The Mental Schism of Michael Ruse

Michael Ruse, who repeatedly calls himself a professional philosopher, wants to answer, in the UK Guardian, the question, “Is there an atheist schism?”. He seems to mean a schism about what it is to be an atheist, and the schism he refers to is that between himself and most other atheists. Put that way, the answer is easy. Yes, there is a schism between Ruse and most other atheists because Ruse seems to be an atheist who has open yearnings for a god. Is that possible? Most other atheists think not, and that is the schism, and he says he is “rather proud” of it.

He says that, as a professional philosopher, his first question is naturally “What or who is an atheist?”. He gives a choice of two answers:

1. someone who absolutely and utterly does not believe there is any God or meaning
2. someone who agrees that logically there could be a god, but who doesn’t think that the logical possibility is terribly likely, or at least not something that should keep us awake at night

He infers there are “not many” in the first group, but there are “a lot of us” in the second. The literal meaning of atheist, its definition, is clear enough. From the Greek (a theos, “without God”) it means someone who does not believe in a God or gods. So both of Ruse’s categories are atheists. If someone does not believe in any god, whatever the reason for the disbelief, or whatever the strength of the conviction, that person is an atheist. So, there can be no schism over that. So what is the schism, if there is one?

There are several reasons why we atheists are squabbling—I will speak only for myself but I doubt I am atypical.

Here is a confession of the reality. Ruse will only speak for himself but thinks he is typical because he is in a category by himself. In short, the schism is between him and the more critical atheists he calls the “new” atheists, people like Dawkins, Coyne, Myers, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, and so on. The difference is not over whether God exists or not, but whether religions are evil or not. The so called new atheists think religions have a preponderantly bad influence, while Ruse says it is not true that “all religion is necessarily evil and corrupting”. He implies that is the view of his second, larger category of atheists. So the schism is not about atheism but about religion.

For a professional philosopher, Ruse is fond of being imprecise when it suits him, and excessively precise when that suits him too. Note, for example that, in his first definition of an atheist, he does not restrict the definition to disbelief in gods but also disbelief in “meaning”! That is a curiously careless mistake for a professional philosopher to make, but allows a hole for his respect for theologians and their scams—religions.

Then he slips in the little word “all” when denying that religion is necessarily evil and corrupting, which allows him a get out if even one person claims allegiance to a religion which has done no evil or corruption. As far as I am aware, the Adelphiasophist religion has done no such wickedness, so Ruse’s little trick ensures he is sure to be right. That, though, is not the point.

Religions generally lead to terrible deeds being done in their name, and the perpetrators are always convinced that whatever they are doing is not wicked because they have God on their side. That is the wickedness that men do in the name of religion, and that is the wickedness that the atheists, new or geriatric, argue and have often argued. Ruse seems unable to comprehend it. He says to argue that religions generally have terrible consequences, is like the Mormons claiming to find “golden plates in upstate New York”. He must mean it is a grotesque lie.

Besides that he observes that Quakers and the Evangelicals opposed slavery for religious reasons, and that was a good thing. Of course, it was a good thing that anyone opposed slavery, but he chose to name Quakers and Evangelists, because the traditional mainstream Christian churches had an abysmal record in that respect which lasted for 1800 years from the time of Christ, and abolition of slavery was opposed by most Christian bishops sitting in the House of Lords of the British Parliament. Moreover, many of the men who got rich on the back of shackled and ill treated slaves were themselves observant Christians able to cite chapter and verse from the bible in their defense. Their religion might have driven some Christians in minor sects to oppose slavery while others exploited slaves while receiving honors, but right from the time of Paul, the greatest apostle for most Christian sects, slaves were told by Christians to suffer their burdens and to pray for their oppressors.

Evil Never Religion’s Fault

Ruse thinks that even when religions are obviously acting evilly, they are not to blame—socio economic issues, alienation, despair, poverty, inequality all played their part, Ruse thinks, often a dominant part. It leaves you thinking, though, why these terribly good religions did not stop or seek to stop the terrible cause outlined, but instead, apparently got caught up, through no fault of their own, in provoking and perpetuating the fierce hatred that erupted. Whatever the socio economic issues, the Irish fought over a sectarian divide, and the divide was, and still is, perpetuated by faith schooling in a largely segregated system. The professional philosopher is not immune to blindness over such matters, but it is puzzling nevertheless. He seems to be apologizing for religions, even though, as he claims to be an atheist, he can hardly think that anyone following any of them is thinking at all clearly.

