Even if God's existence could be proven, Niezsche writes in The Antichrist, we would still refuse to accept him. When I read atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, I don't get the impression that they are motivagted by mere unbelief. I don't believe in unicorns, but I don't go around writing books full of rejection and bile about unicorns. When I read The God Delusion and God Is Not Great, I see that their authors do not so much disbelieve in God as they hate Him.
Consequently, the arguments spelled out in these atheist books are out of sync with the actual vehemence of their authors.
Enter the French atheist Michel Onfray, whose Atheist Manifesto is a bestseller in Europe. Onfray comes out of a different tradition than Dawkins and Hitchens, one that he describes as stretching from the Baron d'Holbach to Nietzsche. This is Continental atheism, and it makes its case against God in an entirely different way than do the Anglo-Saxon atheists we encounter in the United States. Onfray, like Nietzsche, regards Anglo-Saxon atheists like Dawkins as representing a low, brutish type, widely found in England.
These themes will be developed in my forthcoming book What's So Great About Christianity. But here's one key difference between Anglo-Saxon atheism and Continental atheism. While Dawkins and Hitchens insist that we can be moral without God, Onfray with astonishing frankness concedes Nietzsche's point that the death of God also means the death of Western morality and Western values. So if God goes, that means that "equality" and "rights" go too. This is a possibility that Dawkins and Hitchens have not even considered. In many ways I think Onfray's atheism is more honest, more darkly appealing, and more dangerous than the atheism of Dawkins and Hitchens. My review of Onfray's book appears on the religious website Tothesource and you can read it here.
Reader Comments ( Page 6 of 110)
76. Humorous thought.
An atheist who was a school teacher decided to spend time in the deep woods to see if there truly is a God. His internal man was starting to question all of the Darwin stuff he was teaching. He pulled all his camping gear together with the intention of spending three days under the stars and living off the land. “I’ll prove once and for all there is no God”, he declared! When day one was over, he had monitored the effects the weather had on the land’s surface; how the dew provided water for worms and how worms that came out to seek water became food for birds. He documented with his own eyes, how rushing waters moved fish and fed both fowl and animal. He said, yes, but this is the system that is 50-Million years old that came to be because of the Big-Bang.
One day two, the atheist marveled at the setting and rising of the sun and he was mesmerized at the softening affect the moon had when it traveled over the night sky.
On day three…the atheist had packed his bags and was loading the last item in the back of his SUV and just as he was about to close the door of the hatch he reassured himself that his three day experience was nothing more than a personal camping trip with Mother Earth and there was no God, creator of all things to live in harmony. And just as he was about to slam the door, a huge Grisly Bear showed up standing right behind him with claws in motion to tear him apart. Without thought, the atheist screamed: “Oh my God!” instantly, the bear was frozen into position. The sky and the animals did not move. All of a sudden, it was God and the atheist. God said to the atheist – you’ve taught my children lies about my creations and after spending precious time with me in my paradise you intend to go back to destroy the minds of another generation. Yet, when faced with this defining moment you call on me? What will you have me do, God asked the atheist?
The atheist turned around to search for where the voice was coming, denying that it could possibly be God. He said: “Who is this? Where are you watching me from? How did you make everything stop?” God replied, I am that I am. Why do you still refuse to believe? The atheist said. I don’t believe because you don’t exist. I have to get back to town. If you are God, turn that bear into a Christian! With that, God left him and everything went back to normal, the bear dropped to his knees, put his hands in the praying position, and looked up to the God and said: “Dear Heavenly Father, thank for this meal I am about to receive.”
IBelieveInGod at 12:19PM on Aug 9th 2007
77. Just an observation, but it seems that those of you commenting on the side of Dawkins and Hitchens are ticked not at God, but at those who have mispracticed all that God has ever been about (regardless of which religious banner this malpractice has occured.
Just a thought, but don't you think God is as upset with the smearing of His name as you are upset with institutions that have brought His name disgrace and not honor?
Don't you think God reserves judgement for hypocrites and false teachers?
It seems to me that many of us (humans in general) are guilty of blasphemy, that is attributting work to God that was never initiated by Him in the first place. Man does have freedom to live and choose...and many times we choose wrongly...whether politicians or priests; religious or pagan...and we often point screaming fingers of accusation or affirmation in the wrong direction--towards God instead of each other.
