True Horizon

Assertion: (3-4) “… atheists and agnostics are not organized and therefore exert almost zero influence. Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.

Response: First, this is a self-serving assertion. Dawkins implies that those who reject atheism do so only because they are a mindless crowd that bows to the altar of religious authority in blind adherence to a faith they have not taken under serious intellectual consideration. Though this may be true of some, it does not hold for those who are happy to debate Dawkins on these issues. Dawkins refuses to engage those kinds of theists on the grounds that doing so would offer undeserved legitimacy to their nonsensical arguments. But if their arguments are so nonsensical, it would seem that Dawkins would be eager to embarrass them in debate. Surely this would serve to galvanize his atheist brethren into the organized group he seeks to form. His refusal to do so seems a bit hypocritical, especially while he touts his own ability to “think independently” over against the mindless, groupthink tendencies of those silly religious opponents.

Second, this is an almost comical assertion in the places where it counts — like the halls of academia or the scientific establishment. Yes, there are pockets of theistic sympathizers but if the atheistic (either in theory or in practice) core of academia shows us anything it is that it will not allow independent (i.e. non-naturalistic) thought a place at the table. Just ask those proponents of Intelligent Design who cannot be published, have been denied tenure, or have actually lost their jobs for bucking that system. In that milieu the only way to survive is to bow at the altar of either methodological or philosophical naturalism because that is where all authority is concentrated. No independent thinking allowed there.