Yet, he boasts that he is unlike his new atheistic critics in taking scholarship seriously. For example, Dawkins’ The God Delusion made him ashamed to be an atheist, he said. It seems, then that Dawkins is not a scholar, despite his distinguished career as a professor of biology, the public understanding of science, and as an author of popular science books, as well as scholarly papers, all from the deserved place he held in a most distinguished university. Could it be that even a professional philosopher cannot honestly draw the proper conclusions from empirical investigations? Once something is established, is it proper to continue humoring those who simply refuse to accept it, while believing incredible things merely because their parents, priests, and best friends believed it.

Ruse thinks he is a more serious scholar because he makes the effort to understand what these obtuse people understand by their beliefs, an endeavor that ought not to require a great deal of effort. Why do people throw salt over their shoulder when they spill it, say “bless you” when you sneeze, and touch wood for good luck? Understand those and you understand belief in God, and religion. It is superstition, an old and outmoded belief still held. Why should anyone want to perpetuate false and outmoded beliefs? Who else, but those who gain by it.

Surely these reasons are not too difficult to comprehend for a professional philosopher, especially one who still claims to be an atheist, yet Ruse is surprised that less compromised atheists are contemptuous of religious beliefs, and those who try to give them an undeserved credence, men like Ruse.

It is apparently wrong to ask any believer, “What caused God?”, but it is all right for a philosopher, Mary Midgley, to criticize the metaphor of a “selfish gene” on the obvious grounds that genes cannot have emotions. It must be that God is a metaphor, but what then is God a metaphor of? And are the priests and prelates telling their flocks that God is a metaphor and not some all powerful being with a human personality dutifully looking after everyone who prays, except those whom are overlooked and die or get maimed? If Ruse is an atheistic scholar, as he claims, and has discovered that somehow the clever theologians he admires have found a truth we have all missed, then why not share it with us. Maybe it would be too embarrassing for him.

He says it wouldn’t be, because he doesn’t have faith, he really doesn’t, yet he is not condescending to believers even though he thinks they are wrong:

I think they are wrong. They think I am wrong. But they are not stupid or bad or whatever. If I needed advice about everyday matters, I would turn without hesitation to these men.

He will! He will! Perhaps he is correct about the ones he specifies, people like Rowan Williams, but men can be misguided when young and led into a bad life in spite of themselves. Williams might be the nicest and most sincere Archbishop of Canterbury you could wish to meet, but the argument is not about how nice or sincere these men are.

They have reached high positions in their religions, Williams the highest there is, but who pays them? They are living off the sweat of others—much poorer people. Their privileged position is from exploitation no different in principle from the robbery effected by the bankers recently. And they are doing it while supposedly espousing the principles of a man who emphasized the virtues of poverty to such an extent, that it is impossible to be a Christian and be richer than their neighbor. It proves their insincerity or their unintelligence.

Theology cannot argue them out of it because the man whose principles they ignore in practice while holding to them in theory was actually God, according to their own belief. They are bold enough to say God was wrong, and every greedy Christian breathes a sigh of relief while the poor ones continue in their blessed state of poverty. It sounds very much like hypocrisy, and their God, Christ, speaking from his own divine lips also told them not to be hypocrites.

“You May Be Mistaken”

Ruse thinks he can explain faith in terms of psychology. Can’t we all, but that explains it, it does not excuse it. Psychology cannot excuse hypocrisy, especially if the hypocrites are intelligent. They know they are hypocrites and the psychology is incidental. The same is true of robbers. Indeed, using psychology to help to keep a large proportion of humanity poor and shackled by erroneous belief is disgusting in itself, and that is what these Christian shepherds have always done.

Ruse says he hears Cromwell writing in his letter to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland:

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.

But the analogy is a poor one. Squabbles between two varieties of unfounded Christian belief surely cannot be compared with the reasoned arguments of science with the perpetuated unreason of the believers. Ruse is evidently impressed by what he calls the “integrity of so many believers” which makes him modest in his unbelief. It is more evidence that Ruse is actually moving towards the believers. There can be no integrity in believing contrary to the evidence, and to continue spreading the false notion of faith, which it amounts to, cannot be commendable. Science has to be disdained to do it, and that is what Ruse tries to do by making disparaging remarks about men who are far superior in most respects than he is, and certainly more honest. Ruse seems to be like Paul of Tarsus, he is kicking against the pricks, but will succumb to his passion for Christ!

