A Wee Attack On "The Trouble With Atheism"

This post is a response to the Rod Liddle programe "The Trouble With Atheism" (aired 18th December, Channel 4), via the interesting blog averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com.

All I saw was Liddle setting up paper tigers and knocking them down, with nary a dent in atheism itself - his Stalin argument was rubbish, his Darwin argument laughable, and exactly the kind of thing I expect from those who haven't a clue what 'rational' actually means in science and philosophy (as opposed to the spiritualist nonsense that many allow to be 'philosophy').

Unfortunately the argument that Dawkins is an enemy of Marxism as he is a 'bourgeois materialist' is also rubbish. Materialism is core to capitalism in some ways, ditto Marxism and Atheism. Like Liddle vis atheism, it is a mistake to see materialism as having any specific ethics accruing to it. It is a tool in the rationalist tool-box, and thus, like all tools, has some influence as a shape on the hand that holds it, but not in the rigidly determinist way that Liddle and Phil imply in their different ways, at least not if those using the tools have their eyes open.

My problem with Dawkins is that he pussy's out on the question "are Christians 'bad scientists'?". In many arenas they need not be, certainly not when their role is as engineers or technical support types. But in cutting-edge thought, having an attitude that your faith in a God is implacable, regardless of 'facts', where the God you subscribe to has pushed certain ethical stances as inseparable from belief in 'him' (ie, always), and at the same time engaging in an intellectual activity that requires you change your views if the facts contradict the presumptions you may have had, is contradictory. If a tenet of your science is over-turned you are meant to say 'so be it' and recalibrate, but if a tenet of your faith is questioned the science is wrong, kind of by definition - and, by definition, you become a 'bad scientist'. On an interview with either Jon Snow or Paxman (I forget which) he completely undermined the strength of his (and atheisms) position on science and truth by not explaining this, presumably in an attempt not to piss off the large number of scientists who do feel that they can square their faith with their positions as scientists. But this is only ever true up to a point - and the point at which it is challenged is exactly the point where science has most real value (vis human understanding) and where the god squad cannot be 'good scientists'!

The two documentaries on Channel 4, The Root of All Evil and The Trouble With Atheism were required viewing, but the argument put forth in the former was a real argument (whether one agrees is another matter), the latter empty gesturing that can only convince those that are not paying close attention. Liddle addresses very little that is specifically a problem of atheism. Not that Dawkins is right so far as his title goes... sure, theism is a mainstay of all evil, but not the 'root': money, capitalism, hierarchy, domination... there are traits here that are part of the bad aspects of human community, as much a part of the 'why' of evil as religion, indeed organised religion is often a manifestation of aspects of these other things, not the sole source of evil in itself.

The evils that I think do accrue to religion, inherently, do include the elitism and arrogance of their 'chosen' over those not; the offensive next-life / after-life manipulations that enable and 'justify' bad acts (or inaction) in this life due to pay-offs and forgiveness in the next; the extermination of heretics, where that means of everyone off a narrow spectrum of thought (and here Dawkins too might want to look to the plank in his own eye, sure...).

I have read widely on religions and atheism, over the last four decades, and in the mud fight of argument have found little that sticks against atheism and much that sticks against religion. Liddle does nothing real to help his side (whatever it is), as snide remarks and windmill tilting at the wrong targets will only convince those who know too little - sure, though, that's a fair few folk in itself, but as an intellectual argument? it's bankrupt.

So Darwin's ideas were a vague gesture at a real point, with errors, some since spotted and advanced beyond. When did atheism depend on the literal word of Darwin? We aren't in the same mental universe as the 'seven day' brigade, and never will our minds meet - they don't get it, so why waste the breathe? So Stalin was atheist, does that mean that all ethics that atheists may subscribe to (we're a broad body of opinion after all) are tainted by that? I see nothing inherently atheist in Stalin's actions, whereas I DO see something inherent in religious wars. That ignores, of course, whether Stalin's atheism was ever more than the lip service of a superstitious anti-intellectual who in fact made a religion of his own misinterpretations of Marx (who also might be miffed at being depicted as an unevolving ape), or the question (vis Popper) of whether historicism in Marxism is a kind of religion (as dollar worship may be in ascribing value in capitalism)...

Most of the rest of the programme is groovy at a glance, and vacuous on deeper analysis, and if I get the transcript I'll tear it to shreds for you if you like (but it won't affect the pro- and anti- atheism arguments as they don't appear in the show!).

Tim

My point about ethics and ignorance of where ethics might originate or entail is made urgent by the kind of result that Channel 4 are having in a poll they are running (see talking_point_atheism), which has had the result (so far):

Without religion, there would be no moral codes
55%

People can live ethical lives without religion
45%

This is scary nonsense. Liddle, for sure, was light on how he might explain the actions of the religious in religious wars in relation to ethics and is view of Stalin in relation to atheism! Those with more manifest faith than Liddle (who appears to be wearing the mantle of 'cynical agnostic' but acheives a pro-religious efect in the documentary, meant or not), are even more of a worry. The arrogance of the idea that fear of hell-fire / promise of heavenly reward is all that can gain us ethics (usually more 'sensibly' argued as "God is objectively there and what he says goes for ever, but we are corrupt mortals and the flesh is weak" - I'd call this the masochistic argument, and the hell/heaven one the sadistic argument, but surely both inhere in the same individuals if they are filled with the vomit at an early age).

Newsnight had someone from the British Humanist Association on to defend the atheist position. On paper this was a good enough idea - as it is, it was only the fact that tyhe pro-god loon was slow on the ptake that prevented disaster, as the humanist made the cardinal error of insisting that Darwinian evoloutionary theory weas NOT a theory, whereas the god hypothesis is 'just' a theory. This is exactly the nonsense and muddy thinking I deplore - of course evolution is a theory. But the 'just' is un-necessary, as not all theories are equal. Questions are begged, facts are rubbed up against, and theories are judged relative to one another not by whethwer they ARE or ARE NOT a theory, but by how they respond to such things. Popper is not a popular chap these days, I know, but perhaps some of those who take a caricature of his argument should actually read Conjectures and Refutations cover to cover - in my view this work does all you need and more towards explaining the philosophy behind the scientific enterprise as an idea (if not as a practise, or sociologically, which were for better or worse not his concerns).

The debate rolls on. Lots of money and energy is spent to assualt the very few of us who are atheist (and there is, as Dawkins says, a difference between atheism as a fixed belief no matter what and atheism as a belief that can be modified if presented with evidence to the contrary, and that this latter is NOT necessarily the same as 'agnosticism' which boils down to the Pascalian fudge: one that any god that may turn out to be there might give short thrift too!), as if we were a real threat... Well, few we may be, but we are a real threat. That god-ists are scared of us to the point of assassination is not surprise - ordinary people have a knack of understanding the truth if it is actually presented to them, as the anarchists can tell you. The powers that be, left, right, centre, protestant, catholic, jewish or muslom, cannot abide them either, for the same reasons - their message is essentialy simple, attractive and works - so it must be destroyed or those with power will fall.

Who says the revolution is over? It barely began. Let's get this party started!

Tim