There’s nothing like those atheists who tell other atheists that we’re DOING IT RONG. We should either shut up, cozy up to the faithful, read more Sophisticated Theology™, or, in the case of Chase Madar, a New York attorney writing in Al-Jazeera America (a venue that I find increasingly distasteful), we should give up our criticisms of God and go after those other irrational ideologies, which are clearly more harmful than religion. And by those he means these three:
- Laissez-faire capitalism
- The “cult of community.” After all, he says, there are some bad communities, like xenophobic religious communities. (He doesn’t mention the helpful communities, like those who gather supplies for the homeless or victims of disasters.)
Look how dreadful his discussion of community is!
If you live in the United States, you’ve most likely been exposed in some way to the cult of community (pronounced with a nasal elongation of the second syllable: com-muuu-ni-ty), that nourishing cosmic teat of the 501(c)3 firmament and even the nonnonprofit world.
What a cozy world we live in, so wall-to-wall full of communities! The Subway franchise community! The diabetes community! The Latino community! The international community! And, best of all if you’re in the nonprofit world, the funding community! Of course, this is sentimental nonsense. “Community” implies a kind of cohesiveness that is just not there in various business associations and broad categories of people who have little in common —granfalloons, in the old neologism of Kurt Vonnegut.
Brothers and sisters, let us be ecumenical in our disbelief, as religion has not cornered the market in rancid dogma.
And even when the phrase isn’t gibberish, the blessed realm of community is really no nirvana. Lynch mobs were and are a form of community justice; child molesting without legal consequence has been a feature, not a bug, of Brooklyn’s Hasidic Jewish community and many Catholic communities. Communities can be nurturing and warm, but they are also liable to be xenophobic, intolerant, suffocating.
Communal bonds are, of course, real — and there is such a thing as society — but we should at least be agnostic here and recognize that this goddess is not all Vestatending her hearth but more like Kali, the Hindus goddess who, despite a maternal streak, is known as a blood-fanged force of destruction. [JAC: TERRIBLE writing: drags in irrelevant erudition to no end at all.]
- Air power, and by that Madar means everybody who bombs anybody else. But that’s no an ideology, it’s a tactic, which often doesn’t work but sometimes does. At any rate, it’s not at all the same as the supernatural, nor is it a belief based on faith alone.
To go to his article, click on the screenshot below:
The article is so poorly written, and so incoherent and illogical, that I can hardly believe it got published. (Did the main get paid to write this?) And, in fact, the argument can be used against anyone. Helping the homeless in your town? You’d be better off giving money to starving children in Asia and Africa. Battling child abuse by Catholic priests? Waste of time: campaign against drones, which are far more irrational. Writing for Al-Jazeera to criticize atheists? Your time would be far better spent criticizing the oppression of women by Islam.
Here’s Madem’s stirring conclusion, ridden with snark and ill will. And notice how dreadful the writing is:
Belief in any of the above non-god gods is far more pernicious than belief in an old-fashioned god god, whose retro appeal I can often appreciate, what with Mahalia Jackson and all the stained glass. As for the list of secular idols, it could go on — education reform, the infallible wisdom of the U.S. Constitution, awareness, American exceptionalism and that creepy and narcissistic pseudo-divinity spirituality. [JAC: When in doubt, pile on the adjectives!]
Whether or not you’re, like me, an atheist, the odds are you know plenty of religiously observant people (including some clergy) whose bullshit detectors are splendidly calibrated when it comes to the more powerful irrationalities disfiguring our world. Heck, the popes in Rome, even the conservative ones, have been criticizing capitalism for ages! It would be a good thing if our atheist celebrities Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Bill Maher diversified their Johnny One-Note disbelief and went looking for bigger Nobodaddies to dispel. [JAC: A common trope: breezy cuteness that actually weakens his argument.]
After all, given the choice between Maher, who espouses the apocalyptic belief that our Vietnam War was really great and noble, and the Methodist theologian Stanley Hauerwas, whose lucid and well-informed antiwar writing I find most enlightening, there can be no doubt of which is the more rational of the two. It’s funny how much theology remains standing even if you don’t buy the divinity stuff, buttressed as theology often is by logic, reason and experience.