He wants evolution taught in the schools, but sees criticism of religion as stopping it, in the US southern state where he lives. He must think science has to be attenuated in some way so that it becomes acceptable to believers. That is quite impossible. It is yielding firm ground to false belief, and it is the utter opposite of science. Ruse says “we cannot make unsubstantiated arguments that science refutes religion”. But we can, it seems, make unsubstantiated arguments that religion refutes science. Unquestioning faith is diametrically opposed to the central principle of scientific inquiry—skepticism.

It is certainly possible for some Christians, like F S Collins, to be good scientists, but it is by being mentally double jointed. What is shown to be true by observation and experiment cannot in the next minute be compromised by saying something like, “but you needn’t believe it”, or “it might not be so”. If you are going to teach evolution in schools, the believers are the ones who have to suspend their beliefs. But that is what Ruse calls political stupidity. He finally shows his own complete confusion, professional philosopher or not:

If, as the new atheists think, Darwinian evolutionary biology is incompatible with Christianity, then will they give me a good argument as to why the science should be taught in schools if it implies the falsity of religion? The first amendment to the constitution of the United States of America separates church and state. Why are their beliefs exempt?

Is he saying that science is a religion itself? That is all it can mean surely. Science, which has no concern at all per se in religion, yields up information incompatible with the unfounded religious belief that God exists. So science suddenly becomes a religion, as far as the US Constitution is concerned. Sadly, he seems to be going bananas. Does he want a constitutional ban on counting too, because:

1 + 1 + 1 = 3

but Christians think:

1 + 1 + 1 = 1 ?

His parting shot is to compare The God Delusion with Christian fundamentalist ideas spread in the 1960s that forthcoming nuclear annihilation was the equivalent of Noah’s Flood, a dispensationalist message. Never mind that God promised, in his diaries, not to do anything like that again, it is God’s plan, and needless to say, the fundamentalists promise themselves a grandstand seat in heaven to view the fireworks. Such comparisons seem to suggest a fading mind, comical but sad.

Ruse has written well on atheism and on evolution in the past, but now is cozying up to IDers while finding reasons to think religion and belief in God are at least partially respectable. The schism seems to be in his own thinking or mentality.

US Youth—Atheistic Thinking is Just Fine!

American high schools have atheist clubs, warns the head of US Catholic bishops. Kids confirmed in the eighth grade, are atheists by the time they’re sophomores in high school. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, President of the US Catholic Bishops’ Conference, notes that atheism is getting popular among teenagers and students in the USA. Atheism is growing rapidly in the 18-25 age group, and Catholic and Protestant professionals alike are getting worried about it. Young Americans are beginning to get the courage to go against the pressure of their parents and peers and proudly declare their atheism, flooding YouTube with atheistic videos. The US is getting like Europe. People who have long believed that religion is part of the American psyche are beginning to doubt!

It is hard for the scientific skeptic to imagine that human beings differ greatly in the way they think, but the religious believe they do think differently from nonbelievers. How then can devout Christian youth be persuaded by godless atheism? Indeed why should the Christian confident that they think differently from the atheist even worry that they can be deconverted by mere arguments? There could be no reason, if it were true, but it is not. UCLA researchers have found that Christians and nonbelievers use the same parts of the brain in categorizing the truth of articles of religious faith. Sam Harris, who recently completed a doctoral dissertation in cognitive neuroscience at UCLA, is one of the researchers. 15 Christian believers and 15 nonbelievers judged the truth of religious tenets while their brains were being monitored in a scanner. For both groups:

1. judging religious assertions activated parts of the brain related with emotional judgment, uncertainty, rewards and self
2. thinking about facts used parts of the brain that are strongly associated with memory retrieval
3. asked to declare as true or false matters of faith took longer to respond than when asked to categorize matters of fact.

If anything, it shows that humans generally find matters of faith more puzzling and emotional than matters of fact, so even the faithful must have their doubts. The Cardinal sees it the other way round. Atheists are evangelical in their proselytizing, so they are thinking like believers!

It’s the mirror image of a kind of fundamentalism, because it’s very restrictive in its use of reason. It’s also very triumphalistic and self-righteous.

