A sharting pot
Of course – a reasonable sensible even-toned review of Stephen Prothero’s God is Not One which stops the reasonable sensible even-toned bit for the final paragraph in order to say the obligatory:
Prothero debunks not only the fallacy of religious sameness, but also the “New Atheists” who have, lately, become so pervasive and culturally relevant. Atheism can take on its own religion, one dedicated entirely to disparaging the god-fearing, and, in doing so, become as nasty, hostile and ill-informed as the religious fanatics they so thoroughly condemn.
Keep it up. The steady relentless malicious othering is just the way to bounce more and more and more people into the “New Atheist” camp.
Othering? What othering? I haven’t seen any othering. Neither has my friend Holly-O or my friend Dolly-O or any other of my many many many friends who all think exactly what I think and write exactly what I write.
Clones? What do you mean clones? What are you implying? How dare you?!!!!! I’m going to say how wrong you are on my anonymous blog, and then you’ll see.
I’ve always found it amusing that atheism’s opponents seem not to see the irony when their criticism claims that atheism is like a religion. On the one hand, it’s probably all about dragging their enemies down to their own level, but if they are to be believed and atheism is like a religion (they aren’t and it isn’t, but just for argument’s sake), then why don’t they ever get as far as according it the respect to which they always claim religion is entitled? (The answer, obviously, is because the tactic is disingenuous and really just a superficial gimmick with which to try and bring us down.)
If you’re an atheist, or at least an agnostic, it seems that the fast track for public credibility and acceptance is saying something disparaging about those nasty, mean-tempered, evangelical “new atheists.” Maybe it’s time that the so-called new atheists adopt the same strategy. Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Dennett, Myers, Coyne, Stenger, Ophelia here, and the rest of the lot can all get together at a party or something and decide, by vote, who shall be the new new atheist. From then on, all their references to atheism will include the obligatory new atheist bashing.
Dawkins can say “I’m an atheist, but not like Carl over there is. He spits and throws things, snarling at pious old ladies and small children. Not like me — I’m actually quite reasonable and harmless, in comparison. Really, he’s awful, isn’t he?”
And the media will sigh in relief, the public will be mollified, and we can get back to real discussions on important issues, while everyone shakes their heads over Carl, the Militant Atheist.
Might be fun for Carl, too.
Tsk, Stewart – because atheism is a religion only long enough to make the point that it’s dogmatic but not long enough to make the point that if that’s what makes it like religion then it’s odd to defend religion, much less long enough to make the point that then it deserves extra special respect.
Of course!
Gah – it’s so unbearably predictable. I suppose I shouldn’t be, but I’m actually surprised to see how widely and deeply the “atheists are just as bad and nasty as the religious” meme has taken root, and how effortlessly it spreads. Especially how unreservedly it’s been adopted by people who think of themselves as liberal and well-read. People I might also have thought were liberal and well-read. It’s like waking up one morning to find out your family isn’t at all who you thought they were; they really don’t like you, they never did, and they would throw you under the bus faster than anyone from a rival clan. It’s like some twisted mirror universe.
No, Josh, that’s just how families are…
Sastra [wildly] It’s too late for that! I couldn’t do it! The echo of all those dreary newatheistbashers would bonnnnnng in my head and I simply couldn’t do it. It would be like sitting next to John Kwok on a long plane trip.
You must be actively trying to kill your commenters. Aren’t the dispatches about Byrnes enough? Must you enkwokken us, too? Is there no limit to your wickedness, Ophelia?
Hey look, it’s not my fault, he keeps turning up everywhere, nattering away – so he’s fresh in my mind – so you get the benefit!
As for wickedness – oh I could do much worse, I promise you. I know where there are veins of toxic stupid that would fell you in your tracks.
Found a new one recently – the latest issue of the London Review of Books contains a book review that suggests in passing that atheists dislike theology because it shows that theists aren’t fools. I find this both funny and sad, speaking as an atheist who reads theology books regularly. Theology can be entertaining while at the same time rather poignant – so much intellectual effort expended to no good purpose because of false premises that the theologians are culturally unable to break out of. If they had been fools it would have been less tragic.
As David Lodge sums up so neatly in a passage of Paradise News – I did a post on it here not too long ago (I was re-reading the novel at the time).
Well it was pretty long ago actually – last August. How time flies when you’re a nerd.
I tried to leave a comment, but the registration/signup thing kept hanging. Eventually I gave up. What I tried to post was:
A couple of points. First, the fastest growing religious view isn’t Christianity or Islam. It’s “no religion”.
Second, what Prothero says about atheism in “God is not One” is fatuous nonsense. He claims that atheism is a belief, when it is simply an absence of belief in any gods. He also claims, absurdly, that that atheists only reject the god of their own culture, and not those of other cultures (which would mean that all atheists actually believe in tens of thousands of gods, from Amon to Zeus, since human cultures tend to make up gods at the drop of a hat). It’s not Prothero’s bigotry that astonishes me; it’s the blythe, no-nothing, silliness.
And, like his reviewer Rosenbaum, Prothero makes the contemptible claim that atheists are as bad as fundamentalists, because, after all, fundamentalists blow up people at weddings, fly passengers full of planes into office buildings, murder doctors, teachers, rape, whip and throw acid at women, and so on, while those vicious atheists, every bit as bad, those utter rotters, they write books.
This sort of cheap, brainless atheist bashing should stop. Partly because it makes your paper look stupid, and partly because atheists represent a bigger and bigger proportion of your readership, so it’s time you stopped with the bigoted insults. Isn’t it?