New Atheism
I read Wired Magazine's article on the New Atheists. I am both shocked an appaled.
I was not surprised to see Richard Dawkins' name heading the list of intolerant fundamentalist-scientists. I read a book of his once when I was fourteen—River out of Eden I think it was called, or something of that nature. As much as a fourteen-year-old could, I admired his arguments, for they were convincing, but I found the text a little too forceful for my tastes.
Now, with the kind of sarcasm this man is spewing, I wonder if he's turned into the hard-lined James Dobson of evolutionists (at risk of undoing myself by a personal attack on another human being—forgive me). Still, I cannot put down this thought: intolerant atheism. Evangelistic atheism. Dietized rationalism. Just think of the possibilities!
Are we still in the modern project? I thought it ended with Nietzche, then was murdered by Derrida. Have these scientists learned nothing from the postmodern philosophy of this century—the dissolution of Descartes, the uncovered subjectivity of language and human interpretation at large? We all filter information through our thin screen of values—rationalism included. Surely they can foresee their own blunder: by fundamentalizing the scientific process, they're making themselves into the greatest hypocrites of this world; including themselves in the very vein of fundamentalist religion they preach against?
I can understand their feelings. Atheism is a hard honesty to come by, though it's extremely tempting to accept. Even I, a spiritualist to the core, considered it, and found it to be lacking in credible meaning for moving the human race forward. Atheism has had it hard, getting knocked around ever since the Church told Copernicus that he was a heretic just for removing the blindfold of overcooked dogma. I would never, even as a spiritualist, condemn someone for being an atheist. Frankly, I think we need some good atheists to "keep us on our toes" as Miroslav Volf said at the Emergent Conference in 2006. I've heard the story of my mother's good friend whose husband, once Christian, turned to atheism. Unlike what Evangelicals (Christians) would lead one to believe, the man became much more sincere, much more loving, and much more present in-the-moment. I great advantage to having no afterlife is that one spends their life in the here-and-now, working to do good and to rationally help whoever they come across, instead of waiting for heaven and condemning others with hellfire for their disbelief.
But I cannot stomach this New Atheism. There is one thing that I cannot tolerate: intolerance. I agree with Nietzche: God is dead. But so is rationalism and its imperial empiricism. Rationalism, unfortunately for these guys, is just another filter through which we see the world—a subjective lens that is no better than the short-sighted tools man has to grappel with his universe. Why, wasn't it even science that began this trend? Wasn't it quantum physics and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle that caused linguists, anthropologists, and even theologians to question the objectivity of the universe and the perfection of human perception? Of facts that are percieved in a so-called "balanced" view that was a vaccum of emotion and a liquid jelly of trial, error, theorize, and repeat? I do not appreciate Dawkins's sarcasm—he's simply fueling the fire he's trying to put out, and he's doing it in the blindest way possible. I can just see it now: fundamentalist Muslims, Christians, and Atheists duking it on the world stage, setting off bombs in embassies, abortion clinics, and mosques, synogauges, churches, and every other temple known to man (each unto his enemy's, of course).
The funny thing (and this is what I really don't get about Dawkins's strategy) is that fundamentalist atheism will untimately lead to moralizing the so-called "empirical" nature of science. Thankfully, Daniel Dennett seems a bit softer on this subject, and is willing to allow some to follow their "default settings," which, as I gather, are their instinctual ideas of how the world works. He still thinks atheism is the best way, and will evangelize it, but at least he gives credit to those who follow their heart—after all, wasn't that what got Copernicus started? But as for moral Darwinism, have we learned nothing from how racism was "scientifically" justified by Nazi ideaology and institutionalized? Is it not evolutionarily plausible that Aryans are far superior than Africans, Orientals, etc. due to their evolutionary advancement—that Richard Dawkins, in fact, is more evolved than an Australian Aboriginee because of his belief in rationalism, to take a step further—something that the savage could never understand in light of value system his tribe imposes upon him, with all the gods and animal-spirits they worship? The Aboriginee would never understand Cogito ergo sum, nor Dawkins's rhetoric; not because he is stupid, but because his value system doesn't allow it. Dawkins would have to convert the Aboriginee—replacing his whole system of values—and re-insert him into Aboriginal culture to truly do anything "good."
