When Atheists Attack (Each Other)

The squabble between Darwin lobbyists who openly hate religion and those who only quietly disdain it grows ever more personal, bitter and pathetic. On one side, evangelizing New or "Gnu" (ha ha) Atheists like Jerry Coyne and his acolytes at Why Evolution Is True. Dr. Coyne is a biologist who teaches and ostensibly researches at the University of Chicago but has a heck of a lot of free time on his hands for blogging and posting pictures of cute cats.

On the other side, so-called accommodationists like the crowd at the National Center for Science Education, who attack the New Atheists for the political offense of being rude to religious believers and supposedly messing up the alliance between religious and irreligious Darwinists.

I say "supposedly" because there's no evidence any substantial body of opinion is actually being changed on religion or evolution by anything the open haters or the quiet disdainers say. Everyone seems to seriously think they're either going to defeat religion, or merely "creationism," or both by blogging for an audience of fellow Darwinists.

Want to see what I mean? This is all pretty strictly a battle of stinkbugs in a bottle. Try to follow it without getting a headache.

Coyne recently drew excited applause from fellow biologist-atheist-blogger PZ Myers for Coyne's "open letter" (published on his blog) to the NCSE and its British equivalent, the British Centre for Science Education. In the letter, Coyne took umbrage at criticism of the New Atheists, mostly on blogs, emanating from the two accommodationist organizations. He vowed that,

We will continue to answer the misguided attacks [on the New Atheists] by people like Josh Rosenau, Roger Stanyard, and Nick Matzke so long as they keep mounting those attacks.

Like the NCSE, the BCSE seeks to pump up Darwin in the public mind without scaring religious people. This guy called Stanyard at the BCSE complains of losing a night's sleep over the nastiness of the rhetoric on Coyne's blog. Coyne in turn complained that Stanyard complained that a blog commenter complained that Nick Matzke, formerly of the NCSE, is like "vermin." Coyne also hit out at blogger Jason Rosenhouse for an "epic"-length blog post complaining of New Atheist "incivility." In the blog, Rosenhouse, who teaches math at James Madison University, wrote an update about how he had revised an insulting comment about the NCSE's Josh Rosenau that he, Rosenhouse, made in a previous version of the post.

That last bit briefly confused me. In occasionally skimming the writings of Jason Rosenhouse and Josh Rosenau in the past, I realized now I had been assuming they were the same person. They are not!

It goes on and on. In the course of his own blog post, Professor Coyne disavowed name-calling and berated Stanyard (remember him? The British guy) for "glomming onto" the Matzke-vermin insult like "white on rice, or Kwok on a Leica." What's a Kwok? Not a what but a who -- John Kwok, presumably a pseudonym, one of the most tirelessly obsessive commenters on Darwinist blog sites. Besides lashing at intelligent design, he often writes of his interest in photographic gear such as a camera by Leica. I have the impression that Kwok irritates even fellow Darwinists.

There's no need to keep all the names straight in your head. I certainly can't. I'm only taking your time, recounting just a small part of one confused exchange, to illustrate the culture of these Darwinists who write so impassionedly about religion, whether for abolishing it or befriending it. Writes Coyne in reply to Stanyard,

I'd suggest, then, that you lay off telling us what to do until you've read about our goals. The fact is that we'll always be fighting creationism until religion goes away, and when it does the fight will be over, as it is in Scandinavia.

A skeptic might suggest that turning America into Scandinavia, as far as religion goes, is an outsized goal, more like a delusion, for this group as they sit hunched over their computers shooting intemperate comments back and forth at each other all day. Or in poor Stanyard's case, all night.

There's a feverish, terrarium-like and oxygen-starved quality to this world of online Darwinists and atheists. It could only be sustained by the isolation of the Internet. They don't seem to realize that the public accepts Darwinism to the extent it does -- which is not much -- primarily because of what William James would call the sheer, simple "prestige" that the opinion grants. Arguments and evidence have little to do with it.

