One Atheist taking another Atheist to Task

[Canuckster1127]

All,

This is a recent article in an atheist publication in which one atheist Gary Wolf, take to task some of the more militant atheist voices, such as Richard Dawkins, Dennett and Sam Harris.

Any thoughts or comments? It's a long article, so I've taken some key statements from the 8 screen article and put them below, that may give some idea of its content, if you don't want to read the whole article.

It's worth reading as an apologist in my opinion though.

Very powerful article by Gary Wolf about Dawkins and his agenda.

http://www.wired.com/news/wiredmag/0,71 ... wn_index_1

Interesting in that Gary Wolf is an atheist himself and is taking Dawkins and Harris to task for their excesses. He seems to respect Dennett more with regard to civility and reasonableness as opposed to the first two.

Interesting quotes from the article,

The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it's evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there's no excuse for shirking.

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[Dawkins] true interlocutors are not the Christians he confronts directly but the wavering nonbelievers or quasi believers among his listeners -- people like me, potential New Atheists who might be inspired by his example.

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When atheists finally begin to gain some power, what then? Here is where Dawkins' analogy breaks down. Gay politics is strictly civil rights: Live and let live. But the atheist movement, by his lights, has no choice but to aggressively spread the good news. Evangelism is a moral imperative. Dawkins does not merely disagree with religious myths. He disagrees with tolerating them, with cooperating in their colonization of the brains of innocent tykes.

"How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?" Dawkins asks. "It's one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?"

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It is exactly this trip down Logic Lane, this conscientious deduction of conclusions from premises, that makes Dawkins' proclamations a torment to his moderate allies. While frontline warriors against creationism are busy reassuring parents and legislators that teaching Darwin's theory does not undermine the possibility of religious devotion, Dawkins is openly agreeing with the most stubborn fundamentalists that evolution must lead to atheism. I tell Dawkins what he already knows: He is making life harder for his friends.

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Typical atheists are hardly the rabble-rousing evangelists that Dawkins or Harris might like. They are an older, peaceable, quietly frustrated lot, who meet partly out of idealism and partly out of loneliness.

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Still, Adams admits some marketing concerns. Atheists are predominant among the "upper 5 percent," he says. "Where we're lagging is among the lower 95 percent."

This is a true problem, and it goes beyond the difficulty of selling your ideas among those to whom you so openly condescend.

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Where does this leave us, we who have been called upon to join this uncompromising war against faith? What shall we do, we potential enlistees? Myself, I've decided to refuse the call. The irony of the New Atheism -- this prophetic attack on prophecy, this extremism in opposition to extremism -- is too much for me.

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The New Atheists have castigated fundamentalism and branded even the mildest religious liberals as enablers of a vengeful mob. Everybody who does not join them is an ally of the Taliban. But, so far, their provocation has failed to take hold. Given all the religious trauma in the world, I take this as good news. Even those of us who sympathize intellectually have good reasons to wish that the New Atheists continue to seem absurd. If we reject their polemics, if we continue to have respectful conversations even about things we find ridiculous, this doesn't necessarily mean we've lost our convictions or our sanity. It simply reflects our deepest, democratic values. Or, you might say, our bedrock faith: the faith that no matter how confident we are in our beliefs, there's always a chance we could turn out to be wrong.

[Birdie]

"How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?" Dawkins asks. "It's one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?"

Children are very influential. To try to bring up a kid without mimicking something or another would be like them living in a box. People bring up their kids to believe and all sorts of things. Racism, sexism, hatred, why stop Christianity before all of those? And who's to say that Christianity is a falsehood, even if it is no parent would get their children taken away from them because of telling their kids about Santa Clause.

[Canuckster1127]

"How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?" Dawkins asks. "It's one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?"

Children are very influential. To try to bring up a kid without mimicking something or another would be like them living in a box. People bring up their kids to believe and all sorts of things. Racism, sexism, hatred, why stop Christianity before all of those? And who's to say that Christianity is a falsehood, even if it is no parent would get their children taken away from them because of telling their kids about Santa Clause.

Pretty radical point of view, isn't it?

[Judah]

"How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?" Dawkins asks. "It's one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?"

~ genetic inheritance
~ family circumstances
~ a particular society, both effects and membership
~ the enculturation of a certain culture
~ nationality
~ requirements that meet all manner of human needs
~ care and nurture in every respect
~ profoundly wonderful mother love
~ financial outlay
~ etc, etc, etc

Well, having "imposed" all that on my child, why not go the whole way?

Now even if this is an imposition on the child, who said that makes the child my property? I might refer to him as "my child" but I am denoting a relationship - parental in this case, nothing about ownership. I don't have a receipt for him, a money-back guarrantee, a warranty against faulty workmanship (oh how I wish sometimes!) let alone any right to dispose of him according to choice anytime. He is not like anything else "owned" by me, and certainly behaves nothing like any property I have.

And who is saying that my beliefs which I may choose to share with him are falsehoods anyway?

Dawkins is such a pessimist. He assumes a negative without, as an aetheist, any real dynamic knowledge of the positive.

[puritan lad]

"How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?" Dawkins asks. "It's one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?"

If I didn't know better, I'd conclude that Dawkins wants to legislate morality.

At least we know who is god is. "society" (ie. the State, Caesar, etc.)