My last post, in which I wrote a letter to Richard Dawkins which may have been a bit too flattering, has drawn some scorn my way from a few of my readers. After a few well-deserved rebukes, I think it’s necessary to point out that Richard Dawkins is a bit of a tool. I don’t hate everything about him. He’s written some great books, his popular biology is lucid and engaging and he’s kind of useful as an atheist bulldog. On the other hand, he’s unnecessarily aggressive against the vast majority of believers who just want to be left alone to worship in peace. Dawkins is not alone in this. PZ Meyers provoked the faithful by desecrating a communion wafer, a bible and a Koran. Christopher Hitchens insists that when he gave his book the sensational subtitle of “How religion poisons everything”, he meant it literally. Sam Harris attempts to dismiss an entire discipline of philosophy in his most recent work of scientism. It seems that nearly every prominent atheist figure has a reputation as a bit of an antisocial asshole.
This general trend towards dickery among atheists is the result of a subtle philosophical error. Obnoxious atheists tend to justify their behaviour by conflating epistemic values with ethical values. To put that in non-philosophy nerd speak, they fallaciously equate being good with being right. This is well illustrated by this quote from Blag Hag, another aggressive atheist blogger:
“Regardless if your religion goes out of its way to oppress others, or just has private naked kissing rituals, I’m still going to point out how wrong it is. Why? Because the search for truth is important to me, and there are too many beautiful, wonderful real things in this world to be wasting our time on pointless rituals and optimistic daydreaming. It’s intellectually insulting to believe in something just for community, or wonderment, or tradition, or answers about the afterlife – when it’s a fucking fairy tale.”
I respect that the search for truth is important to Blag Hag. It happens to be quite important to me as well. Furthermore, I think I mostly agree with her as to what the truth actually is. I trust science and believe there to be no evidence for any meaningful supernatural presence in our world. Like Blag Hag, I believe in evolution and the big bang and our total lack of souls. The difference is that I am more comfortable than she is with those who have different metaphysical convictions than me. Another person’s beliefs cannot be intellectually insulting to me unless they try to impose the normative content of those beliefs on me. While I would agree that it is not a useful way of understanding the world, I nevertheless have no problem with other peoples’ religious faith because I understand that it can be an enormous source of social grounding, psychological comfort, and moral instruction for many people. So long as it brings good into some peoples’ lives, it is none of my business to go about trying to eradicate religion because I don’t agree with its factual content. Dawkins, Hitchens, Myers, McCreight, and Harris fail to separate the goodness from correctness.
That’s all well and good, but the whole thing seems a bit patronizing, doesn’t it? Saying that I understand that religious believers are wrong but will rest comfortably in my agnostic superiority is at least a little bit of the same kind of obnoxiousness that is displayed by the more aggressive atheists. True respect of a person’s beliefs is displayed by a willingness to engage with them. Furthermore, I do believe that there are some more extreme forms of religion which do cause real harm to their adherents. So I can’t entirely abandon prosthelytizing. This point is well illustrated by Penn Jillette’s heartwarming account of when a very kind man tried to convert him to Christianity:
He has a point. If you sincerely believe that somebody would be better off with a different set of beliefs about the world, then you are doing that person a severe disservice by not trying to change their mind. The question is, how can this be accomplished without being an asshole atheist (or asshole agnostic, in my case). This is tough, and since it’s a question of etiquette, it’s entirely subjective. I can only tell you how I go about it. I will only prosthelytize if I am prosthelyzed to first. If somebody is willing to open a conversation about faith, ethics and metaphysics, then I will respect their attempt to save my soul by launching my own attempt to free them from having to start akward conversations to save peoples’ souls. To my mind, an honest engagement with any conversion attempt is necessary to respect a faith in which you do not believe. But to actively seek out confrontations with believers, whether on the internet or in the real world, is kind of douchey.
I have a real problem withyou saying it’s a religious attitude is not a useful way of understanding the world. Who are you to say what is or is not useful in another’s world view?
