Article published in Forbes
Offline Special 25th Anniversity Issue of Forbes 400 The Richest People in America
http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2007/1008/027.html
Militant Atheism and God
Paul Johnson 10.08.07, 12:00 AM ET
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Intellectual fashions come and go. The current one is militant atheism. Waves of atheism have swept the West before. One was in the mid-18th century, when the devastating Lisbon earthquake, killing some 60,000 people, shook the belief of many in the benevolence of God. Another was in the mid-19th century, when advances in geology destroyed the traditional chronology of the Old Testament, proving that Earth was much older than the 6,000-odd years the Bible allowed. A third spasm followed the First World War, when the combination of Freud's writings and Einstein's theories of relativity upset established views of the human psyche and the universe. We now seem to be in the midst of a fourth. It is prompted partly by the academic deification of Darwin and his particular theory of evolution, and partly by the revulsion against Islamic fundamentalism and its violent expression, which for some has discredited all forms of belief in God.
Whatever the explanation, books advocating an atheistic view of the universe and arguing that religion is based on delusion are being written, published and widely bought. Their arguments are echoed and amplified on television. And, for the time being at least, atheism seems to have a strong grip on the centers of higher education.
My old university, Oxford, which was founded by monks, friars and theologians nine centuries ago, was until recently regarded as a bastion of old-fashioned Christianity and, as such, was called "the house of lost causes." Today a publicly expressed belief in Christianity is likely to lower your chance of landing a job at Oxford.
Religion has become a handicap in university life, especially in certain subjects. In philosophy, for example, academics who hope for senior chairs keep mum about any faith they hold. God and promotion do not mix. And in all the sciences, young men and women with religious backgrounds are advised to jettison their Christian, Jewish or other religious baggage if they want to pursue careers in physics, chemistry or biology. The universal assumption seems to be that a belief in God fatally debars a scholar from acquiring scientific knowledge. In Britain the number of students concentrating in the sciences is on the decline, and the systematic discouragement of Christians and Jews in the science faculties will clearly increase that trend.
How Important Is This Phenomenon?
Is it a phase? Or is it the harbinger of a fundamental change in the way people see themselves and the world? Ought we to be alarmed--and ought we take action? And if so, what kind of action?
One's answers to these difficult questions are bound to be subjective. My parents were profoundly religious Catholics, who brought me up to share their beliefs. I was educated first by nuns, then by the Jesuits. I have always attended church regularly and said my prayers daily. I'm not sure the human race would survive a prolonged bout of atheism. I recall the words of the German theologian Karl Rahner: "If ever God is banished from the world so that even His image is eradicated from the human mind, we will cease to be human and become merely very clever animals--and our ultimate fate will be too horrible to contemplate."
Bear Witness
We are amazing creatures, capable of astonishingly imaginative concepts and intellectual work of ever increasing complexity. And what we have achieved in the last century--stunning though it is--is nothing compared with what we can and will surely do, as the rate of material progress accelerates. Yet it is hard to see that the human race has made, or is making, any moral progress at all. As a historian who has studied and written about all periods, from the first millennium B.C. to the present, I am perhaps more aware of this than most people.
I see no diminution in the cruelty and violence we inflict on one another, at both a personal and a state level. More people were killed by totalitarian states (all atheistic) in the 20th century than in all previous periods of history. The first few years of the 21st century have witnessed no improvement. States that practice mass murder continue to exist but are now accompanied by terrorist movements doing all within their power to acquire nuclear weapons so they can exterminate entire populations--millions, even tens and hundreds of millions.
It's hard for most of us to face such a fearful world without some kind of faith to sustain us, without a traditional formula through which to express our longings for peace and safety. I believe that religion is a central part of our civilization. But even more than that, I believe religious faith to be an indispensable element to our peace of mind and such happiness as we are capable of enjoying on this Earth.
I could not find content in a landscape whose horizon held no churches or in a civilization whose literature was purged of any reference to a divine being; whose art had blotted out the nativities, crucifixions, saints and angels; and whose music contained no intimations of immortality. And I believe the vast majority of people share such a view.
As for doing something about the militant atheism that threatens our happiness and well-being, it is in the interests of all people that those of us who enjoy religious faith should examine carefully what it has done, is doing and will do to sustain and comfort us in this harsh and difficult world. We should add up all its benefits--and then proclaim the results to the world. There will be plenty who will listen.
