This position is troubling, and problematic for several reasons. Thankfully, I've found a couple of places where my initial thoughts were expanded upon. See The Scathing Atheist diatribe and Atheistically Speaking podcasts for more details.
I wanted to put this down in a post as I strongly disagree with Arnade's sentiments. It is, fundamentally, an intellectual investment, and not a financial investment that precedes one's conclusion that atheism is the best (non) belief system to follow. You do not need to be rich to be an atheist. Hell, I'm hardly well off myself.
It's strange that Arnade thought that drug addicts would be atheists. This sounds like a crude rhetorical set-up to me, and not a justified opinion. It's pretty obvious that vulnerable people turn to God to get some relief from their cycles of problems, and drug addicts are no exception.
Now, it may be that some financial resources are required in order to foster sufficient intellectual investment in the first place, but the arguments against faith are hardly so complex that you need an advanced master's degree to understand them. The wide availability of information these days, with the internet, smartphones etc. means that unless you are pretty much living in the stone age, you are only ever a few clicks or taps away from the best arguments against religious belief. One does not need to be particularly intelligent, nor wealthy, to have quick access to or the ability to understand the power of the Euthyphro dilemma and the argument from evil.
It seems to me that this is just a guilt trip for Arnade. He wants to apologise for being an atheist, or maybe justify his non-belief in a politically correct way. He is playing right into the hands of Contemporary Academic Leftists, a group who I will expand on more later. It suits the Guardian journalists to play the social justice card (this was posted at Christmas after all!), to the extent that one is not even allowed to question whether the comfort that poor, disadvantaged and vulnerable people derive from their religious beliefs may actually be, in some cases, the very thing keeping them in that disadvantaged position. Such aversion to free thought is exactly the thing that the Guardian is supposed to resist. And yet, with the advent of Contemporary Academic Leftists, it is welcomed in the arena of Religion.
Realising that you alone have the power to rise above your problems, can sometimes be the answer. I'm not trying to sound like a capitalist here, espousing the power of the self; but this is why constant left-wing groupthink, which sometimes seems to take place at The Guardian, is harmful. The "other side" does occasionally have a point. We can't rule out the option of ever considering if you may sometimes need "to be cruel to be kind". Especially if that "cruelty" is merely espousing what you yourself subscribe to, and believe is correct.
Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, is shockingly drenched (!) in religious thought, to the extent that they require entrants to their programs to admit that they can have no control themselves, and only God can get them out of the hole, the cycle of up and down. I call Bullshit on this. It is always the user, with help of professionals of course, that beats the addiction, not God. It is possible to become stuck in a rut where the "comfort" derived from religion is the one thing keeping you from moving on, and getting past the problem at hand, because it makes the problem "livable".
To me, Arnade needs a better reason than this to explain why atheism is good enough for him, but not good enough for drug addicts. Only one of them (at most) can be right. No one would be such an asshole as to knock the Bibles from the hands of believers (indeed, I recommend that all believers carefully and critically study their Holy books). However, this does not mean that we should not ask whether supporting (or excusing, as Arnade appears to be doing) such fervent religious belief is really in these poor people's best interests, if only to give them the personal confidence to break free.
OK Steve Finnell, I'll allow your preachy little comment (even though I could delete it) not because it has anything to do with this post, but simply because it goes to show how indoctrinated some believers can become.
ReplyDeleteI am a member of the human race (at least, after my morning coffee!)
The Churches I am not member of:
Any of them, thankfully, especially not the Church of Indoctrination.
And no need for ALL CAPS thanks.