The prestige of Darwinism is not going to be affected by how the battle between Jerry Coyne and the NCSE turns out. New Atheist arguments are hobbled by the same isolation from what people think and feel. I have not yet read anything by any of these gentlemen or ladies, whether the open haters or the quiet disdainers, that conveys anything like a real comprehension of religious feeling or thought.

Even as they fight over the most effective way to relate to "religion," the open atheists and the accomodationists speak of an abstraction, a cartoon, that no actual religious person would recognize. No one is going to be persuaded if he doesn't already wish to be persuaded for other personal reasons. No faith is under threat from the likes of Jerry Coyne.

“For some reason, if they find out that I did not buy into their argument, or that my standards of proof are too high for their taste, or that I was not totally bedazzled by their answer, they throw a fit and become very indignant. And if I present a counterargument, I am labeled as a liberal, atheist, ‘the enemy’ (!) , and worse.”

I'll use that comment to launch my latest opus.

Yes, I don't know if your standards are too high in the main or if maybe some aim away too low, doesn't matter because most of us resist argumentation that leads to conclusions that do not and/or cannot fit our world of how things are.

And the more so if the strongly held beliefs represent a heavy investment of that ever precious commodity, time.

For example, My neighbor my almost fictitious neighbor, Max Skepticus says he wants proof God exists. Fair enough, I ask what he'll accept as convincing proof. Writing across the sky? No, an unseen drone could do that. Maybe some illustrious being with a phalanx of angels suddenly appearing in front of Max? No, Max says he would suppose he'd been drugged or maybe even burst a vein in his head first. And besides magicians can pull off some pretty impressive stunts too.

So I ask the Max just what WOULD be good and sufficient evidence and he says it's up to me to make the case I'm asserting.
O.K., but I can never meet the level Max demands because it is infinite, and constantly receding.

That is why the Max cannot put a name to what he will accept as convincing proof contra his belief or lack of it or uncertainty of which it is.

A small side note....Max, a.k.a. Maximilian Verner Karl Von something or other did exist but not as a neighbor and I did have a very similar conversation with him back in the early seventies. The real Max was an ex prisoner of war and an unrehabilitated Nazi. When I asked why he lived the U.S. instead of Germany he said he could make good money here.

Talking to Maximilian one had the feeling Orwell's character Winston had, that of talking to a person of superior intelligence who was insane.

Anyway attempting to “prove” to others something that cannot be proved to them is futile but the debate may sharpen the mind.

“And since we are fallible (or we should know that we are fallible) then our opinions, beliefs and personal truths, for the sake of good character, ought to be taken with a grain of salt and humility, always mindful that we may be even a tiny bit wrong.”

What??? And give the liberal atheist enemies an opening???

"I thought an egg was that. Since the hydrogen atom only has one proton and one electron what does it represent?"

The egg has 3 distinct parts, always. The parts of an atom can exist separately, but when combined they form an indivisible entity. This corresponds to Biblical teaching where each member of the Trinity can be separate but are always one. But, if you can't see the atom as the representation of the Trinity, then you can't see it.

"For example the “days” of God’s creating were six and then a sabbath in Genesis."

See Bullinger, "Number in Scripture". The number of creation is 4. In 4 days all of the material of the universe was created. All matter exists in 4 natural states. Solid, liquid, gas and plasma corresponding to the ancient earth, water, air, fire. There are 4 forces, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electro-magnetic and gravity. 4 seasons, 4 cardinal directions, etc. The number of creation (4) is indelibly present in creation.

All life was created on days 5-6. 6 is the number of man because he was created on day six but if you look, all life is carbon-based. Carbon is element number 6 and has 4 bonds. This speaks to life being created. There again, we see that creation conforms to biblical numbers.

"And this fits into atomic theory how?"

The power of the second beast in Revelation is definitely technological but apparently magic. He calls down fire from heaven and gives breath to an image so that it speaks. The point there is that technological advance eventually becomes indistinguishable from magic. We see technological advance (quarks do not exist naturally), it has the number of man on it (6) and the calls itself by magical names (strange, charm).

"I see that taking cliche’s as cosmic truths is dangerous."

Ah, what I'm saying is 'dangerous'. Yeah, ok.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.