The New Atheism: A Clarification.

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I wrote a post last week that seemed (and was) hostile to the school of thought labelled as ‘New Atheist’ – more explicitly, the works of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens.

Specifically, I criticised these personalities for repeatedly lying about Hitler’s religious convictions – for claiming, as they do, that the Fuhrer was a believing Catholic, when his real views were closer to rational unbelief.

I don’t want to write the same article twice, so if you’re interested in my argument, please scroll down to ‘Hitler Was an Atheist’ in last week’s bunch. On this occasion, I’d like to clear up my position in regard to the ‘New Atheism; and atheism in general, lest my previous words have failed to communicate my true opinion.

I’ll start by restating that I am the son of a Church of England minister, and (as it goes for most vicar’s sons) the experience has often led me to an extreme and reactive rationalism, inspired by (among other figures) Nietzsche and Sartre, the traditional heroes of the thinking Western adolescent.

At the time of my enrolling in University, I was so convinced by atheism that I rarely thought about it. As far as I was concerned, the debate was dead, and all that remained to do was for the rising generation to destroy any legacy of Christian thought; to liberate the West from its dusty idols, arbitrary loyalties and primitive moral worldview.

Since then, I’ve not gone back on my view of the cosmos, the historicity of religious texts, or the facticity of evolution. But what I have done is read more about the human animal and the role that religion plays in sustaining him, in reminding him of things he might otherwise forget.

I remember at college coming up with what I considered to be a bold new scientific theory: the idea that there is an ‘optimal IQ range’, below which the human behaves in a destructive or abusive fashion to others, and above which the human being malfunctions, seeks to destroy himself or otherwise rebels against natural law. The ‘theory’ (if it can be so dignified) was drawn from the observation that high-IQ people tend to neglect the fundamental practices of nature, most notably the need to reproduce, to avoid suicidal thinking, and to maintain connections with the rhythms of their fellow man.

In retrospect this seems slightly daffy. There are clearly benefits to high intelligence and not just for the individual possessed by it. But that said, I still believe there is something vital in the wisdom of the less able, in their commitment to the essentials of life.

This very week it was reported that by 2070, the number of Muslims will overtake the number of Christians to make Islam the largest religion on Earth. This has to do with three synergetic factors. First, Muslims still believe in reproduction. Secondly, Europeans and Latin Americans no longer reproduce at the required pace and quantity. And thirdly, Europeans are becoming more disjointed and secularised, leading to a collapse of the only cultural coalition large enough to compete with the spread of Islam.

This has less to do with theology than with natural priorities. Religion, though it may on occasion go against science and progress, nevertheless tethers the human mind to very important primal truths. To sever the European from his traditions is to sever him from the destiny those traditions were laying out for him.

According to Richard Lynn, Japan is the most intelligent country on Earth, yet it is turning into a high-tech nursing home. Sweden is similarly dying. Norway is dying. Germany is dying. Italy is dying. Even China is dying.

And that last example is an especially illustrative one. China has been forcedly atheist for over fifty years. In that period of skyscraper building, the birth rate has steadily but surely declined. This has been helped by – but cannot be wholly explained by – the ‘one-child policy’ that (in any case) accompanies the confident atheism of Communism.

Outside of reproductive issues, the abandonment of Christianity by Europeans has another global effect. The more impressionable and cultureless races, most notably the booming population of Africa may be increasingly drawn to confident religions like Islam and turn away from the tired out, apologetic religion of their former colonial masters. The wonderful civilising effect of European Christianity may vanish and plunge great swathes of the world into barbaric darkness.

To repeat my general position – none of these concerns imply religion is true or science false. All I recommend is to consider the void that comes after religion and weigh its benefits against those of history.

D, LDN.

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Hitler Was an Atheist.

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anti-Semitism, Christianity, Christianity and Islam, Communism, Defend the modern world, Germany, Hitler atheist, Hitler Christian, Hitler Islam, Hitler's table talk, Multiculturalism, Nazis, Nazis Islam, richard dawkins, Sam Harris, Stalin, Stalin Christianity

By far the most obnoxious trait in the movement described (somewhat grandly) as the ‘New Atheism’ is the denial of well-established historical facts. In a flagrantly dishonest campaign, the propagandists of unbelief have sought to depict a cartoon version of history; one in which religion was the source of all malady and science the soft-spoken voice of moderation and progress.

