The Loss of the Centre: New Atheism Versus Religion Today – Lindsay Ann Cox

PART 1 – Establishing the Extreme Ground

Last year, after seeing Inglourious Bastards, I read somewhere that one of the movie’s stars, Eli Roth, referred to it as ‘kosher porn’. I found this turn of phrase initially kind of offensive, especially when it would seem to be an oxymoron. Kosher recognizes Jewish dietary laws and means that an item of food is considered to be ritually pure. Porn or pornography, on the other hand, is a means of objectifying and demeaning the very intimate act of, what is meant to be, love between two consenting adults. Two opposing ideas, indeed, but the retributive qualities contained in the plot of Inglorious Bastards cannot, of course, be separated from our post-Shoah context. How could six million calculated, vicious race-based murders not create some revenge fantasies?!

In the last sixty years, post-Shoah philosophy and theology has legitimately questioned what kind of God would allow such atrocities upon a supposedly ‘chosen people’ and have thus wondered, is God dead? This question was most famously asked on the front cover of Time Magazine in April 1966. Recently, however, this question has been given new life through what is being called New Atheist literature, and so the June/July 2010 issue of Philosophy Now replicated Time Magazine’s classic cover, all red and black, but beside the word God is a white hand-written-looking ‘really’: Is God really Dead?

The current renaissance of atheism and atheistic sentiment is insisting that we – as a society – re-visit this question, not as a visceral response to a mass genocide like last time, but with reference to the plethora of religiously inspired violence, which marks our daily, globalized lives. The problem, however, is that religion is so much more complicated than the New Atheists would like us to believe and, as a result, some academics on the religious side of this debate have begun to refer to this literature as ‘atheist porn’. For, while pornography can be titillating and fun – it’s also objectifying, sapping the people portrayed of their humanity and falsely representing them for the profit and gratification of others. Similarly, the New Atheist literature is fun, even titillating – who doesn’t like to see the New Atheists take potshots at goofballs like Pat Robertson and the Ayatollah Khomeini? But it also objectifies religion, intentionally misrepresenting it as a one-dimensional, universally fanatical phenomenon (Mabry 22).

The four horsemen of New Atheism – Dawkins, Dennet, Harris and Hitchens – as they are being called, insist that religion is dangerous, all religion, and it must end. Now. This is one extreme. Then, there are the fundamentalists of all faiths who, similarly, refuse to budge from their extreme position on the opposite end of this issue. Thus we arrive at an impasse, for it seems we have lost all middle ground. Who will seek diplomacy between these two extreme positions, where each invalidates and thus dismisses the other? What should be done about the loss of the centre?

Definitions of Atheism in Context

Any discussion of New Atheism must, first, outline what atheism means not only in our globalized context, but how the literature of the New Atheist movement differs from that which preceded it. Atheism as a certain kind of non-belief has turned into other kinds of secular belief systems, e.g., football/soccer and or sports in general, the United Nations and human rights, various kinds of secular humanism, etc., but this is an inaccurate form of what is meant by atheism. Atheism must, in some sense, deny a transcendent reality or realities. For, “atheism is not a religion, but the absence of religion. In particular, atheism is [a-]theism: it is the rejection of the theist creed, which in particular means the monotheistic conception of god, i.e., God” (Cliteur 6). If this particularly anti-monotheist definition of atheism is accepted, however, then polytheists, agnostics and even some liberals should be considered atheists. We must, therefore, work from a more traditional definition of a-theism, which allows for a broader sense of the word, understanding that the “’Greek a (‘without’) and theos (‘deity’), standardly refers to the denial of the existence of any god of gods’ – any god or gods. ‘Atheism’ does not only refer to the denial of the God of monotheism, then, but to the denial of the God of liberal theism and the gods of polytheism too” (M. Martin qtd. in Cliteur 8). This more general presentation seems to function adequately for the New Atheists and thus I will also use it to discuss what makes this kind of atheism so ‘new’.

