Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy

It's terribly poetic to say that Dawkins, in his opposition to fundamentalism, has become a fundamentalist himself. But poetic doesn't mean true, and this particular trope abuses poetry for deceptive ends. Let us exhaust this "fundamentalism" idea. What does fundamentalism mean? Does it mean strongly believing in something? Does it mean accepting that thing as true? Am I a fundamentalist gravitarian because I tell everyone who asks that gravity is true?

Any definition of fundamentalism as "strong belief that something is true" is so common as to be useless. But that's not quite what's happening here. You might characterise a fundamentalist belief in God as one that would brook no counter-argument. A stronger definition than before: "belief that something is true that accepts no evidence to the contrary". Does Dawkins believe that? Let's ask him:

"I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it. [...] My belief in evolution is not fundamentalism, and it is not faith, because I know what it would take to change my mind, and I would gladly do so if the necessary evidence were forthcoming."

This is from his book The God Delusion, which I infer that you haven't read. I don't blame you - I put it off until last year because I had heard that Dawkins was uppity and confrontational. I can't speak to who benefits by that impression, but it is fiction. The book is, if utterly uncompromising, extremely polite and calm in tone. Dawkins treats religion with neither kid gloves nor boxing gloves. His intent isn't to injure, it's to challenge.

It frustrates me so much that people repeat mistaken ideas like "Dawkins is a fundamentalist" even while he seems to take such great pains to make his points clear. People who are not familiar with his work or his opinions accuse him for things he's never said. To gleefully point out that a biologist and someone who mutilates female genitals for a living are both "fundamentalists" is not clever. It's a deceptive attempt to make unequal things equal by putting them in the same category.

You echo that idea in your earlier allusion that people should be left to believe what they believe. Can I label anything as a belief and therefore make it equally valid? Is a 'belief' that man was created by ejaculating into a river equally valid to a 'belief' that the total momentum within a closed system will remain constant?

We can do better, and you owe it to yourself to do better. I know disagreement isn't in vogue, and it might not win you friends at parties, but it's the intellectually honest thing to do.

Please, read Dawkins' work. Disagree with him if you like, but at least don't do it out of ignorance. Feel free to start with "Fundamentalism and the Subversion of Science", the entire chapter of The God Delusion dedicated to your "fundamentalists are equal" argument.

I also realize in my post that I haven't adequately taken into account how persecuted most atheists probably feel. It's a problem of perception on both sides -- both feel attacked and misunderstood. But I can definitely see how an atheist in America might feel marginalized.

I respect the atheist if nothing else for the simple fact that they have the integrity to hold to a conviction, the intellectual curiosity to engage the biggest questions and then the courage to stand with that conviction in a society that doesn't tend to hold with such opinions. With such atheists I can have long discussions and good beer. Beer seems to be a recurring theme with me here...

I run into a lot of atheists these days who've read Dawkins, Dennett, Sam Harris, maybe even Stephen Pinker, heck maybe even the whole John Brockman crew of "Brights" and so forth. And that's all, and I don't understand that. I'm no exemplar of intellectual integrity, but I'm just too curious to not read contrary points of view. I thought that was the point. When I first started questioning my own faith, I went after the best atheists I could find to read, which at the time were guys like Antony Flew, Quentin Smith Kai Nielson, Peter Singer. Then later some pretty deep reading of Russell and Ayer. On the existential side Sartre, Camus and finally the greatness of Nietzsche.

I don't find that same aggressive curiosity and charitable engagement with this generation of atheists that have latched onto the Four Horsemen, and honestly I don't find the Four Horsemen all that compelling, even at a distance. Dennett of course is the deepest intellectual of the bunch but I don't find much new there. Consciousness Explained just really, really wasn't, sorry. But that's ok -- we can debate that, I would just like to see some curious, adventurous young atheists who can read both Dawkins and someone like, say, Christopher Dawson or T.S. Eliot -- not just for the sake of debate and argument but for the understanding of the soul of a worldview that deserves at least respect and not derision.

Likely the same thing you're asking from me...

I don't disagree with pretty much anything you've said. There's a huge geographic and societal component to religion, and that seems...undemocratic? I guess it would seem more 'fair' that every individual would arrive at their worldview purely from a 'rational' standpoint devoid of influence.

But of course it doesn't work that way for any worldview religious or otherwise. It never could work that way. Even those of us who fancy we have an 'examined life' and are attempting to be intellectually honest come at these questions with an existing interpretive framework inherited from family and society. And I don't think this is any less true of atheism or agnosticism than religion.

Nevertheless we try, right? Try to be objective, try to engage questions with honesty and courage and be as reflective as we can. Both negative and positive experiences with religion influence this. What's strange is I've met a number of Chinese over the last few years who grew up under communist, atheist rule and are now disenchanted with it, and deeply curious about religion and Christianity in particular.

What does it mean? Not sure. What to do? Not sure there either. I seem to have faith, you don't. I don't know what that means. I see the world a certain way, I can't help it. I like exploring and articulating that worldview, I want to have as much integrity within it as I can, I know that there are certain points of view that I disagree with, but ultimately, to quote David Byrne -- how did I get here? That remains mysterious and pretty humbling to me.