Should Rory Fitzgerald (and Ed West) be carted off to some remote island for terminal idiocy?

There is much to be said (or, for some, little) about the nature and quality of the articles published at the Huffington Post. While its sections on medicine and well-being tend to be flooded with all sorts of pseudoscientific quackery, ranging from antivaccination lunacy to even support for homeopathy, its articles concerning politics tend to be top-notch, filled with substantive debunkings of the latest bullshit being peddled from the increasingly insane Right. Unfortunately, another reason why the HuffPo is so often held in disregard, if not even contempt, by most skeptics and atheists is because of its content when it comes to faith and spirituality – ie. religion – which tends to range anywhere from moderately sensible to downright fundy-level insane in its vacuousness and plain falsehood (if not occasional derangement).

As if to cement the notion that religion-themed writings in the HuffPo are almost inherently devoid of merit any more solidly, I’ve just come across this entry by Irish journalist Rory Fitzgerald, forebodingly titled “Should Richard Dawkins be Arrested for Covering Up Atheist Crimes?”, a phrase that you will soon notice is a complete and utter red herring with regards to his actual piece, itself an amalgamation of so many falsehoods and stereotypes that it will make you wonder if he isn’t some sort of an elaborate Poe. (That is, at first.) Hell, he even mentions and quotes the Telegraph’s Ed West (yes, that idiot) in perfect agreement, which evidently tells you what sort of an intellectual force (or lack thereof) we’re dealing with, here.

Most atheists I know are great people, and are staying true to the truth as they see it. Most also remain open to new possibilities and acknowledge that they are not entirely omniscient, and are respectful to those who think differently to themselves.

Dawkins, however, often seems to have only contempt for the majority of human kind who, unlike him, do believe in God. His selective campaigning about political issues makes me wonder: is he really objective seeker of truth, or is he someone who just hates and seeks to undermine Judaeo-Christian principles?

It’s nice for Fitzgerald to pat our backs and admit that most atheists are good people (such a compliment!); only, it’s too bad he then had to imply that some – or even any – weren’t “open to new possibilities” and that they didn’t “acknowledge that they are not entirely omniscient”. You know, I don’t believe that any atheist, in the history of the world, has ever claimed that they were omniscient to any degree, or that they even knew most of what could be learned. The thing about atheists is that they tend to be a rather humble bunch when it comes to admitting that our limited human brains can only learn and comprehend so much. Also, most atheists, apparently unlike Fitzgerald here, can distinguish between knowledge and certainty. One is about, well, knowledge, whilst the other concerns belief. Atheists may be solid in their certainty/belief that no gods exist, but no sane atheist will ever claim to know that no gods exist as an absolute truth. We atheists recognize that we (ie. humans) can’t know such truths. (At least, for now.)

Now, for the sake of full disclosure, I will admit to knowing precious little about Richard Dawkins other than the basics. I’ve never read his books (or any other atheist tomes, really, if only out of pure laziness), I’ve watched all of two interviews featuring him (one of them being on The Colbert Report, which isn’t exactly the best setting for an in-depth interview as far as they come), and I’ll certainly only ever meet the man in person in some surreal dream or atheist fantasy as opposed to real life. As such, I can’t claim to know him well enough to be able to judge his motives or beliefs with any real certainty (not that I claim to do so for anyone else, anyway, though).

Still, though, I rather doubt that Dawkins, acerbic though he may be when it comes to matters of religion and blind faith, has “only contempt for the majority of human kind”, especially if only because they, “unlike him, do believe in God”. Ever heard of unfounded claims, Fitzgerald? Or better yet, pure ad hominem of the highest order?

Here is perhaps the most important scientist of all time, with an incredibly profound mind, but with the humility to acknowledge how feeble and frail the human mind really is.

Sidenote: Einstein may have been the most important scientist of our time, but the greatest mind ever inarguably belonged to Leonardo da Vinci, scientist and artist of virtually all imaginable calibers and a man whose research and discoveries, had they been made known back in his day in the early 1500s, would have propelled the world into the 1800s quasi-instantaneously in terms of scientific knowledge.

Carry on.

