Shorter Nicholas Kristof
Dec. 6th, 2006 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muscadineReally Short Nicholas Kristof: I'm an idiot.
Slightly Less Short Nicholas Kristof: Atheist apologetics are offensive to believers, so they should cut it out. Especially since the Christian Right is too busy helping the poor and desperate to be involved in those nasty little culture wars anymore.
...
Despite the title this does not appear to be a Swiftian satire. Atheists are described as snarky, increasingly assertive, obnoxious, militant, in-your-face, proselytizing, acerbic, mocking, intolerant, mean, contemptuous, fundamentalist, dogmatic, and aggressive. On the other hand, they shouldn't be discriminated against and make some "legitimate policy points." Wow. Talk about fair and balanced.
Even if some these charges are fair, they apply to a handful of authors/spokespersons representing (by Kristof's own numbers) maybe up to 1-2% of the population (the 15% doesn't count since they are by Kristof's standards clearly not militant but rather either closeted or wishy-washy). A clear and present danger.
Which leads us to the most ridiculous statement in the piece: "Now that the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars, let’s hope that the Atheist Left doesn’t revive them." Really? The Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars? Someone tell Barack Obama. Or the LGBTQ folk in over half the states that have passed "protect marriage amendments" in the last few years (the vast majority since 2004). Or all the stores that have been boycotted for their "war on Christmas."
Kristof needs a reality check.
by Nicholas D. Kristof / NYTimes.com
If God is omniscient and omnipotent, you can’t help wondering why she doesn’t pull out a thunderbolt and strike down Richard Dawkins.
Or, at least, crash the Web site of www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com. That’s a snarky site that notes that while people regularly credit God for curing cancer or other ailments, amputees never seem to enjoy divine intervention.
“If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day,” the Web site declares, adding: “It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them.”
That site is part of an increasingly assertive, often obnoxious atheist offensive led in part by Professor Dawkins — the Oxford scientist who is author of the new best seller “The God Delusion.” It’s a militant, in-your-face brand of atheism that he and others are proselytizing for.
He counsels readers to imagine a world without religion and conjures his own glimpse: “Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles,’ no ‘honor killings,’ no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money.”
Look elsewhere on the best-seller list and you find an equally acerbic assault on faith: Sam Harris’s “Letter to a Christian Nation.” Mr. Harris mocks conservative Christians for opposing abortion, writing: “20 percent of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. There is an obvious truth here that cries out for acknowledgment: if God exists, He is the most prolific abortionist of all.”
The number of avowed atheists is tiny, with only 1 to 2 percent of Americans describing themselves in polls as atheists. But about 15 percent now say that they are not affiliated with any religion, and this vague category is sometimes described as the fastest-growing “religious group” in America today (some surveys back that contention, while others don’t).
Granted, many Americans may not yet be willing to come out of the closet and acknowledge their irreligious views. In polls, more than 90 percent of Americans have said that they would be willing to vote for a woman, a Jew or a black, and 79 percent would be willing to vote for a gay person. But at last count, only 37 percent would consider voting for an atheist.
Such discrimination on the basis of (non) belief is insidious and intolerant, and undermines our ability to have far-reaching discussions about faith and politics. Mr. Harris, for example, makes some legitimate policy points, such as criticism of conservative Christians who try to block research on stem cells because of their potential to become humans.
“Almost every cell in your body is a potential human being, given our recent advances in genetic engineering,” notes Mr. Harris. “Every time you scratch your nose, you have committed a Holocaust of potential human beings.”
Yet the tone of this Charge of the Atheist Brigade is often just as intolerant — and mean. It’s contemptuous and even … a bit fundamentalist.
“These writers share a few things with the zealous religionists they oppose, such as a high degree of dogmatism and an aggressive rhetorical style,” says John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “Indeed, one could speak of a secular fundamentalism that resembles religious fundamentalism. This may be one of those cases where opposites converge.”
Granted, religious figures have been involved throughout history in the worst kinds of atrocities. But as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot show, so have atheists.
Moreover, for all the slaughters in the name of religion over the centuries, there is another side of the ledger. Every time I travel in the poorest parts of Africa, I see missionary hospitals that are the only source of assistance to desperate people. God may not help amputees sprout new limbs, but churches do galvanize their members to support soup kitchens, homeless shelters and clinics that otherwise would not exist. Religious constituencies have pushed for more action on AIDS, malaria, sex trafficking and Darfur’s genocide, and believers often give large proportions of their incomes to charities that are a lifeline to the neediest.
Now that the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars, let’s hope that the Atheist Left doesn’t revive them. We’ve suffered enough from religious intolerance that the last thing the world needs is irreligious intolerance.
Slightly Less Short Nicholas Kristof: Atheist apologetics are offensive to believers, so they should cut it out. Especially since the Christian Right is too busy helping the poor and desperate to be involved in those nasty little culture wars anymore.
...
