Warning: Dawkins leads to agnosticism

Comments (61)

1. Yeah, that’s how I feel about Dawkins, too. But, that’s not how I take Kant. Human socialism leads to Dawkins- and PZMyers-level evangelicals: individuals with enough charisma and presence that they form a following of religious atheists. This is directly relational to the number of people in the room, and is representative of what I think of as Mob Intellect: The IQ (and ability to act indepedently) of a mob is only as great as its lowest number (or weakest willed individual). You even see this phenomenon in traffic, which itself behaves like fluid dynamics. How relational is that from a single human experience to an objective principle of the physical world?Yes, we observe fluid dynamics, and we can agree as a group instead of question as an individual, but there is a great gap between these, and sociologically, one abandons some level of higher reason and intellect to function in a group. I observe this everyday at my workplace, and strive to retain individuality regardless. Makes sense why I’m agnostic, and don’t even worry about the question of the existence of any given deity.

   1. I challenge your claim that “The IQ of a mob is only as great as its lowest number.” Rather, I would say that the behavior of a large group of people is only related very weakly to the intelligence of its members at all.

      E.g. the economy is often similar to a mob, and yet it probably outperforms most of all its members. A mere two people playing prisoner’s dilemma will act in a clearly sub-optimal way.

      1. If I were to place an idiot (and by this I mean effective IQ is generally irrelevant, but the actions would correspond to either willful ignorance or outright stupidity) in the beginning of a line awaiting service for, say, wanting a single identical item at a grocery mart, that person will cause repercussions down the line that affect and alter the behavior of others. The ability to out-think “mobthink” is effective and generally NOT employed. The person back in line will respond to his neighbors, and so on, until each one of that is affected. By stupid.

         You can observe this behavior simply by going to your local supermarket, and even test this by having someone pretend to be especially obnoxious or “stupid” in the line, and observe the behavior of everyone else in that line. Do this on a hot day, where you can assure yourself of irrationality down the line. See how many people keep calm, or do not respond to their neighbors.

         A study sometime back observed that laughter itself is contagious, and this is another aspect of “mobthink,” and the same is true in musical events, where in a group the behavior of you and your neighbors spreads, like say to a joke you wouldn’t find normally funny, or to a particularly dull song your neighbors find pleasing or exciting or especially headbanger-inducing.

         The relative behavior of a group in a system is relegated to its least effective member, rather than its most, even when dealing with an instructor in a classroom, who must coordinate the class to its less-productive student. Or even the behavior of “mob violence,” where instead of questioning an event, excited individuals will indulge in behavior that is detrimental to their own safety or that of another simply because they observe it from a third party. In a church, it’s the communal “Amen!” or the copied behavior of individuals in the pews or on the mats who respond as their neighbors do, without actually feeling the event, or psychosomatically inducing it on themselves, and it’s the latter that occurs at Tea Party rallies, and rallies for Dawkin’s speeches, or blogs run by particular Minnesotan professors of biology. It’s even more interesting to listen to such people comment about churchgoers or teapartiers performing these “yes-man” behaviors, while at the same time performing it themselves when their icon of choice makes a statement about it. The irony.

         “Mobthink” and the collective reduction of human independence of thought are human behaviors, just as they are animal behaviors.

2. I don’t understand how a distaste for the behavior of people in certain specific groups can lead a person to change how he evaluates truth claims.

   I held an agnostic view for a long time, but eventually began to feel that perpetually withholding judgment was increasingly difficult and increasingly dishonest for me, and so came down firmly on the side of atheism. And while there are aspects of Dawkin’s fans I don’t like either (despite the fact that I hold a high option of Dawkins himself), I can’t see how their behaviour could possibly influence my own approach to things known and unknown.

   A person should not let a mob mentality sway him either for or against a proposition. It seems that Beckett himself is doing precisely what he dislikes about Dawkins’ fans, but in reverse.

   1. That’s a good point. I wouldn’t change my epistemic commitments on the basis of the consequences of the beliefs among those who believe it. But I might wonder about the sociological aspects of the community in which those beliefs are being used to mark in-groups from out-groups.

