Charlotte Allen: Simpleton? Or Pastor Mike Clone?

A recent harangue against atheists by sometime columnist Charlotte Allen got the attention of most atheists. Not so much because of the insults and innundoes, which we have come to expect, but because her diatribe was full of invective against a major demographic - and would be regarded as "racist" or worse in any other venue. (Especially as it was published in many prominent papers, including The LA Times, Washington Post etc.) 

 Imagine, for example, if what she wrote was directed at Jews. You would hear a hue and cry that would be unending, as well as possible lodging of protests from abroad. But rather than belabor this any longer, let us look at her essay and take it apart. 

 She begins: "I can't stand atheists -- but it's not because they don't believe in God. It's because they're crashing bores." 

 In fact, this is blatant code that I have seen often in 35 years of debates with the theist side. Translated, it means that she can't stand atheists because they don't believe in god and are also prepared to defend that non-belief. 

In other words, she is okay or would be okay with us as long as we sit nicely at the table and keep our mouths shut, but don't dare open them! She won't tolerate our vigorous defense of atheism, and hence, to her it is a "bore". 

 She then goes on to write: "Other people, most recently the British cultural critic Terry Eagleton in his new book, "Faith, Reason, and Revolution," take to task such superstar nonbelievers as Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion") and political journalist Christopher Hitchens ("God Is Not Great") for indulging in a philosophically primitive opposition of faith and reason that assumes that if science can't prove something, it doesn't exist." 

Here, the irrepressible theist demonstrates a serious lack of understanding of what atheists claim, or assume. Having read Dawkins fine book ('The God Delusion') I can assure her that he doesn't assume that if "science can't prove something it doesn't exist". 

But for the simple-minded attackers like Allen, this is a more facile take to adopt than to address the actual point - which can be expressed thus: No modern physicist or other scientist is so daft or naive as to assume if science can't prove something it doesn't exist. The scientist has merely observed that the idea of any unproven, undemonstrated entity is logically unnecessary. Its incorporation, in other words, does not assist the physicist (or biologist, or chemist,) explain his respective objects of inquiry OR to make verifiable predictions. But see, this is too subtle a point, too nuanced by far, for a simpleton attacker to process and address. Far easier to use Allen's red herring, strawman version. 

 As an example, adopting the concept of a god does not help me to predict the next X-class solar flare. While there are a multitude of forecast indices, including the strength of the magnetic field and the narrowness of the magnetic gradient (near the magnetic inversion line of a spot group), god is not among them. This is easily explained by the fact the entity is unobserved. 

While I can measure or at least estimate the vertical magnetic field, or the magnetic gradient scale (grad B = [+B_n - (-B_n)] / x ) I cannot do the same for 'god'.  Nor can I invoke a deity to help me ferret out any contradictions arising from use of the gradient scale.

Hence, he, she or it is of no use to me. If something is no use we call it redundant or superfluous. It isn't that we are obligated to "disprove it" - we simply never use it or invoke it. It becomes, effectively non-existent, if not technically so. I don't expect Allen to grasp any of this, however. 

Especially when she repeats canards such as: "My problem with atheists is their tiresome -- and way old -- insistence that they are being oppressed and their fixation with the fine points of Christianity. What -- did their Sunday school teachers flog their behinds with a Bible when they were kids?" 

 In fact, this is the most scurrilous slander. Let's leave out for the time being that more than half of American atheists grew up within atheist families, so being "flogged with a bible" is irrelevant and cockamamey codswallop. The others, such as moi, while we grew up in churched or religious families, simply ceased to see anything of value or validity in the rituals, beliefs we were exposed to. It became kind of like a mental masturbation, and we grew tired of it. 

 How many times, after all, can you have "impure thoughts", go to Confession, fess up to the padre - have the same thoughts two days later, then go back to Confession next week? It gets tiresome really fast. Something like a rat working his tail off on a treadmill that never ends. It's easier just to leave, having seen the whole BS for what it is, concerted mind control. But again, this explanation is too common sensical for the likes of Allen. 

 She continues: "First off, there's atheist victimology: Boohoo, everybody hates us 'cuz we don't believe in God. Although a recent Pew Forum survey on religion found that 16% of Americans describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, only 1.6% call themselves atheists, with another 2.4% weighing in as agnostics (a group despised as wishy-washy by atheists). You or I might attribute the low numbers to atheists' failure to win converts to their unbelief, " 

 In fact, had Allen actually read the 2006 University of Minnesota study (conducted by Penny Edghill) on Americans' perceptions of atheists, she might not be anywhere so glib as she displays with this idiotic paragraph. For those who don't know, the study, based on a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, disclosed that atheists now occupy the bottom rung of social respect for minorities in American society. 

They’re now regarded as contemptuously as communists were in the 1950s, and rated in social worth below Muslims, immigrants and homosexuals today.[1] The study noted that a significant number of respondents associated atheism with an array of moral misbehavior, including criminality and materialist emphasis. 

