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September 14th, 2013
08:01 AM ET
Hey atheists, let’s make a deal
(CNN) - Famed atheist Richard Dawkins has been rightfully criticized this week for saying the “mild pedophilia” he and other English children experienced in the 1950s “didn’t cause any lasting harm.” This comes after an August tweet in which Dawkins declared that “all the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.” Dawkins is known for pushing his provocative rhetorical style too far, providing ample ammunition for his critics, and already I’ve seen my fellow Christians seize the opportunity to rail against the evils of atheism. As tempting as it is to classify Dawkins’ views as representative of all atheists, I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t bring myself to do it because I know just how frustrating and unfair it is when atheists point to the most extreme, vitriolic voices within Christianity and proclaim that they are representative of the whole. So, atheists, I say we make a deal: How about we Christians agree not to throw this latest Richard Dawkins thing in your face and you atheists agree not to throw the next Pat Robertson thing in ours? Now I’m not saying we just let these destructive words and actions go—not at all. It’s important for both believers and atheists to decry irresponsible views and hateful rhetoric, especially from within our own communities. (Believe me. There are plenty of Christians who raise hell every time Robertson says something homophobic or a celebrity pastor somewhere says something misogynistic.) READ MORE: Why millennials are leaving the church But what if we resist the urge to use the latest celebrity gaffe as an excuse to paint one another with broad brushes? What if, instead of engaging the ideas of the most extreme and irrational Christians and atheists, we engaged the ideas of the most reasonable, the most charitable, the most respectful and respected? Only then can we avoid these shallow ad hominem attacks and instead engage in substantive debates that bring our true differences and our true commonalities to light. It’s harder to go this route, and it takes more work and patience, but I’m convinced that both Christians and atheists are interested in the truth and in searching for it with integrity, without taking the easy way out. Pope Francis took a step in that direction this week with a letter in a Rome newspaper responding directly to questions posed by its atheist director and inviting respectful open dialog between nonbelievers and Christians. READ MORE: Why millennials need the church So, yes, Richard Dawkins is an atheist. But so are authors Greg Epstein and Susan Jacoby. So is my friend and fellow blogger Hemant Mehta. So is Sir Ian McKellen. So is ethicist Peter Singer, who may or may not be the best example. And yes, Pat Robertson is a Christian. But so is Nelson Mandela. So is acclaimed geneticist Francis Collins. So is Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee. So is Barack Obama. So is Stephen Colbert. And I'm willing to bet that the same collective groan emitted by millions of Christians each time Pat Robertson says something embarrassing on TV sounds a lot like the collective groan emitted by millions of atheists when Richard Dawkins rants on Twitter. Still, in the end, it’s not about who has the most charismatic or generous personalities in their roster, nor about who has the most “crazies.” It’s about the truth. So let’s talk about the truth, and with the people who most consistently and graciously point us toward it. Rachel Held Evans is the author of "A Year of Biblical Womanhood" and "Evolving in Monkey Town." Evans blogs at rachelheldevans.com, and the views expressed in this column belong to her. soundoff (5,916 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 Next »
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Opinion by Rachel Held Evans, special to CNN
What proof do you have that the Nile river is real?
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=h&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=215014387584151511021.0004a4c2cb386399e5317
Dawkins is a brilliant thinking person with decades of research, thought and debate on the subject. Ms. Evans is a light-weight, shallow "opinionater" with zero credentials and a shallow argument that is almost insulting to my own intellect. She is the type of person that can't last 2 minutes in a debate with Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss or even most of us in this discussion.
Truth doesn't evolve from a debate. What's yer point??
Yet another individual who claims his knowledge is so much more superior than that of others. A man who claims that science has all the answers. A man who also seems to ignore the fact that about 80%-90% of earth's species have yet to be discovered, so our vast knowledge of everything beyond earth must be 100% spot on and known. Because we must remember that the burden of proof is on those proving God's existence, similarly how the megamouth shark was discovered in 1976 but prior to 1976, it must not have existed because, remember, we had no proof it actually did.
Couldn't come up with a solid point to rally your rant around, I see. hmm.
I get it, facts are hard for you to understand.
Perhaps – but it would have been arrogant to say that they KNEW the shark did exist previous to that date. Belief (conditional) vs Knowing (certainty – static).
lvsingle, do read up on argument from ignorance.
There's probably a special place reserved in HELL for people like me 🙂
I am usually so moral and good in life, its awesome....BUT...I steal Gideon bibles whenever I travel. Yikes. That's my only sin that I can think of right now. I maintain a stack of these "books", never less than 18 in 36 years of travelling, and......
they're my TOILET PAPER 🙂
It just feels good to use this verbal drivel to wipe away its matter equivalent 🙂
Blessed are thy noodles...
