In my younger and more vulnerable years I once got into a debate with a fundamentalist Christian about the morality of capital punishment. Her view was that the Bible sanctioned the death penalty, and as far as she was concerned that was the end of the matter. What struck me most about her attitude toward the subject was her contempt for anyone who might see the question differently.Recently I've gotten into several debates with some equally zealous atheists, and the sensation has been quite similar.It's a typical irony of life that fundamentalist atheism should have so much in common with what it most despises. It's even more typical that its adherents are generally blind to these parallels.Needless to say, just as most religious people aren't fundamentalists, the same holds true for atheists. Those who are, however -- what we might think of as the Taliban of atheism -- often have a prominence well beyond their sheer numbers.Like their religious counterparts, fundamentalist atheists tend to combine considerable arrogance with a level of intellectual naivete that can be charming in precocious children, but is merely annoying in adults.This arrogance is illustrated by their attitude toward questions that less self-confident souls might consider to be somewhat problematic -- such as, the ultimate nature of reality -- but that fundamentalists consider no more mysterious than the design of a bottle opener.Indeed, one of the curiosities of fundamentalist atheists is their touching faith in the power of the human brain, which, despite being nothing more than a random evolutionary development in an omnivorous bipedal primate, has turned out to be sufficiently powerful (at least in their case) to discern the fundamental structure of the universe.People of a less robust faith might consider that a rather astounding coincidence.The intellectual naivete of the fundamentalist atheist is reflected in the sorts of arguments he puts forth when he dismisses religious beliefs as not merely mistaken, but nothing more than childish superstitions that can't be taken seriously by any enlightened adult.Consider, for example, the argument that something called "science" (a mysterious word that such people tend to invoke with a reverence their religious brethren reserve for the word "God") is based on a dispassionate examination of the "evidence" -- and what mysteries lurk within that word! -- while, by contrast, religious belief depends on something wholly different, called "faith."This argument won't impress anyone who knows something about the history, philosophy, or sociology of science and religion, and who isn't already fanatically committed to believing it.Again like his religious counterpart, the fundamentalist atheist tends to avoid this difficulty by remaining ignorant of the thing he despises. His faith in atheism is maintained by building a straw man version of religious belief, and knocking it over repeatedly, to the applause of like-minded believers.The alternative to fundamentalism involves embracing the idea that the world is a deeply complex and mysterious place, which human beings have in all likelihood barely begun to understand. The non-fundamentalist atheist recognizes that many religious beliefs are just as rationally defensible as his atheism, and that indeed he might well hold those beliefs if his genes or his upbringing or his education had made him a slightly different (but equally rational) person.The worst aspect of fundamentalism is the contempt it breeds for everyone who doesn't share the faith. The fundamentalist is forced by the tenets of his belief system to assume that the human race consists almost exclusively of deluded fools, who through a combination of stupidity and cowardice have failed to see the light, but that for some mysterious reason these almost universal disabilities don't apply to him.As a prominent contemporary theologian has put it: Isn't that special?(Paul Campos is a law professor at the University of Colorado and can be reached at Paul.Campos(at)Colorado.edu.)
Fundamentalist atheists show familiar arrogance
Submitted by SHNS on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 16:30
The author misuses the word
The author misuses the word "fundamentalist." Once that is corrected, there's not much left to his essay.
The author questions the understanding of the term "science" by "fundamentalist" atheists, but never puts his finger on what is wrong with their usage, or expresses his superior understanding. Rather than explain, he merely smirks into his hand.
Perhaps arrogance appears familiar to the author because he sees it in his mirror every morning.
Poor Attitude
"Smirking" is a good word to describe the author's tone in the article. He disparages what he calls "fundamentalist" Christians and atheists, and the reader is left to infer that the author's own presumed moderation is the only respectable intellectual position, even though he doesn't advance an argument for it. I would expect better from a law professor.
Campos' argument is a strawman fallacy
Paul claims that there are atheists that revere science as something Godlike, but this is quite the strawman. Even when you read Dawkins or Dennett, this is not their attitude, and they have stated as such. The accusation of "fundamentalism" isn't applicable to the reality of what these people say, and looks much more like Paul is projecting his own arrogance. Unfortunately, this sort of projection is all too common, and it's certainly not the first time that Campos himself is guilty of it.
Rational theism?
Whenever someone like this author goes off on what they see as "fundamentalist" atheists, they love to make the accusation that atheists only ever address straw-man versions of religion. We never take on the particularly sane and perfectly rational version of religion to which the author subscribes. Unfortunately, such authors never really seem to get around to describing exactly what such a religion entails. Oh, we're assured it exists, repeatedly and with disdain. And it must be perfectly logical and not at all absurd, because they say so.