Paul Johnson, eminent British historian and author; Lee Kuan Yew, minister mentor of Singapore; Ernesto Zedillo, director, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, former president of Mexico; and David Malpass, chief economist for Bear Stearns Co., Inc., rotate in writing this column. To see past Current Events columns, visit our Web site at www.forbes.com/currentevents.
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
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It never ceases to amaze me how little divergence there is among the educated and the uneducated in their defense of religion. Each, in spite of the source, is always similarly primitive, fatuous and dishonest.
For further entertainment, here's Christopher Hitchens for Salon, talking about Paul Johnson:
http://www.salon.com/media/1998/05/28media.html
SIR
While I shall defend to my last breath your rights of free expression to say something which I utterly disagree with, allow me now to exercise my own and call your article and its arguments pathetic and contemtable.
At any rate, the bulk of the arguments put forth here are simply strawmen, attacks on positions which nobody holds. Who have you heard calling for the erasure of religious artwork and ancient Cathedrals? Who have you heard calling for this? Certainly not Harris or Dawkins or the like. Why would anyone wish to destroy the relics of their past even if they represent a belief system they disagree with? Unless you have picked up on something hitherto unnoticed, you most likely deluded yourself into spinning this into an existing position of the so-called "New atheists" endorse. This is absurd. Rather, it is invariably religious dispute that results in such destruction. The conquistadors burned the Inca temples and libraries to dust and ash, and melted their metallurgy and craft for cannon and shot. The Wahhabis set alight to the Grand Mosques in Riyadh and Jeddah. (Note that Stalin also destroyed some of the most priceless relics of the Orthodox Church, which is equally contemtable) Even if they represent a false belief system, such is the cultural value of such relics of our history that I have never heard any atheist calling for their destruction. And if you have indeed heard someone advocating burning our history to ash...you are right to call them insane, albeit that I do not think you did hear it. You just made it up.
At any rate, your comment regarding your belief that humans require religiosity to be happy is equally pathetic and contemtible (how can you possibly know this?) It seems much, much more likely you decided to project your own emotions onto the rest of the world. There is a truly excellent phrase, you see, which I was taught as a child: Do you know that or are you guessing? Regarding your comments on your belief that an irreligious society would destroy itself, this comment begs to be put forth. Are you saying this for its rhetorical value, and because it sounds quite nice, and because you fervently believe it despite the fact that it is little more than drivel with no backing? Are you clairvoyant, sir? Or can you demonstrate a necessary causal relationship between social dysfunction and increased irreligiosity? And if your argument from precedent should decide to rear its head again, and you decide to break Godwin's Law (again), I shall simply ask you if you are making a correlative fallacy or you can actually demonstrate causation? I am referring to your contemptible comments regarding the equivocation with Hitler and Stalin with atheism with the implication that it was responsible for their atrocious behaivour. I think my question deserves a comeback: Do you know that or are you guessing? Are you just spewing this on grounds that it makes you feel good to say this? Because you must know that it can easily be reduced the absurd (Phrase of the day: Reductio ad Hitlerium).
You must know how this works. You cannot draw correlation as if this were a justifiable ground for causation. You cannot even begin to conjecture that increased irreligiosity somehow contributes to the decline of society or vice-versa. Thus far, you have presented no substance. Nothing. All you have established thus far is:
1. Religion makes me feel good
2. I cannot imagine people feeling good without religion (projectionalist defence. Typical theist tactic)
3. The world would collapse quickly without religion (how can you possibly know this?) Rahner's comment is equally amusing. "We will cease to become human and merely clever animals". This is a linguistic fallacy. The term "animal" simply refers to any multicellular Eukaryotic organism with a nervous system. It also begs the question: How on Earth does the existence of God have any bearing on whether or not we are human? The pair of you are so infatuated with a ridiculous a childish notion that exists without having to justify itself (how does the existence of God provide such things? It doesn't. It just begs the question)
4. I need religion to feel good, therefore, the world cannot function without religion
5. Religion is important to many people and to human civilization (how does this speak to its factual basis?)
6. People need religion because the world is a bad place, generally.
Do I need to comment, or do your absurdities speak for themselves?
Equally amusing is that you seem to have given into this Hobbesian worldview regarding religion as a crutch because of all the suffering in this world...perhaps...but how is this an argument? Surely, one might think it would simply be a better solution to fix such problems. At any rate, I need only point out that this so called "militant atheist" movement exists hugely predominant in first world nations, the target market. How many copies of The God Delusion does one see in Burkina Faso or in Niger? Indeed, it could be asked precisely how much of your article has anything to do with "militant atheism" and how much is essentially wallowing in your own anguish. If you wish to believe in something regardless of evidence on grounds that it makes you feel really good, I cannot argue with you (I can however, point you to good psychiatric help), but please don't project your emotions onto the rest of us, especially by making absurd blanket statements such as that an irreligious society would destroy itself.
