Philip Adams (author, columnist): “Atheist Fundamentalism: The Dangers of Missionary Zeal, Why We Mustn’t Be Like Them”
This was a strange talk. Phillip Adams is arguing that atheists haven’t had much influence on religion at all. He argues we’re not killing religions; they’re committing suicide. Further, the decrease in some religions is not leading to an increase in atheism, but rather an increase in pseudo-science and cults. Certainly atheism is the beneficiary of a lot of that religious mobility. But we can’t take credit for the decrease in conventional religion. These wounds are self-inflicted. We’re winning, but not because of what we’re doing.
We should attack religion when it moves into our area of secularism. But we shouldn’t be disagreeable on areas where we could be making allies. We must use the opportunities to make friends with people who are not our enemies. “Let us not cast them into the outer darkness into which they cast us. Let us be better than them.”
My view: Adams seems to feel that the pace of change is glacial. And yet here we are. The number of atheism and ‘nones’ is growing fast. Are we supposed to just quiet down now? Hell, no.
It’s not about being better. It’s about telling the truth. I say shake the tree. They won’t like it, but they wouldn’t like any amount of push-back. Their idea of a ‘good atheist’ is one that shuts up. What has that gotten us in the last 50 years? Yes, I will pick battles, and in person I’m actually polite. But I didn’t like having an atheist dampening the momentum.
Entertaining, but a bit of a downer. I wonder how I’ll feel about the atheist movement when I’ve been in it for as long as he has (if that’s possible).
I am not stalking PZ, but I bumped into him when no one else was around. I said, “Phillip’s talk was certainly a different view. Not so much ‘in your face’.”
He said, “That’s okay. We need that.”
“You’re more forward about it,” I suggested.
“We need that too,” he said.
13 March 2010 at 7:35 pm
Further, the decrease in some religions is not leading to an increase in atheism, but rather an increase in pseudo-science and cults. Certainly atheism is the beneficiary of a lot of that religious mobility. But we can't take credit for the decrease in conventional religion. These wounds are self-inflicted. We're winning, but not because of what we're doing.
I agree. With the addendum that also, the decrease in some religions leads to "spiritual-but-not-religious" (which I guess can sometimes fit in that "pseudo-science and cults" category, sometimes not).
Really, what I think atheists are doing is not "converting" people, but they are getting more people who are atheists to speak out and be counted. I think that people who drop out from organized religions still have some sense of spirituality, but they are turned off by the current organizations that are around.
14 March 2010 at 10:48 am
Like you say, I think we're probably peeling off a segment of the population that never did believe. Maybe we'll stop seeing the rapid growth in 'nones' on censuses (e.g.) as that process comes to completion.
But in the meantime, we're all making it acceptable to have no religion at all, and that's positive. I think this development alone will help many people find their way out of religion.
14 March 2010 at 1:17 pm
Thanks for sharing all these summaries; all very interesting. I agree with Andrew S about disaffected members of organised religion. It certainly looks like even bigger stupidity when people leave religions only to join some new age cult. But I think even more people might just be apathetic about religion – in a secular world it just doesn't factor amongst the daily grind of work, mortgages, families, taxes and other big commitments. It looks like they get about as close to non-belief as anyone can get, but would never refer to themselves as atheists.