Well, it’s really hard to tell about Dori Hartley from her PuffHo piece, “The soulful atheist.” I’d like to say that she’s a kindler, gentler atheist (she certainly believes she is), but she might as well be religious, because she seems quite susceptible to Chopra-ian woo. Hartley, an author and illustrator, professes this up front:
Now, I’m not one of the militant atheist-supremacists. In fact, I refer to myself as an atheist simply to clarify that I do not believe in a deity. Outside of that, I’m not married to the title nor do I use it to define myself. It’s one of those “for lack of a better word” words.
Militant? Atheist-supremacist? (That’s a new one on me!) Clearly she wants to distinguish herself from those odiferous god-deniers like Dawkins and Hitchens. And she says this:
And as an “atheist,” I can tell you this:
I pray.
I have faith.
I believe in the cosmic consciousness.
I live in gratitude.
I am moved to tears by the beauty that is nature.
I feel the intensity of great love.
Well, she’s not praying to God, but to the “cosmic mass mind”, whatever the hell that is. And her “faith” is this:
I believe in the invisible and the intangible. I have absolute faith in the universe, in nature and in the balance of energy. My faith is unshakeable. I just don’t have faith in the same power “name” as you.
Now what kind of faith does she have in the universe, nature and “the balance of energy”? If it’s just that the universe obeys certain physical laws, that tigers eat antelopes, and that the second law of thermodynamics holds, well, that’s not really faith, but confidence in the findings of science. She uses the label of “faith” to conflate this with religion. After all, she’s not one of those militant atheist-supremicists.
She never defines “cosmic consciousness,” except to say that it’s “the concept of endless energy, all being projected and retracted on a nonstop basis, forever and ever, inwards and outwards, in every angle, etc, etc.” Salacious metaphors aside, this is just nonsense.
The ending is really something:
So, yes, atheists can feel love, gratitude, faith, even spirituality. Like I’ve said, I’m not one of the militant types who needs to put anyone else down for their beliefs. I’m truly into the “live and let live” idea. While I do love science, I’m not here to shove Darwin or Hawking down anyone’s throat. In fact, if God is what you believe in, I’m all for it if it makes you happy, because that’s all we can ask for in this life: A little bit of happiness.
Nope, she’s not an atheist supremacist: she simply thinks that she’s better than all those other nasty atheists.
And of course she’s completely oblivious to all those other problems of religion. If it “makes you happy” to throw acid in the faces of schoolgirls, or torture little children with thoughts of hell, or let a mother and baby die rather than abort the baby, or let girls get cervical cancer rather than let them get vaccinated for HPV and have safer sex, well, those things are okay. After all, God is love.
Ah, the old science is faith canard. I teach some classes at the local community college in addition to my Day Job and one of my colleagues in the Antropology dept. makes this argument with me all the time.
“Nope, she’s not an atheist supremacist: she simply thinks that she’s better than all those other nasty atheists.”
I’m sure we’ve all seen this one, but it’s worth re-sharing: http://xkcd.com/774/
…and KP wins the thread with the very first post with a link to the XKCD comic that says all that need be said.
Cheers,
In one panel nonetheless
Dammit, I was going to link to that!
Me too.
(Great minds… ?)
Yes, the comic is absolutely right. But religions are always about the need to feel superior to others. Sometimes that superiority feeling is ‘good’ as in nationalism (see, Islam is actually very good for Arabs and arabic culture).
And it is definitely innate in human psyche. Most (all) religionist display this trait, even some “strident atheist-fundamentalists” display the same, when the totally human emotions take control :D.
The key is, those natural tendencies do not reflect reality. What is true does not related to these human foibles.
So? it is okay, some of the characteristics of praying mantis are also very disturbing, same with humanity.
We should care for what is real. That’s science.
She sounds more like an agnostic than an atheist, at any rate. Her main premise seems to be that all atheists are argumentative and refuse to allow others their beliefs. I think that is an incorrect supposition for her to make on behalf of every other atheist in the world.
