Author: Ophelia Benson

So even the Times Higher thinks it has a duty to tell the world that there is no tension between science and religion, that they are perfectly harmonious and compatible, and that the only people who think otherwise are militant atheists. The Times Higher – which has some connection to higher education, and thus to intellectual development and the exercise of reason.

Matthew Reisz leans heavily on Karl Giberson for his “information” on this lack of tension. Giberson has co-written a book about six prominent atheist scientists: Dawkins, Gould, Sagan, Hawking, Weinberg, and Wilson. All of them have written something

 setting out their largely unflattering views on God and the godly.Given that they have thereby ventured well beyond their central areas of scholarly expertise, Giberson disputes the accuracy of many of their claims.

And in doing so, Giberson “ventures well beyond his central area of scholarly expertise” – but does Reisz bother to point that out? I leave it to your wisdom to determine.

But that’s bullshit anyway. We hear it seven million times a day, and it’s bullshit. God is a public subject; there are no barriers to entry; so there can’t be any barriers to non-entry either. That’s only fair, and reasonable. There are no credentials required to believe in god, so there should be no credentials required to disbelieve in god. God is like a public park, or like the ocean, or air: god is there for the taking. (Not “God” the person of course, but god the concept.) Public. If it’s public, it’s public. We get to talk about it just as much as believers do. If they get to say god hears their prayers and answers them either yes or no or I’ll think about it, then we get to say show us the postmark.

Ajita Kamal defends the role of passion in social movements, in the context of explaining why heat is not necessarily or entirely counterproductive for atheism.

There is a very important role that anger, ridicule and passion play in any social movement. While intellectual understanding is key to a movement that is well-grounded, it is the primary emotions that provide the impetus for social organization. Without this, atheism would simply remain an idea to be discussed in academia and in private settings.

I think that’s spot-on. It’s also true that there are obvious dangers – self-righteousness, verbal or literal violence, confirmation bias, groupthink, tribalism, all sorts. But…we need the movement, and we need the passion. We should relentlessly self-monitor for self-righteousness and the rest of it, but we shouldn’t cool down.