Yes, I know that sounds kind of counterintuitive, given the bestseller lists the “New Atheist” books get on and the inordinate amount of publicity they engender, but the issue isn’t PR. No, it’s the quality of their thoughts and arguments. I can’t bring myself to read the rantings of atheist absolutists, but others much more versed in the nuance of philosophical discourse have done so and found these atheists wanting.
One of these, David Hart, wrote a book called “Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies.” I have not read the book, but I did read a piece he wrote at First Things that starts out thus:
I think I am very close to concluding that this whole “New Atheism” movement is only a passing fad—not the cultural watershed its purveyors imagine it to be, but simply one of those occasional and inexplicable marketing vogues that inevitably go the way of pet rocks, disco, prime-time soaps, and The Bridges of Madison County. This is not because I necessarily think the current “marketplace of ideas” particularly good at sorting out wise arguments from foolish. But the latest trend in à la mode godlessness, it seems to me, has by now proved itself to be so intellectually and morally trivial that it has to be classified as just a form of light entertainment, and popular culture always tires of its diversions sooner or later and moves on to other, equally ephemeral toys.
“Intellectually and morally trivial” is a damning indictment of those who so assertively and absolutely claim to be in possession of ultimate knowledge about a godless universe. After reading the article it is hard not to conclude that the “New Atheists” simply cannot be taken seriously. He mentions several authors, but his dissecting of Christopher Hitchens is delightful and funny:
As best I can tell, Hitchens’ case against faith consists mostly in a series of anecdotal enthymemes—that is to say, syllogisms of which one premise has been suppressed. Unfortunately, in each case it turns out to be the major premise that is missing, so it is hard to guess what links the minor premise to the conclusion. One need only attempt to write out some of his arguments in traditional syllogistic style to see the difficulty:
Major Premise: [omitted]
Minor Premise: Evelyn Waugh was always something of a bastard, and his Catholic chauvinism often made him even worse.
Conclusion: “Religion” is evil.
Or:
Major Premise: [omitted]
Minor Premise: There are many bad men who are Buddhists.
Conclusion: All religious claims are false.
Or:
Major Premise: [omitted]
Minor Premise: Timothy Dwight opposed smallpox vaccinations.
Conclusion: There is no God.
One could, I imagine, counter with a series of contrary enthymemes. Perhaps:
Major Premise: [omitted]
Minor Premise: Early Christians built hospitals.
Conclusion: “Religion” is a good thing.
Or:
Major Premise: [omitted]
Minor Premise: Medieval scriptoria saved much of the literature of classical antiquity from total eclipse.
Conclusion: All religious claims are true.
Or:
Major Premise: [omitted]
Minor Premise: George Bernard Shaw opposed smallpox vaccinations.
Conclusion: There is a God.
Yet Mr. Hart thinks dealing with the inanity of the New Atheists’ “arguments” is a fool’s errand. His suggestion is to go back to a manly atheist who dealt seriously with the “death of God.” And yes, that would be Friedrich Nietzsche. “Nietzsche understood how immense the consequences of the rise of Christianity had been, and how immense the consequences of its decline would be as well, and had the intelligence to know he could not fall back on polite moral certitudes to which he no longer had any right.” This doesn’t speak well for Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennet, Harris and their fundamentalist atheist ilk.
Good discussion. Let me throw Merold Westphal’s Suspicion & Faith into the discussion.
Whereas the New Atheists are basically saying “I don’t believe in God and here are some arguments you can use to make yourself feel better, assuming you and the person you are talking to feel the same way.” Hart is right, the self-indulgence is boring.
Westphal deals with far more serious arguments coming from Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx and shows where the arguments presented by these men were first presented as challenges in Scripture. In other words, more serious atheists were indeed wrestling with difficult questions–which is why the arguments of Freud, Nietzsche and Marx appear throughout scripture.
But the pure positivism (if it’s even that) of the New Atheists, is lazy stuff. You won’t find this fluff in Scripture. Their arguments are interesting if you’re three sheets and surrounded by like-minded thinkers, but there’s not much substance there beyond Hart’s pet rock analogy. (“The guy made like a million dollars” I’ll donate $20 to the church of the first person who can tell me where that’s from without googling.)
“Atheists have never subjugated masses and forced them not to believe.”
You’ve got to be kidding me? Never?!?
Ever heard of the Soviet Union? The Communist Party shut down churches, arrested priests, sent them into the Gulag, turned houses of worship into government administration offices and meeting places for the “Society of the Godless.” Since entry into college was only allowed with permission of the Communist Party, anyone who declared religious belief was barred from higher education and certain professions like the military or the police.
