Dawkins et al bring us into disrepute. There’s a schism alright, and I seem to find myself on the unfashionable side of it - Michael Ruse
The question: Is there an atheist schism?
As a professional philosopher my first question naturally is: “What or who is an atheist?” If you mean someone who absolutely and utterly does not believe there is any God or meaning then I doubt there are many in this group. Richard Dawkins denies being such a person. If you mean someone who agrees that logically there could be a god, but who doesn’t think that the logical possibility is terribly likely, or at least not something that should keep us awake at night, then I guess a lot of us are atheists. But there is certainly a split, a schism, in our ranks. I am not whining (in fact I am rather proud) when I point out that a rather loud group of my fellow atheists, generally today known as the “new atheists”, loathe and detest my thinking….
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buzz
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aasem
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thabet
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buzz
Interesting piece in the American Muslim
Problems with Hitchens and Islam
Herman Roborgh, S.J.
Modern atheists in the West and modernist Muslims in Islam are both abusing religion. Since the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, some Western writers on religion and also some Muslim thinkers are interpreting their scriptures with a literalism that has become a characteristic of modernity. Their discourse about God has been influenced by the popular demand for scientific empirical verification, and they have lost confidence in the ability of figurative language to open a way to truth.
Modern atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens make use of Enlightenment discourse to reduce God to a scientific hypothesis. Like other modernist writers, they presume that the Bible must provide scientific information since it claims to be inspired by God. Having failed to understand the nature of scripture and religion, they reject them both as products of the ‘God Delusion’.Both modern atheists in the West and Muslim modernists in Islamic countries adopt an abstract notion of religion that remains unaffected by the historical and social changes taking place in society. Hitchens’ oft-repeated phase, ‘religion poisons everything’, refers to an abstract religion devoid of morality and spirituality and with no concern for human rights.
In the Muslim world, Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) advocated a return to the pristine form of Islam that acknowledged God as the only Sovereign in all spheres of life. Abu A’la Mawdudi (1903–1979) developed a form of Islam in Pakistan that reduced the law of God to a code of commands and prohibitions that all pious believers were expected to accept and obey. An influential teacher in Indonesia today, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, maintains that Muslims will be able to revive the quality of their life only by going back to models provided by the Prophet Muhammad and his companions in the seventh century.
Modern atheists and modernist Muslims reach their extreme conclusions by bypassing the intellectual tradition of the Abrahamic religions. Traditional religious discourse has always been familiar with realities that take us beyond empirical observation and measurement, respecting the language of myth and symbol.
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thabet
Is so-called New Atheism in the US an elitist movement?
(I am a little wary of someone asserting “it’s obvious” without some data.)
Theos, a Christian think-tank, did a survey to look at religion, class and atheism in the UK too:
One of the questions, adapted from an earlier BBC/ICM survey, asked people not simply what they believed (about God) but whether they had changed their mind, and by cross-tabulating these results with standard demographic questions, we can get a reasonably detailed picture of the class composition of atheism and theism in the UK.
[I]n summary the study found that lifelong theists (“I have always believed in God”) are disproportionately from lower socio-economic grades (DE: semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers or those unemployed or on state benefits), whereas lifelong atheists (“I have never believed in God”) are disproportionately from upper social grades (AB: higher or intermediate managerial or administrative professionals).
No surprise there. The default position in the UK (and seemingly in humans themselves) has long been belief in God, so you would expect theism to be a mass movement and atheism a more select one.
What is interesting – and surprising – is that “converts” to theism (“I believe in God now but have not always done so”) are disproportionately from upper and upper-middle social grades (ABC1: as above plus supervisory, clerical, junior managerial or administrative professionals), whereas “converts” to atheism (“I used to believe in God but I no longer do so”) are disproportionately from lower social grades (DE).
Your thoughts?
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johnpi
A former Muslim turned atheist says he is receiving death threats in Oklahoma.
Sabri Husibi, a former Muslim who is now an atheist, says he has been ostracized and threatened with death since publication of a Tulsa World article Saturday in which he was critical of Islam and all other religions.
The article was written to promote a talk he gave the next day to the Tulsa Atheists organization.
Husibi, who has an unlisted telephone number, said he received about 30 calls Saturday from people who were cursing him, calling him a traitor and threatening him.
Most were foreign-born, Tulsa-area Muslims whom he knows, he said. He also received angry calls from friends and relatives in Syria.
One caller, whom Husibi would not identify, said that if he spoke at the meeting and said anything against Shariah (Islamic law), he would be killed.
Another caller offered Husibi’s young Muslim wife $10,000 to leave him and return to her native Syria, he said.
