Did I Learn Anything from New Atheism?

From about 2012 to 2014, I spent a lot of online time with New Atheists and the people they argue with. I've written quite a lot about it on this blog.

When I first heard that there was a group called the New Atheists, I assumed I was one, because I am an atheist, and the time was now. 

 

But very quickly I found that I had some serious differences with the New Atheists. At first I pointed out a few things, assuming that people would be enlightened, and would thank me for the info. But that didn't happen. It happened much more often that New Atheists would assume I was a Christian, because I disagreed with them, even though I disagreed about something other than existence of God. 

In retrospect, ironically, no doubt I too prematurely assumed this and that about a lot of people with whom I disagreed on this or that religious topic.

Then for a while I feuded with the new Atheists, and constantly attempted to point out that one could be an atheist, without being anything like these guys. 

Then, finally, I figured out that I didn't have to waste any more of my time on them. I just had to stop seeking them, stop joining their Facebook groups, essentially, and it would be almost as if I had never met any of them. They could be Wrong On the Internet, and I was capable of just letting it go. And none of them would hunt me down in order to continue our disagreements.

As soon as I found the New Atheists, I found other people, whom I assumed to be Christians, who claimed that New Atheism was a religion. This claim greatly irritated me at first. Then, after a while, I realized that New Atheists do share many traits with conservative evangelical Christians, which is unsurprising inasmuch as many or perhaps actually most of them were born and raised in conservative evangelical Christian families. 

But I still resisted thinking of any form of atheism as a religion. Now I don't know. I have come to accept that the term "religion" is defined very broadly by some people.Much more broadly than I ever have. And, as I have pointed out on this blog, words mean what people use them to mean, whether you or I like that those words are being used in those ways, or not.

It is hard to express how much of a shock and a disappointment the New Atheists were to me. But in retrospect, I have to admit that I had a lot in common with them in 2012. Now, I hope, I have shed at least a few of their bad habits. 

For example, like most New Atheists, I thought of monotheistic religion as the belief in the existence of an anthropomorphized creator of the universe. Polythesim, I believed, differed in that it had multiple anthropomorphized supernatural beings. The first time someone told me the Buddhists were atheists, I assumed that if there were any atheist Buddhists, they were Doin' It Wrong, and that the Buddha and other beings were worshiped as immortal beings, much as in Hinduism.

I was wrong. Buddhism is a whole different religion than Hinduism, and I basically knew doodly-squat about it, despite having read Nietzsche.

One particularly obnoxious tendency of the New Atheists, which they share with many fundamentalist Christians, is that they regard their viewpoint concerning religion to be the most important thing in the world, and they are always sharing it with people who never asked them to. 

So did I, before I met them. Now I don't. I think it was rude of me to do so. Over and over again, in my attempts to debate with the New Atheists, I pointed out that the question of whether or not there was a God or gods could be thoroughly answered in a few seconds, which left a Hell of a lot of other things to talk about. I finally took an obvious lesson from what I myself was saying. I have become somewhat less pushy and rude, I hope, when it comes to expressing my views on religion. Especially that one particular view, on the existence of a deity or deities. Which leaves a lot of other things having to do with religion which can be discussed. 

The New Atheists sometimes also refer to themselves as the Brights. They believe that they are smarter than believers. But a lot of them are just as stupid as can be. Hopefully, after the horrible experience of spending so much time with them, I am now less likely to prematurely judge people, based on that one theistic question, or on any other over-simplifying basis.

I'm an Atheist, BUT --

-- I know that doesn't guarantee that I'm bright.

-- it's no excuse for me to be a jerk.

-- I DO care if you're insulted.

-- everything about religion all added up together is not as important to me as our friendship.

-- I cringe every time I hear Dawkins or Harris or Stephen Fry or Maher talk about religion.

-- I hope there's a Heaven and that it's great and that we'll all go there forever and ever.

-- I'm not Islamophobic.

-- I'm not blind to the kind acts done all around me every day in the name of some religion or other.

-- most of my friends are religious believers.

-- my experiences with New Atheists have been so horrible that now, when I hear that someone is an atheist, my first reaction is to cringe.

-- it's possible to have polite and pleasant conversations with me about all sorts of religious topics.

-- I don't judge a religion based on the dumbest, most hateful adherents of it whom I can find.

-- I see absolutely no reason to compare Dawkins or Harris or Hitch to Russell or Sartre or Nietzsche or Twain. (The latter group: I LIKE those guys.)

-- I now completely understand atheists who deny they're atheists. Completely.

Atheisting Properly

It's true, as the popular atheist meme (*ahem*) says, that being an atheist means only that you don't believe in God, and nothing else. But it's obvious that very many atheists don't really believe that. Otherwise, the very popular sarcastic expression "yr atheistin wrong" wouldn't exist. If a lot of atheists didn't have a lot of other rules for atheistin, that popular sarcastic phrase wouldn't be funny. It wouldn't mean anything at all.

I can't tell you how many times some atheist or another has immediately assumed that I believed God exists as soon as I disagreed with him or her when he or she said that ending religion would end all of humanity's problems, or that Constantine and the Pope wrote the Bible at Nicea in AD 400, or that being an atheist means one is more intelligent than a believer, or that we are all born atheists, or that religion was invented in order to control the masses (In point of fact, there were no masses when religion began: there were no towns or cities, and humans didn't live in herds, but in small bands.), or that religion poisons everything, or -- if you've hung out in atheist groups for a while, you can add to the list yourself. Yes, being an atheist means not believing in God, it means only that, but that doesn't stop some atheists from adding a whole lot of other rules. A whole lot of other things in which you'd better believe. Or else.

It may often seem as if I argue with other atheists just because I am cantankerous, because something's wrong with me -- and no doubt, there's something to that. Don't worry, I'm in therapy, I'm working on me. But there's more involved here, when I or some other atheist keeps saying to groups of atheists: No, I don't agree. (Not always 100% as politely as that. I'm working on it.) We're also speaking up for others who may be more timid. Clearly, for some people, becoming atheists did not mean ceasing to live by a long list of rules, maxims and Truths which for them are not up for discussion. Others of us, however, cast aside the revealed truths of religion, and DON'T want to replace that religious dogma with atheist dogma. We stopped letting clergypeople and holy books tell us what to believe, and we DON'T want atheist leaders and books by Dawkins, Harris, etc, to tell us what's what. We actually want to think for ourselves. (It's not for everybody. Clearly, it's not for all atheists, not by a million miles.)

And wouldn't it be a shame if some timid atheist was scared away from a group, or stayed in a group but was afraid ever to speak freely, because everyone in the group seemed to believe in a bunch of slogans and historical inaccuracies, because no-one ever spoke up against them. Yes, it would be -- no, it is a shame. There are many such groups. If I argue with somebody about whether or not babies are atheists, to a point, it's about semantics. But there's more to it than that. It's also about not just giving up and keeping quiet when others want to force me to conform and agree.

