The Vicar of Putney is sounding off again.
But what resources of self-criticism has atheism developed? Little, it seems. Rarely is a critical lens directed inwards. Once the campaigning atheist has seen the light, they remain on-message, keen to convert all unbelievers. Last week, as Maryam Namazie picked up her award for Secularist of the Year, she proposed “an uncompromising and shamelessly aggressive demand for secularism. Today, more than ever, we are in need of the complete de-religionisation of society.”
What’s his point? What does he mean? What does he think he means? He doesn’t say, he just gives another example of what he takes to be self-evident atheist non-self-criticism. Well, that’s stupid. The fact that a given atheist is a strong advocate for atheism doesn’t (at all, remotely, by any stretch even of the twisted vicarious imagination) mean that she is not self-critical. What an absurd conclusion to draw. Behold. One can be a strong advocate of atheism and be very cautious, skeptical, uncertain, tentative, gradualist about every other subject under the sun. Furthermore, one can be a strong advocate of atheism and be scrupulously, even obsessively self-critical, self-deprecating, self-mocking, self-correcting. The two are independent.
What he probably means is something like ‘atheism doesn’t consider what’s wrong with atheism enough.’ But too bad – that’s not what he said, so he doesn’t get any points for it.
Part of the problem is that many born-again atheists remain trapped in a 19th-century time warp, reheating the standard refutations of religious belief based on a form of rationalism that harks back to an era of fob-watches and long sideburns. One Oxford don has called the website of the National Secular Society a “museum of modernity, untroubled by the awkward rise of postmodernity”. Ignoring the fact that at least three generations of thought have challenged an uncritical faith in rationality, the society continues to build its temples to reason, deaf to claims that it is building on sand.
Attababy, Vic! You tell ’em! You tell those pesky old-fashioned boring dreary old hat modernists how yawn-inducing they are, how unhip, how deaf, how sandy. Above all tell them how bad it is to have ‘uncritical’ ‘faith’ (geddit? faith? he’s a vicar?) in rationality. You betcha. Let’s all have more uncritical faith in irrationality, and see how much better everything will be.
This commitment to Victorian philosophy turns to farce when campaigning secularists describe themselves as freethinkers. In truth, atheism is about as alternative as Rod Stewart. The joke is that many who were converted at university via Richard Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene think of themselves as agents of some subversive counterculturalism. This is ridiculous to Da Vinci Code proportions. Contemporary atheism is mainstream stuff.
Grooooan. He’s arguing from fashion! He’s using the argument from hipness! He’s trying to make atheists feel silly and pathetic because we’re not ‘alternative’ enough. What an idiot. What (again) is his point? God-bothering is hipper than atheism therefore God exists? No? Well what then? God-bothering is hipper than atheism therefore we should believe in God despite the non-existence thing? Yes, apparently. Well why would that follow?
As religion returns to the geopolitical scene with frightening malevolence, secularists ought not to be handing out awards and congratulating themselves. They must first try to understand religious belief. That means dispensing with their own self-congratulatory piety: it’s the only route to an effective challenge.
That’s not funny, that’s just downright disgusting. He means Maryam. Yeah, right, that’s all Maryam does, is sit around congratulating herself – in between being imprisoned and fleeing Iran at the risk of her life, and working for women’s rights in Sudan and having to flee for her life from there, and working for women’s rights and secularism in the UK and being systematically ignored by a media that’s too busy fawning on Iqbal fucking Sacranie to phone her up for an opinion now and then, so the National Secular Society has the almightly gall to try to get her just a little more mainstream attention via this award – only for the Vicar of god damn Putney to come along and drivel about handing out awards and congratulating themselves. That pisses me off!
Sod off, Vicar of Putney. Go be Vicar of Morden for awhile – that would show you.
Comments
45 responses to “Vicar of Drivelly”
Say, it Ophelia. What a nasty little man Fraser is. I take it, though, that he’ll be excoriating the Pope in similar (or possibly even stronger…) terms next.
Yipes. What a paragon of smugness and sappiness.
Am I allowed to say that? Will the British ask for me to be extradited under their new “Protect the Godbotherers from all Criticism” law?