It (Militant atheism) is essentially a reaction to the anti-intellectual insanity of Fundamentalism in the Middle East and Midwest. You know this as well as I. One last thing, your comment regarding Darwin surely is the creme de la crud of the article. It is a typical theist tactic to project their own emotions (everyone needs a deity) onto others. We did not bring the theory of evolution or Darwin into any particular limelight until the absurd Intelligent Design movement decided to do so. We are defending evolution because it is being attacked by an anti-science movement, just as we would defend molarity, relativity, or any other scientific principle with equal resolve. It is the epitome of dishonesty that the anti-evolution movement are the ones so centrally obsessed with Darwin and his work (the phrase Darwinism is never used in science. It is used only by creationists), and yet our defence of an important scientific principle being attacked by people the vast majority of whom have no understanding of biology (I'll give you a dollar if you can tell me what a Helix-Turn-Helix is) is grounds for "deification". This is nonsense. I would defend Relative Kinematics if it were attacked, does that qualify me as a deifier of Einstein, and of heliocentricity, were I to defend Galileo, Bohr if I were to defend quantum mechanics, Avogadro if I were to defend molarity? You can see how easy it is to reduce your contemptible position to the absurd.
I hope for your own sake that should you decide to publish another article on the matter, you come out with some genuine arguments (perhaps debating the existence of God), then doing what you are doing now. Right now, all you are establishing is that you like religion because it makes you feel good and you cannot imagine any other way, hence, we should discard reason and turn to faith, because, after all...we would be destroyed without it... right? Sure, I mean, when you criticize Islam, you most likely end up in shredded pieces...but when criticizing atheism, you recieve unpleasent criticism like this...clearly, much, much worse, since atheism is so destructive to society as you claim. No doubt any day now you should expect a half-crazed atheist with a loaded rifle to come charging at you waving The God Delusion, after all, atheism is inheretly self-destructive, right? When that actually happens, I will retract my statement. Until then, could you actually make constructive criticism, rather than emotive ones?
Indeed, upon review, it seems there was no need for me to even bother with what I am writing...because there is nothing to refute. Indeed, your article (a charitable label) does not even adress the topic of "militant atheism". It is essentially railing against the secularization of society on the grounds that you believe (with no evidence) that religion is somehow intrisically "good" for society. Do you know this or are you guessing?
Regarding people who labour under the delusion that they can "prove" the existence of God, at very least they are making an attempt, albeit a poor one. However, positions like the one you demonstrated "believing for the sake of belief" are truly the epitome of dishonesty. How many times must we point out that even if (and there is no reason to suppose this is true) neuropsychologists demonstrated there was some sort of absolute necessity of religion to make people happy (which you may perhaps cling to but certainly not everyone does), it does not make it true. Nobody is within their epistemic rights to hold a position the opinion of which they formed on grounds that the belief X made them feel better (or dismissing belief X because it made them feel worse). You must know this...so why bother writing such drivel? Indeed, it is the position of admitting ad consequentiam that truly galls me. What can possibly be more arrogant than dismissing arguments on grounds of the fact that they attack beliefs which someone holds ad consequentiam?
Of all the scientific discoveries which you mentioned shattering religion bit by bit, there was one which I was suprised you did not mention. Hubble's discovery: Repeating calculation after calculation, he suddenly realized with astonishment that the universe was not a mere handful of light years nor a motley collection of stars. The universe is, at least at present (it is expanding) 78 billion light years across, and has a present contingent of 100 billion galaxies, six sextillion stars and five quintillion planets. In astonishment, Hubble realized that the pinpoints of light emanating from the most distant points on the visible sky are not stars, they are galaxies, each will billions of star systems, compressed into a single point of light due to sheer distance from Earth.