Hope you get a paper cut.
This is what happens when people support a terrorist. Not one non-christian has told her to stop
They have offered condolences to a poster pretending to have lost a loved one on 9/11, but no one mentioned that talking about doing pallen's but in front of her child, the retarded one, was not an appropriate thing to do
A deal for both sides of an issue to remain silent? Well, that's a new one. No, silence is the biggest enemy we have next to bigotry. Dawkins was not just out of line, he was stupid and arrogant. As an atheist since I was six or so, I found his book a bit of a rant, and very short on any sort of affirmation of what atheism is supposed to mean. Atheism is non-belief. Atheists, though you might not see it, have faith, but not in deities. We have faith in the universe, in people. As such we share a lot with other people of (religious) faith. What we reject is the rigidity and concomitant bigotry of, mostly religious, belief. To the extent that people calling themselves atheists subscribe to anti-religious beliefs that are also rigid we - or at least I - find hypocrisy in that. To truly be a person of faith, we must be open. So to me, both Dawkins and Robertson are not just fair game for criticism, we must criticize them, because when someone is an idiot (and Robertson wallows in idiocy) we are obliged to expose these people for the fools, bigots, racists, elitists, what have you that they are so that we can be rid of the poison they are trying to spread.
How was Dawkins out of line and how could his activism be what atheism is "supposed to mean" it's not a set of meanings, it refers to one specific thing- the belief in a deity. There no "supposed to" other than that.
There is no dogma associated with atheism, so Dawkins can't violate it when he is talking about the ideals of rational thought.
There is no "We have faith in the universe and in people'? Are you kidding? We do nothing together but share a lack of belief in a deity. That's it.
An atheist post on a different thread said science, math, and whatever is gonna save the wurld. Crickets from other atheists.
Donna, this is Bob again, from a few pages earlier...lol. Once again you raise excellent points. They may be lost on some here, but they are nonetheless spot on. By the way, I did respond to your last response to my post about about the same meaning of what I said and what you said. It boils down to semantics, but I think we are basically in agreement.
Thanks Bob, and I agree we are basically in agreement. : )
You might have some kind of faith, but that has nothing to do with atheism. Faith is a belief in something with no evidence. I don't think there are many atheists who would believe anything on "faith". Faith is one of the fundamentally horrible pieces of religion. Faith means children can believe whatever they want, whether it's good or evil.
Christian faith has a Biblical definition. The sloppy syrupy feel gud emotional cultural definition won't work.
Ms Evans,
Are you willing to distance yourself from the misogynist things that that celebrity pastor St. Paul said?
No deal.
If god is god, he can make himself real to people. And he has. Hiding behind dogma is safe but dead. If he isn't real, he cannot make himself known to anyone, period. Ask and you shall receive
Why do you disrepect God by not capitalizing His name?
Y do u ask?
Why does a god need respect? One as despicable and murderous as the Christian god has been presented in the bible as being deserves incarceration for human rights abuses, not some kind of adulation or respect.
Thanks for sharing, ted. Keep it up. You'll learn
I know how you feel. I used to feel that way.
Deal.
"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."
—Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (Basic Books, 1995), 95.
Evans is robbing herself of the greatest asset to the discussion: honesty.
For example: is Dawkins simply being consistent where other atheists are not?
(As a Christian, I would welcome the same critique via Pat Robertson.)
If there is no ultimate justice or good or evil, what basis does one have to reject such "evils", much less be upset about them?
A dialogue that will not engage the most extreme examples is a disingenuous one.
It's like having a debate where the agreement in advance is "just don't ask any hard questions."
Good point!
"A dialogue that will not engage the most extreme examples is a disingenuous one.
It's like having a debate where the agreement in advance is "just don't ask any hard questions."
May be the best contribution to this board tonight. And for the record, I am an Agnostic. Very well spoken, and gets to the heart of the issue between believers and the “others” for lack of a better term. Thank you.
I think of good and evil as emergent properties that are related to consequences, without there being something fundamental like atoms of good and atoms of evil inherent in the stuff of the universe, created by whatever means. If the consequences of an act are harmful then it's tending to evil.
And what is harmful? Something is harmful if you would find it damaging (to your body, your mind, your intent, your family, your friends, your property) if it were done to you. In particular, an act that put you at a disadvantage survival-wise would clearly be harmful and thus evil from this perspective. So in a way good and evil are measured by the Golden Rule. There doesn't need to be anything else, every aware person can sufficiently distinguish good and evil without divine guidance using the Golden Rule. The existence of the Golden Rule across various cultures argues to me that it is a sufficient underpinning for morality by itself without much need of further rules.
