Carl Sagan - a "good atheist"?
In response to my last post a number of people suggested Carl Sagan as a "good atheist". And while Carl was a really great guy, I'm not entirely satisfied by that answer.
Religious people offer their opinion that God exists and that religious texts are true. Atheists (like Carl Sagan) offering their opinion that God and religious texts are created by men and explaining how "reasons that the organized religions do not inspire me with confidence". Things get more heated in "round two", when religious apologists explain why atheists have it wrong, and atheist counter-apologists explain why those excuses don't jibe with the evidence. That's when "good atheists" like Carl Sagan seem to duck out of arguments with apologists, invitations for public debate, or essays countering specific people, specific religions, or specific arguments. Meanwhile "bad atheists" have no such qualms, writing book after book of responses to their critics. Can anyone find an example of a "good atheist" who has been able to successfully enter "round two" without becoming a shrill dick? Or is attempting to counter the claims of apologists simply automatic fail?
Among atheists there are "accomodationists" who say there's no conflict between science and religion and "non-accomodationists" who say there is. My occasional drinking buddy and all around nice person Eugenie Scott is an accomodationist - she doesn't recognize a conflict between science and religion, she says, because many scientists are religious. The non-accomodationists - Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and myself - disagree. There are conflicts between history and holocaust denial even if some deniers are historians. There are conflicts between science and astrology even if some astronomers read horoscopes. There are conflicts between medicine and HIV denial even if some HIV deniers are doctors. Obviously conflicts exist - some people are just able to compartmentalize their conflicting beliefs. "Good atheists" like Carl Sagan try to downplay these conflicts. Sagan emphasized the compatibility of psychology and history with ideas of God. He went well out of his way to describe himself as agnostic, saying "An atheist has to know a lot more than I know", and charitably presented God as "the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe". But it's not just that the "bad atheists" are the ones who avoid accommodating. The atheists with the worst reputations are blamed for speaking the shrillest while highlighting the conflicts between religion and science or even itself. Did Carl Sagan avoid going there because he recognized that you couldn't speak of this conflict without becoming a bad atheist? Can anyone find an example of a non-accommodating "good atheist" able to point out these conflicts in a way that doesn't earn them a bad label? Or is pointing out the inconsistencies between religion and evidence simply automatic fail?
But even Carl Sagan did not escape criticism. He was, according to some, "arrogant" and "self-promoting" with "problems in interpersonal relationships" … "three wives and a string of frustrated ex-friends". He "was a pompous blithering idiot percieved [sic] as intelligent only by the liberally minded person who has no beleif [sic] in God." "Those who loved him most understand that he could seem pompous and arrogant." Sagan was a socialist jerk, even satanic, arrogant and dismissive of his fellow scientists. Carl Sagan's public image improved significantly when he died in December 1996. Carl is now the fond memory of an atheist rather than an atheist himself, which is how I think folks wearing rose-colored glasses can gloss over some of his more serious, arrogant criticisms of religion and the hell he caught from it. Try reading these quotes in Dawkins' or Hitchens' voice and tell me this guy isn't an arrogant, insulting prick.
In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." -Pale Blue Dot
The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can't all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It's a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I'm not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they're called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation. -Contact
religious people - most of them - really think this planet is an experiment. That's what their beliefs come down to. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesmen's wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can't say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that. Why can't the gods leave well enough alone? All this intervention speaks of incompetence. If God didn't want Lot's wife to look back, why didn't he make her obedient, so she'd do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn't made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would've listened to him more. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? -Contact
Religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough-mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration was needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry. -Broca's Brain
Religious people offer their opinion that God exists and that religious texts are true. Atheists (like Carl Sagan) offering their opinion that God and religious texts are created by men and explaining how "reasons that the organized religions do not inspire me with confidence". Things get more heated in "round two", when religious apologists explain why atheists have it wrong, and atheist counter-apologists explain why those excuses don't jibe with the evidence. That's when "good atheists" like Carl Sagan seem to duck out of arguments with apologists, invitations for public debate, or essays countering specific people, specific religions, or specific arguments. Meanwhile "bad atheists" have no such qualms, writing book after book of responses to their critics. Can anyone find an example of a "good atheist" who has been able to successfully enter "round two" without becoming a shrill dick? Or is attempting to counter the claims of apologists simply automatic fail?
Among atheists there are "accomodationists" who say there's no conflict between science and religion and "non-accomodationists" who say there is. My occasional drinking buddy and all around nice person Eugenie Scott is an accomodationist - she doesn't recognize a conflict between science and religion, she says, because many scientists are religious. The non-accomodationists - Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and myself - disagree. There are conflicts between history and holocaust denial even if some deniers are historians. There are conflicts between science and astrology even if some astronomers read horoscopes. There are conflicts between medicine and HIV denial even if some HIV deniers are doctors. Obviously conflicts exist - some people are just able to compartmentalize their conflicting beliefs. "Good atheists" like Carl Sagan try to downplay these conflicts. Sagan emphasized the compatibility of psychology and history with ideas of God. He went well out of his way to describe himself as agnostic, saying "An atheist has to know a lot more than I know", and charitably presented God as "the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe". But it's not just that the "bad atheists" are the ones who avoid accommodating. The atheists with the worst reputations are blamed for speaking the shrillest while highlighting the conflicts between religion and science or even itself. Did Carl Sagan avoid going there because he recognized that you couldn't speak of this conflict without becoming a bad atheist? Can anyone find an example of a non-accommodating "good atheist" able to point out these conflicts in a way that doesn't earn them a bad label? Or is pointing out the inconsistencies between religion and evidence simply automatic fail?
But even Carl Sagan did not escape criticism. He was, according to some, "arrogant" and "self-promoting" with "problems in interpersonal relationships" … "three wives and a string of frustrated ex-friends". He "was a pompous blithering idiot percieved [sic] as intelligent only by the liberally minded person who has no beleif [sic] in God." "Those who loved him most understand that he could seem pompous and arrogant." Sagan was a socialist jerk, even satanic, arrogant and dismissive of his fellow scientists. Carl Sagan's public image improved significantly when he died in December 1996. Carl is now the fond memory of an atheist rather than an atheist himself, which is how I think folks wearing rose-colored glasses can gloss over some of his more serious, arrogant criticisms of religion and the hell he caught from it. Try reading these quotes in Dawkins' or Hitchens' voice and tell me this guy isn't an arrogant, insulting prick.
In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." -Pale Blue Dot
The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can't all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It's a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I'm not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they're called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation. -Contact
religious people - most of them - really think this planet is an experiment. That's what their beliefs come down to. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesmen's wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can't say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that. Why can't the gods leave well enough alone? All this intervention speaks of incompetence. If God didn't want Lot's wife to look back, why didn't he make her obedient, so she'd do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn't made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would've listened to him more. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? -Contact
Religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough-mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration was needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry. -Broca's Brain