I was somewhat taken aback recently when I found myself on a list of “kinder, gentler atheists”–most of them women–compiled by a religious historian attempting to distinguish between socially acceptable atheism and the presumably mean, hard-line atheism expounded by such demonic figures as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett. This nasty versus nice dichotomy is wholly an invention of believers who are under the mistaken impression that atheism is a religion in need of a good schism.
The list of “kinder” atheists was compiled for USA Today by Stephen Prothero, an On Faith panelist and professor of religion at Boston University and author of “Religious Literacy” (2007), a lively and incisive account of Americans’ ignorance about religion in general and their own religious history. Pleased as I was to find myself on a list in the company of such other spirited atheists as Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of the witty, recently published “36 Arguments for The Existence of God: A Work of Fiction,” and Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of “Doubt: A History” (2003), it is nevertheless slightly insulting to find your name used not only to place female atheists in a special category but as a foil for a mythical enemy known as the New Atheists….
Can I just call her cranky? Wow, I’m glad I read this essay now, because I know to skip her stuff in the future. No chip on *her* shoulder . . .
I like Susan Jacoby, but unlike the “old atheists” her understanding of religion remains reductionistic. I wish she would read Barbara Herrnstein Smith or Robert Wright, or even Karen Armstrong.
She might not be correct about education and belief; there is definitely a correlation between wealth and belief. The more prosperous the country, the less religious it is. It’s the Weberian paradox.
Of course “no intelligent atheist can ever claim that his or her ideas constitute absolute truth.” And that leads to a paradox, right? I would argue that Jesus destablized religious “truth” himself, humanizing it in a way that challenged all “religious” piety.
By quoting Ingersoll she illuminates her unwillingness to probe the mind of a thinking believer. “The orthodox Christian says he knows there is a god: but we know that he does not know. He simply believes. He cannot know.” First of all, the statement is false only if, a priori, there is no God. Secondly, an Orthodox Christian need only state that they are taking a risk on God and His attributes. Third, an Orthodox believer can choose, and in this way see patterns that had not been available to him previously. This will reinforce his knowledge.
Like others, Jacoby continues to reduce religion to things like “Monotheistic religion’s bedrock assumption is the existence of a god who always was and always will be.” Is it this? Or that Jesus Died and was raised? Or is it “love thy neighbor?” Or is it “God Wins!” or “Do Not Be Afraid.” What is a “bedrock assertion?”
I have no truck with atheism itself, but I admit when it comes to religion, they do seem a lot like fundamentalists.
I’m sorry that Susan Jacoby doesn’t like non-atheists noticing the different types of atheists out there, but amongst the non-atheists there are clear categories of atheists. One category is the “anti-Christian” atheist — one whose philosophy is less about the non-existence of God and more about his or her particular loathing of Christianity.
Ms. Jacoby’s biggest problem would seem to these eyes to be a complete lack of openness to the possibility of Divine Revelation. The difference between her and me, I think, isn’t that I conclude, based on no evidence, that God exists, but rather that I believe that He has made objective information about Himself available to otherwise clueless humanity. She seems unaware of this as a possibility – or at least is at no pains to address it. I’m glad to see her willingness to acknowledge the rather too, too obvious limitations of science. It will be a much better thing for that particular set of disciplines when their practitioners can eliminate any hint that theirs is but the lab portion of Atheism 101. Though it is worth noting that, within its considerable limitations, science is capable of establishing “absolute truth” about a very small but not insignificant number of things, hence the importance and usefulness of science.
I think she’s wrong about education and belief. In benighted ages like our own, wherein Philosophy is limited either to pure academics or constitutes what one indulges in after one’s third martini, this is no doubt true. In more intellectually advanced and civilized times, however, education has generally correlated well with religious dedication, albeit not of the silly reductionist sort so popular as a foil for the self-satisfied. It’s good to see that atheists continue to express a sense of dissatisfaction and insecurity with their own disbelief. Restless should be the heart that does not rest in Him.
She even comes up with a definition of the transcendant for the atheist. She does seem to have her ideas sewed up pretty tight.
I read the whole thing. She sums her points up tidily,
[blockquote]”To fill our portion of the universe with the best achievements possible, through our love and our work, is purpose enough for a lifetime and requires no transcendence of nature and no afterlife.” [/blockquote]
I guess there must be some “nice” atheists after all. Don’t expect to break through her wall of defenses. If you try you just might find somethings that are less than nice. Only God will be able to knock down those walls.
Ronald Knox actually tackles head on her Myth no.5 (“As an atheist, I highly doubt that my subjective experience differs qualitatively from that of a religious believer who thrills to Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Michaelangelo’s David, Leonardo’s Adoration of The Magi, or, for that matter, the immensity of a night sky”). In ‘Broadcast Minds’ (a superb piece of apologetic directed against the 1930s equivalent of Dawkins, Hitchens et al), he points out that (a) a non-believer can’t actually assume that his experiences resemble that of a Christian, since the former, by definition, doesn’t know what a Christian experiences; (b) that he, Knox, having experienced both types of ‘transcendence’ (Jacoby’s word, not his), sees no resemblence between them; and (c) that our faith is not, actually, based on ‘experiences’ but on reason and revelation.
