When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists [Paperback]

 

 

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First of all the people giving this book bad ratings are your typical brain dead Atheists. THe very people who will jump on whatever band wagon that comes along that makes them feel smart because they want to avoid all the nasty consequences of thinking for themselves.
Atheist, Christian, Muslim, agnostic... lalala The problem with the world are people who take other peoples ideas and submit themselves to them without thinking them through so that they dont have to do hte hard work of thinking for themsleves.
This is a great book with some great challanges for society.
Atheists, when given power, have always abused it in the most violent and disgusting manners that would make their religious counterparts sick. Zealotry in all its forms is terrible, but in the form of Atheism it has not even the illusion of accountability or any means for appealing to the tyrant outside of a narrow conception of reality. That has made it much much worse.
Any breif study of history would reveal this.

"Those who insist we are morally advancing as a species are deluding themselves. There is little in science or history to support this idea."

Hedges is overstating his case here. Yes, there are plenty of scientific utopians who will overstate the "progress" humanity has made in the past 500 years. But the fact is that the Enlightenment and contemporaneous developments elsewhere in the world have accomplished drastic improvements in the treatment of human beings by other human beings. Slavery, once a universal practice sanctioned by warlords and priests like, is now nearly abolished worldwide. Women, long held in brutal submission by cultural mores backed by religious authority, are accorded more freedom and dignity than at any other time in human history. Racial, cultural and religious minorities are protected by laws allowing them to live their lives without molestation or discrimination in most free societies today, a reality almost unheard of in the history of mankind. To associate the Nazis with the Enlightenment is shockingly ahistorical: Hitler's nationalist movement, like Mussolini's, was grounded in mythological romanticism and involved the complete rejection of legal and scientific authority, instead elevating the god-king and the tribe using language strikingly similar to the directions given by Jawhew in the Bible. Far from being a consequence of the Enlightenment, it was a reactionary movement against it and back toward tribal religious fanaticism.

WIAFTGUM was a beautiful and honest account of what war does to people and societies. "American Fascists" was a brave denunciation of one of the most dangerous political developments in America today, made doubly brave by his self-indentification as a Christian. But this second book seemed to exhibit a strange schizophrenic quality, as Hedges dredged up so much damning evidence against the Christian Right while insisting that their traditions and views had nothing, absolutely nothing, in common with those of "mainstream" Christians. In this final book, the strain of reconciling what he knows to be true of the Christian Dominionist movement with the history of "mainstream" Christianity seems to have driven him off the deep end.

Of course Christopher Hitchens is a racist, imperialistic boor. It's his trademark, and it helps him sell books and collect speaker's fees. He overstates the case against religion, attributing many atrocities to religion that were doubtless motivated by racism, greed, or imperialism but used religion as a pretext. This last criticism is equally true of Dawkins. But none of this invalidates the thesis that religion has historically encouraged, and continues to encourage, anti-egalitarian, anti-democratic, morbid, violent, misogynistic, culturally bigoted sentiments wherever it blooms most fiercely. Hedges' hesitance to examine the historical record in any depth on these points undermines his commitment to the project of redeeming religion from its terrible history, from the Inquisition to the KKK. I suspect that this book is an attempt to salvage his damaged faith after the harrowing it must have been subjected to while writing AF. But Hedges would have been better off keeping it to himself, because it is an unconvincing document.

Hedges' railing against "reason" is particularly troubling, as his arguments rely on reason for their force. This is the ultimate vindication of the Enlightenment: it argued, not that Reason was some unassailable idol whose worship would instantly grant us perfect knowledge and understanding, but rather that reason was the only guide by which one could reliably, albeit imperfectly and always at a remove, approach the truth. Any assault on this thesis using rational argument, as Hedges does, implicitly accepts the truth of the thesis while trying to disprove it, and is therefore doomed from the outset. Hedges' failure to recognize this suggests that he has lost his bearings; he is a rational man who is trying to defend groundless faith -- unreason -- by using reason, which is prima facie a futile endeavor.

The only effective arguments against reason are the gun, the fist, the image, the song, the chant, the battle cry, the burning cross, the noose. Words, laid out as an argument, are already on the side of reason, and pose no threat to it. This is the truth that Hedges and his fellow otherwise-rational religious sentimentalists and apologists refuse to grasp, and it makes them strange and contradictory.

