New Atheism - Reposted

UPDATE: I am reposting this because the old one got messed up and didn't come up properly. Also, there are some new articles worth reading like Madeleine Bunting, and ZMag. There are also some books including a critical response to New Atheism by John Haught and a more cynical response by my friend Becky Garrison called The New Atheistic Crusaders and their Unholy Grail.

ORIGINAL POST (2006): The New Atheism is making a splash. Here is the skinny.

Last year I read a good history on the key figures of early atheism. Its called God's Funeral by A.N. Wilson (1999) which gets its title from a poem by Thomas Hardy. It was interesting and informative but there was no expectation that atheism would make a comeback and honestly, i wondered whether i was wasting my time reading the book. Now its 2006 and New Atheism has become a hot issue on the blogosphere with its fundamentalist intolerance for faith and Christianity.

Richard Dawkins' new book The God Delusion is part of that conversation. I was tempted me to part with £16 last week but after thumbing through the book, i didnt think it a serious reason to part with my money. Alister McGrath agrees, calling it his "weakest book to date" [Wikipedia] You can always read the free essay by Dawkins released the same day as his book called "Why There is Almost Certainly No God.

Technorati Tags: atheism, haggard, richard dawkins, ted haggard

I DID, however, buy Wired magazine for their feature article on new atheism by Gary Wolf called The Crusade Against Religion (or The Church of Non-Believers) which was worth every cent and btw is available freely on the website. Dawkins' brand of atheistic fundamentalism is not supported by quite a number of atheists and the article takes a more rounded approach, looking into other voices on atheism that are not as extreme as that of Richard Dawkins.

And talking about extreme intolerance to religion, Michael Medved has a good article entitled "The 'tolerant' Sir Elton wants to Ban Religion" in which he argues that religion is more tolerant than Elton thinks.

But back to Dawkins. Ted Haggard makes it into Dawkins' book. In fact, I watched Ted Haggard chat with Dawkins on the BBC special called The Root of All Evil. You can view part one here, and part two here.

IMHO Ted Haggard could have done a lot better by appealing to the supernatural realities he had already witnessed. I once heard Ted Haggard speak at the Post-denominational Symposium in Pasadena (1996 or 97?). He told us about a trip to Colombia where so many people get raised from the dead that people who lose loved ones call the church before they call the morgue - just in case. Ted went out on one of these calls and the guy had been dead for a few days. In fact, Ted said he was secretly hoping the guy wouldn't come back to like because he smelled so bad (tongue in cheek). And he didn't, actually.  But many others do and Dawkins would be struggling for a rational scientific explanation to the raising of the dead, and the supernatural healing of the sick in answer to prayer - something that is quite common in poor countries but not applicable to wealthy intellectuals who have enough medical care and enough money to never pray for a miracle. Which seems to be the the small elite demographic that embrace atheism.

But Ted did not play that card. I think he should have. A religion with no power will become a haunt for demons and a place for decay to set in. And it will leave the church struggling to find rational answers for realities that are mysterious and supernatural and not easily boxed up in scientific terms.

Once I was blind, but now I see.

Anyway, I am reading through Wilson's book on atheism again, thinking through the impact of Gibbon and Hume, and getting ready for some new conversations.

UPDATE: NY Times has picked up the new atheism story with "A Free-For-All on Science and Religion" by George Johnson and Al Mohler speaks out on his blog.

Comments

[emma]

I picked up Wired too for that article. There's also a few very interesting articles in this weeks Newsweek (Nov 13th) on 'America's God Complex' and 'Why Europe is Getting Religion.'

[andrew (tall skinny kiwi)]

ohhhhh. thanks!

[David]

I'm hearing stories of scientists who come to realize that there has to be a designer and have gone from aethiest to at least their belief in a God. His name escapes me, but there's one that came to that conclusion but would not ever become a Christian because he associated it with Nazism.

Good post, and good point. It's easy to not believe in God when you can self-sustain. Those that need to rely on God every day for survival believe in something. That's a bit of a circular argument and I'm sure and aethiest would call me on it. ;-)

[andrew (tall skinny kiwi)]

regarding Nazis . . .. i see more links to fascism with this new fundamentalist atheism than i ever noticed with fundamentalist christianity.

[Susan]

"A religion with no power will become a haunt for demons and a place for decay to set in."

good words.