How about given a choice between Maher, who espouses the doctrine that child rape by priests is unconscionable, and William Lane Craig, who claims that God’s orders to kill all the Canaanites were moral? Who would Madar go for?
That last sentence above, which I’ve put in bold, shows the intellectual vacuity of Madar’s whole approach. Criticism of people like Maher, Harris, and Dawkins has come in many forms, and from many directions, but I’ve never seen someone say that they should be directing their ire not at faith but at the Wrong Kind of Community, or at capitalism. Has Madar never heard of the principle of comparative advantage, whereby things function better if each person does what he or she is best at?
Madar Is a putrid human being for spouting that inane drivel.
No, he is not.
Still reading, but this popped out at me:
Um, yes, how awful that people sharing a medical condition get together to talk about their experiences!
??????????????
Horse’s ass!
I know, right? The phrase “to shoot one’s own foot” comes to mind.
Surely that’s, ummm, “disrupting the community of tissues and structures that cooperate to be your pedal appendage”?
Whoa, I never thought about it like that until you pointed it out. Darn, those insidious communities get everywhere, don’t they?
There’s a noxious bacterial-fungal community growing on my foot at the moment. Where’s my Daktarin?
But is it a community?
It’s a pity because there is a seed of a decent point lost amid the toxic waste: there are bigger issues globally than religion. Wars, starvation, awful human welfare in other nations, the damage caused by neoliberalist behaviour and fraud, economic exploitation of poorer nations by companies from wealthier ones, and ideologies that are religious-like (though technically not religious), as well as many disappointing aspects of, say, US legislation and approaches to certain issues like healthcare planning and social support. It’s not that religion is “good”, but there are “worse” demons out there.
But the flipside – which Madar completely ignores – is that there should be a place to air different issues. Religion’s prevalence might not be the most urgent, but it’s a force to be challenged nonetheless, and that doesn’t go away because there are starving and sick children in poor countries. And issues don’t sit in separate universes: they can intersect and intertwine in complex causal nets. Religion, for instance, plays a part in holding back many poorer nations where superstition and nonsense gets in the way of curing victims of sexually transmitted disease. It also played a role in stigmatizing women and ethnic groups, including people of other religions.
Worst of all is using it in an Appeal to Worse Problems. That stops being about genuine care for people’s welfare and honesty, and starts being about making atheists STFU.
The appeal to bigger problems struck me as well. I think I read a comment on this site once that referred to that sort of thing as “whataboutery.”
The point that there are harmful irrationalities other than religion is a point worth making, but this piece fell short of successfully crafting that argument for a number of reasons. If he doesn’t really draw a distinction between a community of people suffering from diabetes and the “funding” community of the non-profit world, he’s an idiot. If he does differentiate between those two things then he’s being disingenuous to make a point . . . poorly. He is a terrible writer either way.
And speaking as someone whom has lived his entire life in a place with a large “Latin community,” I’d warn the author to be wary of making this particular generalization.
A native Texan of Mexican heritage, an immigrant from Guatemala, an immigrant from Venezuela and an immigrant from the Dominican republic probably don’t identify as being members of one single community and they often get annoyed at being lumped in together and defined as such by people whom are, in this case obviously, ignorant about the many different cultures represented by the “Latin community.”
So are you saying that the notion of community is valid or that as you pointed out, that nominal headings of a community can say nothing or too much?
Is there a Latin community or not?
The heck? I wasn’t saying anything about community. It’s not even related to what I was saying. What I was saying was that, while it’s OK to point out genuine problems other than (and greater in scale than) prevalent religious attitudes, that neither makes atheism irrelevant nor gives one a right to tell atheists to STFU.
Besides, let’s make one thing clear: Madar’s take on community is nothing short of insane bordering on word salad. As a result, I have no idea what he’s getting at.
As far as I’m concerned, any loose gathering of people can be informally called a “community”. That’s entirely their business. If people want to join together and form a Latin community, whatever. If people object to being lumped into an unhelpful and discriminatory description like Latin community, then more power to them. But I know little to nothing about any issue or issues here, so I can’t comment with any particular insight.
