The Three Wise Men

When it comes to atheism we have our role models too, but they're very different from those of religious faiths. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel C. Dennett have emerged as the leaders of the atheist movement for the 21st century. So I thought that I would take this opportunity to really take a close look at these "Three Wise Men" and see what makes them unique and makes their message a powerful one. They are important figures, and they are people who've received their share of criticism too. In response to their movement Gary Wolf writes, "the irony of [...] New Atheism -- this prophetic attack on prophecy, this extremism in opposition to extremism -- is too much for me". And he's certainly not the only one who's given Dawkins, Harris and Dennett a hard time. Theists from all over are claiming that these guys are Satan-worshipers and to listen to them is to listen to temptation which is a sin. Well if truth is temptation and temptation is a sin - we've got a long way to go until we can "break the spell".

I'll begin by looking at the works of Sam Harris. Harris is what I would call an 'active atheist'. He believes that religious faith is not only uneducated, but more importantly that it's dangerous. He actively attacks religious fundamentalism, as well as religious moderation. I will let him speak now:


You can get the full transcript of Harris' speech at www.cfinyc.org/transcripts_pdf/sam_harris_transcript.pdf

"I am simply worried."

Here is the first of many differences between a religious activist and an atheist activist. Atheists do not attempt to convert, or manipulate, or spread propaganda. They do not have an agenda. A lot of religious people accuse atheists of being immoral, inconsiderate, intolerant, murderous people, but we are just the opposite. We have a problem with poor morals, and intolerance and murder and this worries and terrifies us to no end. We begin to ask ourselves, "where does this disrespect for life come from?" And the answer we often find is - religion.

"We have the marriage of, quiet literally, first century or earlier beliefs—literally Iron Age philosophy—with 21st Century destructive technology. This, on its face, should seem untenable to us."

I believe that this is a tremendously important point. Religion, no matter what our priests keep telling us, is greatly outdated. It simply does not belong in our world. It should have died out ages ago.

"We do not respect people's beliefs. We evaluate their reasons. If my reasons are good enough, you will helplessly believe what I believe. That is what it is to be a rational human being. Reasons are contagious."

This is Harris' response to a lot of religious questions. Questions such as, "Well if God doesn't exist, why don't you prove that?" and "Why can't you just let us believe what we want, what's it to you?". It's not enough to simply believe. No matter how you put it, in a modern society in the 21st century, simple, uneducated and blind belief in the supernatural should be considered a mental illness or just plain stupidity.

"All we need is a standard of intellectual honesty where people who pretend to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about receive some conversational pressure."

Again, note the difference between this statement, and the common response of a religious activist. Thankfully, I am from Canada which is one of the most atheistic countries in the world, and a country of free speech and tolerance of all faiths. But what if I were from a deeply Islamic country where speaking out about religion is punished by death? This is why I strongly advocate the notion of 'intolerance of intolerance'.

"Forty percent of scientists believe in a biblical God. That does not suggest that there are good scientific reasons to believe in a biblical God. That suggests that 60% of scientists are not doing their jobs. There really is an argument to be won here."

This is in response to my previous post about Religion and Science. Harris agrees that religion and science simply cannot live together.

"...there is no place in the books where God says, “When you get the new world and you develop your three branches of government and you have a civil society, you can just jettison all the barbarism I recommended in the first books.” These books really are engines of fundamentalism. They are engines of intolerance."

I often get criticized for criticizing the Bible. People often tell me that I'm way out of my league and that it's absurd to criticize the Bible because the Bible itself does no harm, it's the Church that causes harm. But although there is some truth in that, the Church is a whole separate issue. The book itself is an 'engine of fundamentalism and intolerance' and it must be dealt with.

We have this idea that the fact that we were burning heretics alive for five centuries in Europe, this represented some kind of departure — a civilizational departure into psychopathology. It didn't. It is perfectly reasonable to do this if you believe the books.

And we do believe the books. We still believe the books. And in some places we still burn heretics alive. This is a problem.

You have probably noticed that Harris isn't really a great speaker. He certainly doesn't have the punch and the presence that, say, a preacher would. Keep that in mind as we move on to Daniel C. Dennett:



Daniel Clement Dennett is a prominent American philosopher and atheist advocate. Dennett's research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently a professor at Tufts University.

"I don't think there is a God so I'm an atheist, but I don't make a deal of it. It's not that I passionately believe there is no God. Of course there isn't a God, so what?"

Daniel C. Dennett has a very different approach from someone like Harris in the sense that he doesn't "make a deal of it". He approaches religion from a very philosophical point of view. He uses reason and thought rather than science and evidence to discredit God and what God does. This, of course, isn't to say that Dennett isn't a man of science and evidence - he is very much so and has written several books about it.

"I have a feeling that not that many people actually believe in God. Many people believe in belief in God. That is, they think it's a good thing. And they either try to believe in God, they hope they can believe in God, they wish they could believe in God and they say they believe in God. They go through all the motions, they try very hard to be devout and sometimes they succeed. For periods of their life they actually do, in some sense, believe that there's a God and they think they are the better for it. Otherwise they behave like people who probably don't believe in God. Very few people behave as if they really believe in God. A lot of people behave as if they believe they should believe in God.

Dennett tries to reason out God through the individual. He concentrates on the person and the person's belief in God and the person, rather than on the character of God Himself. He avoids, what I call, the "religious bubble". Outside the bubble God doesn't exist and it's all good, but most religious people won't listen to you because they do believe in God. They live in a different world than you. In order for you to be able to communicate with them, you need to step into their little bubble in which their God does exist. This means having to put your atheistic beliefs aside and hypothesize, for the next few minutes, that there is a God, and its their God. Dennett says - nonsense. There is no God, and I know it and most people already know it. They just won't admit it to themselves because they believe that belief in God is necessary. People need a God.

In his book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon he tries to break the conviction that religion is off-limits to scientific inquiry. And this is precisely what Sam Harris was talking about and what I'm trying to advocate. For some reason, as soon as you begin to question religion, religious people go wild and take it as some sort of personal attack. I've always liked Dennett because he reminds me of what God looks like in most religious icons and it creates a very pleasant sense of irony. :)

Unfortunately, the video I originally posted for Richard Dawkins (The Root of All Evil?) was removed for some unknown reason. It was previous found here: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=6169720917221820689. So if per chance it comes back online, I highly recommend it. But for now, instead I'll use this one:



Richard Dawkins asserts that belief in God is irrational and inflicts great harm upon societies. Jeremy Paxman interviews Professor Dawkins as part of the Newsnight book club.

"I'm wound up about the truth. I care passionately about the truth as a scientist and I do regard religious claims about the universe as alternative scientific claims."

Here we have the great atheist and speaker Richard Dawkins. He has lately come up to the forefront of the atheist movement, mostly due to his highly popular best-selling book "The God Delusion". Dawkins is a scientist, and a highly respect one. That's probably why people listen to him.

Of course, the other reason why he's become such a popular figure in the discussion of religion is because he makes wild claims which really get on religious peoples' nerves, such as saying that the feeling of God is probably a simulation in brain. Which to me, another atheist, sounds like a brilliant deduction, but to a religious person might sound like a direct attack because it implies their stupidity and ignorance.

And to finish off this entry I'll let Dawkins read a little bit from his book. Pay attention to the way atheists talk in comparison to evangelicals you usually see on TV. Or even in comparison to preachers at church. I agree with every single thing Dawkins has said, so I'd love to hear your opinions.



Richard Dawkins reads excerpts from "The God Delusion" and anwsers questions at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia on October 23, 2006. This Q&A features many questions from Jerry Falwell's Liberty "University" students.