Hubble's discovery was very important in the corroding of religious influence (main tenet was just destroyed), and the growth of deism and existentialism. The point I wish to make is thus: When you speak of "God" in the emotional crutch contexts which you are using, you are speaking only of a very specific God- the nonsense ones. The ones of the Old Religions, the ones that hear prayers and do magic tricks and kill people and speak to prophets and place man at the center of the cosmos. This God that you and Rahner so infatuate with is the only one in which your emotional fallacies could possibly hold any water. The existence of the deist God or the pantheist God offers no more consolation to man's place in the universe than does the atheist position. That is why I find Rahner's position so odd. Factually, it has been shattered. Clearly, man does not have a High Throne in The Center of the Universe Under the Whim of a Deity, so even if there was a supreme being, its existence would offer no emotional support to anyone. (Actually, this is redundant since Rahner never established why the existence of "God" should suddenly lend itself to the concept of "human" (this is surely a fallacy of definition) or indeed, what it means to say that man is "more than a clever animal" (this again, is a fallacy of definition)). This being the case...surely, you ought to level equally venomous criticism against deists and pantheists and anyone else who does not subscribe to the notion that the Homo Sapiens sucks the teat of an Anthropomorphic deity? On what other grounds can you defend this insufferable and ridiculous position of religion being inherently "good" to society and man because it provides this crutch...despite the fact that it has been factually shattered?
Why don't you just admit that you have no valid criticism, only ad consequentiam (your "article" speaks for itself)
Actually, this again, is a criticism I didn't even need to bother to type since your position begs the question anyway (you have not established why this anthropomorphic deity's existence should provide an emotional crutch, and even if you could it would be fallacious)...
If you wish for me to use this simple discovery that you forgot about that this Augustinian Worldview of God being a divine Anthropomorphic being, then I can certainly do so. Mathematically, it is quite easy to show that any anthropomorphic deity (the only ones upon which any of your ad consequentiam fallacies may rest since they are the only ones whose existence may provide the emotional crutch you so seek and describe) is probabalistically impossible.
This is an example of an argument with substance (arguing against anthropomorphic dieties on mathematical probabalistic grounds). Next time, shoot for something analogous (make a real argument). Here are some tips:
-It makes me feel good is not an argument
-I wouldn't like it if it did not exist is not an argument
-I think, but cannot justify, that we need X, is not an argument
-X is good therefore X is true is not an argument
-X is bad therefore X is false is not an argument
-We need X therefore X is true is not an argument
So, henceforth, try to avoid such statements.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
I sent the following to Forbes (just under the 500-word limit!):
As an atheist it was with no surprise that I read the old, tired arguments against atheism from Paul Johnson.
To call atheists “militant” is to suggest that we are violent, and that is inflammatory at best. Did I miss reports of a recent string of bombings for which prominent atheist organizations took credit? I believe the adjective Mr. Johnson meant to use is “outspoken”. Yes, we are outspoken and are becoming more so. We are getting more press, more television coverage and traffic is increasing on atheist Web sites. Mr. Johnson is correct to note that atheism is on the rise, but that is the only point he makes that could be considered so.
There is too much superstitious, conspiracy-theorist nonsense in Mr. Johnson’s article to refute in 500 words, but it is clear that he dislikes not only atheists but anyone who does not believe in the God of the Bible. I can only assume that at least one of the states he speaks of that has an interest in acquiring nuclear weapons is Iran, which is an Islamic republic – not an atheist one. And it is not revulsion against Islamic extremism that is partly driving the current “wave” of atheism as Mr. Johnson suggests – it is our revulsion against the aggressive response of a significant portion of the Christian population towards what is a very small percentage of the total Islamic population. Lumping atheists together with Islamic extremists is a transparent tactic – one indicative of his level of paranoia.
Mr. Johnson also suggests that if we atheists had our way, we would demolish churches, burn artworks and attempt to purge history of any mention of God. We aren’t interested in trying to change the past, Mr. Johnson. There are plenty of people trying to do that already. It’s the future we’re most worried about.
As atheists, we believe that using faith as a crutch, that hiding behind it in order to see only what we want to see, is akin to shutting one’s eyes while driving on the highway. You can have “faith” that God will see you to safety, but chances are someone will wind up getting killed.
In conclusion, to address Mr. Johnson’s question about whether this latest wave of atheism is a “phase”, he will be sad to learn that it is not. Atheists make up about ten percent of the population, but recent studies have shown that 20% or more of young people under the age of 25 are identifying themselves as non-believers. And Christianity has only itself to thank. Thanks to the internet we can read about every church scandal, fallacy, and abuse of power. And these days, it wouldn’t take more than a few days of news coverage to make a reasonable young person believe that a life in God’s service is not much of a life at all.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?
Very nicely written! Please let us know if they contact you regarding this.
If god takes life he's an indian giver
I just got this email about 12 hours ago from someone at Forbes regarding the response I sent them:
Michele Anderson m***@forbes.com
Thanks for your email. I am passing it along to the editor of our Readers Say section for possible use in an upcoming issue.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?