The Dawkinsque critique against theism is primarily occupied with countering literalist claims to the nature of reality and the universe presented by religious institutions and hence is considered atomistic and reductivist by many critics. Stephen Fry states in an interview that such a world view (referring to Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens) is devoid of the poetic liturgy that the believer can identify with in her copy of the King James Bible or the Bhagavad Gita. While literalism of any kind reflects a deeply entrenched delusion that needs to be uprooted through systematic reasoning, atheist rhetoric needs to traverse beyond the present counter-argumentative nature that merely confines itself to scientific diatribe against Intelligent Design.
Sam Harris says in his manifesto that "atheism is not a philosophy or a view of the world". I disagree with him when he says that it is simply a "refusal to deny the obvious". In the present format, atheism probably isn't a philosophy. But I believe it needs to strive towards being one. Religion finds staunch adherents, not because it offers a particularly appealing picture of the universe or nature, but because it pretends to offer transcendence to its followers. It appeals to the human condition in a way that one finds liberating from the instincts and desires that bind one to one's earthly existence. Religion took the easy way out because the quest for its perpetuation was always a quest for power. Through deceit and cunning, through the continual inculcation of fear and prejudice, by tabooing and chastising the spirit of inquiry, religion ensured its propagation through the ages. In its most iniquitous forms around the world, it persecuted the powerless, trapped others mentally causing them to turn a blind eye towards the suffering of their brethren and caused a systematic degeneration of a large part of society (which continues) ensuring that the parochial walls of fear and dogma-based faith make it impervious to reason and the nobler ideals of humanism.
Hence, if a rational and a liberal atheism has to triumph, it has to be integrated with a larger and a more universal world view that moves beyond merely debating the existence of a God. It has to strive to achieve those ideals for the individual and society which religion only pretended to achieve all these yea
rs. It has to convince man that the world holds in its bosom, a vast potential to the achievement of transcendental ideals, those that elevate his pursuits above and beyond the realms of his appetite.
I give you two excerpts from an essay by Bertrand Russell. It was one of his first essays arguing the case for atheism. While Dawkins, Harris and even other texts by Russell have convinced me of the intellectual, ethical and moral rectitude of being an atheist, this is perhaps the only essay upon reading which, I have felt truly inspired to proclaim that I do not require any God to lead a life that can extend beyond personal goals and ambitions.
Sam Harris says in his manifesto that "atheism is not a philosophy or a view of the world". I disagree with him when he says that it is simply a "refusal to deny the obvious". In the present format, atheism probably isn't a philosophy. But I believe it needs to strive towards being one. Religion finds staunch adherents, not because it offers a particularly appealing picture of the universe or nature, but because it pretends to offer transcendence to its followers. It appeals to the human condition in a way that one finds liberating from the instincts and desires that bind one to one's earthly existence. Religion took the easy way out because the quest for its perpetuation was always a quest for power. Through deceit and cunning, through the continual inculcation of fear and prejudice, by tabooing and chastising the spirit of inquiry, religion ensured its propagation through the ages. In its most iniquitous forms around the world, it persecuted the powerless, trapped others mentally causing them to turn a blind eye towards the suffering of their brethren and caused a systematic degeneration of a large part of society (which continues) ensuring that the parochial walls of fear and dogma-based faith make it impervious to reason and the nobler ideals of humanism.
Hence, if a rational and a liberal atheism has to triumph, it has to be integrated with a larger and a more universal world view that moves beyond merely debating the existence of a God. It has to strive to achieve those ideals for the individual and society which religion only pretended to achieve all these yea
rs. It has to convince man that the world holds in its bosom, a vast potential to the achievement of transcendental ideals, those that elevate his pursuits above and beyond the realms of his appetite.I give you two excerpts from an essay by Bertrand Russell. It was one of his first essays arguing the case for atheism. While Dawkins, Harris and even other texts by Russell have convinced me of the intellectual, ethical and moral rectitude of being an atheist, this is perhaps the only essay upon reading which, I have felt truly inspired to proclaim that I do not require any God to lead a life that can extend beyond personal goals and ambitions.
1. Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.
2. The life of Man, viewed outwardly, is but a small thing in comparison with the forces of Nature. The slave is doomed to worship Time and Fate and Death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour. But, great as they are, to think of them greatly, to feel their passionless splendour, is greater still. And such thought makes us free men; we no longer bow before the inevitable in Oriental subjection, but we absorb it, and make it a part of ourselves. To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things--this is emancipation, and this is the free man's worship. And this liberation is effected by a contemplation of Fate; for Fate itself is subdued by the mind which leaves nothing to be purged by the purifying fire of Time.
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