Some say, someone should take a long, hard look at the collected works of Stan Lee, and write a book about the view of America that filtered through his characters and iconography. He's probably had as much influence on the late 20th and early 21st centuries as any other single writer or artist, but that's something few people seem willing to recognize.

Oh, and I really do wish that some atheist BookTalk regulars would read "Godless in America" and make some comments here. I imagine it must be fairly discouraging to George to have Niall and I as the only other points of reference in the discussion. Particularly given that we're technically still minority points of view in the context of BookTalk as a whole.

Niall: I understand the "cosmic super critter" is off-putting to some. Maybe I overused the phrase. However, I refer you to what I said to Mad on the subject. As to teapots and unicorns, I didn't use them.

Mad: You've expressed the concern before over the danger of some sort of cabal of atheists going after religious people. Here you talk about a group of "movement atheists" analogous to the Black Panthers.

I'm not sure where those "movement" atheists would come from, and I really don't see anything in atheism qua atheism that should lead anyone to take action against anyone else. I've said before, there is nothing in the statement "I don't believe in a god" or even "I believe no gods exist" that ought to lead anyone to harm anyone.

Although I don't see any evidence of any such tendency on the part of atheists in the United States or anywhere else for that matter, I suppose it might be possible for a group of people who were anti-religious to indulge in such behavior. But even among the most strident atheists today, I see no evidence of any such intention. There's a good bit of rhetoric and hyperbole flying around, but I think that may simply reflect a necessity to clear the air before we can move into more constructive forms of dialogue. The overwhelming consensus among most atheists is that we aren't bothered by religion unless someone is bothering us with it.

For what it's worth, should such an action ever take place, you can rest assured I would be on your side in the trenches fighting against it.

Incidentally, in case you hadn't noticed, my book came out well ahead of Dawkins' The God Delusion, Dennett's Breaking the Spell and Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation. Godless in America came out in April 2006. The others came out in fall of that year.

One last note, on the matter of writing for an audience. I think you may have misconstrued something. I did say I hoped to explain my view of what atheism really is, as opposed to common caricatures of it, and to explain how I came to become one. And I said I hoped to attract believers and nonbelievers alike. I used the phrase "open a dialogue" and that probably was a poor choice of words, since you really can't do that in a book, except to the extent you talk to people about it, as we are doing here, after the fact. However, I thought I also made it clear in the introduction that I intended to be candid about my view of gods and religions and cautioned that I understood believers might be offended by my criticism of their beliefs because they intend to view such things as attacks on them. Honestly, I thought my choice of a title, and the summary of the book's contents that appears on the cover, would give all readers fair warning about the tone of the writing inside.

As I noted in my earlier response. I didn't go out of my way to offend people, but I also didn't soft-pedal my opinions so as to avoid offending anyone.

George

garicker wrote:
I'm not sure where those "movement" atheists would come from, and I really don't see anything in atheism qua atheism that should lead anyone to take action against anyone else. I've said before, there is nothing in the statement "I don't believe in a god" or even "I believe no gods exist" that ought to lead anyone to harm anyone.

Although I don't see any evidence of any such tendency on the part of atheists in the United States or anywhere else for that matter, I suppose it might be possible for a group of people who were anti-religious to indulge in such behavior. But even among the most strident atheists today, I see no evidence of any such intention.

Two quick points:

1. There already have been militant (in the literal sense) atheist groups that have physically persecuted religious groups. Just have a look at Albania, the world's first "Atheist Nation." Even if you explain away the actions of such groups by arguing that the motivation of such groups as political (an argument the New Atheists tend not accept when it comes to supposed religious violence), there are atheists in Western society who compare religion to child abuse and who think it should be illegal to raise a child as a member of a religious community or group.

2. The argument atheism is a non-belief that has no causal effect - while technically true - is counterproductive when examining the role if plays or could play in modern social life. It would be like saying that retinoblastoma is not the result of a partial gene deletion, but the result of the presence of the rest of a human's genotype. Sure, it's technically true, just not in the everyday sense of the word.

