The Atheist Bus Campaign is a project of the Freethought Association of Canada to offer an atheist message in the form of paid advertising on public transit vehicles in Toronto. It emulates the very successful Atheist Campaign started in the UK, and which has recently enjoyed a victory that will ensure its ability to continue unhindered.

The TTC buses showing these ads should start rolling in May, and the proposed message is the same as that used for the UK campaign: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Messages and hierarchy

I was made sleepy by the expected reaction from zealots, but was somewhat surprised to find opposition to the campaign from unexpected quarters. A non-religious acquaintance seemed baffled, wondering aloud what the purpose of it could possibly be. And Author Stephen Marche, a self-declared atheist who uses the term interchangeably with “secular humanism”, bemoaned the campaign in The National Post, finding it distasteful.

I believe what Dawkins and Hitchens write, and I certainly don’t need to be convinced of religion’s inherent toxicity… But turning secular humanism into a movement with a message is no way to stand in opposition to the terrifying global rise of religiosity.

It’s a startling declaration at first, apparently bereft of conviction and courage. But Marche is merely arguing that the first step toward dogmatism, the rigidity of viewpoint that atheism is supposed to refute, is hierarchy and organization. The kernel of his warning is a sound one: dogmatism, or militancy, of any kind, including militant atheism, is bad. It refutes rational investigation, the very foundation of most atheism, and ultimately rests on nothing more than unfounded propositions and opinions bleated loudly, lacking any appeal to reason.

Unreasonable lassitude

Like most atheists, however, Marche seems happy to silently live his life surrounded by the messages of religion, even while finding those messages to be irrational at best, and poisonous at worst. In October 2008, a “leading Vatican official” called homosexuality “a deviation, an irregularity, a wound.” There is a tiny, one hundred strong Christian sect in Kansas in the United States that has had global publicity far in excess of what is merited based on its size, the worthiness of its assertions, and the guttural offensiveness of its messages. And of course, Joseph Ratzinger, the current pope, previously head of The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — known a century or so ago as The Inquisition — said on December 22, 2008 that humanity needs to be saved from homosexuality and transsexualism, likening these conditions to its own destruction. (As an aside, I’ve walked down Church Street after midnight on many weekend nights in my youth, and humanity is in no danger of being eradicated by the various incarnations of Marylin Monroe and Jane Mansfield you can find flouncing around there.)

To my knowledge, Marche has not written any articles in major national newspapers decrying messages as offensive and anti-human as these. It is startling to me that he has decided to pick on the inoffensive and agnostic, even sheepish and apologetic message of the bus campaign.

This is morally repugnant to me. To take a position against the hurricane of life-denying poison coming from the lips of many of the faithful, a small position, so discrete as to be almost invisible, seems to be the only recourse many people have. To display one’s world view in quiet, gentle opposition to the regular religious harangue — to, horror of horrors, stand in opposition to all of this with an actual message! — is a noble effort, a kind of life-affirming “excuse me but” in the face of a pervasive, opposing rant. It is not only a good way to stand in opposition to the relentless march of religious intolerance and irrationality, it is a necessary act. A baby step perhaps, but an important one.

Much in a single line

Most importantly, much to the dismay of Marche and many people like him, the eleven words of the campaign message represent a coming together of people weary of the intolerant unreason issuing from the side of the faithful. Something quite simply has to be said, in as cheerfully inoffensive a way as possible. Gathering for this effort, sending money or putting up a website or ordering advertising on the side of a bus, is not the sure road to rigid dogmatism that alarmists are worried about. It is simply the required response of a growing population of reasonable people who reject the unreasonable, sometimes offensive and toxic, dictates of religion.

The message is directed at believers, and it is a simple one: Yours is not the only message around. There are others with a message more wholesome and more life-affirming. Fear is not the dictator of morality, and good works do not come from an abundance of faith, but from an unfettered love of humanity, from pleasure in humankind for its own sake, from the joy we take in our fellows simply because we live, because we are, because we eschew suffering and embrace life; because we believe in ourselves.

