Let's Hope It's A Lasting Vogue
by Richard Dawkins
Reposted from the Washington Posts' On Faith:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/
"Athorism is enjoying a certain vogue right now. Can there be a
productive conversation between Valhallans and athorists? Naive
literalists apart, sophisticated thoreologians long ago ceased
believing in the material substance of Thor's mighty hammer. But the
spiritual essence of hammeriness remains a thunderingly enlightened
relevation, and hammerological faith retains its special place in the
eschatology of neo-Valhallism, while enjoying a productive
conversation with the scientific theory of thunder in its
non-overlapping magisterium. Militant athorists are their own worst
enemy. Ignorant of the finer points of thoreology, they really should
desist from their strident and intolerant strawmandering, and treat
Thor-faith with the uniquely protected respect it has always received
in the past. In any case, they are doomed to failure. People need
Thor, and nothing will ever remove him from the culture. What are you
going to put in his place?
Atheism means non-belief in the particular cult that happens to
pervade the society under discussion. In America that means the cult
of Yahweh, the God of the Jews commandeered by the Christians, Muslims
and Mormons. Today, everyone takes it for granted that we are all
atheists with respect to Thor and Wotan, Zeus and Poseidon, Mithras
and Ammon Ra. If asked why you don't believe in Thor's hammer, you
would probably say something like "Why is the onus on me to justify my
nonbelief in Thor, given that there is not the smallest positive
reason for belief?" You might go further and add that thunder, which
was at one time attributed to Thor's hammer, now has a better
explanation in terms of electric charges in the clouds. While
technically agnostic about all those ancient gods, and about fairies
and leprechauns too (you can't disprove them either), in practice we
don't believe in any of them, and we feel no onus to explain why.
Today, while almost literally everybody is an athorist, nonbelief in
the God of Abraham is the most reviled opinion in America. Professor
Anthony M Stevens-Arroyo, one of the On Faith regular panellists,
begins his answer to the current question as follows: "I never met an
atheist I could like. Surely, somewhere on this planet, there is a
friendly atheist, but I haven't bumped into one yet. The atheists who
have crossed my path are obnoxious . . ." As an experiment, try
substituting the word 'Jew' or 'woman' for 'atheist', and imagine
whether a university professor who said those three sentences would
keep his job. Yet in present day America, a professor (of "Latino
Studies") can publish such odious remarks about atheists and get away
with it.
Of those scientists distinguished enough to be elected to the National
Academy, more than 90% do not believe in any kind of supernatural God.
Needless to say, many of them are likeable, friendly and far from
obnoxious, as well as being intelligent, well-educated, happy and
productive citizens. An equally high proportion of atheists has
recently been disclosed among the Fellows of the Royal Society, and it
is plausible that distinguished Academicians in philosophy, history,
economics, literature and other disciplines, coming from the same
educated and intelligent echelons of society, would yield similar
data. One must hope that a respectable proportion of the Congress is
drawn from that same educational and intellectual elite, so it is a
strong statistical expectation that many of them must be atheists too.
Yet I believe I am correct that not a single one of the 535 members of
Congress will admit to the fact. A good many have got to be lying, and
who can blame them? If they came clean they would be unelectable, as
polls have repeatedly confirmed. Atheists are widely assumed to have
no morals or values, to have no purpose in life, and to be incapable
of love, or of appreciating beauty in art or nature. Who would vote
for one of those?
The premise of this week's question is that atheism is enjoying a
certain vogue. I hope and believe it is not a flash in the pan. The
symptoms of which I am aware are indeed encouraging. Dan Dennett's
Breaking the Spell and Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation sold
exhilaratingly well through 2006, and my own The God Delusion remains
high in the bestseller lists into 2007. Similar success is to be
expected during 2007 for Christopher Hitchens's forthcoming God is Not
Great, and Victor Stenger's God: the Failed Hypothesis. Such buoyant
sales of books advocating out-and-out atheism would have been
inconceivable until surprisingly recently. When, six years ago, I
first proposed The God Delusion to my literary agent he was blunt:
"Don't even think about it." Yet now, after six years of incipient
Chrisitian theocracy . . .
On my recent book promotion tour of the USA, the standing ovations I
consistently received from packed audiences around the country,
(including in Kansas, and Lynchburg, Virginia as well as, more
predictably, the so-called 'blue' states) owed nothing to any
eloquence or writing skills of mine, and everything, I believe, to a
pent-up frustration among reviled freethinkers. Time after time, in
the long book signing queues, young Americans (encouragingly young)
confided to me, "Thank you, thank you, thank you for saying the things
that I have wanted to say, but never felt I could" (see
www.RichardDawkins.net). Sam Harris and Dan Dennett report similar
experiences from equally large audiences. There is widespread hope
that we are seeing the beginnings of a long-overdue shift in the
tectonic plates of our culture. Polls suggest that atheists are far
more numerous in America than they themselves realize. They well
outnumber the Jews, whose political lobby packs a legendarily powerful
clout. It is time for America's atheists to take courage from this,
and from the books I have mentioned, come out of the closet, stand up,
recognize each other, and work together to exert their rightfully
proportionate influence on this great democracy. If those books are,
as is often dismissively said, preaching to the choir, do not
underestimate its size or ability. This is a very large and very
talented choir, and the time has come for its music to be heard."
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