In addition, the findings “seemed to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good". This is nothing short of astounding given that as a nation and people, Americans are notorious for giving short shrift to the “common good” as evidenced by consistently voting for no-tax or tax cutting candidates, when they know the outcome will starve government of the resources needed to advance the needs of the vulnerable, such as the 47 million currently without any health insurance. 

 The truer fact, that Americans may not like to confront, is that the U.S. has been committed to a rugged individualism since the country’s founding. The historic confluence of free market capitalism (exalting such individualism) and evangelical Christianity probably occurred in the U.S. ca. 1885 with the publication of the Rev. Josiah Strong's book Our Country, Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, which is highlighted in Chapter 2, of Richard Hofstadter's book: Social Darwinism in American Thought, American Historical Association, 1955. 

 As Hofstadter notes, the acceptance of Social Darwinism in the U.S. coincided with the visit of Herbert Spencer in 1882, for a speaking tour. Spencer, for those unaware, was a British philosopher who sought to extend the principles of natural selection in Darwinian Evolution, to society as a whole. As Hofstadter points out, Spencer absolutely repudiated all state assistance to the poor, needy, physically feeble, or infirm. In terms of the role of natural selection in “social evolution” such aid amounted to unwanted artificial interference in nature. Not to mention, meddling in the “natural development” of a superior society. 

 The Rightist-corporate elite (including many of the ‘robber barons’)latched on to this as a kind of dogma, and then performed another “miracle” of sorts, by blending this hyper-individualism with Christian virtue (proto-Calvinism and its work ethic), and a strict, constructionist view of The Constitution. That Americans forget this basis for rejecting the common good in the national zeitgeist, while blaming atheists for it, is nothing short of amazing in terms of hypocritical mental acrobatics. Or it perhaps discloses a tragic absence of historical knowledge or perspective. (And we know how consistently low Americans score on history surveys and tests) 

 In general, the respondents believed they “shared a basic sense of moral right and wrong” with everyone but atheist fellow citizens. Difficult to comprehend when the bulk of those in prison for major felonies are members of one religion or the other! And this study emerged after more than 30 years, during which Americans have been led to believe by their media that the seeds of social tolerance had finally sprouted. The sheer scope of the revealed ignorance in the Edghill study cried out for disclaimer and rejection by Americans of good will everywhere, yet all Allen offers up is not one solid reference or acknowledgement, and nothing but bitter dregs cast at atheists themselves. 

 Allen next devotes several paragraphs, again uninformatively, to atheists being unable to hold any office in the U.S. She refers to "Antique clauses in the constitutions of six -- count 'em -- states barring atheists from office" - but ignores the real reason which is bound up with the misplaced and low opinion held by Americans of atheists, as exposed in the Edghill study. 

 Obviously, if we are held in less esteem than Muslims, it makes sense that Americans will elect a Muslim to local or state office before any atheist. A point brought out in the Edghill study. But this sails serenely over Allen's head. 

 She goes on: "The problem with atheists -- and what makes them such excruciating snoozes -- is that few of them are interested in making serious metaphysical or epistemological arguments against God's existence, or in taking on the serious arguments that theologians have made attempting to reconcile, say, God's omniscience with free will or God's goodness with human suffering" 

 Which, of course, is the basest mindrot and tripe. Virtually all serious atheist authors have made consummate arguments based on solid ontology (as well as epistemology) to show the improbability of a god's existence. Maybe it is that Allen, so buried in her disdain for us, doesn't look hard enough. 

 As an example, on the AARP religious forums some months ago, I noted a basic ontological argument: "following Russell’s lead (‘The Problems of Philosophy’) we need to specify the practical and operative laws that apply to existents and entities, under the general rubric of “being”. (Thus, to be most accurate here, when an atheist agrees to debate a Christian, he is only agreeing to the presupposition of “being”. It remains to be worked out or proven, what the exact nature of this being is.) By “existent” we mean to say that which has prior grounding in the mind, albeit not yet demonstrably shown in reality. 

 For example, the number ‘2’. If the number 2 is mental, it is essentially a mental existent. (Do you see literal two lurking in the outside world, apart from what the human mind assigns, e.g. two apples, two oranges, two beetles etc.?) Such existents are always particular. Thus, ‘2’ must be minimally an entity that has “being’ regardless of whether it has existence. 

 Now, we jump into the realm of epistemology from here, with the next proposition: Generalizing from the above precepts, ALL knowledge must be recognition, and must be of entities that are not purely mental but whose being is a PRECONDITION- and NOT a result- of being thought of. Applying this to the ontology of “non-contingent creator”, it must be shown it exists independently of being thought of. (E.g. there must be the case of an aseitic Creator independent of the existence of human brains which might get tempted to confabulate it.) 