I don’t think she can qualify as an agnostic when she’s making what seem to be knowledge claims left, right and center.
About a “cosmic consciousness”, no less.
She doesn’t sound like an atheist or an agnostic to me.
Pseudo-accomodationist crap. Shit or get off the pot. And stop giving us atheists who don’t believe in a “cosmic something or other” a bad name. ‘Cause there is no cosmic something or other.
I really hate it when people talk about “energy” like this. Those “new age” guys… they keep using this word. And I don’t think it means what they think it means. In fact, I’m damn sure it doesn’t.
I think this woman clearly is a religious person, who’s just lying about being an atheist.
Also who is she to speak for all atheists or a certain group of “soulful atheists”?
She just showed how ignorant of science she is in this article.
Depending on the definition of “religious”, being religious and being an atheist may well be compatible.
For example, there is such a thing as religious naturalism (not to be confused with natural theology):
http://www.religiousnaturalism.org
Religious: Someone that believes in a higher power whether you call it god or “cosmic consciousness “.
That’s what I mean she believes in cosmic consciousness, therefore, she is NOT an Atheist.
She’s a faitheist woo.
Perhaps she’ll evolve.
“I pray.”
Definitions of pray in this context (merriam webster):
1 to make a request in a humble manner
2 to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving
Since she says she doesn’t believe in God, then she must mean 1. Rewritten, “I make requests in a humble manner.” Which then begs “to whom?” Without a diety, prayer is just meditation.
“I have faith.”
Me too. I have faith that my children will grow up to be wonderful people. I have faith that my wife will love me for a very long time. I have faith that my friends will support me in times of need. So what?
“I believe in the cosmic consciousness.”
WTF?
“I live in gratitude.”
Oh boy. I smell the woo coming on now. I sure am happy to be alive, and I try to maximize the happiness of those around me. But gratitude implies a gift or benefit from someone or something… so again I ask “to whom?”
“I am moved to tears by the beauty that is nature.”
Been there.
“I feel the intensity of great love.”
Done that.
She seems to think these things are Not What Militant Atheists Do (TM). I’m easily batting .500. The rest is woo-shit.
I don’t know. I happen to be a fan of living gratefully. Penn Jillette: I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
We can be grateful for, without necessarily being grateful to. Or perhaps “rejoicing in” would put it better.
I”m grateful to live in Australia instead of the Sudan or Afghanistan. I’m grateful to be well well educated. I’m grateful for lots of things. It just means realizing how lucky I am and that my personal superiority over the starving millions is not the reason for this good luck because it is illusory. I am just very very fortunate. It is about remembering that most of the good things in your life came via circumstances you had no control over.
I’m grateful to live in Australia now instead of America.
Damn… it sucks to say that. But it’s true. 🙁
I’m grateful to live in New Zealand instead of Australia.
some one should tell her to Google “Deist”or”Pantheism” those (I think)would fit better her ideas.
Yep, I was going to say, this is classic pantheism. She should go with that label, it’s pretty much exactly what she is talking about (And then she doesn’t even have to distance herself from those meanies like us who don’t automatically assume that “lesser” minds can’t handle the truth!)
Wow, this piece that she wrote is incredibly offensive.
She claims that all atheists besides her, or at least, Dawkins, Hitchens, et al, have never “live[d] in gratitude”, have never been “moved to tears by the beauty that is nature” or “fe[lt] the intensity of great love.”
She is the worst kind of elitist there is: the type that feigns humility.
Yes, it is offensive. I’m particularly offended by the “supremacist” jab. Supremacism implies that the “supreme” group thinks it should rule over or dominate the inferior groups——and no atheists I can think of advocate anything like that. The use of that word, with it’s attendant connotations, is ridiculous.
There’s also no way she can pretend that it wasn’t meant as an insult, either.
At least when I insult people, it’s for positions they actually hold. She’s insulting a straw man.
Cheers,
b&
…then again, maybe she knows how to close her HTML tags….
b&
As she’s done a degree in Web and Graphic Design, she just might!
