TRIGGERnometry - The Atheism Delusion - Konstantin Kisin

00:00:00.000 When asked about my religious views, I usually call myself an agnostic.

00:00:04.360 But if I had to describe my views more accurately, it would be fair to say that I'm a lapsed atheist.

00:00:09.700 Born in the mecca of non-belief that was Soviet Russia, 0.97

00:00:12.520 my view of religious people as ignorant, obscurantist and doctrinaire 1.00

00:00:16.260 was only reinforced by watching my comedy heroes, like George Carlin and Bill Hicks, 0.98

00:00:21.100 take big and legitimate swings at the disconnect between the teachings of religion

00:00:25.380 and the behavior of the religious.

00:00:27.740 Hicks summed this incongruity up perfectly by recalling a story of three men approaching him

00:00:32.480 after a gig in Alabama.

00:00:34.820 Mr. Funny Man, come here.

00:00:38.560 Hey, buddy, we're Christians. We don't like what you said.

00:00:42.720 I said, then forgive me.

00:00:48.100 Today, in a world in which the religious right has less obvious impact on our world,

00:00:52.680 jokes of this kind would have little resonance.

00:00:54.600 But my youth was infused with example after example of stuffy religious conservatives 0.79

00:01:00.200 attempting to enforce their values on the rest of society

00:01:03.480 by attempting to censor Eminem's song lyrics,

00:01:06.260 trying to prevent Monty Python's Life of Brian from being shown in cinemas,

00:01:10.260 and trying to push through the idea that creationism should be taught in schools.

00:01:15.120 This backdrop provided the perfect opportunity for the emergence of daring countercultural figures

00:01:20.280 who could use their erudition, wit, and refreshing honesty

00:01:23.680 to effortlessly take apart the tired old arguments for a religious worldview.

00:01:28.720 In the wake of 9-11, the four horsemen of new atheism, 0.93

00:01:32.100 Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett,

00:01:35.580 came forward to re-articulate the importance of enlightenment values of truth,

00:01:39.960 science, and liberty from religious dogma.

00:01:42.160 They were smart, charismatic, and above all, they were cool.

00:01:45.300 Dawkins wrote terrific books like The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker,

00:01:50.120 which made evolutionary theory simple to understand

00:01:52.880 and debunked unscientific claims about the nature of our world.

00:01:56.800 Hitchens applied the power of reason and rationality to debates,

00:02:00.480 obliterating his opponents with a uniquely British civilized ruthlessness,

00:02:04.760 illustrating the cowardice of those who engaged in embarrassing apologetics

00:02:08.500 for the murderous actions of religious zealots

00:02:10.840 as they sought to enforce blasphemy laws in our society through violence and terror. 0.93

00:02:15.840 Sam Harris became a hero to many

00:02:17.780 when he found himself attempting to articulate the problem with Islam on Bill Maher's show,

00:02:22.740 only to be shouted down by Ben Affleck

00:02:24.840 and what quickly became the talk of the internet.

00:02:27.300 The new atheists were exciting because they were saying something new,

00:02:31.040 challenging the dogma of their day and speaking truth to power.

00:02:34.560 Not content with proving that religion wasn't true, 0.85

00:02:36.880 they ventured further in attempting to prove religion was at best unnecessary

00:02:41.240 and more likely harmful.

00:02:43.620 To this end, Dawkins wrote The God Delusion in 2006

00:02:46.560 and Hitchens delivered God is Not Great the following year.

00:02:49.680 The argument was no longer about encouraging religious people to calm down

00:02:53.220 and leave the rest of us alone.

00:02:54.900 It was increasingly that religion was inherently wrong and bad. 1.00

00:02:58.340 It was around this point that I began to lose my faith and atheism.

00:03:01.740 The God Delusion was the last Dawkins book I read

00:03:04.060 and the appeal of that discussion went quickly for several reasons.

00:03:07.380 First, it was clear to me that to attempt to challenge Islamic extremists 0.96

00:03:11.280 with facts and logic as Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris had done

00:03:14.240 was to fail on purpose.

00:03:16.340 Despite their efforts, most of the Western world today

00:03:18.780 operates under de facto blasphemy laws

00:03:20.980 which are enforced not by religious activists lobbying for censorship

00:03:24.500 but by knife-wielding fanatics and suicide bombers.

