NEW ATHEISM: More misunderstandings

As promised the continuation on addressing what I a number of misperceptions of New Atheism and New Atheists.

Statements such as "a lot of their (red: religions’) assertions are provable false and must be discarded by reasonable people" can only come from a fanatical mind.”

Statements such as these are common-place both in standard conversation and more specifically in science, it seems unreasonable to claim that one is a fanatic for voicing an opinion that is consistent with the evidence provided by our scientific community. At worst, the sentence can be accused of being a generalisation, but I digress…

Even if my assertion where to be false there is no reason to presuppose that I am a fanatic for claiming most religious assertions to be false (I could merely be misinformed). However, I happen to be correct in my statement as Victor Stenger shows when he takes the Judeo-Christian God through scientific testing in “God – The Failed Hypothesis”. Stenger summarises his approach:

By dealing in terms of models of God that are based on human conceptions, we avoid the objection that the “true” God may lie beyond our limited cognitive abilities. When I demonstrate that a particular God is rejected by the data, I am not proving that all conceivable gods do not exist. I am simply showing beyond a reasonable doubt that a God with the specific, hypothesized attributes does not exist. Belief aside, at the very minimum the fact that a specific God does not agree with the data is cause enough not to assume the existence of that God in the practices of everyday life. (Stenger 2008, 228-229).

I invite the reader to read the book and consider each proof in detail but to summarise some main points that show the religious tenets of most major faiths to be demonstrably false (below is summarised from Stenger 2008, 230-231):

1. The universe looks as it should look in the absence of design
2. Human memories and personalities are determined by physical processes and no nonphysical or extraphysical powers of the mind can be found nor do evidence for an afterlife exist
3. No independent evidence exists for any reported miraculous events and most of the important biblical narratives never took place
4. No violation of physical law were required to produce the universe, its laws or its existence rather than non-existence and it bears no imprint of a creator
5. The universe is not congenial to human life, is tremendously wasteful of time, space and matter and is mostly composed of particles in random motion
6. No claimed revelation has ever been confirmed empirically while many have been falsified. No claimed revelation contains information that could not have been already known to the person making the claim
7. Evidence shows that morality and human values are defined by humans for themselves. Believers and nonbelievers agree on a common set of values and morals. Nonbelievers behave no less morally than believers
8. The existence of evil, and particularly gratuitous suffering, is logically inconsistent with an omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent God

To add one of the simple examples given in the book: “If praying worked, the effects would be objectively observed. They are not.” Therefore we can rule out a personal God that answers prayers.

Believers will attempt to dismiss this evidence on the grounds that science cannot account for supernatural phenomenon. This is a diversion: “…the God of each of the three great monotheisms plays such an important role in in the working of the universe and in the lives of humans that the effects of that deep involvement would be observable by the human senses and the instruments we have built to increase the power of these sense.” (Stenger 2009, 38)

Another common argument is that God could choose to hide his presence if he so chooses. Victor Stenger shows how this is would both be a logical fallacy and inconsistent with an omnibenevolent God but again I refer the reader to the original text.

Religious apologists have often resorted to pseudo-science or wrong information to back their claims such as when Dinesh D’Souza tried to dismiss Stenger’s claim that the universe is “uncaused” and “emerged from nothing” and quotes David Hume (Scottish philosopher and historian) to back him up. As Stenger retorts: “Hume can be excused from not knowing quantum mechanics in 1754; but D’Souza cannot be excused in 2007, over a century since it’s discovery.”  (Ibid.)

This is an example of Believers basing their beliefs and claims on facts that have long been disproved and falsified or on out-dated models of reality (politicians also favour this strategy). This lends no credence to their views but rather highlights the need for better education of our populations and the need to put a stop to the dissemination of fallacious religious propaganda over established scientific fact.

Finally, to bury the argument that New Atheist “fanaticism” can be in any way compared to religious fanaticism. Atheists trusts in science which is described thus by Victor Stenger in “New Atheism” (p. 15):

A good scientist does not approach the analysis of evidence with a mind shut like a trap door against unwelcome conclusions. If and when anyone finds evidence for the existence of God, gods, or the supernatural that stand up under the same stringent tests that are applied in science to any claimed new phenomenon, with no plausible natural explanations, then honest atheists will have to become at least tentatively believers.

So in essence it may be fair to say that atheists are indeed fanatical: fanatical about evidence and in this we do differ from most religious (except the “culturally religious” who respect the traditions but do not necessarily accept any unproven tenets or claims of their religion).

Also note that interpreting things around you through the scientific method makes you anti-dogmatic by definition as dogma consists of assertions and beliefs that are unproven or are held to be true regardless of evidence to the contrary.

The below description of the scientific worldview should further highlight that it cannot be considered a “faith-system” competing with religions:

Science is a methodical system for acquiring knowledge about nature, about how the universe works, about the characteristics of reality.
It is systematic and logical - based on ideas, experiments, and observations that are testable, repeatable, predictive, and disprovable. It is also self-critical and self-correcting, and therefore progressive. It is the best thing we have for discovering the things we need to know about ourselves and our environment.

It does not presume a designer or any kind of supernatural entity.

Fundamentally, the only assumption made in science is that there is only one reality - one, unique truth that can be known about any particular phenomenon or process. There are things that are unknown (and may forever be unknown), but not things that are unknowable. (Unknown poster on message-board).

I invite anyone to show how insisting on evidence for claimed phenomena will not lead to a better world than failing to do so rather than taking any claim, particularly extraordinary claims, at face value.

So, in a way, perhaps we are trying to claim the moral high ground? And perhaps we should? Join me in the final instalment on this topic…