Hemant responds about Atheist convention

Comment by: Ir

Hemant, thanks for answering my question. Wow — it’s neat to hear that when one atheist made an unfair generalization about Christians in casual conversation, other atheists called them on it. I’ve very rarely been in a group of atheists in person but I have seen that happen on IIDB and have been pleased to see it.

Ok, onto Dawkins. I did a little research and I found out something interesting about him.

Sometimes things happen in life that push people into seriously rethinking the way they live out what they believe. This happens to Christians and atheists: it happened to DL Moody, the founder of Moody Church, which you visited and thoroughly enjoyed (I’m kidding : )). The Great Chicago Fire shook DL Moody because people died in it who had been listening to his preaching the week before — and the week before he had not ’spelled out how to get to heaven’. Now it was too late — those people were gone - he would never have the opportunity to share that information with them. So he decided that in future he would never preach without including the ‘instructions on getting to heaven’ — that he couldn’t afford not to share that information.

I think 9-11 was similarly formative in Dawkins’ approach — I think that event led him to conclude that he should be more outspoken about the dangers of religion — that he would be irresponsible to do otherwise. Not that he’d ever exactly kept quiet about his views, but I think it gave him a new urgency. Here’s a quote from him which illustrates which I think this about him — it’s his response to “How has 9-11 changed the world?”

Richard Dawkins: “Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense [before 9-11]. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where’s the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let’s now stop being so damned respectful!”

Hemant, you wrote: “When I think of [Dawkins] I kinda ignore that side of him [his presentation of his opposition to religion in a non-friendly-atheist way]” and you went on to say what you like about him. This typifies the thoughtful balanced approach I’ve seen in your church surveys, in which you are able to separate what you like and what you don’t like, rather than seeing anything as all-good or all-bad. I think being able to do that is a gift that not everyone seems to have.

Having said that, it seems like you are positioning yourself with the hope of being a public advocate of friendly atheists/atheism. In that arena, I’m not sure you will be able to achieve the credibility you’re hoping for unless you are willing to admit that Dawkins is actually one of your biggest enemies when it comes to publically improving the image of atheists. The image of atheists as unnecessarily angry and hostile which you are trying to break down? Dawkins was one of the people who built it and more than ever he is out there very much in the public view, reinforcing it.

So, while I think you’re right to say why you admire Dawkins, as a public advocate of friendly atheists I think you might need to openly address how much Dawkins is hurting your cause. Or, if you don’t think he is, to explain why to all those atheists and Christians who think he is.

By the way, is it ok with you if Christians ‘ignore’ remarks of visible Christians like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell that they find offensive? Would/does that bother you at all? Do you wish Christians would speak out and say “I do find that offensive, yes” and/or “it grieves/angers me that visible spokespeople for my belief system say such things and contribute to the stereotype that people who believe like I do are insensitive and bigoted”.

Here’s a quote I liked referring to Dawkins interactions with religious spokespeople in his two part TV series, from which the Haggard video clip which Jim watched was excerpted. This quote is written by someone who agrees with Dawkin’s antipathy towards religion in general:

Charlie Brooker
Friday January 13, 2006
The Guardian

So the other day I’m flopping about in my pants watching The Root of All Evil, Richard Dawkins’ new Channel 4 series about religion, and it’s alternating between terrifying and hilarious. Terrifying because it feels like a report detailing the final seconds before the world slides into an all-out holy fistfight, and hilarious because every time Dawkins meets a religious spokesman, which he does at regular intervals throughout the programme, he quickly becomes far too angry to conduct a civil conversation with them - visibly fumes, in fact, and adopts the expression of an outraged Victorian gentleman who’s just been mooned by a cackling street urchin while escorting a lady across Bloomsbury Square. It doesn’t exactly move the debate forward.

The whole article is here: Supposing we could inoculate against religion?

And Hemant (and Jim, since this is your site), if I’m being too much of a consultant again, I apologize…

Comment by: Ir

Peter in I think we tend to gloss over some of the imperfections in people we admire anyway. And I, for one, don’t think that’s such an awful thing, actually. I think that’s a little love in action. I am grateful when people I love overlook some of my flaws to just love me. And I admire some people who I know well and even those I don’t know, in spite of sometimes serious flaws.

I agree, but I also think that if you are a spokesperson for a cause and the person in question is visibly, actively, undermining your cause, you might have to address what they’re doing in your words at least, rather than ‘lovingly’ ignoring it.

