Chris Hedges and "Fundamentalism" of New Atheists

[_marg]

I actually purchased Hedges book and started to read it. Yikes. It is even worse than the short version in the article. I have finally seen enough. Hedges has very little of value to offer. I thought I could get something from his utopia argument, or maybe his criticism of the belief in human perfectibility, and there may be some kind of point there, but it really does not apply well at all to the so-called "New Atheists." I have to admit that I was reaching to see it in Dawkins, but I think a television documentary is really not the place to look for Dawkins's thought in all of its complexity.

I'm actually finishing off the last chapter of Dawkins' book The God Delusion and still intend to respond to you Trevor. I'm not at home, so I have much less time for the internet. I'm glad we don't need to discuss Hedges any further as I was planning to eventually pick apart his short article. What a pile of nonsense that was. I think you still have some misconceptions about Dawkins' though, so I will respond to some previous responses you've made to me.

In short, I retract my arguments in favor of Hedges. He seems to have written the book version of Ben Stein's movie, but I need to refrain from making the same mistake twice--weighing in on something before I digested it sufficiently. Since I have not actually seen Ben Stein's movie, I will wait on that.

I believe Steve Novella wrote an excellent commentary about Ben Stein in his blog worth reading. It's down currently, otherwise I'd link you to the short piece in it, but check it out when it's up.

[_Gadianton]

The only thing I have to say on the topic of this post is that, there is a little bit of truth to the claim. Look at it this way, you have a neighbor who believes in Pixies, elves, or a man who created the earth and plays these sheet games with its inhabitants. Obviously, no matter how dumb you are, and no matter how smart your neighbor is, you're probably going to be right and probably going to be able to kick his A** in a debate.

the only issue I have with the above is that because it's too easy, it would be tempting to give up learning at that point because, why try? You can get cheap thrills off of crushing your opponents who may often times be smarter than you are, but due to their life of indoctrination, helpless against your common sense. So needs of self-affirmation get met and no need to expand horizons.

[_marg]

The only thing I have to say on the topic of this post is that, there is a little bit of truth to the claim. Look at it this way, you have a neighbor who believes in Pixies, elves, or a man who created the earth and plays these sheet games with its inhabitants. Obviously, no matter how dumb you are, and no matter how smart your neighbor is, you're probably going to be right and probably going to be able to kick his A** in a debate.

the only issue I have with the above is that because it's too easy, it would be tempting to give up learning at that point because, why try? You can get cheap thrills off of crushing your opponents who may often times be smarter than you are, but due to their life of indoctrination, helpless against your common sense. So needs of self-affirmation get met and no need to expand horizons.

Huh? Don't understand your post. Try some plagiarizing mixed in, it might help.

[_Moniker]

You can get cheap thrills off of crushing your opponents who may often times be smarter than you are, but due to their life of indoctrination, helpless against your common sense. So needs of self-affirmation get met and no need to expand horizons.

This is precisely what I think, and which is, often times, why I have no desire to debate religious individuals on their religious indoctrination. There are atheists, that have not received well my comments that those with religious indoctrination are not less capable of intellectual thought and critical thinking than atheists. I receive no thrills out of knowing I can debate the existence of the Easter Bunny or God with believers. I certainly don't think I'm intellectually superior because I have no indoctrination of supernatural -- matter of fact I'm often impressed by those that twist themselves in certain mental pretzels to defend their faith -- that takes creativity and talent, imho.

[_Moniker]

The only thing I have to say on the topic of this post is that, there is a little bit of truth to the claim. Look at it this way, you have a neighbor who believes in Pixies, elves, or a man who created the earth and plays these sheet games with its inhabitants. Obviously, no matter how dumb you are, and no matter how smart your neighbor is, you're probably going to be right and probably going to be able to kick his A** in a debate.

the only issue I have with the above is that because it's too easy, it would be tempting to give up learning at that point because, why try? You can get cheap thrills off of crushing your opponents who may often times be smarter than you are, but due to their life of indoctrination, helpless against your common sense. So needs of self-affirmation get met and no need to expand horizons.

