Blind Leading the Blind

Alister McGrath has written another vacuous piece attacking the new atheists. He seems unhealthily obsessed with them.

It's an extended exercise in equivocation on the meaning of faith. He starts by complaining how the naughty new atheists caricature faith:

One of the core New Atheist assertions, endlessly and uncritically repeated on New Atheist websites, is Richard Dawkins's dogmatic statement that faith is "blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence."

...and:

For Dawkins, this means that faith counts as a "form of mental illness." This nasty intellectual perversion is limited to religious people. "Faith, being belief that isn't based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion."

Fair enough (except it's obviously not limited to religious people, and I have no idea who would say that - the quote doesn't say that); generally speaking the faithful I've met do make the leap of faith in the face of evidence to the contrary; that is certainly how I became a theist. But it's true also that other theists claim a different basis for their belief, including, apparently, McGrath. Since it's not "blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence", it must be because of evidence, mustn't it?

Faith is based on reason, yet not limited to the somewhat meagre truths that reason can actually prove.

So McGrath agrees with the new atheists that faith goes beyond reason! Welcome aboard. Except in one particular; that the truths that reason 'proves' (to be charitable, let's allow that in the non-scientific sense) are 'meagre'. These 'meagre' truths, of which McGrath is so contemptuous, include:

• Man was not fashioned from dust and woman from his spare rib
• The Earth was not magicked into being before there was any light
• Women are not subservient to men
• Homosexuals are not doing anything wrong
• All religions cannot all be right; they can all be wrong
• There is no need to take what another person says on trust
• Freedom of belief is a good thing, and religions usually only encourage belief in themselves
• Freedom of expression is a good thing, and religions usually discourage questioning of belief

McGrath goes on:

It is not a blind leap into the dark, but a joyful discovery of a bigger picture of things, of which we are part. It is complex and rich idea [sic], which goes far beyond simply asserting or holding that certain things are true.

If it's a joyful discovery of a bigger picture of things, then why can it not be demonstrated? Here's the thing; theists 'discover' bigger pictures all the time. They either relate to reality or are a figment of their imagination. How to decide? Of course, there's only one answer to that, and McGrath won't like it.

Theists present multifarious and contradictory 'bigger pictures' to non-believers, and then moan at them for quibbling about evidence. If we are to accept McGrath's word without evidence, then we may just as well accept a Muslim's, a Jew's, a Scientologist's or Al Queda's. Theists then say, no, you must discover it yourself. No, no, and again, no. Without reason and evidence one cannot be sure one isn't fooling *oneself* any more than the many theists clearly are. To think anything else is to adopt the arrogant mantle of omniscience. Far from being scientistic, new atheists are simply being modest in their claims to knowledge; while theists presume to know more than their fellows. Such hubris.

McGrath promises more of this drivel, so it's going to be a long road to Golgotha.

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Nouvelle Atheism

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Caspar Melville followed up his poorly argued piece on new atheism with a report on the debate that took place between Marilynne Robinson, Roger Scruton and Jonathan Rée, with Laurie Taylor chairing. I'm reproducing here the comment I made on RD.NET.

What a waste of an evening that sounds. Accommodationists sitting round chundering about tone whilst slagging off new atheists in an even worse tone. Maybe one day they will actually come up with some action points that aren't self-defeating.

I presume Melville misspelled accommodationist because someone here did? I realise this is pedantic, but can we please get this right? M & M, like the chocolates, not one M.

I suppose it [accommodationist] means that I am prepared to debate with people who have views that are different from mine, including those who have religious belief and those who liked the film Amelie. If this is what it means, then I am, and proud of it.

No, that's not what it means, else Dawkins would be one and everyone who posts on this board. Sheesh; how do these people get paid employment? There are two meanings:

1. An advocate of NOMA.
2. A tone troll; someone who waffles on about tone (which is important), but doesn't present any evidence to back up why the tone they prefer is the best one, and constantly falls foul of her own tone rules. For an example, see the You're Not Helping debacle.