This is anti-history, plain and simple. It is as abusive to the truth as anything attempted by the religious or political.

The Russian communists were, despite what the New Atheists say, a viciously anti-religious gang of crooks who took immense delight in arresting and killing those still committed to immaterial beliefs. Such actions are thus directly attributable to their atheism. There is no other way of justifying (if that is even possible) the burning of Russian churches.

Likewise, Adolf Hitler, despite what the New Atheists say, was a very committed – distinctly German – unbeliever, who saw Semitic faiths as foreign and harmful to the natural instincts of the Aryan folk.

Being a canny politician in a still religious nation, Hitler inevitably made friendly gestures to the Church in public (and these are the statements shamelessly cited by the New Atheists, who are surely aware of their context). But in private, Hitler was – as we all are in private – more honest in describing the vibrations of his heart.

“Christianity” he said in the presence of Martin Bormann “is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure.”

In another conversation, the meth-head Fuhrer let loose the following rant: “The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity. Bolshevism practises a lie of the same nature, when it claims to bring liberty to men, whereas in reality it seeks only to enslave them. In the ancient world, the relations between men and gods were founded on an instinctive respect. It was a world enlightened by the idea of tolerance. Christianity was the first creed in the world to exterminate its adversaries in the name of love. Its key-note is intolerance.”

This is not even worth arguing about, of course. It is so obvious to the reasonable that debate can only have a recreational value. It is nevertheless infuriating to hear New Atheist claims made without repudiation on a regular basis. Hitler was not a Christian. He was a pure-blooded atheist, and his actions were only allowed for by a non-Christian system of ethics.

D, LDN.

Atheism is a False Hope (a dialogue).

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Against Atheism, Arguments for religion, Atheism Plus, Atheists against Atheism, Bill Nye, Christopher Hitchens, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Ken Ham, Marx, nietzsche, PZ Myers, richard dawkins, Sam Harris, Theodore Dalrymple

Dramatis Personae : A – a fictional interrogator: DTMW – Myself.

A: “Is there a God?”

DTMW: “Possibly.”

A: “The God of conventional religion?”

DTMW: “No.”

A: “So you’re an atheist in that regard?”

DTMW: “Not really. Atheism has become a positive concept. While once it was simply an absence of belief, it is now a very politicised label and suggests a specific worldview built around materialism, liberalism and a forced veneration of science. The New Atheists I find especially dangerous. They do not understand the function religion plays in the maintenance of a civil society, and what would necessarily occur were it removed.”

A: “Which is…”

DTMW: “It protects society from the full consequences of scientific truth. We’ve gotten too used to the idea that the ‘truth will set us free’ – that truth, being a positive value, can only have a positive effect. We forget that it can be beneficial or harmful only depending on its interpretation. Human beings are not naturally good, I’m afraid. Hobbes had this almost correct, except that religion and not government is the most effective Leviathan. Without it, the less evolved among the world population would feel they had no reason to stay within moral boundaries. Without the fear of hellfire, morality becomes a matter of consent. That’s all well and good for intelligent people with their evolved sense of empathy and social nuance. But most people are not intelligent.

And even among the intelligent, atheism allows for an icy, almost mathematical form of ethics that can be used to rationalise just about anything. Abortion, murder in all by name, can very easily be made logical by atheist thinking, but less so by the slightly fuzzy sentimentalism of the religious mind. That fuzzy sentimentalism, even if ridiculed by the petri dish and microscope, protects us from a lot of evil ‘common-sense’. The ‘New Atheists’ are greasing the wheels towards a very cold and dangerous void, the eventual filling of which they shan’t themselves be around to influence.

A: “Richard Dawkins says we can be good without God.”

DTMW: “As well he might. He is the product of a charmed life and first-class education. He belongs the upper-middle class and has never truly experienced hardship of the kind the poor must contend with. Solace of an earthly, material kind was at his side come what may. When the poor are faced with a reality that is horrid in every rational interpretation, they must look beyond reality for comfort. Peace between the classes depends in no small way on this function of religion. The concept of a human ‘equality’ before God; of a levelling after death; of a divine reward measured to match the hardship endured in life – all of these concepts prevent the fires of revolution bursting into life. There is a good reason that Communists went for the churches with as much venom as the banks and corporations.”

