TRIGGERnometry - The Atheism Delusion - Konstantin Kisin

Starting point is 00:00:00 When asked about my religious views, I usually call myself an agnostic. But if I had to describe my views more accurately, it would be fair to say that I'm a lapsed atheist. Born in the mecca of non-belief that was Soviet Russia, my view of religious people as ignorant, obscurantist and doctrinaire was only reinforced by watching my comedy heroes, like George Carlin and Bill Hicks, take big and legitimate swings at the disconnect between the teachings of religion and the behavior of the religious. Higgs summed this incongruity up perfectly by recalling a story of three men approaching him after a gig in Alabama. Mr. Funny Man, come here.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Hey, buddy, we're Christians, we don't like what you say it. I said, then forgive me. Today, in a world in which the religious right has less obvious impact on our world, jokes of this kind would have little resonance. But my youth was infused with example after example of stuffy religious conservatives attempting to enforce their values on the rest of society by attempting to censor M&M song lyrics, trying to prevent Monty Python's Life of Brian from being shown in cinemas, and trying to push through the idea that creationism should be taught in schools.

Starting point is 00:01:15 This backdrop provided the perfect opportunity for the emergence of daring countercultural figures, who could use their erudition, wit, and refreshing honesty to effortlessly take apart the tired old arguments for a religious worldview. In the wake of 9-11, the four horsemen of new atheism, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, came forward to re-articulate the importance of enlightenment values of truth, science, and liberty from religious dogma. They were smart, charismatic, and above all, they were cool. Dawkins wrote terrific books like The Selfish Gene and the Blind Watchmaker, which made evolutionary theory simple to understand and debunked unscientific claims about the nature of our world.

Starting point is 00:01:56 Hitchens applied the power of reason and rationality to debate, obliterating his opponents with a uniquely British civilized ruthlessness, illustrating the cowardice of those who engaged in embarrassing apologetics for the murderous actions of religious zealots as they sought to enforce blasphemy laws in our society through violence and terror. Sam Harris became a hero to many when he found himself attempting to articulate the problem with Islam on Bill Mars show, only to be shouted down by Ben Affleck and what quickly became the talk of the internet. The new atheists were exciting because they were saying something new, challenging the dogma of their day and speaking truth to power. Not content with proving that religion wasn't true, they ventured further in attempting to prove religion was at best

Starting point is 00:02:40 unnecessary and more likely harmful. To this end, Dawkins wrote the God delusion in 2006 and Hitchens delivered God is not great the following year. The argument was no longer about encouraging religious people to calm down and leave the rest of us alone. It was increasingly that religion was inherently wrong and bad. It was around this point that I began to lose my faith and atheism. The guard delusion was the last Dawkins' book I read, and the appeal of that discussion went quickly for several reasons. First, it was clear to me that to attempt to challenge Islamic extremists with facts and logic as Dawkins Hitchin and Harris had done was to fail on purpose. Despite their efforts, most of the Western world today operates under de facto blasphemy laws, which are enforced not by

Starting point is 00:03:22 religious activists lobbying for censorship, but by knife-wielding fanatics and suicide bombers. The liberalism that the new atheists so enthusiastically espoused, the idea that we should be free to criticize, mock and satirize anything, including religion, only works when the government is willing to protect you from the consequences. In seeking to liberate us from the tyrannical instincts of dogmatic Christians, the new atheists actually delivered it. us into the hands of a different and far more pernicious religious elitry, from which the ordinary citizen has no security at all. Second, the fact that many religious ideas are scientifically inaccurate and that religion has been and continues to be used for evil is not in dispute. Indeed,

Starting point is 00:04:02 one of the core claims of the new atheists is that religion produced evils that were far worse than the body count of non-believers. Sure, Stalin, Hitler and Mao were bad, they argued, but they weren't motivated by their atheism or its holy book. This view of the the Holocaust, Stalinism and the Great Leap Forward as accidental byproducts of a non-complicit atheism is, to me, a complete misunderstanding of the impact a lack of religious faith has on the way we think about other human beings. The central positive feature of the religious worldview is to ensure that human beings do not see themselves as the sole arbiters of truth and justice, that having torn God down from his pedestal, we do not put ourselves in his place. Yes, of course

Starting point is 00:04:44 atheist mass murderers like Stalin and Hitler weren't motivated to kill millions because of religious differences, but their ability to rationalize their actions and to persuade other people to support them was a product of the sense in which, in the absence of God, we get to make up any rules we want. This is precisely why we had to invent the concept of human rights and the immediate aftermath of World War II. Without a worldview in which we are all worthy of dignity and respect by virtue of being children of God, you have to reinvent that particular wheel through the United Nations. My point is, it is extremely easy to prove that religion is evil, but I am not convinced that proving that it causes more evil than its absence is quite as easy. Third, the central question new atheists

Starting point is 00:05:26 fail to answer, and one that we put to Richard Dawkins in this interview here, is whether irrespective of how scientifically true religion may or may not be, it is nonetheless both useful and inevitable. The Dawkins' answer is as close to quoting Karl Marx's idea that religion is the opium of the masses as you can get without reproducing it verbatim. The comfort that you get from believing a falsehood is like a drug and it's a perfectly valid argument to say that there's everything to be said for the drug. This is a persuasive argument in the sense that truth matters, irrespective of how uncomfortable or impractical it may be.

Starting point is 00:06:06 But the problem here is that the absence of old religion seems to produce only a vacuum into which a new religion rushes in. And this new religion has just as little regard for the truth as the old ones. That's why Richard Dawkins, who spent his best years arguing with creationists, is now increasingly forced to explain basic biological concepts, like the inability to change your sex by incantation on national television. The reason new atheism has lost its mojo is that it has no answers to the lack of meaning and purpose that our post-Christian societies are suffering from.

Starting point is 00:06:37 What will fill that void? religious people have their answer. Do the rest of us? If you enjoy these videos, please know that they're available on my substacks, sometimes weeks or even months ahead of time. So make sure to click the link in the description. Head on over now and be sure to subscribe.

TRIGGERnometry - The Atheism Delusion - Konstantin Kisin

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