The New Atheists have just changed God’s name
Posted by evanescent on 31 August, 2011
Tim Sandefur over at his blog has posted a total demolition of a Sam Harris blog post entitled “How rich is too rich?” It’s called “Sam Harris, anti-reason“, and here’s the link.
Sandefur brilliantly illustrates how Harris, like Hitchens, Dawkins, and other Neo-Atheists, who are nearly always Left-wing Liberals, have simply taken all the unspoken and mystical assumptions of religion, but replaced service to “God” with service to “others”; the “others” being, well, anyone but ourselves. Service to society, the public good, those “in need”, those without what we have. They have taken the self-sacrificial preachings of Christ and simply blotted out the nasty “god” parts. They have regurgitated the mysticism and ephemeral bilge of religion, all in the name of rationality, atheism, science, and all that good “free-thinking” stuff.
Even more worrying is the total economic ignorance Harris shows, so we shouldn’t wonder that his followers across the blogosphere, all the internet atheists, demonstrate this level of ineptitude and misunderstanding of economics. And not just economics, politics. And not just politics, but ethics.
As Sandefur himself points out, Harris and the Neo Atheists are superbly adept at pointing out all the logical fallacies and loopholes in the arguments of the religious, yet Harris can’t even define his own simple terms. He contradicts himself. His premises are unspoken, unjustified, or simply wrong.
It’s very rarely I criticise religion on my blog anymore. In fact, I haven’t written anything anti-religious in years. Why? Because I really don’t see the religious (with the exception of Islam and the fundamentalist Right-Wing American Christians) as the primary threat to my well-being. It’s the socialists, the collectivists, the Left, which the Neo-Atheist “rational” crowd flock to, which is a far greater problem. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say I don’t see the religious as more or less of a threat than the New Age Atheists, it’s that I lump them all together; I see them as just different types of the same problem.
Whatever your political persuasion, you should really read the article.
Like this:
This entry was posted on 31 August, 2011 at 11:10 am and is filed under Altruism, Atheism, Capitalism, Economics, Ethics, Government, Humanism, Individualism, Morality, Philosophy, Politics, Socialism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
M.Stern said
It’s very rarely I criticise religion on my blog anymore. In fact, I haven’t written anything anti-religious in years. Why? Because I really don’t see the religious (with the exception of Islam and the fundamentalist Right-Wing American Christians) as the primary threat to my well-being. It’s the socialists, the collectivists, the Left, which the Neo-Atheist “rational” crowd flock to, which is a far greater problem. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say I don’t see the religious as more or less of a threat than the New Age Atheists, it’s that I lump them all together; I see them as just different types of the same problem.
Excellent!!
I have been making this point for years. But so many Objectivists can’t seem to get over their “Christian bogeyman”. Yes, Christianity and religion are irrational and dangerous. But the threat from today’s secular Leftists, like Harris and Dennet and Dawkins all of whom are extreme Leftists, is far more significant than the threat from Christian Conservatives (and you overstate the danger from America’s Christian evangelicals many of whom are very Leftist in their economics).
IMO, Christian Conservatives tend to be good and decent people. But almost without exception, the new-atheist Leftists that I have met had terrible personalities. They were usually rotten human beings. This I suspect is because they rejected the possibility of moral absolutes along with the god concept.
Objectivists need to realize that their greatest immediate danger is the secular Left. That is an EVIL movement if ever there was one. Harris is a real venomous bastard. I could care less if he is an atheist. He is an enemy of liberty.
nemaga said
Right-Wing capitalist much? Chill out…
nemaga said
Oh and: http://www.newsinenglish.no/2010/11/08/norway-still-the-best-place-to-live/
Damn those socialists, they are so evuuuullllll….
Ron Brown said
M. Stern: Wow…. Just..Wow….It’s ironic that you use the word “extreme” to refer to certain liberals when your post was full of extremity and hyperbole.
evanescent said
Well, I don’t see that “extreme” in itself is an insult, it depends what one is extreme about. I’m an extremist when it comes to individual rights. M. Stern points out that far from being left-centre or centre-right, as if those terms really hold much meaning anymore, the New Atheists are extreme Leftists. Sounds like a fair and important description to me.
I also don’t think the Leftist threat can be overstated: socialism in all its forms has a 100% track record of curtailing civil liberties, ruining economies, increasing state power, and sacrificing the individuals who are the most productive. And that’s just a soft general summary. The fact that *some* semi-socialist countries haven’t collapsed (yet) but still have an exhorbitant and ever increasing cost of living (the UK and Norway for example) is hardly a resounding success for the Left.
nemaga said
You really like to look with 1 eye closed right? Which economies were hit the least by the latest economic crisis and which suffered the most? I see China growing, Norway and Sweden weren’t hit that hard at all compared to the US.
“socialism in all its forms has a 100% track record of curtailing civil liberties”, check Norway and Sweden, and there are plenty more (Greece, France etc.).
I don’t see 17% of the population (or more?) with no health insurance in most European countries, unlike the US, I guess you don’t count that towards your “cost of living” calculations.
The problem you’re having is equating socialism to dictatorship, which for zillion obvious reasons, have nothing in common.
Ron Brown said
Nemaga: Thank you for saving me some time with your response.