Are you seeing a lot of parallels between the pressure to conform I'm describing in atheist groups, and the squelching of discussion in conservative religious groups? You are, if you're paying attention. Notice I'm comparing these atheist tendencies, not to all religious groups, but to conservative, reactionary religious groups. That's right: in some cases, you're more likely to find an actual discussion about things among believers than among atheists.

Obviously, not all atheists are that fucked up. Obviously, I'm not the only one denouncing atheist conformity. But -- yeah, there could be more of us. More of you could be speaking up along these lines. No pressure. Only the future of humanity is at stake. (Ha, ha, kidding. Sort of.)

Ich wohne in meinem eigenen Haus,

Hab Niemandem nie nichts nachgemacht

Und - lachte noch jeden Meister aus,

Der nicht sich selber ausgelacht. (I live in my own house, I've never copied anyone, and I've laughed at every master who never laughed at himself.) -- Nietzsche

Review Of "ATHEISTS: INSIDE THE WORLD OF NON-BELIEVERS" On CNN

6 atheists were featured: Richard Dawkins; Dave Silverman, president of American Aheists, the people who stir so much shit and accomplish so little by putting up nya-nya-nya-nya-nyaaaaa-nyaaa atheist billboards and litigating to have expressions of religious sentiment removed from public places (Imagine: one day they may succeed in removing "IN GOD WE TRUST" from our money. Whoop-dee-frekin-doo!); and 2 other people, one a young man who leads an atheist group at a university in northern Alabama or Georgia; and the other a young woman who's studying at Harvard Divinity School while simultaneously being an atheist.

Oh, and I almost forgot: also a Christian clergyman who is a closeted atheist. CNN deliberately hid his identity. They are undeliberately but just as effectively hiding the names of the 2 students in the South and at the Harvard Divinity School; their names seem to be written down nowhere on the CNN website or anywhere else on the WWW. The only way I can think of at this point to retrieve their names, and whether the young Southern man is studying in northern Georgia or northern Alabama -- could just possibly be northern Mississippi too -- would be to watch the show again, and frankly, it wasn't that good. If you can retrieve their names you're a better man than I, or maybe just a man with less on his schedule.

Kyra Phillips hosted the show and interviewed all 6 of the featured atheists, and a few other atheists, and some more people.

Richard Dawkins didn't get much airtime, which means he said relatively little on the show with which I disagree. Phillips referred to Dawkins at one point as "the father of atheism," which certainly made me wince, as other people must have winced who were hoping that the show would comment at least a little on the history of atheism, which, believe it or not, Dawkins did not actually invent. Dawkins said that he got a "warm feeling" from the Church of England, and that "nobody" in the Church of England "really believes any of it." Which of course is bullshit, the sort of bullshit we're getting used to hearing from Dawkins. And of course, in the eyes of many present-day atheists, Dawkins actually is something like "the father of atheism," a figure of such immense unearned respect that any and every stupid thing he says is treated like received wisdom. I had been wondering just exactly why some English twits it has been my misfortune to meet insist that Christianity is dead and gone and over with in England; the answer may be just as simple as the explanation of why so any people think that the bible was written by Bronze Age goat herders and that most Muslims support terrorism: Dawkins said so. I know that Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England until 2002, said while in office that he didn't believe in God. I've also noticed how strenuously Williams has backpedaled from that position since he said it, which he hardly would have needed to have done had not so many theist members of the C of E become so very angry at him for saying such a thing. I've also wondered just exactly how much William's public statement of disbelief had to do with his ceasing to be head of the Church of England in 2002.

One of the atheists on the show, I think it may have been Silverman, said that "skeptic," "freethinker" and other terms mean nothing more or less than "atheist," and that atheists who call themselves skeptics or freethinkers instead of atheists are "lying." I almost agree with that. I would say that they're atheists who are still partway in the closet. Very interestingly, Dawkins said that the term "atheist" has acquired so many negative connotations that it may be necessary to come up with another term for us. If he has the faintest clue that he is directly responsible for a large part of those negative connotations, he gave no sign of it on the CNN show. I don't think that we need to replace the term "atheist." I think that a lot of the current stigma attaching to the label will go away if we can get to a state of affairs where no one will find it odd that a person is an atheist, and thinks that almost everything said about religion and atheism by Dawkins, or Sam Harris or PZ Myers, is idiotic -- including, for example, this recent statement by Dawkins that the term "atheist" might have to be replaced. Unfortunately, Richard the Great, if not in fact the father of atheism, is currently still its King.

Definitely the most heart-wrenching parts of the CNN show were from the interview with the parents of the student in the South: while he runs an Ask an Atheist program at the local university, his parents remain fundamentalists who are convinced that their son is going to Hell. It's not a matter of debate, they say: Scripture says that anyone who rejects Christ is going to Hell. I wonder if these people eat pork, or shellfish, or beef cooked with dairy products. It's not a matter of debate that Scripture says those things and a whole long list of other harmless things are abominations.

Jerry Dewitt lives in Louisiana and used to be an evangelical pastor; now he leads atheist church services. As he says, his church now is just like his church was then except that he leaves out Jesus. At one point in his sermon he actually said, "Can I get a 'Darwin'?!" Res ipse loquitur. Dewitt strikes me as a bit of a -- a smooth-talking, self-serving snake-oil salesman, very much indeed like an evangelical pastor.

Silverman: billboards crudely, unkindly mocking religion, and campaigns to take the 10 Commandments off of courthouse walls. He heads the largest atheist organization in the US, and this is what they accomplish. No competing with churches, synagogues and mosques in terms of relief for the poor, or for that matter with more progressive religious institutions in fighting for social justice. No, nothing like that can be addressed as long as "IN GOD WE TRUST" is still on our money. What a bunch of worse-than-useless assholes. Determined to sink to the level of the worst of the theists, cause -- "Hey, they started it!"

As I said, I don't remember the name of the atheist Harvard Divinity School student featured on the show. But I do remember shots of her sitting next to Greg Epstein, Harvard's Humanist Chaplain. And the student has recently been appointed to some sort of Assistant Chaplain office.

And then there's the anonymous clergyman in the atheist closet.

A whole bunch of atheists on this show who still want to be clergy people of some kind or other. If someone had just come from Mars and watched this show, he or she might get the impression that "atheist" is a kind of preacher. I really don't think that that's representative of most atheists. I don't think most of us miss church or temple so much that we want to form some weird atheist version of it. Although I do applaud Epstein's expressed sentiment of unity and acceptance for Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Christians, atheists and etc, his championing of tolerance for people of all beliefs or lack of beliefs. I just don't see the need for atheists to retain so very many of the trappings of religion.

The Harvard Divinity School student may end up actually knowing a lot about religion, studying it full-time as she is. And knowledge is a good thing. Knowledge is what separates the marvelous, awe-inspiring biologist Richard Dawkins



from the zany, out-of-touch crackpot and horrible islamophobic bigot Richard Dawkins.



