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Of Course You Realize, Dis Means War! November 23, 2006

Posted by ocmpoma in : atheism , trackback

PZ’s got a post up on Pharyngula which, I hope, is not the beginning of something that would be… shall we say, decidedly less than good. But, I fear that it is. If what PZ is talking about continues, the trend towards infighting and “side-choosing” will continue, and the secular movement will become a house divided (even more so than it already is). And Lincoln told us about that.

There’s this split that’s been building for quite some time among secular atheists, it seems. On one side of the split are those of us who speak out openly, attacking religion, no-holds-barred. On the other are those of us who are more accommodating of those with supernatural beliefs - specifically, of those with mainstream religious beliefs.

Now, I don’t have a problem with those on the more accommodating side per se, even though I’m not one of them. I, personally, don’t think supernatural beliefs deserve any respect, founded as they are upon such a sandy morass of baselessness. And I may disagree with the assumptions of those attacking the Dawkinses and Harrises of the atheist community (if I can stretch it enough to use that term), but I think that such a dialogue is, generally, a good thing.

I even think that they do have a point — an all out, frontal attack will certainly alienate many and is definitely not the most polite, politically correct way to go about minimizing the impact of supernaturalism.

But, I disagree vehemently with the sentiment that “we need a winning strategy”. I disagree strongly with that sentiment when it comes to standard US politics, where it is often expressed as a need to vote for a Democrat because some third party wacko doesn’t have a chance of winning. I disagree with it just as strongly when it concerns the methods we should use when attacking supernaturalism.

The argument that we should pursue a certain course because it is seen as the most likely course to a marginal victory, as opposed to pursuing the course that matches our goals or would actually achieve what we want, reminds me of attempting to achieve peace in our time, rather than achieving peace.

The last thing we need is a split. What we need are moderate naturalists who can try to find some common ground with moderate supernaturalists, and hope that they can swing the balance towards a more secular point. But we also need the strident, in-your-face atheists to remind the moderates of not only what is wrong with supernaturalism, but also of what the actual goal is: a secular world. In a way, we also need the die-hard, bat-shit-insane fundamentalists to remind everyone else of the outright dangers of supernaturalism.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m all for solutions that work. I’m against bombing countries back to the stone age in a vain attempt to squelch terrorism, because it won’t work. I’m against declaring war on drug users, because it doesn’t eliminate drug use.

Why, then, do you ask, am I in favor of a sort of “war” against supernaturalism? Well, for starters, I would never use the term war. But I don’t think that halfway measures and undue respect for mainstream supernatural beliefs will get us anywhere except where we are now - into an ideological pissing match.

We need to attack supernaturalism head on, with clear rationality.

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