New Atheism and State Scientists

[Jeffrey Slater]

Hello All,

Sorry if this has been covered by another post (if so please point me in the right direction), but I was hoping to get the community's views on the New Atheist movement, being spearheaded by many state scientists and philosophers such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye and Lawrence Krauss.  

On the one hand, I love their work in regards to exposing the fallacy of religion.  Listening to speeches by Dawkins, Dennett, and the late great Christopher Hitchens are what ultimately broke the spell that religion had on my thinking processes.  

On the other hand, due to the nature of their work as professors for state schools (or journalists for the mass media, as was the case with Hitch), these people could not possibly hope to have a meaningful discussion about ethics, morality, or the nature of the state.  In fact, more often that not they are actually in favor of expanding the sphere of government control.

I feel like the line is being incorrectly drawn between 'libertarian christians' and 'statist atheists'.  Can I hope to find allies in the ranks of the New Atheists, or is it a waste of time to go to their events?

[masonman]

There tends to be a sort of "replacement" of the state with religion for many of these atheists. I think they are much more religiously devoted to the state than many other people, and considering that they have a large community of people supporting that religious devotion, they will not easily be convinced that they are going on faith.

[Jeffrey Slater]

I think I can agree with that sentiment.  However, I can't help but think that in the grand scheme of things, they are still working towards the good.  Even though they espouse statist solutions to some problems, they still advocate for reason and evidence as the one and only sound means to truth.  I think in order to someday achieve the goal of rational anarchy, a necessary step will be to minimize the power of the church, and that is something that the new atheists are working hard to achieve.  So, I wonder whether it is worth it to go and have some discourse with them, and see if they are open to our side of the argument.  Have you (or anyone else reading) had any experiences with this?

I personally have visited the atheist community of Austin here in my local town, an organization that also does a Sunday callin show.  The discussions never really veered towards politics or ethics (and I admit that I am not the most forceful personality in a large room), but the few times I went I got to meet some interesting people, including Darrel Ray, author of 'sex and god', who talked about the sexual habits of the bonobo apes (believe it or not, a very fascinating subject) and Sean Faircloth, a former congressman from Maine who gave an interesting lecture on an insiders view of how little separation there really is between church and state.

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

Only you can decide if it's a waste of time to attend atheist functions. I don't think it is.

 

My thinking on the subject is that they've already shed one irrational belief so they might well be more inclined to rational thought where the state is concerned. My experience on the subject, however, is quite the contrary. A lot of atheists and consequently, the most outspoken ones, come from highly religious backgrounds. A lot of them who weren't fundamentalists before becoming atheists were at least raised in fundamentalist households and that means that they were seriously abused. Most often physically but more importantly, mentally, because mental abuse is a by product of the physical.

 

The result of this abuse is a person who tends to cling to the state as a replacement for religion. In simple terms... they viewed their abusive parents as kind but strict and thus, god as kind and strict. And god is the scapegoat for parental abuse so once he get's the boot, something else has to take his place, lest they're forced to face the fact that their parents were evil.

 

But with all that said, they're still one irrational belief closer to rational thought, so I tend to spend more of my "proselytizing" time amongst atheists.

 

I've debated anarchism and peaceful parenting with a number of them on The Thinking Atheist forum and frankly, most of their arguments sound exactly like Christian arguments with government as the replacement for the word god. When I point that out I either get flamed or they concede and pull the agree to disagree card. In either case, I know they've begun to think and that's the most important thing we can do at this point.

[Jeffrey Slater]

I have always believed that, regardless of what the real definition is, people define 'love' as 'however their parents treated them'.  I mean, today's society has this meme that 'no matter what your parents love you.'  Like you are saying, when people come from abusive parent-child relationships, a lot of times they will grow up believing that the abuse is somehow loving- like 'well, they have my best interests at heart' or 'I'm a worthless sinner, and so I should be punished for my sins.'  It is not surprising that, if they never deal with that kind of parasitical thinking, it would be very easy for the state to step into the authoritarian role of that relationship, once god and parents are out of the picture.  

I wonder, do you have links to the conversations you had on the ThinkingAtheist forums?  I can remember listening to a few of his podcasts, and when he stays away from politics they are pretty good.  I'd be interested in seeing the kinds of arguments, or lack thereof, that they are putting forward.

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

I agree and frankly, most people never even suspect that there's a problem to be dealt with so statism just becomes the water they swim in after leaving the family... religion or none.

 

Here are a few threads:

http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/forum/Thread-Anarchism-or-Statism-A-Voluntarist-s-Perspective

http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/forum/Thread-A-debate-discussion-with-bbeljefe

 

Most of the debates I enter are tangential to the thread topic so it's a bit difficult to find them. Plus, I'm a bit of a prolific poster there so there's a lot to search. And yeah, Seth and most other priminent atheists are wonderful thinkers except where politics and familial relationships are concerned. It's not hard to understand though, given that they have only deprogrammed their thought processes with relationship to the church. And we all know those though processes infect every aspect of our lives.

[Jeffrey Slater]

I'm floored by the complete lack of support that you get on those threads.  It is not even as if the people there are posting trivial differences they have with your arguments, they all seem to disagree on a fundamental level.  I wonder if part of it has to do with a feeling that, since they have worked their way to atheism through science / logic, they now see themselves and everything they believe as being logical and well thought out.  I am starting to think that, in certain ways, the atheist movement might actually be less receptive to the message of freedom than some other groups, simply because they believe that their positions are well thought out.  Like, because all of the mass media intellectuals agree with them, there must be sound arguments for statism.

Whatever the case may be, I am not willing to give up that easily.  Still, I doubt we will see Stefan speaking at the American Atheists Convention any time soon.

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

No doubt that has something to do with it. Just like most who are religious, they think they have an answer so they stop looking. Sadly, most atheists do exactly that once they shed religion.

 

One thing that's particularly interesting is that a few people have PM'd me with questions and comments about anarchism and my position on say, the potential war with Iran. A few have commended my position, even in the user ratings area. But they can't seem to bring themselves to do so right on out there in public.... because just as with religion, ostricization can seriously affect one's standing in the community. I sincerely pity those who aren't happy where they're at but who can't seem to speak out against it.

 

As for Stef speaking at an atheist event, it could happen at some point in the future. So far I've gotten Against the Gods? into their resource library and when the occasion presents itself I reference a related podcast from Stef so at some point, the name will be familiar. I'm thinking that if he is accepted as an articulate atheist with logical refutations of religion, that will make some folks more comfortable with his other philosiphical works. Of course, there will always be those who accuse us anarchists of hating the poor and loving corporate America but then, those aren't the people I'm trying to reach.

 

I also found

today. The author doesn't appear to be anarchist but he uses a clip from one of Stef's videos as the intro to this one. If Stef keeps up his work and we continue to reach out to these communities with compassion and reason, the message will spread far and wide.

[Duderio]

goodbye

[Pepin]

I am rather encouraged by this movement as a means of promoting atheism and skepticism. A decrease in the number of children being threatened with eternal damnation and not being taught to have anti-empirical beliefs is quite good.