As for the clergyman who's secretly an atheist, and all the other people who are secretly atheists, I see no need to pretty it up or tone it down: I've got no sympathy for you. Not for closet atheists in the US, whining about your anguish and isolation while you perpetuate the institutions and customs which you claim are oppressing you. In plain fact, you are oppressing those of us who are out. And you want me to feel sorry for you? In some other countries being an atheist can actually be dangerous, but in the US, if you actually want to do something for atheists, you need to come out. And that includes calling yourself an atheist and not some synonym like a skeptic or a freethinker.

Stuff Which Is Depressing Me Today

Okay, one thing has been watching people applaud Sam Harris for saying that soon computers will be able to tell us what is right and wrong. Right for whom? Wrong in what way? you might well ask immediately, and immediately you'd already be over Harris' head. But the really depressing part is that millions of people think that Harris is a genius.

Back in 1982 Donald Fagen, lead vocalist of Steely Dan, released a solo album entitled The Nightfly,



which was a big hit and still seems to be selling pretty briskly decades later, wow. One of the singles from The Nightfly was "I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)," an hilariously sarcastic satire of visions of a beautiful future, visions which made the rounds of American popular culture in the 1950's. The lyrics lampoon predictions of, among other things,

"Just machines to make big decisions/Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision"

Well, here we are 60 years past the starry-eyed mid-50's and an entire Jesus past Fagen lampooning some of that "simpler" time's silliest ideas. It's 2015. Millions of people oohing and ahhhing at Sam Harris seriously proposing some of the very same stuff, not to mention some cover versions of "I.G.Y." by gospel groups and such who appear to be playing it straight, force me to ask myself: How many people ever got that Fagen was joking? and: Are a bunch of morons eventually going to put morality computers in place and force everyone to live by their dictates?

Besides that bone-chilling dystopian nightmare, another thing that's got me down today is that a fake news story -- or perhaps a sincere but stupid and mistaken news story -- made the rounds, saying that millions of Saudis had rejected their faith and thrown their Korans into sewers, and that some people believed it and applauded it. Believed that millions of people could have that significant of a change in mind without their having been any sign of it in yesterday's news, and then applauded millions of books being (they thought) thrown into sewers.

Movement Atheism And Why I'm Done With It

Nicht geeignet zum Parteimann. – Wer viel denkt, eignet sich nicht zum Parteimann: er denkt sich zu bald durch die Partei hindurch. (Not a suitable party member. - He who thinks a lot is not a suitable political party member: he thinks his way too quickly all the way through the party.) -- Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, aphorism 579

And while I was looking that up to make sure I quoted it word-for-word, I also noticed this, which actually applies even more to this post:

Feinde der Wahrheit. – Ueberzeugungen sind gefährlichere Feinde der Wahrheit, als Lügen. (Enemies of the truth. - Firm convictions are more dangerous enemies to the truth than lies.)-- ibid, aphorism 483

Yeah. Freddy got off some good ones.



"Movement atheism" is the same thing which I've been referring to in this blog as "New Atheism," and which unfortunately many people have come to refer to simply as "atheism" : they're the people who like Richard Dawkins (on religion, not identical with the set [which includes me] who like Dawkins' writing on biology) and Sam Harris, and put up those billboards saying, essentially, "Neener, neener, you stoopid theists!" and are gunning for the "In God We Trust" on your currency and the Ten Commandments on the walls of your courthouses. (What's next, the reproduction of a Madonna and Child by Fra Filippo Lippi taped to the wall above my computer table?) I recently heard it referred to as "movement atheism," and it occurred to me that if I used that phrase, more people might understand what I'm talking about than if I said "New Atheism." And I think that more people understanding me just might be a good thing. You be the judge. (And put whatever you want to on yr walls.)



Now, when it comes to the first of those two aphorisms by Nietzsche at the beginning of this post, I differ with Nietzsche when it comes to political parties: I don't agree with everything in the Democratic party line, but it's them or the Republicans and they're much preferable to the Republicans. The difference between the two parties makes big differences in people's lives.

But if we compare movement atheism or New Atheism to a political party, what exactly are they accomplishing, besides pissing people off? I don't care about the Ten Commandments on courthouse walls, I care about the verdicts reached within those walls. I don't give a tiny flying speck of crap about the words "In God We Trust" on US currency, I care about freedom of religion in the US, whether that freedom, including freedom from religion if that's what you want, is guarded by people who think Jesus is their close personal friend, or not.

The second aphorism, about firm convictions being more dangerous to the truth than lies, fits movement atheists/New Atheists as snugly as a straightjacket. If you haven't experienced it, you wouldn't believe how much time these yokels waste arguing that Hitler was a Catholic and that Einstein was an atheist. First and foremost -- who gives a tiny gnat's ass about either Hitler's or Einstein's religion? I'll tell you who: movement atheists/New Atheists and the Christians, observing Jews, Muslims, neo-pagans and other believers dull-witted enough to waste their lives arguing with them. Neither side wants to actually investigate Hitler's or Einstein's beliefs. The movement atheists/New Atheists are firmly convinced that Hitler was a Catholic and Einstein was an atheist, the others are firmly convinced that Hitler was an atheist and Einstein a theist or deist, no one's mind is open even a tiny crack in either side, they just want to score rhetorical points against each other, in exchanges with all of the subtlety of the opening of the Itchy & Scratchy Show. Furthermore, each side is firmly convinced that the other is stupid -- they might actually be right about that, for once -- and further than that, they very often immediately assume that anyone who has anything negative to say about anything they've said is on the opposite side of the theistic question -- if you criticize an atheist you must believe God exists, if you criticize a theist you must be an atheist. And this appallingly simplistic mindset is unfortunately displayed not just in discussions arguments verbal fights about Hitler and Einstein and other famous people and Which Side They Were On, but regarding a wide range of other subjects too. A pox on both their pinheaded houses.

These morons are why many atheists have started to refuse to call themselves atheists.

Just a few years ago, when I first stumbled over atheists groups, I had such high hopes. I assumed that atheists generally would be pretty bright.

And I might have been right about that. But you don't have to be too bright to be appalled by people who verbally abuse billions of Muslims as if they were all violent atavistic extremists and all Catholics as if they favored the sexual abuse of children, who cheer at videos of books being burned and/or soiled with human waste, and who do the Itchy & Scratchy with religious morons all the livelong cousinbumpin day. I have a feeling that maybe most of the truly bright atheists are appalled by Dawkins' so-called Brights and their ilk much more quickly than I was. In any case, the more I see of movement atheists/New Atheists, the more I like religion.

If You're An Atheist, That doesn't Necessarily Mean We're Pals (Maybe You Noticed That Already)

AN ATHEIST-BUT-NOT-NEW-ATHEIST MANIFESTO

About like-mindedness: there is so much more to people's minds -- well, to some minds -- than that one freaking issue of whether God exists. Over the past several years I've met so many atheists online whom I do not like at all. There's at least one, Richard Dawkins,



whom I used to like quite a lot, until I started to read what he had to say on religious topics. Well, there were warning signs already in his work on biology. Right there on p 1 of The Selfish Gene Dawkins announces,

"We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems: Is there a meaning to life? What are we for? What is man? After posing the last of these questions, the eminent zoologist G. G. Simpson put it thus: "'The point I want to make now is that all attempts to answer that question before 1859 are worthless and that we will be better off if we ignore them completely.'"

