Frank Schaeffer: New Atheists are as Bad as Fundamentalists
Since atheists aren't perfect, it should be possible for substantive criticism to prove helpful -- but "push-back" isn't the same as "substantive criticism." Substantive criticism points out substantive errors in arguments, evidence, reasoning, and actions. Substantive criticism is itself based on sound arguments and reliable evidence. Push-back, in contrast, is a political reaction -- push-back is an attack on persons, personalities, alleged attitudes, etc.
Push-back is motivated by politics and ideology, so it follows the standard methodology you find in political attacks. Frank Schaeffer is a good example of this. Schaeffer's attack on so-called "new atheism" is full of serious accusations, indignation, and innuendo but almost completely lacking in things like evidence and sound argument.
My problem with the so-called New Atheist movement is that several of the most successful of the New Atheist leaders -- as judged by book sales and speaking fees -- say Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins -- remind me of the worst of my own fundamentalist evangelical background. They are as close minded as they seem to be almost pathologically certain of their beliefs.
Source: AlterNet
I'm only quoting the start of Frank Schaeffer's article because it's a monster of a piece -- but not a fulfilling one because the length is not matched by substantive content. As a basic summary, though, here are the things which Frank Schaeffer directly or indirectly accuses "new atheists" of and which are supposed to make them like fundamentalists:
- Closed minded & almost pathologically certain of their beliefs
- Deranged faith-based personality cults
- Paranoia and Hate
- Led by egomaniac and intolerant fundamentalists
- Leaders make loud, repeated, bold claims about atheism being better than religion
- Leaders have moral characters analogous to Oral Roberts, Ted Haggard, and other bad religious leaders
Now, these are awfully broad claims but they are the sort which can, in theory, be substantiated by very specific evidence. Given the extreme nature of the claims, though, isolated incidents really wouldn't be adequate -- that is to say, a single incident where a person appears to be closed-minded, intolerant, etc. just wouldn't be enough to justify how strongly Frank Schaeffer is making his accusations here. Given how long his piece is, though, the reader might be mislead into thinking that they are finally going to get the detailed, evidence-based case against so-called "new atheism" which every other critic of atheists has failed to produce.
I guess such expectations were bound to be disappointed. Let's look at the "evidence" which Frank Schaeffer offers to support the extreme charges he makes above:
- Dawkins' website sells t-shirts and pins to help people announce their atheism
- Dawkins' website has stories of people who have left religion and become atheists
- Dawkins has sold a lot of books
- Dawkins' book is largely about consciousness raising
- Dawkins has a passionate commitment to evidence and reason
- Dawkins argues that Enlightenment deism isn't the same as Old Testament fundamentalism
- Dawkins describes how science, biology, and atheists are attacked by Christians in America
So, is selling shirts and pins that let atheists come out of the closet more publicly is a sign of being "closed-minded" or just a sign of "egomania"? Frank Schaeffer's attack on helping atheists come out of the closet with shirts or stories might be easier to take seriously if he at least acknowledged that it's an important issue, is justifiably difficult for a lot of people, and is something that rightly deserves support. Instead, his attacks on helping atheists come out of the closet ends up sounding like an attack on atheists coming out of the closet at all -- thus reinforcing the impression that he's ultimately against atheists being public and unapologetic at all.
I suppose that telling stories about attacks on science and atheists by American Christians might be considered "paranoia," but it's tough to make that charge stick when there is so much abundant evidence for exactly what Dawkins describes. Evolution is downplayed or ignored entirely in schools across the country and there are regular lawsuits over the teaching of evolution -- not something that afflicts other nations nearly so much. Atheists are the most distrusted and despised minority in the nation -- a status that has been the case going back as far as surveys on the matter have been conducted.
But I've left out what might be Richard Dawkins' most serious sin, at least if we are to judge by how much space Frank Schaeffer devotes to it relative to all his other complaints:
- Dawkins argues against the Argument to Design, which Frank Schaeffer seems to like
Maybe this is the crux of the entirely problem for Frank Schaeffer (aside, perhaps, from an underlying objection to so many atheists daring to come out of the closet): Richard Dawkins argues very strongly against the popular Argument to Design, an theological argument which a lot of believers regard as intuitively sound but which completely fails on all logical and evidentiary grounds.
