philosophy, cultural-identity, science-and-religionThe nascent atheist movement, the New Atheists or “Brights” as some of them call themselves, seems to just keep chugging along. For example, although doubtless we atheists continue to be persecuted, Dawkins’ 2006 book The God Delusion has sold more than 2 million copies, Hitchens’ 2007 God Is Not Great more than 300,000 copies, and Sam Harris’ The End of Faith more than 145,000 copies to date. That’s a lot of dinero for those guys to continue in their battle with the forces of irrationality and superstition. Hurrah!
So it seems a lot of people are reading these books, and getting a worthwhile message out of them. Nevertheless, I can’t help but think that despite the prodigious number of words they’ve penned recently, the New Atheists haven’t done a great job at grappling with what keeps people religious. Many of them refuse to engage the frightening ideas that keep people afraid of a purely naturalistic outlook (which again, I possess.)
For example, although Dawkins made his scientific name in evolutionary biology, he seems awfully wish-washy to me when it comes to actually applying its lessons to human beings:
These things just fall right out of the equations!
Here’s my point: If some questions are so terrible to contemplate, that highly regarded scientific magazines like Nature will publish editorials asking for the banning of research, why is it “irrational” for the religious to shield themselves from these same terrible questions, in their roundabout way? If it’s physically impossible to “rise up” above the genes you had no choice is choosing, is it really so bad to go through life believing Jesus Christ will reward you one day for your troubles in the afterlife?
There are some places even the most highly scientifically literate and rational members of our society “just won’t go” – is it altogether clear that “truth”, for its own sake, actually is/should be human beings’ highest philosophical principle? If you think so, justify yourself, and explain who you think is most leading the charge in that direction.
Although it is difficult to determine exactly what you are asking, the last article cited, the one about James Watson, seems pretty central, so I am going to focus on that one.
One clue I use when evaluating an internet article is the use of language. Quotes like this, “Ubiquitous and prepackaged media tropes about race, perhaps more than intelligence, serve not as rational arguments but as apotropaic charms to ward off inconvenient ideas.” are usually a bad sign. Throughout, he quotes the other side of the arguments but mostly this only gives the illusion of addressing them. Mostly he just dismisses them.
The bit on skin color as a straw man is very revealing. Conclusions are reached that seem to build on earlier logic, but really they don’t. For example, his statement, “A population is a race is a population. To deny the population is literally a denial of evolution.” is not supported by his argument.
Perhaps you have not spent enough time reviewing all this data. There are many links, references and studies to plow through. That can make an article appear convincing, until you start clicking on those links, or searching for additional information about them. For example, this one “Whites from households in the lowest income bracket have higher IQ scores than blacks from households in the highest income bracket:” followed by a quote from that link that seems to support the statement. If you read the interview, you’ll see the discussion is about not discriminating against people based on where they are at when they enter into the educational system. It is about removing discrimination from our schools.
This leap that you make in your question “If it's physically impossible to "rise up" above the genes you had no choice is choosing, is it really so bad to go through life believing Jesus Christ will reward you one day for your troubles in the afterlife?” indicates an odd sense of logic. It demonstrates exactly why I think the issue of faith needs to become a more public discussion. The religion vs science argument as currently displayed does have some serious problems, and I think you are seeing them, but your recommendation for what to do about it is equally confused. I can’t really begin to parse out your question until we reach a better understanding of what science is and what religion is.
I can only speak for myself when I say this, but I have no doubt that there are others who feel the same way as I do. Personally, I have no problem with the notion that there is no god and that this is all there is. I also recognize that there are people out there who do have a problem with that. And I do not begrudge them this sentiment.
My issue is not with those people who fear death and are comforted by the thought of Jesus (or Allah, or Buddha, or Shiva, or any other god) might be waiting for them after they die. My issue is with those who would have me seek out their god and would attempt to convert me to their way of thinking.
Religion is supposed to be a private, personal thing. If it were, I wouldn’t have anywhere near as many problems with them as I do. But if there is one thing that so-called True Believers (tm) do, and which they often use to define themselves, it is attempts at proselytization.
Take away the proselytization, and I’d be a quiet atheist, living my life to the fullest; instead I push back against the persecution that they use against me and my fellow heathens because we don’t believe.
The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details.
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
Let's look at your links as the context of your sentences, and restate your "question" as the logical argument you're attempting to make:
1. Black people are genetically predisposed, as a
function of race, to crime and stupidity
2. Evil is a mathematical feature of the universe,
just like Sickle-Cell Anemia (which only black
people can get).
3. Rape is a successful survival strategy
4. Black people are genetically predisposed, as a
function of race, to crime and stupidity
5. Dawkins et. al. refuse to agree with this
Therefore:
People are justified in hiding themselves from these
"questions" using religion.
The studies of racial difference you cite are widely rejected by the scientific community, cited in the negative over 50% of the time in peer reviewed papers, funded by an SPLC-labeled hate group and partially compiled by the hate-group leader/Editor-in-Chief of the openly racist American Renaissance.
Otherwise, please demonstrate the mechanism by which the genes for working melanocytes affect intelligence, as well as the mathematical equation for "evil" (or Sickle Cell, for that matter).
Lastly, in addition to being a racist, you're too cowardly to simply say what you mean without stuffing it under a pile of jargon and euphemism.
You are scum.
I guess one of the points here is the audience they’re writing for. In Dawkins case, his emphasis is more on advocating a secular public space, not advocating irreligion; he is not particularly anti-religious but rather non-theist. As a quick example consider his ‘scale’ of atheism, and in particular where he positions himself (from this NYTimes article on ‘The God Delusion’): ‘On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is certitude that God exists and 7 is certitude that God does not exist, Dawkins rates himself a 6: “I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.”’
So, this is what our new atheism boils down to: a sort of calm, even reactionary, thoroughly neoliberal atheism – concerned with religion basically as a sort of archaism, to be more or less relegated to a tertiary role behind state and market. Philosopy, we should note, suffers more or less the same fate as theology in such a scheme. It is an optimists’ atheism.
Contemporary philosophers like Badiou and Meillassoux might offer a more robust and noble atheism, and they are at the very least more to my taste than Dawkins and others. But I think it is also important to recognize that revolutionary potential exists even in a traditional religious organization; it simply requires an activation. Consider that throughout American history it wasn’t the liberal academics who led the struggles for social change – rather, the academy (with the grand execption of Vietnam) has been dragged along kicking and screaming. It was of course in African-American churches where a message of radical (spiritual) emancipation was transfigured into a movement for social and economic justice.
Religion is just one of many designs of complication, or adaptive responses to loss.
What drives people to it is loss-aversion, as it promises to mitigate loss.
Religion is a form of social currency that gives people validation and shows it to others.
Membership has its benefits, safety in numbers, etc…
Has the New Atheist movement really tried hard to grapple with what drives people towards religion?
It seems to me that one aspect of the question may need more consideration than it usually attracts. Much of the debate centres on objective questions such as ‘Do gods exist?’ rather than the subjective question of what religion does for the believer. I think the consideration of the following assertions might provoke some useful debate:
Religion is a way of thinking. Science is a way of thinking. Each way of thinking is set in its own terms. If the terms of one of the ways enables a fuller explanation of the terms of the other than vice versa, then that way is likely to be closer to the truth. The set of terms which are less able to explain the terms of the other will belong to the way that is likely to be further from the truth.
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