Author: Ophelia Benson

The Anglican church is worried that it might “lose its place at the centre of public life” in the UK because of the gnu atheists.

Why should it have a place at the center (or centre if you must) of public life? It’s a church. It’s an institution devoted to “worship” of a “god.” Why would that entitle it to a place at the middle of public life?

Besides, some of that place it has pretty well officially nailed down, at least for the moment. It gets its bishops into the House of Lords, where it can meddle with legislation. It gets to lay down the law on Radio 4 most days. It gets to run a hell of a lot of state schools. What more does it want? Just plain naming the archbishop as dictator?

Nah. It wants the gnu atheists to get lost, that’s all.

Drawing particular attention to the threat posed by a new movement of militant atheists, led by Dawkins and Hitchens, it says the Church must respond if it is not to be pushed from the public square.

Oh yes? There’s an actual, literal army of “militant” atheists, all marching behind Dawkins and Hitchens, is there?

Don’t be schewpid. There are some books; there are radio interviews and debates, there are blogs and websites. There is discussion. That’s all. Get a grip. Pull your socks up. Quit snivelling.

The Church is keen to address the rise of new atheism, which has grown over recent years with the publication of bestselling books arguing against religion.

And? We’re allowed to write or read books you know. We’re allowed to argue against religion. Go ahead and argue back, but do try to do it without calling us “militant.”

In recent years, a number of Christians have taken legal action against local councils and hospital trusts after being disciplined for expressing their faith by wearing crosses or refusing to act against their orthodox beliefs.

Aha! You see what he’s done there? (Jonathan Wynne-Jones, it is.) “Their orthodox beliefs” – that queers are feeelthy. As long as they’re orthodox, everyone ought to simply tug the forelock and obey, is that it?

No, sorry, pal – beliefs have to stand or fall on their merits; you don’t get to validate them by calling them “orthodox.”

As I mentioned in some comments on Strident and Combative, there’s this new Mystery Commenter who goes by “Hammill,” who has been making me increasingly suspicious. It’s an odd bird. It turned up only recently, as far as I can tell – the first times I know of were to comment on a few posts at Josh Rosenau’s, which were about – oh what do you know – me, and Jerry Coyne, and me again.

Gosh, what does that remind me of?

I’m being sarcastic. I know damn well what that reminds me of. I know damn well who else had a decidedly peculiar obsession with me and Jerry Coyne, often to the exclusion of anyone else.

“Hammill” turns up elsewhere too – but always on places Jerry has been posting on, or I have, or both. It’s been getting like being followed, to write a post about something and an hour or two later find “Hammill” there, as if summoned by a dog-whistle.

“Hammill” is very concerned. Very very concerned. Hammill is worried that it will be associated with the dread gnu atheists. It was worrying about that on Rob Knop’s post yesterday, right after Jerry posted on the subject.

I can agree with much of the substance coming out of the gnu atheist community but cringe mostly at its delivery. At times the rhetoric and invective makes me embarrassed to even be associated with them, however tangentially, as a nonbeliever.

Aw, really? Is that right? We embarrass you do we? That’s a shame. I tell you what: why don’t you set up a blog, maybe a group blog with a bunch of your imaginary friends, and start really getting to work on the subject of what it is you don’t like about new atheists. That would be fun, don’t you think? And you could have more of your imaginary friends write lots and lots and lots of comments, all saying things like “Oh golly gee, I thought I disagreed with you until I read that terrible post you linked to by that awful Coyne or that horrible Benson, and then by god I realized you were right and I think the whole thing is simply shocking.”

But maybe that sounds like too much trouble, and you’d rather just spend all your time posting comments at Rosenau’s and BioLogos and Rationally Speaking and Galactic Interactions. They will all keep your IP address secret, I’m sure.

Hey guess what! Did you know that gnu atheists are obnoxious? No? Neither did I! I’ve never heard that before. Yet alas, my darlings, it is so.

most of those in the movement formerly known as “New Atheism” seem to share the following characteristics. They are atheists. They believe the world would be a better place if religion would go away, becoming nothing more than cultural history and cultural tradition. They think that any religion that claims to be anything other than just cultural tradition is incompatible with science and the scientific world view. They believe that if somebody aims to accept science and is intellectually honest and consistent, the success of modern science must necessarily lead that person to accept philosophical materialism. They use the word “reason” as a synonym for “application of scientific reasoning”, thereby making anybody who is religious by definition guilty of thinking without reason. (As well as a lot of other people, for instance all faculty at a University who aren’t in a science or engineering department…

No. That last bit is wrong; entirely wrong. I told him so – for it is a he: Rob Knop, physicist and Christian – on the post.

We use the word “reason” to include “consistent with scientific reasoning,” but certainly not as a synonym for it.

He replied by moving the goalposts. But enough of this; back to the post itself and its useful new information about the badness of gnu atheists.

a subset of them are incredibly strident and combative. They think that any religion at all is a threat to science. They do not hesitate to call non-atheists idiots or childish. They will crap the comment threads of posts like this one with all sorts of (frankly) bigotry hiding under the clothing of assumed “reason”…

And then go home and eat a neighbor for dinner. It’s all so unfortunate.

I want to dispute one small item in Philip Kitcher’s “Militant Modern Atheism.” [pdf]

He describes the people in between the mythically self-conscious and the doctrinally-entangled, “whose ideas about how to interpret doctrinal sentences are far less definite.”

They are not prepared to say, with the mythically self-conscious, that there is no defensible interpretation of those sentences on which they are committed to the existence of transcendent entities. On the other hand, they are not willing to offer any definite interpretation that would provide a content to which they would subscribe.

Oh those. Yes. The hand-wavers; the resorters to purple language. What about them?

Many of them are inclined to take refuge in language that is resonant and opaque, metaphorical and poetic, and to deny that they can do any better at explaining the beliefs they profess.

Yes indeed, yet they also get very huffy if anyone dares to suggest that this might hint at a certain amount of…vagueness and even emptiness in those “beliefs.”

If pressed, they will admit that they can only gesture vaguely in the direction of something that might commit them to the existence of transcendent entities — or might not.

And then they will call you shrillandstrident, for good measure. They will call you a bully; they will call you a New Atheist; they will accuse you of being unreflective.

Their lack of definiteness frustrates militant modern atheists, who find no value in the resonant phrases that pervade theological discussions, but believers will contend that literal language gives out here, that as with great poetry, religious language somehow functions in ways that cannot be captured in the preferred modes of speech of their opponents.

No no no! That’s where Kitcher goes quite wrong. I’m not having that. I find plenty of value in resonant phrases themselves, just not when they pervade theological discussions. But resonant phrases? I yield to no one in my finding of value in them. King Lear for instance – King Lear is full of them. Most of them are brutally simple, but resonant all the same.

“I remember thine eyes well enough.”

“No sir you must not kneel.”

“Art cold, my boy?”

There are three just off the top of my head. Absurdly simple, but if you know the play, they’re like gunshots.

But in fact the way they work can be explained, and they don’t point vaguely in the direction of a cosmic boss who gets to tell us all what to do, and they don’t pretend to be making claims about the nature of the universe. Religious language does not function in the same way as great poetry, and it’s just self-flattery to claim that it does. (Notice that I don’t go around saying my writing functions the same way that Shakespeare’s does. That’s because it doesn’t. Believers don’t get to claim that priestly guff does, either.)