Schaeffer's ability to rebut Dawkins' argument is revealed by his failure to quote Dawkins beyond snippets -- Schaeffer mostly paraphrases in his own words rather than letting Dawkins speak for himself. The result is that readers don't really get clear idea of what Dawkins' full argument is, allowing Schaeffer to pretend to offer a devastating rebuttal. If you stop and read it carefully, though, you'll find this "rebuttal" is much more personal than any real rebuttal should be. Almost every sentence repeats Dawkins' name (sometimes twice) and it becomes clear that rather than rebut Dawkins' argument, Schaeffer is trying to rebut Dawkins the person.
So it's all very personal. The extreme accusations are all personal -- none of them are about substantive errors in arguments or evidence. Imagine one scientist or economist trying to critique the research of another by complaining that she is just "egomaniacal" and "closed-minded." Yeah, well, an egomaniacal and closed-minded person can be correct in all their arguments, so that's not so much a criticism of their position as complaint about the person.
By offering nothing beyond personal complaints, Frank Schaeffer all but admits that the "new atheists" might be right -- but he just doesn't like some of them personally. His section on Daniel Dennett is mostly on how he likes Dennett -- he doesn't explain that Dennett makes better arguments, just that Dennett is appealing. Why? Well, one big reason appears to be that Dennett regrets undermining religion. Yes, Schaeffer is the latest in a growing line of theists who would like atheists better if we just felt bad about not being theists and felt worse about being critical of religion. It's bad enough that we don't believe and dare to say so openly, but we should at least have the decency to feel bad about it!
Even worse, Schaeffer fails to substantiate any of the accusations he makes. Indeed, he doesn't even attempt to link any of the accusations to the "evidence" he offers. Even the most minimal standards of ethics should have caused him to occasionally say something like "as my charge that they lead deranged, faith-based personality cults, just look at this..." But since the accusations are personal and the "evidence" is phrased in a personal, derisive manner, the impression may be given to readers that what was alleged at the start of the piece was substantiated in the body. This is a popular tactic in political attacks and is exactly what we should expect from a political push-back from theists who feel politically or culturally threatened by the growth of secular atheism.
Frank Schaeffer should take a step back and ask himself why he finds public, unapologetic atheism so threatening. I doubt he will, though, because he seems too preoccupied with worrying about whether others are personally "appealing" and not the least bit concerned with the substance of their arguments or positions.
Fundamentalist Christians harass abortion doctors and clients, try to get “inconvenient” rights revoked and want to rewrite history. The most extreme of these people have been caught killing doctors and firebombing clinics.
Fundamentalist Islamists try to eliminate freedom of speech, and women’s rights. The most extreme of these strap bombs to their bodies, and blow innocents up.
Fundamentalist atheists write blogs that are not nice to religion or the religious, and try to sever the tendrils of religion from secular governments. The most extreme of these desecrate crackers, and write scathing books.
Yes, we can surely see why “new” atheists are as bad as Fundamentalist Christians.
He didn’t even avoid the widely discredited “But Hitler was an Atheist!” nonsense.
Schaeffer’s article was hideous for all the reasons you describe, Austin, but the thing that I found to be the strangest part of the article, over and above the usual “waah waah waah these atheists are so mean and they are the same as bomb-throwing hate-mongering fundamentalists even though they don’t throw bombs or monger hate” crap was how he repeatedly condemns Dawkins for some of the best and most respectable things that Dawkins does.
You give the example of Schaeffer’s disgust at Dawkins’ consciousness-raising efforts, which are excellent, highly effective and totally positive (unless you’re against atheists daring to declare that they exist and aren’t evil), but there are other examples that are far more odd.
