-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Damon Linker doesn’t see the need of another book about atheism. This time it’s British philosopher A.C. Grayling’s The God Argument – The Case against Religion and for Humanism, to be published on March 26. Linker quotes honest atheist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche when Nietzsche proclaimed that the death of God would be an “awe-inspiring catastrophe” for mankind. Although numerous gods from humanity’s past have lost their imagined effect on the human condition without catastrophic results, Nietzsche seems to think the passing of this god will be different.
Linker writes:
If atheism is true, it is far from being good news. Learning that we’re alone in the universe, that no one hears or answers our prayers, that humanity is entirely the product of random events, that we have no more intrinsic dignity than non-human and even non-animate clumps of matter, that we face certain annihilation in death, that our sufferings are ultimately pointless, that our lives and loves do not at all matter in a larger sense, that those who commit horrific evils and elude human punishment get away with their crimes scot free — all of this (and much more) is utterly tragic.
The claim that “we’re alone in the universe,” attempts to lump all of humanity into one group that will be alone with Linker’s god. However, since only individuals can feel loneliness, humanity may be alone but will not be lonely. The search for intelligent extra-terrestrial beings echos the same need for humanity to not be alone.
The lament that “no one hears or answers our prayers,” reminds me of a child’s devastation when that child learns that Santa doesn’t read the letters that they have written.
Linker thinks that under atheism, “humanity is entirely the product of random events.” Evolution puts lie to Linker’s straw man fallacy. Natural selection is not a random process. Randomness shouldn’t scare us. Humanity is used to the randomness of which sperm will penetrate the egg, making everyone’s identity the result of a random event.
While atheism does hold that we “face certain annihilation in death,” that annihilation makes life all the more precious. The world got along just fine before we were born, it will get along just fine after we’re dead. We live on only in the minds of those who survive our death. How we’re remembered is all that matters because that is all that remains.
Linker’s religion inflates its followers’ egos by claiming an all-powerful being loves them. The loss of that all-powerful being is a blow to the ego few theists are willing to accept. The feeling of being special in a world teeming with humans is seductive. Religion’s seductiveness also extends to the human desire for revenge. However, it is this very seductiveness that should make us skeptical of its truth.
We have followed the repeated attacks on atheists by political and religious leaders and Linker can be added to hall of shame. Linker believes, contrary to the Constitution’s requirement of “no religious test,” that “radical atheists” are “simply incompatible with high office, and sometimes even active citizenship, in a democracy.” Jews are atheistic regarding the Christian god. Is being Jewish also incompatible with high office?
In the case of Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), unanimous in the result it was the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion that:
We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person “to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.”
H/T: Larry Moran, PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne, Jason Rosenhouse.
Religious folk can dress up their war sales with images of whatever god-version best suits the buyer. Choose your paint color.
Atheists are stuck with the undisguised truth … greed and ground. Only one color available.
Is it any wonder people in positions of power and leadership choose the god route?
One has to wonder if natural selection stopped midstream:
– Lamarck (1817) [a famous evolutionist.]
If natural selection resulted in humans, and they are the cause of human extermination, such selection is worthless. The same can be said for religious notions that God is governing this planet, because the extinction of human civilization or the end of the world, is also worthless governance.
Again:
– Charles Darwin (1881)
Was he informing us of a high level natural selection that would manifest as Eugenics or violent race bias?
Religious notions of race superiority are likewise useless.
Finally:
– Dr. Noam Chomsky (paraphrasing Dr. Ernst Mayr a famous evolutionist.)
If God created humans in his image, and their intelligence is the cause of civilization’s demise, what is the big whoop? Same with natural selection that just showed up to bring some fatality to evolution.
If two ideas are bankrupt, why fight for either one of them?
Blouise reflects, “So Linker’s book may very well be silly and misguided as he!! but culturally, it is right on target. It will sell, which, as far as I’m concerned, is the only real purpose religion serves … sales.”
Well-said. As in all such matters, Follow The Money.
Reality is exactly what you make it No more, no less. There are as many realities as there are speakers to comment upon on it. Where we overlap in our views, particularly among the sciences, is were we “agree” on the parts of our reality that seem to be shared.