Louis Activism, Atheism, Atheist bus, Believers Activism, Argument, Atheism, Believers, Communication

The level of acrimony between atheists and believers is high. While atheists assert their right to challenge the faith of believers, believers feel mounting pressure to counter-attack. There have been a flurry of books in response to The God Delusion and others, but nowhere is the rancour more evident than in popular discourse, where there seems to be few rules of decorum, and where dogmatic positions in both views undermine whatever argument any particular adherent wishes to put forward. True communication in this scenario is not possible.

I understand the potential for militancy in atheists’ positions. Logical discourse mostly fails when attempted with many believers, because faith is necessarily impervious to logic. Many atheists assert that religious faith, especially fundamentalism, has seriously eroded education, science, and intellectualism, has made inroads in politics that have accelerated this process, and has changed the face of popular culture (such as it is). In the face of the inability of believers to accept rational arguments criticizing their beliefs, a reactionary response from atheists follows, buoyed by a feeling of fatigue with staying silent. This leaves the avenue of assault wide open — while simultaneously closing off common ground.

From the viewpoint of the believer, the nature of faith makes it impossible to reconcile its tenets with serious critical inquiry, and thus, there is no point in any dialectic concerning faith. To have faith implies that one accepts the infallibility of the articles of that faith. In extreme cases, inquiry of any kind is a sort of heresy. For example, even the soundest forms of biblical criticism and analysis would not alter the way some believers hold to the specifics of their faith. While this way of dealing with the world is a kind of refuge for believers, it necessarily cuts off all communication with those who do not believe.

In Canada, twenty-three percent of the population identify themselves as atheist, remarkably about double the number of the estimated percentage of atheists in the entire world. Even in the United States, where about 8% of the population report being atheist, the number of non-believers is growing, especially among the young. Even so, believers far outnumber atheists in North American society, and in society at large.

It seems apparent that both sides should be communicating with one another.

There is some attempt to do this. David Emery, a pastor at Middletown Christian Church in the US state of Kentucky, offered a series of sermons that sought to respond to what he calls the valid arguments of popular atheists like Dawkins. In his short but incisive book, Atheism, Julian Baggini, who is not shy about revealing the abundant absurdities of faith, warns about militant and dogmatic atheism, and its cost to reasoned discourse.

A model of common ground that would temper acrimony would be the understanding that a moral position is possible for both the atheist and the believer. Believers can be coached to accept that morality is possible with no belief in gods; that, in fact, morality and altruism are the default modes that human beings operate from. The sheer abundance of evidence of moral behaviour throughout recorded history, where the nature of belief in gods has continually changed, is indicative of this. That most atheists are even concerned with moral and ethical issues should be proof positive.

Atheists must always operate from a position of moral grounding while recognizing the fundamental humanity of believers. What is more immediately important than what a person believes is what a person is, in terms of his or her relationship to the rest of the world, and how suffering impacts everyone, whether its source is an absurd delusion or not. There is no need to refrain from pointing out absurdities of faith, especially when those absurdities take on dangerous forms; but when communicating with individuals, what is important is the recognition of the sameness of the atheist and the believer. PZ Myers’ cracker desecration would have been impossible for him, if his concerns for the suffering of others outweighed his intolerance for religious absurdities.

As their demographic numbers, perhaps glacially, approach one another, the importance of the shared humanity of believers and atheists is highlighted.

Louis Atheism, Believers Argument, Atheism, Believers, Communication, Morality, Religion

Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, authors of Breaking the Spell and The God Delusion respectively, are perhaps most responsible for what is popularly called “new atheism”. With Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, they have added the concerns of atheist thinkers to popular Western discourse, unapologetically, with no sensitivity for the bruised feelings of theists. Perceived variously as rude, arrogant, unfeeling, or high-handed, their response is generally to point out that, when talking about ideas that are so important to humanity and indeed often dangerous to it, it’s best to leave the kid gloves at home.