Besides warning me that I probably wouldn't like G G Simpson either, Dawkins gave a big hint there that he might turn out to be the kind of moron who'd go around making sweeping statements about Islam while admitting that he hadn't read the Koran and didn't plan to.



There's so much worthwhile stuff which was written before 1859.



And it makes my head whirl that I need to point that out because somebody as brilliant in biology as Dawkins is so fucking stupid about so much else. And yet here we are. The fish which is New Atheism stinks from the head, which is Dawkins. I agree with them about atheism. I agree that humans invented God and not the other way around. But that's just one question. Answering it correctly doesn't necessarily mean you're a genius, and getting wrong doesn't necessarily mean you're not. Dismissing so much written before 1859 as glibly as Dawkins and Simpson is a pretty good sign (I saw it, I saw the sign, it's right there in black-and-white as big as day p 1 of The Selfish Gene) that they might have other remarkably stupid things to say.

And Dawkins has been saying and writing stupid things for a living for over a decade now, having given up what he was good at, biology. And he's been so hugely successful at it that millions of people are now following the 2nd part of it, saying stupid banal inaccurate uninformed things against religion, without having emulated the more honorable 1st part, having become brilliant at something else first, be it biology or what have you. Coyne and Myers are accomplished biologists like Dawkins, but Harris skipped straight to the stupid, banal, inaccurate and uninformed anti-religious part, and is probably the 2nd-most commercially successful New Atheist behind Dawkins.



I have no problem with them saying things against religion, I say things against religion myself all the time. It's the stupid banal inaccurate uninformed part that annoys me, and which should concern any atheist who wishes to see the influence of religion wane and die its natural death at long last. I don't think this stuff is helping. And I don't think that I'm being excessive when I say that what Dawkins and Coyne and Myers and Harris have to say about religion is stupid. Ignorance is one thing. It's simply not knowing, and it can be remedied. But stupidity is not knowing and not wanting to know, it's being ignorant and proud of it. And stupidity is tenacious.

If you want religion to go away you have to know what it is, you have to study it like an epidemiologist studies disease. Otherwise you're just jerking off and getting in the way, like Dawkins, Harris & Co.

I'd love to talk to Dawkins about biology. Sadly, he doesn't seem much interested in biology anymore. It's a waste and a shame.

So much for atheists whom I dislike. Now to religious people I love: I don't see the problem here, I don't know why it should surprise anyone that there are religious believers with whom I get along very well, with whom I love to talk about all sorts of things -- even religion, sometimes. The most interesting people to talk to on any subject tend to be the ones who know the most about that subject, duh. And on the subject of religion, those people aren't the New Atheists, big duh. You want to talk about the Council of Nicea or the Merovingians or the Templars or the origins of the Grail myth with someone who knows more about them than



Dan Freaking Brown, there's a good chance you're going to end up talking to some very interesting and well-educated Christians. (And enjoying yourself, perhaps to your shame, if you're used to hanging with New Atheists.)

If you want to talk to some experts about Tolkien and Harry Potter and



Spider-Man, a gathering of New Atheists might be an even better place to look for them than a Comic-Con. They'll probably be well-above average in their knowledge of biology and physics, too. Credit where credit's due.

Christian Canonization And Ancient Roman Deification

There's been a lot of discussion lately of Christian borrowings of pagan symbols, holidays, institutions, concepts, etc -- some of it interesting and actually informative, a lot of it just one more tired, uninteresting, juvenile, inaccurate New Atheist game of "gotcha!" wherein the players, who would much rather score points than be right, take a kernel of scholarly information and carry it far, far into Absurdistan -- and of course there's also been a lot of discussion of today's canonization of John XXIII and John Paul II, but it wasn't until this morning that I started to wonder how many similarities there might be between ancient Roman deification and Christian beatification.

First, let me reassure those of you who are sensible enough to have been disenchanted by New Atheist ravings -- and surely there are a lot of us -- that, although they never miss a chance to blow something out of proportion, there actually are many pagan holdovers in Christianity. For example and apropos of today, when two Popes are being canonized, the title pontifex maximus, which means "great bridge-builder," was applied to a Roman religious official long before Christianity existed, so long that we cannot say when it originated, its origins fading into the mists of fable. The Tiber river winds through the ancient part of Rome and also provided a crucial defensive barrier outside the city, so it's not so odd that the office of bridge-builder came to be seen as sacred. Yeah, so anyway, Christians didn't invent the title of Pontiff, which was held by many prominent Romans including Julius Caesar and almost all of the Western Emperors until Theodosius the Great, who ruled from 379 to 395, transferred the title to the Bishop of Rome. Which means that I've been talking a bunch of nonsense when I've been telling people that the Roman Pontiff didn't attend the Council of Nicea, because the Bishop of Rome wasn't yet the Pontiff. Constantine, who was Emperor of both the Eastern and the Western Empire when the Council took place in 325, was the Pontiff. (I've also been wrong when I've told them that the Pope wasn't there, because the title "Pope" didn't yet refer exclusively to the Bishop of Rome. But the bishop of Roman wasn't there, and he wasn't thick as thieves with the man who moved the capital 1000 miles away from his diocese.)

It strikes me that monotheism and polytheism may not be as entirely different form each other as they sometimes seem, especially when we consider angels and demons and saints. Do they not play roles in monotheism similar to those of gods in polytheism? The similarity is particularly striking today: two Pontiffs are being canonized. In pagan Rome, many Emperors, who were also Pontiffs, were deified upon their deaths.

It's difficult to research this, the search being cluttered not only by hate-filled New Atheists yelling Aha! Gotcha! They stole it all! but also by hate-filled Protestants making the equation Catholic=idolators and pagans=Satan=pure evil. A pox on both of those houses, and a hearty welcome to everyone who wants to learn and not hate. I don't share one bit of the religious fervor of many Catholics about this day, but I feel much closer to them than to all the stupid raving haters.

Another Archaeological Find In Israel, Another Round Of Mind-Numbingly Stupid Comments

The dig is at Abel Beth Maacah. The stupidity, as usual when anything old is found in or near Israel, comes not just from fundamentalists shouting Hallelujah! this proves the Bible is accurate, but also from a lot of atheists, and that's what annoys me, because you'd hope the atheists would know better. Well, that is, maybe you'd have some hope if you weren't very familiar with them thar New Atheists, and their propensity to think that a sharp comment about archaeology is something like

"I hope to find that building that spiderman climbed in issue 127."

Oh. Ha. Haha. Yeah, that really added to the discussion. Sadly, I quoted that Spiderman comment, I didn't make it up, didn't have to.

