The Moral Failure of the New Atheists
The “New Atheists” are often compared to the fundamentalists** they rail against, by both religious and secular critics. These criticisms are often rebuked by some sort of argument based on empiricism or rationality, quite removing the real indictment that is being made and the moral failure the New Atheists* are in the midst of. The creation, and demonization of the Other.
Arguments about religion being the source of all evil are pretty easily laid aside for both their ignorance and their naivete, but the fact religion inspires evil is certainly not contestable by anyone with the most middling awareness of history. Arguments that it has been responsible for more evil than anything else is also ridiculous – the sheer numbers of the dead that lie at the feet of non-religious movements such as Soviet or Chinese Communism or Hitler’s Nazism pale besides the horrors religion has inspired in its own name and for its own purposes. This is not to say, of course, religion had no part in these horrors but rather that it was bundled with politics and economics and more importantly: the creation of an “Other” that can be butchered, tortured, killed with no further thought.
Religion, at its worst, creates these Others. It creates people who are not our neighbors, people who are wicked or disposable. It says “we are good, they are bad” and such issues quickly get out of hand. However, most major religions also contain within them the elements that try to overcome this as well – at its best religion inspires us to see our shared humanity and recognize our obligations towards one another.
- Image by ~C4Chaos via Flickr
But religion is simply one ‘Other Factory’ amongst many, and almost certainly not the most powerful when compared to the industry of nationalism, partisanship, racism, and economics. These create Others as well, and these others are just as disposable and just as doomed as those created by religion – the worst part, however, is that most of these systems have nothing in them that also fights against this impulse – racism as an ethos does not a space for those who are not of the proper race except as Others.
So how does this apply to the rhetoric of the New Atheists? First off, it is rhetoric – it’s rhetoric aimed at creating scape goats and wicked Others whom all the failed promises of modernism can be laid. Terrorism? It’s religion’s fault. Oppression of homosexuals? It’s religion’s fault. Invading Iraq? It’s religion’s fault.
Certainly all of these lay somewhat at the foot of certain religious impulses, but not all religious impulses and certainly not all religious people. Such rhetoric does not solve these problems, it does not even adequately address these issues – all it accomplishes is the creation of a new Other. It does the same thing that fundamentalist types of religion have excelled at for so long – creating those who are not Us, creating those disposable people who for whatever reason can be killed and oppressed with impunity.
There is a space for polemic, there is a space for argument, and I’m certainly not attacking atheism as an ethos – but what I am talking about is the reductionistic arguments of the New Atheists that strive so hard to demonize an entire category of people in the same way that people like Dinesh D’Souza would demonize them.
If you want to find the source of most of the evil in the world, if you want to find the source of “man’s inhumanity to man” – it is when we create and foster the role of the Other. This is the greatest problem of these “New Atheists” and why I find this trend so repugnant. The same repugnance I find in religious quarters when they seek to do the same thing to homosexuals, Muslims, Jews, liberals, or even conservatives.
* – “fundamentalists” is a loaded term, and an imprecise term, but you know who I’m talking about.
** – I am specifically talking about the group that we call ‘New Atheists’ not atheism or atheists in general.
What I hear you saying is that the New Atheists are doing the same thing they are condemning, which I agree with. Any system that creates the "Other" ends the same.
But what I often think gets missed is the point they are bringing up, which is that religion kills. And it does. I so wish we could create a dialog between Christianity and atheists to see they are trying to accomplish much the same thing: the end of religion.
Yes, religion kills, but of course – so do atheists, politics, economics, nationalism, etc. Ultimately – people do. What actually set me on this line of thinking was that it occurred to me that if these 'New Atheists' took what I believe out of the question and wanted my actions and what I believed needed to be done we'd have a great deal in common. The problem is, of course, the insistance once this creation of the other that includes all those that share the same goals.
I would suggest you read the 2007 post from the Nation for a different rational behind what "New Atheists" represent. Also, I would venture that the difference between these so called "new atheists" and atheists in general is a simply that they are being proactive rather than passive about being atheists and informing people about what that means.
For all your post talks about atheists "demonization of the Other", your post does exactly the same thing, making the atheists "the Other" because some of them are choosing to evangelize in much the same way as churches of all faiths have done for centuries.
My issue isn't that they are being proactive at all. I don't have an issue with atheism or atheists – but I do have an issue with that kind of rhetoric. It's exactly that churches have been using such rhetoric that it is a known problem – we know what the fruits of this sort of work is, and the atheists should know better.
Some of my favorite writers and thinkers are atheists (as is a much loved and admired brother of mine) but I am not talking about atheism in general here, I'm talking about a group of people who regularly make sweeping, outlandish statements (often supported by bad data as Harris does in his book) that seek to demonize most of the human race.
Is it a problem when religious people do it, too? Yes, of course! But if atheists want to maintain any sense of moral superiority before us crazies they need to be more rational and better at kindness than we. But the Emergent conversation is generally very aware of those in our own camp who are less than gracious against our brothers, but the "New Atheist" conversation is becoming less and less civil and more and more ideological and that is a threat to what common goals we share.
Which is why I have issue with your post. Your post does exactly the same thing, looking at the more vocal extremes of the so called "New Atheists" and making broad sweeping statements.
The key to any move forward is going to be done through dialogue on all sides and by all sides reigning in the deriding of the other.
I don't think that's the case. The "New Atheists" is a rather specific group of writers/thinkers. I'm not talking about atheism here, I'm not talking about it as an ethos – I'm talking about a group of guys who are promoting atheism in a very particular way.
Does standing up and saying "you're being deceitful, you're being harmful and participating in the things you are supposable against?" mean saying "you people are idiots or non-people or the source of all evil?" There's a difference. I can be against their behaviors without making them sub-human. Perhaps I failed to some extent, as it was certainly not my intention. If the "New Atheists" are against the evils that religion has caused – human suffering, mainly, then you don't go about it by saying something as stupid as one cause is responsible or more importantly, one group.
Terry Eagleton's book "Reason, Faith and Revolution" http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Faith-Revolution-Ref... (also an atheist) does a good job criticizing this group in a useful way. And even more importantly, Eagleton actually knows something about religion aside from the strawmen Harris, Dawkins, etc. seem to understand.
I agree with you on the dialogue, Paul. But I can't say that these "new" (I don't really believe they are new at all) atheists offer much in the way of furthering dialogue. Which is unfortunate because more than a few prominent Christian theologians are willing to do so. Dan Dennett's refusal to engage in substantive conversation with Philip Clayton is a recent case in point.