Huh? Don't understand your post. Try some plagiarizing mixed in, it might help.

This may be helpful: The only thing I have to say on this topic is that concepts are bearers of meaning, as opposed to agents of meaning. And that should always be first priority. In order to make our mental images into concepts, one must thus be able to compare, reflect, and abstract, for these three logical operations of understanding are essential and general conditions of generating any concept whatever.

Look at it this way critical thinking is best understood as the ability of thinkers to take charge of their own thinking. This requires that they develop sound criteria and standards for analyzing and assessing their own thinking and routinely use those criteria and standards to improve its quality.

The only issue I have is when dogma and blind faith rush in to fill the vacuum left by reason's departure, they allow for the exercise of new forms of power more arbitrary and less derived from evidence.

Does that help? :)

[_Moniker]

I haven't read the link yet but will. I can already say that I think Dawkins is a bit naïve and idealistic, as well. He seems to imagine that eradicating religion will cure the human species of the underlying problems that resulted in the creation of religion in the first place. Kind of a horse and cart problem.

This is where I see the problem, as well, beastie. We eradicate religion? So? That does nothing to change human nature that nutballs like to congregate with other nutballs and do wacky things.

[_marg]

I haven't read the link yet but will. I can already say that I think Dawkins is a bit naïve and idealistic, as well. He seems to imagine that eradicating religion will cure the human species of the underlying problems that resulted in the creation of religion in the first place. Kind of a horse and cart problem.

This is where I see the problem, as well, beastie. We eradicate religion? So? That does nothing to change human nature that nutballs like to congregate with other nutballs and do wacky things.

First of all I don't think Dawkins expects to eradicate religion, I don't even think that is his goal. He clearly in The God Delusion states his goal is to raise the consciousness in particular of people who never thought they could question their religious beliefs or never thought to question. Throughout the book he brings up "consciousness raising" numerous times.

He writes p6 "But I believe there are plenty of open-minded people out there: people whose childhood indoctrination was not too insidious, or for other reasons didn't 'take', or whose native intelligence is strong enough to overcome it. Such free spirits should need only a little encouragement to break free oif the vice of religion altogether. At the very least I hope that nobody who reads this book will be able to say, 'I didn't know I could'."

His target audience is not all religious people but rather those who are capable of some introspection on why they hold the religious beliefs they do and people who haven't given religion in general much consideration and/or critical evaluation. If we lived in a world in which all ideas were of equal value, no discussion would be beneficial or neccesary to evalute, but we don't live in such a world.

[_Moniker]

I haven't read the link yet but will. I can already say that I think Dawkins is a bit naïve and idealistic, as well. He seems to imagine that eradicating religion will cure the human species of the underlying problems that resulted in the creation of religion in the first place. Kind of a horse and cart problem.

This is where I see the problem, as well, beastie. We eradicate religion? So? That does nothing to change human nature that nutballs like to congregate with other nutballs and do wacky things.

Hi, marg, my comment was directed toward the notion of eradicating religion and not so much toward Dawkins.

From statements such as these I don't think it's unfair to think Dawkins would, indeed, be pleased to eradicate religion:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,93,Is ... rd-Dawkins

Which brings me to my point about mental child abuse. In a 1995 issue of the Independent, one of London's leading newspapers, there was a photograph of a rather sweet and touching scene. It was Christmas time, and the picture showed three children dressed up as the three wise men for a nativity play. The accompanying story described one child as a Muslim, one as a Hindu, and one as a Christian. The supposedly sweet and touching point of the story was that they were all taking part in this Nativity play.

What is not sweet and touching is that these children were all four years old. How can you possibly describe a child of four as a Muslim or a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew? Would you talk about a four-year-old economic monetarist? Would you talk about a four-year-old neo-isolationist or a four-year-old liberal Republican? There are opinions about the cosmos and the world that children, once grown, will presumably be in a position to evaluate for themselves. Religion is the one field in our culture about which it is absolutely accepted, without question -- without even noticing how bizarre it is -- that parents have a total and absolute say in what their children are going to be, how their children are going to be raised, what opinions their children are going to have about the cosmos, about life, about existence. Do you see what I mean about mental child abuse?

