How Ideas poison everything
Here's a small point I have been thinking about lately.
Sometimes the "new" atheists (C. Hitchens, Dawkins et al) are criticized because they fail to distinguish between violent fanatics and mainstream religious people. Their responses often go along the lines of: "moderates make the world safe for fundamentalists".
I think that is a pretty stupid answer. If you use that logic, then any idea, no matter how tame, is implicated. Any normal idea, then, is guilty of "making the world safe for" extreme, violent extensions of the same kind of idea.
"I think democracy is good."
"Ah, you asshole, you must support the war in Iraq! After all, it is aimed at bringing democracy, right?"
"No, I think that it was a misguided war. I wish it had never begun. But I still think democracy is good."
"See, it's people like you who let that war happen! You've got blood on your hands."
"I think that scientific inquiry is good."
"YOU, my friend, are guilty for the wicked excesses and perversions of science, like eugenics. If there weren't moderate scientists like you, those evil things would never have existed!"
And why are they themselves impervious to the same logic? They, after all, think religion is bad, mad, sad, etc. So are they not "making the world safe for" totalitarian-style violent repression of religion?
The whole argument is stupid. I've always thought that it would be brilliant if someone wrote a satire on Hitchens' "God is not Great: how religion poisons everything" entitled "how ideas poison everything."
The whole thing seems to be born from the liberal obsession with objectivity and neutrality. Notice how any strong viewpoint is condemned in this argument. Notice also how a main goal of atheist arguments in general seems to be placing atheism in the "neutral" category (I believe this was Antony Flew's main argument- "the presumption of atheism"). So instead of having two differing ideologies, you have one objective position and one ideology. It's really a shame that this objective position doesn't exist.
Sometimes the "new" atheists (C. Hitchens, Dawkins et al) are criticized because they fail to distinguish between violent fanatics and mainstream religious people. Their responses often go along the lines of: "moderates make the world safe for fundamentalists".
I think that is a pretty stupid answer. If you use that logic, then any idea, no matter how tame, is implicated. Any normal idea, then, is guilty of "making the world safe for" extreme, violent extensions of the same kind of idea.
"I think democracy is good."
"Ah, you asshole, you must support the war in Iraq! After all, it is aimed at bringing democracy, right?"
"No, I think that it was a misguided war. I wish it had never begun. But I still think democracy is good."
"See, it's people like you who let that war happen! You've got blood on your hands."
"I think that scientific inquiry is good."
"YOU, my friend, are guilty for the wicked excesses and perversions of science, like eugenics. If there weren't moderate scientists like you, those evil things would never have existed!"
And why are they themselves impervious to the same logic? They, after all, think religion is bad, mad, sad, etc. So are they not "making the world safe for" totalitarian-style violent repression of religion?
The whole argument is stupid. I've always thought that it would be brilliant if someone wrote a satire on Hitchens' "God is not Great: how religion poisons everything" entitled "how ideas poison everything."
The whole thing seems to be born from the liberal obsession with objectivity and neutrality. Notice how any strong viewpoint is condemned in this argument. Notice also how a main goal of atheist arguments in general seems to be placing atheism in the "neutral" category (I believe this was Antony Flew's main argument- "the presumption of atheism"). So instead of having two differing ideologies, you have one objective position and one ideology. It's really a shame that this objective position doesn't exist.