New Atheists Fatal Arrogance dicussion on AtheistNexus.org

New Atheists Fatal Arrogance
Posted by Dr. Allan H. Clark on May 16, 2015 at 10:22am in Atheism
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Sean Illing, a non-believing free lance writer and graduate student in political theory at Louisiana State University, has written a criticism of the arrogance of the so-called New Atheists:
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/new_atheisms_fatal_arrogance_the_gl...
His argument is summarized by this quote:

If a belief is held because of its effects, not its truth content, why should its falsity matter to the believer? Of course, most religious people consider their beliefs true in some sense, but that’s to be expected: the consolation derived from a belief is greater if its illusory origins are concealed. The point is that such beliefs aren’t held because they’re true as such; they’re accepted on faith because they’re meaningful.

As an atheist bashing other atheists, the author attracted attention and responses. Jerry Coyne has published a lengthy response:
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/salon-pulls-out...
Coyne makes the following summation of Illing's main point in his reply:

1. New Atheists are just too stupid to realize that religion isn’t about truths, but about fictions that make people feel good, and structure their lives.  Yes, Illing appears to be a nonbeliever, and sees religion as promulgating untruths, but that doesn’t matter, for those untruths give people meaning. This is a variant on the “Courtier’s Reply” trope, in which believers fault us for not tackling the Most Sophisticated Forms of Theology™ (the so-called “best arguments”). In this case, defenders of faith like Illing simply admit that religious “truth claims” are all bogus, but they don’t really care. In fact, the people who are at fault are not the believers who structure their morality and behavior around those bogus claims, but the atheists who take believers at their word, apparently thinking erroneously that believers really believe.

Illing has also responded to those who criticized his article:
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/16/richard_dawkins_doesnt_give_a_damn_...

Illing's point is not at all a new one. It was made by William James a century ago in his book Pragmatism:

On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, then it is 'true.' Now whatever its residual difficulties may be, experience shows that it certainly does work, and that the problem is to build it out and determine it, so that it will combine satisfactorily with all the other working truths.
And it was made in a cruder way by Frank Sinatra, who once said in an interview:

Basically, I'm for anything that gets you through the night - be it...

There are a number of significant questions raised by this sequence of articles, but before this post gets any longer, I'll stop here and see what people here have to say, if anything.












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 Permalink Reply by Loren Miller 7 hours ago

In fact, the people who are at fault are not the believers who structure their morality and behavior around those bogus claims, but the atheists who take believers at their word, apparently thinking erroneously that believers really believe.
I'm not even certain I can fully address all the problems with the above statement.  First of all, most believers THINK they're basing their morality and behavior on the bible or what they're learning in their particular denomination when what their particular school of thought is really doing is blatantly cherry-picking bits and pieces, integrating that with elements of secular morality, then claiming it's all theirs.  As far as atheists taking believers at their word, is that really the fault of the atheists for taking a believer's statement at face value or the believer for either not knowing or misrepresenting his position and/or that of his church, whether naively or purposefully?
My own attitude is very much that of Matt Dillahunty, who wants to believe as many true things and as few untrue things as possible, because I don't see the possibility of living an authentic life any other way.  If someone tries and succeeds at fooling themselves, it's possible that may work after a fashion and obviously it has for some people in some cases.
But as I've said many times, I am positively LOUSY at fooling myself, and no matter how someone tries to sweep the bullshit under the rug, I'm gonna smell it sooner or later.
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 Permalink Reply by Dr. Allan H. Clark 6 hours ago

One of the problems is the casual way in which the concept of truth is handled in everyday life. Most people are unfamiliar with rigorous standards of truth as practiced in the sciences, in law, or in mathematics and philosophy. A thing is true for them simply if they believe it.
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 Permalink Reply by Loren Miller 6 hours ago

Very damned true.  I'm beginning to think that, if we're genuinely going to teach kids HOW to think and how to understand the world they live in, one way or the other, epistemology has to become an integral part of school curricula at some point or other.  The churches won't like that very much, though!
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 Permalink Reply by Dr. Allan H. Clark 6 hours ago

I think that Illing's question "If a belief is held because of its effects, not its truth content, why should its falsity matter to the believer?" is an example of the worst kind of cynicism.
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 Permalink Reply by sk8eycat 5 hours ago

This is a simple-minded comment, but I think part of the problem is the way most English-speakers use the word "theory."  They think it means "maybe," instead of "we've tested it, and this is the way it IS."
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 Permalink Reply by Dr. Allan H. Clark 5 hours ago

A theory is a method of organization of observables. In the sciences theories are often held tentatively and progress toward the certainty of their underlying facts as more and more observables accumulate. In mathematics there is less uncertainty and the word is not used tentatively at all.
That may be part of the problem, but I think it goes even deeper than that. What the average person often takes for truth is what he merely believes, not what he can justify with certainty.


