What About Atheism?
I know, I know, some of you are chomping at the bit to ask Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett a question. So, please, release your death-grip on the bit and ask away, “What about atheism?”
Indeed, do atheists have to accept, and be held similarly responsible for the wicked deeds done by atheists, in the name of atheism, premised upon atheism? According to the New Atheists the answer is clearly that atheism gets a pass and is not responsible. They claim this for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that the 20th century was the bloodiest century in human history and it was largely so due to atheism spiked regimes. Other evasions include the claim that athe“ism” is not a particular belief system and that thus, atheist are not bound to any particular tenet. Yet, in this view atheism, meaning individual atheists, is in reality as diverse as any religious group (consider the inversion of this and you will see that the argument for religious violence is fallacious).
Yet, of all of the passes that have been recommended for atheism’s account not being charged for the wicked things done in its name, with it as a premise, Prof. Daniel Dennett has certainly conceived of the most, shall we say, interesting. During his debate with Dinesh D’Souza (Is God (and Religion) a man-made invention? ) he stated:
“…it occurred to me – let’s think about Stalin for a moment. Was he an atheist? You might say well of course he was an atheist. No, on the contrary. In a certain sense, he wasn’t an atheist at all. He believed in god. Not only that, he believe in a god whose will determined what right and wrong was. And he was sure of the existence of this god, and the god’s name was Stalin.”
Simply fascinating. Since Joseph Stalin was not an atheist (even though he was) but was in reality a theist (even though he was an atheist) the responsibility of his wicked deeds are charged to, you guessed it, theism.
In a manner of speaking, it is true that atheist are theists since they see god in the mirror. Whether it is Joseph Stalin or Pekka-Eric Auvinen who referred to himself as a “god-like atheist”1 and stated, “I am the law, judge and executioner. There is no higher authority than me”2 before committing a massacre at his high school (consider more likewise examples at this link).
Yet, claiming that atheists are not responsible for the atrocities committed by atheists or with atheism as a premise and claiming that theism is responsible instead is no way for anyone to argue much less a professor of philosophy.
from Apologetics315 on Mon, 04/12/2010 – 11:25pm
Today begins a series of 23 essays contributed by various apologetics bloggers from across the web. This