I suppose if you think that this really is some kind battle [sic] – between religious believers (all in one camp) and atheists (all in another) you could believe that, but I don't (in fact I think this is very dangerous view).

Plainly not, with milquetoasts about!

I'm suspicious of arguments that sound like they have discovered the Truth. They always sound too much like dogma for my taste, and if the non-believing gang is against anything, surely it's dogmatism?

Exactly; the problem with accommodationists is they are telling people what to do, based on nothing but, well, dogma, apparently. That doesn't go down well amongst genuine sceptics.

Subsequently Steve Zara made this point:

For people like Melville to moan because the arguments of theology aren't addressed in detail by people like Richard is like someone saying that complaints about the UK's national eating habits are absurd because the fine and rare dishes served at The Savoy aren't being considered. The "fine dishes" (actually a form of homeopathic cuisine - the plates look empty) of theology aren't what the vast majority consume. When people want to try and understand and deal with religion, they have to confront the everyday reality of religion.

Very true, but the problem with faitheists, accommodationists is their lack of substantive argument. It is perhaps only to be expected. Atheism itself is pretty empty, being a lack of belief; attacking it from another atheistic viewpoint has always seemed a pretty pointless occupation. So this allusion suggested to me another for those of an accommodationist bent - that of Nouvelle Atheism - a tiny serving of the right ingredients that doesn't satisfy.

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More Accommodating

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I discussed Massimo Pigliucci's attack on Jerry Coyne in my last blog, and coincidentally listened to Pigliucci's talk from last month on Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot, discussing his new book Nonsense on Stilts. It includes a lot of interesting stuff on his speciality, the Philosophy of Science, and most of it seems eminently sensible.

He and the interviewer unfortunately go off the rails at the end when talking about the new atheists; a problem too many people have, it seems! Here's what is said, starting at 47:20:

...I find myself, on the one hand, being put into the so-called accommodationist camp - those are people who actually think that science and religion are compatible, and I don't. I absolutely do not think that they're compatible (....)

...I don't think they're compatible as a matter of approach, as an intellectual approach.

This surprised me a *little* since Pigliucci had said that Coyne was wrong to call theist scientists 'philsosophically inconsistent'. I guess if he had called them 'intellectually inconsistent', that would have been fine, since that is clearly what Pigliucci is calling them here. And he reinforces this by explaining that scientists should change their mind as the evidence comes in, whereas religion is about faith; in his book, believing things regardless of the evidence.

[Incidentally, accommodationism has come to have two meanings:
1) That science and religion are compatible worldviews.
2) The tactical view that religious believers being treated with civility at all times will achieve a better result in the public sphere for science and reason.
Pigliucci has denied he's one of the first, but I think agrees with the second stance.]

He points out that there is nothing new about the new atheism, which I certainly agree with. Their arguments are often centuries old. What makes it new is the social impact, which, he says, may be a fluke. This seems to me to be quite possible - such social movements are emergent phenomena. Pigliucci continues:

The thing that I really don't particularly care for is the strident tone (...) you can be firm about your criticism of somebody else without necessarily calling them a bunch of idiots. I think that once you start calling people names, you lost the high ground, the high moral ground. And so when Dawkins goes around saying that every religious person is stupid, er, that doesn't help.

Well I'm *pretty* sure Dawkins has never said that every religious person is stupid. He's friends with religious people who are demonstrably clever, for goodness sake. On the whole he thinks they are mistaken, although inevitably many of them are also stupid. Inevitably lots of atheists are stupid too. So Pigliucci identifies name-calling as losing the moral high ground, but is happy to misrepresent Dawkins' view of religious people. An insight into his moral standards, I suppose. It's not clear also what he means by 'the strident tone', other than name-calling - so perhaps that is all he means. But that isn't *tone*, but *abuse*. Curious. And, as I've pointed out before, Pigliucci has been called out on his tone too - "Tone matters. And sarcasm is not science.". Which leaves one wondering just what it is he wants of the new atheists, and thinking that he needs to chillax a bit over insults. For all I know it's possible that a good insult could oil the wheels of discourse, and he doesn't produce any evidence to disabuse me of this. Further, I don't like his tone! But a sarcastic, sneering tone is simply not the sort of thing that puts theists off atheism, that much should be obvious. Anyway, he moves onto another concern:

...I think that Dawkins and more recently Jerry Coyne are epistemologically naive (...) they fall into something that is called 'scientism', that is the idea that science is equated with reason, that the two are one and the same thing.

