And No Religion Too

Every once in a while, my former colleague Kelley Dupuis sends me a mass e-mail that invites everybody he knows to take a look at the latest posting on his blog. Assuming he was looking for somebody to engage him in debate, I used to read these postings looking for something controversial on which I might hang an argument. I thought the exercise might do our minds some good.
But the trouble with Kelley's bloggery is that it's usually full of commonplace notations about the perfectly charming wedding of his best friend's daughter or "Have you noticed the policemen are looking younger?" or "Last night I dreamed I went back to Mandalay again...," stuff that doesn't really inspire any kind of rebuttal. But, on Dec. 28, 2006, he sent me something titled "Kelley's Blog tackles yet another weighty issue." So, the game was afoot!
Kelley's weighty issue turned out to be a rambling tirade against atheists, Darwinism and what he likes to call "atheism chic" as if non-believers are now in as much vogue as the Black Panthers were when Tom Wolfe caught them drinking the Bernsteins' sherry.
So I took time to sit down and compose some kind of a counter position. I have to say it wasn't easy. Arguing with a whiskey-fueled agnostic is a lot like fighting fog. But I managed to match his peevish tone with a tirade of my own and when I posted the 1,500 words in the comments section of Kelley's blog, I was wondering what he was going to come back at me with. Where would this lead?
There was no response until Jan. 2, 2007 when he sent me a short e-mail: "Re your comment about my posting criticizing Richard Dawkins for being a jerk. For an editor, you talk a lot. You used 1,500 words to say what you could have said in 100. Did I step on your atheistic toes, Monsieur Burgess?" And blow me down if he hadn't deleted my comment from his blog.
My response was to e-mail him a short reply, "Is this how you debate? I'm baffled." And until today, I thought the only copy of my contribution to Kelley's Darwin debate was lost forever. But today I found a copy in my e-mail. So I thought I might as well share it with the world. Anybody who feels like chipping in with his or her own two pennorth is welcome to use the comments box below.
Your world is upside down. Your talent might be better exercised by asking why on earth Paris Hilton is a bigger celebrity than Richard Dawkins who, after all, is a world-class biologist with a track record of academic achievement?
If Dawkins is truly asking for people to be locked up, he must have lost his marbles. So what? How does that change anything in this "neverending debate between Darwinists and creationists?" If the creationists prove that Dawkins has bad manners, does this imply that the Judeo-Christian paternal deity constructed the world within the last 10,000 years and planted some fossilized evidence of dinosaurs as some kind of a prank.
You're saying there's nothing new in atheism. So what? Does an idea have to be new to be true? Possibly atheism predates beliefs in the sky god, the sun god and the shadow that lurks behind us when we sit around the camp fire. Your world is upside down. Doubt is older than the lies made up by the priesthood.
There are many different flavors of creationism these days. Which man of straw is a respectable atheist supposed to be arguing with? Neo-Creationists intentionally distance themselves from other forms of creationism, preferring to be known as wholly separate from creationism as a philosophy. Intelligent design (ID) is the concept that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." Its leading proponents, all of whom are affiliated with the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank, claim that intelligent design is a scientific theory that stands on equal footing with, or is superior to, current scientific theories regarding the origin of life. So what?
The evolution of species and the origins of the universe aren't things I worry about very often. I'm more bothered by the way theology is used to justify man's inhumanity to man. I think superstition is a natural human response to the fear of death. It's a form of denial. I have a certainty about that.
I don't personally believe in an afterlife and I think it's profoundly immoral for thousands of young people to be ordered to their certain death by a president or a general who can sleep soundly in his bed believing those soldiers have ascended to a better place. This is how it was for General Haig during the worst carnage of World War I. Nothing seems to have changed now we have Bush the Younger as commander in chief of US forces during the present war in Iraq. I'm certain that such a state of affairs is immoral and unethical. I would be in favor of making it illegal for such a superstitious character to command armies.
You're wondering why anybody would be proud to adopt the worldview of Lucretius "who lived 1,500 years before such basic scientific tools as the telescope and microscope." Lucretius was a poet and philosopher who sought to free men's minds of superstition and the fear of death. Surely such a worldview is all the more admirable for its being 1,500 years before such basic scientific tools as the telescope and microscope. Your world is upside down.
To blame both world wars on the French Revolution is a bit like Mel Gibson blaming the Jews. Are you saying the Napoleonic Wars were a bad thing? Was the American Revolution also a bad thing, Monsieur Dupuis? Can't we blame anything on British colonialism? Can't we celebrate capitalism and the enlightenment and their triumph over feudalism and the dark ages?
Atheism doesn't depend on all or any of Darwin's theories being true. However, American schools should not be wasting students time with nonsense about "Intelligent Design" in a science class. I worry for the future of this country when I see that 13% of Americans believe that Creationism and evolution should be taught as 'scientific theories' in science class and 16% of Americans believe that only Creationism should be taught.
Most of us thought the Scopes Monkey trial settled something in 1925. From the Hollywood movie, you would think the case was settled in favor of common sense and that nice actor who played Darren in Bewitched must have been allowed to go back to his classroom. In real life the teacher who had dared to teach science was never allowed to teach again.
Atheism certainly doesn't depend on all atheists not being bloodthirsty dictators. Who elected Stalin to represent rationalism? To hold him up as a representative figure is as ridiculous as Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen (1862-1910) being nominated as the epitome of the medical practitioner. Come to think of it, many thousands of Americans are killed by doctors every year. How many innocent lives would be spared if we could lock up all the doctors?
Recently, the British comedian Stephen Fry appeared as a guest on Craig Ferguson's late night television show and said the history of religious conflict is the history of one person saying his imaginary friend was better than your imaginary friend. He was quoting Yassar Arafat.
So what's your point? Your world is upside down.