A: “What about Islam?”

DTMW: “Not all religions are equal. Some are more moral than others. It’s important to remember that a living religion is more than its foundational text. It is the product of elaborations and philosophies inspired by that text over hundreds of years. This is why Judaism and Christianity evolve and Islam doesn’t. The Qur’an, unlike the Bible, is a book that cannot be re-interpreted without fear of death.

A: “So you’d rather the Arabs and Persians and others converted to Christianity?”

DTMW: “I think that would be transformative. A Christianised Islamic world would solve so many of the worlds anxieties that it is difficult to describe how highly I favour the idea. I also expect the second generation growing up in a forcibly Christianised Pakistan (say) would be thankful to those who dominated and converted their elders. Islam makes life hell. Even Islamists are desperate to escape the fruits of their own labours. They are too proud to admit otherwise of course.”

A: “Are atheists evil?”

DTMW: “No. But many are certainly elitist. Elitism hides behind atheism rather well. You might say ‘No, I don’t hate poor White Americans; I just enjoy ridiculing their belief in Noah’s Ark. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that I went to University and they didn’t.’ I’m not convinced by that sort of thing I’m afraid.

As both Nietzsche and the Nazis understood, Christianity has always opposed elitism and made it politically impossible. This is the case today in America. The anti-intellectual instinct of Southern Baptism for example is something I sympathise with. The elite of America would love nothing more than to re-order society based on IQ or erudition. Christianity demands that other qualities are taken into account; unscientific qualities – like modesty, friendliness and warmth.

On a social level, mass atheism (as opposed to scattered, disorganised disbelief) would open Pandora’s Box. Many sleeping ideologies would awaken and moral values would be re-examined. It isn’t enough to say that ‘reason’ would take the place of religion. Whose reason? Can you not make a reasonable case for unreasonable things?

A: “Do you prefer Catholic or Protestant culture?”

DTMW: “My father is a retired C-of-E minister and so Protestantism is more familiar to me. I don’t like the hierarchicalism of the Catholic church, but I like the aesthetics of Catholic communion. Protestantism is more earthly. The West would fare well with either.

A: “Should children be raised with religion?”

DTMW: “I couldn’t be insincere in that regard, so instead I would make them understand that this is historically a Christian culture and that Islam, Hinduism and the like, are foreign to it. We reserve the right to uphold traditions and to maintain a unifying sense of identity. A religious core strengthens a nation by giving it a point of focus. It is terribly short-sighted to recommend the removal of religion from public life entirely.

D, LDN.

In Defence of the Bible Belt.

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Thou know’st how poor a trifling thing man is,

And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,

The heart being perish’d, no part can be free,

And that except thou feed, not banquet, on

The supernatural food, religion,

Thy better growth grows withered and scant

Be more than man, or thou’rt less than an ant.

– Donne.

I was raised in a religious Christian household, and so – as you would presume – I began reading Nietzsche at the age of 14 and became militantly atheist before I had the chance to consider what such a stand would mean.

These days, although I wouldn’t say I was religious, I do have deep regrets for the phenomenon of modern atheism of which I was once so much in favor.

The case for religion, I realise now, does not lie exclusively with its truth or falsity, but also with its effect. Christianity in the  evangelical style is in my view plainly a good thing.

Perhaps bizarrely, I came to these conclusions when researching the so-called US ‘bible-belt’ ; that much-maligned chain of Southern American states running from Texas across to the Eastern seaboard. Traditionally, we (Europeans) are supposed to view this cultural bloc as something worthy of ridicule, and many still do. People imagine the area to be something physically along the lines of the old West. A desolate hot, sandy expanse  – except now updated with tarmac, hat-wearing republicans, a ‘truck stop’, churches preaching hellfire and anti-homosexuality and a Wal-Mart just outside of town. Unimpressive in other words. No better than an ASDA town in the English North, or a market town in the South West.

But having looked a bit deeper into this region, reading of its habits, customs and beliefs and also comparing its rates of crime, divorce, and happiness against those of other American states, I am now, far from laughing at the belt, possessed of a desire to move there.

