fpb | The mask of atheism

Entry tags:

The mask of atheism

My experience is that the Pope's decision to form an Anglican grouping - not yet a Rite, but the difference is slight - has unleashed a vicious avalanche of anti-Catholic hatred such as I had not seen in quite a while. Catholic blogs are suddenly awash not only with Protestant and Anglican, but, more to the point, with atheist and Christian-hating trolls. And I hope my Protestant friends are not offended, but this seems to me to really throw off the masks of many so-called atheists. They do not reject or hate God. Of course, if you asked them to argue against the Aristotelian Unmoved Mover or against the Hindu Self of Selves, they would - in a fairly untroubled, perhaps even bored tone, as a duty. But what they really hate, what unleashes their rage and fury, is the Catholic Church. What makes this obvious is how the Pope's effective dismissal of further ecumenic progress with the CofE as it is, and his decision to create a Catholic Anglican area, have drawn such rage. Richard Dawkins, in his hideous Washington Post screed (http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/richard_dawkins/2009/10/give_us_your_misogynists_and_bigots.html), really throws off the mask. If he took his atheist positions - yes, those same views that have earned him millions of pounds through a worldwide bestseller - at all seriously, he would be as much against the Church of England as against the Catholic Church. Indeed, he might well oppose it more fiercely, because it means subsidizing "religion", however vague, with taxpayer money, and giving a status, however vague, as a part of the nation's legal establishment. (Compare and contrast Article 7 of the Italian Constitution: "The Italian Republic and the Catholic Church are, each in its own sphere, independent and sovereign.") But that is the absolute opposite of what he does; what enrages him is that the Catholic Church should dare to try and claim the Anglican heritage for itself. He valued the Anglican Church as a breakwater against the Catholic Church. So, basically, Dawkins is lying to someone; whether himself, or only his public, I do not know and have no interest in knowing. The point is that his supposed opposition to "religion" is blatantly revealed to be opposition to the Catholic Church alone.

As revealing as Dawkins' rant is that the Washington Post published it, and the string of horrors in the comments thread. Even the Bishop Williamson affair had not called forth so much sheer brute hate for the Church; but then, those who objected to Williamson and to the SSPX were not all motivated by hatred for the Church - they included people like me, who love it. In this case, the only thing that can possibly call forth so many haters is the Church itself; and anyone who wants to claim that anti-Catholicism is not one of the main, the driving forces in modern culture and politics must first explain away this horrible outburst of bigotry and hatred.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't know, Dawkins' article was pretty good, but Paula Kirby's is a close runner-up.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/paula_kirby/2009/10/business_as_usual_for_vatican_enterprises_inc_1.html

I am not so interested in collecting specimens - apart that I have seen enough trolls in Catholic blogs (and in my own), Dawkins really is enough to prove my point. Besides, I don't read Newsweek.

But you read the Washington Post?

I despise it considerably less, but I really came across it in Damian Thompson's blog.

Atheists don't hate God -- it makes no sense to hate something you don't believe in. That's not to say some atheists aren't hateful towards believers. But it's worth noting that Dawkins is a divisive figure even within the atheist community -- some atheists are all for being scornful and belligerent towards religion, others consider it counterproductive.

However, I think your analysis of Dawkins as being purely anti-Catholic is wrong. Of course in principle, the Church of England and the Catholic Church are equally misguided, from an atheist point of view, but the CoE is rather passive and almost secularized. Atheists in the U.S. are also more likely to become vitriolic about the RCC or Southern Baptists, who are much more active politically, than about Episcopalians or Methodists, who don't make such a habit of declaring atheists to be amoral deviants.

Atheists don't hate God -- it makes no sense to hate something you don't believe in.
You of all people expect people to be logical? And to be logical, of all things, about what they deny? Next you'll be telling me that Laura Hollis has made a careful and discriminating investigation of the Frankfurt School. It would have been better if you had said: "Some atheists" or "most atheists" or even "most atheists I know." Most atheism is culture-specific; something that was denomstrated to me long ago, when a Greek friend of my sister's managed to inform me in two phrases that he was an atheist, but that we Catholics were heretics because of the filioque. Mr.Dawkins is a particularly rancid and ranting product of an upper-class Oxford education - and having been to and loved Oxford myself, I would never insult the place; in fact, the reason why I am so glad of the formation of an Anglican rite is that I want to see the dignity and civility of the Anglican culture preserved. But there always was a poisonous, terrified, Titus Oatesish strand to it, and alas, it looks likely to outlast the Anglican culture itself.