Remove a belief from a traditional worldview, and it has an effect on the resulting phenotype. Our behaviour is not the result of specific beliefs, but of the interactions between the many beliefs we hold. Some beliefs serve to moderate or amplify others. If you believe in memes as a useful concept, imagine if somebody were to lose, or simply never acquire, the memes that lead us to value human life. The actions that result from the absence of such a belief (lets call it ahumanism) would be best explained by reference to the absence of humanist beliefs and not be reference to the other memes in the individuals' memeotype, no? In everyday life, atheism is not simply the absence of a belief. It has effects.

Edit:

Make that three quick points! George, for what it's worth so far, this is the most moderate book on atheism I've read, and I think it's better for that. There's far less hyperbole and general silliness than you find in the New Atheist works. I know I'm spending most of my time in these threads criticising, but my general opinion of the book is favourable believe it or not. It is a pity that the New Atheists didn't read your book, or least follow its example, when writing their own diatribes.

garicker wrote:You've expressed the concern before over the danger of some sort of cabal of atheists going after religious people. Here you talk about a group of "movement atheists" analogous to the Black Panthers. I'm not sure where those "movement" atheists would come from, and I really don't see anything in atheism qua atheism that should lead anyone to take action against anyone else.

When I talk about "movement atheists", I'm talking about a group that's already there -- specifically, the group emblemized by Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitches, et al. They're probably best described as atheists who see religion as historically and potentially hazardous to their values and to society in general, and who see the spread of atheism as the only way to counter that hazard. To that end, they're churning out a lot of arguments against religion. I don't mean to imply that violence, or even the potential for violence, is a characteristic native to movement atheists, but I do think they've set the stage for such a potential.

As soon as ethics and politics became the focal point of movement atheism, that stage was set. It was politics that led to the violence directed against Catholics in Revolutionary Spain and China; they were perceived as a threat precisely because their religious beliefs seemed to bring them into conflict with the winds of political change. Now Harris is arguing that religion is inherently violent; Dennett is arguing that they're inimical to the values of an open, democratic society; Dawkins is arguing that they're the root cause of most historical persecution and social conflict. These writers have a readership in the millions. Is it really so paranoid to suppose that some atheists are going to swallow those sentiments and decide that the best way to stifle those threats are through force? It's happened in the past, and I don't see any particular reason why it couldn't happen again.

I've said before, there is nothing in the statement "I don't believe in a god" or even "I believe no gods exist" that ought to lead anyone to harm anyone.

No, but there's a very real difference between, "I don't subscribe to any religious belief," and "All religious belief is dangerous."

But even among the most strident atheists today, I see no evidence of any such intention.

I'm loathe to take it as confirmation of a growing movement, but the apparant instances of expressed hostility against Christians in the case of school campus shootings since Columbine at least disconfirms the idea that there is no such basis for an atheist backlash.

Incidentally, in case you hadn't noticed, my book came out well ahead of Dawkins' The God Delusion, Dennett's Breaking the Spell and Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation. Godless in America came out in April 2006. The others came out in fall of that year.

I hadn't noticed. Out of interest, do you think you would have changed anything had the other books beat you to the market?

Honestly, I thought my choice of a title, and the summary of the book's contents that appears on the cover, would give all readers fair warning about the tone of the writing inside.

Well, your subtitle is conversations with an atheist. Which does imply an invitation to dialogue.

niall wrote:There already have been militant (in the literal sense) atheist groups that have physically persecuted religious groups. Just have a look at Albania, the world's first "Atheist Nation."

Thanks for drawing this to my attention. I really don't know much about it. Got any good recommendations for books or articles on the topic?

The argument atheism is a non-belief that has no causal effect - while technically true - is counterproductive when examining the role if plays or could play in modern social life.

I think what Niall is trying to say is, that taken in a vacuum, atheism is certainly no cause for concern, socially speaking. But atheism rarely if ever describes a situation isolated from the context of interaction, and it's that interaction that sometimes leads to the situations we're concerned about.

At least, I think that's what he's trying to say. That whole retinoblastoma analogy flew right past me.