This is his accusation, but it doesn't seem to stand up, to my mind. I don't interpret Dawkins' and Coyne's comments as equating reason and science. Reason is surely part of science, and surely you can reason without doing science. But the best method of understanding the world around us is through the use of reason and evidence, which is commonly identified with the scientific outlook. If Pigliucci wants to draw an arbitrary demarcation line between philosophy and science to allow philosophers a lot more reason, and scientists a lot less, then fine; who's stopping him. But to call out Coyne and Dawkins based on his own demarcation (or, to be fair, the demarcation posited by philosophers of science) is pretty self-indulgent and, er, pointless. Well I say pointless, but it comes over as point-scoring frankly. It doesn't change the fact that the best way to discover what *is*, is through reason and evidence, and this is commonly known as the scientific outlook.

I do think that science, for very good epistemological reasons, has nothing to say about the supernatural; it can dismiss specific claims that supernaturalists make, but it cannot dismiss the God hypothesis.

This is Hume - "...it cannot dismiss the God hypothesis" is just what Dawkins has always said (including in The God Delusion), and Coyne, as far as I know, so one wonders what his beef is with them.

... so those are my disagreements.

But the second is patently not an area of disagreement; Dawkins and Coyne would surely agree to that statement? One has to assume he concludes that because science can say nothing about the supernatural, that somehow means it's not incompatible with the supernatural.

So I think he draws the wrong conclusions from this sensible statement; as I've said before, the reason science has nothing to say about the supernatural is because the whole notion invalidates the scientific method. Therefore, the supernatural is incompatible with science. I cannot see how it could be anything else; obviously Pigliucci doesn't think they're compatible ("I absolutely do not think that they're [science and religion] compatible"), but he also seems to be saying they're not incompatible. so he seems to be angling for some kind of agnostic compatibility status midway between compatible and incompatible; well, I have no idea what he's angling for.

The interviewer, Luke Muehlhauser, then says:

...a lot of people have said that not only could the new atheists take a different approach and not name-call everybody, but also maybe they're not really putting forward the best intellectual case for atheism or naturalism that they could, and that wouldn't be that surprising because none of them are scholars of religion or these arguments, but I wonder if you might say a few words on how you think atheists in general might make a better intellectual case for atheism or naturalism.

A high error count; First, Pigliucci has already pointed out that the new atheists are only using the old arguments, so how could they *not* be putting forward the best intellectual case? The matter's been settled for the vast majority of intelligent thinkers. Second, again, they *don't* name-call everybody. Third, they plainly *are* scholars of 'these arguments', as much as anyone, including Pigliucci, is. How much theology does one have to suffer before one is allowed to say 'enough, already'? There's no evidence for it, so any theology is *arbitrary*.

It's disappointing to see this; these assertions seem to have become an article of faith amongst accommodationists - they simply don't entertain the idea that they might be mistaken, and glibly carry on as if they're a given.

And indeed, Pigliucci does glibly carry on, overlooking the contradiction to his earlier statement.

... I don't think that religion is the root of all evil, as Dawkins famously said., that's another example of an exaggeration that doesn't help anybody...

Well, quite the opposite, actually, so ...'that's another example of an exaggeration that doesn't help anybody':

(Dawkins - "I do not believe that religion is the root of all evil, thank you Channel 4. Religion is the root of quite a lot of evil, but that didn’t make for a catchy title.")

