Atheism old v. Atheism new

The part I find most interesting about Theodore Dalrymple’s"What the New Atheists Don’t See," is that Dalrymple is himself an atheist. Still, he finds he must distance himself from the attacks he sees the new guys making on religion and Christianity in particular. His arguments are quite valid and completely stated, but his style places them on a shelf too high for most fast readers. Indulge me to simplify a couple of his points. Below is a paragraph I had to read several times to get, speaking of Daniel Dennett’s argument that religious belief has probably evolved and passed on via our DNA, therefore making God a biological construct, therefore not real:

“For Dennett, to prove the biological origin of belief in God is to show its irrationality, to break its spell. But of course it is a necessary part of the argument that all possible human beliefs, including belief in evolution, must be explicable in precisely the same way; or else why single out religion for this treatment? Either we test ideas according to arguments in their favor, independent of their origins, thus making the argument from evolution irrelevant, or all possible beliefs come under the same suspicion of being only evolutionary adaptations—and thus biologically contingent rather than true or false. We find ourselves facing a version of the paradox of the Cretan liar: all beliefs, including this one, are the products of evolution, and all beliefs that are products of evolution cannot be known to be true.”

In other words, if you are going to discredit belief in God by making faith biological, then you at the same time discredit anything we believe, including evolution. I would further add that if faith is rooted in DNA, then that "fact" would have little bearing on the existence of God, except to suggest the possibility that it would make sense for God to place it there so we would seek Him out.

Dalrymple also offers the following paragraph concerning the idea that
Christianity has hurt civilization–something the atheist Dalrymple must object to as ungrounded:

"The thinness of the new atheism is evident in its approach to our civilization, which until recently was religious to its core. To regret religion is, in fact, to regret our civilization and its monuments, its achievements, and its legacy. And in my own view, the absence of religious faith, provided that such faith is not murderously intolerant, can have a deleterious effect upon human character and personality. If you empty the world of purpose, make it one of brute fact alone, you empty it (for many people, at any rate) of reasons for gratitude, and a sense of gratitude is necessary for both happiness and decency. For what can soon, and all too easily, replace gratitude is a sense of entitlement. Without gratitude, it is hard to appreciate, or be satisfied with, what you have: and life will become an existential shopping spree that no product satisfies."

After this one I had to go back and find again Dalrymple’s profession of atheism earlier in the article, just to be sure I got that right. An atheist is pointing out that without tolerant belief in God, people would be without purpose, happiness and decency? Yep, there is his faith statement, in the second paragraph of the article. Dalrymple offers no defense for his own atheism–just an incident from his childhood that left a bad impression. I choose to assume he has more logical defense today and that he simply held back to keep his article on focus–the shallowness of the new atheism. I commend Dalrymple’s brutal honesty (brutal toward his co-believers). He overall makes two important points: First, there is a new atheism, and it is brazenly attacking religion and Christianity in particular. No more in-the-closet or even
civility for these atheists. Second, in order to attack religion (instead of just tolerating it) they are having to use shallow arguments or even misrepresent facts. Even atheists are embarrassed for them.

This entry was posted on November 11, 2007 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Science and faith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.