What is rare and precious in discussions of old things found in or near Israel, and of old religious manuscripts, are comments which are actually about the archaeological discoveries, comments which evince an actual interest in the objects themselves and the light they shed upon history. As opposed to what? As opposed to saying, for the 45,763rd time, something which amounts to: "Fundamentalists are stupid." Which is all that the comment quoted above is saying. Now, I don't disagree with them about fundamentalists, but the thing is, I heard them the first 45,762 times, and I had figured that out about fundamentalists before I ever met them, all on my own, and there's an interesting discovery here, giving the opportunity for an interesting discussion, and it looks like it might be drowned out, as have so many other potentially interesting discussions, by this neverending Itchy & Scratchy show put on by the fundies and them. If only they could actually either learn something about this actual discovery, and talk about that, or shut the fuck up for once, and give those of us who want to discuss archaeology a fucking chance to do so for once in their fucking life.

I don't expect they will.

These discussions aren't really about archaeology, they're about Christian fundamentalists and New Atheists calling each other names. Just lately, geomorphologists have been comparing what Livy and Polybius wrote about the 2nd Punic War with what they've found on the ground in Spain, France and Italy, and they may have actually discovered some ancient battlefields with the help of those ancient authors. Always keep in mind, I'm only a layman, but if I understand what's going on here, then, it seems to me, the possible implications of these finds for archaeology, ancient history, ancient literature and other academic fields are whatcha call huge, potentially big, big stuff for people who are actually interested in archaeology. But it doesn't have anything to do with the Bible, and so most of the idiots yapping back and forth about that find in Abel Beth Maacah, and about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library and the Gospel of Jesus' Wife and the Tel Dan Stele and so forth -- or, I should actually say, ostensibly yapping about such things, while actually knowing practically nothing about them -- these people probably will never hear anything about it. Which, from my point of view, in some ways, is actually a good thing.

More Actual Yada-Yada With Real-Life Mipmipmips!

(As usual, all andsoforth guaranteed terrifyingly lalala. Pleas note, A contributed only one comment here. The rest is me and B. B is the one really making a euphemism of himself here. For all I know, A may've grasped my point right away. As I say below, it ain't rocket science.)

A: People are so desperate to try to make Jesus real, even there is no real evidence that he ever actually existed. It was over 70 years after his supposed death that anything was ever written about the guy and then 20 years after that and no accounts were actually witnessed by anyone. No historians or government accounts exist either. Its like when they found a old medium size boat in Turkey, that wouldn't even hold but a few animals and claimed that it was noah's ark...give me a break!

ME: I'm not convinced that Jesus existed, but I do know how to add and subtract. If Jesus existed and lived for 33 years, then he probably died around AD 25 to 40. Paul's earliest writings dating from the early 50's, at most 30 years after Jesus' supposed death, probably more like 20 to 25. 70 years after his supposed death would be around 95 to 110, and almost all of the New Testament was written by then.

Honestly, this stuff isn't complicated at all.

B: SO, what does any of this prove or even suggest?

ME: It proves that some people can't add and subtract 2-digit numbers.

B: yea, I got that part....but beyond the math.....what does this prove?

ME: When I first heard about the New Atheists, I assumed I was one: I'm an atheist who doesn't hide his views about religion, I'm very critical of religion. I'd also read 2 of Dawkins' books -- on BIOLOGY. So many New Atheists are scientists, and repeatedly point the importance of peer review, and quite rightly, it is very important. The thing is, it's important in other fields besides science. History, for example. corkery said: "It was over 70 years after his supposed death that anything was ever written about the guy" What's the difference between 70 years and the correct number, 20 years? What the difference between "Bronze Age goat herders" and "Iron Age city dwellers"? It's the difference between an A and an F on a History 101 exam. New Atheists don't practice peer review in each other's statements about history. And as long as they don't, they won't be taken seriously. I don't know whether Jesus existed or not, but I do know that it was about 20 years after his supposed death that the first writings about him appeared. And so does everybody else with an elementary acquaintance with the facts. And if someone doesn't see the difference between 20 years and 70 years in this case, or doesn't care what the difference might be, why should anyone take them seriously on the subject?

B: So......you didn't answer my question. Thanks anyway.

ME: I did answer it. I don't know how I possibly could've made myself clearer.

B: No, you talked about numbers and math. You didn't answer my question (maybe you should actually read it). I asked WHAT DOES THIS PROVE? Why are you so obsessed with the math? Even if you're right on the math...so what? 20 years. 70 years. WHO CARES? It means nothing.

(Terrifyingly real. What do we do in a situation like this? I thought about suggesting to B to ask a third party to explain what I said to him, since I obviously was getting nowhere. Instead I just gave up and came here and told you about it. If anyone has any other suggestions, please chime in. This stuff has to be dealt with. B is by no means unique.

Is New Atheism A Religion?

When I first heard the term "New Atheists" a few years ago, for a little while I assumed that I was one, because I vociferously criticize religion. However, religion isn't the ONLY thing I criticize, and soon after I began to hang with New Atheists I began to clash with them, because I criticize some of the things they say, including memes like calling the authors of the Bible "Bronze Age goat herders." (No evidence of written Hebrew before the Iron Age exists, most of the authors of the Bible were urban, and as if that weren't enough, the ancient Israelites raised more sheep than goats.) I had assumed that New Atheists would welcome corrections and a honing of their message. Not so much. I find this very ironic because so many of the New Atheists are scientists (including Dawkins, of course, who, unless I'm misinformed, came up with the Bronze Age goat herder meme), and, in their arguments with believers, they very often (and correctly) emphasize the importance of peer review. They don't seem to realize, or to care, that peer review also exists in disciplines such as history, archaeology and, yes, even Biblical studies. Point out the weakness in one of their slogans, and New Atheists are liable to accuse you of lending aid and comfort to the enemy. But my enemy is misinformation, nonsense and inaccuracy, even if it's being spread by other atheists.

PS: No, New Atheism is not a religion. What a silly thing to say. Of course it's not a religion. Neither is Communism, or sports, simply because they, like religion, involve large masses of people, charismatic leaders, occasional violence and simplistic slogans. (Just kidding about the violence in the case of New Atheism. As far as I know, it has not become violent. Yet.) Not only do I see a lot to criticize and oppose in religion, and in New Atheism, I can see a lot of problems in other atheist critiques of New Atheism as well, and a frequent one is this assertion that New Atheism is a religion. It's a silly accusation, and all it does is anger New Atheists without contributing anything to the discussion. (And as a rule they're already pretty angry.) As I've often said to New Atheists in re: religion: there's no need to exaggerate or distort, there's plenty to criticize here while remaining scrupulously accurate.

But who cares about things like scrupulous accuracy and logical consistency when there are points to be scored and zingers to be delivered, eh?

I do, that's who. Who will follow my charismatic lead in a mass movement of Anti-New Atheist Atheism? A little tip at this point: if you're breathlessly following me and painting quotes from me on signs and ostracizing those who dare to criticize me and preparing to march behind me, you're probably misunderstanding me. What I would most appreciate are readers who like what I say, and then criticize it, hone it and take it further. Not followers, but colleagues. People who can appreciate a good point being made without it shutting their brains off. Let's try to evolve, shall we?