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aziz
Richard Dawkins, unplugged. The video description:
Richard Dawkins talks about why it’s time for a book setting out the evidence for evolution, when calling someone ignorant isn’t an insult, and how the media have made him into a militant atheist
I am fascinated by the all-powerful ability of the media to “make” people into things. Almost like it’s a Creator, molding our souls from clay.
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thabet
The end of Sam Harris:
Plenty of people share his views: a majority of American evangelicals favour torture; the Bush administration followed Harris’s prescription exactly in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was at one stage waterboarded 185 times in two months. But what is shocking is that people who denounce the Bush regime, and American Evangelical Christianity generally as a threat comparable to the Taliban, aren’t shocked at all when Sam Harris advocates the same policy. They care much more about his attitude to imaginary gods than about his attitude to real torture victims. That is nothing I can understand as humanism.
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thabet
Lexington takes a look at an American atheist summer camp.
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aziz
an atheist ponders death and mortality.
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buzz
Atlantic Online in the “Daily Dish,” a reader joins the ranks of westerners who have re-explained the mystery of Sufism:
I’d like the mention that most Sufis, the most well known among them being the great poets like Rumi and Hafez, are and were pantheists. Sufis have their theological roots in Gnosticism, which is itself deeply pantheist, and not in the cop-out, pseudo-intellectual mode that you seem to think of pantheism in. I’d like to point out that one of the canonical gospels, one of the very gospels associated with “non-atheistic” thinking, is a Gnostic gospel with heavy pantheistic overtones: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)” (Just read through John again. It’s full of this kind of winding, subtly subversive thought. Easy to see why Gnostics loved it.)
Any opinions? Is Sufism patheistic? Is Sufism atheistic?
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johnpi
Why the “New Atheists” are right-wing on foreign policy.
The Israeli and American right join Dawkins in stressing religious motivation in the Middle East, and there’s a reason for that. The people there whose political grievances are most conspicuously caught up with religion are Muslims. If the problem is that Muslims are possessed by this irrational, quasi-autonomous force known as religion, then there’s no point in trying to reason with them, or to look at any facts on the ground that might drive their discontent. And there are facts on the ground in the West Bank that the Israeli and American right don’t want to talk about. They’re called settlements.
And so too with discontent throughout the Muslim world: If religion is the wellspring of radicalism, why bother paying attention to any issues in the actual material world?
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razib, murtad fitri
TV gameshow offers atheists ’salvation’:
The show, called “Tovbekarlar Yarisiyor,” or “Penitents Compete,” features a Muslim imam, a Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi and a Buddhist monk attempting to persuade 10 atheists of the merits of their religion, according to CNN Turk.
If they succeed, the contestants are rewarded with a pilgrimage to one of their chosen faith’s most sacred sites — Mecca for Muslims, Jerusalem for converts to Judaism, a trip to Tibet for Buddhists and the chance to visit Ephesus and the Vatican for Christians.
this might be a fake story. first, though operationally buddhism is theistic, i think a buddhist priest would be careful about promoting this idea to a non-buddhist audience. secondarily, a pilgrimage should be to nepal, not tibet.
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thabet
Richard Dawkins doing his best to turn atheism into a full blown religion:
On a more serious note, this is tacit acceptance that people need to be schooled into a tradition which allows them to begin an inquiry.
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plimfix
Doctors are demanding that NHS staff be given a right to discuss spiritual issues with patients as well as being allowed to offer to pray for them. In February of this year, Caroline Petrie, a nurse employed by North Somerset NHS Trust, was suspended after offering to pray for a patient, although she was later allowed to return to work. Concerns have also been raised (by the usual crowd) about the funding of hospital chaplains. It’s at this point that start to get a bit cross with atheists.
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razib, murtad fitri
tariq ramadan refers to a faction in the early islamic world, the 8th century, of “dahrites” who are materialists. looking at google books has very little, the followers of “al-dahr” are known only from muslim sources, and though sometimes referred to as atheists there is other suggestion that the were actually a zoroastrian influenced faction. but not much. are they real, or just antagonists generated later on from disparate elements? non-monotheistic sects did exist in early islam, if you include zoroastrians as monotheists, in the form of sabians of haran, who almost certainly had their origins in the late antique pagan solar religion of that region attested from christian sources.
in india the carvaka are the equivalents of the dahrites, and known from their opponents. but the sources are rich and varied enough, and recent enough, that they almost certainly existed, and modern indian hindus who identify as atheist materialists refer to themselves as carvaka (amartya sen does).