It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

First of all I don't think Dawkins expects to eradicate religion, I don't even think that is his goal.

My comments were not directed toward Dawkins. Yet, the idea that we ask parents to stop indoctrinating their children with religious beliefs, or societies to steer more away from religion really doesn't address the human phenomenon that there are people that like to go to football games, paint their faces, put on a lucky shirt, twirl 3 times, then beat up on the opposing team during a riot. We group together into clans and become a mass of group think, often times -- that is where I see the problem that our world faces -- religion is not the source of this -- it just arises from this human tendency.

He clearly in The God Delusion states his goal is to raise the consciousness in particular of people who never thought they could question their religious beliefs or never thought to question. Throughout the book he brings up "consciousness raising" numerous times.

I have no problem with him stating whatever he chooses to and yet, he doesn't particularly impress me. I enjoy his works on evolution, yet, the rest of his works on religion just is not compelling, to me. He's an intelligent man, and has his opinions and yet, I just don't necessarily agree with them. I don't think people that have their children perform in a nativity scene are mentally abusing their children -- that strikes me as shrill rhetoric which turns me off of him. I don't care if others are compelled by him. Those that have their kids in nativity scenes will most likely be put off by what he states and those that already agree with him will continue to nod their heads. He may reach the open minded people or those not so invested in beliefs and yet, more often than not radicals in any direction turn off the majority of those that are in the middle and are likely to sway. This is why I appreciate Dennett and think he can be more compelling to those that already are believers or might sway.

He writes p6 "But I believe there are plenty of open-minded people out there: people whose childhood indoctrination was not too insidious, or for other reasons didn't 'take', or whose native intelligence is strong enough to overcome it. Such free spirits should need only a little encouragement to break free oif the vice of religion altogether. At the very least I hope that nobody who reads this book will be able to say, 'I didn't know I could'."

I agree with him. Although I don't necessarily think of religion as a vice, and see wording such as that precisely why many people would be turned off from him. I don't care he uses the terms he does, just again, I think that he's losing audience when he does so.

His target audience is not all religious people but rather those who are capable of some introspection on why they hold the religious beliefs they do and people who haven't given religion in general much consideration and/or critical evaluation. If we lived in a world in which all ideas were of equal value, no discussion would be beneficial or neccesary to evalute, but we don't live in such a world.

I get that.

[_marg]

I haven't read the link yet but will. I can already say that I think Dawkins is a bit naïve and idealistic, as well. He seems to imagine that eradicating religion will cure the human species of the underlying problems that resulted in the creation of religion in the first place. Kind of a horse and cart problem.

This is where I see the problem, as well, beastie. We eradicate religion? So? That does nothing to change human nature that nutballs like to congregate with other nutballs and do wacky things.

Hi, marg, my comment was directed toward the notion of eradicating religion and not so much toward Dawkins.

I understand I wasn't just talking to you. I was talking in general to whomever reads. There have been individuals on this board critical of Dawkins in particular that his goal is to eradicate religion. Once again I'm going to bring up the notion of "stupidity" he's not stupid. Just because he focuses on the negative aspects of religion and downplays the positive, doesn't mean he expects or is even seeking to eradicate religion. I think he'd like it such that those who give religion little thought and just go along with it, without criticizing, even supporting it because ..well that's just what they have always done and their parents did, for them to give it some serious consideration. In particular I think he'd like parents and society in general to reevaluate early indoctrination. If a parent is not totally commited to religion, perhaps they might rethink early indoctrination of their children, just because that's how they were raised.

From statements such as these I don't think it's unfair to think Dawkins would, indeed, be pleased to eradicate religion:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,93,Is ... rd-Dawkins

Which brings me to my point about mental child abuse. In a 1995 issue of the Independent, one of London's leading newspapers, there was a photograph of a rather sweet and touching scene. It was Christmas time, and the picture showed three children dressed up as the three wise men for a nativity play. The accompanying story described one child as a Muslim, one as a Hindu, and one as a Christian. The supposedly sweet and touching point of the story was that they were all taking part in this Nativity play.