And it generally “works,” or our technocracy could never have been built, much less function.
Randomness appears to drive practically every event in this universe, which is set up Just So such that the speed of light is Just This Much, and acceleration due to gravity is The Exact Proper Amount, and so on, or the whole works comes crashing down.
Whenever I write a new software app of any merit, it always begins with the Config File, a small patch of data that tells the application what to do with itself. If it’s accounting software, the state sales tax rate would go here, and so on. Everything in the config file is Just So, and any tiny changes will result in almost certain Higgeldy-PIggeldy, affecting the entire application.
Many are addicted to the quest to find the config file for the local universe. We do not yet know all the settings. Most, perhaps, but something fundamental is still missing. I think it has to do with the intimate inclusion of the observer, which science tends to ignore.
For me the universe is much more fabulous absent an angry meddling old fart with 15 (CRASH! Oy! Make that 10) things you ought not be doing, at least half of which are to care for the teenage vanity-god who brooks no competition, yet alleges omnipotence. I am related by blood to true believers of that drek. And to them, mozoltov! But please, please do not drag it into our shared public square where we need something a wee more concrete than “I believe.” and divine abjuration of any who dare disagree.
Lastly, for true believers who use their beliefs to deprive others of their rights, please get out of government. Your time has come to an end, and in our connected age, you have all the trappings of the slow-motion staged electrocution of a marionette.
Blouse,
Poignant and apt….
Its not fried chicken daddy, its Shake N Bake. So said the kid on TV one day before the apocolypse. Athiesm is like Deism– they both take a lot of criticizm. Me? I am a non believer in believing. Some things are just beyond belief.
Nothing worse than a dishonest atheist. They can steal and not go to hell. They can go to the cathouse on Sunday. They can at Krisco on Sunday and praise it. They can live with out Faith (said with a southern accent). They can read the Koran and the Bible at the same time and not get struck by lightning.
Now an honest Athiest is another matter. He can go to the bar and see his friends and get respect. He can go fishing on Sunday and caught his limit. He can go to the cathouse on Sunday and put in his fair share. He will have respect. He wont go to hell because there is none. He wont go to NYC because it is full. He can pass go. Honest Abe was an honest athiest. You would be too if you were married to Mary Todd. Or was she at the Helm. I get those names mixed up.
Just remember that hell hath no fury like a women scorned.
Checkout Sam Harris, a more suave Hitchens:
Nal,
Courageous.
Like religion and like philosophy, I think it is quite obvious that one man’s evolution is another man’s evolutionary lie:
To some evolutionists human intelligence is the pinnacle of natural selection, while other evolutionists consider it to be a fatal mutation that will lead to extinction of the human species.
Randomness has been called a fundamental essence of evolution because of the uncertainty of protons at the base of RNA and DNA:
(Stem Cell Malfunction A Quantum Toxin Source?). The science wars over issues has been ongoing in modern times as religions ideological battles have.
One fundamental reason is that our “knowledge” is really trust in another person (Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief, parents, pastors, scientists, etc.) who tell us what we believe through our trust in them.
The study of “knowledge” and how to handle it, especially when experts of equal credentials differ fundamentally on the same evidence is ongoing in Epistemology (The Pillars of Knowledge: Faith and Trust?). We see this at work on this blog, and every other blog, in politics, in religion, and in science.
We tend to believe who we like and trust because we actually do not have the time or resources to be the discoverers.
We ingest what others say and make our decisions with subconscious mechanisms that develop from our youth.
This morning a quote caught my eye:
– Dr. Thomas C Van Flandern
Books and Revolutions
It is what it is and nobody knows what It/it is.
That being said, religion pushed the founding of this country in ways both overt and subtle … thank England’s Glorious Revolution.
Any serious student of the American Revolution recognizes the role religion played from the Golden City on a Hill in Massachusetts to the disagreement between the New Lights and Old Lights in Connecticut to the fear of a royal appointment of an Anglican Bishop in Pennsylvania and New York to the threat of the godless heathen on the frontiers in Virginia and the Carolinas … religion is as much a part of our culture as guns.
I left out the Popery fears emanating from Rhode Island which leads me to the next thought.
I have read that one of the specific reasons for the election of this new Pope stems from the inroads evangelical Protestantism is making in South America.