Either way, the mode of thinking of the pious and the profane are the same, and atheism can be taught to the next generation just as belief is, so any rise in atheism at the expense of religion is likely to continue to grow. Christian professionals are praying that the fear of death will change the minds of the newly atheistical youth, as they grow older.

The cardinal says that unbelief among young people is not just rejection of going to church, it is new atheism and every bit as intolerant as Christian fundamentalism. That is just old fashioned scaremongering, itself a form of intolerance. The intolerance of patriarchal religion is not surprising. It is the foremost teaching of the Old Testament God, in deed if not always in word. American youth are right to reject it.

The Nones are Multiplying! Is the US Going Secular?

Nones in USA

Maybe the US is belatedly leaving behind the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of belief in Luther and Calvin, and joining the modern world of science, in short, beginning to reject superstitions like religion. A survey analysed by Barry A Kosmin, Ariela Keysar, Ryan Cragun and Juhem Navarro Rivera called American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population, published by Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, suggests it. The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2008 is a survey of a nationally representative sample of 54,461 adults. 7,407 are Nones, people who responded to the question: “What is your religion, if any?” with none, atheist, agnostic, secular, or humanist.

The Nones are growing. They increased from 8.1% of the US adult population in 1990 to 15% in 2008, an increase in numbers from 14 million to 34 million adults. Nones are mainly younger than the US population: 30% are under age 30 and only 5% are 70 years or older. 60% of Nones are male, though males are a slight minority of the the general US population, 49%.

Blacks, who are the most religious racial/ethnic group in the US, make up 8% of the None population. Hispanics, in 1990, comprised 6% of US adults and 4% of adult Nones. In 2008 Hispanics had doubled their percentage of the US adult population to 13% and tripled their proportion among adult Nones to 12%. A large percentage of Asians are Nones, 29%.

32% of Nones were Nones by the age of 12, whereas only 9% of people in the US generally were. But the majority of Nones (73%) came from religious homes. 24% of them are former Catholics, though Catholics make up about a quarter of the US population anyway. Since they were 12 years of age, 4% of Americans switched from None to religious, but 11% of Americans switched from religious to None, a 7% imbalance favoring Nones.

Men are more likely to remain Nones than women: 66% of men Nones at age 12 were Nones at the time of their participation in ARIS 2008, but only 47% of women Nones at age 12 remained Nones. American women are more religious than men, men more secular than women.

Nones are less likely to believe in a personal God, only 27% of Nones compared to 70% of all adults, but not many Nones are atheists, just 7%, but Nones are more happy to call themselves atheist or agnostic than all US adults. Most Nones are theists, but hard and soft agnostics together account for 35% of them, compared with 10% of the US population. A notable proportion of both populations believe in a higher power but not a personal God (Deists). Nones do not seem interested in religious rites of passage, like baptisms, religious marriage, or religious funerals.

Nones Table

Nones differ from most Americans in accepting human evolution. 36% of the US population say humans definitely did not evolve but only 17% of Nones, whereas 17% of the population of the US definitely accept human evolution, compared with 33% of Nones.

The percentage of Democratic Nones is similar to their percentage among the US population, but Nones are over represented among independents—over one in five in 2008—and under represented among Republicans—less than one sixteenth. 42% of Nones consider themselves independents. In the US population, 29% consider themselves independents.

Nones are growing in every geographic region in the US, unlike most religious groups. 36% of the US population was in the Southern states in 2008, but only 29% of Nones. The West has 30% of Nones but has 23% of the US population. In 2001, the states with the highest percentage of Nones were the Pacific Northwestern states (Oregon, Washington, Idaho). They are still among the top 10, but states in New England are now at the top, including Vermont (34% Nones) and New Hampshire (29%). There are now three geographic divisions in the US which are particularly none religious: the Pacific Northwest, New England, and the Mountain States.

American Nones embrace philosophical and theological beliefs that reflect skepticism rather than overt antagonism toward religion. Only 15% of Nones with a college degree are theists while 11% are atheists. Nones over 25 with a college degree are the most secular. Young people who are Nones have doubled since 1990 to 22%. In their commitment to reason and science they also continue the tradition of the late 18th Century American Enlightenment. Such views and opinions echo those held by many of the founding fathers and leaders of the American Revolution such as Franklin, Jefferson, and Paine.

Nones are the invisible minority in the US today. In the future we can expect more American Nones given that 22% of the youngest adults self identify as Nones and will become tomorrow’s parents. In two decades the Nones could account for around one quarter of the American population.

