Angry Atheists

[poliphilo]

A happy atheist- by which I mean an atheist confident in their unbelief- wouldn't continually be banging on about God the way Dawkins and Hitchens and Pullman do, they'd just let the matter rest and get on with their cheerfully Godless life, wouldn't they?

I read a piece by Dawkins the other day. (Thanks to chiller  for the link. ) It's very ecrasez l'infame- very shrill. Dawkins thinks he's got the Pope on the run and is giving chase with loud cries.

Philip Pullman is just about to publish a book about Jesus with a provocative title. I doubt that it'll be any good. Fictions about Jesus- for or against- never are. I enjoyed the Dark Materials trilogy, but the anti-God stuff was clumsy. As Eliot said of Matthew Arnold, Pullman is dealing with a subject "in (which) reasoning power matters, and it fails him."
 
I've been an atheist. I've dreamed that dream. The one where the bastille is tottering and you put just a little more weight on the crowbar and something gives and the masses come staggering out into the light of pure Reason. It's not going to happen.

Comments

[jfs.livejournal.com]

One might say the same about happy and unhappy Christians (or members of any other religion), no?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, I do believe Christianity includes various exhortations to proselytize, which atheism doesn't -- makes a difference, that.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, certainly.

There's a link, I think, between personal insecurity and the need to win converts.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

A happy atheist- by which I mean an atheist confident in their unbelief- wouldn't continually be banging on about God the way Dawkins and Hitchens and Pullman do, they'd just let the matter rest and get on with their cheerfully Godless life, wouldn't they?

Depends on temperament and experience, I suspect. I'm pretty contented in my unbelief, but that doesn't save me from being irked from time to time by the towering dumbness, hubris, and outright evil that believers manage to get up to. Sometimes I act on the feeling of ire, sometimes I don't. But I can certainly empathize with it in others.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can empathize with it too. I've skidded all over the place in the matter of belief and unbelief- and the present state of affairs in the Catholic church certainly gets my goat. I've been shrill on both sides of the argument- and I think the shrillness betrayed my insecurity.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Aggressive atheism is as annoying and irrational as One-True-God-ism, and just as shrill and ill-mannered.

Ever notice how miserable both sides tend to look?

I'll have to check out the Pullman book. I did like his Dark Materials trilogy, but you're right about his handling of the anti-God element.

Personally, I'll stick with my cloud of myriad Small Gods, and Short-Duration Personal Savior Catch-and-Release program. :-)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good manners may be what it's all about.

I don't like shoutiness. If you're going to attack religion do it with sly wit. My hero is the wicked, surrealist film maker Luis Bunuel.

I like small gods too- and especially when they're smaller than I am.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I've dreamed that dream. The one where the bastille is tottering and you put just a little more weight on the crowbar and something gives and the masses come staggering out into the light of pure Reason. It's not going to happen.

That's an interesting thought. I wish I had the time and mental capacity today to speak more to that thought, but I don't. Or, at least, not now.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Sometime, maybe?

[jfs.livejournal.com]

I think Pullman has more chance than either Dawkins or Hitchens because of two things:

Firstly, humans are inherently story telling creatures, and he's approaching the atheism argument by telling stories which subsume and replace belief.

Secondly, because behind everything that Dawkins, Hitchens and their ilk have to say, you can hear the not so sub-text "If only you were as clever as me, I wouldn't have to explain this to you."

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

and yet Dawkins is not astute enough to recognise his own special pleading. He does not seem to realise the comforting role religion plays in the lives of people around the world whose lives are hard and toilsome. He would diminish the value of cultures who celebrate religious rituals - as if he is not part of any such culture, as if he is above culture.

I'm not 100% down on Dawkins. I do believe he is sincere and passionate - but fails to understand how he comes across sometimes.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Pullman is a fine story-teller. I wish he'd stick with what he's good at. I think he undermines his art with his preachiness.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Dawkins' article - spoken like a true member of the Oxford University Debating Society. Point of information, Mr Speaker!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

In the context of a spoken debate it might have been quite effective.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

There's a substantial extract from the Philip Pullman book in Saturday's Guardian (you can read it here if you're interested).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's cleverly written, but I'm afraid I think the basic idea is rather silly.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

When I see Dawkins interviewed on TV he always seems much more reasonable than his book, which was a bit sneery. He wants us all to see the light of logic and reason but doesn't seem to be able to employ those tools consistently.