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Pfft, I think I should dominate the inferior groups. Such as the “human” group. Preferably with a satellite-mounted, giant laser. 😛
This is a good example of the fact that atheism doesn’t entail antisupernaturalism. Except for deities, atheists can believe in all sorts of supernatural woo-woo.
…except for the rational ones.
Hear, hear. Too many atheists think all atheists are rational thinkers.
& you’d think the ones who are — the sceptical atheists who value empiricism, including many gnu atheists — would know better.
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Yes! So many times I’ve reflected on exactly that! (And then I try to remember to be honest about my own inconsistencies…)
Verbose windbaggery, woo of the worst sort.
“Cosmic consciousness”.
There is a view I call holopsychism, i.e. the view that the cosmos, the universe, the world as a whole is one unitary subject of experience. According to this view, there is such a thing as a Weltseele (world-soul) or Weltgeist (world-spirit).
I approve of your word “holopsychism” (ὅλος + ψυχή)!
“Cosmic consciousness”?
How many seconds of thought does it take to realise that those two words go together like oil and water? (If you actually think about their meanings, about one.)
The cosmos, the sum total of everything, stars, planets, space, life-forms, radiations and everything we haven’t yet detected.
Consciousness, the capacity for self-reflection (which may not always be used for that, but which is an/the essential ingredient). (So far detected with certainty only in one species of carbon-based lifeform, and with less certainly in a few others, irregularly distributed over a thin layer on one rather small planet.)
It is hard to find a meaning for the question, does the cosmos reflect on itself? because it is hard to work out what it would mean for the cosmos to reflect, or not reflect, on itself? What would be the outcome of such reflection? Would or could the cosmos take action based on such reflection? What would the cosmos reflect on itself with?
“I’m not here to shove Darwin or Hawking down anyone’s throat.”
Yeah, well there wouldn’t be any room cos I’m too busy throwing up.
Someone who prays to cosmic consciousness is a lot of things, but the one thing they are NOT is an atheist.
That’s one of the parts that stuck in my throat, too — that arguing for the truth of a position is just like shoving something down someone’s throat. Where is the illusion to jackboots and cattle cars? Who knew rational analysis and debate is a way of shutting people up?
So she’s a Jedi, gotcha.
I never understand why these mystical “universal-soul” types need to devote so much verbiage to “I am a Jedi”; it’s not like their beliefs are particularly unique. Seriously, half of the liberals I know believe in The Force. Just say “I am a Jedi” and everyone understands your belief system in detail.
They might think you’re stupid, but, well, that’s not their fault.
Damn, I wish I’d seen this. She’s totally a Jedi-wannabe.
ROFL.
*blank stare* What exactly vibrates?
*blank stare II* Sure, we all do. (E=MC^2)
You know what I miss in her article? The word ‘quantum’!
I mean .. doesn’t she know that when you mention ‘vibration’, ‘manifestation’ and ‘energy’ in a non-physics article, you HAVE to have the word ‘quantum’ in there too somewhere.
Not if you are talking about some hard rock concert.
ah, c’mon Coyne – be kind. She sounds like a CUB fan!
If religion is toxic then woo is sugary sweet. Both rot the brain and rationality.
I’ve put together some stuff on DH:
She has, appropriately, a website named Don’t Shoot The Messenger 🙂
Here’s a wonderful portrait she’s done of the fiend Palin
Angel her cat (she has two I think)
This is her recent HuffPo piece Sleeping Beauty Wakes Up – and She’s 52 ~ a rather moving & very sad self-portrait which ends on a high note where she confronts her future. For me there plenty to like & plenty to dislike right there.
cont…
Unfortunately her ill-considered, ignorant remarks & her wooish world view are plain normal in her field. I’m sure she doesn’t stand out within her circle. Anyone who gives their influences as Stephen King, Dan Brown & Yukio Mishima is a little mixed up. Mishima & Brown should never, ever be found together !
Also she has the typical artist need to validate herself. In a trade where one’s rapidly ‘here & gone’ it is difficult to hold onto an accurate, realistic view of ones worth. Insecurity is the norm & it is common to split from reality [A long list here inc M.Jackson, Madonna, Bono, Winehouse & the countless unknowns who didn’t catch that lucky star].
That said, she has had (up to now) a rather colourful 50-or-so years of fast living – I admire her tenacity. Back in ’77 she was the original Frank’N’Furter impersonator during the crowd participation portion of the midnight screenings of Rocky Horror Picture Show at New York City’s Waverly Theatre. She dressed in ‘Frank drag’ at nearly every showing over the next six years in the 8th Street cast retiring in 1983. I’m fairly sure she was running a day job too.
Then, she had a go at ‘legit’ stage work. Then with song writing partner Pete Min, she founded the ‘dream-pop’ band Blue Djinn in the mid-90s. The group released its début recording, under her name & they had a small national tour, but with limited commercial success. One of Blue Djinn‘s songs, “Nobody Loves Me but You,” was featured in the tenth episode of The Sopranos [love that series]
This link will bring anyone interested up-to-date on her doings, which includes learning to use Javascript. The woman does not stop 🙂
I don’t have time for this. I have to get ready to shove Darwin down people’s throats.
This is really sick-making stuff. She’s certainly not an atheist. She believes in the God of Woo!
Dori Hartley needs to get out more: she has a very narrow definition of “God.”
Now, you can define God so broadly that it really does include atheism: that is a bad definition of God. But Cosmic Consciousness and the kind of morally-infused universe of woo Hartley talks about is a form of “God” by most reasonable definitions. She is not an atheist according to the standards of scientific humanism.
She’s just another theist bashing those who don’t believe as she does by pretending that the only theists understand love and tolerance. Silly person.
“I’m a good atheist: I not only believe in God — I don’t care enough about the subject to think it merits attention either. Why oh why can’t more atheists be like ME?”
She can’t be all bad: http://hartleyworks.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/nuthin-like-a-tall-cool-one/
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Stick some Yorkshire decals on this
“Endless enegry… forever and ever…”??
Someone doesn’t know the most widely-accepted theory of the fate of the universe apparently.
You don’t even have to take time away from experiencing “great love” (as opposed to just “ok love”) to read a complicated book (eww icky!), just watch some of Brian Cox’s “Wonders of the Universe.”
She sounds like a Unitarian or a 12 stepper to me; an atheist who enjoys dressing up and occasionally doing religious rituals just because they feel good.
Prayer? What is wrong with that? Anyone who has ever played a sport won’t find that strange at all; this can be thought of as a type of “centering” that helps one focus. My guess is that most teachers have done this. Example: you have an interesting research idea that is hard not to think about, but class beings in 5 minutes. So one has to focus on the subject of the upcoming class…
Prayer doesn’t have to mean “praying to something” or accepting any supernatural things.
Of course you are right about the “if you makes you feel good” apology for religion; I might think that my deity hates group X but that in no way excuses my maltreating those people.
And yes, the “militant atheist” phrase is pretty stupid; it isn’t as if we are flying planes into buildings or blowing ourselves up in crowded shopping centers.
“[Prayer] …can be thought of as a type of “centering” that helps one focus.”
“Prayer doesn’t have to mean “praying to something” or accepting any supernatural things.”
How helpful is it to redefine words so that they can mean anything? And are you sure that’s how Hartley meant “prayer”?
Let me try – “Everybody has religion, yours happens to be baseball. Religion is just something you care about deeply.” Now, do we understand “religion” better after my redefinition?
I apologize to Steven Weinberg for this blatant paraphrase of his famous remark, but Hartley demonstrates that with or without religion we would have intelligent people saying intelligent things, and stupid people saying stupid things. But for intelligent people to say stupid things, it takes religion.
🙂
+1
Yep, that’s how my brother operates. He simply cannot let go of the fantasy of self existing after death, so he rejects Christianity, except he thinks you still observe Earth and its going’s on after dying……er somehow.
I wonder how this person (Dori) feels about the sport of “Not Playing Golf”? Interesting? Satisfying? Shared?