Sorry if my comment seems to have appeared in the wrong place for you.
I did note you mention a seed of a decent idea.
I was actually replying to bobsguitarshop, who did seem to be saying something about community.
I thought his ‘take’ on community was an interesting observation and have noticed myself, the use of the word community. I won’t bother saying in what context.
I don’t think he was saying STFU.
“How much theology remains standing” is an appalling statement. How about patriarchy, the discrimination of women, the persecution of LGBT individuals, the disregard for education- I could spend the day listing the horrors that still stand.
“How much theology rains standing” is also just the wrong way to put it. The parts of theology that aren’t about god and could reasonably be called insightful or useful really aren’t, in my view, theology. And if that’s too “No True Scotsman”, then I’m confident secular thought would have (probably already did) come up with the same insights. People always produce the Golden Rule when pressed for something good resulting from xianity, but the Chinese had thought of that ages earlier.
Those ‘horrors’ you mention are not really that horrible compared to the obscene wealth disparity and the continual falling for the validity of the free market.
There’s nothing like comparing horrors! Why don’t we compare the suffering of victims of genocides? That should be productive, shouldn’t it?
That is an absurd response.
The patriarchy is not a horror.
There is no patriarchy.
I don’t know what discrimination of women you are talking about but the real problem for women is a life of poverty and economic discrimination as it is for a very large percentage of the population.
Your response was glib and asinine.
There is no patriarchy? Is that your honest response? Monotheistic religions aren’t patriarchal? Ah- yes, that explains all the female Popes and Ayatollahs! If you genuinely believe patriarchy is a ‘myth’, I think I’ll step away from the discussion.
BTW, check da roolz- insults should be avoided ’round these parts. This is a website that encourages courtesy 😉
I reread your initial post and see that you were referring to religious aspects.
I mistakenly assumed you were speaking of general western society.
Apologies.
I still think the comparing horrors response was a little off but, basically I missed your point.
I have just heard of a thing called the ‘Reader response theory’.
Seems I fell for it and understood your comment by what was salient in my mind at the time, thereby missing your meaning.
It is something I will look into and be wary of.
Again, apologies.
It’s a very normal human reaction. We all do it, much of the time.
I also didn’t make clear that I agree with you (my revised understanding).
I was commentiing just recently that there is a definite echo of the horrors of the inquisistion still with us, reflected in the treatment of those you mention, among other things.
As you say, those things, plus, are still with us, for other religions too.
I can’t quite work out what he meant by that statement.
“why we should stop criticizing theism and go after capitalism??”
A: Some atheists support Capitalism, esp. the conservative ones.
B: “I would like the last of the kings to be strangled by the guts of the last priest”. Our work isn’t finished on that front…
C: Where do they FIND these simpering religious sycophants claiming to be “atheists”??
I’m afraid there are a whole lot of wanabe atheists out there that should be taken with no more than a grain of salt. They tend to mostly attack real atheist and know very little about religion at all. The more they talk, the more they just sound like accommodationist. They have not really lost their religion so they strike out at everything around them, including actual atheists. In some ways they are worst than dealing with the religious. At least with the religious, you know what you have.
“Has Madar never heard of the principle of comparative advantage, whereby things function better if each person does what he or she is best at?”
If he has, he probably doesn’t think much of it. Otherwise, he’d probably feel better about the free markets which allow it to operate.
Well his arguments show a limited understanding of economics, a basic principle of which is comparative advantage, so there’s the answer imo.
Perhaps he has and thinks it can be used as another flippant rationale for the great exploitative nature of the free market.
I note he did provide some examples of the results of free markets.
Perhaps he has but thinks notions like that are quite readily trotted out as another flippant rationale for the great exploitative reality of free markets.
He gave a couple of examples of free markets, I’m not sure there main feature is facilitating each persons ‘best’.
That’s just par for the course for Al Jazeera, a Qatari-funded network that’s apparently rife with sexism and antisemitism:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/business/media/sexism-and-anti-semitism-charged-in-al-jazeera-america-lawsuit.html?_r=0
I steer well clear of its output.
