Atheism Is Not Great

I'm not joining the chorus of bloggers reviewing Christopher Hitchens's God Is Not Great; as far as I'm concerned, Douglas Wilson and Mark D. Roberts have covered it thoroughly, and besides, I haven't read the book. The fact that it became another atheistic best-seller is worthy of note: the Dawkins Gang of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris has grown to a Gang of Four.

The topic of atheism counts, as the count-ers show us. George Barna released a poll just a couple days ago on atheists, agnostics, and Christians. He found that

"most atheists and agnostics (56%) agree with the idea that radical Christianity is just as threatening in America as is radical Islam. At the same time, two-thirds of Christians (63%) who have an active faith perceive that the nation is becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity. ('Active faith' was defined as simply having gone to church, read the Bible and prayed during the week preceding the survey.)"

If Christianity seems that threatening, it's no wonder so many atheistic books are being published. The comparison to radical Islam is rather bewildering. though. Other than a very, very tiny fringe slice of "Christianity," the only aggression from Christians on America has been expressing our opinions and voting. Fears of a Christian "theocracy" ignore the fact that Christians were the originators of religious freedom in the world, and that our methods have been thoroughly constitutional and democratic. You wouldn't say the same about Islam. And we scary believers, according to the survey results, have some nasty habits, like volunteering, voting, giving money to charitable causes, helping the homeless...

"One of the most significant differences between active-faith and no-faith Americans is the cultural disengagement and sense of independence exhibited by atheists and agnostics in many areas of life. They are less likely than active-faith Americans to be registered to vote (78% versus 89%), to volunteer to help a non-church-related non-profit (20% versus 30%), to describe themselves as 'active in the community' (41% versus 68%), and to personally help or serve a homeless or poor person (41% versus 61%). They are also more likely to be registered to vote as an independent or with a non-mainstream political party.

One of the outcomes of this profile - and one of the least favorable points of comparison for atheist and agnostic adults - is the paltry amount of money they donate to charitable causes. The typical no-faith American donated just $200 in 2006, which is more than seven times less than the amount contributed by the prototypical active-faith adult ($1500). Even when church-based giving is subtracted from the equation, active-faith adults donated twice as many dollars last year as did atheists and agnostics. In fact, while just 7% of active-faith adults failed to contribute any personal funds in 2006, that compares with 22% among the no-faith adults."

Some non-believers object to Christians' evangelizing ways. The Gang of Four certainly demonstrate that it works both ways, however, sometimes to a most intolerant extent. Barna found that believers and atheists are about equal in their proselytizing:

"about one-fifth of both active-faith and no-faith adults said they often try to persuade other people to change their views."

The Gang of Four will stay in the public eye, speaking and giving interviews and selling books, and I suspect in a short time my little historical allusion will have to be scrapped as their numbers grow. Meanwhile Hitches, like Dawkins, is taking fire even from atheists. Karl Reitz's "Hitchens Is Not Great: An Atheist's Defense of Religion" was posted at TCS Daily earlier this week (a "thank you" goes to Stand to Reason for the link). Reitz takes issue with the belief that religions can be set aside, or that they have been in any meaningful way:

"[S]ecular religions must be taken very seriously, and their implications understood, before we preach the benefits of godless society.

"The obvious examples of secularized religions are communism, socialism, and fascism, each of which generally involves worshipping government by slightly different rituals or for slightly different reasons. As these convictions faded, faith in the welfare state, and especially environmental protection, has risen to take their place for reasons government should be worshipped. Environmentalist devotees claim that we will experience ~~the apocalypse~~ disasters, for which some people are rebuilding Noah's Ark. These disasters can be prevented if we take the advice of ~~prophets~~ people who understand, like Al Gore. Of course, if we ~~sin~~ pollute a little too much, well, we can always buy ~~indulgences~~ carbon offsets."

Reitz has missed two major secular religions: scientism and New Age philosophy (we could argue over how secular the latter is; it matters little in the end). But his point is well taken nevertheless, as is his conclusion:

"For the same reasons that I don't want religion taught to my [theoretical future] children in public schools, I don't want Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to be a requirement for graduation. If the First Amendment prohibits the teaching of religion in public schools, shouldn't it prohibit showing that movie? After all, what's the difference between that movie and one that presented a traditional religion in the same way?

"Even if the secular authors' ire is well-justified, we are never going to live in a world in which the vast majority of people don't have faith in something, whether that something is God or Government. As an atheist I feel much less threatened by someone who is willing to put off perfection by relegating it to another place than I do by someone who thinks they can create it here and now. In other words, I think that the chance that a religion will 'poison everything' is indirectly proportional to the length of time the proponents of the religion think it will take to perfect this world. Therefore, nothing scares me more than the demagogue who promises to immediately do just that. Without traditional religion, I think we would have a lot of demagogues in this mold."

One final note before I close. Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias has said, "if you can ever make any major religion sound absolutely ludicrous, chances are you don't understand it." These systems don't grow up and develop guided just by simpletons, and it's wrong to make them seem idiotic--even if they contain major misunderstandings. The same is true of atheism, which is in its own way, as Reitz shows us, another major religion. Atheism is not great: I wrote that title for this post in answer to the title Hitchens gave his book. I would not want to diminish or belittle the thought within atheism, though, and I hope I haven't done that on this blog even when I've disagreed. There are many, many very intelligent atheists. I think they are very much in error, but I wouldn't want to make the mistake the Gang of Four has made in regard to religious adherents, trying to make them seem less than they are: thoughtful, questioning, intelligent fellow human beings seeking an answer.

Posted: Wed - June 13, 2007 at 02:35 PM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

Atheism Is Not Great

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson