How Not To Defend Atheism

[rug]

Still from "David Silverman - Atheist Gangster" (Youtube)

By Vlad Chituc / January 15, 2016

David Silverman, the president of American Atheists and author of the new atheist polemic Fighting God, really doesn’t want you to think he’s a dick. Instead, he wants you to think he’s “That Pretty Good Guy Who Gets Called a Dick So Often He Gets Angry and Writes a Book About It.” (Those are his actual words). To put it in perspective, the word “dick” appears 23 times in the slightly more than 200 pages that makes up the meat of Fighting God. The word “brainwash” and its variants appear 36 times, while the “American Way” appears 13.

This is not a sophisticated book.

Which was why I was so surprised to see Fighting God receive substantial endorsements from the New Atheist establishment. “How refreshing it is to read a book that is not afraid to speak the truth, sans apology,” Richard Dawkins enthuses on the cover. According to Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine, Fighting God “will help take our movement to national prominence and into the corridors of power where we can effect real change.” Hemant Mehta on The Friendly Atheist blog named it the best atheist book of 2015. “Not since Christopher Hitchens has someone so forcefully made the case for why we need to abandon religion,” Mehta wrote. “Firebrand atheism is alive and well.”

Insofar as Fighting God has a central mission, it’s to champion this brand of in-your-face atheism, but in doing so, Silverman flattens all the depth and complexity a responsible thinker would want in a discussion of religion. Silverman’s religious world is a one-dimensional one, where “atheism is perfect” (actual quote) and “has never had a moment of failure” (real, actual quote) while “religion is Machiavellian in its methods” and “deserves to die” (also actual quotes). This sort of black-and-white dogmatism reduces my confidence in the few novel and interesting points Silverman does make about, for example, the general lack of oversight for religious nonprofits.



Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World
David Silverman
Thomas Dunne Books
December 1, 2015

http://religiondispatches.org/how-not-to-defend-atheism/

An apt impaling.

[cheapdate]

1. Not my style, but to each his own.

[Cartoonist]

2. Atheism needs no defense

Because atheism makes no outlandish claims. It is religion that needs defense, and the best they can come up with is, "can you prove God doesn't exist?"

At no time in the history of the world has religion ever made a provable claim. As for the horrors religion has inflicted, there is no defense.

[rug]

3. As an intellectual stance, it does.

As do all of them.

Here's a few questions:

Is it reasonable to have nonbelief?

What is the basis for the nonbelief?

By what method doe one determine the reasonableness and the basis for the nonbelief?

By what measure does one reject the belief in which he or she has no belief?

Or, you can shout "PR Pope Frankie!" and await accolades.

[Cartoonist]

4. Nope

Atheism is simply this: there is no proof that God exists. This is an irrefutable fact that even Frank can't deny. All the questions you ask ASSUME that God exists and works backwards from there.

[rug]

5. Nope. The questions assumes that a belief in God exists.

They proceed to inquire into the reasons for nonbelief in that concept.

BTW, your statement, "Atheism is simply this: there is no proof that God exists." is incorrect. There are many other reasons people have nonbelief. For some that is not the reason for nonbelief at all, starting with the problem of determining what is and what is not adequate proof.