[Chad Smith]

I preordered The God Delusion, even though I have only read the intro (guess I jumped the preorder gun).

Bertrand Russell's Why I'm Not a Christian is another atheistic view of the world, though from many years ago. I find Dawkins to be cut from similar cloth to Russell. Both can be quite bitting, and both are/were brilliant thinkers.

Your observation about miracles being important to a Christian response to atheism is right on.

[MinorRipper]

Have you heard of the Jedi Knight group? I suggest you check them out...

www.minor-ripper.blogspot.com

[John Smulo]

Interesting, I posted on the same thing today. I also saw this as a new form of fundamentalism.

I was disappointed as well by the Dawkins/Haggard interview. I would have liked to have seen Haggard take the same tact you suggested. But I also would have liked to have seen him not respond as confrontationally as Dawkins.

[David]

I, like you picked up Dawkins' book a couple of weeks ago and decided to spend the money on your recommendation instead and bought Frost's Exiles and Colossians Remixed! I have started Exiles and after the first chapter is likely to rate in my top five best books. Zietgiest.

[jon]

I find it very difficult to use miracles as valid responses to atheism, when there are so many.. maybe especially in the United States, that are false. People find it hard to believe that they're not all false. Sometimes I think this tendency is fading as modernism fades, and sometimes I'm not sure.

[Tom]

I read most of Dawkin's newest book, and agree with McGrath; it is quite weak. Not so much because of his arguments, but because of his tone. I felt embarrassed as I read. A man with such a sharp mind, penning page upon page of venomous rhetoric.

However, IMHO, I would stay away from any supernatural (subjective) claims relating to the dead being raised, etc. (Has there ever been a story in Time magazine or on the cover of The New York Times talking to and about the person raised from the dead? Or the Army amputee whose limb was gone one minute, there the next?) I think such claims are too rare, and fringe, to hold much weight with someone who believes Adagio for Strings was scored by chance.

[David]

Andrew,
I agree with your Nazism comment above. This happened to be one percpetion of a scientist who must have had some bad experiences with Christians.

[andrew (tall skinny kiwi)]

i am not holding my breath for NYtimes to validate God's miracles in other countries. and there are plenty of doctors reports of healed people (AIDS, etc) to give objective evidence of supernatural power.

Isnt our own faith resting on teh resurrection of Christ?

[Mark (marksbog)]

Scot Mcknight, some weeks ago, brought up the subject of atheism on his blog. One of the points made was that christians and atheists have similar problems. While for christians it is the problem of evil, for atheists it is the problem of good. In the past a good modern atheist may point to the continual advancement of human progress as “the good.” However today that “good” would seem to be less certain. So my question is what does a post modern atheist look like?

[Whitey]

The problem with TH using miracles to defend Christianity is that in the eyes of most he's lost some credibility, so any story he tells, in their eyes will probably not hold much sway.

[Nate]

Andrew,

I would point you toward Daniel Dennett for an interesting current atheistic take on religion.

You can get a taste of his ideas here from his interaction with Rick Warren @ TED.

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=d_dennett

Dennett makes an interesting policy suggestion: World Religions education for all children as part of the basic level of education required for a democracy to function well.

Is that fundamentalist? Is that something you would be comfortable for your own children's education? I am not a parent and I recognize that on questions like this it is best for me to be silent, but it is a important question to consider.

[Tom]

TSK,
No doubt God heals. Often.

I just had to comment on:
"...Colombia where so many people get raised from the dead that people who lose loved ones call the church before they call the morgue..."

Any journalist worth their salt, no matter what their presuppositions, would pursue such a story. As far as I know, the only people in history who were raised from the dead made such an impact that we are still talking about it two thousand years later.

Lest you think me one of the Greek-minded, I spent my childhood amongst the Ayore Indians in Bolivia.

As we engage the "intellectuals" (ie, Dawkins, etc.), I favor using the their language in the stead of risking apples and oranges conversations.

[PTD]

I agree that atheism is on the rise again, but I feel there is something much more sinister afoot...

I very much doubt that my atheist medical colleagues would accept a resurrection unless they saw it for themselves. People like Prof Dawkins may have to be raised from the dead himself to believe! We can tell them the truth but it will be like a foul smell to them, they have too much to loose. (Pray pray pray for them!)