In fact some further rules may themselves be evil in that they cause harm – spurious, arbitrary rules imposed by some or another doctrine. I really like that the Golden Rule has a beautiful symmetry and consequently places no one in a special position with respect to others.
Another warmed-over Rachel Held Over article. What a surprise.
No one has a right to lie or be a part of any lie and religion is a lie.
Doesn't free will give us the right to lie? To anyone, any time about anything?
Sure.... but empathy and compassion suggest you should do otherwise.
Empathy and compassion are essential facilities for the survival of our species, if they be cloaked in atheism, religion or a plate of chocolate chip cookies.
.....and you do not need any religion to have empathy.
Speak for yourself
A lie, who are you to pretend you've died and report God is a lie.
...because it is a "retarded" ASSumption that just isn't true?
Easier said then done. We have nutcases that would attack us verbally and or physically just because we are atheists.
Just think what reborners have done to your children. It is on par with the terrorist attacks on 9/11, according to observer. We have oppressed and subjected her child to unimaginable cruelty.
Technically some 'religions' don't have lies, or what I would state as myths. Some buddhism for example. I'm not saying that is the norm, just pointing out that a broad brush statement may cover a few things that don't fit the statement.
Actually, I believe you could lie in Buddhism it's just that it has to be for good because the right intention trumps the right speech and the right wisdom trumps them both so you must know what you are doing is right. You can't have the right intention and do the wrong thing.
In life after death, there no neutrals in the heaven, either you are with God or with Devil, because life and everything s eternal.
Post by 'JoeS' presents a False Dilemma Fallacy along with unsupported assumptions.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/glossary.html
Sounds like the argument of a six-year-old...
Mitt Romney has the same belief like I do and He will beiieve in my statement. Mitt is not an idiot.
Post by JoeS is a form of the Argumentum ad Verecundiam Fallacy.
http://fallacyfiles.org/glossary.html
Since religious people think that it's petty for the rest of us to ask that we return our Pledge of Allegiance to it's original form and remove "under god", I suppose you wouldn't mind if we just change it to "one nation, without a god".
My guess is that religious people would be outraged by that and I ask, why should non-religious people be any less outraged by the current pledge?
Actually I like what the original pledge said (I know you were not talking about the pledge, but using the idea here). And make it one nation, under law. That way is is not pro or anti god.
Yes, that would be nice. Keeping religion out of it as our founders intended.
As an Alpha Deus (Primary God) believer I can safely say no religion has my utmost respect but no follower as my utmost disgust, the idiots are idiots, if they use a religion to promote their views or explain their actions its them, not the religion, there is no sadistic religion and there is not purely peaceful religion, like the power of morality, its the person and not the book, any more then catcher in the rye was responsible for John Lennon's Murder.
No religion deserves the praise or the blame for the actions of its believers, we all have self control, if we can read a holy book then we are responsible for 'changing its words or inserting our own modifications'
but without the followers, there would be no religion.
What do you mean by primary god? Just wondering.
Why on Earth would you assume that, simply because Richard Dawkins happens to be an atheist, anything he says about pedophilia is somehow or other supposed to be taken as some kind of "atheist doctrine"? If he happened to say "I kind of like the Green Bay Packers", would you think THAT was the "official opinion" of atheists worldwide as well? (It SHOULD be, of course, but not just because I happen to say so.)
People who engage in organized religion have a hard time imagining that anyone can get along without having an official spokesperson.
And those spokespersons are often the ones that say "lynch the infidels" but save us from diseases with medicine.
I feel free to criticize ANYONE who says or does something stupid, without engaging in the kind of stereotyping that Ms. Evans seems to think is typical, and assuming that that lone individual is typical of whatever group he or she happens to belong to.
If she thinks that we should stop criticizing Pat Robertson just to put a halt to Christians criticizing Richard Dawkins, (A) she can't deliver the rest of Christianity as part of this bargain, (B) she is herself succµmbing to stereotyping, and (C) Pat Robertson doesn't deserve any such exemption.
Criticize the speech if you wish, criticize the speaker if you wish, but criticize the group the speaker belongs to ONLY if he or she is truly a typical member of it.
For anyone to group atheists together is a joke, there are more fractions within atheism then any religion, to pile a group of more then two people together within an atheist belief is like trying to say five randomly picked people are identical twins.
I don't know of anyone whose beliefs match mine in my own way, being an atheist is just a part of our belief structure not all of it
The great thing about being an atheist is I speak for myself. Richard Dawkins is not an official spokesperson for anyone but himself. So I don't have to defend, denounce or listen to his rhetoric. Sorry, no deal--Robertson gets no freebies from me.
