Thursday, May 28, 2009

But Seriously: Neo-Atheists - The Fundamentals

Dogma Isn’t Just For The Religious
In the past 2 years or so, I’ve met more atheists and agnostics than in the over 16 years since I came into my own understanding of faith, God and spirituality. There seems to be either a proliferation of atheism or at least a pronounced vocalization thereof. I’ve met those who were once well known and committed believers disillusioned by hypocrisy, irrationality and guilt or those who never got bitten by the faith bug at all.

Most of my contact with the sceptics came through the Amazon Religion & Spirituality forum. I started participating in the forum some time early in 2007 because I felt it necessary to put my faith to the test. Could I open it to criticism and examination and still leave with it intact? I noticed that threads were started and dominated primarily by vociferous, dogmatic and sometimes insulting and very angry atheists. They preached the evils of religion with all the fervour of a Puritan and proselytized their doctrine of logic, evolution and science with the meticulousness of a Pharisee.

I was amazed at the striking similarity they bore to myself in my zealous and often misguided days of spiritual youth. Many referred to Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens – the Apostles of Neo-Atheism – in their rants. They railed against ‘godbots’ and ‘fundies’ and scoffed at ‘scripture slinging’. They had a language of their own and created a society within the forum that had its own mandate and purpose: to ridicule religious adherents, to confound their arguments and hopefully disprove and remove their faith. It was a particular delight for some to see believers leave in a huff with scriptures in their wake, fire & brimstone on their breath and frustration tainting their ‘peace in Jesus’ (most religious participants were of some variant of Christianity including myself).

But Atheists Make a Good Point
In truth, I learned quite a lot from these neo-atheists, if not a lot, then a few very significant things. They were right about many issues including the reluctance of some religious folk to question the rationality of their beliefs, the over-emphasis on guilt as motivation, the contribution of religion to war, prejudice and oppression throughout history and that many adherents know very little about their own faith and therefore argue very unconvincingly in their efforts to win others over – especially those who have no fundamental belief in the Bible and therefore cannot accept it as a platform for argument.

These things caused me to examine and question the evolution and progress of my faith. Indeed I was forced to ‘practicalize’ Biblical tenets– to express them in non-biblical terms, in real terms. I was forced to look at the questions to which I either had no answer or never really thought about before. The logic and science behind Noah’s ark and the flood; death, violence and war in contrast to Grace, forgiveness and peace; the role of the devil in mankind’s moral quest and idea of morality outside of religion. It was an adventure that was both frightening and exhilarating. I teetered on the edge of my faith attempting to navigate a landscape that included scientists, witches, homosexuals, Jews and others – and many of them (if indeed they were what they claimed) were perfectly decent folk.

My assumptions and prejudices surfaced like never before. It was easy to condemn acts and lifestyles from the pulpit in a context where most agreed. But to do so in such a liberal environment, and to those who (in some cases) were so respectful of my own faith and position was brand new.  It made me consider the humanity that is often absent in mouth-frothing condemnation of others that has so defined much of religion. It made consider my view of Jesus himself and how he interacted with ‘sinners’.

Pearls & Swine – But Who’s What?
However, despite forging great rapports with some of the most vehement of non-believers the dehumanizing rhetoric, anger, ridicule and hostility continued – indeed flourished. Many threads, despite attempts to engage in reasonable discussion would devolve into a closed commiseration of atheists comparing notes on the virtues of their stance and the inferiority of both religion and the religious. It was the latter point that I found to be most disturbing. All viewpoints are open to deconstruction but to attack an individual’s personhood and freedom to believe as they will is very the thing of which religion has been guilty. The very thing these neo-atheists condemned. But a common response when challenged on this was justification. Many felt they had a right to launch these attacks because of abuse they experienced at the hands of religion and its proposers, because of the relative silence and ostracism of atheists over the years, according to some forum participants.

Still, I found it odd that for persons who had no faith in God, they felt an amazing amount of emotion about the things God did or was supposed to do, according to my or others faith. Some were very angry with the subject they claimed never existed. ‘Why would he let so much pain and misfortune afflict the world?’, ‘why create hell?’, ‘if he is all-powerful why doesn’t he just fix this place?’, they would often ask – truly, we all ask these questions from time to time. But I counter that if one does not believe in God then there is only one other responsible for the state of the world, and therefore only one who has the remedy: mankind. But they rarely argued that point. Some would simply condemn religion for emphasizing how sinful mankind is – but they were doing the same thing by pointing out the reality of human suffering often at the hands of humanity itself.

I was unquestionably disturbed by the approach of some of the neo-atheists and oft argued that their attitude betrayed something about human nature itself. Religion had committed no crime – men had, with religion as their weapon and, I concluded that there seemed to be a movement on the rise that was about to engage in the same crime but with a different weapon. I posit that atheists actually have the opportunity to exercise morality and reasoned argument in exemplary ways because of their non-religious stance. They are not burdened by the baggage religion can bring; the guilt, tradition, formality, heady zeal and practical restrictions. They have no motivation for goodness except goodness itself – no heaven or hell to compel or terrify them, just life, history, morality and science. But I fear many have simply thrown atheism’s hat into the ring of superiority, judgment and self-righteousness that often defines the debate around faith instead of standing outside that ring where they actually belong.

True Respect For All
In the end, my experience taught me that wherever we go we take our character with us. Our personal beliefs, ethos and attitude will ring true regardless of what we may say we believe, or not believe.  The forum, the last time I visited is still dominated by atheists, perhaps all the more, but I still believe in God and I still do my best to follow the teachings of Jesus albeit with a new sense of understanding, curiosity and openness to others. I am left convinced that whether we believe in God or not – whether he is real or not…we sure need him, and now more than ever.

C. Arthur Young

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