Why We are Mad At You by an Atheist

[longship]

148. You make excellent points here

Please do not misinterpret what I wrote. I did not mean to say that liberal religious were the atheists' allies. I believe I said they were atheists' natural allies. Of course, this interpretation has to be filtered through the current social-political environment.

The difference is between: an atheist not believing in gods, believing some religions are bad, and believing all religions are bad. I fervently believe that all religion is bad. That is my admitted bias.

However, there is considerable evidence that something like religious belief is an inherent characteristic of humans. The evidence is very robust and spans multiple disciplines: neural science, psychology, and even (horrors ) evolutionary biology.

So, many of us atheists realize that there will always be something like religion in the world's culture. It may literally be written in our very genes.

If this is true, the only alternative is to accept religion at its face value. To defeat it is useless, and probably counter-productive to what any sane and rational person would ultimately want. That is, if religion must exist, which evidence strongly suggests, than it would be to the benefit of all, theists and atheists, if it could shed its more destructive effects.

That was the core of what I was trying to convey. I hope this helps you understand what I meant.

These are deep problems. I really like Daniel Dennett's formulation and argument in Breaking the Spell (a book which I will undoubtedly pitch here again). It lays these issues out in detail, without necessarily proposing specific solutions.

The take away from this whole mangled post is that atheists and liberal theists both have a common enemy who uses religion in a way that neither atheists nor liberal theists do. Therein lies the danger and therein is the basis for a strong alliance which may very well be a permanent one. If only that could be, it would benefit everybody.