Proportion of Nones

Proving God: A Christian’s Arguments

A Mr Dale writes online:

1. Any declaration of truth, like: my hair is brown or God exists or there is no God requires evidence.

   Not so. These are apples and pears. “God exists” requires evidence, as does a statement about the colour of something, but “there is no God” neither requires evidence nor can there be any other than the absence of evidence that there is a God. When something is imaginary, it does not exist in the material world and so there can be no material evidence of it. When there is no material evidence of something, then the skeptical attitude at the base of science declares that it does not exist. If material evidence arises, then science is corrigible. It can change its previous conclusion. Meanwhile God does not exist because there is no evidence He does. If Christians demur then they must produce the evidence for God.

2. What evidence does anyone have for atheism? What evidence could be provided to support it? How do you measure spirit? It’s impossible to measure fully the states of an atom, which is a material construct. How then can you disprove something which is immaterial?

   Something immaterial, like spirit, can have no effect on the material world. So far as we material things are concerned, spirit does not exist because there is no material evidence for it, nor can there be unless spirit is in some sense material, in which case we can detect it. No one has, and the skeptical view is that it does not exist. See 1.

3. As pointed out, time and again. There are many arguments for God’s existence. There is physical evidence to support the general historicity of the Bible, esp. the New Testament. And there is God’s promise of self-revelation to the earnest seeker.

   None of the “many arguments” are given. The historicity of a book is no proof of God, and God’s self-revelation is not a self revelation at all but merely a statement of certain authors and preachers, all men.

4. But even if you could dis-prove the theist’s arguments that’d still only lead you to agnosticism.

   Not so. Agnosticism is sitting on the fence. The skeptical conclusion from a lack of evidence for God is that there is no God.

5. Consequently one has to ask; how can anyone hold the strong belief: there is no God, in the absence of any suporting evidence. Surely the best any rational person can do is say. I don’t know if God exists.

   Not so. See 1 and 4.

6. On the other hand the Christian can look at the argumentation. Can balance the evidence and can receive God’s self-revelation and consequently, rationally state: God exists.

   Not so. Mr Dale proves that the Christian does not look at the evidence, or the arguments, and does not balance the evidence but counts as evidence that which is not evidence and that which is irrelevant. In short, they are indoctrinated and deluded.

7. Considering human beings are pre-programmed to believe, something long, argued for by Christians and the rationality of Christian belief as opposed to the no-God hypothesis, would it not be rational to actually look for answers to some of these questions?

   Rationality is something Christians like Mr Dale should try.

The War Between Science and Religion

It is a shame how some apparently learned men will show themselves to be little more than idiots savants for the sake of God. One such man is Nigel Cutland, now professor of mathematics at the university of York. Cutland is a Christian but teaches abstruse mathematics at about the standard Newton and Liebnitz reached 300 years ago, but made trendy with a smidgeon of added philosophy. As a Christian, he feels obliged to defend God. Though God is a far better mathematician than Cutland, he feels the need to defend Him against some non-mathematical critics, presumably because he is not sure God can stand up for Himself.

He says that Richard Dawkins “buys into the mistake that science and religion are at war”, and he does not want God to believe any such thing. As proof, he tells us “there are many scientists, some very eminent, on both sides of the theist-atheist divide”. Well, indeed there are, and there are some scientists who smoke cigarettes and have sex with other people’s wives, but being eminent scientists does not justify their bad habits. And, in any case, it remains true that an overwhelming proportion of the topmost scientists have always rejected God. As the degree of eminence declines, the proportion of believers increases, but never gets to the levels of the general population. Scientists are always less religious than the masses. The exceptions of certain journeymen just prove the rule.

So, Cutland has convinced himself that there is no war between science and religion, even though science demands evidence, and religion demands faith—belief without evidence. Nothing could be more opposite, though Cutland has not noticed it, despite his professorship. As further evidence, he cites John Lennox (God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?), a book he greatly admires, no doubt because Lennox is a fellow Christian mathematician, a pastor of Green College, Oxford, and doubtless his chum. Lennox does not think science can decide between two alternative “world views”. One is naturalism-atheism—there is nothing but nature and the material world. The other is supernaturalism-theism—there is a God. Even so, Lennox has decided that God is necessary because there are plenty of gaps remaining for Him to exclusively fill. God is the Intelligent Designer!