I suppose the questions that a lot of my comments are leading towards are, What did you intend for the book to achieve? and, How do you see the book that you've written achieve that goal? Is it intended to make a dent in the public debate over religion's role in government? Is it supposed to encourage fundamentalists to be more reasonable? It seems to me that there are several agendas in the book, all competing to express themselves, and I'm not at all sure which you see as the most central.

In relation to Albania, my knowledge is based on a lecture I had five years ago and a handful of articles and copies of original documents. I'll have a look around and see if I can dig them up.

Here's a link to an article on the subject that gives an overview. It doesn't seem to contradict anything I remember, but that's about all I can say.

http://countrystudies.us/albania/56.htm

At least, I think that's what he's trying to say. That whole retinoblastoma analogy flew right past me.

Right. Apologies if the retinoblastoma analogy misfired. I'd drank 2 litres of coke in the effort to keep myself awake long enough to finish an essay and was a little hyper as a result.

Retinoblastoma is a condition arising from the deletion of a gene that inhibits tumor development. Just as we attribute the atypical retionblastoma phenotype to the absence of the deleted gene (as opposed to the presence of the rest of the genotype), where an individual would have behave differently had they been a theist, it is fair to attribute their behaviour to atheism. The deletion of theism from traditional world views has consequences.

MadArchitect wrote: It was politics that led to the violence directed against Catholics in Revolutionary Spain and China;

Well, it could be argued that it's politics in one way or another that leads to any large-scale acts of violence. I don't think the religious among us, and I'm speaking of the U.S. here, have much to fear from a violent atheist movement, anymore than the reverse would be true. If anything, I think most Americans are too apathetic to be collectively violent about anything. In the end though, a violent response to religion would oppose, at least part of, what the likes of Dawkins, Harris, Ricker, etc. are calling for, which is an end to violence over ideology. Now that's not to say that non-believers couldn't misinterpret atheist texts in the same way religious believers misinterpret religious texts. But I think it's clear that the atheist writers you have mentioned are not promoting violence.

Mad and Niall:

I hope you guys will forgive me, but I'm in the midst of submitting a new book to my publisher and the process has heated up a bit, nothing negative just more activity. So I'll probably be scarce around here for a few days. Rest assured I'll try to get back and address the points you've raised as soon as I can.

In case I haven't mentioned it already, I'll really do appreciate the input. So thanks for that. I'm not at all put off by criticism, especially not when it's in the form of conversation.

George

George you've gone to the trouble of addressing almost every post made in this sub-forum. You're allowed a break! Hopefully things go well with your publishing. What's the book about?

[quote="rose]But I think it's clear that the atheist writers you have mentioned are not promoting violence.[/quote]

Just to be clear, on a couple of things:
1) I'm not suggesting that Dawkins et al are promoting violence. But I do think that their books have introduced some suggestions that could lead to other people adopting violent tactics. It certainly wouldn't be the first time writers interested in the dissemination of peace had inspired activists who worked by violent means;
2) It isn't really wide-scale violence I'm worried about. I'm not suggesting that there's likely to an atheist Third Reich, or anything of that sort. But American history (and beyond that, Twentieth century Industrialized history) is peppered with instances of small-scale groups that have resorted to violent means as a way of progressing a political or cultural agenda. The Black Panthers in the 60s and 70s, the Skinheads in the 80s and 90s, various anarchist groups throughout, and anti-abortion religious groups in the last few decades all spring to mind; and
3) Most of the groups I've mentioned above have resorted to violence as a way of addressing what they regarded as moral or social injustices. So it certainly isn't historically inconsistent to suggest that violent activism could coalesce around writers who have tried to progress a peaceful agenda. And I think that Dawkins et al. have provided some fodder for such groups by painting religious belief as the root cause of major political and social conflicts, as antithetical to the values of a just , democratic society, or as mired in moral injustices (ie. calling religious indoctrination "child abuse"), and by suggesting that secular intervention (like screening who can and cannot have religious affiliation) is called for.

And George, good luck with the new book!