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 Permalink Reply by Bertold Brautigan 4 hours ago

Truth has become pretty much irrelevant in politics in the past 35 years as well - this could be an area in which the tide of consensus is going against us.
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 Permalink Reply by Dr. Allan H. Clark 6 hours ago

The first question this discussion raises in my mind is whether religion actually makes truth claims at all. The central statements of faith are often beyond verification—their truth cannot be tested by the usual means of science or logic. For example, Reinhold Niebuhr said in a lecture at Yale:

"Christian faith stands or falls on the proposition that a character named Jesus, in a particular place at a particular time in history, is more than a man in history, but is a revelation of the mystery of self and of the ultimate mystery of existence."


There is no way to prove or to disprove such a statement. It has the form of a definite proposition that one would expect to make a statement about the state of the world, but in fact it asserts nothing whatever beyond the speaker's own faith. Yet he says that Christianity stands or falls on its "truth."
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 Permalink Reply by Michael Penn 3 hours ago

Accepted on faith because they are meaningful.
This statement shows the arrogance of the new atheists for taking the believers words at face value when religion isn't about truths, but is about fictions that make the believer's life more meaningful.
I don't think so. Every fundamentalist Evagelical you meet or talk with believes every word of the bible to be true. On the TV show The Atheist Experience you can laugh yourself silly hearing all the believers who "just don't get it." It isn't the atheist who has egg on his face here.
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 Permalink Reply by Dr. Allan H. Clark 2 hours ago

Yet there is a little something to be said for the other side, for example, these words of Cardinal Newman:

The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.
The emotional appeal of religion is undeniable and undeniably hard to overcome with reason alone. Still somehow reason has to win out or we are lost.
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 Permalink Reply by sk8eycat 2 hours ago

My own experience with quitting religion started with my interest in astronomy, cosmology, and paleontology.  I always wanted to know the truth about everything, even though I'm not really very smart.  (Math and physics almost kept me from graduating from high school....)
I want REAL answers, not myths and lies/propaganda, even though I enjoy fantasy fiction as entertainment.  The difference between me and True Believers(c) is that I KNOW the buybull is fiction, and so are all the other "holy" books...and none of them are the least bit entertaining.
The one thing I can't wrap my head around is why my sister fell for the JeeHoover's Witless cult....unless it's a symptom of her Asperger's Syndrome.  (She had a hissy-fit when I printed this poster, and one of her "friends" refused to come in the house until I put it in my bedroom): Found on fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net
As for "fatal arrogance"...what's "fatal" about a movement that is actually GROWING?
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 Permalink Reply by Dyslexic's DOG 31 minutes ago

I agree somewhat, many people seek comfort rather than authenticity in beliefs.
What we need is to find ways to get at least some feeling comfort with authenticity, this the progress 'The New Atheists' seek.
Many, like myself have tried shock tactics to try and lever some over to seeing that many atheists feel more comfort with authenticated beliefs than they ever can with mythical beliefs.
People that are not comfortable if they believe their basis lacks truth in any way (historically or practically) is what we need theists to see and understand.
This is the prime purpose of introducing Rational Critical Thinking (RCT) at an early age.
There is where real progress can be made.
But, individual comfort is purely subjective, so, regardless of students achieving high levels of RCT, many may still opt for the cuddly, warm, somewhat childish (parental nurturing) comforts implanted by usurpers like the testament scribes and Saul of Tarsus, in mythology.

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This is an interesting article.  I suppose Sk8eycat's sister became involved with the Jehovah's Witnesses because they made arguments that appealed to her, when she was probably in a vulnerable state.  As for her JW sister's friend who refused to come into their house and the reaction of her JW sister herself throwing a hissy fit because Sk8eycat put up a parody caption related to the "Harry Potter" franchise on a wall in their home certainly shows the intolerant attitudes that JW's often display towards anything that is not supported by their denominational worldview.  If Sk8eycat's sister hasn't been attending meetings at her Kingdom Hall or is engaging in door-to-door proselytization lately, I'm surprised that the elders are constantly showing up at their door to inquire as to why she isn't practicing her beliefs.