Let me guess. Communists weren’t “real” atheists? Right? Puhleeez. For a “guy” who demands “reason and logic” HPL portrays very little of either.
HP, you sound sincere, and I appreciate that. However, your assertion that “Many people continue to fall back on the idea that faith doesn’t/shouldn’t need to be proven or explained” doesn’t hold water. I’m not sure where you have seen this idea propagated. I’m a Christian, and there is an entire subset of Christian theology called apologetics. That is the defense of the faith. And this defense includes a wide range of reasons and explanations and evidence for the veracity of our claims. Maybe you are ignorant of Christian apologetics, and if so you should become more familiar with the boatload of books and studies that argue for the reasonableness of the Christian faith. Check out Ravi Zacharias http://www.rzim.org/. If you can honestly read and listen to someone like Ravi and still say we are just asserting everyone accept what we say on blind faith, then we have nothing to talk about. But you sound more reasonable than that.
Now let’s talk about your faith. Why should theism, and specifically Christianity, have to be “proven or explained,” and not atheism of agnosticism? Somehow we are the only ones who have the burden of proof? And this is fair?
As for why, who said we should stop asking why? Are we to assume that asking why means there are no answers? Or that all answers are relative? That there is no truth? What a strange assertion that people of religious faith are somehow immune to curiosity, to doubt, to wanting their faith affirmed by facts. I’m not saying there are not such people, I’m just saying that the caricature is far from the essence of religious faith, specifically the Christian faith that I embrace. Christians are not robots, my friend. We do not just “do what we are told.” Have you ever met a Christian who doesn’t fit your stereotype. There are several billion of us. You ought to try meet some some time.
As for wars and atheism, I really can’t believe you believe what you are saying. Communism, which was as anti religious faith as you can get, was responsible for, oh, maybe a hundred million or more deaths in the 20th Century. In communist China even today, Christians are thrown in jail and tortured if they don’t please the state. Seriously, please read your history a little more closely. Christianity has been a huge influence for good in the world for 2000 years. If you refuse to see that then you are simply being close minded to any facts that contradict your cherished assumptions.
Many people continue to fall back on the idea that faith doesn’t/shouldn’t need to be proven or explained. This is one of the ideas that I struggle with. In everything we do we use reason and logic to prove things out. We constantly look for the reasons why, for anything. Before we understood that the earth revolved around that sun we followed the movements of the stars and plants. We made very complex calculations and theories to explain why they moved in such seemingly odd orbits. But we continued to question why things happened the way that they did. In this case the original premise was wrong and that too was eventually proven out. So, why when it comes to any religion we have to stop asking why? That is what every religion appears to be asking us to do. Don’t ask why, just do what your told. And what are you told? It’s always the same thing, someone else’s interpretation of something written centuries ago in another language. Sorry I just don’t get it.
I do know that there have been no wars propagated in support of atheism.
Atheists have never blown themselves or anyone else up because those people didn’t not believe.
Atheists have never subjugated masses and forced them not to believe.
Why are people more frightened by people who do not believe in any religion than people who believe in a religion in opposition to their own?
I think most atheist want to live peaceful lives without being force to listen to other peoples religious ideas which have no basis in fact.
Marc’s assertions are truly astounding. Can someone please square this circle for me:
“Many [atheists] point to the social ills that result from theism. The idea that we should accept as truth something for which we have no empirical proof is a scary premise… it paves the way into the next dark ages.”
“Never meant to imply that there was no good to come from theism.”
By that line of “logic,” there must be some good that would come from the “next dark ages” and the “social ills that result from theism.”
Because it’s not like Marc is trying to “imply that there’s no good to come from theism.”
The idea that faith allows people to “remove science” from their lives is absurd for anyone who knows anything about history. It was people of faith who pushed science from the get go, in order that they might better know the mind of God.
If Marc chooses to not believe in God, and it is entirely his choice to believe or not, I don’t think most folks would quibble. The problem is when we get into the public square and folks on Marc’s side of the argument want to keep those who have chosen to believe out.
Marc’s naturalistic compatriots do everything they can to marginalize and stigmatize people of faith, while privileging those who have embraced the naturalistic explanation for everything. Even Marc engages in this behavior when he declares that faith is “scary,” would “pave the way for a new dark ages,” and causes “social ills.”
As a person of faith, I do not look for “proof” of God’s existence. It is ridiculous to ask someone who accepts a thing on faith, to give proof for that which one accepts. I can give reasons for my faith, because I think it is an entirely reasonable response to the world around me, but I can no more prove God’s existence than I can prove the love I have for my immediate family.