"Most atheists, and anyone who's actually an atheist," if you prefer.

We've discussed cognitive dissonance before, and atheists are certainly as prone to it as anyone else. However, anyone who "hates God" clearly cannot be an atheist, at least in the literal sense. But I'll grant you that we're verging into "no true Scotsman" territory here; I've had arguments with atheists who were adamant that God doesn't exist, but had no problem with reincarnation or psychic powers or other woo-woo beliefs.

However, in almost every case I've seen of a believer accusing an atheist of hating God, the atheist was actually expressing hatred of religious institutions or people. In some cases, they use mocking/denigrating language when speaking of God, in order to push buttons, and of course it will sound to the people they're mocking as if the atheists are expressing hatred of a being they supposedly don't believe in.

(Which is one reason why I don't find it a very productive strategy, aside from the fact that I don't condone hatred and mockery, as a general rule. Although I make a mockery exception for Slytherins. ;) )

I usually hear the "hates God" accusation from believers who use the "I didn't get a pony for my birthday" argument: i.e., atheists don't really disbelieve in God, they're just petulant children angry at him for not answering a prayer. So I tend to be scornful of such easy dismissals of the atheist position.

To separate the institution from God is a mistake, both in terms of Catholic self-understanding and in terms of psychology. The same attitude of resentment against absolute authority, authority rooted in the nature of things - what one might call an Oedipal complex raised to the Nth power - will lead a man both to hate the Catholic Church - for presenting itself as the vehicle of something that is true - and the notion of God HImself. Of course I am not making this point about all atheists; but I think that in people like Pullman and Dawkins, the cosmic Oedipal complex is not just perceptible but evident. And perhaps having one's spiritual home among the medieval chapels and Gothic spires of one of Europe's great ancient Catholic institutions hasn't made it any less grating. (That is not to ask a personal question, but have you ever been to Oxford?)

Most atheists I know don't just not believe in any god or gods. They actively seem to have something against the notion of people believing in anything other than, well, nothing. They are actively anti-theist, most specifically anti-Christian. As you pointed out, they generally tend to leave Jews, Hindus, and others alone, singling out Christians almost exclusively.

Most atheists you know are presumably in Christian-majority countries, especially the US. They have Christian relatives, and their lives are affect by Christian politicians. Naturally they react to that. If Jews and Hindus were affecting American law and education, they'd react to that more. But Jews and Hindus are tiny minorities and most Western atheists don't know much about either.

As someone who had been a member of the Episcopal Church for a long time, who finally had to go elsewhere or face the miseducation of my own kid, I was intrigued by the Pope's decision, and will follow closely how it is implemented, if it is, in my city, with a view to serious investigation. I like the Anglican liturgy enormously. I just had trouble with it as words spoken by those who disagreed with, or simply ignored, their meanings. But I noticed the flood of condemnation that the decision got, and noted that it came from people I think are worthwhile enemies, so therefore it must be worth investigating.

You have a key point in that anti-Catholic hatred is much more intense than hatred of Christianity generally -- to the point we see the various "crystal dragon Jesus" parodies in writers like Phillip Pullman. Which, in conjunction with the point noted above, makes me take it more seriously.

Everyone has a purpose. Richard Dawkins' purpose is "to serve as a bad example."

I was thinking of Pullman when I mentioned the bad Oxford anti-Catholic strand to

inverarity68 above. I also said that he is an answer to the prayer: "Lord, make Thine enemies ridiculous." Having said that, I do have a certain proprietary feeling towards Oxford; even now that I lost my last links with the place, I still regard it as my intellectual home as much as any other place, my Alma Mater in a very different way from any other place. And frankly, I grudge her to both Pullman and Dawkins. You may call it an intramural rivalry: I have as much physical connection to the town as they do, and hate the thought that those beautiful streets and parks and buildings should be represented in the world by that gruesome twosome.

I assume you read my atheist rant from a few weeks ago. Inverarity's right that most atheist vitriol in the US isn't directed at the RC, but that's just a function of culture and location. I've long been of the belief that most atheists aren't actual atheists but rather firmly anti-Christian.