One of the new aspects of New Atheism is the unique context being addressed and therein the importance of this entire secular-scientific-reason-versus-sacred-religious-faith-debate and why it must be seriously and substantively addressed by both sides: the twenty-first century is shaping up to be one of necessary global transition. The form and content of said transition, however, is yet to be determined…

Post-WWII theologians, philosophers and social scientists cried out that the death of God was inevitable as a by-product of societal advancement and yet recent history has demonstrated that God, as it were, is holding on tenaciously, despite the current (post)-secular context of the West. “So is God back? The truthful answer from within the US is that God never left, but lately has been looking distinctly unwell, and is now a pale shadow of His former self” (Ramsay Steele 11). But, again, how is this new? What has happened in the last ten years – that didn’t happen in the previous fifty – to reignite the atheist debate, but with viciousness previously unparalleled?

The answer is, unfortunately, obvious: September 11^th, 2001. Everyone will remember where they were and everyone will remember what happened after, how a new arc-enemy was created and personified in the Muslim terrorists who orchestrated this tragedy: religion. In the minds of many Americans and Westerners, in general, the “Muslims who perpetrate terrorist attacks and the New Christian Right are the same enemy (fringe elements of Evangelicalism have perpetrated on abortion clinics)” (Ramsay Steele 11). These kinds of extreme and in-your-face religion have become ‘the enemy’ and beckoned an equally extreme response: extreme and in-your-face atheism. This polarization of western culture has, in fact, become so extreme that the average “secular-minded nominal theist” feels the need to choose a side, for while they “think of atheists as intelligent people with interesting ideas… they think of Evangelicals as a bunch of kooks who might become dangerous. And so they take readily to books like The God Delusion” (Ramsay Steele 11). This would seem to be the lesser of two evils.

New Atheism and New Atheists

Modernity, democracy and a pervasive secular culture of human rights has, in the past sixty years especially, helped religion locate itself within the private sphere of each individual’s life, at least in the West. The prevailing secularism of modernity was supposed to ensure that religion would never again have the power to destroy and control the way it once did through theocracies, dictatorships, etc. The privatization of religion, however, has not occurred – not in most western and so-called developed countries nor others – and so religion in the public sphere of life is not only a reality but also something many academics and religions practitioners, myself included, are substantively exploring (e.g., phenomenologically, methodologically, ethically, etc.), hence the purpose of this blog and my article. This is also the starting point for New Atheists, for they insist that if “religions restricted their activities to home, church, synagogue or mosque, atheists would have no legitimate complaint. The problem is that religion is everywhere. [And i]f any event triggered the New Atheist attitude it was 9/11” (Stenger 12). Religion is ubiquitous in every society but most adherents are not so extreme as to believe God is calling them to undertake religiously based warfare. Indeed, most moderate persons of faith would abhor such actions and go to pains to illegitimate any interpretation of a sacred text, theological doctrine or religious experience that would lead someone to betray sacred and secular human rights and laws. The New Atheists, however, do not particularly seem to care that there is a spectrum of religious belief and practice, asserting instead that it is time “to take a far less accommodating attitude toward religion, including moderate religion, than has been exhibited in previous years by atheist authors and, in particular, by non-believing scientists” (Stenger 12).

New Atheists are looking at the negative products of religion from an ethical standpoint and, as a result, believe that religion causes one atrocity after the next, 9/11 being the religious product par excellence. The fact that 9/11 was perpetrated by Muslim terrorists makes little difference to New Atheists because all religions have, at some point in history, if not many times, “produced comparable atrocities [and] individual cases can be found where murders by Christians have been committed ‘under orders’ from God. More common are Christian attempts to force others to behave according to their beliefs; to set public policy based on faith rather reason; and to transform America into a theocracy” (Stenger 11). This, of course, is a not-so-subtle condemnation of various administrations from Nixon to Bush, which sought out ‘neocons’ and ‘theocons’ to support religious points of view to the detriment of America and its policies. George W. Bush and his administration, in particular, “time and again… ignored and even undermined scientific results, and made important decisions based on ideology” (Stenger 12). In the minds of New Atheists and those who have decided to follow this movement, these are the products of religion, of a belief system that rewards the illogical and irrational and perpetuates mindless control and resulting destruction. It is what they call, however unoriginally, ‘the folly of faith’ and it tends to be presented as the belief in the absence of empirical evidence, and often in the face of contrary evidence. The position of the New Atheists is that faith is the force behind both the malevolent deeds of extremist religious groups and the irrational acts of many political leaders. To act on the basis of faith can often be to act in conflict with reason. We New Atheists claim that to do so is immoral, and dangerous to society (Stenger 12).