 Here’s another way to propose it: If one demands that this entity is not susceptible to independent existence, and therefore the mere announcement or writing of the words incurs validity, then the supposed condition has nothing to do with reality. It is like averring we all live inside a 12-dimensonal flying spaghetti monster. I would be laughed into oblivion, especially as I incur no special benediction (as you do) by invoking the G-noun. In effect, if the proposed “non-contingent creator” isn’t subject to independent existence, then its alleged “truth” is separated from verification. Truth then becomes what is communicated to us by proxy (or proxy vehicle, e.g. ancient texts, preachers, rabbis etc) with the existent (abstraction “God") in the mind of the communicator who deems himself qualified to make the “truth” exist." 

 No one in the months succeeding was able to challenge the above argument at all. Not even at a semi-serious level. Atheists, then, probably don't make the ontological (or epistemological) case often enough because they know before they put pen to paper they will draw a blank. The theist side, while it brags on its "great incisive minds" - has yet to trot them out when needed. As for reconciling "omniscience" with "free will" WHY should atheists help with that? 

That is like asking us to square the circle, given - as mathematician John Paulos has shown in his book, Irreligion, they are mutually exclusive (and even contradictory) attributes. Indeed, the case can be made that it is premature to assign "omniscience" to a presumed entity for which there isn't an ounce of empirical evidence. Omniscience, as Paulos (and others before) have pointed out, may simply be the optimal-greatest attribute of which the human mind can conceive, and thereby projected onto his artifact of the mind, "God". 'Hmmmmm......IF there is a God, he'd know EVERYTHING at all times! Voila! Omnisicence!'

 At least some Christians, obviously unknown to the impetuous Ms. Allen, have seen such extent of incompatibility between "free will" and "omniscience" that they no longer retain both for their deity. A friend of mine in Barbados admitted, for example, he now believes God is the "Socinian" deity, after Socinus, who postulated he can know no more than the most advanced sentient consciousness in the universe at one time. This, of course, would allow for many mistakes to made because "God's intellect" is always playing catch-up and trying to learn on the run. But ask most Christians to drop their pie-in the-sky confections and embrace this realist version and they'd likely have mass heart attacks. 

 Allen again, veers off into her never-never land of whacked out assumptions: "Atheists seem to assume that the whole idea of God is a ridiculous absurdity, the "flying spaghetti monster" of atheists' typically lame jokes" Actually, as usual, Allen is way wrong here. Most atheists take the idea of God belief deadly seriously if for no other reason that the manner of belief and how it is mandated, practiced (by religions) can intrude into the atheist's world and life. 

For example, if the godist's deity proclaims abortion is verboten, and the atheist's sister is raped, and cannot procure an abortion - that is cause for alarm. So, it would be monumentally stupid of us to treat god belief lightly. At the same time, we regret so many of our fellow humans lack the critical grey matter to investigate the beliefs they have, at a deeper level. As for the "flying spaghetti monster", atheists did not invent it, but rather it was offered as a model of a god and discussed, investigated at an actual religious convocation and seminar. The model was useful in that it easily represented and subsumed all the attributes typically assigned to god as espoused in most religions. 

 Allen then goes off onto her next tangent: "What primarily seems to motivate atheists isn't rationalism but anger -- anger that the world isn't perfect, that someone forced them to go to church as children, that the Bible contains apparent contradictions, that human beings can be hypocrites and commit crimes in the name of faith" 

Once more, we have the odoriferous drip of a red herring. Allen, too simpleminded and glib, is unable to counter our serious rationalism and arguments - so she finds it easier to project HER anger onto us. She also has to drag in the bit about being abused as kids, this time forced to go to church, since her febrile brain can't process that individuals could actually exist who mature and question the values, beliefs, biblical claptrap they were taught- then reject them. No strings. No hidden Freudian excuses or subterfuge. 

 As for Biblical contradictions, why be angry about those? Most intelligent atheists know and recognize that the Bible isn't a book of God anyway, but written by semi-literate, pre-scientific nomads and peasants. So the contradictions will inevitably surface because the book has been mistranslated and bowdlerized so often we have lost count. A "God" wouldn't produce a contradictory and flawed book, but imperfect humans certainly would. As for crimes committed in the name of faith, we know - as per the investigations of Michael Persinger, that this is because the seriously-faith based person is likely also mentally unbalanced. See any of the earlier blog entries produced in March, for example. 

I do not condemn the evil faithers for their crimes, I only request they go to the nearest therp for lithium treatments, or maybe get a course of ECT. (Electro-convulsive therapy) 

 Lastly, Allen writes: "What atheists don't seem to realize is that even for believers, faith is never easy in this world of injustice, pain and delusion. Even for believers, God exists just beyond the scrim of the senses. So, atheists, how about losing the tired sarcasm and boring self-pity and engaging believers seriously?" 

 My response? When you decide to engage us seriously, Ms. Allen. We will be more than happy to engage you. But if you are going to indulge in childish, maudlin rants such as published in the major national press, you can forget it. [1] University of Minnesota News, March 31, 2006, “Atheists Identified as America’s Most Distrusted Minority, According to new U of M Study.”