While I’m impressed to see Sam Harris’ editorial on atheism in the Los Angles Times on Christmas Day, his reasoning and tone are the precise reason why I never describe myself as an atheist. For example, in tackling the first myth about atheism (Atheists believe that life is meaningless), Harris says that atheists find other people’s fear of meaninglessness to be in itself meaningless. He should really speak for himself. I might have no fear of meaninglessness, but I understand dread all too well. Existential dread can manifest itself as nihilism or in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and it’s consequences for human society are extremely important. The first law of human interaction should be to attempt to recognize the validity of others’ feelings and to make an effort at empathy. Being dismissive of other people’s anxieties is hardly an enlightened and humanist position.
Harris makes a worse mistake in tackling his second myth (Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history). Here, he makes the logical error of ‘begging the question’, and he does it in an arrogant and dismissive manner.
Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.
That’s not logic, that’s just argumentative. I shouldn’t even need to explain why this is an invalid argument, but many people agree that the racial and nationalistic (and economic) dogmas that empowered Hitler and Stalin replaced religious dogmas. And (this is the key) they see that as the problem. For many believers, when people become ‘too reasonable’ they are all too willing to be a cog in a machine that puts millions to death. How has Harris refuted this contention with his assertion that all dogmas are the same and all are exactly antithetical to reason?
Harris refutes the third myth (Atheism is dogmatic) thus:
Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so prescient of humanity’s needs that they could only have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. An atheist is simply a person who has considered this claim, read the books and found the claim to be ridiculous.
First of all, Atheism is dogmatic. Atheists affirmatively do not believe in God. They have no proof for this belief. If they did, they would quickly convince nearly all of mankind.
Harris is wrong to think he is describing atheists when he says “One doesn’t have to take anything on faith, or be otherwise dogmatic, to reject unjustified religious beliefs.” Atheists do not believe in god-based (theistic religions). ‘Not-belief’ is an article of faith for them.
Harris’ description applies not to atheists, but to agnostics (people that do not claim to know whether or not there is a god or gods). Agnostics have no problem rejecting ‘unjustified religious beliefs’, but they do not replace one kind of certainty for another.
I’m glad the Los Angeles Times was willing to give an atheist some op-ed space on Christmas. As Harris pointed out, atheists are severely discriminated against in this country.
SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term “atheism” has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States that being an atheist is now a perfect impediment to a career in politics (in a way that being black, Muslim or homosexual is not). According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 37% of Americans would vote for an otherwise qualified atheist for president.
I just wish Harris was a better representative for humanists and that he didn’t display some of the worst traits of the arrogant atheist. In many ways, coming to atheism after a childhood of religion is similar to forced sobriety after decades of alcohol abuse. Dry drunks and cocksure atheists share a lot in common. For example, a superficial undergrad’s infatuation with Nietzsche, or an irrepressible desire to tell people how dumb they are.
Wisdom lies in knowing that no one knows what the hell is going on in the universe. The Pope doesn’t know. Ayotollah Sistani doesn’t know. Einstein didn’t know. You don’t know. Once you learn that, you won’t feel like killing anyone anymore over what they believe. That is, you won’t feel like killing them if only they would stop killing someone else.
Jesus said to love your enemies. How many atheists are big enough to take that teaching to heart?