Most atheists are actual atheists. As far as hostility to religions goes, atheists surrounded by Christians -- or raised in and escaped from Christianity -- will tend to react to Christianity. Change the milieu, change the reactions.

How do you become an atheist when born in a Buddhist country - Buddhism being an atheistic religion?

Well, technically that's true -- I've known a few self-identified "Buddhist atheists."

But Buddhism has many forms, as I'm sure you're aware, and some include veritable pantheons of saints and deities. (Technically, of course, Buddhism doesn't have either saints or deities, but in some traditions there are figures who are for all practical purposes the same thing.)

Bullshit. Find me an atheist who opens an argument by referring to Zeus and you'd have a point.

Find me an atheist who is surrounded by Zeus-worshippers...

What mindstalk said. The few people from Middle Eastern countries who've come out as atheists (usually after leaving their home country) tend to speak out much more against Islam than Christianity. There are a lot of atheists in Israel, and they mostly criticize the Orthodox Jews.

To the degree that atheists are "anti-" any specific religion, it's going to be the one that dominates their environment and stigmatizes them. Atheists in the U.S. aren't usually going to say much about Hindus, for example, because Hindus don't affect them much. It doesn't mean they have any more regard for Hindu beliefs than they do Christian ones.

The enduring strength of anti-Catholicism in Britain still surprises me when it comes to my attention.

In the U.S. today*, anti-Christian sentiment tends to focus more on "fundamentalists," which is more or less evangelical Protestant. Anti-Catholicism is more deeply rooted (we inherited it, after all), and I shouldn't be surprised if it lasts longer, but it's a good bit less vitriolic.

*At least in the upper Midwest where I live, and in the Establishment which no one can avoid. I understand old-fashioned anti-Catholicism still has some currency in the Old South, which would not be surprising on historic grounds. Surprisingly, anti-Catholicism does not seem to be a particularly salient feature of current anti-immigrant sentiment.

Unfortunately, the Archbishop of New York does not agree with you. http://www.archny.org/news-events/columns-and-blogs/blog---the-gospel-in-the-digital-age/index.cfm?i=14042

Dawkins has excoriated moderate believers often enough, for "aiding and abetting" the enemy; he'd go after the Anglicans with the right prompt, bishops in the House of Lords nad all. But at the same time he can see the differences, and the women- and gay-friendly Church of England is naturally more agreeable to his values than the Catholic Church.

I totally disagree.

Disagree with what?

He has excoriated moderate believers in the past, it's one of the things he's infamous for.

The Church of England and American Episcopalians share more of his values than the Catholic Church does, what with the women and gay priests and bishops, and different teachings on contraception.

You are assuming that the liberal programme has anything to do with atheism. "Women, gays, blah blah blah" - what does any of this have to do with the existence or otherwise of God? When you say that these things are at the core of Dawkins' view, you drive another nail into the coffin of his sincerity as an atheist. Clearly his supposed atheism is only a club to beat the opponents of his liberalism with.

Not all liberals are atheists and not all atheists are liberals, but most atheists and liberals agree on issues like "women, gays, blah blah blah."

Do you think that Dawkins is not, in fact, an atheist?

I do not think he is coherent enough.

Look, let's try and go back to the original point. One group of deluded fools leaves another to join a third, none of the three groups ever showing any particular desire to move towards rationality. From the point of view of any coherent atheist, this would mean precisely nothing. Speaking as an enemy of Communism - to make a comparison - I find the historical break of the Albanian Communists from Russia to Mao's China eminently uninteresting, and certainly would not have bothered, at the time, posting a frothing denuncation of Mao for poaching outside his preserve. Now, Dawkins' only standing in this issue - that is, the only reason why his view should matter any more than mine and yours and Wino John's down at the corner, and why the Washington Post should waste ink and dead trees over them - is his position as champion of atheism and professor emeritus of the public understanding of science. He takes a position on what, for a coherent atheist, is not an issue at all, and shows that his real reason for it is sexual-political - which, again, has nothing to do with atheism. You would find plenty of Tantric heretics in various religions, not excluding even Christianity, who find God in sex. I would say that his credit as a coherent atheist is completely spent.