One of the most impressive things that Dawkins regularly does is, after a documentary of his has gone out, he releases the uncut interviews so that anyone can see exactly what went on without any editorial interference. I think this shows a commendable commitment to honesty and transparency on Dawkins’ part, but Schaeffer is unimpressed with this, lumping it in with his condemnatory exposure of the fact that Dawkins dares to sell merchandise. I find it incredible that this can be used in this way.
Dawkins also refuses to express dogmatic certainty that “god” couldn’t possibly exist, explaining this with his belief scale and how he doesn’t put himself at the most extreme atheist point on it. This is, again, impressively honest and open-minded, and helps to refute accusations of dogmatism and unjustified certainty that are often directed towards him. But Schaeffer goes off on this, talking about some sort of “atheist sincerity scale”! What?
The claim is frequently made that the tactics used by Dawkins are useless and do more harm than good. So Dawkins has a section on his website called “Converts corner” for evidence that his approach can and does work. What’s wrong with that?
These attacks go beyond the personal smears and wild exaggerations that are usually directed at the so-called “new atheists” and get to the point where I, for one, cannot even begin to understand the point of mounting such insane objections to Dawkins, even for polemical purposes.
Frank Schaeffer. The invisible Pink Unicorn Loves you! Peace be unto her Holy Hooves.
Christian churches and groups have websites that sell merchandise and feature “convert testimonials” as well. Why doesn’t Mr. Schaeffer object to these?
P.S.
Oh, Ron, you poor misguided soul.
It’s The Flying Spaghetti Monster who loves you!
(Okay, in all probability He doesn’t even know who you are, as He’s so busy planting fossils that appear to be millions of years old, using His Noodly Appendages to keep us all from flying off the planet, and saying “No” to all those pesky prayers from amputees, disease victims, and peace-mongers.)
Googling the phrase “atheist fundamentalism” reveals that this is a favorite phrase among those who imagine they have found something pithy to say about Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris.
See, for example, the “insights” of Rod Dreher, writing last August in the Dallas Morning News:
Rod Dreher: Against atheist fundamentalism
06:37 PM CDT on Friday, August 14, 2009
And how did you spend your summer? Having more fun, I hope, than the English kids marched off to Camp Quest, a five-day atheist camp supported in part by Oxford scientist Richard Dawkins. The idea, Dawkins said, is “to encourage children to think for themselves.” Yes, well, as long as they don’t think well of religion, tykes are welcome to join his herd of independent minds.
It’s hard to see the pleasure of sitting around the campfire, learning from grown-ups that the world is disenchanted after all. (No ghost stories for you, lad!) But if eat-your-spinach skepticism strikes your fancy, the Lone Star version of Camp Quest will be a one-day affair in late summer, sponsored by the North Texas Church of Freethought (www.churchoffreethought.org).
Hmm. One doesn’t quite know what to make of an atheist church. Most people, when they cease to believe in the Easter bunny, don’t hold monthly services to celebrate the non-existence of a peripatetic paschal rabbit. But you know Dallas: We’re so religious that even the atheists go to church. For the record, at their next service, the freethinkers will focus on invisibility. Ah, reason.
Most atheists I know don’t care for religion, obviously, but aren’t angry about it. Not so the True Unbelievers – the Dawkinses and their followers – who prove that you don’t have to be religious to be a fundamentalist.
I spent part of my summer with other journalists at a science and religion camp, of sorts, a Templeton Foundation program at Cambridge University. We heard from top researchers and academics who are religious believers from various traditions, and others who are not. My favorite presenter was John Gray, an English atheist political philosopher who, in his 2007 book Black Mass, argued that contemporary atheists have thrown off Christianity but still hold a religious faith in a secular utopia and the perfectibility of humanity.
That is, the people Gray calls “evangelical atheists” believe all would be well with our lot if everybody would get on board with their sternly anti-religious program. This is nothing new in the history of atheism, Gray explained to us. Though latter-day atheists would prefer to ignore it, their intellectual forebears, the 19th-century Positivists, passionately believed that there was nothing wrong with the world that suppressing religion and replacing it with science couldn’t fix.