Hedges pretty much makes it clear where he standing on the atheism/religion debate just as Dawkins and Hitchens do, and like Dawkins and Hitches, Hedges doesn't necessarily play fair. At times both sides have a tendency to set up their arguments like a child propping up small toy soldiers so that he/she can feel like Napoleon when he/she runs them over.

There were a few points I did take from Hedge's book.

One that's repeated in the book is on the march of progress being anything but bloodless and kind. Just as a religious person may forget the atrocities done in the name of religion, people who believe in progress would sooner like to forget such things as The Reign of Terror and scientific racism (Mismeasurement of a Man by Stephen Jay Gould touches on the history of science and racism). This isn't to say that science and reason haven't brought us wonderful things and changed the world in a positive way, but we shouldn't be blind to the fact that it can be destructive as well. For every vaccine and antibiotic, we've also generated new weapons to kill and maim. As Hedges notes, material progression isn't the same as moral progression, although the two are often confused.

Another is an idea that may of be more interest to people who are of a religious bent is on the concept of God. "The second of the Ten Commandments prohibits the Israelites from making images of the Lord. This new deity could not be captured in pictures, statues or any concrete iconographic form. God existed in the world and through the word, a radical concept in the ancient world. To worship God without physical representation of God made it appear as if believers were worshipping nothing. It was to give up security, It was to believe in a God that could not be seen or controlled. It was to live with paradox, uncertainty, and doubt. It was to accept anxiety. To believe in this deity required abstract thinking. It made possible the moral life." This isn't a concept of God that appears much in most popculture religious books.

This book is an interesting addition to the current debate about religion and atheism. Read it with books like God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkin's books, Mary Midgely's books, and The Case for God by Karen Armstrong.

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1.0 out of 5 stars It's difficult to understand what Hedges is doing here.
Chris Hedges is an important voice and I vastly admire the works he has produced and the way he helps me see the world more clearly on a daily basis. Read more

Published 11 months ago by Tyeve

1.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing
I had a better impression of Chris Hedges, and I wanted to give this book a try. Unfortunately, Hedges is fundamentally wrong about the 'new atheists' as he calls them. Read more

Published 15 months ago by Sebastian Toncu

1.0 out of 5 stars I don't believe either
I am an atheist and I don't believe in atheism either. I am because I don't believe. Don't waste your time. There is nothing more to say.

Published 22 months ago by Pierre Thibault

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the few books dealing with the issue.
Despite the title, this book is not an actual critique of athiesm, but rather a critique of Dawkins, Hitchens, and particularly Sam Harris, the neo-athiest movement. Read more

Published 23 months ago by Gatsu

1.0 out of 5 stars The title of this book screams ignorance.
You got me at "Hello". Or in other words, the title of this book says that Hedges is not that bright. Read more

Published on Mar 24 2009 by Star Stuff

1.0 out of 5 stars Chris Hedges: I don't know what to believe!
I Don't Believe in Atheists
Mr. Hedges argues that fundamentalism itself is dangerous. He argues that both religious fundamentalists and new atheists are guilty of the same... Read more

Published on Aug 31 2008 by H. Kennedy

4.0 out of 5 stars A Challenging Reminder to Those Who Think They Know Better
For Hedges, the reknown theologian, this world has become divided between those who accept human limitations and choose to recognize the infinite power of God in the world and... Read more

Published on Aug 10 2008 by Ian Gordon Malcomson

2.0 out of 5 stars Atheism as "utopian"?
Hedges's premises are very flawed.

First he believes is that the human society is not perfectable, (perhaps true), then he argues that it is harmful to try, (very... Read more

Published on Jun 9 2008 by William D. Bailey

3.0 out of 5 stars A worthwhile read but a bit disappointing
Apart from the fact that the book's title is misleading (Hedges does believe in `moderate' atheists) I must say that this book was a disappointment after the strong and... Read more

Published on Mar 31 2008 by Hans Van Hell

4.0 out of 5 stars He might be right.
"I Don't Believe in Atheists" is a comparison of religious and atheistic fundamentalism, in which Chris Hedges perceives utopian ideologies to be the true culprit at work. Read more

Published on Mar 22 2008 by JATL

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