Maybe I'm Too Elitist (Just Kidding)

New Atheism provides a place for the simpleminded. It used to be that atheists were rare and quick-witted and well-read. Now our name is legion, and quality control has suffered accordingly.

Just a little while ago I jumped into an exchange between a believer and a New Atheist:

BELIEVER: Here is one person whose conscience is not dead towards God.

NEW ATHEIST: Which GOD would that be?

ME: Context, Dude. You know which one, and that meme is tired.

NEW ATHEIST: Since there are thousands of GODS to choose from; we need to demand more specifics about which invisible supreme being we are talking about.

ME: Since I'm here I'll try one more time: you know [BELIEVER'S HANDLE] is talking about about the Judaeo-Christian God, the one from the Bible, and you know there's a 99% chance or so that [BELIEVER'S HANDLE] is a Christian. (Ooooh, wow, there are polytheists and different religions, you blew my mind, not.)

NEW ATHEIST: One should never assume anything about GODS or religions.

ME: You and [BELIEVER'S HANDLE] deserve each other. Have fun. I'm outta here.

NEW ATHEIST: You don't know what he believes or which GOD he worships?

Wow. Now that's some hardcore atheist stupid. I noticed that he asked someone else "Which GOD would that be?" this morning. The same inane waste-of-space question, word for word down to the same capitalization of "GOD." It occurred to me to Google that question, word for word, in quotes: "which god would that be." About 1,920,000 results (0.19 seconds). Not long ago it was "Have you heard about my friend Jesus?" Now it's "Which GOD would that be?" I guess morons never have to be lonely. About 695,000 results (0.32 seconds) for bronze age goat herders.

Early in his career Hunter S Thompson had been a sportswriter, and sometimes later he regretted that he had not been stupid enough to remain one. He fantasized about regressing: "It was a wonderful gig, in retrospect, and at times I wish I could go back to it — just punch a big hatpin through my frontal lobes and maybe regain that happy lost innocence." If he did it he knew all he'd really need would be a Roget's Thesaurus, to ensure he didn't write passages like "The precision-jack-hammer attack of the Miami Dolphins stomped the balls off the Washington Redskins today by stomping and hammering with one precise jack-thrust after another up the middle, mixed with pinpoint-precision passes into the flat and numerous hammer-jack stomps around both ends...."

Should I go the do-it-yourself hatpin-lobotomy route and seek happiness as a New Atheist? Clearly, I wouldn't even need the thesaurus: mind-numbing repetition of simplistic memes is not seen by them as a defect, it is actually encouraged, and the lack of such repetition is regarded with suspicion and hostility. ("WHY does he REFUSE to say 'bronze age goat herders'?!")

Ah yes, but even as it is now, pre-hatpin, I'm fascinated by shiny objects and brilliant colors, and religion has by far the best stained glass. it looks like I might never be a New Atheist.

New Atheists Need To Learn A Lot About Biblical Archaeology, And In The Meantime They Need To STFU About It

Whenever there's a story about Biblical archaeology a bunch of nimwits come out of the woodwork, attacking things with which the story has nothing to do: "Just because Jerusalem exists doesn't mean Jesus existed, any more than the existence of London means that Harry Potterexists." "Manhattan is real, but that doesn't mean that Spider-Manis." "There's no more evidence for the existence of Moses or Jesus or Nazareth than there is for Fred Flintstoneor Bedrock."

For one thing, it's always Harry Potter and Spider-Man and the Flintstones with these guys. This should give you a great big honkin' clue about these New Atheists' cultural reference-points, and their level of intellectual sophistication. You never hear them say something like "Ancient artifacts don't mean Jesus existed, any more than the V-2 rocket means that Tyrone Slothropreally caught a glimpse of Pirate Prentice" or "The existence of Paris doesn't mean that Bernardspent a night with Olivier." It seems that they're grown-ups reading novels written for children and comic books -- if, that is, I'm not giving them entirely too much credit as readers, and they actually only know Harry and Spidey from the movies. You're not going to catch these guys quoting Ovidin Latin or Dantein either Italian or Latin, or even Popein English, cause they've kinda got their heads up their asses.

More to the point in this particular case, you'll never hear them quote Finkelsteinor Dever,because they've never read them, although they will often drop Finkelstein's name, because they've heard, contrary to the truth, that Finkelstein is in sympathy with their positions concerning history and the Bible, and is as bitterly opposed to Biblical archaeology as they are. That's right: they go on and on about how horrible and reactionary and superstitious Biblical archaeology is, and they claim that Finkelstein is on their side in this matter, and they don't have a blessed clue that Israel Finkelstein is actually The. Most. Prominent. Biblical. Archaeologist. In. The. World.

They rail against Biblical archaeology without having any idea what it is. A century ago most educated people still assumed that Moses was an historical figure and that there was an Exodus and that centuries before Moses, there really had been an Abraham. Today no educated person assumes that Abraham is historical, and rather few still assume that Moses is. What brought about this change, what was it which educated people about these things? Why, it was the discoveries of Biblical archaeology, of course.

Victor Stenger Is A New Atheist, And I'm Still Not

When I first learned back in 2010 that there was a group called the New Atheists who were very vocally critical of religion and its interference with reason, I at first assumed I was one. And I suppose that's a judgement call, and that I could be regarded as a New Atheist. But I no longer consider myself to be one. I'm as critical of religion as I ever was, but the thing is, I also find myself butting heads with New Atheists on a regular basis, and also, and perhaps this is the very crux of this particular biscuit: I don't see New Atheists criticizing each other. I was going to say: "I don't see New Atheists criticizing each other very much," but the thing is, I don't see it at all.

Victor Stenger calls himself a New Atheist. I wasn't entirely clear about that until this article of his. I agree with most of what Stenger says in this new article. Like him I see a basic conflict between religion and science. (I see this conflict as becoming clearer and sharper as science develops, and as our understanding of religion develops, based on the study of history and other things which in other languages are called sciences but which in English are not, which is unfortunate, and seems to have interfered with some English-speaking scientists' understanding of those other disciplines.) I agree with Stenger that science's quarrel is not just with religious fundamentalism, but with religious "moderates" as well. The point of departure of the "moderates" are the same holy texts read by the fundies, the "moderates" refuse to cease according those texts an importance above that of other texts, they still engage in magical thinking, in short: the distance between the "moderates" and the fundamentalists is not nearly as great as the "moderates" would have you believe. I can't keep myself from constantly underlining this point by always putting quotation marks around the word "moderates."

So far I seem just like a New Atheist, and it's not surprising that for a while I thought I was one.