I had someone ask me about “The Collective Unconscious” a few weeks back. That is also part of the Woo Dictionary to Explain Personal Satisfaction of Metaphysical Urges. The “Collective Unconscious” is akin to a collective game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, where everyone is blindfold and spins themselves in a dark room….to what result??!!
Hey, we went from being militant to being supremacists! Dori Hartley: proof that atheists have their share of idiots too.
I’m confused as to what exactly this individual would pray to, and to what end. If there’s no intercessory deity I don’t see the point in addressing the almighty Woowoo Field and begging for enough money to buy a new car. I guess that shows that the bigger enemy is really irrationality, and that religion is just a very virulent and dangerous form of it. Wait, scratch that, Hartley is religious and is devout follower of her own-made up nonsense. It’s just religion then.
It is religion: relying on the supernatural. Relying on non-material, even if it is demonstrated that everything is material, no exceptions.
She is simply practicing “Dogma Free Religion”: “What I believe on Tuesday may change, but if I change it, it is all that matters: I retain God-like control.”
She’s a “good atheist” in pretty much the same way intelligent design is “good science.”
Dori seems to have misunderstood the definition of atheism. She appears to think that if you don’t believe in a god with a name or fully fledged established religion behind then you’re an atheist, obviously this is not true. If you’re praying to something you can’t see or hear and expecting results, you are not an atheist, you just haven’t named your god yet. “Cosmic Consciousness” doesn’t really feel like a name but if you translated it into a foreign language it could work. I’d just Hindi. All it really means is “Sky Mind”, which sounds like god to me.
I kept on waiting for a punch line, like ‘…and she’s just signed on as a regular at The Intersection.’
Self-righteous twaddle, through-and-through.
The hunger for faith that seems to be a part of human nature confuses me. It seems that many people who make the dive into becoming atheist seem to cling onto the vestiges of faith. Either they are angry at a god who isn’t there or they find fulfillment in the spirits they label as the environment or the universe. Why can’t they come to grips with the fact that their gods or spirits or whatever they want to call them never was and never will be. Life is perfectly fine without faith in some imagined amorphous spirit.
She has no notion of how to write an intellectual sentence. It was wooooo all the way, wooful!
She’s religious. She just won’t give her god a proper name.
She need only check the mirror: God, in all Her Glory.
Or at least, the center of her universe.
The Capital City for all who, en masse, professes this notion of cosmic, conscious, connectedness bull doody is Marin County, CA, particularly west Marin – all territory “over the hill” on SFD Blvd.
I think they’ve already drawn up plans for Chopra’s final days. He’s there’s.
The Forrest Trolls region the most intriguing part of the zoo for me, although Fairfa ranks right up there with the best Olema and Bolinas has to offer.
Crystal gazers and cosmic faith healers from all over the world gather there regularly to pray to the cosmos for more “enlightened” thought and demonstrate there newly developed, tofu-based salad dressings/anal analgesics.
I’m gonna check it out. I’ll bet she either lives in SF (and dreaming of moving to Marin) or she lives in a tree house somewhere in Samuel P. Taylor Park, just outside of Forrest Trolls.
I’ll keep you posted.
~Rev El
If Marin is the Capital City, then Sedona is the Mecca. Just sayin’….
b&
She’s a native New Yorker living in South Florida. http://dorihartley.com/about.html
I have to agree with you. I like the geography and Limantour Beach in Pt Reyes, but the Woo Factor is unabated in West Marin. The favorite, short, condensed argument is “You cannot know everything, therefore everything is possible so long as you cannot disprove it.”
Crrrraaaaapola, through and through.
Me thinks she is more consumed with style rather than substance, and thus considers substantial dissertations to be be inherently antagonistic, rather than a genuine pursuit of the truth. She is excessively dependent on compliance and politeness, and thus very susceptible to caving in whenever the dialogue approaches discomfort. Too bad – it eliminates her from the difficult, but essential, task of introspection that energizes most of us to continue to pursue that which we have yet to discover.