Pigliucci then goes on to make the bogus comparison between atheistic Stalinism and Maoism 'group-think' and religious ideologies, which makes one question how much he's really thought about this subject. He then  makes vague accusations that some atheists aren't very clever or thoughtful, which seems to be stating the obvious, as well as irrelevant. Oddly, he then points out, correctly, that atheism isn't a positive thing, but an absence of belief, which renders his previous ramble about atheist group-think incoherent. And this is confirmed when he compares atheism to a-unicornism.

So he points out the positive *philosophies* that arise from the evidence based worldview, such as secular humanism and naturalism, but is keen to emphasis that they are *philosophies*, even if they are informed by science. But the whole point of them is that they are informed by science; that is their defining feature, and why they're *compatible* with science, and other philosophies aren't. And we are back wondering again, just what his beef is, and how such a scholar could make such basic errors.

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The Irony is Palpable

As I explained in my last blog, there is a curious strain of atheist or agnostic who, when perusing public discourse on matters of import, decides that the greatest enemies to improved reason and progress in that public discourse is something called a new atheist. It's difficult to define, but you know one when you see one! Meanness and snark is supposedly their defining attribute, according to those atheists who deplore them.

The facts, as we have seen, rather go against this attribute being a defining one, since these atheists, who deplore meanness and snark in public discourse, also employ it. Remarkably, their response to these revelations of meanness and snark by their own sympathisers, is to engage in yet more meanness and snark; here is an example, from Jeremy Stangroom, a respected writer and sociologist.

Remember, to put this into context, new atheists, such as PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne and Ophelia Benson, have had their reputations besmirched by a sock-puppet posing as a scientist claiming that some new atheist acolytes behaved rather boorishly in the faces of a theist or two (the story is a little vague); this was elevated by Chris Mooney at The Intersection into its own blog entry, presumably in support of Mooney's position, that the new atheists are mean and snarky (which isn't really in doubt), and that this is counter-productive to public discourse (which is). Now the story has been shown to be an invention, new atheists are pointing out the hypocrisy of the self-righteous brigade. Apparently, that is not allowed, according to Stangroom:

Basically, there’s this fella called Chris Mooney, and he tortures kittens. Not literal kittens, but metaphorical kittens that have something to do with framing and accommodation and communion wafers. Anyway, torturing kittens is a bad thing, especially if you get paid by the Templeton Foundation to do it, and this really, really, really upsets those righteous defenders of all that is good and true – the New Atheists.

The irony is palpable. The point here is that new atheists don't mind torturing kittens (er, metaphorically), it's that Mooney doesn't like it, and denounces it in others, but still does it himself. It's the hypocrisy that is the problem.

Now the New Atheists go on about Chris Mooney a lot. Imagine Sisyphus being condemned to listen to some facile bit of Vivaldi for the whole of eternity, or maybe Brian Leiter listing all the people he thinks don’t understand Nietzsche, and you’ll get a sense of it.

The irony is palpable. The point here is that Mooney goes on about the new atheists; he wrote a book which included attacks on them. They couldn't have cared less about him otherwise.

The vindictiveness and viciousness of the New Atheist horde in the face of Tom’s misbehaviour is extraordinary.

The irony is palpable. The point here is that the new atheists have been the subject of reputation-tarnishing untrue slurs from a chap who is hiding behind a pseudonym; it takes a great leap of logic to equate that sort of genuine vindictiveness and viciousness with questions seeking to understand the nature of Mooney's investigation of Tom's misbehaviour.

(To which, if I were Jean, I would be tempted to reply Fuck Off.)

The irony is palpable. Yay for less meanness and snark in public discourse!

Anyway, what’s amusing about all this is that it’s exactly the sort of reaction one would expect from certain sorts of religious fundamentalists when confronted with behaviour they consider unconscionable. It’s a demand for justice and retribution born of an absolute certainty of moral righteousness.

The irony is palpable. And posing as a scientist to deliver a self-serving lie is exactly the sort of reaction one can expect from self-righteous atheists posing as morally superior? Yeah, right.

