Myth:
[R]adical liberals will believe in “science” without examining scientific fact. After all, the “scientist” of the past century was the one who taught them to abandon logic. First it was the “scientist” who came up with atheism, a belief that millions of species, each miraculously possessing a male and female type to ensure propagation and a world with all the right components for life, just happened to appear out of thin air.
- Yomin Postelnik, Canada Free Press, emphasis added
Response:
I've seen many different sorts of misrepresentations of science, evolution, and atheism from religious conservatives, but Yomin Postelnik's description here is unique. This is the first and only time I've ever seen idea that scientists in the past century — or indeed of any century — "came up" with atheism. No one with a familiarity with atheism could fail to know that atheism existed before 1900 and has been defended by more than just scientists.
Yomin Postelnik is also the first and only person I've ever seen describe atheism as having anything to do with a belief about the origins of species. I've seen both bad and dishonest definitions of atheism before, but none are as bad as this one. To be fair, I have seen definitions of evolution theory that look like this, but Postelnik gives no indication that he actually means to explain what evolution is. To be even more fair, I've seen some religious theists try to equate evolution and atheism, but once again Postelnik gives no indication here that that's what he has in mind.
So what we have here are several errors about atheism. It's false that any scientists "came up" with atheism, never mind in the past century. Atheists existed long before modern science, atheists existed long before the past century, and atheism is in no way a creation of any one group. If Yomin Postelnik knows anything about atheism, he has to know this; since he doesn't know this, it's legitimate to question whether he does in fact know anything about atheism at all. I strongly doubt it.
Everyone is in fact born an atheist because everyone is born lacking beliefs in the existence of any gods. As a state or condition, rather than a belief system or ideology, atheism doesn’t need to be "invented" or be "come up with" any more than being apolitical needs to be invented. It's simply the state that some people happen to be in, though for many religious believers it seems important to portray atheism as much more.
Furthermore, atheism not only cannot be defined or described as a belief about the origins of millions of species, but atheism doesn't entail any particular beliefs about the origin of life generally. Yomin Postelnik certainly isn't the first religious theist to make assumptions about atheists must or must not believe, and he won't be the last, but the popularity of an error doesn't mean it stops being an error. The only thing that atheism can be said to imply about beliefs regarding the origin of life is that it precludes believing that any gods did it — obviously, if you don't believe in any gods, then you can't believe that any gods have done anything at all.
As noted above, the errors made here by Yomin Postelnik are firsts in my experience. I do hope, though, that they remain unique — I'd hate to see other religious theists follow Postelnik's lead by repeating these myths. To be honest, I hate to see any myths and misconceptions about atheism spread around, but these are so unusually bad and baseless that it would be worse than usual for them to become popular.
What's ironic is that in this same column, Yomin Postelnik recommends that others engage in calm, reasoned debate based only on facts and logic. It's hard not to wonder how Postelnik defines "facts and logic" or "facts and reasoning." Indeed, given just how unusual these errors are, it has to be asked how and why he came up with them at all. After all, he certainly didn't consult any academic or scholarly resources on atheism or religion in order to develop these mistaken ideas, so where did they come from?
Large numbers of religious believers evaluate the conclusions of scientific or academic research based on how well those conclusions fit with what is already accepted from their religious scriptures and religious authorities. If there is a contradiction, then science must be wrong because religion can't be anything other than right. Many of the myths and misconceptions about atheism, science, evolution, etc. are arguably due to just such attitudes, so it wouldn't be a surprise if this were the case here as well.
Religion and religious dogmas are a commitment which is more important than logic, reasoning, or a calm appraisal of the facts. If someone using facts and reasoning comes to a conclusion that is contrary to what religion teaches, then that person has to be wrong — and, if necessary, facts and reasoning have to be rejected. This is how people dismiss not just the conclusions of evolutionary biologists, but also the methodology of science itself.
When a religious believer like Yomin Postelnik insists that they are only using facts and reasoning, it's important to ask questions about that. For example, unless they allow up front that the use of facts and reasoning could theoretically cause them to give up their religion (in other words, if they don't admit that their position is theoretically defeasible), then you should assume that "facts and reasoning" are for this person subservient to their religious agenda. Facts and reasoning are, in such situations, not independent standards against which all claims and ideas are tested or an independent methodology which all arguments must adhere.