Just a thought...not a sermon.
jeremy at 12:21PM on Aug 9th 2007
78. But I dont think its that unrealistic Knight_of_BAAWA. Its more like circles and bachelors we cannot see because they reside in a far away land.
Michelle at 12:20PM on Aug 9th 2007
79. Knight_of_BAAWA,
Yes I'm aware of sound transmission. I don't understand your condescension.
But how do you distinguish a word from Noise? They both are sound. Difference is that words convey ideas. Ideas are intangible, opinions and beliefs, too.
Prove to me you spoke rather than just made noise. You could write it, but that doesn't mean you said it. I cannot hear it, and I could not be certain even if you sent a recording. How would I be sure? I would have to believe you... but belief is intangible and unscientific.
God spoke. You don't believe. He had His words written down for us, and still you don't believe.
God is evidenced by the ideals He set for us. God is proven by all of His words.
Let your Physics book tell me the meaning of the noises you make.
Just because you say you spoke does not mean you did, at least from where I stand.
Dane Graves at 12:22PM on Aug 9th 2007
80. Michelle,
You don't think self-contradictory things are unrealistic? HUH? How can they be logically possible or even instantiated?
Knight_of_BAAWA at 12:26PM on Aug 9th 2007
81. If unicorns were worshipped by millions who discriminated against others based on their 'unicorn' beliefs then athiests would be writing books proving unicorns don't exist. It's a simple issue to come to a conclusion on. Using the scientific method subject the proof concepts and beliefs found in religious holy texts to experimentation. It becomes obvious very quickly that a Judaic/Christian/Islamic god does not exist. This dilineation is key. When believers use the term 'god' they are referring to the god of their religion thus showing disbelief in the god or gods of other religions. Funny that they use the 'that god can't be real' logic that athiests use about belief systems different to theirs but don't follow through and apply the same standards of acceptance or rejection to their own beliefs.
As for morals, right and wrong, good and evil etc., they are simply human constructs designed to show approval or disapproval of thoughts and actions within a society. Humanity can think for itself, came up with these ideas without the actual existence of the god or gods in whose texts they were often recorded, and should now be able to formulate ideas of benefit to the development of civilization with much greater ease as the chains of religious belief weaken and break away.
Stephen Darlington at 12:28PM on Aug 9th 2007
82. Dane,
We know what a word is because we have language. Now, if you want to slyly try to work that in with "we know design", then you have to have a non-designed universe and humans with which to demonstrate the difference between we designed humans and the designed universe, and the non-designed humans and non-designed universe.
No, I don't believe that god spoke because there's not only no evidence for god, but no coherent, non fallacious, non self-contradictory definition of god. And I can write a book, but that doesn't mean the contents are true.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 12:29PM on Aug 9th 2007
83. To those commenting against Christianity:
Jesus was delivered by "religious people" to be killed. They were phonies. The same type of religious people killed and persecuted those who wanted to translate the Bible into the language of the common people. Those persecuters were phony elitist.
How about your sincere Athiest Evolutionist friends: Marx(including the athiest, Stalin; 62,000,000 for the Soviet Union and 43,000,000 for Stalin) Hitler (11 million in his camps, not to count the victoms at war with these Nazi athiest evolutionist), Mao Zedong (40-79 million killed). These were very wonderful evolutionary atheist like you. Very religious people like you! So, these are the heroes you have to look up to for your athiestic religion, right?
You will soon know the truth whether you want to not. Turn before it is too late, to the God that loves you enough that he does not quickly destroy you and me for our past stupid statements. I was once an evolutionary athiest like you. You are dead wrong!!!
kenneth Carpenter at 7:47PM on Aug 15th 2007
84. The entire premise of this entry is an oxymoron. You can't hate something that doesn't exist. What Mr. D'souza mistakes for a "hatred of God" is contempt for the fuzzy thinking of those who try and support the existence of God in a scientific manner, and the outright lies of the ID crowd.
This paragraph is typical of this fuzzy thinking: "Dawkins and Hitchens contend that God is not demonstrable according to the scientific method. But then, lots of things are not demonstrable according to that method. Can Dawkins and Hitchens give a scientific account of consciousness? Can they locate free will under a microscope? What about "equality" and "justice" and "rights": none of these things have any material existence, so does that make them illusions?"