However, the truth is the participants in this witch-hunt are the 21st century, virtual-world, equivalent of a medieval mob baying for the blood their latest victim.

The irony is palpable. And attacking people standing up for reason and evidence against the unreasonable and deluded rather than attacking the unreasonable and deluded is not medieval in the least, is it?

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The 'New Atheist' Fallacy

There is a flaccid thread of thoughtless commentary on the new atheists these days, exemplified by this self-important diatribe by David B. Hart. Consider the source of his gloom:

The principal source of my melancholy, however, is my firm conviction that today’s most obstreperous infidels lack the courage, moral intelligence, and thoughtfulness of their forefathers in faithlessness.

But there is little new under the sun when it comes to arguments against theism, and the new atheists are using the same arguments as their 'forefathers'; how could it be a source of his melancholy? He carries on in similar vein, mounting various straw men in place of actual new atheist positions, before discussing in tedious detail the problem of infinite regress, which, for some reason, he thinks is the new atheists' favourite argument. One could equally say it's the theists' favourite argument, since that is where the prime mover springs from, but his discussion reaches no conclusion one way or the other, so he agrees with the new atheists! Bizarre. He then babbles on about Nietzsche in even more tedious detail, as if he was the final say on all matters divine.

His problem, as with all faitheists, is to misunderstand the new atheists as absolutist fundamentalists, when, as any fule kno, they are the very opposite; contingent agnostics prepared to admit they're atheists, and to understand the consequences of that admission.

A few quotes from some non-believers:

And, in these four things, opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear, and taking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seed of ‘religion,’ which, by reason of the different fancies, judgments, and passions of several men, hath grown up into ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part ridiculous to another.
(...)
Lastly, amongst the points by the Church of Rome declared necessary for salvation, there be so many manifestly to the advantage of the Pope and of his spiritual subjects residing in the territories of other Christian princes that, were it not for the mutual emulation of those princes, they might without war or trouble exclude all foreign authority as easily as it had been excluded in England. For who is there that does not see to whose benefit it conduceth to have it believed that a king hath not his authority from Christ unless a bishop crown him? That a king, if he be a priest, cannot marry? (...) That the clergy and regulars, in what country soever, shall be exempt from the jurisdiction of their king in cases criminal? Or who does not see to whose profit redound the fees of private masses and vales of purgatory, with other signs of private interest enough to mortify the most lively faith, if, as I said, the civil magistrate and custom did not more sustain it than any opinion they have of the sanctity, wisdom, or probity of their teachers? So that I may attribute all the changes of religion in the world to one and the same cause, and that is, unpleasing priests; and those not only amongst Catholics but even in that Church that hath presumed most of reformation.¹

I have often wondered, that persons who make a boast of professing the Christian religion, namely, love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men, should quarrel with such rancorous animosity, and display daily towards one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues they claim, is the readiest criterion of their faith.²

Hence the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion: Hence, it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any certain inference in favour of a man's morals from the fervour or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere.³

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.⁴

I am thus one of the very few examples, in this country, of one who has, not thrown off religious belief, but never had it: I grew up in a negative state with regard to it. I looked upon the modern exactly as I did upon the ancient religion, as something which in no way concerned me. It did not seem to me more strange that English people should believe what I did not, than that the men I read of in Herodotus should have done so.⁵

Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety? Let such a man become an evangelical preacher; he will then find it possible to reconcile small ability with great ambition, superficial knowledge with the prestige of erudition, a middling morale with a high reputation for sanctity.⁶

