More atheist-bashing, this time from Bryan Appleyard at the New Statesman.
Two atheists – John Gray and Alain de Botton – and two agnostics – Nassim Nicholas Taleb and I – meet for dinner at a Greek restaurant in Bayswater, London. The talk is genial, friendly and then, suddenly, intense when neo-atheism comes up. Three of us, including both atheists, have suffered abuse at the hands of this cult. Only Taleb seems to have escaped unscathed and this, we conclude, must be because he can do maths and people are afraid of maths.
Abuse? What kind of “abuse”? How are we defining “abuse”? How are we defining “cult”? What, exactly, are we talking about? Who is abusing whom?
De Botton is the most recent and, consequently, the most shocked victim. He has just produced a book, Religion for Atheists: a Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion, mildly suggesting that atheists like himself have much to learn from religion and that, in fact, religion is too important to be left to believers. He has also proposed an atheists’ temple, a place where non-believers can partake of the consolations of silence and meditation.
This has been enough to bring the full force of a neo-atheist fatwa crashing down on his head.
Really? How are we defining “full force”? How are we defining “fatwa”? Not, I trust, as the order given by the clerical ruler of a large state offering a reward for the murder of a foreign novelist.
It turns out we’re defining it as PZ Myers talking about de Botton’s book as an object of nausea. That’s the full force of a neo-atheist fatwa crashing down on his head.
So, as I said, who is abusing whom? You could say that it’s abusive to characterize the words of a member of the despised group “atheists” as a fatwa crashing on someone’s head. You could say that’s just whipping up more of the same old hatred of atheists that already inspires a good deal of real “abuse.”
At the end he says something inadvertently funny.
Happily, the backlash against neo-atheism has begun, inspired by the cult’s own intolerance.
Begun? It’s been in high gear since almost the moment Sam Harris’s book hit the shelves. And as for what inspired it – does Appleyard really think it has nothing at all to do with believers’ sense of outraged privilege? Not to mention the non-religious or only semi-religious defenders of religion who think it’s their duty to defend the less articulate believers from the scary monster atheists?
Honestly; you go away for five days and come home to a pile of fresh atheist-bashing. Never a moment to catch your breath.
Haven’t you been clued in? Because of our Pagan deal with the Devil (because you know all us atheist communist Muslims are totally into Wicca, too) our words are now as powerful as bombs. Every time an outspoken atheist says, “I think you might be wrong about that,” countless innocents are slaughtered in a searing conflagration.
Do we also have take part of an atheist jihad? Because I really do not feel like this.
Seriously, this is both deeply funny and deeply ironic. Mainly of us atheists do not want anything to do with religious trappings, even if they are stripped of a goddist believe. So what does Appleyard do, makes the claim that atheists are acting in a religious manner.
Critical thinking at it’s most broken.
Yeah, this was a junk article. Way overboard. I think some of the criticism has been overboard too (particularly since many criticizing De Botton haven’t taken the time to read the book they are criticizing), but this piece on it was just stupid.
What a shame. I’ll have to save my suicide vest for another day!
Take a look at his website http://www.bryanappleyard.com/articles/
He is complaining about scientism too – poor little Rupert Sheldrake.
And then there is this paragraph from his neo-atheist attack piece:
“The answer demonstrates the futility of the neo-atheist project. Religion is not going to go away. It is a natural and legitimate response to the human condition, to human consciousness and to human ignorance. One of the most striking things revealed by the progress of science has been the revelation of how little we know and how easily what we do know can be overthrown. Furthermore, as Hitchens in effect acknowledged and as the neo-atheists demonstrate by their ideological rigidity and savagery, absence of religion does not guarantee that the demonic side of our natures will be eliminated. People should have learned this from the catastrophic failed atheist project of communism, but too many didn’t.”
We shouldn’t bother to replace superstition with science because science could be wrong. Let’s throw out medicine because disease is not going away – so why try. And atheism is the cause for communist totalitarian regimes. I am surprised he didn’t mention Hitler.
When De Botton first popped up, I think that he was looked upon with bemusement by the Gnus. It was only when he started to criticise the Gnus directly that the gloves came off and he got the savaging that he deserved. His notion that it is ‘boring’ to be concerned about truth has also attracted much justified criticism.
On the subject of religion going away, I don’t care if it does or it doesn’t, people can believe whatever nonsense they like as long as it doesn’t affect me. My problem is that at present it does affect me and I don’t intend to shut up about it until it stops doing so.
If lack of belief (atheism or agnosticism) was so bad, then why do nations with low levels of religious belief like the Nordic countries do so well? The United States is the most religious Western nation and has far more social problems than the others.
On atheism and totalitarianism, it’s like saying that cherry flavor is bad because someone drank cherry-flavored poison. The poison is totalitarianism, which is just as vicious when motivated by religion as it is by anything else, be it nationalism or whatever.
And another thing – he says somewhere in there that intellectuals dislike him because he does popular stuff. That’s not right. Maybe there are some who do, but others dislike him because he does shallow popular stuff that is at the same time pretentious. Popularization can be very very good, but his isn’t. (That is, what I’ve read of it isn’t. I stopped reading him because of the kind of thing it is. Maybe he’s improved.)
I had to hold back the chuckles when I read, “…and most people are afraid of maths.” Do you think he realizes many of the people he’s writing about are scientists, and scientists are not generally frightened of equations?
Most of the criticism I have seen has pertained to his words. Both as quoted by the FTB bloggers, from his TED talk. Plenty to object to without even mentioning his book. I think it is somewhat of a smear (and is false) to say that “many” of de Botton’s critics are making unevidenced claims about his book.
>”De Bottom finds Dawkins a psychologically troubling figure.”
I laughed when I read this. I imagined Bottom shaking his shiny head and pursing his purple lips as he said that.
This has been enough to bring the full force of a neo-atheist fatwa crashing down on his head.
Well if this was actually the case, De Botton should be pleased. We are learning from religion and wasn’t that his intent?.
Neo-atheist? The banality of that namby-pamby slur is rather insulting. I insist on being addressed by my full title of militant secularist atheist neo-dogmatist.
Shorter Appleyard: Mummy, those gnu atheiests are being mean to us again!
As has been pointed out elsewhere — and frequently — this is not why de Botton was criticized. Many gnu atheists have talked about their appreciation of religious art or community.
The problems were twofold: he took a lot of secular values and ideals (such as feeling gratitude) and claimed that they were, at their root, unique to religion and we ought to adopt them; and he took some of the worst aspects of religion (such as rote learning) and suggested that these were also good ideas we ought to adopt.
In the Catholic Herald, March 2, 2012 (I saw it in the library) Cristina Odone has written an article entitled “Why Britain is rebelling against New Atheism”. The last two paragraphs:
The newspaper rack with the Catholic Herald is yards from a small exhibition on LGBT rights in Leicester!
“And another thing – he says somewhere in there that intellectuals dislike him because he does popular stuff.”
They dislike him because he is loudly and self-seekingly wrong at great and damaging length.
From agenoria’s quote from the Catholic Herald:
I wonder what Christina Odone is is like when she is being intollerant.
This is all. There is no path around. There is no path forward. There is no turnspace. There is no squirming. There is no wiggle. There is no compensation.
There is crawling backwards on hands and knees with eyes fixed to ground.
Until Alin de Botton yields this point, he is not. Alain de Botton is not.
Tpyos obviously agrees with me.