I understand why anyone would want to steer clear of Al-Jazeera, but that’s precisely why I watch it from time to time. It helps to know the arguments people will use against you in advance so as to be prepared to counter them. I find some of the arguments are so stupid that if I’d met them for the first time in a debate I’d be so dumbfounded, I’d be speechless.
There is actually good stuff on Al-Jazeera too though. I’ve even got a Dawkins debate saved on my DVR I recorded from Al-Jazeera.
Has anyone watched the “One America” network?
Since does atheism entail a social justice agenda? Atheism just means not believing in God. A lot of atheists I know are not interested in community development or aren’t anti-capitalist at all. Many of them are Libertarian jerks. Others just aren’t politically or economically liberal. Telling atheists they should be “going after Capitalism” is assuming an awful lot about them, starting with the misperception that we all think alike.
+1. The point that all atheism means is lack of belief in gods should be stated up front. It shouldn’t be confused with the reasons someone doesn’t believe, or the opinions someone who happens to be atheist holds.
Statistically there are generalisations that can be made about atheists, but, of course, most people don’t fit them all, so care should be taken in using them.
There’s nothing wrong with focusing an atheist stance specifically on a social justice agenda, one which is derived from the same reasons and rationale behind one’s atheism. The problem would be insisting on everyone else focusing on these issues, and only these issues.
From what I can tell in both sides generally tend to accuse the other side of telling them what they should do, but they’re not doing that to them. Which ends up a positive.
Chase Madar, of course, being a noted exception. It looks like a social justice version of Dear Muslima.
(I hate typos; please eliminate the word “in” from 2nd paragraph.)
That’s what I was trying to say – you explained it better.
That’s some god-awful writing. Sounds like it was assembled by a random pseudo-clever phrase generator.
This guy’s writing is absolutely dreadful. I can’t help wondering if being an Atheist Who Attacks Atheists/Atheism guarantees you’ll get published.
Now that statistics have shown that atheism is more common in the US than previously thought, there are all sorts of people claiming atheism when they’re simply a None. (Perhaps that’s a fault that’s arisen out of survey methodology.) This guy is another caricature of an atheist, like the women Jerry wrote about a few days ago who claimed to be an atheist who found God. Madar comes across as the stereotypical super-arrogant, thinks-he’s-better-than-the-plebs, atheist that theists love to hate.
Madar’s arguments simply lack logic and (especially) clarity. While criticizing atheists for criticizing religion, he uses analogies to religion to show how bad a particular non-religious practice is. He also uses the stupid “the Soviet Union was atheist” argument, which shows he’s not as smart as he spends the article trying to pretend.
I recommend he reads a book that was released just last week called Faith vs Fact. It will help him understand why atheists take the position they do – that there are no gods – the extreme damage done to society by believing otherwise, and why many atheists feel compelled to point that out.
Further, seeing a case clearly and persuasively argued as in that book will give him an example to emulate in his writing. He certainly needs one.
Yeah, because the God issue has so clearly been settled now, with atheism well respected and culturally accepted all over the world. Everyone knows, loves, and can correctly cite all the problems with theism, making it a non-issue. Or not.
There can be a hundred articles extolling faith and 3 articles against it — and the latter will be considered a glut on the market which requires immediate response.
I made a similar comment not long ago, but this is, again, a good example of writing that gets written when the writer has essentially nothing to say. His screed about “community” is ridiculous. It’s a word. A useful word. And what is this “cult of community”? When you peel away the excess verbiage he’s observing a truism: we should criticize groups that deserve to be criticized.
Yes, my impression as well – he isn’t quite sure what he is trying to say but he is sure that he want to sound clever saying it.
Personally I find the increasingly wide use of ‘community’ extremely irritating. The word is now well along the route to meaninglessness.
Would seem that that is also true of “individualism” and “self-made man.” (Think capitalist Mitt Romney; he’s certainly qualified to advise a “working class” student on how to work ones way through college.)
I thought his screed about community was interesting and insightful and am glad I heard it.
