I Don't Believe in Atheists

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Product Details

Author : Chris Hedges
Binding : Hardcover
EAN : 9781416567950
Edition : 1
Number of Pages : 224
Product Group : Book
Publication Date : 2008-03-04
Publisher : Free Press

ASIN : 141656795X

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Customer Reviews

A Challenging Reminder to Those Who Think They Know Better (2008-08-10)

For Hedges, the reknown theologian, this world has become divided those who accept human limitations and, instead, recognize the infinite power of God in the world and those who want to usurp it by raising false gods of their own to satisfy personal needs. On one side of this battle for the hearts and minds of people are the modern-day atheists who deny the existence of God. For the likes of thinkers like Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins, it isn't reasonable to entrust one's lot to a divine being who doesn't seem able to remove pain and violence from every day existence. Their answer, instead, is to build a simplistic trust in the wonders of science to create the perfect world. Ironically, this celebrated group of thinkers express the same wanton disregard for God as those right-wing fundamentalists who view themselves as God's anointed. In this latter group, Hedges portrays people who believe they have a complete lock on Christianity to the point of excluding other views. God and the Bible are their answers for enjoying prosperity, health, friendship, and respectability. In response to these extreme positions, Hedges clarly points out that science has not paved the way to a better world, if the record of history is anything to go by. Nor is trying to live morally, upright lives by identifying with a correct religious movement going to make it either, if the presence of sin in the organizations is anything to go by. As Hedges sees it, the whole human race is blighted by the fact that it cannot do anything to improve its lot in life. Sorrow and tragedy are the human condition because of our fallen humanity. To think otherwise is to be self-delusionary. We are all together in this search for eternal completeness, and must learn to accept that only God has infinite grace and power to restore any sense of wholeness. Left to ourselves, we devise intellectual and physical means by which to fill the gaps of loneliness, alienation, despair, fear, and hostility, only to discover that the problems are getting ever bigger. In writing this book, Hedges saves himself from ranting against his opponents by referring to a lot of the ancient and modern philosophers to clarify his views. This is a worthwhile read for those who seek a well-written, metaphysical understanding of why we are here on the face of this planet. Lots to think about in this book even if you don't agree with any of it.

Atheism as "utopian"? (2008-06-09)

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 dubious). In that regard he blames the 18th century Enlightenment for "utopian" attempts at perfecting human being and society for most of the bloodshed and suffering since then. (Right: so I suppose abolishing slavery was "utopian".)Secondly, he condemns adamant atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens as "utopian fundamentalists", working on the established theme that attempts to improve the human condition are futile and harmful. Funny: it struck me reading Dawkins and Hitchens that they were rather more cynical than utopian. As for these gents being "fundamentalist", it seems to me that to be fundamentalists you have to be fundamental to some revealed wisdom. These atheists, and most of my acquaintance, are rationalists who are very basically opposed to revealed wisdom or received knowledge without putting it to the test.Hedges also resorts to other invalid and refuted notions regarding atheists, viz. that atheism as a "belief system" no different from religion, and that atheist are essentially without ethics or morality. Hedges also resorts to the weary and discredited arguement that because science hasn't (or "can't") explain everything, we must necessarily look to religious or spirituality explanations.In general this book is trivial and a waste of time.

Hedges has snapped (2008-04-08)

"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.

A worthwhile read but a bit disappointing (2008-03-31)

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 well-documented `American Fascists'. It seems hastily written and rushed into print. I can only speculate at Chris Hedges' reasons.When I heard Hedges being interviewed on CBC a few weeks ago I was impressed and I thought "here is a man who shares many of my opinions", but the book proved me somewhat wrong. Authors tend to sound more conciliatory and moderate in interviews than in their books. It was the same with Dawkins.Nevertheless I agree with many of Hedges arguments, but not at all with others. To blame, for instance, the enlightenment wholly for the atrocities during the 20th century which, of course, include those perpetrated by the Nazis towards Jews during WW2 and religion not at all, is distorting history. History is a continuous line and the enlightenment has causal roots in Christianity which had been persecuting Jews for centuries, long before the enlightenment.Similarly, whereas scientific and industrial developments have played a role in the barbarities of the 20th century and are indirectly amongst the sour fruits of the enlightenment, it is wrong to suggest that therefore the enlightenment is even partly to blame for those barbarities. The industrial products and the methods that were used were tools only. To suggest that they may have changed human predilection for cruelty is to do exactly what Hedges is denying: that human morals can be changed or are changing.Does one have to choose between God on the one hand and Science on the other hand as two totally contrasting points of view? I believe not and in my book `My God!' (amazon.ca) I advance reasonable arguments why and how a harmonious merger between the belief in a God and acceptance of scientific findings is possible. It seems to me that Chris Hedges has found his way to do that but he does not elaborate on it.I have not read Hitchens but have read Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris and The God Delusion by Dawkins. Harris' bigotry towards Islam is more than evident. But Dawkins' book certainly did not leave me with the feeling that he sees Darwinism as the road to a Utopian world with perfect humans.Hans van Hell

He might be right. (2008-03-22)

"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. Whether it be the Christian apocalyptic tradition or a scientific telos, utopian philosophies stand behind both the God delusion and the reification of reason. In claiming that moral progress is possible, Hedges argues that utopian ideologies lead to psychosis, a disconnect from reality. The end - whether it be a land of honey and milk or a world in which reason rules over humanity - justifies the means. Religious crusades? Totalitarian regimes? Any act of violence can be justified to procure a means to one's utopian ideal. Is this the real problem?Hedges draws on a vast philosophical canon of utopian thinkers. In this, he does not provide anything new. Yet, "I Don't Believe in Atheists" is a well-packaged introduction to what might be quite dissuasive to militaristic atheists - most of whom are probably ignorant of this fundamental similarity between theirs and religious thought. Another noteworthy section concerns "The Illusive Self", in which Hedges turns apologist, dismisses his earlier unbiased stance, and displays some rather common-place idiosyncrasies: we don't have consistent, rational, and objective selves, therefore there is a place for the non-rational, mysterious... religion! Hedges's publication is a far better rebuttal than Alister McGrath's "The Dawkins Delusion", though both deal with the topic in distinct ways. Hedges, however, offers something more concrete. He tells us repeatedly that utopian ideologies are the problem, that all fundamentalists employ simple, black and white responses to the other. Yet, has Hedges made both fundamental atheists and faithful into another 'other'? He has painted hope (albeit false) against common sense, a common sense which he believes to offer true hope. He might be right.Read it and think for yourself.

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