If there is evidence for something then it can be examined by the scientific method. Consciousness, a very real biological phenomena, can and is being studied. Lack of definitive answers doesnt render the problem incapable of analysis. Conversely there is no evidence for God, so there is nothing that can be examined objectively, only probabilistic approaches.
Free will? equality? justice? rights? They are concepts with, as he points out, no material substance. They are simply what we define them to be, and so yes, they are "illusions", as ephemeral as a holgram. They can come and go based on your own particular perspective. There is nothing in them to study in the hard sciences.
This is truly one of the worst blogs Ive ever read, and a perfect example of what we hold in contempt...not faith, intellectual dishonesty.
Kid Schlock at 12:34PM on Aug 9th 2007
85. Knight_of_BAAWA,
No I do not mean that square circles and married bachelors can exist. I mean that Christianity is not as unrealistic as that statement ("Square circles and married bachelors exist.") "Its more like circles and bachelors we cannot see because they reside in a far away land."
Michelle at 12:39PM on Aug 9th 2007
86. All morality is social programming. Any parent will tell you that teaching the limits of what a child should do socially, and its ramifications especially when done to them, that a child will understand the concept of equality and fairplay.
But until then, a child learns that his ego is paramount. Thats the rationale for the terrible twos. This is the age when children learn the self and how it fits into the world. The natural growing pains is the result of discovery of the world beyond of the self.
Religion, asserts itself as a system over that of the basic and intrinsic directives of the self and the local government that is the family.
Morality, in its basic tenets sets rules for interpersonal behavior so that the greater culture/goverment/society can not only exist but prosper and advance.
Unfortunately, the religions are drives for governance to a future shaped by the visions of those who are empowered to guide others. When everyone believes the same, their is no strife, but when there is division of thought is when religions fail.
Notice I dont say belief systems. The role of religions have been great and sometimes terrible. To write off religion isn't writing off all morality, only the safety net that those religions can provide and of course, the removal of the power to steer humanity in the vision given by those "visionaries."
~A little thought cant hurt and of course, all great things came from a small thought.~ me!
Qantumreflection
Qantumreflection at 10:38AM on Aug 11th 2007
87. Michelle, christianity IS just as unrealistic as square circles and married bachelors in the claim that god exists, and of what god is. It has nothing to do with "circles and bachelors we cannot see because they reside in a far away land", no matter how much you wish it does.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 12:41PM on Aug 9th 2007
88. Aww, now Im disillusioned, Knight_of_BAAWA. (Joking.) You still havnt proven to me that there is no God though. But try.
Michelle at 12:48PM on Aug 9th 2007
89. Come, come, Dinesh. You have a fellowship at a formerly respected university. Yet, it seems you cannot even recognize the intellectual shallowness of your own blog. If an atheist does not believe in a "god" how can they possibly "hate" him? That would be like throwing a rock into a void and expecting it to hit something, an exercise in futility. On the other side are apparently people like yourself and others who claim to love "god", yet admit that they can't prove that one exists. Then, what is it that they "love"? Could it perhaps be the feeling of superiority it gives them because they "believe"?
The other part of the blog, which is common to those with shallow intellects who keep bringing up "god", never bother to define what they mean by the term. As any even half educated person knows, one does not even dare enter into discussion on any subject without clearly defining one's terms. The purpose of your article is clear not to contribute anything substantial to discourse on the subject. It is mere political propaganda and an attempt to use "god" for political purposes. In essence, it is "prostitution of all religions" merely to serve the needs of the "theocrats."
Have enought self-respect so as to not display your lack of education so publicly.
Robert I. Laitres at 12:51PM on Aug 9th 2007
90. absolutely brilliantly forthright article. i so appreciate when people view the facts and assess them logically.
if people are going to be atheists why are they so afraid of pursuing the truth behind their stance? i have much more respect for onfray than i do the likes of hitchens and othe american atheists, because you can only debate with people who can be honest about their position.
american and western atheists are simply in denial about their own belief system which is actually similar to the anti-war folks who don't believe so much in peace, as they are engaged in a war against their own military.
this is a dynamic that the mass media has avoided addressing..outside of let's say dinesh or lou dobbs.
it's vital to be consistent and self-aware of the ideals your promoting otherwise you end up a hate-filled hypocrite like hitchens.
mf at 1:09PM on Aug 9th 2007