Gentlemen [believers], we can only reply, wait till you have some show of agreement amongst yourselves. Wait till you can give some answer not palpably a verbal answer, to some one of the doubts which oppress us as they oppress you. Wait till you can point to some single truth, however trifling, which has been discovered by your method, and will stand the test of discussion and verification. Wait till you can appeal to reason without in the same breath vilifying reason. Wait till your Divine revelations have something more to reveal than the hope that the hideous doubts which they suggest may possibly be without foundation. Till then we shall be content to admit openly, what you whisper under your breath or hide in technical jargon, that the ancient secret is a secret still; that man knows nothing of the Infinite and Absolute; and that, knowing nothing, he had better not be dogmatic about his ignorance. And, meanwhile, we will endeavour to be as charitable as possible, and whilst you trumpet forth officially your contempt for our skepticism, we will at least try to believe that you are imposed upon by your own bluster.⁷

There will always be a fungus, a star, or a disease that human science does not know of; and for this reason it must always behove the philosopher, in the name of the undying ignorance of man, to deny every miracle and say of the most startling wonders,-the host of Bolsena, the star in the East, the cure of the paralytic and the like : Either it is not, or it is; and if it is, it is part of nature and therefore natural.⁸

The pulpit assures us that wherever we see suffering and sorrow which we can relieve and do not do it, we sin, heavily. There was never yet a case of suffering or sorrow which God could not relieve. Does He sin, then? If He is the Source of Morals He does - certainly nothing can be plainer than that, you will admit. Surely the Source of law cannot violate law and stand unsmirched; surely the judge upon the bench cannot forbid crime and then revel in it himself unreproached.⁹

It is not well worthy of note that of all the multitude of texts through which man has driven his annihilating pen he has never once made the mistake of obliterating a good and useful one? It does certainly seem to suggest that if man continues in the direction of enlightenment, his religious practice may, in the end, attain some semblance of human decency.¹⁰

Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partly with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy.¹¹

Throughout the last 400 years, during which the growth of science had gradually shown men how to acquire knowledge of the ways of nature and mastery over natural forces, the clergy have fought a losing battle against science, in astronomy and geology, in anatomy and physiology, in biology and psychology and sociology. Ousted from one position, they have taken up another. After being worsted in astronomy, they did their best to prevent the rise of geology; they fought against Darwin in biology, and at the present time they fight against scientific theories of psychology and education. At each stage, they try to make the public forget their earlier obscurantism, in order that their present obscurantism may not be recognized for what it is.
(...)
Toplady, the author of "Rock of Ages," moved from one vicarage to another; a week after the move, the vicarage he had formerly occupied burnt down, with great loss to the new vicar. Thereupon Toplady thanked God; but what the new vicar did is not known.
(...)
I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious-for instance, the nuns who never take a bath without wearing a bathrobe all the time. When asked why, since no man can see them, they reply: "Oh, but you forget the good God." Apparently they conceive of the Deity as a Peeping Tom, whose omnipotence enables Him to see through bathroom walls, but who is foiled by bathrobes. This view strikes me as curious.
The whole conception of "Sin" is one which I find very puzzling, doubtless owing to my sinful nature. If "Sin" consisted in causing needless suffering, I could understand; but on the contrary, sin often consists in avoiding needless suffering. Some years ago, in the English House of Lords, a bill was introduced to legalize euthanasia in cases of painful and incurable disease. The patient's consent was to be necessary, as well as several medical certificates. To me, in my simplicity, it would seem natural to require the patient's consent, but the late Archbishop of Canterbury, the English official expert on Sin, explained the erroneousness of such a view. The patient's consent turns euthanasia into suicide, and suicide is sin. Their Lordships listened to the voice of authority, and rejected the bill. Consequently, to please the Archbishop-and his God, if he reports truly-victims of cancer still have to endure months of wholly useless agony, unless their doctors or nurses are sufficiently humane to risk a charge of murder. I find difficulty in the conception of a God who gets pleasure from contemplating such tortures; and if there were a God capable of such wanton cruelty, I should certainly not think Him worthy of worship. But that only proves how sunk I am in moral depravity.
(...)
We are told that sin consists in acting contrary to God's will. This, however, does not get rid of the difficulty. Those who, like Spinoza, take God's omnipotence seriously, deduce that there can be no such thing as sin. This leads to frightful results. What! said Spinoza's contemporaries, was it not wicked of Nero to murder his mother? Was it not wicked of Adam to eat the apple? Is one action just as good as another? Spinoza wriggles, but does not find any satisfactory answer. If everything happens in accordance with God's will, God must have wanted Nero to murder his mother; therefore, since God is good, the murder must have been a good thing. From this argument there is no escape.
(...)
As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles. Whose authority? The Old Testament? The New Testament? The Koran? In practice, people choose the book considered sacred by the community in which they are born, and out of that book they choose the parts they like, ignoring the others.
(...)
Self-importance, individual or generic, is the source of most of our religious beliefs. Even sin is a conception derived from self-importance.
(...)
Since evolution became fashionable, the glorification of Man has taken a new form. We are told that evolution has been guided by one great Purpose: through the millions of years when there were only slime, or trilobites, throughout the ages of dinosaurs and giant ferns, of bees and wild flowers, God was preparing the Great Climax. At last, in the fullness of time, He produced Man, including such specimens as Nero and Caligula, Hitler and Mussolini, whose transcendent glory justified the long painful process. For my part, I find even eternal damnation less incredible, and certainly less ridiculous, than this lame and impotent conclusion which we are asked to admire as the supreme effort of Omnipotence. And if God is indeed omnipotent, why could He not have produced the glorious result without such a long and tedious prologue?¹²

