Yawn, more 'why its smart to be an atheist' -
this time from Natalie Angier. (Last time I commented on an Op-Ed piece by
Daniel Dennett). In this piece, the bothersome rhetorical gymnastics is this: equivocating atheism with the scientific method. This surely is not due to ignorance of the terms in question- but perhaps something more personal. While Ms. Angier can define each as she pleases, one can be her "atheist" simply by being an adherent of the scientific method:
"And so, to me, atheism means what it says – without god or gods, living your life without recourse to a large chiaroscuro of a supreme being to credit or to explain or to excuse."
Why does this matter? I can adhere to this mantra and still believe in some higher deity. There are important distinctions between primary and secondary causes, and religion and god. Nor do I think these distinctions are lost on the author.
I have no answers, god, no god, I have no insights, no visions, no stories to tell. However, the arrogance in most atheists positions (and the ignorance in others) makes me just as skeptical as when I hear a fundamentalist spew fire and brimstone.
In metro areas (I was raised in NYC and spent time in Baltimore and Detroit), the majority of atheist positions are based on the same lack of cognition as was (is) the belief in a personal god. The stereotypical image of a academic is liberal and godless. Volvos and god rarely go together. Being godless does not predict intelligence (even if, as Dennett suggests 60% of American scientists do not believe in god).
More importantly, even if there was some importance to this anecdote, what does it signify about the truth? Centuries ago, you find the brightest people of the time attempting to synthesize what we know about reality into a theistic framework. In today's world, the dominant paradigm is to reduce events to their material causes. Objectively then, intelligence does not predict belief (or vice versa).
"Ah but we have the technology to know better now", you say. Perhaps, but who is to say that we will not invent a "deitameter" in the coming centuries? Highly improbable? perhaps.. improbable? no. Especially if one is not constrained by the conventional notions of a personal god who is interested in the secondary and tertiary causes of everyday life.
As mentioned in her article, one would do well to remember Einstein's words in reference to being called a "professional atheist"....
“I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.”
Better to raise children with a true sense of humility based upon acknowledgement of what we do not know, (and perhaps cannot know) . Always allowing for Negative Capability (yes I refer to it again)... that capacity "
of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason" (Keats) while striving to work at knowing what we can know.