What is not sweet and touching is that these children were all four years old. How can you possibly describe a child of four as a Muslim or a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew? Would you talk about a four-year-old economic monetarist? Would you talk about a four-year-old neo-isolationist or a four-year-old liberal Republican? There are opinions about the cosmos and the world that children, once grown, will presumably be in a position to evaluate for themselves. Religion is the one field in our culture about which it is absolutely accepted, without question -- without even noticing how bizarre it is -- that parents have a total and absolute say in what their children are going to be, how their children are going to be raised, what opinions their children are going to have about the cosmos, about life, about existence. Do you see what I mean about mental child abuse?

Yes this is in the book. He is doing what he says he intends to do in the beginning of the book. Raise the reader's consciousness. As a matter of fact in the book this portion you quote comes under a section with the heading "conscious-ness raising again". He mentions that labeling kids who haven't made any choices themselves as a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian isn't right, they are the children of parents who are Muslim, a Jew, a Christian. He points out what if in the story the journalist had written instead the children were "Shadbreet (an atheist) Musharaff (an Agnostic and Adele (A secular humanist). Would people accept that without opposition? No one assumes or would even think to suggest a 4 years old is an atheist, and agnostic, a secular humanist. So he's presenting this so people will reevalute how they label children. He mentions in Britain "atheist parentsusually go with the flow and let schols teach their children whatever religion prevails in the culture". So he wants people to think more, raise their kids to learn how to think, not raise them what to think. It's all about consciousness raising.

It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

Right. Early indoctrination of children is effective, it seems mankind has evolved such that children's brains are designed to accept without critically questioning whatever their parents say. It's necessary for survival. Beliefs adopted from a young age are difficult it seems to reevaluate, if appropriate for one's betterment to change..hence difficult "to eradicate". It's also not a matter of whether all religions are evil it is a matter of some religions.

p. 306 he writes: "As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers. The alternative, one so transparent that it should need no urging, is to abandon the principle of automatic respect for religious faith. This is one reason why I do everything in my power to warn people against faith itself, not just against so-called 'extremist' faith. The teaching of 'moderate' religion, though not extremist in themselves, are an open invitation to extremism."

"Christianity, just as much as Islam teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue. You don't have to make the case for what you believe. If somebody announces that it is part of his faith the rest of society, whether of the same faith, or another or of none, is obliged, in ingrained custom, to 'respect' it without question; respect it until the day it manifests itself in a horrible massacre like the destruction of the World Trade Center or the London or Madrid bombings. Then there is a great chorus of disownings, as cleris can 'community leaders' (who elected them, by the way?) line up to explain that this extremeism is a perversion of the 'true' faith. But how can there be a perversion of faith, if faith, lacking objective justification, doesn't have any demonstrable standard to pervert?"

p 308 Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument. Teaching children that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them - given certain other ingredients that are not hard to come by - to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for future jihads or crusades.

First of all I don't think Dawkins expects to eradicate religion, I don't even think that is his goal.

My comments were not directed toward Dawkins. Yet, the idea that we ask parents to stop indoctrinating their children with religious beliefs, or societies to steer more away from religion really doesn't address the human phenomenon that there are people that like to go to football games, paint their faces, put on a lucky shirt, twirl 3 times, then beat up on the opposing team during a riot. We group together into clans and become a mass of group think, often times -- that is where I see the problem that our world faces -- religion is not the source of this -- it just arises from this human tendency.

He clearly in The God Delusion states his goal is to raise the consciousness in particular of people who never thought they could question their religious beliefs or never thought to question. Throughout the book he brings up "consciousness raising" numerous times.

I have no problem with him stating whatever he chooses to and yet, he doesn't particularly impress me. I enjoy his works on evolution, yet, the rest of his works on religion just is not compelling, to me. He's an intelligent man, and has his opinions and yet, I just don't necessarily agree with them. I don't think people that have their children perform in a nativity scene are mentally abusing their children -- that strikes me as shrill rhetoric which turns me off of him.

