What the New Atheists Don’t See

[Someday]

I just read an excellent article that was written by a self described atheist. This is a nice piece of honest writing that I think every "New Atheist" might be interested in reading.

Personally, I think this writer is quite thoughtful, and has the ability to see both sides of a thing quite keenly.


Blessings

BTW, I think there is some truth to the idea that deep down, atheists have a metaphysical belief in a creator/deity. When I tried to become an atheist, that tiny voice deep within me would not let me completely throw off the idea of God. And I simply could not live in denial of that little fact. So I called myself agnostic with atheistic leanings, never being able to rid myself of the part of me that would not be subdued into disbelief.

[JM]

Originally Posted by Someday

I just read an excellent article that was written by a self described atheist. This is a nice piece of honest writing that I think every "New Atheist" might be interested in reading.

Personally, I think this writer is quite thoughtful, and has the ability to see both sides of a thing quite keenly.


Blessings

BTW, I think there is some truth to the idea that deep down, atheists have a metaphysical belief in a creator/deity. When I tried to become an atheist, that tiny voice deep within me would not let me completely throw off the idea of God. And I simply could not live in denial of that little fact. So I called myself agnostic with atheistic leanings, never being able to rid myself of the part of me that would not be subdued into disbelief.

Thanks for sharing that someday, yes I found the article interesting to read.

It continues to highlight the Pendulum swinging manner of people, which is prevelant in society today.

I.e If its not Right it has to be Left., If its Up it has to be Down

There isn't much room it seems in people for it to be Both and yet Neither

The quest to be correct and wipe away all other possibilities has been part of humanities story from its beginning.

Yet, when it comes to matters of the Unseen, the Non Material world.. its just a given your going to have the Believers and the Skeptics.

And no amount of back lashing with different perspective reasoning is going to convince a person either way.

We are all led to our own Truth about what we believe to live by..

The lipmus test of what a person beliefs shouldnt be reached soley by resting on reasoning, force, or theological persuasion, but in deciding if for themselves, not for others, but for themselves if what is being heard, seen or read is harmful or damaging to them and others...

If a person feels it is, they have all right to choose to not allow it in their life.

One thing I did like about the article was the reply to Dawkins asking people to Question Everything.

He replies " Not to belabor the point, but if I questioned whether George Washington died in 1799, I could spend a lifetime trying to prove it and find myself still, at the end of my efforts, having to make a leap, or perhaps several leaps, of faith in order to believe the rather banal fact that I had set out to prove. "

Yes I agree, that a person could spend a lifetime trying to piece together enough material from which to make a call on whether to believe or not in an event, person or belief and many have given themselves to do so.. i.e Scholars and as we are aware they themselves agree and disagree with each other.. and have judgement calls on what to accept or reject as being truth to live by.

Reason though in itself is not a bad thing, and it has been given for a reason ( no pun intended ) just as sight, sound, taste and touch have.

Atheists love a good reasoning, Religions if they are honest love it too, when its within the boundaries of what they believe should or can be reasoned about.

So resting believe in the existence of God, the Existence of Jesus, the Validity of any Religion... soley on Reason or Not Reason is really not the case here.

Every word that a person believes and lives by.. at some level that person has used a dab of reason and a dab of faith.

With atheists and religious folk there is never just one without the other, they are both there and both operating within a persons determining choice.

Honestly I found the article to be an atttempt at trying to understand the other side of the coin, yet resulted in subtle jabs, and shallow assumptions concerning the atheists he was talking about, yet this is a common response to have when a person feels their world and reality which is held together by their belief is shaken and threatened. It is likely the same approach the atheists took in writing their books too.

I would agree with him though that religion has its place, and like any other belief of practise which really that is all religion is... a working out of the beliefs that people hold.

If religion is seen as the dark enemy, or atheism is.. its not a case of riddening ourselves of it, attempts to do that is what causes so much frustration and angst today, as its like trying to get rid of a part of ourselves. It's is never really gone.

Efforts should be made towards tolerance

The argument underlying most if not all of the common arguments that have taken place in books, websites, schools, workplaces and governments rests more in the question of Identity

People scared that someone is going to take away who they think they are, and who they think they were meant to be.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Someday

This is a nice piece of honest writing that I think every "New Atheist" might be interested in reading.

Personally, I think this writer is quite thoughtful, and has the ability to see both sides of a thing quite keenly.

Dalrymple (a pseudonym for Anthony Daniels) is about as conservative a writer as you could possibly find. The article in question is, in my humble opinion, crass, simplistic, cringe worthy, embarrasing and error ridden. The man is in constant search for any left wing target that dares pop his head above the parapet and I sincerely doubt his assertion that he is an atheist.

"Of course, men—that is to say, some men—have denied this truth ever since the Enlightenment, and have sought to find a way of life based entirely on reason. Far as I am from decrying reason, the attempt leads at best to Gradgrind and at worst to Stalin"

The truth he mentions is what he describes as a 'continuing longing for a transcendant purpose'. And that denying that longing and assuming a life of reason leads at best to Gradgrindian sterility and at worst to communism? (although I would assume that he is intimating totalarianism and perhaps genocide). That's one hell of a long bow he draws.