Of the proposed solutions of the problem of evil which we have examined, none has stood up to criticism. There may be other solutions which require examination, but this study strongly suggests that there is no valid solution of the problem which does not modify at least one of the constituent propositions in a way which would seriously affect the essential core of the theistic position. Quite apart from the problem of evil, the paradox of omnipotence has shown that God's omnipotence must in any case be restricted in one way or another, that unqualified omnipotence cannot be ascribed to any being that continues through time. And if God and his actions are not in time, can omnipotence, or power of any sort, be meaningfully ascribed to him?¹³

Who are these dreadful , strident, militant new atheists? - you may wonder, if you are a sensitive believer, or believer in belief. They certainly reflect many of the arguments of the current so-called 'new atheists'.

All long dead before the year 2000. So much for New Atheism.

EDIT: And one last quote, this time from a theist:

But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. - King, M.L. Letter from Birmingham Jail

¹ Hobbes, T. 'Of Religion' from Leviathan.
² de Spinoza, B. Preface to Theological-political Treatise.

³ Hume, D. The Natural History of Religion.

⁴ Hume, D. Of Miracles.

⁵ Mill, J. S. Moral Influences in Early Youth.

⁶ Eliot, G. Evangelical Teaching.

⁷ Stephen, L. An Agnostic's Apology.

⁸ France, A. Miracle from 'Le Jardin d'Epicure' .

⁹ Twain, M. Thoughts of God.

¹⁰ Twain, M. Bible Teaching and Religious Practice.

¹¹ Goldman, E. The Philosophy of Atheism.

¹² Russell, B. An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish.

¹³ Mackie, J. L. Evil and Omnipotence.

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Why the New Atheists are Bad

There seem to be a lot of articles like this recently. In summary they say something like this:

I want to draw your attention to the evil new atheists that swarm among us.

They refuse to entertain doubt about their beliefs. They are rampant ego-maniacs. They loudly proclaim that anyone who doesn't believe what they say will go to the dogs. Their philosophy leads to conflict and depravity. They are pre-occupied with sex. They are rude and dismissive of opposing views. They are dogmatic and closed-minded. They meet up and worship their community leaders. They follow their leaders religiously. They want to teach our children what to think. They want to direct government policy to their own ends. They want to tell other people they're wrong. They organise and form lobby groups. They want to sell their books. They want people to read their books. They demand money from their followers for merchandise.

You and I as pious theists understand that such behaviour should be the sole province of the religious.

For some strange reason, the things of which they accuse the new atheists are more accurate descriptions of *religious* behaviour. Even if any of it were true (and often it isn't), why do they complain about behaviour in which they indulge?

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