Atheism is pretentious in the sense of claiming to know more than it does. It claims to know what belief in God entails, and what religion, in all its infinite variety, essentially is. And atheism is muddled because it cannot decide on what grounds it ultimately objects to religion. Does it oppose it on the grounds of its alleged falsity? Or does it oppose it on the grounds of its alleged harmfulness? Both, the atheists will doubtless reply: religion is false and therefore it is harmful. But this is to make an assumption about the relationship between rationality and moral progress that does not stand up. Atheism is the belief that the demise of religion, and the rise of "rationality", will make the world a better place. Atheism therefore entails an account of history - a story of liberation from a harmful error called "religion". This narrative is jaw-droppingly naive.
At this point I didin't think this guy even knew the definition of atheism. According to Webster.com, atheism is a disbelief in a deity. That's a pretty simple definition and I don't know how any one can misunderstand it.
But he goes on...
Some will quibble with the above definition. Atheism is just the rejection of God, of any supernatural power, they will say, it entails no necessary belief in historical progress. This is disingenuous. The militant atheists have a moral mission: to improve the world by working towards the eradication of religion.
And militant Bible-thumpers have a moral mission: to improve the world by spreading religion.
Which is better? Well, that depends on what you believe.
Regardless, it's the militant members of both camps that are getting most of the press these days and they represent a small fraction of each camp. And as most of us know, these extremists, in both camps, have agendas that may or may not be available for mass consumption.
All religions have their extremists. Atheism is no different. And this guy is doing what extremists love to do: belittle opposing viewpoints.
The bottom line is believe what you want and don't tell other people what to believe.
Read the rest here.
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I see where this guy wanted to go with his argument, buy you're quite right about this guy's tactics.
I think that part of the problem is that he buys into what guys like Dawkins and Hitchens are selling... that they are advocates for atheism. In reality, they place a philosophical viewpoint on top of their disbelief in a supernatural God and call that atheism, and they try to sell the pair in their arguments, which is why I find what they write incredibly unconvincing.
There can be some truly fascinating discussions between atheism and theism. I've read some incredibly interesting and challenging stuff from Stephen Hawking (while I don't think he's a professed atheist, he does seem to go out of his way to try to "marginalize" the need for a creator God). Likewise, I think that the former director of the Vatican Observatory, Fr. George Coyne, raises some great points for the other side. The point being that there can be some wonderful, honest and challenging discussions between atheism and theism which doesn't reduce to name calling or digging in to one's particular dogma.
I think that one of the main problems is that in the public square, the main spokespersons do not have a specialty in anything. The discussion of science is weak, the history is askew, the sociology is biased, the philosophy doesn't hold water, and the theology is worse. I feel that Dawkins and Hitchens push their perspective as strongly as the worst of the evangelical mouthpieces, and this guy Hobson makes the same sort of shallow argument that most critics of the evangelicals make... you see where they want to go, but don't quite have what it takes to get there.
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