The article is just lying there waiting to be riduculed and I may come back to it a little later and give it both barrels, although the term 'shooting fish in a barrel' comes to mind.

Originally Posted by Someday

When I tried to become an atheist...

You 'tried' to become an atheist? That's as nonsensical to me as it would be to you if I said 'I tried to become a christian'. You can't 'try' to have beliefs, just as you can't 'try' to loose them. An agnostic with atheistic leanings, eh?

I think you're having a bet each way, Someday.

[Someday]

Brad

Yes, I am a firm believer that belief is "not a faucet that you can turn on or off at will".

My experience is proof of that. That is my point. It's a deeply personal experience.

I am not an ex-atheist. My point is that I tried to be one, and I found it impossible.

I don't really believe you are an atheist either.

I don't believe atheists exist.

Blessings

[friendly hardline atheist]

I read the first third of it or so before deciding I was too busy tonight to read it all. Even in the part I read I spotted plenty of very bad or even completely unfounded reasoning. Almost right from the start. The first paragraph ends with Sartres quote "God doesn’t exist—the bastard!" And from that mere one short line, he then goes on to produce most in the second paragraph. He must be quite a good mind reader of the dead, as preciously little of what he goes on to write in the second paragraph can be objectively traced back to Sartres line.

Not being content with attributing it all to Sartre, he then goes on to proclaim all of that 'the truth' and those who don't go along with it as being in denial. It's certainly quite different from the thinking of most atheists that I know. Dalrymple is know as a skeptic and clear thinker. It doesn't show from the first part of his piece.

Of the atheist books he mentions, I only read The god delusion. Dalrymple says the authors claim to be conveying lots of new and brave material. I don't recall this from TGD. Much of what I read in it certainly was known to me before I read it and I don't recall Dawkins claiming to bring grand new insights. His purpose was more to go through atheist arguments, some quite basic well known, and encourage those who agree with them to let that be known openly. Someday, you read TGD too. Could you help refresh my memory, what the new ground is that Dawkins was claiming for himself?
The atheist books are also supposed to be bad tempered. If Hitchens' book is anything like his interviews, I could imagine it would be. But please help me out again Someday where TGD is bad tempered. I recall Dawkins summing up of the atrocious sides of the god of the OT, some anecdotes of creationist dishonesty etc. But not really any anger. Do you?

Then it gets really poor. The 'belief in evolution' is placed on the same level as religion. Conveniently forgetting that there is no positive evidence for religion, so there is nothing to disprove. An explanation as to how religion came about is amply sufficient and it is very different from disproving evolution. Yet Dalrymple tries to place them on the same level.

Then he goes on to easily mix purpose as in “methods of locomotion have been ruthlessly optimized for efficiency.” with purpose as in 'why we are here', existence. Does the man honestly not see the difference between the two? Duh.

And then around the analogy about the death of George Washinton I stopped reading.

Brad, you could have a whale of a time cutting this one up. Go for it. Time consuming, but educational perhaps to those who may not have grasped everything fully.

greets,
Peter

[friendly hardline atheist]

Hello Someday,

Originally Posted by Someday

I don't believe atheists exist.

Care to elaborate on that? Disproving every last atheists atheism might be a rather time-consuming task. But perhaps you could explain to me my personal situation please?

greets,
Peter

[Someday]

Friendly,

I can't even prove that you really exist. There will always be someone that will be able to offer a skeptical argument against any proof I give of your existence. Even I could doubt my own proof when I consider that all of the thoughts and experiences I have when awake, I can also have while I am dreaming, a time when none of them are true.

When I say atheists do not exist, I am saying not that people who believe themselves to be atheists do not exist, but that the atheism they think they believe in does not exist, and as an extension of this logic, atheists do not exist.

What started me thinking about this was this video. It was making a point about what wonderful people atheists can be. They're "not so bad", it says -- they can be smart and generous and good spouses and all that.

Well, let's see: Duh.

What you believe isn't what you say you believe, what you really believe is what you do.

And sometimes, what you do gives you away, right?

Take any freshman ethics course, and you'll be struck by the God-free attempts to find some basis for our in-common sense of what's right. They're "elegant contrivances", to be sure: systems developed to somehow, some way, explain this nagging sense that we all have, universally, for justification. It's inescapable, though, that none of these contrivances make any sense, or have any ultimate grounding, if we're here by happenstance. None.

Just check the polls on morality. Pollsters will ask something like, "Do you agree that ultimately, what's 'right' or 'wrong' is up to the individual, that there's no absolute truth that transcends us?" And they'll find a large percentage will say "Yes, I agree with that." People will say that, but no one actually believes it. Thankfully, we know this from their behavior, and the way they'll properly consider wrong -- just plain wrong -- the actions of racists, or sexual predators.

They say something, they think they believe it! -- but they don't believe it. They're not lying to the pollster. It happens. Denial is complex.

Am I saying atheists are lying about their atheism? Not really. Denial is a pretty well-established concept in psychology.

