The Trouble with Atheism

Last updated

The Trouble with Atheism is an hour-long documentary on atheism, presented by Rod Liddle. It was broadcast on Channel 4 in Britain in December 2006. The documentary focuses on criticising atheism for its perceived similarities to religion, as well as arrogance and intolerance. The programme includes interviews with a number of prominent scientists, including atheists Richard Dawkins and Peter Atkins and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne. It also includes an interview with Ellen Johnson, the president of American Atheists.

Contents

Overview

Liddle begins the documentary by attempting to survey common criticisms of religion, and particularly antireligious arguments based on the prevalence of religious violence. He argues that the "very stupid human craving for certainty and justification", not religion, is to blame for this violence, and that atheism is becoming just as dogmatic as religion.

In order to support his thesis, Liddle presents numerous examples of actions and words by atheists which he argues are direct parallels of religious attitudes. He characterizes Atkins and Dawkins as "fundamentalist atheists" and "evangelists". In response to atheistic appeals to science as a superior method for understanding the world than religion, Liddle argues that science itself is akin to religion: "the problem for atheists is that science may not be as far away from religion as you might imagine". He describes Fermilab, a U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory focused on particle physics, as a "temple to science", and characterises Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species as a "sacred text" for atheists. [1]

Liddle focuses on objections to evolution halfway through the documentary, on the premise that "Darwinism is atheism's trump card". He characterises the creation–evolution controversy as being between scientists "who see no room for religion in the world" and ones "who can accommodate both a scientific and religious worldview". Liddle interviews the intelligent design supporter Steve Fuller, a philosopher, who argues that evolution is the only "scientifically credible basis" for atheism, and anthropologist Jeffrey H. Schwartz, who argues that evolutionary theory cannot account for novelties. He comes to the conclusion that the modern synthetic theory of evolution will be superseded in a future paradigm shift, undermining the arguments of atheists like Dawkins. [2] Liddle also criticizes models of sociocultural evolution such as memetics and interviews skeptics of memetics such as Alister McGrath.[ citation needed ]

In the final part of the documentary, Liddle argues against a perceived overreliance on "cold logic" and the amoral scientific method. He focuses primarily on the track record of secular ethics, citing the role of the Jacobins and Cult of Reason in the Reign of Terror in Revolutionary France, as well as the religious persecution under Soviet state atheism. [3] He also criticizes evolutionary theory, as well as scientism, for Francis Galton's philosophy of eugenics and its influence on Nazi Germany's racial policies, speaking of a "direct line between Darwin, Galton, and Hitler". Further, Liddle criticizes the ethics of Dawkins and atheist philosopher Peter Singer as "tentative" and "wishy-washy". [1] [4]

Ultimately, Liddle argues that "which option you take, then, God or no God, is a matter of choosing something for which there is no scientific proof either way". He argues that adhering to both religious supernaturalism and scientific naturalism is not contradictory, but a "balance" of the "very essence of what it is to be human". Based on arguments for God such as the fine-tuned universe argument, and on a lack of a conclusive understanding of pre-Big Bang physics, Liddle states that "the true scientific position, of course, is that there may be a God, and there may not be a God". Liddle identifies this position as agnostic, which he distinguishes from the "zealous" atheism he is critical of. [1]

Reviews

The Guardian called the programme "fascinating", but criticised it by saying "Secular societies, of course, can be very brutal, but they weren't actually killing in the name of their non-belief, were they?". [5] The Times objected to the brevity of his arguments, stating that, while some opponents of religion made a poor impression, "a more sustained debate would have made this a more rigorously argumentative programme". [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures. In popular language, a meme may refer to an Internet meme, typically an image, that is remixed, copied, and circulated in a shared cultural experience online.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Dawkins</span> English evolutionary biologist and author (born 1941)

Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator, and author, born in Africa. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His book The Selfish Gene (1976) popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and coined the word meme. Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Atkins</span> English chemist and author (born 1940)

Peter William Atkins is an English chemist and a Fellow of Lincoln College at the University of Oxford. He retired in 2007. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, including Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Molecular Quantum Mechanics. Atkins is also the author of a number of popular science books, including Atkins' Molecules, Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science and On Being.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Ruse</span> Canadian philosopher of science (1940-2024)

Michael Escott Ruse was a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specialised in the philosophy of biology and worked on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcation problem within science. Ruse began his career teaching at The University of Guelph and spent many years at Florida State University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alister McGrath</span> Irish theologian, Anglican priest, and academic (born 1953)

Alister Edgar McGrath is an Irish theologian, Anglican priest, intellectual historian, scientist, Christian apologist, and public intellectual. He currently holds the Andreas Idreos Professorship in Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, and is a fellow of Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford, and is Professor of Divinity at Gresham College. He was previously professor of theology, ministry, and education at King's College London and head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture, professor of historical theology at the University of Oxford, and was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, until 2005.

The Atheism Tapes is a 2004 BBC television documentary series presented by Jonathan Miller. The material that makes up the series was originally filmed in 2003 for another, more general series, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, but was too lengthy for inclusion. Instead, the BBC agreed to create The Atheism Tapes as a supplementary series of six programmes, each consisting of an extended interview with one contributor.