It is a view many scientists are happy to accept, mainly because they are unwilling to debate with unreason, and consider that the winning entry will eventually be clear without them having to intervene. It is a naïve view, but like other normal people, most scientists are naïve outside of their own skills. Scientists rightly think that they have a method for showing what is true and what is not by painstaking testing. Whatever fails the tests is ruthlessly abandoned, like the notion of space being filled with a fluid called ether. Progressively science is proving religion wrong. Germs not demons cause disease, and Jesus could only have been acting the magician to drive out demons when none were there, or needed to be. Science has shown it can explain the world, and find answers to problems without the need for a God. God has left no traces in the world, and shows no sign of interfering in it. The evidence is the same as that He does not exist. The hypothesis of God should be abandoned. God is superfluous.

Though, science has being replacing the rickety ladder of religion with a solid staircase to greater knowledge, religion in extremis will destroy everything to stop itself from being destroyed. It has happened before. Look at the Cathar genocide, the Inquisition, the witch hunts, the countless religious wars of unbridled malignity. Fundamentalism has been attacking science for a hundred years, and judging by history, it is never safe to think that religion will go quietly. Look at the ferocity of Moslem fundamentalists. They feel under double attack, by science and by the western lifestyle. Then listen to Christian fundamentalists. Religious fanatics would rather destroy the world than admit they are insane.

In his researches, Cutland has discovered that “scientists on both sides believe that science supports their own faith”. He declares atheism to be a faith because it is impossible to disprove God. It is just as hard to disprove the Wizard of Oz, Santa Claus, the Loch Ness Monster or ET. As they are all imaginary, there is nothing about them to prove. You do not need to prove Santa Claus to a child—they accept him as the source of their Christmas presents. But once the seed of doubt is planted, you have nothing to counter it because Santa is as imaginary as Tinker Bell and Tom’s Midnight Garden. Just how does God differ in practice from these other entities? If I am grown up enough to realize that Santa Claus is imaginary, do I have some peculiar faith? The Mighty Calculus thinks so, but it is patently absurd, and simply demonstrates how Christianity destroys reason.

Cutland thinks his hero, Lennox, has shown that science is consistent with theism because it explains “the rational intelligibility of the universe, without which science cannot begin”. You have then to believe that either God thinks much as we do, and admittedly that is what Christians do think, or, as a vastly superior being, he thinks in a vastly superior way, in which case there is no reason why we should find anything He thinks as intelligible, and a more likely case for a God! One cannot expect an idiot savant to think subtly outside of his intellectual cocoon.

Cutland admits that “the unthinking blind faith and fanaticism” of some believers is deplorable, but adding that “it is unscientific to generalize from some to all”. I hadn’t noticed that Christians were so discerning in their long history. The Christian leaders of the US and UK not long ago felt no need to distinguish innocent Moslems from terrorists. Far from it, all were treated as if they were terrorists, and many are still not getting access to justice. Generalizing about Christians seems a proportionate thing to do in view of their own chosen behaviour, well reported as it is in history for those who want to read it. No one is obliged to be a Christian, any more than anyone is obliged to be a Nazi. Those who choose to be Christian do it with the full knowledge of its appalling record as an institution, a record that individual duty can hardly scratch. It is safer for non-Christians to assume that any Christian would willingly kill them to save their soul, since that is what they have willingly done in the past.

So Atheists aim for heaven on earth, do they?

I read in a right wing blog atheists believe that without religion there would be no war, no Irish troubles, no 9/11, no Arab/Israeli conflict, no invasion of Iraq—no troubles at all. Apparently, atheists want to abolish religion to get heaven on earth. He cites Richard Dawkins. It is an argument you could use against anything. You object to corporate fraud then you are just trying to get heaven on earth. Campaign to stop people trafficking—the same. Want to stop our youth from murdering each other by making the carrying of a weapon a serious crime with serious consequences, there you go, lefties always wanting heaven on earth. Inasmuch as we live in a civilized society it is because people have campaigned for it and against primitive and barbaric customs over the course of history. Are the right wing wanting us to return to hell on earth, to savage society? Presumably not, though the argument is the equal of their own idiotic one. Ideas like paradise are religious ideas anyway, so how could an atheist be planning to achieve them? Atheists like Dawkins bring a lot of evidence, 9/11 and so on included, to show that religion is the cause of a great deal of avoidable trouble in the world. Idiotic conservative rants do not refute the case. It just makes the right wing look typically boorish and brainless.

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