The fact is, there is no way to politely point out that another’s views are absurd, irrational, and dangerous, and there is no way to sample the irrationality of religious belief without exposing it. The “new” aspect of atheism represented by this group seems a rather time-tested idea: argue well, with all reason, and refuse to accept illogical absurdities. Through their discourse, they are admonishing us not to retreat into niceties when it comes to certain taboo subjects, but to represent our arguments in the coolest, most reasonable way possible.

The response to this way of dealing with theism is predictable, and could be ramping up. In addition to claims of tactless injuriousness in the arguments of atheists, apologists for theism and religion are adding the element of alarm into the mix. New atheists are dangerous. Beware their ideas.

As usual, this comes when the realm of reasoned discourse has failed, and the only option left is the peddling of fear.

In Faith Attack, Clifford Goldstein, the rabidly fundamentalist Seventh-Day Adventist and former editor of Liberty Magazine, describes new atheism as an unprovoked assault on belief.

In usual style, he diminishes his own arguments with thinly disguised ad hominems; for example, he chooses to quote the word “intellectuals” when describing Dawkins-Dennett, Harris-Hitchens. But in his description of these men as harbingers of a kind of chilling philosophical fascist state, where he imagines the most provocative of their arguments having come to life as draconian law, he has chosen not to address the arguments themselves, but to assume their worthlessness by extrapolating an absurd scenario while making sure to add a healthy dose of fear-mongering along the way.

This is not a challenge to the arguments at hand, but merely a kind of red herring. Attractive though this vision might be to apocalyptic doomsayers and science fiction aficionados, it is a silly counter to very real concerns. One is happy to find that, ultimately, Goldstein does not even take himself seriously.

Fortunately, their views aren’t likely to become public policy anytime soon, and certainly not in the United States (after all, look how well they worked in the Soviet Union).

Here, and elsewhere, he can’t help but draw comparisons between an atheist argument and the Soviet Union. This tiresome trick is described by Alonzo Fyfe as The Hitler and Stalin cliché. It is just as unconvincing when issued by Mr. Goldstein as it is when trundled out by any other apologist lacking a cohesive argument.

Reflecting Dawkins’ assertion that teaching children about hell is a species of child abuse, Goldstein says the same about teaching children evolution, and telling them about the finality of death. This is particularly egregious, not just for the strident insult to the science of evolution, but to the twisted reversal of values that places more importance on selling an arbitrary fantasy to impressionable people, than familiarizing them with the reality of life in the universe.

Expressing dewey-eyed remorse that children might not be taught about their “origins” or “destiny”, and emoting over the fact that kids might be told they’ll never again see Grandma and Grandpa after they’re gone, Goldstein cannot bring himself to imagine that children are stronger than this. What has he to say about Dale McGowan’s daughters, who discovered both their fear of death and their victory over this fear at the same moment? About their ability, at ages six and ten, to understand and reject the argument of First Cause as a logical absurdity? Clearly Goldstein attributes no quality of intellect or reason to children.

By the end of the article, Goldstein ironically recognizes the counter-attack that will soon issue forth from the hard religious right.

[New atheists'] most damaging impact might be…the fertile fodder they provide the Christian Right, long trying to convince the flock that their religion is under attack by secular elites…[T]he extremism of the new atheists will only feed the extremism of the Christian Right, each side pushing the other further in a direction that neither needs to go.

Though there may be some truth to this, he seems to have missed the point that he himself is a carrier of exactly the same kind of fear-mongering these flock leaders would be guilty of. At least in the case of religious extremists, such a reaction is understandable. In Mr. Goldstein’s case, we can only guess that, for want of a cohesive and rational argument of rebuttal, alarmist calls about the falling sky is the only response left.