Also I find making it a goal to weaken someone’s faith incredibly offensive and pompous. I don’t believe in proselytising, but why not just say no thank you. Unless their faith is obviously damaging in a traumatising way. I find your attitude as obnoxious as those that insist non believers will burn in hell.
I believe that simply saying “no thank you” is not sufficiently respectful of an evangelist who takes the initiative to come talk to me. I respect anyone who wants to save me from damnation, and it is for that reason that I am willing to engage with them. I will not push my beliefs (or lack thereof) on anyone who does not want me to, but if somebody approahes me with the explicit intention of conversion, then I’m willing to give them an honest shot at it. That means that I get to lay all my beliefs and reasons therefore on the table. That’s all I’m saying.
As for decding what is useful in other peoples’ beliefs, that is in the end not for me to decide, as you point out. I recognize the social, cultural and ethical value of faith, but I deny that it has any epistemic value. If somebody wants to try and convince me that I should have faith in their god, then I’m willing to point that out. I can’t weaken a person’s faith without them weakening it for themselves. All I can do is explain to them why I relinquished my faith, and why I feel that I am better off for it. If they are trying to convert me, then they probably want know that information anyway.
So perhaps the last part of my post was stated too strongly. In hindsight, you’re right to call me pompous and arrogant for suggesting that it is a goal to attack the faith of others. The offending sentence has been removed. Thanks for being willing to tear a strip off me when I deserve it.
I should also say that I renounced my faith two years ago, and I have been better off as a result. In my personal experience, it’s nice to be able to do what I want and act on the dictates of my conscience without having to worry about hellfire.
I realize that the reverse is also true for many people. Many former atheists have, on finding religion, found their lives improved as a result. This is why I respect religion more than many other atheist bloggers and am opposed to open mockery of religion.
In my case, though, I would not have become an agnostic and enjoyed the resulting benefits had my faith not been challenged by nonbelievers. I am thankful that there were those who risked offending me to discuss these issues. If I am willing to occasionally challenge religious beliefs, then there is a small chance that my actions can have a comparable effect on another person.
I guess simply saying your goal would be to weaken faith really got to me. I’m also against believing you know what’s best for another person or what will make them happier. And that works both ways for me. I can see how engaging in honest debate with a proselytiser is truly honouring their conviction but I am wary of arguing that their faith has no epistemic value. Of course most proselytisers also argue, like atheists, that the other person simply does not have all the information and once they do, they will hang ther mind. I would find a personal story of happily finding or happily losing faith much more compelling. But my goal has never beento convert anyone, either way.
That got a little more personal attack-y than I meant it to. Guess it struck a nerve. I’m sorry.
In my view, any attempt to change another person’s lifestyle based on the idea that one ‘knows better’ than they do is poisonous, short-sighted, and vile. Especially when discussing topics such as these – we’ll never know whether the world is a series of random collisions of particles, whether there is a God who diligently and benevolently (or not-so-benevolently, in some systems of faith) orders existence according to His (or Her) preferences, or some other explanation for why things are the way they are.
Further, as we’ve discussed before, I believe that, ultimately, all worldviews are faith-based. I like to use the example of germ theory, since that’s a worldview that I myself believe in and use frequently. How do I know that T. Pallidum will cause syphilis in humans? Because we’ve isolated and identified T. Pallidum in humans who have syphilis, and we can’t seem to find it in humans who don’t. Good enough for me. Except that to believe that, I also have to believe that when I look at a microbe under a microsope, what I’m seing is a true representation of what’s really going on – that the microscope can accurately represent the occult world of things that are very, very small. I happen to be very comfortable believing that – it’s a useful way for me to frame my understanding and shape my behaviour (throwing a bunch of penicillin at someone whose cultures come back positive for syphilis). (Well, in three years when I get to start prescribing, anyway.)