Unfortunately, militant atheism in power has repeated all the crimes of religious regimes and, absent ethical restraints, made them vastly worse. Though their ideologies despised Christianity, both the communists and the Nazis justified their own monstrosities as “scientific.” While religion’s atrocities cannot be denied, today’s atheist campaigners blindly refuse to accept that atheism’s savage legacy is no accident.
“There’s a reason for that,” Gray said. “If the New Atheists came to terms with it, they’d have to give up their basic faith. Their very project is flawed, and that flaw is the atheist project of liberating people from their traditions, their history and their humanity.”
The religious sense – of awe, of mystery, of a need for meaning – is hard-wired into our species, which is why Gray, a nonbeliever, identifies a “funny sort of humanism that condemns an impulse that is peculiarly human.” He’s certainly correct to warn that the attempt to repress the religious instinct (as with the sexual instinct) only means it will reappear in some other, degraded form – the operatic pseudo-paganism of the Nazis, say, or the Soviet Stalinist cult, or even, more benignly, the faintly ridiculous idea of an atheist church.
We ought to reject the shibboleth, advocated by both religious and secular fundamentalists, that religion and science are doomed to be antagonists. They are both legitimate ways of knowing within their limited spheres and should both complement and temper each other. The trouble comes when one tries to assert universal hegemony over the other. One leading atheist philosopher told our group that scientists had nothing to learn from religious people, who by definition believed absurd things.
This is narrow-minded cant. Native Alaskans believe animals give themselves to humans for nourishment. Eskimo communities use every part of the animals they take, out of a reverence for the gift of creation. One does not have to profess Eskimo religion to grasp that these tribal peoples know something important about life and how to live it – something that eludes the purely materialist mind.
Contrary to the biases of our time, the importance of science does not exceed that of art and religion. As the poet Wendell Berry writes, the sacredness of life “cannot be proved. It can only be told or shown.” Fortunate are those whose minds are free enough to recognize it.
Rod Dreher is a Dallas Morning News editorial columnist. His e-mail address is rdreher@dallasnews.com.
The best thing about being an atheist is that you don’t have to set an example unless you want to.
“New Athiests” are idiots. The fight to get god out of the pledge of allegeance is as paranoid, close-minded, intolerant and as deranged as renameing the planets because they are named after myths too. I bet New Atheists fundementalist types would have a heart attack if a planet was named Jesus.
Why?
You do know, don’t you, that people have been working for that well before anyone was called a “new atheist,” right?
Can you provide a substantive legal argument for why it should remain, or is the best you can manage a few insults tossed out at those you disagree with?
OK, I guess insults are indeed the best you can manage. I am in awe at your magnificent intellect and feel embarrassed that I don’t share all your amazing beliefs.
Hi Austin,
1. Dates do not define an ideology.
2. Mythology is not a legal matter.
3. Not believeing in god is not a belief.
Okay, here is another argument that shows the errors in New Athieism.
Changing A.D. and B.C. to A.C.E. and B.C.E. This is a New Atheist tactic style that attempts to rewrite history and force the ideology. It is a useless method that mimics religious tactics, it does not make people athiest because people become atheist through critical thinking not subliminal messages.
Who said they do?
Who said it must be?
Of course it isn’t.
To have “another,” you would need to have a first — and thus far, you haven’t offered a single criticism of “New Atheism.”
Your first error is that it’s CE and BCE. Your second error is that this has nothing to do with “new atheists.” It was first started by Jews in the 19th century and became common with academic scholars, usually those writing about religion. It does nothing to change history and doesn’t promote any ideology.
It has nothing to do with “making people atheist.” It’s only about not privileging one religion over others and was started by members of a minority religion who didn’t want to privilege someone else’s religion.
The fact that the only criticisms you can think of for “New Atheists” are falsehoods — i.e., things that have nothing to do with “New Atheism” — demonstrates quite effectively that you have no serious criticism to offer.
Maybe you should just go back to the insults? They merely make you look immature rather than ignorant.