…telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”–George Orwell
That Orwell quote immediately went through my mind when I read this post by Hemant, about a quote from a Christian saying “Every Atheist I’ve ever known has been some sort of loser.” Hemant was annoyed, but my initial response was “Well, kinda yeah.” In a society as religion-soaked as ours, to be irreligious is to be socially awkward almost by definition. Failing to understand that religion is one of our society’s many bullshit games can be seen as a form of social cluelessness, as I argued in my post Well, this lack of a God is awkward. (Which, by the way, I think is my answer to Hemant’s question about your favorite blog post.)
As long as I’m on it, I should note that the initial post that set Hemant off has a nice and tidy example of a brand of stupidity I’ve seen before:
The admission I think we all have to make is that your average atheist has a better reason for being an Atheist than your average Christian has for being a Christian. You see, a lot of Atheists will tell me about how there’s no “objective evidence” for God’s existence and all these great figures about how much harm religion does to society. But frankly, I think when we get down to the fact, that’s all a bunch of bullshit. No one is objective when it comes to ultimate reality, and who could be? When you’re talking about the reality that permeates everything, and the fate of your immortal/mortal soul, who is going to be objective about that? Just read some books from amazon. It’s interesting how on both sides of the debate, Atheist and Theist, you see the books displayed as being objective and scientific, but when you read them it’s plainly obvious the author has a position. Everyone has a position. Ultimate Reality can’t be reduced to an objective critique (not that objective critiques exist anyways, but for sake of argument, Ultimate Reality especially can’t be reduced in that way.)
What’s idiotic about this is the equation of having a belief with being objective with appealing to reasons. I don’t know what “objectivity” means, but it certainly isn’t true that having a belief makes you, by definition, not dependent upon reasons.
Atheists are losers? Really? How about Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Einstein etc. etc.
… Richard Feynman, Steven Weinberg, Carl Sagan, …
I think “Everyone has a position” is a clue that Hemant uses the word “objective” to mean “neutral.”
On second thought, his admission is that atheists have better reason to be so, and then says objectivity doesn’t matter because we’re too wishful and subjective. That is the true bullshit.
Brad: The blockquote is from someone else’s post (“the initial post that set Hemant off” rather than “Hemant’s post.”)
…some sort of loser.
But that could include anyone, couldn’t it? It’s not claiming overall loserness–only one category. I, being less than six feet tall, might be a loser at basketball. That makes me some sort of loser, but it doesn’t really mean anything if I do well enough in other areas. One might say the same thing about any other group of people.
Of interest might be this:
http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2008/08/agriculture_and_the_rise_of_re.php
I do wonder if the philosophical angle is the best way to approach this. Certainly, it contributes, but the backward mode of thought of the fundies – they’re trying to make empirical evidence fit their assertions, not the assertions to the evidence – the philosophical angle describes the reasoning, but societal problems aren’t really solved by philosophy.