      1. Dr. Wilkins wrote:

         That’s a good point. I wouldn’t change my epistemic commitments on the basis of the consequences of the beliefs among those who believe it. But I might wonder about the sociological aspects of the community in which those beliefs are being used to mark in-groups from out-groups.

         I think it’s a rather interesting theory, that goes some distance, in my mind at least, to showing that religion often has precious little to do with any particular dogmatic statements, and more to do with just plain simple tribalism, in this case even with an authority figure. Maybe it’s not too far off to call Dawkins and his dog-and-pony show as the Church of Atheism.

      2. What are all these references to ‘tribalism’as if we are somehow above such things? If it’s instinctive for religious groups and atheists then it’s the same for agnostics. What is the little group of agnostics here but a nascent tribe?

         And it’s no good trying the Marxist defense of not wanting to belong any tribe that will have you. That just makes you a member of the tribe of people who don’t belong to other tribes

         1. I think that to be a “tribe” one needs a central organising principle. Now agnostics may have one, but since they are formed by the absence of an idea ? that knowledge of some particular god is possible ? and even worse this varies according to the gods concerned, I doubt there is one.

            Of course, this is also true of many atheists ? they are simply those who deny a belief in a particular god (and so an agnostic may also be an atheist WRT a certain god). So it does not follow that atheism simpliciter has a central organising principle either, and so it need not be a tribalism. However, the particular [social] form of atheism being mocked by the author above is a tribalism; there are shared ideas, values and targets of attack. Not to mention a set of shared figures of authority and charisma.

      3. I would argue that, in this context, a “tribe” is any group of people that self-identify as belonging to that group for whatever reason. That commitment has two functions in that it both identifies the individual as a member of the chosen group and not a member of competing groups. It can also become a major component of the individual’s sense of identity. How many people’s sense of personal identity and even worth is founded on their job or chosen career?

         As for a central organizing principle, for agnostics it could be a commitment to Enlightenment ideals of liberal democracy, tolerance and open-mindedness, of a refusal to assert as known that which is not and, possibly, cannot be known and opposition to such claims by others, skepticism about any form of absolutism and defending the position that “I don’t know”, far from being a sign of weakness, is an honest and principled stance.

         1. Ian, I agree that we might use our position as an organising principle, but I simply do not think we yet do, because there are no shared cultural or political or for that matter philosophical values that agnostics use or hold. That doesn’t preclude it from happening in the future, just as it didn’t preclude atheism from being employed that way (incidentally not all atheists are tribal, and not all those that are would self-identify with this movement either. I know a few from olden times…).

            I find the dynamics of political sociology interesting. Despite there being no generally coherent political ideology or philosophy among, say, the right, it is almost impossible to hold non-progressive views and not find yourself allying with the neo-cons, or whichever faction is fashionably in control. Likewise it is hard to not be religious without identifying with the socially dominant faction of the non-religious. It is hard not to become an atheist, just from social pressure. So to be an agnostic in the face of that pressure is a principled stand, yes.

      4. Which of course is exactly what you do in your attacks on “New Atheists”. Hypocrite.

      5. Which attacks on the New Atheists? Where have I attacked them, their right or appropriateness to speak out, make their case and so forth? I have disagreed, but I thought rational people were able to do that. Gosh, maybe you are making my case for me…

   2. Jim, that’s exactly what I was going to say although you said it better than I did.

   3. I don’t understand how a distaste for the behavior of people in certain specific groups can lead a person to change how he evaluates truth claims.

      I can easily understand this. You hold certain opinions, certain ideals, and then you see what happens when a lot of people who hold those ideals get together and act together. It should cause you to question those ideals if you don’t like what you see. Of course, we should always be questioning our views, our opinions. Evidence that a lot of people holding those ideals together behave in a manner you find distasteful should be a strong prod that you need to question those ideals.

      Your conclusion may be that your ideals are fine, and that some people do the wrong thing with them, or that the ideals themselves are flawed. But causing the questioning makes perfect sense.

