The article presented in Wired’s current issue gives an interesting summary account by Gary Wolf, on the movement known as “New Atheism” surrounding most notably Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett.
Even though my personal convictions lie parallel with many facets of “Atheism,” (more closely would probably be Agnosticism) I must say I respond with a growing disdain over many of the ideas Wolf brings to light.
Central to my disagreement, especially as Wolf has painted Dawkins, is the thread of intolerance for ideas contrary to his own – not merely disagreement, but intolerance. Dawkins (according to Wolf) advances the idea that it is not acceptable for those without religious belief to merely get on with life, as they see the religious endeavor mostly, if not altogether pointless. Instead, one should ceaselessly proselytize his or her beliefs with conversion as an end-goal, much as how the Christian canon mandates. According to Wolf, “evangelism is a moral imperative” for individuals like Dawkins.
I agree that the Dawkins as Wolf paints raises some valid points, especially as he discusses that children should be raised with a tone of instruction which encourages independence and free-thought—and not as property.
However, the “New Atheist” exhortation that the non-religious are morally inept without a tone of evangelism in their beliefs seems nothing more to me than an oxymoron stemming from a passion out of whack, or perhaps a desire to gain social momentum for an idea out of a fit of loneliness. In other words, to state that respectability of a system of beliefs is attained and justified only through militant means or with an “end-goal” in mind is absurd. I like to think instead that sensible discussion on civil grounds, that is, discussion “in and for itself” and not coercion – is well served, if not for any motivation other than to achieve a continuously greater understanding of that individual in particular, or the universe's possibilities in general. But belief through a forced "faith" can only disintegrate into nothingness unless reinforced through consistent manifest or otherwise tangible experiences.
I begin to think that Wolf may have exaggerated Dawkins’ views to a certain extent as he quotes Dawkins in a debate. In that debate, he says that,
“there's an infinite number of things that we can't disprove. You might say that because science can explain just about everything but not quite, it's wrong to say therefore we don't need God. It is also, I suppose, wrong to say we don't need the Flying Spaghetti Monster, unicorns, Thor, Wotan, Jupiter, or fairies at the bottom of the garden. There's an infinite number of things that some people at one time or another have believed in, and an infinite number of things that nobody has believed in. If there's not the slightest reason to believe in any of those things, why bother? The onus is on somebody who says, I want to believe in God, Flying Spaghetti Monster, fairies, or whatever it is. It is not up to us to disprove it."
My question to Wolf would be, “If the onus is on those with ‘bogus’ beliefs – then why has Wolf portrayed Dawkins with a penchant for establishing that his own onus exists on grounds that his own belief in Atheism is not also possibly bogus?”
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The fundamental issue, as I see it, is whether an individual mind is autonomous -- i.e., able and morally obligated to come to its own conclusions -- or whether the mind is something to be ordered about by a dogma or authority. Dawkins is making a mistake by treading down the authoritarian road because of a knee-jerk reaction to the negative consequences of religion. It seems that he has forgotten that secular authoritarianism is as evil and bloody as religious authoritarianism (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China, Cambodia, North Korea, etc.). The answer, as Ayn Rand said, is not to be anti-religion, but to be pro-reason, and show the superiority of the latter in life rather than attempting to manipulate the belief system of others by force or belligerence.
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