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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 24th, 2006 at 5:41 PM and filed under Articles, Religion. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.

One Response to “Los Angeles Times: 10 myths — and 10 truths — about atheism”

1. Ian Alterman said:

   As usual, Harris finds ways of deflecting any criticism of atheism whatsoever, despite facts and history to the contrary.

   For example, if you read #2, he makes valiant efforts to deflect the crimes of committed atheists (Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot) by ascribing those to “political, racial and nationalistic dogma.” Yet this is smoke and mirrors. Atheists – no matter what other name you call them, or under what other guise you ascribe it – are responsible for FAR more cruelty, violence, war and murder than believers. The most LIBERAL estimate of those murdered in all of the Crusades, Inquisitions, witch burnings, pogroms and other “religious” instances is 25,000,000 to 50,000,000 – in all of known history. Yet the four atheists mentioned by Harris were responsible for over 100,000,000 murders between them – in the space of only 60 years. Harris talks about “intellectual honesty,” but fails to apply it in this instance. As an aside, he also doesn’t posit whether these atheists – Stalin et al – would have done what they did had they been believers. The question is rhetorical: they would never have engaged in their murderous behavior – not because religion has not (and still does) contributed to violence and war, but because many, if not most, of the murders caused by those atheists were specifically against believers.

   Harris also shows intellectual dishonesty in his response to #6. True, atheists might not be “arrogant” vis-a-vis science. But they – especially Harris, Dawkins, Dennett et al – are even more intolerant, dismissive and disdainful of believers than believers are of atheists.

   Finally, Harris continues to show intellectual dishonesty – to say nothing of an almost complete ignorance of history – in his response to #9. He ignores, for example, the fact that every major social movement of the past 150 years – the abolitionist movement (including the underground railroad), the child labor movement, the suffrage movement and the civil rights movement, among others – were founded and supported by believers LONG before others joined in. He also ignores the fact that faith-based organizations such as the Salvation Army and the Red Cross have, from their foundings, been at the forefront of providing emergency and disaster relief globally – regardless of gender, race, religion, etc.

   And contrary to Harris’ contention, these movements, and the work of the SA and RC, were not ALL products of some sense of “reward or punishment” by God if they were not undertaken. They were undertaken because they were RIGHT. Yet Harris cannot point to a SINGLE movement or initiative of atheists that resulted in any significant social change or global assistance. Indeed, atheists as a whole (i.e., as a demographic group) have lagged SERIOUSLY in “helping the poor,” whether “out of concern for their suffering” or any other reason.

   I have no truck with atheists; like believers, some are good and some are bad. It is as individual as fingerprints. But Harris would have us believe that ALL believers are bad, simply to varying degrees.

   I am sick and tired of Harris’ lying, conniving and intellectual dishonesty in the debate on faith and reason. He is an anti-faith/religion zealot whose approach and tactics are not simply arrogant in the extreme, but make no attempt to find common ground, instead seeking only to be broad-brush, inflammatory and dismissive. He calls fundamentalists to task for taking Scripture out of context to support narrow-minded views, yet he cherry-picks the Qur’an to support his (incorrect) contention that it is a book of violence, mindless obedience, etc. He decries believers who have less than nice things to say about him, yet he has said he would like to see the complete elimination of religion and those who believe. He claims that a world without faith/religion would be a virtual paradise, yet cannot explain away Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and others, and all of the historic (and current) cruelty, violence, war and suffering that has nothing to do with faith/religion.

   Harris is becoming a joke, the Ann Coulter of atheism. Until he comes down from his condescending, extremist throne and learns to engage rather than alienate and dismiss, the only people who will continue to support him are those, like him, who lump every single believer – no matter who they are as individuals, no matter how they live their lives or interact with their fellow humans – into a big pot labeled, “Ignorant, unreasoning, irrational, intolerant, stupid people.”

   Peace.

   Posted on 25-Dec-06 at 3:41 pm | Permalink