“Why won’t you die?”
“Beneath this mask there
is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea...and ideas are
bulletproof.” – V in V for Vendetta
I’ve been coming across a
recurring theme when perusing the social media of New Atheist who are
desperately trying to seem compassionate while dismissing the foolhardy beliefs
of theists; the theme that people deserve rights or respect but that their beliefs
or ideas do not. I seem to keep hearing, “People have rights. Ideas do not.”
My first question is this:
How do you divorce beliefs or ideas from the people that hold them particularly
when beliefs or ideas make up the core of a person’s identity? Many people identify
themselves along the lines of their beliefs, such as being Christian, Jew or
Muslim but also along national, ethnic or social lines. If you give no rights
to ideas or have no respect for the ideas a person holds, exactly who or what
are you extending rights or respect to? Should we have extended rights or
respect to Adolph Hitler the being as divorced from his genocidal tendencies? ‘Cause
that’s where the argument winds up going.
The problem is this: Once
you try to divorce people from their beliefs and ideas, the rights and respect
left to bestow are upon the shell of a human being. As long as more than one
person is around, there exists a social construct from which people set
themselves apart from the other person (that is, identity). If that ability to
form an identity is removed, all that is left is a biological human being who
for all intents and purposes might as well be an empty shell. In trying to deny
identity – or at least an identity New Atheists do not like – is to deny an
aspect of humanity that people often use to position themselves in a special
place within the animal kingdom. I find it peculiar that (liberal) New Atheists
want to bestow rights and grant respect to the biological entities that people
are while at the same time denying that a fetus is a person or that it is okay
to terminate a brain-dead patient. What
is a person? we are inclined to ask New Atheists. There appears to be an
inconsistency in the New Atheist line of reasoning regarding rights and respect
(at least when the reasoning is taken to its fullest extent).
I contend that beliefs and
ideas are equally important if not more important than the people who hold
them.* First, because as I’ve implied, people are their beliefs and ideas so long as there are social interactions.
Moreover, when people put their beliefs and ideas into action, beliefs and
ideas exit the realm of abstraction and into the realm of recorded history. We
also tend to remember people for their beliefs and their ideas instead of the
people as mere biological entities.
[*But not by necessity since
people are not important by necessity.
Refer to my blog Why I Am Not A Humanist for clarification.]
Second, I have to wonder,
where would the world be without beliefs and ideas? The answer to that question
is a double-edged sword, of course, as without beliefs or ideas, human beings
would have never invented the wheel or religion. In the case of religion, look
at what happens when some people, such as ISIS, with particular beliefs or
ideas do not afford any rights or respect to the beliefs of others; personhood
is withheld from a victim and a beheading or sexual slavery is the consequence.
It is easy for New Atheists to say that they don’t have to grant rights to or
respect theistic beliefs and ideas, but granting a person rights and respect is
surely a difficult thing to do when the theist’s beliefs and ideas are
dismissed. Kindly reference pretty much all of recorded history if you don’t
believe me.
Granted, it seems obvious
that some beliefs or ideas are more valid than others but how do we choose
which are important and which are not? We can easily say that freedom is a good
idea that should be granted some rights or respect, but most of us are saying
that from the position of relatively free people with no one to club us for
agreeing. Naturally, we also have to ask exactly how free we are supposed to be
to retain any hope that freedom is indeed a good idea. But, you never see New
Atheists – or anyone else for that matter – getting down to these kinds of
nitty-gritty details. If there are any difficulties in the New Atheist
assertion that beliefs and ideas should be formed only when there is suitable
evidence for them, they are such that beliefs must always be open to revision
(easier said than done) to say nothing of the difficulties in trying to
determine exactly when an inference based upon evidence is deemed justifiable. I
would also challenge any New Atheist to prove that all the beliefs they hold
are warranted by evidence. To this New Atheists will likely reply that most of
the beliefs or ideas people hold are harmless until certain – particularly
theistic – beliefs or ideas are put into action. But as I’ve said many times before,
there is no historical evidence that indicates a global community of atheists
would be any better than the world such as it is now. So why is this belief
being held onto to fiercely by New Atheists? But I digress.
I’m not saying rights or
respect should be granted to ideas out of hand; certainly ideas – all ideas –
should be open to examination and criticism. But New Atheists need to concede that
when they criticize ideas, they are criticizing a person. That person may
become offended, which is fine since there is no legislation or unwritten
societal rule that prohibits all offensive criticism. People don’t have a right
to not be offended.* Oh, so I guess sometimes people don’t have rights. Hmph!
[*At least not in the
U.S.; the EU is working on it, though.]
“People have rights. Ideas
do not,” is in itself an idea which in no way need be granted any rights or
respect. It’s one of quips that looks cute at first glance but loses meaning if
you think about it for more than a second. There certainly isn’t any evidence
for what New Atheists are trying to assert here. Better luck next time, gang.