      1. Rob, I do understand what you mean.

         I first noticed the fanboy aspects of Dawkins’ audience while watching an amateur videotape of one of his talks. Dawkins made a passing reference to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which got a chuckle from the audience. But one person sitting next to the camera and mic immediately cried out with an “Arrrrr!” And this person continued to “Arrrrr!” at intervals during the rest of the talk. As I listened to this annoying Pavlovian, I said to myself, “This guy is completely missing the point.”

         Beckett recoils from this kind of groupthink, as do I. But I don’t see how that makes agnosticism more reasonable or atheism less reasonable.

         In this case, a group of atheists appear to be adopting a series of tangential ideas that Beckett dislikes. These additional ideas don’t undermine the basis for atheism; Beckett simply doesn’t want to be associated with them. But rather than pointing out that he’s not an anti-theist, he declares himself an agnostic.

         His position is political, not epistemological.

   4. Is he really suggesting that his philosophy changed? I didn’t get that impression; it seemed more like he was simply uncomfortable with the contemporary brand that atheism – ahem, Atheism – has become (replete with its logos, self-help seminars, preset talking points, and adoring followers &c).

      Personally, I didn’t “convert”; to agnosticism; a better assessment would be to say that what I understood to be atheism simply moved out from underneath me, demanding additional ideological conditions that I’m not currently comfortable assuming. I sense that this is what this fellow is talking about.

   5. I don’t understand how a distaste for the behavior of people in certain specific groups can lead a person to change how he evaluates truth claims.

      I’d argue that this fellow was probably already leaning in one direction before he went to the Church of St. Dawkins.

      At any rate, I find Dawkins, Hitchens, the whole lot of them to be a rather ridiculous bunch. I can appreciate (to the limited degree any layman can) Dawkins influence of evolutionary theory, but when it comes to his latest career as Pope of the Atheists, I could care less.

      Maybe to some respect I’m beginning to wonder if I’m a border-line atheist myself, reaching ever so slightly towards agnosticism. I truly do not see the necessity of God, can’t imagine that even if such a being existed that it would make much difference, but I have no interest in walking up and down the street with a sandwich board taunting religious people.

      Most of the atheists I’ve encountered seem to be of the same view. I’m wondering if Dawkins little revivalist camp is picking up a lot of ex-religious types who may have lost their faith, but not their fervor, and thus seem to have a world view, or at least a level of expressing it, that is on the level of an eight year old arguing about whether the Predator could beat Darth Vader or not.

   6. Jim Royal writes:

      I held an agnostic view for a long time, but eventually began to feel that perpetually withholding judgment was increasingly difficult and increasingly dishonest for me, and so came down firmly on the side of atheism.

      I do not think it is easy to characterize some agnosticism as “withholding judgment,” or if it is, there would be things tied into “agnosticism” that are not always concordant as there are things tied into atheism that are not always concordant, with the majority.

      If agnosticism is ONLY choosing not to chose, then, withholding judgment does represent a problem, although it is directly opposed to the principle of theistic/atheistic supplication of the belief in the [non]existence of a particular deity. But my understanding holds that agnosticism is not JUST choosing not to chose, but also contains some things generally held by atheists themselves: The absolutist principle of the existence of God cannot be resolved, therefore it does no good to attempt to resolve it. This view can even be held by theists of any stripe, and it’s held by more than a few theistic followers who simply argue for a Pascalian view of deity.

      Agnosticism is also a rejection of the absolutist philosophy of some theism and atheism, and in this case, Dawkins (and others) argue from an absolutist direction: God does not exist. You see it in the New Atheists’ writings at least that the mere belief in a deity represents a fundamental flaw in the human mind, regardless of any benefits that may arise from such a belief (or they discard them as meaningless or unimportant relative to the point).