Comment by: Hemant

Ir– I disagree that I would have to be anti-Dawkins to still be a Friendly Atheist. I couldn’t be. I like and respect the man too much. But there’s a difference in what I think he says and what others hear. He’s always been against fundamentalism– the idea that my religion is right and anyone in my way must be stopped. I don’t think he has nearly that hostility against run-of-the-mill Christians like many that I’ve met the past couple months. He is not angry and hostile until he comes across people who are trying to force everyone to believe what they believe (in terms of Haggard, Dawkins believes that Haggard is one of the people leading the charge against evolution).
Furthermore, to go against Dawkins would be like going against Michael Newdow (the “Under God” guy). And I wouldn’t do that, either. The work Newdow is doing is vital and important for all people who want separation of church and state. Yes, he does get a bad rap while he fights his cases, but it needs to be done. It’s like the ACLU, too. They might be unpopular at times (and I don’t agree with their stances on everything), but I’d much rather have them fighting for everyone’s rights than not having the ACLU at all.
I would prefer taking a different stance with my Atheism. We have people who are fighting for our rights as Atheists. Now, we need people who can defend the positive image, and I’d like to be part of that latter group.

– Hemant

Comment by: Ir

I respect your opinion and your choices, Hemant. One thing I want to be clear about is that I wasn’t suggesting you be anti-Dawkins per se, only that since you’re a friendly atheist you might want to openly say that you don’t personally advocate Dawkins-like-hostility - since it’s not friendly.

I don’t think he has nearly that hostility against run-of-the-mill Christians like many that I’ve met the past couple months. He is not angry and hostile until he comes across people who are trying to force everyone to believe what they believe (in terms of Haggard, Dawkins believes that Haggard is one of the people leading the charge against evolution).

I understand why you would want to defend him and in general I think defending others is a laudable thing to do.

However, I don’t see that saying “I’ve met worse” is much of a defense, since there are some very hostile people out there. A person can be better than the worst but still be rather terrible.

As for your other point, I would say he was expressing himself in a way that is likely to offend religious people throughout the two TV programs - not just when he interviewed Christian leaders. While it might not be accurate to say his manner was angry and hostile, on the other hand I can’t call it ‘friendly’ in any sense of the word.

I understand you not wanting to go against the work of other atheists; I wouldn’t expect you to. All I was hoping is that, as a friendly atheist, you might take a verbal stand against unfriendly expressions of atheists/atheism. And by that, I don’t mean confronting unfriendly atheists face-toface but simply making clear statements that you don’t think such unfriendliness is the best approach.

But, maybe I’m misconstruing your position in assuming that you’d prefer all atheists to be friendly. Maybe you’re happy with some being unfriendly in the abstract and angry and hostile in particular when they are up against religious leaders they don’t like.

Anyway, whatever you think, people ‘in the middle’ seem to disapprove of Dawkin’s tone and approach, based on the comments I’ve read. Here’s another comment I found this morning in the Guardian:

If God had a sense of humour, he’d have sent us Richard Dawkins to prove that the qualities that make religion obnoxious can just as well flourish in atheists.

I have no trouble at all imagining him as a preacher; I’ve heard him testifying to atheist audiences. But they were very small, because self-conscious organised atheists are about as rare as Quakers in this country. The habits of thought and mind that make for a religious fanatic are in Dawkins isolated without their normal social support. It’s like watching a single neuron in a dish without the brain that normally surrounds it. Science can learn much from such experiments.

from here

Maybe we will have to agree to disagree on some things. As far as I’m concerned Dawkin’s rudeness is absolutely unnecessary and encourages negative stereotypes of atheists no matter how smart he may be or how awesome his books are.

Comment by: Siamang

I can’t even imagine it on HBO.

Comment by: Katherine

Thanks for the tip Hemant, I’m not a student anymore but I’ve posted the information on the Humanist Society of Scotland’s forums and offered to help anyone setting one up in my home city of Edinburgh.

The Richard Dawkins progamme was on a mainstream channel, Channel 4, who have a reputation for showing potentially contraversial programmes like this. They have a much smaller audience share than the BBC and there wasn’t a massive amount of fuss (nothing like when BBC2 showed Jerry Springer: The Opera). A couple of weeks ago they showed a fascinating programme on the rise of Christian evangelism, mainly looking at creationists who have been funding state schools. Worth watching if you can get hold of it. I’m pretty sure that the presenter is a Christian, although not a regular church-going type.