My Dogma Ran Over My Karma

Atheism isn’t a belief system, I was told—it’s just the rejection of religion so it doesn’t need to be defended. (How convenient!) It was up to me to prove my case, not them. (Care being taken, of course, to insure that standards of proof remained vague enough to deflect any possible response, especially those that might involve a trip to a university library…) This would be followed by the predictable litanies… “Science is advancing…” “Religion is retreating…” after which I was smugly told that I was still entitled to cling to the “God hypothesis” if I pleased (another New Atheist label crafted to give the appearance of scientific inquiry without having to actually set foot in said university libraries).

At this point I was given the usual litanies of how “science is advancing” while religion is being “forced to retreat,” followed by a smugly tolerant acknowledgement of my right to believe in the “God hypothesis” if I wanted to (another New Atheist label crafted to give the appearance of scientific inquiry without having to actually set foot in said university libraries).

Now I would love to be more patient but like everyone else I’m mortal and I have my limits… and this is where they were usually reached… “Enough already with the cop-outs! If your arguments are even half as sound as you claim you should have no trouble demonstrating that… so quit wasting my time and get on with it! Man up and address my arguments properly or have the courage to admit that you can’t!” Confronted with a direct challenge, all responded like cornered animals and the cycle would end. Any further attempts at discussion would only have jeopardized the friendship.

Notice how this game is played…

1. One starts by defining religion as mythology (thereby isolating it from all real-world knowledge and experience, particularly science). A few cheap caricatures (e.g. “flying elephants”) are tossed in for emotional effect to weld the dungeon door closed.
2. Truth is then defined as scientific knowledge alone (thereby excluding any attendant metaphysical or existential claims and isolating it from religion as defined in 1).
3. Finally, Atheism is defined as nothing more than the rejection of 1) given 2) and declared to be the Null Hypothesis, thereby excluding any assertions of the aforementioned types that would otherwise come under scrutiny.

You have to admire the devious ingenuity at work here! By definition; Premise 1) isolates religion from science, so any science a theist might offer is disqualified before being considered; Premise 2) isolates truth from religion, preemptively disqualifying all other knowledge as well (including the theist’s own beliefs and experiences, and any attempt to question the validity of either premise); Finally, Premise 3) shifts the entire burden of proof onto anyone who even considers disputing any of this…

And in one fell swoop the New Atheist renders his/her views indefeasible, dodges all responsibility for a rational defense of their claims and positions him/herself as an unassailable neutral skeptic. And the beautiful part is… all of this is accomplished before any sort of fact-checking or rational inquiry has taken place. If we dare to object (or God forbid, take offense at being told that our most cherished beliefs are those of unthinking idiots) then like Socrates they become noble, misunderstood martyrs for “reason” and we their intolerant Inquisitors… simply because we had the audacity to expect some due diligence.

If there’s a better formula for propaganda I can’t imagine what it would be. (Hmmm… I wish I’d known about this when I was in graduate school! Who knows? With a similar approach I might have convinced my thesis review committee to grant me my Masters in Applied Physics without having to do any actual work… Or not. ;-) )