Here, then, is the issue: reason qua science versus faith qua religion. But since when is that a new debate? Furthermore, what is novel in the explanation that science is “based on self- and mutual criticism and a humble acceptance of uncertainty in our conclusions… [while] religion is on the contrary blatantly arrogant in its unselfcritical commitment to unfounded certainties and dogmas” (Stenger 14)? Does making the atheist position a little more hostile make it new? Does inflammatory language and over-simplifying the spectrum of religious belief legitimate the New Atheist claim that every religion and version of theism is merely a means for eventual violence? Is establishing such extreme ground even productive within societies that are obviously already so polarized by current events? I’m not so sure and so I will go the source of the ‘new’ in New Atheism, ‘horsemen number one’: Richard Dawkins and The God Delusion.

Religion has been called ‘a love of ignorance’ by various New Atheists but I suspect, or at least hope, that one of the leaders of this movement can better appreciate the diversity of religious phenomena and the spectrum of belief from which it develops. Dawkins, as one of the first to publish on New Atheism, sees his writing and position as one of ‘atheist consciousness-raising’, similar to the consciousness-raising articulated in second wave feminism. “It is intended to raise consciousness – raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one” (Dawkins 23). Dawkins insists upon a need for atheist consciousness-raising due to the failures of educational systems in providing alternatives to religious belief, meaning that most students do not even realize the non-belief is a possibility. The God Delusion is, therefore, addressed to those “people out there who have been brought up in some religion and other, are unhappy in it, don’t believe it, or are worried about the evils that are done in its name; people who feel vague yearning to leave their parents’ religion and wish they could, but just don’t realize that leaving is an option” (Dawkins 23). This aspect of New Atheism, to my mind, makes perfect sense. One should choose belief and confess it, especially considering that the faiths being largely referenced in this debate are Christianity and Islam, both of which are confessing faiths. There is no such thing as cultural Christianity or a latent Muslim and in order for people to be true to their faith, they must understand every alternative and choose the one option that feels most authentic to them. And let me be clear: atheism or even struggling agnosticism would be better than a fake or forced faith. One should choose whatever path he or she feels is true.

With information and thus choices, however, come doubt and complication, grey area and intense diversity, for religion is never the easy choice. I once had a professor who told me, “Ms. Cox, in this day and age of science and technology it doesn’t make sense to believe in God and partake in a religion and yet billions of people still do. Those are the interesting ones.” The interesting part being that of those billions of religious people a significant number are educated theologians and philosophers and they do not shy away from tough questions, instead they learn the historical contexts and language of the sacred texts and the theologies that would follow; they understand the import of human witness within these texts and work to contextualize limitations and confusions; they work for a mature sense of religion in a world come of age. And here even Dawkins will conceded that in this “respect, science finds itself in alliance with the sophisticated theologians like Bonhoeffer, united against the common enemies of naïve, populist theology and the gap theology of intelligent design” (Dawkins 153). The problem, however, is that Dietrich Bonhoeffer – ecumenical, Christian theologian killed at the hands of the Gestapo in 1945 – is the exception not the rule. Dawkins understands that reality as well as I do (my thesis is on Bonhoeffer) and so he makes it clear that he is not addressing those ‘sophisticated’ believers, for there are not enough of them and they don’t love ignorance. Dawkins’ audiences are those who call themselves faithful without doing the hard work of learning about not only their own chosen faith, but also about all possibilities of belief and non-belief. It is willful blindness and ignorance, which makes Dawkins hostile and rightfully so: ignorance leads to insecurity, which leads to fear and anger, turning, at times, into arrogance and even violence… and here we are on the brink of global self-destruction.