Despite the title this does not appear to be a Swiftian satire. Atheists are described as snarky, increasingly assertive, obnoxious, militant, in-your-face, proselytizing, acerbic, mocking, intolerant, mean, contemptuous, fundamentalist, dogmatic, and aggressive. On the other hand, they shouldn't be discriminated against and make some "legitimate policy points." Wow. Talk about fair and balanced.
Even if some these charges are fair, they apply to a handful of authors/spokespersons representing (by Kristof's own numbers) maybe up to 1-2% of the population (the 15% doesn't count since they are by Kristof's standards clearly not militant but rather either closeted or wishy-washy). A clear and present danger.
Which leads us to the most ridiculous statement in the piece: "Now that the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars, let’s hope that the Atheist Left doesn’t revive them." Really? The Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars? Someone tell Barack Obama. Or the LGBTQ folk in over half the states that have passed "protect marriage amendments" in the last few years (the vast majority since 2004). Or all the stores that have been boycotted for their "war on Christmas."
Kristof needs a reality check.
by Nicholas D. Kristof / NYTimes.com
If God is omniscient and omnipotent, you can’t help wondering why she doesn’t pull out a thunderbolt and strike down Richard Dawkins.
Or, at least, crash the Web site of www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com. That’s a snarky site that notes that while people regularly credit God for curing cancer or other ailments, amputees never seem to enjoy divine intervention.
“If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day,” the Web site declares, adding: “It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them.”
That site is part of an increasingly assertive, often obnoxious atheist offensive led in part by Professor Dawkins — the Oxford scientist who is author of the new best seller “The God Delusion.” It’s a militant, in-your-face brand of atheism that he and others are proselytizing for.
He counsels readers to imagine a world without religion and conjures his own glimpse: “Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles,’ no ‘honor killings,’ no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money.”
Look elsewhere on the best-seller list and you find an equally acerbic assault on faith: Sam Harris’s “Letter to a Christian Nation.” Mr. Harris mocks conservative Christians for opposing abortion, writing: “20 percent of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. There is an obvious truth here that cries out for acknowledgment: if God exists, He is the most prolific abortionist of all.”
The number of avowed atheists is tiny, with only 1 to 2 percent of Americans describing themselves in polls as atheists. But about 15 percent now say that they are not affiliated with any religion, and this vague category is sometimes described as the fastest-growing “religious group” in America today (some surveys back that contention, while others don’t).
Granted, many Americans may not yet be willing to come out of the closet and acknowledge their irreligious views. In polls, more than 90 percent of Americans have said that they would be willing to vote for a woman, a Jew or a black, and 79 percent would be willing to vote for a gay person. But at last count, only 37 percent would consider voting for an atheist.
Such discrimination on the basis of (non) belief is insidious and intolerant, and undermines our ability to have far-reaching discussions about faith and politics. Mr. Harris, for example, makes some legitimate policy points, such as criticism of conservative Christians who try to block research on stem cells because of their potential to become humans.
“Almost every cell in your body is a potential human being, given our recent advances in genetic engineering,” notes Mr. Harris. “Every time you scratch your nose, you have committed a Holocaust of potential human beings.”
Yet the tone of this Charge of the Atheist Brigade is often just as intolerant — and mean. It’s contemptuous and even … a bit fundamentalist.
“These writers share a few things with the zealous religionists they oppose, such as a high degree of dogmatism and an aggressive rhetorical style,” says John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “Indeed, one could speak of a secular fundamentalism that resembles religious fundamentalism. This may be one of those cases where opposites converge.”
Granted, religious figures have been involved throughout history in the worst kinds of atrocities. But as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot show, so have atheists.
Moreover, for all the slaughters in the name of religion over the centuries, there is another side of the ledger. Every time I travel in the poorest parts of Africa, I see missionary hospitals that are the only source of assistance to desperate people. God may not help amputees sprout new limbs, but churches do galvanize their members to support soup kitchens, homeless shelters and clinics that otherwise would not exist. Religious constituencies have pushed for more action on AIDS, malaria, sex trafficking and Darfur’s genocide, and believers often give large proportions of their incomes to charities that are a lifeline to the neediest.
Now that the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars, let’s hope that the Atheist Left doesn’t revive them. We’ve suffered enough from religious intolerance that the last thing the world needs is irreligious intolerance.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 02:08 pm (UTC)Dawkins, Harris, and FFRF are equally as offensive to me as James Dobson, Kent Svendsen, and NARTH.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 01:31 am (UTC)No, it's worse than that. The Dawkinses and Harrises of the world want to rid the planet of the only thing that, as far as I'm concerned, can save it.
I agree that the article loses credibility when it starts talking about how the religious right is playing nice now and the atheists are just stirring up shit. But it gets a lot of things right, such as the ridiculousness of the frequent atheist assertion that if we could just get rid of religion, then there would be no more war, genocide, atrocity...in general, the world would have no more problems if the atheists were in control.
Someone recently posted a comment on one of my entries linking to a post in one of the LJ atheist communities, where the author was making just such a claim. I pointed out to the person who posted the comment on my journal that I somehow wouldn't feel any safer with the atheists running things, and gave Communist China as an example, although Stalin and Pol Pot are excellent ones, too.