It seems that very many of the New Atheists are scientists, in the narrow English definition of science as pure natural science. And science lives and breathes on debate and self-criticism and the constant modification and refinement of its views in light of new information. So do other disciplines, but the New Atheists don't seem to criticize each others' statements about religion and society and history and archaeology. It's ironic, and it's very unfortunate: when these scientists, the New Atheists, take on religion, their approach is quite unscientific. History and archaeology have peer review and debate just as much as biology does, but it seems as if this would be news to the New Atheists. In a few recent Wrong Monkey blog posts I've discussed an example of this, the statement by the big Mac Daddy of New Atheists, Richard Dawkins, that the Old Testament authors were "Bronze-Age goat herders," when in fact Hebrew did not begin to be written until the Iron Age, the Old Testament was written by city dwellers such as Temple scribes, herdsmen at the time tended to be illiterate, and those rural Israelites who did tend herds raised many more sheep than goats. If Dawkins had made such a thoroughly-mistaken statement about biology, his colleagues would've been all over it instantly, and quite soon, whether good-naturedly or shame-facedly, he would have been compelled to issue a public retraction for the sake of his professional reputation.

But what criticism of Dawkins' "Bronze-Age goat herders" meme there has been has come from outside of the New Atheist community. Which has led some New Atheists to declare that "no one at all" has any problem with it. On the contrary, it has become a tremendously popular meme among New Atheists. Astonishingly, it's repeated by many people who don't seem to care whether it's accurate or not -- it expresses contempt for the Bible, that's the main thing. It also expresses contempt for accuracy in historical statements, and, astonishingly, New Atheists are simply not calling each other on that.

Or on any statement of opposition to religion, it seems. Here are a couple of examples culled from the comments on Stenger's article. Examples of stupid rash statements made by New Atheists and deemed by other New Atheists not to require challenge or criticism;

"Religion isn't just a collection of yokels incapable of understanding current scientific theory. It is a system of social incapacitation, perpetuated by the worst amognst us, made efficient over a very long period of time undeserving of your respect. "

You're undeserving of my respect, Sparky! Religion currently comprises billions of people. Not all of those billions beling to the worst among us, nor are all of the worst among us religious. "Incapacitation" does not describe all of what religion is. The world simply isn't that black-and-white. Sorry to be the one to break it to you, Bubba, but any time you've got a group of billions-with-a-b of people, some of what some of them are doing some of the time is going to be good.

"The single quote: 'Ignorance is Bliss' covers the entire article. People are afraid, so they take comfort in their willful ignorance. It's as simple as that."

Your worldview is as simple as that. Mine's not.

I didn't have to look long or far to find those statements. But New Atheists criticizing such simpleminded statements made by other atheists? That's as rare as a New Atheist challenging Dawkins' "Bronze-Age goat herders" meme. (Well. I suppose I shouldn't call something rare if it's possible that it's completely nonexistent.) And a group which doesn't keep itself honest and call each other out on such a basic level of crude clueless statements made on behalf on the group is a group of ignorant fanatics. When a group is too busy criticizing their enemy to criticize itself at all, it greatly diminishes whatever effect its legitimate criticisms might have had. With a complete lack of self-criticism, the group will eventually wither away and disappear, or so one certainly hopes, and good riddance and the sooner the better.

So, is Stenger himself guilty of any of these clueless whoppers, putting them out there to the approval of the in-group, while the group of others who are listening at all keeps shrinking? Yes, he is, as a matter of fact he wrote one in this very article:

"From its very beginning in prehistory, religion has been a tool used by those in power to retain that power and keep the masses in line."

Oh man, where do I start? Well, for one thing, nobody knows when religion began. For another, we know very little about how religion functioned tens of thousands of years ago. At this point, the best we can do is guess -- not only about the nature of religion at that time, but about any of the power relationships within human society. But Stenger's statement is a nice black-and-white, 100%-anti-religion gross oversimplification of the kind New Atheists love. They won't criticize it, they won't pay attention to those of us who will. They live in a bubble.

An Open Letter To Richard Dawkins

Hey, Dick!

I regret having stood up for you for some time in your capacity as a leader of New Atheism before having properly informed myself about your statements on various religions. Doubly so since I'm always chiding others for weighing in on topics about which they haven't first informed themselves. Which is pretty much what this post is about.

Let's concede for the sake of argument that you're correct in stating that science in the "Muslim world" is in a sorry state -- you've got a huge microphone and a towering podium, you've got some power: what are you going to DO about it? Beside repeating your mantra, "Religion is bad!"? Yes, Richard, religion is bad, but "Religion is bad!" is extremely oversimplistic, and extreme oversimplification is bad, if you will pardon my oversimplifying the case.

I'll tell you some things you can do:

Read the Koran, and until you're finished with that, enjoy a nice steaming hot mug of STFU about Islam.

But I see I'm far from the first to propose this to you. Oh well. Onward:

Visit some majority-Muslim countries, if you haven't already. If you have, pardon me, but it's hard to imagine that you have. In the course of researching whether or not you've ever been to a majority-Muslim country I came across someone posting on the Internet behind the anonymous safety of a handle, claiming to have been in the Middle East and to know that it amounted to suicide to be there and admit to being an atheist. I was immediately reminded of some other Internet pussies who claimed to live secretly as atheists in the US South, because coming out of the atheist closet there, they were certain, would be career suicide.

I lived in the middle of the Bible Belt for 10 years, during which time it never occurred to me to try to hide the fact that I was an atheist, and I knew people who were bolder than I, and we all were employed.

Admittedly, simply being an atheist, and being Richard Dawkins His Dangself, are two different propositions. But assuming that your personal security could somehow be arranged, would you consider going to Damascus University, say, or the University of Jordan, and meeting face to face with scientists working there, so you'd have a better idea of whom you're dissing? Visiting their labs, discussing their research?

If for no other reason, then to give yourself a shred of credibility on certain topics, as reading the Koran would?

I think your problem here is prejudice, Richard, and prejudice consists of assuming things about people rather than getting to know them as individuals. If "Muslim science" were represented in your mind by some people you'd met, whose labs you'd seen, maybe you'd be less inclined to say such stupid hurtful things about them. If those scientists in Jordan or Syria were not faceless to you, perhaps you'd be inclined to actually say, or even to do, things which could help them perform scientific work better. Of course, if you saw them for yourself, there's also the possibility that you'd see that you had been wrong about "Muslim science" being in such a sorry state, and instead begin wondering -- aloud, and in front of hot mikes, could one hope? -- about things such as why those scientists haven't received more attention from Western institutions such as those folks from Nobel.

Realistically, I don't see any reason to think that you'll do any of these this: read the Koran, go to the Middle East, meet "Muslim scientists" or tour "Muslim universities," or anything else which might open your mind a crack on the subject. (I'd be so glad if you'd prove me wrong.) And so instead, we atheists who are not as completely stupid about religion and culture and history as you -- have you met Salman Rushdie? If so it doesn't seem to have done you any good -- are just going to have to do a much better job of distancing ourselves from you. For so many reasons, including this one: it's true that not every atheist who is critical of Islam needs to have read the Koran, but the leader of a movement of millions of them should know it forward and backward, in Arabic. (Or at least for crying out loud be able to refer us to someone who does.) That's not very much to ask at all. There are plenty of atheists who fulfill that job requirement, including some you've probably never heard of because, you know, they live in the "Muslim world."