The one problem with this article is that it only quotes two words and then five words from what Dawkins said. And even then they are just a portion of the sentence. And while doing so says "has been rightfully criticized" (see above for the full line to get the entire statement). So instead of talking about the details the author has made a judgement (which is okay) and then stated that the judgement is rightfully so. Not even an 'in my opinion', but just made the judgement for all. Then at the end of the article states "So let’s talk about the truth, and with the people who most consistently and graciously point us toward it."
No thanks on talking if it is only what you judge to be the 'truth'.
How about instead we talk about the details and points of things and not try to indicate others should view those things the same way.
I was all set to like this article with the ideas of don't judge all of a group by a few people. That is excellent. But likewise let's also not judge people and expect others to accept that judgement as 'truth'.
I don't know what kind of agenda does Atheist has. God teach human race wisdom and righteousness in this world. Human need a Conscience to live by it and if not we may not able to live each other and may not exist at all. If Atheist believe that there is no God let them believe what they believe and not to force to anyone. American people trust in God. If you Atheist don't believe on it, leave this country.
Seriously? Atheists are trying to keep fools like you and your laws out of the government.
Why do we have to leave this country? I thought Americans valued freedom of thought, religion and expression even if you disagree with those thoughts, religions or expressions? Do you believe that America is the land of the free, or the land of the free (as long as they agree with JoeS)?
They mean only the ones they agree with them LOL – like the God they worship who always agrees with them somehow!
And here we have it! A barely literate half-wit telling us to leave his country!
And he's not the only one, George H Bush once said that "atheists are not citizens"
Mr. Reverend, In life after death there are no neutrals, either you are with God or the devil, because life is eternal.
False assertion. What if you die and find out Buddha was the one and only? or Allah? You did not answer the question. Are true americans ONLY those who agree with your every thought?
I don't believe in life after death. That belief is keeping humanity back – we can be so much more advanced if we didn't assume life after death fairytale... We need to make ourselves immortal through scientific advancement!
Why must we choose and be punish if we don't choose you? You ask us for permission to be your eternal salves but why ask if you are omnipotent? Why do you need slaves if you have unlimited power? Didn't you not say that we are your children that you made us? Why would you enslave your own children? Why must we serve you and serve you willingly?
If life is eternal why death?
The agenda of atheists is simple... Think
People who lack the ability to think for themselves tend to embrace ideologies that do their thinking for them, i.e organized religion.
"Those who can get you to believe absurdities can get you to commit atrocities"
Voltaire
atheist, you ask very good questions.I hope that you will learn the answers.
You need to be TOLD what to do and how to act? You can't form these opinions yourself? Wow. Why don't YOU leave this country.
LOL – this's a joke right? Who are you asking to leave? All religions stole their stories from Sumerians. Christians adopted Pagan traditions, each and every religion is a misinterpretation of what 'may have' happened thousands of years ago For all we know, angels and gods were aliens who populated earth – multiple times! LOL
Yeah, no thanks, I love my country, and I love my fellow Americans. I'm an athiest, and I have friends who are christians, I don't push my views on them, and they don't push their views on me. We are able to talk about each others views without hate or disrespect. Even though we walk away from those talks with the same opinions, our understanding of each other improves. I would have no problem dating women of faith either, it's called respect and loving people for who they are, something you apparently cannot do.
Dumbass.
Thanks for try to speaking for the entire country. I think you missed on of the main points in the article.
Hey, Joe S? Kiss my ass. This is my country too, and this isn't a theocracy; you and your beliefs have no bearing on who may and may not live in this country. Indeed, is you DO aspire to live in a theocracy, it is YOU who should move.
FICTION.
Process that. Everything you believe in regarding your lord, this thing you call a soul, your belief that YOU WILL STILL BE ALIVE AFTER YOU DIE, are all....(wait for it, wait for it....)
FALSE.
lol :0
– signed "a not really very angry atheist" but someone who supports common sense, reason, logic and not nasty fairy tales that screw up more lives than most people seem to be able to fathom. (whew.)
As an atheist I would like to say stop trying to start controversy, the masses get angry over too much as it is. Just chill out and try to be nice to each other (including us atheists).
Are you really an atheist? Try not going to church and be a member of the PTA board or be elected into office without a priest blessing, or be in any group without any knowledge of the bible.
Few christians have much knowledge of the bible.
Really? Now you tell me.
Amanda, In life after death there are no neutrals, either you are with God or the devil, because life is eternal.
Give up already, weirdo.
There you go with the passive-agressive bull again.
It's nice to see that at least some people get the point of this article.