00:03:28.260 The liberalism that the new atheists so enthusiastically espouse, 1.00

00:03:31.700 the idea that we should be free to criticize, mock and satirize anything

00:03:35.340 including religion, only works when the government is willing

00:03:38.880 to protect you from the consequences.

00:03:41.200 In seeking to liberate us from the tyrannical instincts of dogmatic Christians, 1.00

00:03:45.520 the new atheists actually delivered us into the hands of a different 1.00

00:03:48.540 and far more pernicious religious elitry

00:03:50.560 from which the ordinary citizen has no security at all.

00:03:53.980 Second, the fact that many religious ideas are scientifically inaccurate

00:03:57.300 and that religion has been and continues to be used for evil 0.74

00:04:00.320 is not in dispute.

00:04:01.920 Indeed, one of the core claims of the new atheists

00:04:04.620 is that religion produced evils 1.00

00:04:06.440 that were far worse than the body count of non-believers.

00:04:09.880 Sure, Stalin, Hitler and Mao were bad, they argued,

00:04:12.680 but they weren't motivated by their atheism or its holy book.

00:04:16.600 This view of the Holocaust, Stalinism and the Great Leap Forward 0.71

00:04:19.760 as accidental byproducts of a non-complicit atheism

00:04:23.080 is, to me, a complete misunderstanding of the impact

00:04:26.620 a lack of religious faith has on the way we think about other human beings.

00:04:30.480 The central positive feature of the religious worldview

00:04:32.920 is to ensure that human beings do not see themselves 0.99

00:04:36.060 as the sole arbiters of truth and justice,

00:04:38.680 that having torn God down from his pedestal,

00:04:41.400 we do not put ourselves in his place. 0.98

00:04:43.840 Yes, of course, atheist mass murderers like Stalin and Hitler 1.00

00:04:47.120 weren't motivated to kill millions because of religious differences,

00:04:50.400 but their ability to rationalize their actions

00:04:53.220 and to persuade other people to support them

00:04:55.240 was a product of the sense in which, in the absence of God,

00:04:58.920 we get to make up any rules we want.

00:05:01.100 This is precisely why we had to invent the concept of human rights

00:05:04.240 in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

00:05:06.780 Without a worldview in which we are all worthy of dignity

00:05:09.140 and respect by virtue of being children of God,

00:05:11.480 you have to reinvent that particular wheel through the United Nations.

00:05:15.360 My point is, it is extremely easy to prove that religion is evil, 1.00

00:05:18.800 but I am not convinced that proving that it causes more evil

00:05:22.200 than its absence is quite as easy.

00:05:24.460 Third, the central question new atheists fail to answer, 0.95

00:05:27.540 and one that we put to Richard Dawkins in this interview here,

00:05:30.740 is whether, irrespective of how scientifically true religion may or may not be,

00:05:35.620 it is nonetheless both useful and inevitable.

00:05:38.620 The Dawkins answer is as close to quoting Karl Marx's idea

00:05:41.840 that religion is the opium of the masses as you can get

00:05:44.420 without reproducing it verbatim.

00:05:46.280 The comfort that you get from believing a falsehood is like a drug,

00:05:52.260 and it's a perfectly valid argument to say

00:05:55.980 that there's everything to be said for the drug.

00:05:58.640 This is a persuasive argument, in the sense that truth matters,

00:06:02.620 irrespective of how uncomfortable or impractical it may be.

00:06:06.000 But the problem here is that the absence of old religion 0.93

00:06:08.480 seems to produce only a vacuum into which a new religion rushes in. 0.75

00:06:12.420 And this new religion has just as little regard for the truth as the old ones. 1.00

00:06:16.940 That's why Richard Dawkins, who spent his best years arguing with creationists,

00:06:20.860 is now increasingly forced to explain basic biological concepts,

00:06:24.580 like the inability to change your sex by incantation, on national television.

00:06:29.480 The reason new atheism has lost its mojo

00:06:31.640 is that it has no answers to the lack of meaning and purpose

00:06:34.540 that our post-Christian societies are suffering from.

00:06:37.340 What will fill that void?

00:06:39.080 Religious people have their answer.

00:06:40.960 Do the rest of us?

00:06:41.680 If you enjoy these videos,

00:06:44.180 please note that they're available on my sub stack,

00:06:46.420 sometimes weeks or even months ahead of time.

00:06:48.340 So make sure to click the link in the description.

00:06:51.180 Head on over now, and be sure to subscribe.

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TRIGGERnometry - May 04, 2024

The Atheism Delusion - Konstantin Kisin

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