Unfortunately, there seems to be an unwritten agreement between many religions that they do not criticise each other. I think religious moderates share more common cause with atheists like me than they do more extreme believers.

I take it from the “unfortunately” that Baginni thinks that religious believers should criticise each other. But whatever lead Baginni to think they don’t? The fact is that the critical interaction between religious traditions has a long (and “robust”!) history and that this history continues to the present day. The very reason that (for instance) Anglicans have not rejoined the Roman Catholic church is precisely because Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism have been prepared to stand up for their respective positions and critique the other. Were there no criticisms then reunification would have been a foregone conclusion.

One could go on and on citing examples of instances where religious traditions have engaged in critique of one anothers beliefs and practices till the cows come home. Indeed, as one of the fundamental points made by atheists is that religious belief is divisive rather than unifying factor in society, I take it that identifying inter-religious disagreements is something that an atheist such as Baginni should not find problematic. So what lies behind Baginni’s “unwritten agreement” remark?

Personally, I think the issue for atheists is not the amount of inter-religious disagreement, but its nature. For atheists, those critiques which religious traditions make of one another are not regarded as “true” critiques for the simple reason that they don’t deal with the sorts of questions atheists themselves see as central. So when Anglicans and Roman Catholics critique each other over their respective understandings of the place of women in ministry, the average atheist sees this as mere sophistry irrelevant to the “real” issues which are common to both Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism.

What many atheists want to see, I suspect, is a kind of “mutual elimination” in which Anglicans provide profound reasons for not being Roman Catholic, and Roman Catholics provide profound reasons for not being Anglican, and by the time each religion has shown why the other is “wrong” then atheism wins without having to do any work. And I’d suggest that what atheists dislike about inter-religious dialogue is precisely the fact that religions tend to agree on precisely those sorts of issues which atheists find objectionable.

In short, I think the atheist objection to inter-religious critique is simply that the critique is different from the sort of critique that atheists think important. In some respects this is a pity as I do think atheists make some very valid critiques of religion, and I think religious believers ought to heed those criticisms. Consequently, I have some sympathy with Baginni’s remark about the potential for agreement between atheists and moderate believers, but I also think Baginni needs to accept the fact that there are, and I think always should be, disagreements between atheists and moderate believers also. But that said, I think that Baginni’s talk of an “unwritten agreement” between (many) religions is fanciful in the extreme.

***************

The above is a slightly edited version of a post from my own blog – see here for the original.

Regards,
Murray Hogg

As a former Catholic priest-become-atheist psychologist (retired), and one who knows Paul Kurtz very well and the other more strident writers fairly well from both lectures and writings, I have serious difficulties digging through Olvisi’s posts. At the same time I heartily agree with Ophelia Benson’s post: “I would say ‘this interest in strident atheism’ is all right as a short-term thing, as a necessary wake-up call. It’s not entirely good if it goes on indefinitely, but I tend to think that nothing less will do by way of an attention-grabbing reminder that theism is neither mandatory nor universal.”

If you want a less strident or more tolerant statement of the pragmatic atheist’s position for a pluralistic society, try that little book, Imagine No Superstition. I offer no extense praise for its healing power here; you can read enough of that, including a note from Kurtz, on the back cover of the little paperback. Enjoy.

“I think they see it’s futile to attempt organization through promotion of hate and self-congratulation.”

So the key issue here is what “it” is in your sentence. Who or what is promoting hate? Do you mean Kurtz? Other people? Or just random idiot atheists on various web forums?

If it’s the latter, then you could accuse practically any group of promoting hate by choosing the worst posts on a particular forum.

As for Dennett, whether or not he is incoherent and irrational is a side issue, so I won’t comment on that further.

I think it is natural for any human group to hold up certain leaders as heroes and admire them. Don’t you think it’s silly to call Dawkins a new St. Sagan? I don’t think any atheists worship these guys. We don’t have little statues of them on our dashboards, or hanging around our necks. I’ve seen plenty of atheists criticize Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and the rest.

I am not saying you are completely wrong. Everyone is flawed, including people we hold up to admiration. As I originally said, I think you are just going a bit overboard.

