There is a discussion going on between John Loftus and Randal Rauser on the
use of mockery.
Many in the atheist community do engage in mockery, and predictably Randal
disagrees with that decision.
Since I seem to enjoy taking abuse, I come in on the middle ground:
Mockery is a double edged sword, but to pretend that this
sword is always unnecessary is wrong.
Certainly there are plenty of atheists who don’t engage on
the issues strongly, and all too often resort to mockery of religious believers. Blanket mockery is a dangerous thing that can
lead to uncritical acceptance of the status quo. I would imagine that this is
something Christians would appreciate.
However, this doesn’t mean that mockery cannot or even
should not be used. It does mean that
mockery should not be the default response, reason and
kindness should always be the first thing to be employed. But that can only go so far.
Riddle me this dear moderate Christians:
What response should we have towards the more dangerous
fundamentalists like Ken Ham, or the (US) congressmen who cite bible passages
as to why climate change isn’t a real problem because human’s can’t really harm
the planet due to god’s providence?
Ken Ham is a perfect example, many have attempted to reason
with the man, and his response is to ask “Were you there?” as though it was a
piece of rhetorical brilliance.
When reason has been tried, and your ideological opponents consciously
reject the use of reason and science to determine the truth of empirical
matters, what exactly are we left to do?
These are the people who define “truth” as a literal reading of the
bible, and they reject any attempts at defining it otherwise. Reasonable, meaningful dialog is pretty much
lost at that point.
I think quoting Sam Harris is appropriate here:
“If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence
are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence?
If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would
you invoke to prove they should value logic?”
There are certainly many problems that will come as a result
of mockery, and
Randal has highlighted many of them.
The conscious anti-intellectualism, the Young
Earth “Creation Science”, the increasing levels of cultural isolation (homeschooling,
ideologically “pure” colleges, etc).
The only good thing is that on the long haul, the mockery is
working. The numbers of the Young Earth
creationists are dwindling, and they will continue to dwindle as each
generation progressively rejects their ideology.
That said I fear we have no other recourse. There is at the core of this a fundamental
disconnect between science and religion because sub-groups of religious people
have decided to reject the accomodationist approach and have made it the
case.