Ok; what exactly did you get from it?
I don’t know that I have to be able to show, exactly, what I got from something to justify finding it interesting and insightful.
There does seem to be pretty ready use of the community to bunch together a group of people with no real sense of community.
That community may in fact have evil outcomes.
That community as such, while being used a default good thing it need not be.
It is worthy of further consideration.
All I need to justify my initial comment, if I need anything, is that last point and if and when I do I may have more to say on it.
I find the use of the word jarring at times, one example might be (one that is), someone may say, “you should get involved in your local community”. Rather than list all possible responses I may have to that, I’ll just say “no thanks”.
‘I find the use of the word jarring at times, one example might be (one that is), someone may say, “you should get involved in your local community”. Rather than list all possible responses I may have to that, I’ll just say “no thanks”.’
I’m reminded of Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone.” One might want to occasionally bowl alone, so that if the ball gutters (if one much cares whether it gutters) there’s no chorus of yappers to whom one must answer. Sometimes the world, “the community,” so imposes itself that one wants to keep it at arm’s-length in ones private time, especially when ones work involves dealing with a multitude of human primates.
When I was in the U.S. Navy some years ago, the powers-that-be wanted the various commands to be more involved in the officers club, to make it a significant part of ones off-duty social life. No doubt, there will always be “30-Year Warriors” who live, eat and breath Navy, can’t get enough of anything Navy. But, for us mere mortals, when one is on duty at sea 24/7 for an extended time, when he returns to home port, he wants to get away from anything remotely connected to “the community,” at least for a few days.
Indeed.
What god awful writing! I can barely figure out what he is trying to say but I can discern that he is trying to sound smart.
He needs to go back and write down his ideas in bullet form – maybe then we can figure out what his central argument is.
I’m seeing the “bigger target” criticism more and more these days. I don’t get why. If people really were inclined to fighting the biggest possible cause, then we’d have gotten rid of world hunger a long time ago.
The other thing with “bigger targets” is that big thinking is rarely productive. “I want to solve world hunger” is a noble sentiment, but what would that involve for the individual to make any headway on the problem? Big thinking needs to be brought back down to a personal level, because that’s the level we can have an effect on. Beyond that, it’s all too big – including the ideas themselves.
I disagree.
I think the world should be rid of religion and have for years. Now that like minds can and are marshalling forces with the like of the internet we are getting results.
Sub
I am not of course a high profile atheist, but I am concerned about imperialism, the excesses of capitalism, etc. for many of the same reasons I am concerned about theism and religion:
– They involve seriously false beliefs about human nature
– They endanger the biosphere and other humans (as an important special case)
– They often (but not always) go together to present united fronts (e.g., the US Republican party)
etc.
I am going to stop commenting on every bodies comments.
I happen to like what he had to say.
I don’t know if his writing was that bad but even if it was that some one doesn’t have a talent for writing doesn’t mean they should be prevented from presenting their ideas and thoughts.
Unlike most people here I don’t think Bill Maher’s position on vaccinations is as bad as people make out or that it should detract from his other value.
I do however think the one thing that Maher really needs to revaluate his notion that the Vietnam war needed to be fought.
That vile horror, that makes the Iraq war look tame, was evil beyond compare, full stop.
If atheists can have opinions on things, and they do, it doesn’t hurt to have someone point out a few areas of concern, to which they might turn there sceptical attention.
Especially because I agree with him that the free market sacred cow notion is letting great injustices continue.
Sam Harris recently tried to have a conversation with Naom Chomsky, not to much avail. I believe, and thought at the time, that if Sam had at some point demonstrated a slightly different political awareness, the conversation may have been better. Sam does in fact think about those things to one degree or another, so a bit of a pointer is no great harm, I have thought it myself.
Sam is one on my most favourite thinkers and communicators still though.
I looked at a couple of other articles by Madar and liked what he had to say. Things that really need to be addressed, like the obscene prison situation in America.
I know people here think about that stuff too so I really don’t get the attack on him.
I probably can’t write that well either so I hope that doesn’t exclude my opinion.