Do you see what's wrong here? This is the Christianization (read: enculturalization) of the Native Americans, of African American slaves, and the general brain-washing of anyone who has replaced one value system for another, gaining with it all the grime and slime of the preacher's racism, pretentions, and petty fears all over again. We become walking voids—hollow shells of our former selves, lacking a sense of identity aside from this: "I am, innately, racially, and rationally, wrong—even evil." Have we learned nothing from these last 500 years of intolerance?
Maybe I'm being too harsh. Perhaps Dawkins won't colonize the world and enculturate Indian indentured servants with the indelible biases that comes with being a white, middle-aged male who lives in England. Perhaps he would instead choose the white, middle-aged male James Dobson, living in the United States, to convert—or Hank Hannenngraff, to make the process even more interesting (does Hank still have his acronyms to fight against Dawkins's sarcasm?). My point is not that Dawkins is an evil person for believing in rationalism—I'd hardly label him evil for being intolerant, though I would call him very dangerous and a great un-help in the project to heal modern humanity's deep, deep wounds from ignorance coupled with arrogance. I do not fear rationalism, nor naturalism, nor supernaturalism (as he calls it). Rather, I fear the intolerance of any single one against the other. On this point, Dawkins is closely right, but still (and dangerously) misguided: it is not religion that starts wars. It is the intolerance of one religion towards another. He's merely echoing Bush in the greatest blunder of foreign policy: "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." Let's follow this logic: if you're not with us, you are a terrorist. Since you are, I'll go and terrorize you, since that is justice, no? Now everyone's evil by the other's view, thinking each one's self is right!
It is far too easy with this kind of idealogy to, in the name of being natural(istical)y human, to commit terrible inhumanities.
I think atheists are valuable. I think they bring something very valid and important to the table—Hemant Mehta is a prime example—without bashing others like they themselves have been so bashed. They're more Christian-like even than the Christians. But to continue to bash others, however tempting, will do no good. Dawkins will probably hate me for this (if he doesn't already), but I do not consider him like he probably considers himself: in a vaccuum of objectivity, lacking spirituality of any sort. From my view, there is no such thing as a human without religion, without spirituality—everyone believes something, everyone has a faith; even if that's a faithlessness in faith entirely. Call it trite, but I think it's impossible to not have an opinion about God—we all relate to something higher than ourselves, even if that's an abstract process like empiricism. And if the human might worship itself as God, then we have crossed the line into full warfare against the self. But Dawkins, and any New Atheist, is no better than their flawed, half-drawn picture of the so-called "rational" world, and so is any spiritualist, myself included. The only thing I can truly espouse, at least at this point in my life, is a tolerance to question, to wonder, and to accept what one can make sense out of through any process whatsoever—but the inhuman action now, in this half of the century at least, is the judgement of one's own conclusions over another's.
So perhaps, too, I have condemned myself for judging Dawkins and his friends. I've certainly given them a hard time, and Dawkins personally, too. I respect the man and his work, but I do not appreciate his restlessness (and relentlessness) when it comes to my continuing journey in trying to understand God and what God is. If he must ask, I think he has a God to, and it's empiricism—not even Copernicus nor Galileo, nor perhaps even Darwin himself, would admit to that. I must continue to explore, continue to ask, and continue to read. It's part of who I am. If he wants to come knocking on my door like a Jehovah's Witness, preaching the "reality" of rationalism, the refutation of free meaning-play, and the risk of future hellfires due to supernatural beliefs, I'll simply tell him that God is dead, and so is his. Thanks for the literature, but don't be surprised if your fundamentalism will be just as bad as any other, and that history will not remember you kindly for your intolerance of tolerance.