But I too can become an evangelical atheist at times, especially where I see religion as limiting horizons, loading people with guilt, being used as an excuse for bigotry and abuse, driving divisions between people, and causing general misery.

Atheism is, in the end, a kinder belief.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I have Dawkinsish moods too.

But I think his strategy is wrong. He uses the cudgel when the stilletto would be so much more effective.

[oakmouse]

Thank you. Dawkins has always struck me as being like the angry teenager screaming at his parents about how much he hates them: he's nowhere near so rational and fact-based as he thinks he is.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes. He's callow and unsubtle.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I understand the frustration Dawkins et al feel on the topic, I really do. But I think if the alternative to dewy-eyed BELIEF OF OUR LORD is to be countered, it cannot be countered with the same sort of name-calling and rock-throwing as the Other Lot tend to use. If the godless are going to appeal to reason, they must do just that.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I agree.

Dawkins is polarising. He's preaching to the choir and the only effect he's having on his enemies is to make them even angrier.

[jenny_evergreen]

I think of myself just that way...as a content atheist compared to an angry one.
Sometimes I am highly frustrated by the fact of that last paragraph, but usually I live with it okay.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

In the end it matters very little what we believe or don't believe; it's how we live our lives that counts.

[wolfshift.livejournal.com]

Indeed, I've found that -- particularly on the internet but not exclusively so -- atheists are by far the more aggressive, obnoxious, and downright rude of any religious category. Not only can they not be civil when the subject of religion comes up, they also can't seem to avoid raising it in the first place. They seem to have a powerful need to be angry at G-d all the time and to make sure everyone knows how angry they are.

(Yes, I know these are generalisations. They're meant to be.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think the anger comes out of anxiety and insecurity.

Why would you be angry if you'd really grasped the truth?

[shullie.livejournal.com]

I know a fundamentalist atheist.... same difference as fundie anything sadly!

he'd still out me to death for what I believe..!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's sad.

Bigotry is sad whatever form it takes.

[litchick.livejournal.com]

Since I became an atheist I've been frequenting a couple of internet forums, and I'm beyond understanding these angry atheists - these disciples of Dawkins and Hitchens. What's the big deal? They sound as bad as any religious zealot only they're on "my team." I understand on one hand, how atheists in a country like here in America can get frustrated at times because of the influence of the Christan right and their attempts to bring prayer into schools, or stop teaching evolution, but beyond that I don't see what the big deal is about, and I think it reflects on us poorly as a group. If they're interested in raising the bar for discussion and delivering more reason and rationality into society I think they need to bring their rhetoric down a notch or two and make a full-hearted attempt to really understand religion and why it plays such a prominent role in the lives of so many.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Shouting is ugly and counterproductive. It makes people want to give you a wide berth.

My favourite atheist is the film maker Luis Bunuel- who knew Catholicism from the inside, understood its glamour, and exposed its absurdities with sly wit.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Have you ever posted about your journey to atheism and then to something else? I would love to read what you have to say.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've been writing about religion ever since I started blogging. There are fragments of autobiography in there, but I don't think I've ever told the whole story from A to Z. I'll give it some thought.

Watch this space. :)

I consider God to be like Sherlock Holmes:

[jorrocks-j.livejournal.com]

A fictional character I'd really like to meet, so long as He wasn't in one of His moods...

Re: I consider God to be like Sherlock Holmes:

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Me too. He's the only convincing portrait of genius that I know of in world fiction.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

A happy atheist- by which I mean an atheist confident in their unbelief- wouldn't continually be banging on about God the way Dawkins and Hitchens and Pullman do, they'd just let the matter rest and get on with their cheerfully Godless life, wouldn't they?

I don't think that's fair.

I spent a lot of time arguing religion a few years ago, but it wasn't because I was unsure in my unbelief. It was because I enjoyed arguing about the subject. That eventually got boring, but I hadn't made a career out of it; I was just being opinionated online.

This reminds me too much of the old argument that the loudest homophobes are secretly homosexual. While it's an attractive idea, it's probably not true of many of them.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm reflecting on my own past. I've argued on both sides of the divide- and when I was shoutiest it was because I was standing on shifting ground.

One gets into arguments, I think, partly in order to convince oneself.

And why would one debate an idea or a stance if one didn't find it attractive in some way? Speaking for myself, I'm not going to waste time arguing against a position I find boring, irrelevant or just plain silly.