Marc, human nature is a funny thing. You feel compelled to believe there is no God, I feel compelled to believe there is. Sometimes God seems like Santa Clause to me too, but it’s just way too great a leap to go from there to the entire universe and all that is in it being a product of blind chance. And where did matter come from, by the way?
It’s unfortunate that you think all who believe in God and Christ are academically not honest. Maybe that is not what you mean. Maybe you are only speaking about you, but in your previous comment you call our faith a “scary premise.” What’s funny about this debate (big and small) is that you are just as much a person of faith as I am. There is absolutely no “proof” there is no God. Yet you act like the burden of proof is on me. Why is there something rather than nothing. Sorry, the burden of proof is on you. We have plenty of evidence in front of our very eyes. You have none.
Speaking of proof, there is plenty you believe without “proof,” but that’s another debate we have not time or space for. But we can have these debates in a mutually respectful way, and it helps when one side doesn’t demean the other side as intellectually inferior because they don’t agree with the other. That is far more prevalent from your side’s direction.
Never meant to imply that there was no good to come from theism. I could see some argument for it as useful, certainly. I do think its a bit difficult to blatantly dismiss all of these works based on some interviews you’ve seen.
I don’t believe I setup a straw man at all. I think the basic premise of faith is problematic. It allows us to remove science from our lives whenever it is convenient to do so.
Certainly I agree that the ad hominem (especially from Hitchens) is counterproductive. As for the veracity of Christian faith, I don’t find this to be a compelling argument. Yes, Christianity has survived (just as had a multitude of religions) for many years. It doesn’t mean that any good argument to believe it exists.
I wish I could believe in god… but because I have to be academically honest, I just cannot believe in something for which I have no proof. I would say that any intellectual that is honest with themselves would have to feel the same way.
I do thank you for your response and applaud this publication. Great stuff!
Thanks for your note, Marc. Just because I haven’t read the books of the “new atheists” doesn’t mean I haven’t read their work other places or heard them speak or debate. You can disagree with me, but everything I know about these, and other atheists I’ve met in my almost 50 years, says David Hart is right on the mark.
Regarding “social ills” resulting from theism, I would have much more respect for these blowhards if they were fair and described the many, many social benefits that have come about because of theism, and specifically Christianity. When someone describes the faithful as having a mental disorder, it’s very difficult to trust theirs as dispassionate judgment.
And I definitely want to challenge your assertion about theists accepting truth without any empirical evidence. This is a straw man atheists always set up, and when they knock it down they are so proud of themselves. As if their assertions are self-evidently true. I love the hyperbole of your assertion as our premise being “scary.” I would agree with you, if the statement were accurate, but it isn’t even close.
First of all, all knowledge is not necessarily empirically based. Everyone, including you, must accept certain things on faith or authority. But just because certain knowledge isn’t empirically based doesn’t mean there isn’t evidence for it. This is a critical distinction that atheists and agnostics who only want to make points but not actually understand always fail to make.
There is a huge amount of evidence for the veracity of the Christian faith. It’s called apologetics. It’s the reason many former atheists felt compelled to become Christians even though they didn’t want to. For some reason, and I can’t imagine why, atheists completely ignore this salient fact.
I just finished reading a book by Rodney Stark called, “The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success.” Maybe these atheists might become familiar with such a work so they stop making fools of themselves.
I could not disagree more with this piece. When the author does not explicitly state he has not read any of the “new atheist” writings, he implicitly makes it known. Commenting on the arguments of logical atheists like Dawkins and Harris via a third party is like listening to Glenn Beck tell us what the left is saying.
Nietzsche’s writings are the ramblings of an insane person. His nihilistic writings and thoughts on the death of god were a prediction of the future, not a suggestion or atheistic argument.
Most of the “new atheists” take the word at its etymological root a-(lack of) -theism (belief in god). They do not tell us there is no god, merely that they lack sufficient proof of one.
Many of them point to the social ills that result from theism. The idea that we should accept as truth something for which we have no empirical proof is a scary premise… it paves the way into the next dark ages. I commend the new atheists and their writings, yes, but anyone can plainly see they are not inconsequential.
Renee, it’s on my Wish List. Can’t wait to read it.
BTW, I learned recently of a new book by Christopher Hitchens brother called, “The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith,” which is also on my Wish List. Here’s a link to the Amazon page which has an interview with him. Sounds just like his brother:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310320313?ie=UTF8&tag=breakpoint-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0310320313
Read David Hart’s book and all his essays! It will only make you smarter and feel more grounded in your theology. I cannot say enough good things about this man and his incredible thinking and writing abilities.
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