      In my choice to not believe, I also chose not to believe in atheistic mumbo jumbo, too: I do not hold that God cannot exist, and leave it at that: I do not try to constantly withhold judgment, but rather view such a judgment as unscientific. This is why I dislike the claims of the New Atheists: their very argumentation on God is simply NOT scientific, and they draw a broad argument from a narrow data point in order to validate what amounts to a belief … just like the theists that they argue about. It comes across as a religious argument, and that’s just way too ironic since Myers and Dawkins simply do not get it, or chose to ignore it, as it interferes with their preferred belief.

      1. Isn’t the problem with this critique is that we would then have to be ‘agnostic’ with regards to any supernatural belief, like belief in ghosts, belief in Santa, belief in the Easter Bunny? Can’t we just say we don’t believe in these things. Must we really be agnostic to it all?

      2. No. Yes. No. Again.

3. And I see no reason at all why our brain would have evolved for deeper understanding. It evolved for survival. Some things will always be beyond our ken.

   I don’t think the second sentence follows from the first sentence.

   The first sentence, however, is absolutely true. We already know that. Our brains evolved to deal with timescales of seconds to tens of years, spatial scales of millimeters to kilometers, and mass scales of grams to hundreds of kilograms. It also evolved to deal with a uniform gravitational field filled with a dissipative medium. As such, Aristotlean Physics is what’s “intuitive” to us. It takes some stretch and effort even to understand Newton’s Laws, although not that much. But Quantum Mechanics is really completely and totally bizarre to our brains… and, yet, on a fundamental level, that’s how the world works. At the most basic level, reality is the propagation of probabilities.

   The thing is, it’s not beyond our ken. We can train ourselves to use it and understand it, at least at some level. We’ve demonstrated that over the last century. Likewise with General Relativity. And, whatever is after that, however much harder and more bizarre, I have confidence that we’ll be able to figure it out, even though it’s very contrary to the natural way our brains have evolved to work.

   1. Oops — I meant to say I don’t think the third sentence follows from the first two.

      1. I don’t think so either, which is the point of our Milvian Bridge argument.

4. A good point if indeed it is the case.

   It does not seem clear to me from what is written that he underwent some form of “conversion” specificaly caused by the behaviour of an audience at a formal meeting.

   His comparison between new atheisim and religion does look like retrospective flag waving.

   So he may be engaged in the same form of behaviour that Dawkins his fans and any other number of people deploy when faced with such tribal issues as this one.

   Imagine a horde, swarm or mob that allows us to make an in-group distinction from the mass of the tribe and draw a vivid picture of such creatures.

   Its traditionaly how we do such things.

5. Of course, you guys do realize that if you reject the antisocial behavior of a group of atheists as a basis for criticising atheism, to be consistent you must also reject the antisocial behavior of various groups of the religious as a basis for criticizing religion 🙂 (And, yes, I know there are lots of other reasons to criticize religion. But the truth is that the real problem with religion in at least the USA is the antisocial behavior of its adherents.)

   1. Rob, that’s true to some extent but there’s a relevant distinction that makes the religious behavior somewhat relevant: Many religions claim that the belief systems make people into better, more moral people. If a belief system makes that claim and doesn’t do so, then that’s a strike against it.

   2. No, it only means we must reject the antisocial behavior of theists as a basis for criticizing theism. Criticizing religions or atheist movements for what their adherents do is completely reasonable.

6. I don’t think he changed his views I just think he changed the label he used to describe his views in order to distance himself from the hordes of NA.

7. I agree – I don’t think he changed his views on God, but he certainly got disillusioned with the belief-package that often accompanies the “New Atheism” label by noticing that it is indeed a package swallowed whole by all-too-many people. Here his newly-found “agnosticism” probably functions more as a label for “thoughtful nonbeliever” than as an indicator of one’s beliefs about God.

   I’ve found myself in the same situation, and have slowly grown to dislike most of organized New Atheism, mainly because I’ve seen that most people in any large enough group, whatever its religious affiliation, are likely to be stupid and not very thoughtful about many things. Now I can’t read RichardDawkins.net comment threads without feeling either sorry for the commenters or contemptuous of them, depending on my current temperament. But I think changing one’s label from atheist to agnostic isn’t helpful, as I think these labels ought to function as an indicator of a fairly narrow sets of beliefs, to keep language a bit more precise (i.e. agnosticism shouldn’t indicate one’s views on sociology of religion).