As for “the Atheists are extreme Leftists”, that is an exageration. This is a big problem, in my opinion, with some people on the Right – and many of the more vocal, visible people on the Right. They seem to think that even moderate leftism
is EXTREME! If a person who strongly advocates for universal healthcare, accessible education, gay rights, abortion rights,
separation of church and state, legalizing marijuana, reigning in many aspects of the Patriot Act, and a modest social
assistance program is an extreme lefting, oversight and regulation over industries that produce potentially dangerous externalities
(e.g., polution in the case of energy industries; financial and market destabilization in the case of major banks),
what do we call a full-blown communist? What, for example, would you call Sunsara Taylor, a proud communist atheist? Going further, what would you call a leftist atheist dictator? This is similar to the over-use of the word “Nazi”. It has dilluted its meaning, almost beyond recognition. When people call others, for example, “grammar nazis”, they are white-washing the important fact that nazis didn’t just nit-pick over the habits
of Jews – THEY KILLED THEM!
I agree that the atheist/secularist movement does appear to have more left-leaning people than right, probably substantially more. However, I think it’s an exageration to say that it is a movement of EXTREME leftists. I’m all for calling things as they are, but lets at least try to use our lange conscientiously.
(Apologies for any strange word spacing that may appear in this post – I’m on a computer with an old browser program)
Ron Brown said
* Above, I meant to say “a communist atheist dictator”.
** Also, where I listed all the common positions of leftists today, I meant to say “if we call leftists with these views “extreme”, what do we call full-blown communists, etc.?”
Sergio said
Ron,
I believe what matters are the principles they advocate – not the degree to which they advocate them.
How does it matter if a “weak-leftist” wants to violate our rights “a little bit” (say, universal healthcare) and a “strong-leftist” attempting to force massive wealth redistribution and make everyone “equal”?
If you concede that individual rights are violable, even “just a little bit”, the precedent is there for future and more egregious violations. Rights are rights because they are inviolable, inalienable. Government is instituted to protect them – not to grant or restrict them.
Sergio said
Meant to conclude the above thought with:
Therefore, any individual, regardless of the degree to which they support rights violation – are tossed in the same bucket and labelled “extremely dangerous” – because the *principles* they advocate in general are antithetical to human life and a free society.
Ron Brown said
Sergio: Fair point. That said, I still think it would be better that we be more careful with our language.
Not only does it confuse things, but it makes it harder for people of differing opinions to have conversations without
offending each other and making each other think that they other person is being unreasonable, hyperbolic, etc.
However, after posting my above comment I began to wonder, hmmm, could a conservative say the same thing about a liberal? That is,
are there positions that many conservatives hold that many liberals may view as “extreme right wing positions” that many conservatives
would think are moderate right wing views, and could cite people far to the right of them – much as I cited real communists. Now, at this point I’m incilned to think that liberals probably have firmer ground to stand on in terms claiming that they are being called “extreme” when they are not
than conservatives can say the same. Evidence of this is that many of the positions that liberals hold are no longer “left wing” positions in a demographic sense. For example, majorities of Americans favour(ed) the public option, SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, legalizing pot, abortion rights, most if not all gay rights issues, etc.
However, this brings up the issue of distinguishing between philosophical left-ism/right-ism and current day policy popularity.
I’m motiviated to do a blog post on just this issue in the next few days. I’ll post a link when I do and will invite the views of people here.
One of the main goals of my blog is to compare and show the sensibilities of progressivism and libertarianism. I myself am progressive in some ways and libertarian in some ways; overall, I consider myself to be a progressive with respect and sympathy for libertarianism, but ultimately a progressive. I think it’s really important for people on both sides of the political fense to better understand peopel on the other side and the specifics of their worldviews. Otherwise, itss super easy for people on each side to view the others only in terms of their own worldview, which can lead to thinking that people on the other side are evil or stupid, which is usually untrue.
Sergio said
I admire your ambition and your goal of promoting open minded discussion. Though, I feel compelled to point out that both the mainstream “conservatives” and the “liberals” (box standard left & right) deserve to be categorized as “extremely dangerous” – per my earlier comment.
They represent different sides of the same coin. Both assert that individual rights can be violated. They only differ in “how” those rights are to be violated – or the degree to which they ought to be violated. Neither support a principled position that is consistent with individual rights and liberty.
I personally find the term “progressivism” to be a gross misnomer meant to disarm its opponents through an implicit appeal to emotion. Progressivism – as I understand it – seeks to promote contemporary liberal ideals, centralized around egalitarianism; emphasizing wealth distribution to achieve its noble goals. Intentions are irrelevant if the means by which such intentions are to be implemented violate an individual’s right to their life, by violating their right to their property.
Further, “conservativism” is a particularly vague and therefore meaningless term that could refer to whatever its advocates want it to mean. Conservative demagogues appeal to quaint – though misinformed – ideas of what “used to be” – with no consideration for whether or not those feelings are rooted in sound principles or not.
If I may make a suggestion: instead of encouraging discourse through changing the language we use, so as not to “offend” anyone’s closely held beliefs, I would encourage people to shrug off “package ideals” and shirk the notion that you’re either “all in, or all out” in terms of what it means to hold a particular principle. Moreover, foster individuals to think critically, with a principle in mind, about every facet that comprises their ideals so as to identify bad ideas no matter which side of the anti-life, left/right false dichotomy proposes them.
Mikee said
[quote]The problem you’re having is equating socialism to dictatorship, which for zillion obvious reasons, have nothing in common.[/quote]
It doesn’t have to be a dictatorship to be wrong
Atheists are Untraditionally Religious – and No, Atheism is not the/a Religion « Death By Trolley said
[...] The New Atheists have just changed God’s name, libertarian atheist Evanescent criticizes left-leaning atheists like Sam Harris for treating [...]
evanescent said
A commenter over at One for One’s latest blog made a remark relating to me and the above article. Amongst other things he said:
Here is my reply to him, which I wanted to repost here as what I said to him could apply to others: