Life according to Gordon

I am not an atheist and I never could be one. But it seems that in this day and age, atheism has become the new popular and cool philosophy to fit in with. Everybody's doing it. I do not find atheism repulsive and terrible. Atheism, at face value, is simply the belief that there is no higher power, and I think everyone is entitled to their beliefs. What I do take issue with, however, is what's been dubbed "militant atheism." Really a better term for it would be "antitheism." Atheism is simply the belief that there is no God, but antitheism is the extension that those who do believe in God are stupid, harmful to society, and should be done away with. Richard Dawkins, a British biologist, has become a huge proponent and leader to the cause of antitheism. Personally, I can't stand him.

I had a chance to skim through what has become his most famous book, and the holy gospel to militant atheists around the world: The God Delusion. Much like its author, I can't stand the book, and I thought I'd write a blog post discussing some of it. I find the whole thing terribly intolerant, misleading, and downright poorly researched. Fundamentally, the entire book seems to whittle down to one statement: "If everyone in the world agreed with all my points of view, we'd be much better off." That's the best that I can summarize the whole philosophy he seems to encourage throughout. He also tries to cite quotations from famous and scholarly historical figures, but I did a better job of citing sources in academic writing than Dawkins when I was 14. I'll start off with a quote from the book.

It is conventional to assume that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic were deists. No doubt many of them were, although it has been argued that the greatest of them might have been atheists. Certainly their writings on religion in their own time leave me in no doubt that most of them would have been atheists in ours.

This is really a very telling passage that highlights Mr. Dawkins' general approach to history. He has no doubt that many of the Founding Fathers of America fit the archetype of the modern atheist. Well I do have doubts. Quite a few doubts in fact, since he offers no real evidence on which to base this assumption--in fact all the evidence that does exist on the matter unequivocally disproves his claim. But before we get into that evidence, it's important to take note some of the intricacies of how he's phrased this passage.

"It has been argued that some of them were atheists" is a true statement. This says nothing as to whether or not any of them actually were atheists--all it says is that the arguments have been made by other people that they could have been atheists. Yes, people have argued that. Sure, fine, great. But notice how he phrased that: he didn't say "some of them," he said "the greatest of them," as if to imply that only the great ones had the honor of being atheists, while the not-as-great ones seemingly weren't quite as smart. And how could they be, believing in God, right? This is really the crux of his whole approach. This book isn't about reason; it's about fostering an us-versus-them dichotomy and rewriting history to make the great and scholarly historical figures appear as if they would befriend and support everything he says. It's about him trying to fit in with famous and smart people, and repeatedly insist that they would have supported him had they lived long enough. These passages in The God Delusion on the Founding Fathers are to American history as Inglourious Basterds is to German history (except not as entertaining).

He then gets more specific as he offers up short quotations from particular Founding Fathers to try and suggest that they were secretly atheists all along. (By the way, why is everyone so obsessed with the Founding Fathers of America?) However, it is obvious to see that all he is doing is cherry-picking fragments of un-cited quotations taken completely out of context to support his own conclusions. Here are some examples.

Remarks of Jefferson's such as "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man" are compatible with deism but also with atheism.

Yes, Jefferson did say this, in a letter dated March 21, 1801 to Dr. Joseph Priestley. The full quote is as follows.

This was the real ground of all the attacks on you. Those who live by mystery and charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy,--the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man,--endeavored to crush your well-earnt and well-deserved fame.

Dr. Joseph Priestley was a Presbyterian minister who later converted and became a Unitarian minister. He was also a scientist credited with the discovery/isolation of oxygen as well as the invention of soda water. At the time he was criticized and attacked by members of the Presbyterian church for his dissent. Jefferson was condemning the Calvinists (Presbyterians) here in particular, claiming that they had perverted the intent of Christianity. But criticizing one particular sect of Christianity is still a far-cry from claiming that he did not believe in God. The quotations showing that he did believe in a divine creator are numerous. Indeed, Jefferson also identified as a Unitarian as well as a deist. In fact, in another letter Jefferson wrote, dated April 11, 1823 to John Adams, he stated, "[John Calvin] was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be." Is that remark "compatible" with atheism, Mr. Dawkins? Continuing with some more of the quotes he offers up...

