RE: No rational case for God = increasingly desperate attacks on atheists
July 10, 2014 at 9:14 am
(July 10, 2014 at 5:46 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: I'm reading this Gray article right now but I have to make note of this statement that I just came across: "The US is no more secular today than it was 150 years ago." That's absolutely laughable.
Okay, I don't have the patience to read the entire article at the moment but I get the gist of his argument: People that are passionate about their secular philosophies are mirror images of their religious counterparts. Yeah, but no, that's complete bullshit.
I'm sure it fits your beliefs to say that the idea the U.S. is 'no more secular today that it was 150 years ago' is laughable. There has been a significant rise in the number of Americans claiming to be practicing Christians and also Muslims (which has doubled) since 9/11 [source]. This is hardly surprising to any of us. Statistical information does seem to suggest that today more Americans think religion is loosing its influence than 50 years ago (statistical study) but it's worth noting this is only a study of perceptions. We could go on but suffice it to say, as it stands without knowing what criteria Gray is basing his opinion on I'd be reticent to contradict so readily. He was a Professor of European Though at the London School of Economics before retirement, he is no intellectual lightweight and I would be inclined to check his sources before laughing at him, he has a tendency to be right.
Notwithstanding, what he is saying is some atheists (the ones he calls 'evangelical atheists') are increasingly relying on scientific arguments to counter religion in general. On religion, he says, ' Repressing it is like repressing sex...', a curious statement at first glance but a look at recent studies strongly suggests that a propensity to believe in supernatural entities is hardwired into our brains, which would seem to suggest it served a need that was an advantage to us for a period of our evolution long enough for it to become permanent feature among our neural structures. The predisposition to believe is deeply embedded in our neural architecture. Saying religion is 'unscientific' and is therefore a bad idea is an irrelevant and, I would suggest, redundant argument. Proto-religion certainly played a part in our evolution, the evidence is still in our brains.
One of the examples Gray uses (and I can't stress enough that this is just an example and not the entire basis for his argument) is Dawkins' use of the concept of memes to explain the appeal of religion. As Gray has appropriately stated, this is nonsense. There is nothing wrong with Dawkins' Scientific work, it is without question exemplary, but Dawkins as a philosopher is another matter, and he is a very poor philosopher. He relies on levering unscientific ideas such as his 'memetic theory of religion', which has no scientific basis, on his well-earned reputation as a evolutionary geneticist. It's cheap and unbecoming, not to mention misleading (in his use of the word 'theory' to describe what is really just a work of poor philosophical reasoning).
I'm only scratching the surface here, but I hope you can begin to see why I reject your position on this article.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