However, we can often pick up some hints of what the author really believes. The closest we get in this article is some allusions to the limitations of human knowledge. Gee, the author wouldn't be trying to make an argument from ignorance, now would he? Because that's a logical fallacy. The god of the gaps is NOT a perfectly rational position, no matter what the author would like to suggest. In fact, even if we were in total ignorance as a species of absolutely everything, the belief that a magical being exists and engineered it all would still be a totally evidenced claim and thus irrational.
Pointing out that atheists don't know everything will NEVER be a rational argument for god. Faith positions don't magically become rational because you want to think of yourself as a rational person, you actually have to defend them on rational grounds. Atheists don't have to pretend to know everything, we just have to know that you CAN'T know what you CLAIM to know. That's not arrogance on our part, that's just the facts. Arrogance is believing you have direct knowledge of the creator of the universe because you are in psychic communication with him.
And the worst aspect of fundamentalism is the not contempt it breeds for everyone who doesn't share the faith. It's that it based on faith and not evidence. As mean and ornery as you may think atheists are, they follow the evidence. Atheism can never be a faith, it is the lack of it. Not dogmatic, just strictly principled. Atheists aren't arrogant, just RIGHT. And that really seems to piss off a lot of people.
Priest of relativism
By definition, science admits of uncertainty about life, the universe and everything, and constantly self-corrects when new information comes to light. This couldn't be more different from the false and unchanging certitudes of every religious faith.
When theists talk about "mystery," they mean mystery that can never be solved. Theists like it that way, since it provides a smokescreen to hide behind and claim whatever they want--without having to provide any defense or evidence. As long as faith remains a privileged point of view, the smokescreen can never be allowed to dissipate.
Campos accuses atheists of attacking a straw-man version of religion, then turns right around and erects a 75 foot tall bamboo-man version of atheism. Atheism is simply the absence of belief in any gods. Its corollary, science, is a method which as yet remains unsurpassed in its ability to amass knowledge, and unchallenged in its efficacy to improve the human condition.
In the past, I've called people like Campos the "priests of the middle-high-ground." His essay mangles atheism, mangles science, mangles philosophy, and endorses an anti-intellectual relativism that can only be traced back to his unsupportable soft-spot for superstition.
As Bill Maher often says, "once you believe in the talking snake, all bets are off."
Who exactly are these "non-fundamentalist" atheists?
Campos uses the shabby propaganda technique of defining "reasonable" and "unreasonable" categories for his opponents, and then shoving everyone into the latter. He doesn't name a single example of a "non-fundamentalist" atheist, which is unsurprising, as anyone uppity enough to question the existence of god would automatically fail to qualify.
Pity Colorado
Inviting a law professor to comment on atheism could be valuable, but this fellow doesn't seem to understand what 'atheism' actually means (not to mention 'fundamentalism').
It was amusing to read about a "typical irony of life," in which the arrogant aren't aware of their own arrogance. Amusing indeed.
Science is not a religion
What's this about "science" and "evidence" being just as mysterious as "god" and "faith"??
Doesn't the author realize that scientific evidence is based upon standards of reason and logic, such that predictions that are testable, repeatable, and falsifiable? (Is this guy a lawyer? Methinks he needs to reevaluate his idea of "evidence" or get a new profession -- it's not just whatever you dream up, Paul!!)
None of the above applies to "faith", which is the equivalent of group-sanctioned wishful thinking. God is impossible to test and impossible to falsify, just like Leprechauns!
So how exactly is belief in Leprechauns like science?? I'd love to it...
It's about who, not what
Campos, like many others who talk about the "aggressiveness" of atheists these days, is not really taking on science here, or even atheism, as evidenced by the disparities in his article that other commenters have noted. He's pissed at the confidence and assertiveness coming from atheists who lately have found new voice in the writings of Dawkins, Dennet, et al. It's an argument much more against the people and their presumptuous attitudes rather than the ideas themselves.
That said, neither theists nor atheists seem to give any credence to the notion that, within human minds, either of these ideas can and do reside comfortably. I would suggest, without having any particular evidence other than anecdotal, that a predisposition to theism exists in many humans. The God Gene, if you will, or some form thereof. The frustration that atheists feel toward their theist brethren is, I think, a bit like feeling frustrated toward the obese. "Can't you see that your overeating is irrational, and probably killing you?!" That may be, but it may not be purely a product of rational will, or lack of it, and screaming about the stupidity of overeating and insufficient exercise is no argument, either.
Perhaps berating people actually works somewhere, but not in my experience.
Atheism and cynicism.
A lot of people have an axe to grind with religion right now; it probably has to deal with the Evangelical movement in the USA getting Bush elected.
But it's wise to take a minute and properly evaluate a person's true motives for being disgruntled.
If you are part of a minority, chances are that you may have contempt for the ideas, and even people, that make up the majority.
This cynicism shouldn't be mistaken for fundamentalism, even though you use the term inaccurately.
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