Richard Dawkins admits that he is hostile to religion, but he does more than articulate his frustration in abstract terms, he tells us where it came from on a very personal level. He speaks about the tragedy of Kurt Wise who had a promising career in geology but who walked away from it all because what he was learning didn’t make sense with his fundamentalist and literal understanding of the bible. “The wound, to his career and his life’s happiness, was self-inflicted, so unnecessary, so easy to escape. All he has to do was toss out the bible. Or interpret it symbolically, or allegorically, as the theologians do. Instead, he did the fundamentalist thing and tossed out science, evidence and reason, along with all this dreams and hopes” (Dawkins 322). The result of this experience for Dawkins is the following: “I am hostile to religion because of what it did to Kurt Wise. And if it did that to a Harvard-educated geologist, just think what it can do to others less gifted and less well armed” (Dawkins 323).

Most people, most believers, are, indeed, less gifted and substantially less well armed than Kurt Wise, but is that a reason to throw out the whole religious project, as it were? According to Dawkins, yes. It is the self-imposed role of fundamentalist religion to ruin the “scientific education of countless thousands of innocent, well-meaning, eager young minds. Non-fundamentalist, ‘sensible’ religion may not be doing that. But it is making the world safe for fundamentalism by teaching children, from their earliest years, that unquestioning faith is a virtue” (Dawkins 323). Dawkins, then, goes on to insist that the deference with which religion has been treated throughout the last several centuries, at least, is also a problem for the following reason: [a]s long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama Bin Laden and the suicide bombers. The alternative, one so transparent that it should need no urging, is to abandon the principle of automatic respect for religious faith. This is one reason why I do everything in my power to warm people against faith itself, not just against so-called ‘extremist’ faith. The teachings of ‘moderate’ religion, though not extremist in themselves, are an open invitation to extremist (Dawkins 346).

This is where Dawkins and I truly part ways, for while I agree with so much of what he says about religion and religious people (the necessary separation between state and religion, the importance of educational options, the problem of undeserved religious respect, etc.), I do not believe that ‘throwing out the baby with the bathwater’ is going to solve our global problems. Further, I find the lack of interest in the nuances of faith in favour of establishing what I call ‘the extreme ground of New Atheism’, hugely problematic to the entire New Atheist mandate of ridding society of religion due to its lack of reason. How is it reasonable to assert time and again that moderate religious believers create a metaphorical door for extremists to walk through and then blow us all up; are all moderates to blame for the actions of others, really? How is it reasonable to dismiss moderates when they stand as the only chance for diplomacy between the two extremes of New Atheism and fundamentalist interpretations of various religions? How is it reasonable to alienate the supposed ‘sophisticated’ believers with hostilities that, though well founded, are completely unhelpful to the larger discussion and debate regarding how to move forward, productively, from here?

In the next section of this paper, which will be posted in September, I will articulate not only the need for, but also the necessity of, recovering the loss of the centre within this debate. I will insist that figurative middle ground needs to be created and maintained because it is an essential part of ensuring that both sides of this chasm find a way to come together, not agreeing with one another but finding room for accommodation of the other and compromise within our shared world. Hostile language and sentiments on both sides will get us nowhere, as history has so repetitively demonstrated, and so – until the conclusion of this article – I leave you with this completely extreme, overly-simplistic and thus relatively unhelpful, however entertaining, remark from Bill Maher:

“You see so many nice people trying to make it [religion] about something good… and yet it turns into something not just corrupt but, you know, like, fucking little kids corrupt and burning people alive corrupt. I mean really evil shit” (Religulous).

Works Cited

Cliteur, Paul. “The Varieties of Atheist Experience.” Philosophy Now: A Magazine of Ideas. April/May 2010: 78.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York: Mariner Books, 2008.

Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version with Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books. New York: American Bible Society, 1989.

Mabry, John R. and Thomas Crean. “Two Priests Respond.” Philosophy Now: A Magazine of Ideas. April/May 2010: 78.

Ramsay Steele, David. “Is God Coming or Going?” Philosophy Now: A Magazine of Ideas. April/May 2010: 78.

Religulous. Dir. Larry Charles. Perf. Bill Maher. Thousand Words, 2008.

Stenger, Victor. “What’s New About the New Atheism?” Philosophy Now: A Magazine of Ideas. April/May 2010: 78.