I addressed this above. It's about consciousness raising ..the children in the Nativity scene would not be referred to as atheists, agnostics, etc just because their parents are, so why should we assume to label children by the religion of their parents?

I don't care if others are compelled by him.

And I don't care if you are not compelled but the point is to not misrepresent his position, his views, to not take words out of context and misrepresent his point, that's what I'm trying to get across. And it seems to me generally when people criticize Dawkins for a particular position not only are they misrepresenting him but the misrepresentation seems to assume Dawkins to be a rather stupid man, and that he obviously isn't. So instead of being so eager to criticize perhaps individuals should take a bit more time, rething, reexamine and determine just what his point actually is.

Those that have their kids in nativity scenes will most likely be put off by what he states and those that already agree with him will continue to nod their heads.

The problem is you don't understand his point.

He may reach the open minded people or those not so invested in beliefs and yet, more often than not radicals in any direction turn off the majority of those that are in the middle and are likely to sway. This is why I appreciate Dennett and think he can be more compelling to those that already are believers or might sway.

I don't understand what you are saying.

He writes p6 "But I believe there are plenty of open-minded people out there: people whose childhood indoctrination was not too insidious, or for other reasons didn't 'take', or whose native intelligence is strong enough to overcome it. Such free spirits should need only a little encouragement to break free oif the vice of religion altogether. At the very least I hope that nobody who reads this book will be able to say, 'I didn't know I could'."

I agree with him. Although I don't necessarily think of religion as a vice, and see wording such as that precisely why many people would be turned off from him. I don't care he uses the terms he does, just again, I think that he's losing audience when he does so.

The main point is that hopefully on this message board, he not be misrepresented. In particular I think people should appreciate he's not a stupid man, so don't assume he holds a rather stupid position.

His target audience is not all religious people but rather those who are capable of some introspection on why they hold the religious beliefs they do and people who haven't given religion in general much consideration and/or critical evaluation. If we lived in a world in which all ideas were of equal value, no discussion would be beneficial or neccesary to evalute, but we don't live in such a world.

I get that.

Good

[_Moniker]

Hi, Marg. I typed up a lengthy reply earlier. Copied it to paste it later and then forgot and just copied something else by accident. Should have saved it on notepad or word. oops. Anyway, I'm not redoing it. I'll just state what I intended to reply to.

My comments in this thread were not in any way shape or form connected to Dawkins, at first. I was replying to beastie and how I view the human tendency for clan mentality as the problem our world faces. You then asked about Dawkins and I replied to your comments. I don't disagree with much of what Dawkins says -- mainly I am turned off by how he presents his message about religion. Most of my issue with Dawkins and his consciousness raising is how he goes about it -- I don't know why this upsets so many atheists -- yet, it apparently does. :)

I don't think I misrepresented anything about Dawkins as I merely commented on 2 things:

1. I disagree that calling a 4 year old child in a nativity scene a Christian is akin to child mental abuse. I don't think children that are indoctrinated with religion are necessarily being abused -- in some cases I would say it is abuse. I would say there should be a scale. I was commenting on his use of the terminology, for the most part, and how this would more than likely turn off those that are moderates to a certain degree. I understand how he views religious indoctrination of children (I disagree with it not being put on some sort of scale in terms of mental abuse) and don't think children are necessarily being mentally abused by their parents because they choose to make them participate in religious festivals, learn about their parents religion.or even label them according to their religious views -- even without a choice. I just do not agree with that, at all, and yet, that's not what I was focused on. I was mainly commenting on his use of terminology and how this would turn off those he may wish to reach.

2. I commented that I think it's likely, from some of Dawkins' comments, that he would be pleased if religion was eradicated.

I understand what he's attempting to do, and don't have an issue with it. I mainly am turned off by his approach. To put this into perspective for you: There may be a number of politicians that are in the same party with the exact same message. They all want to get their message out and get their platform into legislation -- they may all approach the citizens with different techniques. I think it's perfectly acceptable to critic their use of rhetoric and call into question if it's actually successful at reaching those they wish to do so. I was mainly commenting on how I viewed his approach to those that he wished to reach.