Bertrand Russell's book that was mentioned (in a comment)was a rant against religion which I thought showed his closed mind and poor thinking rather than brilliance. I think Christ allows us freedom in thought life as well as spiritual, so as Christians we can have the imagination of the impossible, we can think, glimpse the thought's of an infinite 'impossible' God. Atheists are stuck in their small mindedness - they think that because they can see in the visible spectrum of light, then, that is the only valid sensory modality. Telescopes search the heavens in ultraviolet, infrared and even x-rays - we can't see these stars with our naked eyes but we still accept that they are there. I see the Bible as our 'telescope' for seeing in these other realms of thought and being.

I see a problem when a Christian think tank called Ekklesia joins hands with the British Humanist Association to call on the UK government to teach evolution as truth and fact, quote "a matter of straightforward scientific truthfulness". This is what Prof Dawkins believes wholeheartedly, he is the self appointed high priest. This is science as religion. I see a great problem when people who profess to follow Jesus as Lord (therefore believe the Bible is truth) decide to hold hands with the religion of the world.

PTD

[robbymac]

I watched "The Root of All Evil" (twice!) when it aired on CBC a month or so ago. It was, truly, "weak". I especially liked the part about athiests in America meeting in clandestine secret gatherings out of "fear" of Christian reprisals.

The Canadian showing was followed by an "open" panel discussion. It was interesting to me that the Jewish and Islamic clerics were thoughtful, highly educated, and thought Dawkin's work was sloppy, poorly researched, and full of dumb stereotypes. They even defended Christianity as being misrepresented by Dawkins.

Honestly, the more I watched the "town hall" discussion (with Dawkins participating via sattelite), the more it reminded me of Slice of Laodicea.

[Bryan Riley]

It's not just atheists in today's money-consumed society that have difficulty finding faith in the supernatural. Many "Christians" caught up in American or Western culture have a "form of godliness, but deny its power" because they are living out the truth that we can't worship both God and Mammon. They can't walk both by sight and by faith. And, as a result, they are fodder for the New Atheist's point of view.

[Chad Smith]

Russell's book that was mentioned isn't a case for his brilliance, only a small example of his general disbelief in God.

The problem that we as Christians run into by presenting a purely intellectual argument to the veracity of God is that we don't share a common basic understanding of the universe with atheists. While atheists would align with naturalism, we as Christians would at a very basic level at least align with dualism (physical and spirit).

[Natanael Disla]

Interesting post, Andrew. I have read some Erich Fromm books, like "The Art Of Loving" (1956), when he says that "God is everything and God is nothing". I think that this dicotomy tend to blur things to people who can't establish for themselves an absolute point of view on the issue.

[Jenelle]

I'm thankful for this post, Andrew. The Wired online article is worth the read. I do wonder, though, what leg of reason is Dawkins standing on as he pronounces belief in God as "evil"? Isn't he standing on air as he attempts to define evil-from-good without an infinite reference point?

[Andrew]

Andrew - The Chronicle of Higher Education's Review had an interesting Utne Reader style collection of excerpts from book reviews of Dawkins' latest. Non-subscribers can't access this article, but here are a few of the more salient comments:

Terry Eagleton, University of Manchester: Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don't believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. ...

Jim Holt, science writer: Despite the many flashes of brilliance in this book, Dawkins's failure to appreciate just how hard philosophical questions about religion can be makes reading it an intellectually frustrating experience. As long as there are no decisive arguments for or against the existence of God, a certain number of smart people will go on believing in him, just as smart people reflexively believe in other things for which they have no knock-down philosophical arguments, like free will, or objective values, or the existence of other minds. ...

PZ Myers, University of Minnesota at Morris: [Dawkins] is not proposing the abolition of religion, but rather that we acquire a proper perspective on it. Religion is a cultural heritage that should be appreciated for its contributions to history, literature, and art, and Dawkins actually advocates more education in the subject. ...

AC

[emma]

It's interesting that this conversation has focused more on miracles like raising people from the dead. Something I have been questioning lately is how our (Christians) attitudes to things like miracles affects our cultures attidue to them. Many of you comment here that you believe in miracles today, but they are not that common, and non-Christians don't really believe in them. If we really believed in their power and reality, wouldn't we pray more expectantly for miracles? And if we really believed what we say we do, culture around us couldnt help but be transformed. Just some thoughts!