Why penicillin? Because I accept that experiments can replicate the lived environment accurately enough that treatments that work experimentally can be extrapolated to actual treatment, because I accept biochemical modelling as similarly representational of human life, and because I believe in a causal universe in which the same actions under the same conditions will produce the same results. But I realise that these are only beliefs. I have no way of knowing whether all syphilis cures are the work of some malicious demon who wants to lull us into a false sense of security before giving everyone incurable syphilis. I prefer not to believe that; I like to live in a world that I see as regular and understandable. But, as a reasonable person, I am forced to acknowledge that this may not be the case – I don’t have any priviliged information about the structure of the universe and I can’t actually objectively differentiate between possible explanations. Occam’s Razor is a philosophical perspective, not a fact, and I try to be conscious of that when I make my decisions about what I believe and don’t. Perhaps syphilis is caused by evil spirits, and penicillin is powerful spirit magic which causes the spirits to vacate the body. Who knows? Just because that’s not the reality I choose to live in doesn’t mean it isn’t true; although I ‘act as though’ I’m right, I think it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that I could be wrong. And that acknowledgement necessarily limits the amount I can believe that others are absolutely wrong, or that I have a responsibility to correct them.
That’s why I find bloggers like Blag Hag too frustrating to read. That very post was actually why I stopped listening to anything she had to say. The hubris associated with describing someone’s beliefs as a “fucking fairy tale” when one’s own views are just as fully based on a leap of faith, and the level of disingenuousness required to ignore the contradiction between defining oneself as rational and refusing to accept the basic premise for one’s rationality, are too maddening for me to engage with.
That being said, I do welcome discussions on faith – I think if we all spent a little more time saying “Really? Your premise for the universe is x? That’s interesting. Why is that? Mine is y, and I’ll tell you why that is,” we’d all be much better off. Whatever our faiths may be, we should always question them. Only by doing so can we live truly self-aware and rational lives.
Maija
June 14, 2011
I have a real problem withyou saying it’s a religious attitude is not a useful way of understanding the world. Who are you to say what is or is not useful in another’s world view?
Maija
June 14, 2011
Also I find making it a goal to weaken someone’s faith incredibly offensive and pompous. I don’t believe in proselytising, but why not just say no thank you. Unless their faith is obviously damaging in a traumatising way. I find your attitude as obnoxious as those that insist non believers will burn in hell.
Falsum
June 14, 2011
Maija,
I believe that simply saying “no thank you” is not sufficiently respectful of an evangelist who takes the initiative to come talk to me. I respect anyone who wants to save me from damnation, and it is for that reason that I am willing to engage with them. I will not push my beliefs (or lack thereof) on anyone who does not want me to, but if somebody approahes me with the explicit intention of conversion, then I’m willing to give them an honest shot at it. That means that I get to lay all my beliefs and reasons therefore on the table. That’s all I’m saying.
As for decding what is useful in other peoples’ beliefs, that is in the end not for me to decide, as you point out. I recognize the social, cultural and ethical value of faith, but I deny that it has any epistemic value. If somebody wants to try and convince me that I should have faith in their god, then I’m willing to point that out. I can’t weaken a person’s faith without them weakening it for themselves. All I can do is explain to them why I relinquished my faith, and why I feel that I am better off for it. If they are trying to convert me, then they probably want know that information anyway.
So perhaps the last part of my post was stated too strongly. In hindsight, you’re right to call me pompous and arrogant for suggesting that it is a goal to attack the faith of others. The offending sentence has been removed. Thanks for being willing to tear a strip off me when I deserve it.
Falsum
June 14, 2011
I should also say that I renounced my faith two years ago, and I have been better off as a result. In my personal experience, it’s nice to be able to do what I want and act on the dictates of my conscience without having to worry about hellfire.
I realize that the reverse is also true for many people. Many former atheists have, on finding religion, found their lives improved as a result. This is why I respect religion more than many other atheist bloggers and am opposed to open mockery of religion.