In America high religious observance is a matter of national pride. In Britain low religious observance is a matter of national pride. In the latter case this is because of the opinions of a xenophobic and jealous elite which have come to be the opinions of the dull masses in the same casual, unthinking way in which a rumour catches fire. The working classes of England still feel (wrongly) that the London elite are part of the same cultural body as them  and so when London comedians or Oxford professors make the point that ‘we’ English look down on Americans for their religious enthusiasm, then  the working classes, (identifying as they would like to with a distinguished elite), nod along as if the sentiments were their own thoughts in the first place.

But would these people feel the same if they could experience that dreaded American Christian fundamentalism for themselves? I doubt it.

American evangelical faith – real, sincere, dynamic, youthful belief – could do wonders for the most deprived areas of this broken country. Belief of the American kind gentrifies the lower stratas of society and creates a charming and hopeful community spirit around which all can warm themselves, and into which those who fall short in life can be embraced.

Working class American towns and particularly those in religious areas, are brimming with self-confidence. From the figures I have read, people are happier and report greater contentment. Children are healthier, more positive and live longer. People overwhelmingly live in old-fashioned family units. Houses are warm, welcoming places. Language is spoken in clean, positive sentences. People root for each other. And they are far from rich.

To experience this kind of living, with this kind of health, vibrancy and positivity here in England, one would have to move to a very plush area indeed. To see streets as clean as these and teeth as white, and children as happy and hear language as positive as this, one would have to move into the fantasy town of a John Lewis advert. And yet there it is, all for free…. Why?

Why are Americans, even the poorest White Americans, healthier, happier, more positive than Brits of all classes? Libertarians will tell you it is because of the free market and the absence of a welfare state. European snobs will tell you it is due to media-brainwashing and the infantilism of sugar-coated American culture. Leftists will garble something about the abuse and pillaging of third-world countries and suchlike. Others will say Americans are just plain smug ‘that way’.

But surely the most convincing answer is religion. Not religion like that found in English churches, but a distinctly American religion.

And the distinction between religion and American religion is essential. I don’t have any special affection for the Church of England style of worship in which I was raised. I still remember the cold grey pillars, the long services, ugly-looking hymn books and tedious sermons. I remember the sexless women who chastened me in Sunday school and who were a photograph of unhappiness. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that pews are emptying at the pace they are, that congregations are falling away, and churches are closing.

If for American fundamentalism English people imagine this sort of church but taken seriously, then I can readily appreciate their disdain. But I feel this is not what they imagine. They imagine raving lunatics, literal bible-thumpers. Fat-necked preachers pulling semi-crippled women from borrowed wheelchairs. And why would anyone take that seriously?

But American fundamentalism is not about, or at least not centred around this kind of thing either. Homosexuality in Christian societies and church policy on the topic are as well-known as they need to be. Dogma of this kind is marginal and irrelevant for our purposes. As is the stance taken by born-again churches on stem cells, evolution, and whatever else peeves off the London elite but has no strong reason to annoy an ordinary English working-class observer.

Instead a working class observer should be advised to imagine why American churches attract so many fresh, young faces and inspire such enthusiasm in the first place. The answer to this is surely more interesting and has little to do with bigotry, as the London elite would have them believe. Surely what more people would like to understand is what makes Fort Worth different to Stoke-on-Trent? What makes Falmouth, Kentucky a better place to be than Falmouth, England? Why are people better off emotionally, and in terms of their job and relationship prospects in Lynchburg than in Manchester?

The difference is the transformative power of a well-rooted culture – a living culture with the guts to have pride in itself. This is the distinction. American Christianity is distinct from British Christianity in that the first is a living, believed in religion while the second is merely dust and ceremony.

And the effects of such belief can be tremendous. Christians who sincerely believe are hardly likely to become the saturday night terrors we see in English market towns.

Belief gentrifies. It also cheers people up. It makes them positive, assertive, and even fearless. It gives them a legacy-orientated attitude. It builds community and makes strangers familiar to one another. As the comedian Ricky Gervais said derisively – it also inspires people to behave who might not do if they thought nobody could see them. Belief rescues people from their nature – and given that it springs up strongest in the most volatile parts of American society, this has proven central to America’s historic success as a nation

The fact that I have only read exhaustively about these places and have yet to visit them (or the US generally), may disqualify my opinions for some, including those metro types who are frightened of agreeing with them. But as European urban zones like London begin to look more and more like Karachi, and large towns like Luton head the same way, don’t be surprised if such snobs are eventually forced to re-assess the logic of the American south.

D, LDN.