Do you really think Dawkin’s book is no better than a high schooler’s essay? I would be curious to read the piece that incited the “Kurtz blog goon” to lie about it. Do you have links? Who was the goon?

I don’t know what you’ve read by Dennett or Dawkins but what of it do you find that isn’t an attack on religious believers?

I didn’t focus on the emotions of the two, only on the intent, which it is impossible to miss in Dawkins, and the clear effect, in Dennett. You misidentify both what I asked you to do and the nature of it. If you had read both and had found passages that would be supportive of religious believers instead of the message that they were superstitious, violent, hypocritical, … you know the entire Dawkinsite act, you could easily refute the tenor of the question.

My mentioning of Dennett, after all, only a professor of philosophy, who was entirely incoherent and irrational in the book in question on the subject of “memes” (which I believe he might be the last person of any stature to take seriously, and if you want me to go into why I don’t take Susan Blackmore seriously I’d be glad to), it had nothing to do with hate but to your assertion that he and his idol, Dawkins, are “promoting reason and critical thought”. I also think that the infamous history of Dennett’s resonses to book reviews with equal incoherence and in full attack mode would give the lie to his promotion of “critical thought”.

I first ran into atheists who will hear no criticism of atheist heroes when I made a mild jab at Penn Jillette and in response to a long, rambling, incoherent, vulgar, threatening e-mail, then wrote a long analysis of his and CSICOPs type of “skepticism”. Dawkins, who now holds the position St. Carl Sagan once held in the pantheon of CSICOP stars was mentioned (my criticism of the would-get-a-high school student a failing grade level of research in The God Delusion was in one tiny footnote). The piece never mentioned the word “atheist” once but that didn’t stop one of Kurtz blog goons from lying about it being an attack on atheists. It is certainly a feature of the atheist fad that criticism of its celebrities, even on the basis of their allegedly scientific work will not be tolerated. Which doesn’t bother me much, it just adds to the evidence.

Are you asking me to prove a negative now? I think since you are the one making the claim of “hate” by people like Dennett and Dawkins you need to provide the evidence. I haven’t seen any evidence of hate in their public writings.

If you have a link, put it up. I don’t see how Dennett being possibly mistaken about memes has anything to do with promoting hate.

I’ll certainly take a look at the link to the stuff about Kurtz, but I see it is a massive amount of text that will take some time. If you have anything short and sweet that would be helpful.

I don’t think these atheist “heroes” are immune to criticism. Look how atheists jumped all over Sam Harris because of his sympathies to eastern mysticism. Since most atheist really do live up to the cliche of a herd of cats, I don’t see any evidence of cults of hate worshiping their own atheist saints.

I’d like to see a coalition of the moderate standing up against extremism of all kinds.

Wouldn’t that make them moderate extremists?

uh no……are you an extremist when you stand up against extremists?

I’d like to see a coalition of the moderate standing up against extremism of all kinds.

Wouldn’t that make them moderate extremists?

If you read the link mentioned at 8:27AM to a piece by another former CSICOP, you might be surprised. The problem wasn’t the thing being challenged, it was the scientific competence and execution of it and the entirely dishonest cover up of the disaster they were warned would happen from almost the beginning. Imagine if Kurtz and his friends discovered a reputable parapsychologist doing that? Though, even the absence of any evidence of dishonesty never stopped them from making the charge against other people. I didn’t mention Randi, though I could have.

From what I can see, the more people know about the real history of CSICOP and Kurtz, the more shockingly bad it is.

I don’t know what you’ve read by Dennett or Dawkins but what of it do you find that isn’t an attack on religious believers? Since the vast majority of Americans, indeed human beings, are religious, why would you think that would make those who aren’t informed about evolution want to be? Have you followed Dennett’s exchanges with Gould (a CSICOP, by the way), Lewontin, Orr? Reason isn’t generally in evidence. Read Orr’s review of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and then the exchange of responses between Dennett and him, they are on the web. Notice the list of ways Orr gives in which Dennett contradicts himself on how “memes” are like genes. It’s a stunning display of self contradiction on a very basic point, probably his most important in the book.

And as to critical thought, isn’t that what I’m asking people do to these atheist heroes? How come they’re immune? It might lead someone to think that you don’t have any faith in their ability to withstand examination.