   1. Any belief that is at all common is going to have some stupid people who believe it and some people who adopted the belief for bad reasons. As the number of people subscribing to the belief increases the number of people in the poor-reasoning camp increases. And the same goes for movements. Those aren’t reasons to stop identifying simply because it has a lot of stupid people. Consider for example a hypothetical world that is 90% atheist, 5% agnostic and 5% theist. I’d hope that people didn’t stop identifying as atheists simply because there are lots of poorl y reasoning, uncivil people in the 90%.

      Now, if you could show that a given movement or belief has adherents who are more likely to be stupid than the general population, then there might be an argument.

8. So, my brain did not evolve to keep cats as pets, but to chase them since we may compete for the same food?

   1. “Humans exist to operate tin openers for cats”.

      1. Well, of course! Why else would we need opposable thumbs?

9. Rob, when you write:

   “…But Quantum Mechanics is really completely and totally bizarre to our brains… and, yet, on a fundamental level, that’s how the world works. At the most basic level, reality is the propagation of probabilities.”

   You are suggesting that we now have some conclusive knowledge about the nature of “external reality” (to borrow from Tegmark). However, I think it is more correct to accept that all of our theories, including general relativity and quantum mechanics or quantum field theory, are really simply our current best models of what we experience directly and indirectly. It is likely that even if we continue our investigations for millions of years we will never be able to claim that” we know at the most basic level” what reality is.

10. man invented time and space?

    really?

    did we also invent distance and volume?

    did we invent reality itself?

    please!

    all Dawkins is saying is that ideas outside or the natural world are not addressable by rational means, in a Popperian sense. believing in god is no different epistemologically than believing that giant purple elephants are orbiting the world. will we be agnostic in THAT regard as well?

    1. outside OF the natural world

11. all Dawkins is saying is that ideas outside or the natural world are not addressable by rational means, in a Popperian sense. believing in god is no different epistemologically than believing that giant purple elephants are orbiting the world. will we be agnostic in THAT regard as well?

    That may have been Dawkins’ message at one time. Now, it’s more about faith baiting. Dawkins seems to segueing from a distinguished career in biology and evolutionary theory into a sort of atheistic Rush Limbaugh.

    1. that sounds like an opinion to me

12. Man dislikes Fosters lager. Becomes teatotal. News at eleven

13. Dawkins says that he’s only 99% sure that there is no God. I suppose that Dawkins is an agnostic.:)

    1. 1% of him is, yes.

       1. Which 1% is it? Could it be surgically removed?

14. Thanks for linking the article, John. Very interesting.

    For some people, like Dawkins, science is about beauty and meaning and truth. I’m really uncomfortable with that. I don’t think science is about that at all.

    Science is a little bit more than a wonderful way of modelling and predicting, it’s a wonderful technical abstraction. I think science is a really wonderful technical abstraction.

    I think this is a really good point. This idea actually caused a rift between me and a friend, a recent convert to New Atheism. He was a Buddhist in college (weren’t we all? *sniffle*).

    He apparently didn’t like my criticism of those silly Symphony of Science videos (you know, auto-tuned Dawkins), which to me, are a bit over the hero worship line and largely represent this beauty/meaning/truth interpretation of science.

    1. For me, those videos are pretty silly not for the beauty/truth aspect, but the fact that they are poorly made and feature way too much of auto-tuned Sagan.

       1. That’s precisely why I dislike them, they’re not only hero worshipping tripe, they’re poorly made hero worshipping tripe. Besides, nothing beats auto-tuned Billie Mayes.

       2. I agree. The first one I saw (about colonizing Mars) was vaguely ok, but more for novelty value than anything else. There’s an essay by Eliezer Yudkowsky that neatly captures a lot that is wrong with this sort of thing:

          http://lesswrong.com/lw/m3/politics_and_awful_art/

15. This could be a future Templeton essay. But just a quick response to this statement:

    “For instance, the belief that there is something negative about the influence of religion, which I don’t necessarily think is true. It’s a very complex sociological question that would take a lot of research,”

    I don’t think we need to do the definitive study on religion to realize it has “some” negative influence. The Texas Church of Free Thought (lol) is a good example that people can get at least some of the positive influence without believing the woo.

16. I think a few fellow philosophers were at this talk. If so, they mentioned an incident that makes sense of Beckett’s comments. An audience member remarked to Dawkins that wasn’t it true religion did some good in the world? Dawkins momentarily agreed, yes, that sometimes was so. Then, the story goes, he quickly thought better of it, and waxed on how much bad religion did too. He concluded, employing somewhat of a base rate fallacy perchance: “And, of course, you see, most criminals are religious”! (I’m told), to crashing applause.
    Actually, this part of the talk much such a (negative) impression that it’s ALL they told me about seeing Dawkins. I a’course had no inclination to go!

    1. I saw him deliver a similar sermon at Phoenix a couple of years ago and I also thought it was like church, in this case a revivalist meeting. It was about then I got angry about it.

       1. I suspect your comment portrays the US culture more than it portrays Dawkins himself John. You will see a different atmosphere if you attend a Dawkins talk in the UK for example.

          1. I don’t see how the location matters: it’s Dawkins who sets the tone.

17. My comment is relates to what Joshua Zelinsky says. If the main criticism against Dawkins, Hitchens, PZ Mxyzptlk, etc. is that they defend that religions and the behaviors related to them are bad, so the commenters (and John) here that oppose them take the position that religion isn’t necesarily bad, how come they view Dawkins’s followers taking atttitudes usually related to religion as bad? Isn’t that contradictory? Is religion and associated behaviors bad or not? Or it depends on whether one sympathizes or not with the people involved in it?

18. John I think in places like the US at the moment, with atheist and secular movements on the rise. A lot of these people that go to one of Dawkins’ sermons have an axe to grind against religion. So it is like a revivalist movement in a way. I’m often shocked to hear what a lot of these young people have to go through in the US coming out as agnostic or atheist. Their gonna make loud noises for a while to come, socially and politically.

19. I dont have any objections to anyone making very loud noises at a social or political level.

    I do object very strongly to having subjects that Ive a lot of time and effort studying starting to look like a very bad joke as they are distorted by people (who I would note are not young ) with a political or social axe to grind.

    I don’t care how they present an argument, or who they are funded by. My only concern is what is said and how it applies to evidence.

    Manipulating or just making up history; coming up with an academic fantasy like the viral nature of the meme does not rate very highly in my book.

    Particularly when you are claiming youre work is not just based on scientific method but a defense and justification of the subject.

    All I see are big authority claims being made and very low academic standards at play when history and culture comes under the new atheist lens.

20. “He was a Buddhist in college (weren’t we all? *sniffle*).”

    Some of us still are.

    As someone with a philosophical background (but not a practicing one), I often remark that Dawkins is not a very sophisticated philosopher. Actual philosophers who argue against the existence of God have much solider arguments than his.

    But many people need heros to inspire them, and a lot of people seem to have adopted him as their hero. Groups of people who worship heros tend to look very much like religious groups, even if they call themselves atheist.

21. I found myself laughing late last night as I played a podcast from the debate John recently attended when I thought of this post.

    Is religion an adaptation born of conflict and social competition?

22. I really think you people (agnostics) lack self-awareness here. In any group of like-minded people or among those with a common goal, some will emerge as leaders because they are considered forceful advocates, or because they have access to large public forums, or because they are particularly active or courageous for the common cause. Some of this is talent, some of it drive, and some of it opportunity. Supporters will defend them and opponents will attack them because they are treated as representative of the cause itself or group as a whole. I suppose this is tribalism but it’s not inherently a negative, it’s just a function of large group dynamics and public communication. Obviously this applies to religious groups as it does to all others. That’s not a basis on which to deride atheism as a quasi-religion. Atheists like Dawkins are only evangelical in the bastardized sense of the word which is synonymous with outspoken or advocative.
    Moreover, there is nothing to see there that isn’t played out in a smaller scale among agnostics. John Wilkins writes a blog post on one of the topics he’s known for: agnosticism via half-assed criticism of non-agnostics. People chime in to tell him how right he is. Others chime in with criticism. This one time, I was sitting next to someone at a Dawkins talk who clapped way too long at a mediocre remark. It’s a cult! People on the internet are rude and dismissive of my no doubt unique opinion! Thank god we’re so smart and independent.

    Come off it.

    Contra Wilson above, there is a lot of social pressure to be an agnostic. It is just the flip side of especially nebulous many-paths religion and it’s no coincidence that the two groups regularly praise each other in contrast to there “true” enemies. It’s the default position for an inveterate fence-straddler, just as in politics the pox-on-both-houses independent non-voter is the comfortable rut of the lowest information self-satisfied petty bourgeoisie. NOT that that by itself makes you wrong, but don’t play the martyr.

    By all means, criticize Dawkins or PZ or whomever if you think they said something wrong. I personally thought The God Delusion was mediocre and Dawkins was best when supplying quotes from people wittier than himself. But the criticism aimed at him is so much further off base that I find myself constantly defending him, as I do here. A critique which showed how a given argument could be stronger and tighter would be interesting. Another hack-work hatchet job that misses the forest for the trees not so much.

    No doubt people will laugh at lame jokes, applaud oversimplified rhetoric and buy books from big names. That’s not religion, it’s society. Maybe someday an agnostic will say something interesting enough to garner national attention and then you can have some skin in the big game. My point is, “new” atheists aren’t really mad that believers evangelize, or agree with one another, or otherwise act like concerned people. The thrust of our criticism is that they are irrational. Likewise, I’m not complaining that agnostics in fact behave like a group, just that they irrationally think they are above it.

23. My apologies; I meant Wilkins, not Wilson above.

24. Great comment, Josh! I have said it here previously, that I believe the antagonism from some agnostics towards “new atheists” (what’s so new? Bertrand Russell was very vocal against religion… And, by the way, I don’t see anyone here critizicing him for sloppy philosophy…) has as a root cause snobbery.

    You see those criticized manifestations as well when you watch a good stand up comedian, or attend a rock concert or a rally for support of a political candidate or a local sports team. Are those religious behaviors? One would need to be crazy to think so. Perhaps those that criticize Dawkins and PZ’s followers would rather have people in a rock concert behave as if in a classical music concert.

25. Knockgoats-“Which of course is exactly what you do in your attacks on “New Atheists”. Hypocrite.”

    John S. Wilkins-“Which attacks on the New Atheists? Where have I attacked them, their right or appropriateness to speak out, make their case and so forth? I have disagreed, but I thought rational people were able to do that. Gosh, maybe you are making my case for me…”

    The problem with the crowd that Knockgoats self-identifies with is similar to the one that afflicts the neo-cons(or pretty much any political group now-a-days). In their world there simply isn’t such a thing as nuanced dissent and nuanced agreement is totally irrelevant to them. You are either with them or against them. (I really don’t want to waste time looking it up, so I must leave it in allegorical status, but GWB was supposed to have said, “I(or maybe We) don’t do nuance.”) I think the designation of the New Atheist crowd as ‘anti-theist’ is most apt. Yet I am an atheist and vehemently(violently if the time ever came to that) opposed to the fundy/literalist/theocratic types and will ‘anti-‘ them till the cows come home. But I can’t muster the energy needed to ‘hate’ religious people who pose no threat to liberty or science. The idea that they are dangerous simply because they exist is just fear-mongering of the same stripe as the right’s anti-Islamism. It just seems like there are better things to do in life. Still, can I have permission to self-identify with your little nest of militantly anti-militant agnostics?

    1. Self identify with whomever you see fit. That’s what all this is about. I don’t have admission criteria to my club other than thinking I am right on this one issue.

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