Richard Dawkins has become a sort of Messiah for some atheists. He is a biologist, a geneticist. I'm not sure why he feels that expertise in such an arcane field gives him authority to pronounce on spiritual questions. But, if biologists hold the keys to heaven, people may wish to consider the thoughts of Nobel Prize winning microbiologist Werner Arber, or eminent geneticist, Francis S. Collins, who led the Human Genome Project. Both are believers in God, and both find evidence for the divine in science itself. The debate about the reality of the spiritual is fascinating and is of profound importance to human kind, but Dawkins increasingly only brings to it noise and hatred.

Brilliant, Fitzgerald. Not only is this an ignorant screed against Dawkins (and, implicatively, other verbal atheists), he now reveals he doesn’t even know the basics about the man he’s criticizing, himself. One will note that, according to PZ Myers of Pharyngula and Jerry Coyne of Why Evolution Is True, Fitzgerald first referred to Dawkins as a “microbiologist”, as though that were a blanket term applicable to anyone specialized in the tiny inner workings of biological sciences. (For the record, microbiology is the study of microscopic organisms and their effects on larger organisms, notably humans.) Only after a subsequent correction by a reader did he change it to “geneticist” – which is still wrong. Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist trained as an ethologist (the study of animal behavior in their natural habitats). One would think that a “journalist” launching into an attack on a celebrity scientist and atheist could at least get his basics straight.

Then, those mentions of Werner Arber and Francis Collins (director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Maryland) are irrelevant at best; I can’t speak about Arber as I’ve never heard of him, but Collins, for all this admittedly brilliant research and scientific accomplishments, is renown for his godbotting and Christian evangelism – things that have absolutely no place in the strictly logical world of science. Not that he can’t be a Christian or hold some theological beliefs – that would be stupid – but his constant attempts at injecting religion into otherwise good science is why he’s the target of plenty of atheist ire. So, no, his thoughts regarding “spiritual questions” are not to be considered, as we’ve only heard one answer from him thus far: Goddidit.

Dawkins is right to be angry about the cover up of child abuse in the Catholic Church, but he seems to have a tendency himself to be very selective in the issues he shouts about, and those he remains silent about. In that sense, he can be seen to hush up the many horrendous crimes committed by atheist ideologues in the 20th century.

Oh, God. Here we go, the crux of Fitzgerald’s “argument”: playing the Hitler!/Nazis!/Stalin!/Pol Pot! card(s). How predictable. How stupid. How exasperating.

Many earlier atheistic ideologies despised Jewish and Christian thinking, and were often obsessed by natural selection. The Nazi ideology, for example, was inspired in part by philosophers like Nietzsche who proclaimed that "God is dead" and that Christian morality was a "slave morality", not befitting an "uebermench". Atheistic communism, as manifested in the Soviet Union, hated religion, "the opium of the masses" and it brought about the murder of millions more in Gulags and purges[.]

As recently as 1979, the Cambodian genocide killed 1.7 million people. These were murdered by communist atheists. War crimes tribunals are now being set up in Phnomh Penh. It is perfectly reasonable to be critical of the many bad things done in the name of religion, but I don't see Dawkins loudly decrying the actions of atheists in Cambodia. Why? Because his preference appears to be to emphasise religiously motivated barbarism over the many atheistically motivated wrongs.

Look, I’ll make this real fast and simply quote a relevant excerpt from my April 03 post, “An exercise in tired anti-atheist nonsense” (how retroactively fitting):

Religiousness during the Nazi regime was a complex issue that is difficult to gauge with any accuracy, but in no way were the Nazis, and the society they strove to build, completely secular or remotely “atheistic”. As for Stalin, he did effectively implement a very harsh anti-religious discipline into his reign, promoting state atheism and the likes, but even so, this is a completely irrelevant issue. Atheism is about the nature of the universe and the existence (or lack thereof) of any god(s). How some less-than-benevolent leaders may choose to do with atheism is utterly immaterial. The same thing also applies to Pol Pot [leader of the Kmer Rouge] and his own despotic anti-religious rule.

Yes, there have been horrible atrocities committed under arguably atheistic regimes in the past. But there is absolutely no indication of any sort that said atrocities were committed “in the name of atheism”. Atheism was merely a structure for these regimes, not a guiding force. One cannot reasonably “kill in the name of atheism” – what is there to kill for? No gods, no supernatural, no nothing. The only motives left are Earthbound and human ones.

