Theo Hobson on Atheism: Disingenuous and Ignorant

It's difficult to criticize atheism as such. As nothing more than the absence of belief in gods, there is little to criticize beyond whether it's reasonable or rational and even then this would depend entirely upon the individual atheist and their reasons for disbelief. One person might be an atheist for entirely reasonable reasons while another might be completely unreasonable.

This should lead reasonable, honest, and sincere religious theists to focus their attention on individual atheists and particular atheistic philosophies. They should be concerned with the specific arguments made by specific atheists on the basis of specific ideologies or philosophies. In reality, though, most ignore all that and instead pretend to criticize atheism generally on the basis of... well, whatever they decide to cobble together. At best it's little more than a straw man argument; at worst, it's an extended lie about atheism and atheists.

Theo Hobson writes:

Atheism is pretentious in the sense of claiming to know more than it does. It claims to know what belief in God entails, and what religion, in all its infinite variety, essentially is.

All of this is false — and not innocently false, as if it were an innocent and understandable mistake. If Theo Hobson has read anything at all about atheism, then he knows that he is spreading falsehoods; if he hasn't read enough about atheism to know better, then he hasn't done enough research to legitimately hold any opinions about the matter and is writing things without regard for truth. Either way, his article is a long-winded example of egregiously anti-intellectual and immoral behavior.

And atheism is muddled because it cannot decide on what grounds it ultimately objects to religion. Does it oppose it on the grounds of its alleged falsity? Or does it oppose it on the grounds of its alleged harmfulness? Both, the atheists will doubtless reply: religion is false and therefore it is harmful. But this is to make an assumption about the relationship between rationality and moral progress that does not stand up. Atheism is the belief that the demise of religion, and the rise of "rationality", will make the world a better place. Atheism therefore entails an account of history - a story of liberation from a harmful error called "religion". This narrative is jaw-droppingly naive.

If you didn't notice in the first quote, it's time to point out something important to Hobson's article: he keeps attributing attitudes, ideas, beliefs, and behavior to "atheism" rather than to "atheists." This is an error of reification in that it treats a concept or state or being as if it were a person but it is also important for Hobson because it allows him to avoid making claims that he can more readily be called upon to support.

If Hobson had taken the more ethical course of exploring what atheists say and do, then he could be expected to provide examples. By making claims about what "atheism" says and does, he can avoid real examples because of course "atheism" says and does nothing — but in the process, he can allege all sorts of things about "atheism" without there being any connection to reality. "Atheism" is made to say and do whatever pops into Theo Hobson's imagination.

The quote above is a good example of this. "Atheism" doesn't necessarily object to religion and we know this for a fact because some religions are atheistic. Even if we ignore the unethical reification here, how can "atheism" object to religion when atheism and religion occur together in many different ways? This is why it's also false to say that atheism "is the belief that the demise of religion....will make the world a better place."

The truth is that many atheists object to religion, but if Hobson were to write that then he couldn't claim that atheists "cannot decide on what grounds" they object to religion. Atheists do explain their objections to religion. The truth is also that atheists argue that the harmfulness of religion can be due to irrational aspects, false aspects, and simply immoral aspects. In one of few points where Hobson actually bothers to mention what atheists might say, he doesn't tell the truth about what they do say.

Some will quibble with the above definition. Atheism is just the rejection of God, of any supernatural power, they will say, it entails no necessary belief in historical progress. This is disingenuous. The militant atheists have a moral mission: to improve the world by working towards the eradication of religion.

It is true that some atheists would like to see religion disappear. It is also true that some atheists prefer classical music over jazz. Does this mean it is disingenuous to say that atheism has nothing to do with opinions about music? Of course not — the fact that some atheists happen to hold and share an opinion about something doesn't mean that this opinion is in any way inherent to atheism. Theo Hobson has to understand this which means that he's the one being disingenuous for insisting that some atheists' opinions about religion are somehow inherent to atheism generally.

If the atheist deigns to define religion at all, he is likely to do so briskly and conventionally, as belief in and worship of some species of supernatural power. It's a terribly inadequate definition.

What I find to be "terribly inadequate" is Theo Hobson's ability to be truthful about atheism and atheists. Not only is it false that all atheists define religion in such a simplistic manner, but it is true that many theists do define religion in a simplistic manner — either with something like the above or something else equally bad. How many Christians have insisted that atheism is a religion because it entails a "belief about" God? How many Christians have insisted that atheists are religious because they "worship" something, like money or power?

The truth — which Theo Hobson has so much trouble with — is that there are lots of very simplistic definitions and understandings of religion. There are atheists whose understanding of religion is so simplistic that it undermines any criticism they make of religion generally. There are also theists whose understanding of religion is so simplistic that it undermines any defense they make of religion generally.

Theo Hobson doesn’t acknowledge this reality, though, and instead simply attacks "the atheist" (which sounds a lot like attacks against "the Jew" or "the Negro") as if all atheists — and only atheists — are guilty of relying upon simplistic, inadequate, and unfair definitions of religion. What would have been interesting is if Hobson had cited the definitions used by prominent critics of religion to see if their conception of religion really were so simplistic; then again, that would have required serious and substantive engagement with the actual views and arguments of actual atheists rather than false generalizations and egregious misrepresentations.

I consider the atheist's desire to generalise about religion to be a case of intellectual cowardice. The intellectual coward is one who chooses simplicity over complexity and difficulty. The militant atheist chooses to uphold a worldview of Animal Farm crudity: atheist good, believer bad. He has to believe this; it is his claim to the moral high ground. Christopher Hitchens sounds like a man who is desperate for a big cause, for an agenda that will give him one last chance of some high significance, a last stab at prophet status. By seeking his grand purpose in atheism he exhibits the sort of intellectual timidity he claims to despise.

Does Theo Hobson really not see himself in the above? Let's help him, since his religious blinders seem to prevent him from recognizing the obvious:

I consider the theist's desire to generalise about atheism to be a case of intellectual cowardice. The intellectual coward is one who chooses simplicity over complexity and difficulty. The militant theist chooses to uphold a worldview of Animal Farm crudity: theist good, atheist bad. He has to believe this; it is his claim to the moral high ground. Theo Hobson sounds like a man who is desperate for a big cause, for an agenda that will give him one last chance of some high significance, a last stab at prophet status. By seeking his grand purpose in theism he exhibits the sort of intellectual timidity he claims to despise.

So, is there anything inaccurate or unfair in this slight rewriting? I don't think so — Theo Hobson definitely generalizes about atheism in a manner that he has to recognize isn't true of all atheists and he just doesn't care. If choosing simplicity over complexity and difficulty is a sign of intellectual cowardice, then Theo Hobson's simplification of atheism into a straw man has to qualify. He also consistently portrays atheists in the worst way possible in order to construct exactly the Animal Farm crudity that he denounces in others.