She’s not bad – she’s just in constant retreat. Thus irrelevant.
ABSOLUTELY!! That’s why the idiocy of “I’m proud to be an American (or Australian, or whatever)” is idiocy. I got lucky – I had nothing to do with it. Circumstance ruled as it so often does.
Perhaps she is like the members of the new Christian Atheist movement in Europe (although in her case the New Age Atheist)–the people who believe that life is better if you spend it pretending you believe in a God.
But as a New Agey spiritual person myself, the ideas she believes in–universal energy/cosmic consciousness–seem straightforwardly New Age. I would agree that she doesn’t sound like any kind of atheist to me.
All this “cosmic consciousness” is just another holding on to a security blanket or a way to have eternal life through some type of “eternal spirituality.” Funny thing, when the brain shuts down, how will you feel that eternal consciousness?
New article in “Science News” about the mechanics of the “Death Wave” that sweeps over the brain, as it goes from living and functioning to dead and inert. Fascinating.
May be the best initial path to a detailed explanation yet of the “white light” and “my life passing before me”.
Off topic, slightly, but James Woods still doesn’t like atheists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/26/james-wood-the-new-atheism
“Like I’ve said, I’m not one of the militant types who needs to put anyone else down for their beliefs”
Gah!
Criticising belief != criticising believer.
Why is it that the middle ground is now people who wish to stifle critical inquiry and impassioned discussion? It really shows a low view of humanity if it involves coddling people in their beliefs…
“I feel the intensity of great love.”
Fuck off.
Perhaps she’s the last of the hebephrenics!?
I have met a number of people professing these types of beliefs. I call it “Shirley Maclaine atheism”.
“I’m all for it if it makes you happy, because that’s all we can ask for in this life”
She seems to believe she’ll get another one, or she should say: the life.
What I find annoying about Hartley’s comments is that they further the myth that atheist can’t have spiritual feelings without resorting to guru goo. When they can be entirely based in rationality – see current neuroscience research on meditation.
It’s a myth as frustrating as that of militant atheism .
I sort of agree with some of what she wrote, though I’m not sure why she refers to herself as an atheist…when her views skew more towards deism. In a nutshell I call the creative force and energy that gave birth to the universe and the laws governing the formation of stars, planets and all living things including us …God. Despite the wretchedness of life at times, it is hard to look past its simple beauty and the fact that there is an invisible hand in the form of the laws that govern the universe that brings order from chaos. So I understand her point there. And I get where she is coming from on prayer. I know several non religious people who meditate and pray as a kind of focus mechanism. Hey, people don’t often fall into the neat little boxes and categories that we like to stick them in.
The problem with this sort of belief is the notion of an absolute value. That is, an explosion in the sky on the Fourth of July and everyone oohs and ahhs. That same light, that same explosion, could be you watching all your family destroyed in mid-air, as their airliner explodes. It is all context, whether something is “beautiful” or not “beautiful”.
The Comanche squaws ripped open the stomachs of killed buffalo calves, to scoop out by the handful, the semi-digested milk the calf had just swallowed. It was sweet, it was “tasty” (since the Comanches often starved) and to them it was supremely beautiful: rich and ethereal, white like nothing else.
Is that how you would see it??
I’m a gnu atheist, naturalist and rationalist: ” The Transcendental Temptation” is no road to that more abundant life.
For that Google Naturalist Griggsy, Rationalist Griggsy, Skeptic Griggsy, father griggs, ignostic morgan and/or inquiring lynn.
Google also morgan lamberth’s blogs.
Ah, to retirement!
Billy Crackers, Pope Ratz, the Dolly Lama, Keith Ward, John Haught, Alister Earl McGrath, Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig rank with Sylvia Brown, John Edward and Alexander [?] van Praagh- as fools!
One more theist who can’t abide being called a theist or religious since she and they have shat all over those terms by their ignorant actions.
Arrogance should only accompany admissions of ignorance. We are all agnostics, and meaningful dialogue will only evolve once that foundation is agreed to.