I would like to see her do a deeper analysis and answer the classic questions to which worldviews provide an answer:
1 What is the prime reality—the really real?
2 What is the nature of external reality, that is the world around us?
3 What is a human being?
4 What happens to a person at death?
5 Why is it possible to know anything at all?
6 How do we know what is right and wrong?
7 What is the meaning of human history?
Her statement: “To fill our portion of the universe with the best achievements possible, through our love and our work, is purpose enough for a lifetime and requires no transcendence of nature and no afterlife.â€, standing alone is nothing more than unsupported opinion. If, as she seems to say, death is the end of personal existance, and this is true for all people, then why should she care what happens to others or the world after her death? She may personally care, but so what. There is nothing in her worldview that requires this conclusion.
#2
The evidence shows that within countries people with higher education are more likely to be religious and more likely to practice their religion. Across countries, the issue is more complex, but the idea that as countries become more wealthy they necessarily become less religious is no longer widely held by scholars. The current view is that countries that have monopoly suppliers of religious services are less religious (notably the European countries with their established churches, but the same has been found to be true in Muslim countries with very dominant islamic sects).
The idea that fundamentalism is associated with lower educational attainment is also not standing the test of time. It was true in the 1960s, 70s and possibly 80s, when many fundamental christian groups found the extreme discrimination encouraged by the anti-Christian ethos found in colleges and universities hard to stomach and so encouraged their young folk not to go to them. But since the 1990s they have returned to higher educational institutions in serious numbers, and now the younger members of the fundamental churches are often better educated than in the mainline congregations.
#8 – I think you offer some fascinating assertions. Do you have references? Saudi Arabia seems pretty religious.
“now the younger members of the fundamental churches are often better educated than in the mainline congregations.”
I’m not sure if I agree, but I’m willing to change my mind based on the evidence.
Why is it the WaPo has an atheist in charge of the “On Faith”? Perhaps, they could have an “On Faith” column and an “On Faithlessness” column.
#8 Do you have a particular source in mind?
I would guess that it is true that more fundamentalist (however you want to define that word) young people in America are going to college now than in the past but it is also true that ALL American young people are going to college at higher rates than in the past. So you’d have to show that EVEN more fundamentalists are going to college than we would expect from the general national trend…
According to the IMF, the top 25 countries by per capita income in 2009 were (in order): Qatar, Luxembourg, Norway, Brunei, Singapore, US, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, Austria, Kuwait, Canada, UAE, Australia, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, UK, Finland, Germany, France, Japan, Greece.
The US, Ireland and Greece are moderately religious. Australia? UK? Japan is horribly secular. Then we have Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland. Canada, France and Germany also make the list. I’d say the list makes an solid initial case that wealth and secularism are connected.
“The Agnostic is an Atheist. The Atheist is an Agnostic.”
There is plenty that a believer doesn’t know, and may justifiably claim uncertainty.
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.†1 Corinthians 13:12, RSV.
Augustine was agnostic about God in Himself, but dogmatic about God’s action in, and relationship to, the world. Augustine trusts the revelation contained in creation, and in Scripture, to inform him about God.
Kant was dogmatic about how God, if He existed, would (or could) operate in (or relate to) the world; but Kant was agnostic concerning the existence of God.
Kant trusts his own subjective knowledge to inform him about how God MUST operate in the world, if God were to exist.
Even with his restless heart and longing, Augustine remains an orthodox Christian. And Kant, with his certainty about subjective knowledge, in my book is a pietist. And probably closer in spirit to the current crop of ant-Christian “atheists.”
There is quite a bit of certainty and doubt to go around among believers and non-believers, and to say that an agnostic is equivalent to an atheist is simply not right.
I am truly sorry:
I meant to say,
“The Agnostic is an Atheist. The Atheist is an Agnostic.”
In one sense it is true that a real atheist must maintain her convictions 24/7, since a moment of doubt robs her of the title ‘atheist’.
On the other hand, there is plenty that a believer doesn’t know, and may justifiably claim uncertainty.
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.†1 Corinthians 13:12, RSV.
Augustine was dogmatic about God in Himself, but agnostic about God’s action in, and relationship to, the world.
Augustine trusts the revelation contained in creation, and in Scripture, to inform him about the existence of God.
Kant was dogmatic about how God, if He existed, would (or could) operate in (or relate to) the world; but Kant was agnostic concerning the existence of God.
Kant trusts his own subjective knowledge to inform him about how God MUST operate in the world, if God were to exist.
There is quite a bit of certainty and doubt to go around among believers and non-believers, and to say that an agnostic is equivalent to an atheist is simply not right.
#9 I am unsure what to recommend, as you seem to be unfamiliar with work that is now decades old, and so there is a serious amount of literature that could be referenced.
Perhaps it is best if I recommend a couple of introductory surveys to start you on the road. I have deliberately chosen ones that are available online — they are not the best necessarily out of all possible literature, but at least you will be able to access them easily.
Despite the fact that it is now a decade old, this is still is an good overview of the general state of play in this whole area:
L Iannaccone, Introduction to the Economics of Religion, published in one of the world-leading economics journals, the Journal of Economic Literature. It is available online at:
http://www.religionomics.com/old/erel/S2-Archives/Iannaccone – Introduction to the Economics of Religion.pdf
A similar source on the educational attainment issue would be
Park, Jerry Z. and Samuel Reimer. 2002. Revisiting the Social Sources of American Christianity 1972-1998. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41:733-746.
which can be found here:
http://www.isreligion.org/pdf/park_social.pdf
Again it is a review article so the references would point you to the underlying literature. You should also note that I specifically spoke of young folk — the legacy of past decisions is still apparent amongst the older members of each denomination, so that the average attainment is, of course, slower to change.