Congress Recently Amended A Bill To Prevent The Military From Hiring Secular Humanist Chaplains, And I'm Not Too Upset About It

-- because, what the heck is a Secular Humanist chaplain anyway? I've only encountered one so far, Chris Stedman, a Secular Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, and Stedman is hard for me to take when I'm in a good mood. It's hard for me to imagine him being much comfort to military personnel in crisis. To me he's barely distinguishable from a "modern" Christian or Jewish theologian. He's more supportive of religion, more quick to excuse its flaws and more critical of other atheists, than many of the conventional sort of religious clergypeople.

Jason Heap had been attempting to become the Navy's first Humanist chaplain. It's unclear at the moment whether -- excuse me. Let me re-phrase that in a less pompous manner: I don't know whether this amendment will prevent his appointment. Heap is 38 years old, a graduate of the Brite Divinity School and Oxford University, and has the endorsement of the Humanist Society, whoever they are. In case you're wondering whether Brite Divinity School might be some sort of atheist institution, associated with the so-called "brights" -- no such luck. It's a Christian seminary affiliated with Texas Christian University. Oh joy, another theologian, just what the world needed, and atheists in particular.

It is my considered opinion that what is most urgently needed in the military, what has been insufficiently replaced by chaplains for a long, long time, and, I fear, would be just as insufficiently replaced by Secular chaplains, is psychologists. Unfortunately, of course, there is still a great stigma attached to psychology: ("You want to consult with a specialist in the human mind in order to improve your mood and coping skills?! What are ya, crazy?!")

I'm not crazy about the idea of Secular clergy, in the military or elsewhere. I've noticed that some atheist churches have sprung up, and I'm not dying to visit any of them. (I attended a Unitarian church for a little while once, and I'm not going back anytime soon.) I think that the atheist monuments going up on public land next to things like copies of the Ten Commandments are silly, and I think the energy put into the court battles for permission to erect those monuments would've been much better spent supporting science education and combating the efforts of pseudoscientific Creationism to attain the status, legally and in people's opinions, of science. I think that the formal debates between atheists and creationists lend Creationism an air of seriousness it doesn't deserve. The fact that "In God We Trust" is on our money doesn't bother me. It seems I disagree with the typical New Atheist on every one of those points, with the possible exception of the Unitarians. It seems that snake handlers, "modern" theologians and New Atheists all differ from me in their need for forms and institutions which are either religious or copy religions.

"We Possess the Works of Over Fifty Historians Who Were in Jerulsalem During Jesus' Supposed Lifetime, And None of Them Mention Him!"

Well, no, we don't possess the works of fifty such writers, of course we don't. I put it in quotes because it's someone else's assertion, not mine, and I put it in the headline because it's so breathtakingly wrong. That's right, kiddies, it's Stupid Atheists Time again here at The Wrong Monkey!

The thing is, a meme is abroad in the land of those who feel qualified to pontificate upon the nonexistence of Jesus without first taking something like a good World History 101 course, to the effect that it is downright suspicious that there are no contemporary mentions of Jesus. I'm not the world's leading authority on the evidence for Jesus' existence, but clearly, I'm way ahead of some people. I could be wrong, but I believe that the number of historians whose works are extant who spent so much as a day in Jerusalem between 10 BC and AD 40 -- that's right, we don't know when Jesus lived if he did but if he did it was very likely somewhere in that time frame -- is not fifty, but zero.

I expressed this opinion to the person who holds the position immortalized in the headline of this blog post, and challenged him to name those fifty writers and more. He produced the following forty names: Apollonius, Persius, Appian, Petronius, Arrian, Phaedrus, Aulus Gellius, Philo, Columella, Phlegon, Damis, Pliny the Elder, Dio Chrysostom, Pliny the Younger, Plutarch, Epictetus, Pomponius Mela, Favorinus, Ptolemy, Florus, Lucius, Quintilian, Hermogenes, Quintius Curtius, Josephus, Seneca, Justus of Tiberius, Silius Italicus, Juvenal, Statius, Lucan, Suetonius, Lucian, Tacitus, Lysias, Theon of Smyran, Martial, Valerius Flaccus, Paterculus, Valerius Maximus, and Pausanias.

I pointed out that many of these writers were not historians, that many of them did not live during Jesus' supposed lifetime, and that to my knowledge just one of them, Josephus,had ever spent any time in Jerusalem. Even if they were just passing through. Upon closer inspection of the list, I see one other person who may well have spent some time in Jerusalem: Joseph of Tiberias. And he was an historian, too. But none of his works have survived. We know his name only because Josephus and, centuries later, Photiusmentioned him. And Justus was a contemporary of Josephus, who was not a contemporary of Jesus. It may be that a couple more from the list at least for a moment stood in Jerusalem or rode through it; still, we're woefully short of possessing the works of fifty historians contemporary with Jesus who were in Jerusalem. And, much more to the point, still many clowns short of a rodeo inasmuch as this guy is nowhere near ready to realize that his image of the extent of ancient writing we possess about Jerusalem is drastically mistaken, and perhaps even more to the point, nowhere near ceasing to assume that anyone such as your humble correspondent who attempts to direct him to broader knowledge and away from error is a Christian.

By the way, when this turnip gave me this list he chided me for not doing my own research. I let it go at the time, and mention it now to give you more of the flavor the whole experience. Also, another person mentioned to him that we possess no contemporary non-Roman evidence of Julius Caesar, to which he startlingly replied that there was an abundance of such evidence in Britain, that Julius Caesar had spent time in Britain after its conquest by the Romans had begun under his predecessor Claudius. I pointed out that Caesar was Claudius' predecessor and that he had been killed in 44 BC. Judging from my experience with him so far, that attempt at correction will not leave much of a dent.

It's all just breathtakingly stupid. Not just ignorant, but ignorant and bitterly determined to stay that way, determined not to learn. And I'm telling you all this because this individual is far from unique. There is a whole huge wave of stupid atheism rising, accurately diagnosed here by the very intelligent atheist and historian of early Christianty R Joseph Hoffmann, who is so intelligent that he's often mistaken for a religious believer by those among the atheists who cannot comprehend writing written in breaths longer than sound bites. This wave didn't rise spontaneously. It has leaders, and the leaders' conceptions of ancient history are crunked up. Just as the "moderate" Christians and Muslims energetically shirk responsibility for the extremists they breed, so do Dawkins, Hitch & co overlook their role in the spread of beliefs such as, "We possess the works of more than fifty historians who lived in Jerusalem during Jesus' supposed lifetime, and none of them mention him!" That's right, I'm finally coming right out in public and dissing New Atheism. It gets a C- or worse in Ancient History. I've been somewhat unclear about that for too long, but I finally decided to grow a pair.

Btw, Dawkins' work on biologyremains brilliant. Hoffmann seems to think so too.