The same could be said of Benjamin Franklin's "Lighthouses are more useful than churches" and of John Adams' "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

First of all, I have no reason to believe that Benjamin Franklin really did say that. Dawkins offers no citations whatsoever, and I haven't been able to come up with any after searching the internet for awhile. A Google search will reveal plenty of websites attributing that quote to Franklin, but none of them seem to offer any citation of where or when he said that--if he said that at all. The only citation that ever showed up was from page 43 of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion! By the very logic that Dawkins encourages in this book--that you have no reason to believe something unless you can see physical, scientific proof of it--we simply cannot assume that Benjamin Franklin really did say that quote. For all we know, Dawkins could have heard it from anybody at a dinner party and later misattributed it to Franklin. If anyone reading this can find the citation, I'd be happy to go back and revise this post to include an analysis of the quote in its full context.

But even if it was true that Franklin did say that, this by no means makes him an atheist. The more reasonable explanation is that he was making a statement critical of a particular sect, denomination, or religion (much like Jefferson did above)--not condemning all religions as Dawkins loves to suggest. If we take a look at some of the other things Franklin said, which we can confirm with citations, we see a different story. In the book Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion, written by Benjamin Franklin and published in 1728, he wrote the following.

I believe there is one Supreme most perfect being. ... I believe He is pleased and delights in the happiness of those He has created; and since without virtue man can have no happiness in this world, I firmly believe He delights to see me virtuous.

Once again, this is historical evidence that runs completely counter to what Dawkins implies throughout. The only thing that Dawkins does successfully prove is that he'd make a great poster child for confirmation bias. From Wikipedia: "Confirmation bias is an irrational tendency to search for, interpret or remember information in a way that confirms preconceptions or working hypotheses." In a nutshell, confirmation bias happens when you search for evidence that confirms what you believe, but then stop short once you've found some, without trying to see if there is any other evidence that would contradict what you believe. The God Delusion is chocked full of this. Dawkins takes sentence fragments that--when taken alone, at face value--seem to support what he's saying, but then he doesn't bother to look for any quotes that would contradict his own beliefs. Indeed, in some instances he seems to ignore the fact that the next sentence in the very same quote can contradict his hypotheses! Here's the full context of the Adams quote from above:

Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, "this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!!" But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company--I mean hell.

This quote is very straight-forward. John Adams declares in the very same breath that the portion of this quote Dawkins has picked out was only a temporal and mistaken frustration, which he immediately recants. Adams explains in no uncertain terms that life would be hell without religion. That's completely opposite to the implication Dawkins makes with this quote. In fact, this quote was included in They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions, published in 1989, as a clear example of how people will change the meaning of quotes completely by leaving off the full context. The fact that this quote was already widely known as an exemplar of misquotation 17 years before Dawkins wrote his book shows that either Dawkins is not anywhere near as rigorous as someone with a doctorate should be, or just downright deceitful. I find it hard to believe that someone with a Doctorate of Philosophy wouldn't recognize that the quote was only partial and out of context, so my belief is that he included it as a fragment to intentionally mislead his readers and encourage others to misquote it. But I will admit that this is only speculation. It's also possible that Dawkins is just unintelligent.

In any case, the simple fact is that Richard Dawkins is uninterested in providing accurate, historical context for the quotes he offers up. He's more interested in this self-affirming vitriol he passes off as logic. To suggest that any of the Founding Fathers were atheists, despite their own associations with religious bodies such as the Unitarian church, despite their own numerous writings declaring their belief in higher powers, and despite their many letters expounding on their deist beliefs is utter nonsense. Dawkins' arguments are sadly juvenile. He might as well have written, "If Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin were born in the 20th Century, they would have been atheists! And they would have liked me, and we would have been friends!"

There is no historical basis to assume that any of the Founding Fathers were atheists. And even if there had been, what does that matter? Again, why the obsession with the Founding Fathers? Are his misquotes just an attempt to sound more credible? Or is this just an attempt to try and establish an "in crowd" and insist that only the smartest and most revered people belong there? Would it really matter if a small handful of people from 200 years ago didn't believe in God? In any case, all of them did publicly state on numerous occasions that they did believe in a higher power, so regardless of what Dawkins was going for, his arguments fall apart.

But all this failure to properly quote people aside, to his credit Dawkins admits that he cannot prove that God does not exist; he can only assure you that he thinks it's highly improbable that He does. For me, that point makes writing this book completely superfluous. He is of course entitled to his opinion, but I would be more supportive of his search for understanding if he didn't so strongly need to force his beliefs down others' throats while doing it. Again, saying "I don't believe in God" is one thing, but saying "I don't believe in God, and you're stupid if you do" is another. And in not as many words, that latter bit is a good summary of his book.