You have read TGD. Good. Richard Dawkins tries, vainly, to contrive meaning in a universe without God, even as he mocks believers for refusing to face the cold wind of truth. All of us are quite obviously desperate for a very deep justification. Desperate, and our consciences will stop at nothing to get it. That need for justification shouldn't be there. So why does Dawkins have it?

The cold wind of truth is this: Contrive away, but it's just your lonely contrivance. Without transcendence, meaning is up for grabs, which is another way of saying, there isn't any. There is matter and physical law, and that's it, no more. There's no binding reason to object to cruelty to humans or animals. We can contrive neat little stories, but ultimately, there's no point to hope, or love.

And really no one, including, very obviously, Richard Dawkins, believes that.

Because what you really believe is what you do, right?

Atheists do not exist.

Blessings

[El Peatieablo]

Hi Someday; your argument reminded me of a couple of stories (they're about me, so they will be awesome).

Earlier this summer I was reading a book in my parents' living room. I was getting bored, so I put the book down and looked out the window. Coincidentally, a robin was flying through the yard at that exact time and just as I looked up it smacked into the window. I ducked and screamed like a little girl. If anybody had asked me if I thought that there was a pane of glass in the window and if that glass would stand up to a bird crashing into it, I would have said yes. Clearly, however, I would have been lying because my actions indicated that I thought the robin was going to hit me.


When I was really little (not even 14 yet) I was afraid of the dark. I had a nightlight in my room and I was miserable camping on a cloudy night. I was also a horrible liar because every time my parents asked, I told them that I knew that there was no reason to be afraid because monsters and ghosts and unmarked white vans don't exist. My parents never let on to the fact that they knew emotions were far more reliable at portraying one's rational conclusions about reality than verbal communication. They must have really thought I was stupid trying to justify how I could be afraid of monsters without there being a monster burrow under my bed.


I think it was around 4th grade when, during gym class, we were told to form a circle and count off by twos. We then broke up into our (essentially purposeless) teams and we started playing basketball. We all figured that since the teams weren't alphabetical or chosen by height that we could pretty much do whatever we wanted because we weren't on our specific teams for any reason. Boy, I gotta say, that game saw more hacks than a Creationist convention and we traveled more than the roaming gnome.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Someday

Richard Dawkins tries, vainly, to contrive meaning in a universe without God, even as he mocks believers for refusing to face the cold wind of truth.

Someday, that sentence contradicts itself. Dawkins has never contrived meaning. Life just is. There is no ultimate purpose, which is almost the whole purpose of his book. I wouldn't say that he mocks believers, but he is frustrated that a lot of people turn to the supernatural (and away from the sciences) rather than appreciate the magnificance of the natural.

And your comments about what is perceived as being right or wrong is as wrong now as it's ever been. Your idea of morality entirely depends on where and when you were born. Think Ancient Rome, think the Spanish Inquisition, think Salem witch trials, think WWII, think Rwanda. Is it your contention that anyone from those eras, from those places, in that time, would have the same morality as would you or I?

Would you turn the other cheek in EVERY circumstance? Is the taking of a life wrong in EVERY circumstance? Morality is a moveable feast.

Let's take the example of a child to see where your definition of right and wrong is. You have a young boy, say 6 years old and in a bad temper, he violently hits his sister. Tell me where you'd draw the line:

You ignore it.
You quietly point out to him that it was the wrong thing to do.
You raise your voice to him.
You raise your voice and threaten him with loss of priviliges.
You physically hold him and threaten the same.
You shake him gently while doing it.
You gently tap his backside to add emphasis.
You slap him a little harder so that it hurts a little.
You hit him hard enough to cause pain.
You hit him hard enough to cause tears to flow.

I shan't go on, but at some point, everyone would say - 'Whoa, that's taking it a bit far. That's plainly wrong'. And everyone would have a different point at which they'd say that and everyone would be right.

Now you can substitute the beating of a child by anything at all. Taking something from work, criticising your better half, invading another country. No-one will agree on the exact point where something that was obviously right becomes suddenly wrong.

It ain't black and white and as I said above, it depends on when and where. The only reason you believe in your god and have a sense of the morality that you do is because you were born in the middle of the 20th century in an English speaking country where you had a certain amount of education and freedom of action.

Trust me, your 'in-built' common sense (which would exist without following any scripture), is a lot different to other peoples and would be a lot different in other circumstances.

I don't need a religion to have an idea of what I feel to be right or wrong and I object very strongly indeed to the idea that someone who DOES have a religion, has, in some mysterious way, a more justifiable sense of morality than do I. The idea that you can be TOLD what is right is simply abhorrent.

[friendly hardline atheist]

Hello Someday,

There is absolutely no point is there?

Originally Posted by Someday

Am I saying atheists are lying about their atheism? Not really. Denial is a pretty well-established concept in psychology.

So apart from the inferred claim to moral superiority (too bad I used up all my vomit bags when reading some OCP threads), you will now tell me that what I say I'm thinking is not what I'm actually thinking. Brilliant, thanks for that insight into my own thinking.

And so long.

Peter