Complaining about atheism being stuck in the nineteenth century is so six months ago….
Will the second coming of Jesus Christ be announced on an Internet blog site first? See Holy Inheritance blog:
http://ourholyinheritance.blogspot.com/
“Will the second coming of Jesus Christ be announced on an Internet blog site first?”
Oh, I think it’s been announced, many times now, long before the internet was invented and long before you came along, dude. Oh, you mean you’re gonna be the first guy to get it right? Wow. That’s awesome, dude. How come you’re so special?
Heh. So six months ago. Yeah. the
‘argument from unhipness’ is pretty much a mouldy standard now. Oh, y’know… atheism is so 19th century…
… whereas, obviously, subscribing to millenia-old superstitions involving invisible sky fairies is so very _today_.
See also http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3933-1847654,00.html , for another from this week.
Yup, already seen that Times article – see ‘Works’. Nothing like smug theists popping out of the woodwork to tell atheists how smug we are, is there. Dylan Evans and Alister McGrath and the Vicar of Putney should start a cult or something.
Or even a religion. They could start a new one every six months, just to make sure it never gets stale.
Oi, leave off Morden! What’s it done to deserve that dickhead? I may not need another reason not to go back there, but that hardly makes it right to further immiserate its remaining inhabitants…
Remind me Vicar when the bible was written and then try calling the 19th century out of date!
But dude, timeless values man!!
Just the kind of shite the Guardian is carrying these days
I’m not too bothered with the Graun carrying it – after all, I want to know what the other lot are thinking. That includes the ‘the Caliphate – not a fucking stupid idea, honest’ article as well.
Chris – know where you’re coming from, just find too much f in opinion creeping into gmg papers these days. I perhaps foolishly want more balanced detached reportage, and less of these ‘opinion formers’. The Gaurdian and Observer used to do the former so well..
I was so amused by that ‘the universal caliphate as a free trade organisation’ rubbish. Yeah, right, and no religion involved?
Too right Nick – if they axed all the columinsts and spent the cash on reporters to tell me what has actually happened I’d be happier.
The article conflates secularism and atheism.
It is possible to be a good Christian and a believer in secularism.
In fact it is actively blasphemous not to: “Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar’s. Render unto God those things that are God’s”
THis conflation is dangerous as it divides the world up into believers and non- believers rather than secularists and theocrats. It is being used to persuade believers that the only alternative is a theocracy
MKJ – Yes:
“Ignoring the fact that at least three generations of thought have challenged an uncritical faith in rationality” Yes. By saying ‘boo’ at it. Still, smug arrogant assinine tosh always did go rather well with the CofE. It helps them cope with the fact that half of them can’t really make that final leap of faith anymore… not like il papa… they’ve become too rational… poor lambs… therefore they’re appealing to a united front of theists and new-age mush-brains to make themselves feel more important, relevant, – trendy vicars even…
Hence hurtful reference to untrendy Morden. Sorry, Dave! Erm – send Putney Vick to Mitcham then. Perhaps we have no readers from Mitcham.
Shame we don’t believe in eternal conscious torment, because that’s why we have no readers there, otherwise it’d be perfect for him, wouldn’t it?
The poor vicar can’t even get his cool fashions down. Long sideburns have been hip with the kids for years now and who the heck doesn’t want a fob-watch! And all his talk about “post-modernity,” wow, that’s like so 1980s. Where do they dig up fossils like this?
Hmm…can we believe in eternal conscious boredom and irritation? That’s not too savage and cruel is it? I think a spot of eternal conscious boredom and irritation would be very good for irritating Vick. However sad for Mitcham.
dances around
I have a fob watch, I have a fob watch.
Na na na na na.
Where we can we get ours? It’s such a cool, trendy, atheist accessory.
Couldn’t say, I’m sure. My aunt gave me mine, it was me grandmother’s. Her father gave it to her – it says ‘from Father’ in scrolly script inside the cover. It’s ever so nice.
dances around some more
What would it mean for atheists to direct a critical lens inwards? ‘Hmm, I’m an atheist, that means I don’t believe in the existence of god. Is there a god? Nope. Guess I’m still an atheist then’.
The atheist that decides that, actually, on reflection, god does exist, is no longer a bloody atheist!
“..many born-again atheists remain trapped in a 19th-century time warp, reheating the standard refutations of religious belief based on a form of rationalism…untroubled by the awkward rise of postmodernity”. Ignoring the fact that at least three generations of thought have challenged an uncritical faith in rationality”
Tee hee. Another example of the reconciliation of religion and post-modern twaddle.
Well, you’ve got your aunt to thank you don’t have to believe in god. How are the rest of us going to manage?
“Another example of the reconciliation of religion and post-modern twaddle.”
Yeah. In fact it’s not so much a reconciliation – they’re pretty much on the same team, which is becoming more and more obvious. Dylan Evans calls himself a postmodernist theologian.
[Pauses for reflection . . . Nope, still no God. Still an atheist.]
Didn’t all that pomo stuff (which has told us where to get off, by jingo, should we be listening) have something to say about Grand Narratives? And if Christianity isn’t one of those, what is it?
Interesting, innit? Fuller is riding a fundie tiger, Fraser a pomo one.
Munch munch.
Ok, you’ve got a fob-watch, but do you know who designed it?
BTW, have the feng shwei people gone yet?
I don’t need to know who designed it on account of how I didn’t find it in the woods. If I had, of course, the entire cosmology of the West would be competely different. And football would be played with three halves.
I propose we all solemnly lift our voices for whatever our great atheist religion permits us to use as prayer in humble thanks for OB’s aunt and her gift of the fob watch that has saved the cosmology of the West.
“Fuller is riding a fundie tiger, Fraser a pomo one.”
We just happen to be fortunate enough to have these two glaring examples of the mutual backscratching of two enemies of reason back to back, as it were. And the football thing is not really that different either. Three halves – not because someone figured out it’s good, no, only because one has to oppose the evil heretics (read “science establishment whose work I don’t understand but I know when something needs putting in its place”). While we’re working to understand the world with real science and humanities studies that actually say and mean something, the demolition guys are coming in from both sides, wanting nothing more than to create a vacuum they can fill.
Have a link to post on the football thread.
“Have a link to post on the football thread.”
Eh? Do you have a blog, Stewart? Have we been missing your blog all this time?
No, no blog, just a link that came to my attention. But I’ll be sure to let you all know if any books come out. Or maybe I’ll try and hide it…
Ah yes, got it now. Good link.
No furtive books! All books must be open and aboveboard.
Going how far back? What counts? Author, editor, translator, contributor?
Good grief – what have you been up to?
Just trying to make a living. Just in case you’re worried I wrote the Bible (making it all my fault), there’s nothing before 1988 (that was as researcher, forgot that category).
“Hence hurtful reference to untrendy Morden. Sorry, Dave! Erm – send Putney Vick to Mitcham then. Perhaps we have no readers from Mitcham.”
Well I work in Raynes Park, and my friend lives in Mitcham. How about slaggin off Hounslow. That’s a hole.
Spent a miserable 8 months living in Hounslow, working in Isleworth, next to the sewage works . At least it was next to the sewage works whenever the wind blew, which was every day. I’ll take Hounslow’s purgatory over Isleworth’s hell any day.
Hounslow…Isleworth…I dunno. Too near the airport. I like slagging off the far reaches of the south, for some reason. I could go east, I suppose.
Chalvey, which is Slough’s Slough, might do. I spent a few weeks fitting desks there once, and I reached the settled conclusion that it and Fraser deserve one another.
Slough has a Slough. Gosh. Too bad Chalvey isn’t named Chavley, but it’s close enough.
Then again anything in or around Slough could be considered too obvious. I like places like Mitcham precisely because one doesn’t hear of them much.
I’m so picky.
“how yawn-inducing they are, how unhip, how deaf, how sandy.”
Sandy? That’s a new one to me.
Ah yes – well you see that was a jibe at the ‘building on sand’ claim in the dear vic’s quotation just above. Ooh, aren’t I allusive.