the stem cell discision?these are not unimformed opinions I have studied U.S.polotics for thirty years.
Richard, too bad you haven’t studied Ukrainskiy for thirty years. You and I could almost have a chat in my native tongue.