Louis Argument and Debate, Atheism, Believers Argument, Atheism, Believers, Fundamentalism

I get a lot of mental exercise at DPChallenge.com, where the main subject of photography seems to be heavily subsidized by discussions of religion, belief, atheism, and politics. Unfortuantely, it’s not the good kind of exercise, where I’m kept on my toes by someone obviously much smarter than me, who uses reason in ways that show up my ignorance, or who has relevant information at his or her fingertips.

Truthfully, there is some of that. But more often, I’m left to dodge the exasperated insults of someone who has taken great umbrage with the fact that I’ve presented an opinion contrary to theirs. In the overwhelming majority of these cases, the discussion concerns faith, and the respondent is — you guessed it — Christian. But often times, discussions take a turn for the worst even when they are about other issues, and also occasionally when they are concerned with the most banal corners of photography or photographic equipment.

The membership at DPChallenge is largely American, and the truth of the matter is that it’s mostly Americans, and to a marginally lesser degree Canadians, who seem pathologically predisposed to accepting a contrary opinion on any number of subjects as a personal attack on their character. It is an absolutely frustrating experience to come up with sound arguments, rebuttals, or exposés of weak propositions, only to have the opposing person cry foul, or act like a wounded teenaged drama queen, or, most often, reply with the vilest kinds of insults imaginable. What a spectacle it was to have someone at DPChallenge call me an “amoral pig” when I made his argument look weak. When called out on it by another participant, he apologized to the pig for the unfair comparison with me.

Such is the level of discourse in our North American society on subjects as wide ranging as religious faith, green house gases, Hoya lens filters, and the awfulness of an amateur photograph.

Stephen Fry, the British actor from Rowan Atkinson’s Blackadder series and others, posted a very revealing blog article concerning this phenomenon. He’d been dining with an American colleague when things turned nasty. Fry doesn’t deny that he has strong opinions, that he may even be the kind of person that is very frustrating to have an argument with. But he notes some solid differences between European and American discourse.

To a Briton pointing out that something is nonsense, rubbish, tosh or logically impossible in its own terms is not an attack on the person saying it – it’s often no more than a salvo in what one hopes might become an enjoyable intellectual tussle… [M]ost Americans responded with offence, hurt or anger to this order of cut and thrust… Disagreement and energetic debate appears to leave a loud smell in the air.

So what’s the cause of all this?

There is no appetite for true debate in the stream of discourse of North American society. Opinion, however outrageous, unfounded, or offensive, is sacrosanct. People have come to think that their opinions are unassailable, and that any attempt to weaken their position by argument is an unmitigated personal attack on their character. Their opinions, and the irrational way they defend them, are more like articles of faith than judgements of their environment based on fact. Any attempt to undermine those opinions is perceived as a sort of heretical undertaking, a below-the-belt attack against the very person holding them. There is little separation in these people’s minds between themselves and their opinions, their beliefs — their articles of faith.

For this state of affairs, we have unfounded faith itself in all its forms to blame. Faith blunts an individual’s ability to observe his own opinions objectively. There is no cool dispassionate consideration possible with faith. It merely is, and remains unassailable, untestable, impervious to critical analysis. It bleeds into all areas of a person’s life, infecting their powers of rationale. Ultimately it emboldens an individual’s confidence in herself, creating an overblown sense of self-importance that insulates from all inquiry the reason-defying catalogue of opinons she holds.

I knew that listening to Monty Python records throughout my teen years was going to help me, so I’m confident in saying that argument is a series of statements intended to establish a proposition. It’s not just contradiction. Neither is it holding one’s ground until the opponent is scared off, put off, or brow-beaten into accepting the fact that one’s position is ultimately inviolate. An argument is a process whereby one attempts to analyze an opponent’s position, find the logical or reasoning flaws in them, and ultimately expose the proposition they uphold as unfounded. It is neither a tit-for-tat, nor a kid’s game, complete with veils of childish tears and the loud stamping of feet.

But this is not understood, and argument, in its most useful form, has died. Long live argument.

Louis Argument and Debate, Believers Argument, Debate