stephanie brail

I’m reading (among many other things) The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, a manifesto on atheism. I’m not an atheist, though I have been non-religious for many years – I’ve been at most “agnostic,” but I always believed in something. I’m not offended by atheism, nor do I have a problem with people who don’t believe in God. Yet, I’m going to perhaps sound like a fundamentalist Christian here when I profess some profound misgivings over Richard Dawkins plan to take over the world with atheism.

If that “take over the world” bit sounds a bit over the top, you haven’t read his book yet. I’m not finished, but I’ve read enough to know that if he had his way, he’d do away with all religion and replace it with atheism and create a 100% secular, humanistic society that ran by his personal belief system. (I think the irony there escapes him – that he is in some ways just as fundamentalist as some of the fundamentalists he decries). After all, this is a man who gets offended if someone claims to have a “Christian child” – and he believes raising children in a particular religion is tantamount to child abuse.

I’ve maybe read four or five chapters of The God Delusion, and I’ve come away with the sense that Richard Dawkins is a very, very angry man. And hey, I can be an angry woman myself, so I don’t necessarily fault someone for being angry sometimes…but boy, does Richard have a chip on his shoulder. One of his main gripes is that people with atheism (he claims) are discriminated against. I suppose he has a point when he asks: How many atheists do you know of in the Senate? But I can also ask, how many Reiki Masters do you know of in the Senate? Look, it has nothing to do with religion or spirituality so much as it has to do with human nature: People tend to feel more comfortable with people who are more “mainstream.”

The New Age is constantly mocked in movies and in the media; holistic remedies are regularly suppressed by our government; and organizations such as Quack Watch regularly go on outright witch hunts to try to shut down people who use alternative therapies in treatment. Where’s the big outcry among atheists at the poor treatment of the non-religious but spiritual/holistic people in society? Oh, that’s right…a lot of the people going after the holistic practitioners are…surprise! Atheists.

Which is not to say that atheists are all bad. But Richard’s ridiculous notion that somehow atheists are this poor, downtrodden group of perpetual victims is disingenuous, considering how often militant atheists will do their darndest to stop people from the right to choose spirituality or “superstition” if that’s what they want. In The God Delusion, Richard tells of a militant atheist fanatic who wanted to protest at a Christian faith healing event. By himself. Why? Did he not have something better to do? A more productive way to fight their Christian “ignorance”? Hey, start a blog or something, dude. But no, he wanted to show up by himself and yell and heckle people who wanted to get a faith healing. How was that going to change hearts or minds anyway?

So the guy at least tried to get a permit, but he was threatened by the police, who basically told him not to show up, or else. OK, so the police were being jerks, but Richard never considers that the atheist was also being a jerk by feeling the need to disabuse people of their faith. I doubt Richard Dawkins would support the Westboro Baptist Church when they want to disrupt funeral services over their fanatical views – why should atheists somehow be encouraged to do what he’d likely criticize fundamentalists for?

Ultimately, what hurts Richard’s crusade for atheism is his own bitterness and bad attitude. He regularly sneers at anyone religious in the book, and pretty much says you must be stupid if you believe in God. He heralds the “educated elite” who he presumes are mostly atheistic, while making out anyone who might go to church regularly as rube. Never mind that, in one scientific (albeit controversial) study, Episcopalians and Jews came out smarter than atheists, who were actually less smart than agnostics. So much for atheists being the smartest people in the world. (Go Episcopalians!)

If I were an atheist, I’d be downright embarrassed by Richard Dawkins. He’s not doing his cause any favors with his arrogance.

I have yet to find any evidence of true brilliance in The God Delusion. Richard Dawkins is obviously smart, but also amazingly simplistic in some of his viewpoints. First, he conflates hypocrisy and bigotry in religion with somehow meaning God must not exist. Second, he makes religion to be the main source of all evil in the world. Sure, we’ve had many religious wars, but I submit that we’d have just as many wars (if not more) without religion. People who are fanatical crazy jerks will be that way regardless of religion – Richard’s own militant atheist protester is just one example.

The fanatical animal rights activist who splashes fake blood on fur coats for PETA? Likely an atheist, or in the least, not an extreme fundamentalist Christian. But just as militant. Over the top environmentalists who go and burn down housing developments in the name of saving Gaia? (Earth Liberation Front, anyone?) Crazy. Stalin and Mao Tse Tung murdering millions in the name of Communism? Probably not church goers.

Look at North Korea. And go on YouTube to see what people in Korea worship. It’s not God – it’s Kim Jong Il. So what happens when bad men want to take over a country as dictator? They first suppress religion and then supplant that religion with worship of themselves. That’s what Hitler did too. I’d rather have people worshiping an imaginary man in the sky rather than putting all their faith and power into the hands of a crazy megalomaniac with bad taste in eyeglasses or mustaches.

You may think that can’t happen here, but here in America, the non-religious end up worshiping their political party or ideology. The most fanatical can get so riled up about their politics that they’ll disown people who disagree with them.

Ultimately, religion is not the problem, it’s angry human beings who get so caught up with being “right” that they want to force their worldview on everyone else. These people exist in every culture on the planet. They are usually angry, closed-minded militants who are pissed off at the world for one reason or another. They cling to their beliefs and make their chosen belief system their warrior cry. And ironically, that’s the kind of person Richard Dawkins is. He doesn’t want to co-exist with religious people – he wants to exterminate religion.

Now, let’s go back to our New Agers, who are regularly mocked and denigrated in the media and also attacked by certain extreme fundamentalist preachers as being on the side of Satan for their use of the “occult.” Do you see most New Agers getting all bent out of shape? Writing angry diatribes that New Agers are being attacked and discriminated against? No, usually you do not. Why is that? Is it perhaps that certain spiritual practices might actually make you a more forgiving and accepting person?

You know, I’m a New Age person, as well as an Episcopalian. I am not a fan of fundamentalism. But I don’t get overly angry at fundamentalist Christians who warn of the occult. Why? Actually, I used to be very threatened by fundamentalists, though I wouldn’t waste too much time on it. As I’ve grown spiritually, I’ve actually come to appreciate the good in many different things, and even though I don’t agree with most fundamentalist theology, I believe most fundamentalists are good, sincere people. And I share with them a fundamental belief in a higher power. And the truth is, they are right to a certain extent – dabbling in the occult can be dangerous. But I don’t think yoga is occult, and this is where we disagree.

At any rate, a commitment to spiritual growth and forgiveness is not something you get from being an atheist. This does not mean that people who are atheists aren’t trying to grow personally…but it’s entirely individual. There’s no coherent atheistic philosophy that tells you to love your brother. And while Richard Dawkins claims to show in the latter part of his book how atheism can lead to a better society, I am a bit dubious…if just that Richard himself is a poor example of what atheism gets you. If atheism makes you angry and arrogant, I don’t need more of that in my life. Actually, I’ve spent quite a bit of time working on being less angry and less arrogant, and it’s only been a lot of spiritual work that has chipped away at this.

Those are my thoughts on The God Delusion for now. I’ll try to write more in the future about God and why it’s not stupid to think maybe one exists. I may have more comments on The God Delusion too as I continue reading it. (Although, I’ve been sidetracked by an Agatha Christie mystery, which is much more pleasant even with the murder.)