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Rational Atheism
« on: 2007-09-03 03:14:05 » |
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Skeptic
Rational Atheism
An open letter to Messrs. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens
BY MICHAEL SHERMER
Since the turn of the millennium, a new militancy has arisen among
religious skeptics in response to three threats to science and freedom:
(1) attacks against evolution education and stem cell research; (2)
breaks in the barrier separating church and state leading to political
preferences for some faiths over others; and (3) fundamentalist
terrorism here and abroad. Among many metrics available to track this
skeptical movement is the ascension of four books to the august heights
of the New York Times best-seller list—Sam Harris’s Letter to a
Christian Nation (Knopf, 2006), Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell
(Viking, 2006), Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great (Hachette Book
Group, 2007) and Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin,
2006)—that together, in Dawkins’s always poignant prose, “raise
consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic
aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is
happy, balanced, moral and intellectually fulfilled.” Amen, brother.
Whenever religious beliefs conflict with scientific facts or violate
principles of political liberty, we must respond with appropriate
aplomb. Nevertheless, we should be cautious about irrational exuber-
ance. I suggest that we raise our consciousness one tier higher for the
following reasons.
1. Anti-something movements by themselves will
fail. Atheists cannot simply define themselves by what they do not
believe. As Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises warned his
anti-Communist colleagues in the 1950s: “An anti-something movement
displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to
succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program they
attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not
simply reject an evil, however bad it may be.”
2. Positive assertions are necessary. Champion science and reason, as
Charles Darwin suggested:
“It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments
against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public;
& freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of
men’s minds which follow[s] from the advance of science. It has,
therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have
confined myself to science.”
3. Rational is as rational does. If it is our goal to raise people’s
consciousness to the wonders of science and
the power of reason, then we must apply science and reason to our own
actions. It is irrational to take a hostile or condescending attitude
toward religion because by doing so we virtually guarantee that
religious people will respond in kind. As Carl Sagan cautioned in “The
Burden of Skepticism,” a 1987 lecture, “You can get into a habit of
thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who
don’t see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully
against it.”
4. The golden rule is symmetrical. In the words of the
greatest consciousness raiser of the 20th century, Martin Luther King,
Jr., in his epic “I Have a Dream” speech: “In the process of gaining our
rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not
seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of
bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high
plane of dignity and discipline.” If atheists do not want theists to
prejudge them in a negative light, then they must not do unto theists
the same.
5. Promote freedom of belief and disbelief. A higher moral
principle that encompasses both science and religion is the freedom to
think, believe and act as we choose, so long as our thoughts, beliefs
and actions do not infringe on the equal freedom of others. As long as
religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be
respectful and tolerant because our freedom to disbelieve is
inextricably bound to the freedom of others to believe.
As King, in addition, noted: “The marvelous new militancy which has
engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all
white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their
presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up
with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is
inextricably bound to our freedom.”
Rational atheism values the truths of science and the power of reason,
but the principle of freedom stands above both science and religion.
Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic (www.skeptic.com). His latest
book is Why Darwin Matters (Henry Holt, 2006).
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