In my case, though, I would not have become an agnostic and enjoyed the resulting benefits had my faith not been challenged by nonbelievers. I am thankful that there were those who risked offending me to discuss these issues. If I am willing to occasionally challenge religious beliefs, then there is a small chance that my actions can have a comparable effect on another person.
Maija
June 14, 2011
I guess simply saying your goal would be to weaken faith really got to me. I’m also against believing you know what’s best for another person or what will make them happier. And that works both ways for me. I can see how engaging in honest debate with a proselytiser is truly honouring their conviction but I am wary of arguing that their faith has no epistemic value. Of course most proselytisers also argue, like atheists, that the other person simply does not have all the information and once they do, they will hang ther mind. I would find a personal story of happily finding or happily losing faith much more compelling. But my goal has never beento convert anyone, either way.
That got a little more personal attack-y than I meant it to. Guess it struck a nerve. I’m sorry.
Liz
June 16, 2011
In my view, any attempt to change another person’s lifestyle based on the idea that one ‘knows better’ than they do is poisonous, short-sighted, and vile. Especially when discussing topics such as these – we’ll never know whether the world is a series of random collisions of particles, whether there is a God who diligently and benevolently (or not-so-benevolently, in some systems of faith) orders existence according to His (or Her) preferences, or some other explanation for why things are the way they are.
Further, as we’ve discussed before, I believe that, ultimately, all worldviews are faith-based. I like to use the example of germ theory, since that’s a worldview that I myself believe in and use frequently. How do I know that T. Pallidum will cause syphilis in humans? Because we’ve isolated and identified T. Pallidum in humans who have syphilis, and we can’t seem to find it in humans who don’t. Good enough for me. Except that to believe that, I also have to believe that when I look at a microbe under a microsope, what I’m seing is a true representation of what’s really going on – that the microscope can accurately represent the occult world of things that are very, very small. I happen to be very comfortable believing that – it’s a useful way for me to frame my understanding and shape my behaviour (throwing a bunch of penicillin at someone whose cultures come back positive for syphilis). (Well, in three years when I get to start prescribing, anyway.)
Why penicillin? Because I accept that experiments can replicate the lived environment accurately enough that treatments that work experimentally can be extrapolated to actual treatment, because I accept biochemical modelling as similarly representational of human life, and because I believe in a causal universe in which the same actions under the same conditions will produce the same results. But I realise that these are only beliefs. I have no way of knowing whether all syphilis cures are the work of some malicious demon who wants to lull us into a false sense of security before giving everyone incurable syphilis. I prefer not to believe that; I like to live in a world that I see as regular and understandable. But, as a reasonable person, I am forced to acknowledge that this may not be the case – I don’t have any priviliged information about the structure of the universe and I can’t actually objectively differentiate between possible explanations. Occam’s Razor is a philosophical perspective, not a fact, and I try to be conscious of that when I make my decisions about what I believe and don’t. Perhaps syphilis is caused by evil spirits, and penicillin is powerful spirit magic which causes the spirits to vacate the body. Who knows? Just because that’s not the reality I choose to live in doesn’t mean it isn’t true; although I ‘act as though’ I’m right, I think it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that I could be wrong. And that acknowledgement necessarily limits the amount I can believe that others are absolutely wrong, or that I have a responsibility to correct them.
That’s why I find bloggers like Blag Hag too frustrating to read. That very post was actually why I stopped listening to anything she had to say. The hubris associated with describing someone’s beliefs as a “fucking fairy tale” when one’s own views are just as fully based on a leap of faith, and the level of disingenuousness required to ignore the contradiction between defining oneself as rational and refusing to accept the basic premise for one’s rationality, are too maddening for me to engage with.
That being said, I do welcome discussions on faith – I think if we all spent a little more time saying “Really? Your premise for the universe is x? That’s interesting. Why is that? Mine is y, and I’ll tell you why that is,” we’d all be much better off. Whatever our faiths may be, we should always question them. Only by doing so can we live truly self-aware and rational lives.