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razib, murtad fitri
James von Brunn, Evolutionist, from the generally unhinged david klinghoffer. it is true that the white nationalist movement in america has more anti-christian atheists than the general population. but it also has more anti-christian pagans (generally ‘odinists’). and it has more creationist christian identity followers. the reasons that these disparate elements give for their racialist ideology varies, from the scientism of men like von brunn, to the recognizable christian fundamentalism of the identity segment, but the ultimate reason is less important than their proximate motivations and actions. e.g., christian identity aryan nations or KKK are no less or more violent than pagans in ‘the order’ or the atheists in the church of the creator.
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thabet
A little late on this, but here’s a review of a debate between Steven Jones and Nancy Rothwell, and Robert Winston and Denis Alexander.
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plimfix
“Admitting to myself that I cannot know everything, I’ve found a way to reconcile faith with scepticism.” So Says Nesrine Malik on Guardian CiF, in a post entitled, Agnosticism was what saved my faith. I sometimes think Britain’s favourite word is “perhaps,” mumbled in a manner aimed to cause least offence. Any intellectual position can start from uncertainty, but it is possible to arrive at a compelling stand which puts you at odds with alternative views. There may be room for uncertainty and other perspectives may be valid, but that’s no reason not to fight your corner. I think the important points are (1) you can believe in God – or not – and neither perspective is evidence of moral/intellectual weakness, and (2) let’s not shoot one another over the issue.
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thabet
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razib, murtad fitri
several people have pointed charlotte allen’s column, Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining, to me. i think that it is important that she left out a modifier: new. the new atheists are as representative of atheists as salafis are representative of muslims, or zen are of buddhists. and of course i think allen’s screeching column is a neat mirror image of a lot of the infantile tendencies of the new atheists.
also, in tepid defense of some of the more hysterical atheists, a few years ago i recall a christian comedian making fun of intolerants atheists by joking how terrifying it must be for them to see a cross up on the wall in a classroom, or a teacher making references to jesus. the conservative christian audience thought it was uproariously funny, but what if you replaced the cross with a hindu swastika and references to jesus with lord krishna? i think the same people wouldn’t laugh quite so hard. the point being that silliness is often a matter of perspective, and one person’s whining is another person’s objection to what they find to be unfair treatment.
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razib, murtad fitri
data on atheism across societies. oh, and yes, of the over 2,700 people surveyed in pakistan for the WVS, none admitted to disbelieving in god. the 0% is not a rounding. the sample is somewhat higher SES, with 6% having university degrees, and only 40% not completing elementary schools, FWIW.
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razib, murtad fitri
looking at the world values survey i wanted to inquire as to whether the sectarian conflicts in the balkans which track religious lines might result in more atheists identifying with a religion due to cultural solidarity. but this i mean the set of atheists who actually assert belonging to a religion, even if they don’t believe in its tenets. below the fold are the % of atheists, with sample sizes, for various religions in balkan nations (turkey is in the sample as an outgroup).
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plimfix
I’m sympathetic to the argument that atheists keep us theists on our toes, but there are some atheists, drunk on ‘intoxicating simplicity’, who seem more interested in stamping on people’s toes. Thanks, then, to Madi Bunting of The Guardian for taking on the toe stompers.
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thabet
Andrew Brown is right to pay attention to the view that children need to be taught beliefs, attitudes, etc. This includes something called ‘atheism’. The difference between teaching children ‘atheism’ and ‘religion’ is that people who are atheists usually have their beliefs in something else: socialism, liberalism, etc.
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thabet
The growing political and social clout of atheists in the US.
And via Tariq, The Root has an article discussing growing ‘black atheism’ (or at least not affiliating with a religion).
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plimfix
This is a liberal pluralist age, allegedly, yet there remain small groups of bloody-minded reactionaries insisting that other peoples views have no legitimacy, to the extent that they engage in pointless, annoying and at times offensive stunts in a feeble attempt to prove their point. Yep, the atheists are in the news again.
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johnpi
A Christian author who has published an anti-atheism book claims the atheists are engaged in a conspiracy to down-rate his book, “You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can’t Make Him Think.”
Author Ray Comfort asserts that the reason atheists are so mad is because of the mega-power of his arguments based on simple logic. Here’s a sample:
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razib, murtad fitri
God makes you chill, which shows that those who believe in god tend to be less anxious in decision-making, all things controlled, and correlates that with neurological phenomena. there’s a robust amount of social science data that atheists are somewhat maladjusted and atypical in western societies. the key is that i want to see data in societies where atheism is much more common, if not necessarily in the majority, as in japan.
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aziz