<i>The Root of All Evil?</i> 2006 documentary film directed by Richard Dawkins

The Root of All Evil?, later retitled The God Delusion, is a television documentary written and presented by Richard Dawkins in which he argues that humanity would be better off without religion or belief in God.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russell's teapot</span> Analogy devised by Bertrand Russell

Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, as opposed to shifting the burden of disproof to others.

Criticism of atheism is criticism of the concepts, validity, or impact of atheism, including associated political and social implications. Criticisms include positions based on the history of science, philosophical and logical criticisms, findings in both the natural and social sciences, theistic apologetic arguments, arguments pertaining to ethics and morality, the effects of atheism on the individual, or the assumptions that underpin atheism.

<i>The God Delusion</i> 2006 book by Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion is a 2006 book by British evolutionary biologist and ethologist Richard Dawkins. In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator, God, almost certainly does not exist, and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's statement in Lila (1991) that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." In the book, Dawkins explores the relationship between religion and morality, providing examples that discuss the possibility of morality existing independently of religion and suggesting alternative explanations for the origins of both religion and morality.

<i>Letter to a Christian Nation</i> 2006 book by Sam Harris

Letter to a Christian Nation is a 2006 book by Sam Harris, written in response to feedback he received following the publication of his first book The End of Faith. The book is written in the form of an open letter to a Christian in the United States. Harris states that his aim is "to demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity in its most committed forms." In October it entered the New York Times Best Seller list at number seven.

<i>Dawkins God</i> 2004 book by Alister McGrath

Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life is a book by Alister McGrath, a theologian who is currently Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University. The book, published in 2004, with a second edition in 2015, aims to refute claims about religion made by another well-known professor at Oxford, Richard Dawkins. McGrath's book does not seek to demonstrate how Dawkins’ claims differ from Christianity, rather, it argues that Dawkins' arguments fall far short of the logical and evidence-based reasoning that Dawkins himself espouses.

The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit is a counter-argument to modern versions of the argument from design for the existence of God. It was introduced by Richard Dawkins in chapter 4 of his 2006 book The God Delusion, "Why there almost certainly is no God".

Objections to evolution have been raised since evolutionary ideas came to prominence in the 19th century. When Charles Darwin published his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, his theory of evolution initially met opposition from scientists with different theories, but eventually came to receive near-universal acceptance in the scientific community. The observation of evolutionary processes occurring has been uncontroversial among mainstream biologists since the 1940s.

<i>The Dawkins Delusion?</i> Book by theologian Alister McGrath

The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine is a book by the theologian Alister McGrath and the psychologist Joanna Collicutt McGrath. It is written from a Christian perspective as a response to arguments put forth in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. The work was published in the United Kingdom in February 2007 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and in the United States in July 2007.

<i>Darwins Angel</i> 2007 book by John Cornwell

Darwin's Angel is a book published in response to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. It was written by John Cornwell and subtitled An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion.

<i>Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed</i> 2008 American documentary-style propaganda film

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a 2008 American propaganda film directed by Nathan Frankowski and starring Ben Stein. It is presented as a documentary promoting the conspiracy theory that academia oppresses and excludes people who believe in intelligent design. It portrays the scientific theory of evolution as a contributor to communism, fascism, atheism, eugenics, and in particular Nazi atrocities in the Holocaust. Although intelligent design is a pseudoscientific religious idea, the film presents it as science-based, without giving a detailed definition of the concept or attempting to explain it on a scientific level. Other than briefly addressing issues of irreducible complexity, Expelled examines intelligent design purely as a political issue.

The term New Atheism describes the positions of some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries. New Atheism advocates the view that superstition, religion, and irrationalism should not be tolerated. Instead, they advocate the antitheist view that the various forms of theism should be criticised, countered, examined, and challenged by rational argument, especially when they exert strong influence on the broader society, such as in government, education, and politics.

Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life is a three-part television documentary presented by Richard Dawkins which explores what reason and science might offer in major events of human lives. He argues that ideas about the soul and the afterlife, of sin and God's purpose have shaped human thinking for thousands of years. He believes science can provide answers to some of these old questions we used to entrust to religion.

<i>The Evolution of Atheism</i> 2015 book by Stephen LeDrew

The Evolution of Atheism: The Politics of a Modern Movement is a 2015 book by Stephen LeDrew, adapted from his PhD dissertation. Though an atheist, LeDrew criticises the movement of New Atheism, which arose in the 2000s with the "Four Horsemen" Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens as prominent figures.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Johns, Ian (2006). Atheism gets a kick in the fundamentals. The Times . Retrieved 3 November 2017.
  2. ↑ Liddle, Rod (6 December 2006). A man who believes in Darwin as fervently as he hates God. The Spectator . Retrieved 3 November 2017.
  3. ↑ Chater, David (2006). Viewing guide: The Trouble with Atheism. The Times .
  4. ↑ The Sunday Times , 17 December.
  5. ↑ Sam Wollaston, "Last night's TV," The Guardian , 16 December 2006. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
  6. ↑ The Times, 19 December 2006.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.