Many now see Dawkins as something of a narrow-minded fundamentalist himself, increasingly redolent of a man with no sense of smell going around shrieking to everyone that their sense of smell is a delusion.

The “atheists are just like fundies” card. Check.

Perhaps Dawkins imagines that by promoting his grim personal philosophy as the ultimate truth, and by viciously attacking ancient moral systems upon which Western Civilization is founded, he will bring about some sort of atheist utopia. He seeks to magnify wrongs done by religions, and to breeze over the immense horrors brought about by atheist belief systems. Yet we have seen what atheist utopias can look like.

Again, this is packed full of fail. “[G]rim personal philosophy”? There’s nothing “grim” about abolishing the idea of magical beings in the sky. Harsh, perhaps (which is, to those who do hold such beliefs), but not “grim”. “[U]ltimate truth”? Again, more idiocy. See above re: truths and certainty. “[A]ttacking ancient moral systems upon which Western Civilization is founded”? Pointless argument, implying that A) said “moral systems” were any better or worse than any other (when what matters is how the people who adhere to said systems act, not the systems themselves, usually) and B) that these “moral systems” aren’t, in themselves, flawed and in need of criticism for improvement. Which they certainly are. Hey, the moral systems upon which America was originally founded also used to hold slavery as White Man’s God-given right. Should that not have been criticized (much less abolished), too? Or not allowing women to vote? Or any number of such examples? Again, a resurfacing of the old “but it’s a tradition!” argument, which is worthless.

And as for his mention of “atheist utopias”, this just comes across as deliberately dishonest, or simply ignorant (again). What about Scandinavia? Denmark, Norway, Sweden and (usually) Finland – all countries that consistently rank quite high in average quality-of-life lists, and yet are also renown for their uncommonly low rates of religiousness. Oh, look, atheist societies (or “utopias”) that are both happy and free from the mind-rotting grip of religion! I guess it does happen, then. Despite Fitzgerald’s implication to the contrary.

The next several paragraphs are devoted to quoting Ed West (so you know I’ll just skip over that nonsense) and presenting a (muddled and rather incoherent) argument that contraceptives (notably “the Pill”, sounding all dark and evil-y) will actually prove to be atheists’ downfall, following the twisted logic and assumptions that A) atheists tend to use contraception more, therefore B) atheists reproduce less, which when compared with C) religious folks tend to reproduce more (due to less usage of contraception), therefore, D) higher-reproducing religious people will outnumber lower-reproducing atheists.

Of course, this argument immediately falls flat under the fact that its inherent implication – that atheists only make atheist offspring and religious folks only make religious offspring – is completely bogus. The reality is that whilst there are some children raised in secular homes who eventually turn to religion, the number of religious children (and people in general) who cast their faith away and turn non-theist is staggeringly higher. (Which, I would presume, is not only due to there being more religious people in general.) So, really, birthrates in between groups is just about irrelevant under these circumstances.

At last, we reach the end of this nonsense:

Perhaps the most apposite warning for Dawkins comes from Einstein himself:

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

Dawkins feels certain that he has unravelled the mysteries of the universe. He is not the first to suffer from that delusion, and he will not be the last. As the ape-descended Dawkins struts around imagining that he somehow knows the workings of every dimension of an infinitely complex universe from our tiny perch on this speck of a planet, the gods, in which he disbelieves, must be laughing big time.

A classic and obvious misrepresentation of Einstein’s classic quote, more “knowledge-vs.-certainty” confusion, and even some feeble snark indicating Fitzgerald’s ignorance concerning evolution (which only adds to his profile as a know-nothing dolt) – truly, a way to go out in style. (Though, forgive me for picking stylistic nits, but what the hell kind of a writer ever opts to end their piece with something like “big time”?)

Truly, HuffPo, you need to learn to apply some standards to the kind of tripe you allow to be published on your pages, regardless of its nature. There’s a point where being pro-free speech enough to allow any kind of dissenting opinion to be posted must meet limits when it comes to pure and total crap.

(via @RichardDawkins)