Over At Massimo’s Place

Over at Massimo’s place, things get ugly as three celebrity Atheists duke it out. Dawkins and Coyne get bitter and rude, and Massimo charges PhD envy, and he has more than the other two put together.

Of more substance is Massimo’s article on Atheist activism. The big division in the past has been over whether Atheists should be nice and tolerant while fighting for their own rights (whatever those are) or whether they should be “in your face”, meaning rude and crude while trying to eliminate religion altogether. This has been the internal Atheist war of “accomodationists” v.s. “anti-accomodationists”, where the anti-accomodationists refuse to tolerate even accomodationists like Massimo. (That’s the source of some of the vitriol from Coyne and Dawkins).

Massimo recommends four different objectives and gives reasons for them.
1. Unsurprisingly, first is the promotion of the Separation of Church and State. Even many Christians support this, especially when confronted with Sharia, or even the state churches in Europe. But the problem is in the definition: Atheists seem to want all ethical associations severed with the American religious tradition, Christianity. The dearth of common ethics associated with Atheism as a common objective for social contracts is a deadly characteristic for Atheism in this pursuit.

2. Atheists need to be accepted; Massimo points to the mistrusted groups data. Massimo’s position here is that Atheists need to behave themselves in order to generate trust:
” Now, if one’s goal is to be accepted (not just tolerated) in a society, one is more likely to achieve that goal by playing social and nice (which does not at all mean to capitulate or compromise on principles), as opposed to constantly jeering or hurling insults at other members of said society.”
Massimo is swimming up a waterfall here, for two reasons. First, Atheism as an ethical position generates distrust all by itself: it has no attached ethic. With out a specific Atheist ethic, there is nothing for anyone to trust in. Second, many people are Atheists for the purpose of satisfying their rebellion and giving themselves a sense of superiority, and that hubris in an intellectual and maturity void will naturally result in “constantly jeering and hurling insults”. And being nice and tolerant is specifically rejected by most of the New Atheists and the third tier players like PZ. There is no chance at all for the success of this initiative by Massimo. No, there is no reason that Atheists “should be accepted”, other than that they want to be; and they want to be without any change to their ethic-free world view: Atheism.

3. Combating dogmatism. Ironically, Philosophical Materialism is entirely dogmatic, and without a shred of material or logical evidence in its support. It is not credible to think that Atheists will give it up.

4. Elimination of irrationalism. Under Massimo’s personal definition, Materialism is tautological with rationalism. But in actuality, Materialism is irrational under its own evidentiary standards, making universal claims with no material evidence. Would Massimo eliminate Materialism due to its irrationality? Demonstrably not. So this is a lost cause for Atheism also, because of the same issues in #3.

But Massimo, even though a popular NYC blogger and man-about-town, is on the outs with the most powerful of the big dog Atheist icons. So there is little possibility that his opinions will get much airing outside of the Big Apple (except perhaps more ridicule). Maybe I have helped just a little bit with that. You’re welcome, Massimo.