Incidentally, I already posted long ago about the absurd itch of certain unbelievers to set themselves up as judges of Christian doctrine: http://fpb.livejournal.com/138154.html - with an apology that arises from an error in its text: http://fpb.livejournal.com/138459.html

Well, if atheism were purely an intellectual exercise and it made no difference to nonbelievers which religion happens to hold sway in a particular area, you'd have a point. You may oppose communism in all its forms, but the schism between Albanian and Maoist communists will make absolutely no difference in your life.

Atheists, by necessity, tend to be concerned with the "sexual-political" aspects of religious dogma as well, because it definitely makes a difference whether it's the Evangelicals or the Unitarians who are voting people onto the local school board. (That's an American thing; I don't know if school boards get elected in the UK. School board elections in the U.S., however, are vastly more important than most Americans realize.)

As for unbelievers setting themselves up as judges of Christian doctrine: it's quite possible to be knowledgeable about Christian doctrine without being a Christian (and, conversely, to be a Christian who is profoundly ignorant of Christian doctrine). Also, an awful lot of atheists are ex-believers who know their former religion quite well.

You still haven't told me what, in the name of everything that is sane, rational, decent and honest, sexual liberationism has to do with atheism. You seem to be taking it for granted.

You seem more preoccupied with "sexual liberationism" than Dawkins is, but I daresay that the majority of atheists are pro-feminism, pro-gay rights, etc. You seem to think atheists should only care about atheism.

Theologically, all Protestant denominations are "wrong" from the Catholic POV, yes? Do you make no distinction between those who regard Catholics as fellow Christians with doctrinal differences, and those who believe that Satan rules from the Vatican?

You seem more preoccupied with "sexual liberationism" than Dawkins is
This, I take it, is meant to be a joke. I am not the one who headlined his attack on the Church "bring me your bigots, your queerbashers, etc" or something like that. When you charge me with something, I suggest you at least try to make it plausible.

And even if I could see what the Devil your second paragraph has to do with anything - well, it sounds to me like you are using the "Well, you do it too" argument, which is the last refuge of the desperate.

And another matter. Atheism supposes itself to be based on the claims of reason and logic. If I show this stuff about Womengaysblahblah to have no rational or logical standing inside atheism, or indeed if I show that a supposed atheist is behaving with wild illogic and evident irrationality, is that not an argument against them?

I'm not sure what you mean about "womengaysblahblah" having no rational or logical standing inside atheism. As for a supposed atheist behaving with wild illogic and evident irrationality, what exactly would that prove? I don't think any atheist would claim that all atheists are logical and rational. C.f. my earlier comment about atheists who believe in reincarnation and psychic powers.

I mean that the average liberal world-view can no more be derived from an atheist viewpoint than the opposite can. Atheism has no logical connection with it. Using atheism as a basis to campaign for the liberal bundle of causes-of-the-week is as rational as using Christianity to campaign for vegetarianism. And I insist that unless atheism bases its claim on reason and logic, it has no basis at all. That nearly every atheist is not coherent does not surprise me in the least, but does not change the matter. It was not us who demanded to be called "the brights". (To the contrary.... "I thank you, Father, because You have hidden these things from the wise and the mighty, and have revealed them to children.")

The brights? Come on. They exist almost entirely on the Internet, and don't represent more than a small fraction even of Internet atheists. Atheists aren't "demanding" to be called anything.

It sounds like your grievance is specifically with Richard Dawkins.

I certainly do not have to like a man who, if he ever had any kind of political power, would indubitably start a persecution. Nor do I have to favour superstition and ignorance. But if you think that Dawkins is not representative, I would like you to tell me who bought all thouse hundreds of thousand of copies of his books (and of the equally crude and ignorant Harris and Hutchens), who made him a media phenomenon, and who keeps listening to him. Those sure weren't Southern Baptists who crowded the debate thread after his star appearance on the Washington Post.

Dawkins is a liberal and an atheist. He can criticize the Anglicans as an atheist and the Catholics as both a liberal and an atheist.

Liberalism doesn't come from atheism per se, since atheism per se is just the absence of belief. However, liberalism can come from the positive philosophies many atheists do hold, such as materialism, utilitarianism, and Epicureanism. Or from the fact that the atheist lacks religious dogma telling them to support conservative sexual values.

Dawkins is a hater. He has no discernible coherent political philosophy, and all his positions amount to excuses for hating people.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The mask of atheism

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject