Brights: Our Intellectual Superiors

Last updated on: January 1, 2015 at 2:59 pm by Mark Shea

Brights: Our Intellectual Superiors 2015-01-01T14:59:34-07:00 Mark Shea

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I tend to skim my comboxes and can miss conversations, especially when they involve people who a) play well with others who are b) chatting about subjects that I’ve already hashed over with c) people who are saying the same tired stuff. I figure they’ve got things well in hand and don’t need me to net.nanny them. The up side is: Less work for me. The down side is: you can sometimes miss wonderful replies like this one from reader Rosemarie to one of the dumbest atheist tropes out there:

Atheism is the default position!
Ever looked in on a hospital’s maternity ward? All those little babies in plastic boxes? All atheists. They don’t learn god-belief until they are indoctrinated into the religion by their parents and their environment.

This is not a strong argument. Just because something is characteristic of babies doesn’t mean it’s desirable for adults.

What would you say if someone seriously tried to argue the following:

“Incontinence is the default position!
“Ever looked in on a hospital’s maternity ward? All those little babies in plastic boxes? All incontinent. They don’t learn bowel or bladder control until they are indoctrinated into toilet-training by their parents and their environment.”

or:

“Inability to speak is the default position!
“Ever looked in on a hospital’s maternity ward? All those little babies in plastic boxes? All unable to speak. They don’t learn speech until they are indoctrinated into a particular language by their parents and their environment.”

Better yet, how about this one:

“Ignorance of science is the default position!
“Ever looked in on a hospital’s maternity ward? All those little babies in plastic boxes? All know nothing about science. They don’t learn it until they are indoctrinated into scientific training by their parents and their teachers.”

You see? Just because babies don’t know about science doesn’t mean everyone should reject science. Even so, just because babies apparently know nothing about God doesn’t mean everyone should reject God. It doesn’t logically follow.

I scrolled up to see who Rosemarie was replying to and got as far as this mixture of parrot talk and “original thinking”:

Just like you are a-zeus-ist, a-allah-ist, a-fairy-ist, a-invisible-pink-unicorn-ist… basically you are very similar to me, you’re an atheist in almost everything but the religion you were indoctrinated into by your environment. I’m just atheistic in a few more things.

I still have to get to reading some of this Aquinas fellow, though I have the vague suspicion that he doesn’t adress the Plantinga Disaster.

What cracks me up about this is that the Independent Thinker who tells us he is “just atheistic in a few more things” is about as thoroughly indoctrinated as you can get. Indeed, the whole “atheistic in a few more things” trope is just a repetition of a line that is ceaselessly repeated without a movement of the grey matter by guys like Richard Dawkins, who clearly do all their thinking for my reader Felix. At least Catholics *admit* that they are relying on the thinking of others, even as they think about it and sometimes develop (or refute) that thinking. That’s because they realize that we are creatures who rely on Tradition. But Bold Independent Thinkers like Felix call all this “indoctrination”… and then proceed to regurgitate catch phrases they’ve been told to repeat by thinkers with minds the depth of a saucer. It never ever occurs to the “We’re just atheistic about a few more things” crowd to wonder if Christianity’s engagement with other religious traditions might be more complex than a mere blank refusal to acknowledge any truth in them at all. There seems to be no awareness at all of, for instance, C.S. Lewis’ observation, “”When I was an atheist, I had to convince myself that 99% of everyone who ever lived on the earth was wrong about the one thing that mattered to them most. However, when I became a Christian, I was able to take a more liberal view.” In other words, a Christian is free to think that every religious tradition has *some* glimmer of insight into the gigantic reality Who is God since he is “the light that lightens every person.” An atheist, however, is obliged by his indoctrination to assert that every religious tradition is simply false.

All this is, of course, very funny when you combine it with the claim to be Bright. But what really turns it into comedy gold is when you finish by saying, “I still have to get to reading some of this Aquinas fellow, though I have the vague suspicion that he doesn’t adress the Plantinga Disaster.”

Yes. And I really have to take a look at this Michelangelo fellow, but I can’t
imagine his work accounts for the artistic insights of Picasso.

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