The mask of atheism

[fpb]

My experience is that the Pope's decision to form an Anglican grouping - not yet a Rite, but the difference is slight - has unleashed a vicious avalanche of anti-Catholic hatred such as I had not seen in quite a while. Catholic blogs are suddenly awash not only with Protestant and Anglican, but, more to the point, with atheist and Christian-hating

Comments

[marielapin]

I don't know, Dawkins' article was pretty good, but Paula Kirby's is a close runner-up.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/paula_kirby/2009/10/business_as_usual_for_vatican_enterprises_inc_1.html

[fpb]

I am not so interested in collecting specimens - apart that I have seen enough trolls in Catholic blogs (and in my own), Dawkins really is enough to prove my point. Besides, I don't read Newsweek.

[marielapin]

But you read the Washington Post?

[fpb]

I despise it considerably less, but I really came across it in Damian Thompson's blog.

[inverarity]

Atheists don't hate God -- it makes no sense to hate something you don't believe in. That's not to say some atheists aren't hateful towards believers. But it's worth noting that Dawkins is a divisive figure even within the atheist community -- some atheists are all for being scornful and belligerent towards religion, others consider it counterproductive.

However, I think your analysis of Dawkins as being purely anti-Catholic is wrong. Of course in principle, the Church of England and the Catholic Church are equally misguided, from an atheist point of view, but the CoE is rather passive and almost secularized. Atheists in the U.S. are also more likely to become vitriolic about the RCC or Southern Baptists, who are much more active politically, than about Episcopalians or Methodists, who don't make such a habit of declaring atheists to be amoral deviants.

[fpb]

Atheists don't hate God -- it makes no sense to hate something you don't believe in.
You of all people expect people to be logical? And to be logical, of all things, about what they deny? Next you'll be telling me that Laura Hollis has made a careful and discriminating investigation of the Frankfurt School. It would have been better if you had said: "Some atheists" or "most atheists" or even "most atheists I know." Most atheism is culture-specific; something that was denomstrated to me long ago, when a Greek friend of my sister's managed to inform me in two phrases that he was an atheist, but that we Catholics were heretics because of the filioque. Mr.Dawkins is a particularly rancid and ranting product of an upper-class Oxford education - and having been to and loved Oxford myself, I would never insult the place; in fact, the reason why I am so glad of the formation of an Anglican rite is that I want to see the dignity and civility of the Anglican culture preserved. But there always was a poisonous, terrified, Titus Oatesish

[inverarity]

"Most atheists, and anyone who's actually an atheist," if you prefer

[fpb]

To separate the institution from God is a mistake, both in terms of Catholic self-understanding and in terms of psychology. The same attitude of resentment against absolute authority, authority rooted in the nature of things - what one might call an Oedipal complex raised to the Nth power - will lead a man both to hate the Catholic Church - for presenting itself as the vehicle of something that is true - and the notion of God HImself. Of course I am not making this point about all atheists; but I think that in people like Pullman and Dawkins, the cosmic Oedipal complex is not just perceptible but evident. And perhaps having one's spiritual home among the medieval chapels and Gothic spires of one of Europe's great ancient Catholic institutions hasn't made it any less grating. (That is not to ask a personal question, but have you ever been to Oxford?)

[affablestranger]

Most atheists I know don't just not believe in any god or gods. They actively seem to have something against the notion of people believing in anything other than, well, nothing. They are actively anti-theist, most specifically anti-Christian. As you pointed out, they generally tend to leave Jews, Hindus, and others alone, singling out Christians almost exclusively.

[mindstalk]

Most atheists you know are presumably in Christian-majority countries, especially the US. They have Christian relatives, and their lives are affect by Christian politicians. Naturally they react to that. If Jews and Hindus were affecting American law and education, they'd react to that more. But Jews and Hindus are tiny minorities and most Western atheists don't know much about either.

[notebuyer]

As someone who had been a member of the Episcopal Church for a long time, who finally had to go elsewhere or face the miseducation of my own kid, I was intrigued by the Pope's decision, and will follow closely how it is implemented, if it is, in my city, with a view to serious investigation. I like the Anglican liturgy enormously. I just had trouble with it as words spoken by those who disagreed with, or simply ignored, their meanings. But I noticed the flood of condemnation that the decision got, and noted that it came from people I think are worthwhile enemies, so therefore it must be worth investigating.

You have a key point in that anti-Catholic hatred is much more intense than hatred of Christianity generally -- to the point we see the various "crystal dragon Jesus" parodies in writers like Phillip Pullman. Which, in conjunction with the point noted above, makes me take it more seriously.

Everyone has a purpose. Richard Dawkins' purpose is "to serve as a bad example."

[fpb]

I was thinking of Pullman when I mentioned the bad Oxford anti-Catholic strand to inverarity68 above. I also said that he is an answer to the prayer: "Lord, make Thine enemies ridiculous." Having said that, I do have a certain proprietary feeling towards Oxford; even now that I lost my last links with the place, I still regard it as my intellectual home as much as any other place, my Alma Mater in a very different way from any other place. And frankly, I grudge her to both Pullman and Dawkins. You may call it an intramural rivalry: I have as much physical connection to the town as they do, and hate the thought that those beautiful streets and parks and buildings should be represented in the world by that gruesome twosome.

[fellmama]

I assume you read my atheist rant from a few weeks ago. Inverarity's right that most atheist vitriol in the US isn't directed at the RC, but that's just a function of culture and location. I've long been of the belief that most atheists aren't actual atheists but rather firmly anti-Christian.

[mindstalk]

Most atheists are actual atheists. As far as hostility to religions goes, atheists surrounded by Christians -- or raised in and escaped from Christianity -- will tend to react to Christianity. Change the milieu, change the reactions.

[fpb]

How do you become an atheist when born in a Buddhist country - Buddhism being an atheistic religion?

[inverarity]

Well, technically that's true -- I've known a few self-identified "Buddhist atheists."

But Buddhism has many forms, as I'm sure you're aware, and some include veritable pantheons of saints and deities. (Technically, of course, Buddhism doesn't have either saints or deities, but in some traditions there are figures who are for all practical purposes the same thing.)