I think this is really interesting, and his comments have really made me think about my own atheism.
The way I see it, is that is should be impossible to be atheist, without being open to criticism from religious people that we are hypocritical. At the end of the day, if we are arguing that you need evidence based proof of god, then people reasonably expect us to provide evidence that there is no god.
There is however, a very distinct difference between the two positions. I make no claims to anything, I merely state that there is no evidence for something. I can use the scientific method to back up my position, but it is very difficult to prove nothing exists. It is the responsibility of the Scientologists and Christians (etc) to provide the verifiable evidence that their belief system is true.
The reality is, if you had a sliding scale between 0 and 10, where 10 is the someone who is the biggest believer, and 0 is an all out atheist, most atheists would not be able to say that they were a 0. I would personally put myself at about 0.01, in that I am confident beyond all reasonable doubt, but don’t have absolute proof that no gods (or ghosts etc) exist (and that homeopathy is complete bollox).
So, does that make me an atheist, or an agnostic? Technically, I am agnostic, but I think I am passed the threshold that I might as well say that I am atheist, as a shorthand version of the above discussion. So, in summary, I think many atheists would agree with much of what David Mitchell says about this, and I think he has misinterpreted what an atheist is.
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Where I disagree with him, is the justification for why people debate about religion. Clearly religious war is one reason. Wouldn’t it be great if the Muslim and Jewish people got along, but to be honest, religion is just part of a bigger excuse for them to hate each other and is only part of the problem. Me having a rant about religion is not going to change them, or that situation.
From a personal perspective, the issue I have with religion is the unjustifiable privilege that it has within our society (not being prosecuted for kiddy fiddling) and things like the banning of condoms in Africa (leading to the death of thousands of innocent people). It isn’t about destroying someone’s faith, it is about creating equal rights for all. Where we have equality, I am pretty confident that people like Richard Dawkins will just let bygones be bygones.
For example, I hate the fact that my kids can only go to a CofE school, because of our rural location. I hate that they are taught Christianity as a “fact”, long before they are taught evolution, to the extent that our kids are effectively taught creationism by stealth. I hate the fact that if there is a JW child in the same school, they get separated out as “different” because they can’t attend assembly, when school should be about celebrating our differences, not highlighting them in a negative way. My DCs are atheist (or very agnostic), but they don’t want to be excluded from prayer because they don’t want to look different to the whole school. We are teaching them to all behave like sheep, and to not challenge the norm - precisely the wrong education I want my kids to have!
So, why don’t we have a secular schooling system? - Because the church don’t want it.
So, this is why people resort to providing “aggressive atheism” positions of the type that David Mitchell doesn’t like?
- Because most people don’t think about these issues, and it is a useful way to grab headlines (rightly or wrongly)
- Because people are dying and action is needed quickly.
- Because the church is defending its privileges aggressively, so needs to be challenged aggressively to create a more fair and inclusive society.