Thus the beat goes on.
So Linker’s book may very well be silly and misguided as he!! but culturally, it is right on target. It will sell, which, as far as I’m concerned, is the only real purpose religion serves … sales.
This is like the silly arguments between Creation & Natural Selection, God (Big Being up there) & No Spirits Anywhere (this definition of Atheism), & lastly, Prosecution & Defense in western law. Not only should there be no such extremes! THERE ARE NO SUCH EXTREMES! And this extremism gets in the way of finding out the TRUTH, which is what the prosecution, defense, judge, & every lawyer SHOULD BE DOING! (& why western justice is so fragile & rare).
rc,
Excellent point. “I heard some say once that when monotheists acknowledge why they’ve rejected all the other gods of available throughout history, they’ll understand why their god is rejected by atheists.”
I’m going to use that one.
Rcampbell,
I think you have a vald point….. Are the Druids any less Druid because there God was taken away…. Are the Mayans any less because the Catholics killed them all or at least tried to….. The list is endless…… Most people’s God is the currency….. That they use to buy and influence things…..
Nal, excellent article…. Beautifully presented….
Linker cliff notes:
“There is a God, because I don’t like the idea of there not being one.”
If there is to be a rule that aetheists are to be barred from high office, there would have to be rock solid legal proof of their aetheism. Otherwise the election/appointment processcould get bogged down in ongoing court actions.
Getting them to swear it on The Bible should probably do it.
“If atheism is true, it is far from being good news. Learning that we’re alone in the universe, that no one hears or answers our prayers………”
I interpret this paragraph as an admission that man creates gods, not the other way around.
I heard some say once that when monotheists acknowledge why they’ve rejected all the other gods of available throughout history, they’ll understand why their god is rejected by atheists.
The are a lot of dishonest believers. So dishonest that you wonder if they believe in God or just believe in the Almighty Dollar. Watch these religious channels on TV. These guys up there in garb who preach on TV are the epitiomy of what we call “schmucks” here in the dogpac. Now, it is true that a schmuck can believe in both God and the Almightly Dollar. Take Creflo Dollar for example. He truly believes in both and in the order stated. If he were in France he would believe in the Euro but to hedge his bets he would own somed dollars and if he were in Greece he would rue the day that they go back to the Drachma.
Religion is the opposite of science. That is why we teach Darwinism on Monday and Creationism on Sunday. Praise the Lard on Sunday and praise Krisco on Monday. It is always a Sunday to Monday switcherroo. Loyal to wifeypoo on Sunday and out with the secretary for lunch on Monday. Absinence makes the fart go fonder or something like that as well.
So, believe in religion. Dont forget. On the Eighth Day God created Dog. If you need guidance see a dog and leave Jerry Falwell enough alone.
Why would anyone want to use Neitzsche as a source for anything? He believed that all women and non-white people were inferior to white males. Just google his name and see his views toward women and non-white people.
The observation in the article that humans worry that no one hears their prayers, no God hears their prayers, much less answers them, demonstrates once again why humans congregate in order to pray. Because of God or Dog doesnt hear their prayers, perhaps JoeBob sitting, kneeling, standing and singing, next to the prayer giver, will respond.
So, if I am starving and praying for a dog biscuit, I can eat at church. etcetera.
Of course, the saying goes, ya gotta have faith. The word “faith” has to be spoken with a southern twang. The sentence has to be uttered smugly. The person uttering the phrase has to be standing upright and be looking at you and not at the car he is trying to sell you. The car he is trying to sell you has to have been made in a Christian nation. If you drive a Chinese car you better have Faith.
Just a few observatins from a dog. A dog who was a former human and who went through the Pearly Gates routine to come back as a dog in this incarnation. A dog who can tell you that there aint no heaven and there aint no hell. There is limbo and its a suburb outside of Saint Louis called Florissant, Mo.
Keep the Faith. And you dont need no book to advise you on Faith.
After reading the provided enties from the featured book I was both dismayed and excited.
Dismayed at the fact that this Linker fellow actually found someone to publish this tripe and excited as my young son who fancies himself a writer will be awarded the Pulitzer Prize shortly if this is his competition.