why so many atheism books?
A Harvard professor of government speaks up in the Weekly Standard about the recent spate of atheism books. The article is an academic and off-point attempt at a critique, but worth airing a response anyway! (now, to read the rest of these books - or do something better with my time?)
This is the article: Atheist Tracts. God, they're predictable. by Harvey Mansfield
Here's my submitted letter:
The author's critique is entirely irrelevant. The issue at hand is that billions of people have demonstrably erroneous beliefs about the world. These beliefs lead to behavior that infringes on the rights of others. This, simply, is the grounds for a more active atheist movement.
The author's conception of the motivations and ideas of "atheists" is a straw man, including the assumption that the target of all "atheists" are individual believers and no longer the church. Obviously, the constant indoctrination of the church is the primary environment that must be countered to turn the tide of the organized religion epidemic, particularly if ideas are often accepted not by "free will" but by simple acts of reinforcement. Even among the few current books, cited by the author, which shouldn't be mistaken for arguing for atheists everywhere, there is a great diversity of approach - for example, the first book, by Dennet, is primarily not about angrily confronting believers but instead about finally treating religion as the natural phenomenon it is.
The author tries to slip in some scientific support for the idea that atheists may not be great people anyway, but this argument is obviously flawed.
"We know from behavioral studies that, to the embarrassment of atheists, believers, or at least churchgoers, are better citizens--more active and law-abiding--than those who spend Sunday morning reading the New York Times."
But this study didn't have an atheistic group at all - and simply examining the base rates of belief and nonbelief in the population shows that those non-churchgoers are overwhelmingly believers themselves! A controlled study would use a group involved in non-religious gatherings, meditation, or even regular art and music appreciation, though it is unfortunately a rare study that can find a sufficient group of atheists for statistical comparison.
And come now, even in the tangent of justice that the author almost exclusively follows, the atheist alternative need not be Kant's unfortunate conception of a categorical imperative. We are just beginning to understand how decisions are actually made in the brain, and such a naturalistic understanding will have much yet to say.
Is the author an atheist angry that he has missed out on influencing the current national discussion, or a man who never outgrew the child's monotheism* to escape the contagious environment of ideas he happened to be born into?
*see the research of Paul Bloom at Yale,
Science 18 May 2007: Vol. 316. no. 5827
This is the article: Atheist Tracts. God, they're predictable. by Harvey Mansfield
Here's my submitted letter:
The author's critique is entirely irrelevant. The issue at hand is that billions of people have demonstrably erroneous beliefs about the world. These beliefs lead to behavior that infringes on the rights of others. This, simply, is the grounds for a more active atheist movement.
The author's conception of the motivations and ideas of "atheists" is a straw man, including the assumption that the target of all "atheists" are individual believers and no longer the church. Obviously, the constant indoctrination of the church is the primary environment that must be countered to turn the tide of the organized religion epidemic, particularly if ideas are often accepted not by "free will" but by simple acts of reinforcement. Even among the few current books, cited by the author, which shouldn't be mistaken for arguing for atheists everywhere, there is a great diversity of approach - for example, the first book, by Dennet, is primarily not about angrily confronting believers but instead about finally treating religion as the natural phenomenon it is.
The author tries to slip in some scientific support for the idea that atheists may not be great people anyway, but this argument is obviously flawed.
"We know from behavioral studies that, to the embarrassment of atheists, believers, or at least churchgoers, are better citizens--more active and law-abiding--than those who spend Sunday morning reading the New York Times."
But this study didn't have an atheistic group at all - and simply examining the base rates of belief and nonbelief in the population shows that those non-churchgoers are overwhelmingly believers themselves! A controlled study would use a group involved in non-religious gatherings, meditation, or even regular art and music appreciation, though it is unfortunately a rare study that can find a sufficient group of atheists for statistical comparison.
And come now, even in the tangent of justice that the author almost exclusively follows, the atheist alternative need not be Kant's unfortunate conception of a categorical imperative. We are just beginning to understand how decisions are actually made in the brain, and such a naturalistic understanding will have much yet to say.
Is the author an atheist angry that he has missed out on influencing the current national discussion, or a man who never outgrew the child's monotheism* to escape the contagious environment of ideas he happened to be born into?
*see the research of Paul Bloom at Yale,
Science 18 May 2007: Vol. 316. no. 5827
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