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

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Remember, I'm speaking from a British perspective. This is a deeply secular society. I'll grant that it's a lot harder to ignore religion in the States.

I'm talking about belief and unbelief. I think in that context people who shout a lot are trying to drown out opposing voices- some of which may be in their own heads. I don't think a flaming queen is quite the same thing as a person roaring from a soapbox or a pulpit, but a racial bigot probably is. I'm not saying the bigot is a secret egalitarian but that they are probably aware, at some level, that their arguments aren't as compelling as they'd like to think.