Just had an enjoyable evening hearing Os Guinness speak about the "New Atheists":  Dawkins, Dennett and Harris. You can also read a review of said atheists by National Review's Michael Novak "Lonely Atheists of the Global Village". (Or George Weigel.)  Both came to the same conclusion, that these men are not so much defending rationalism with the calm voice of the titans of the past, the Russells, the Ayers, the Flews, but rather have penned a shrill and alarmist attack on all faith, and Christianity in particular.  Sure, they paid homage to rationality, like a Communist quoting Marx, but they show no evidence of actually using it  (Plantiga). (Read a rather revealing dialogue between Dennis Prager and Sam Harris for evidences of rationality.) Rather rationality supplies a pretense for their concerted and blasphemous attack on all that is holy.

So much so, that many Conservative Jews take insult, making many of the same arguments as Novak. But it is the Jewish experience with the Holocaust that triggers a widespread Jewish unease with these new atheists (read Don Feder's reason for for founding Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation). It isn't so much that Christians are hated, it's that the form of that hatred faults them for all sorts of secret and devious crimes.  Confirming this trend, Mary Eberstadt of Policy Review discusses the widespread practice of scapegoating in modern society.  When dealing with a rebellion, it pays to analyze the tactics much more than the rhetoric, because the message is not a defense of anything, but an offense of everything. The new atheists are not defending rationality, they are instigating a revolt. "Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!" is not a call for liberty from iron, but a call for martyrdom to steel. And scapegoating identifies the enemy to be eliminated.

That is why Plantinga holds his nose while demolishing their logic, why Novak calls their blasphemy "the lack of an ear for God", why Feder finds in them "a toxic creed", for their target audience is neither philosophers, theologians nor politicians, their audience is the same as Lenin's or Trotsky's:  college-aged youth, shift workers, the impressionable, and the disaffected. Just google "atheist" or even "anti-Christian", and see how many blogs are apparently youth. But what concerns me, a former college professor, is just how many academics promulgate that screed. So I asked Guinness, "have we passed a threshold, a post-rational point, where reason is no longer respected?"

Os Guinness replied that the dangers of Post-Modernism are greatly overblown, that there have been many faddish philosophies that come and go, and Post-Modernism has vanished in Europe, being found mostly in America, in formerly evangelical colleges. I persisted, "But aren't you being overly optimistic about the demise of rationality?" He seemed puzzled. "I'm not an optimist. Gravedigger Files wasn't optimistic." I could see I had not conveyed to him the deeply disturbing undercurrent that permeates academia, the scapegoating, the bias, the hatred, the toxic blasphemy. Far worse to have a country that is formally atheist but informally traditional (Sweden), than one that is formally theist but informally blasphemous (National Socialism). For just as the recognition of the Holy restrains evil, (or perhaps, the fear of the Holy, for fools are often blind), so also the reverence for truth, logic, and rationality restrains error. Therefore both the braggadocio of the blasphemer and the guilty delights of the voyeur are equally reprehensible. Lenin would have had no power if he had had no converts. We are living in a culture being prepped for holocaust.

My wife bravely took up the battle. "I have nine children, three in college, what do I tell them?"  Os congratulated her on her achievement, and mentioned that he played a game with his son, before it bankrupted him, of giving him a quarter for "spotting the lie" in advertising or talking heads. But to my wife's more pointed question about the new atheists, he simply replied "I don't know."

Why was Guinness so unprepared to answer, so blasé? I think his generation is constitutionally unable to think like a blasphemer, a plebian. He spoke of his Oxford teacher and ardent atheist, A.J. Ayer almost reverentially, as a man of great intelligence and reserve, much like his predecessor, Bertrand Russell (whose visage, Os reports, was a craggy as an eagle). But what do all these Oxford men have in common? A heritage that links the aristocracy with intellect, tradition with privilege. For Os, it was as much the neoatheist's naked appeal to power as their rejection of rationality that made them incomprehensible. I am reminded of an entrepreneurial friend's company that brought in a venture capitalist, who, when the firm was to be sold, rejected higher for lower offers, because by so doing he could bankrupt the other investors. Businesses fail, not because they do not foresee irrationality in the market, but because they underestimate the powerlust of investors. Post-Modernism is not dangerous because it is post-rational, but because it is power-mad. No skinhead wears swastikas on his leather jacket because he admires the logic of the 3rd Reich, but because he envies their reach. And the fall of elitist Trotsky in 1928 was not his overestimate of Russian rationality, but his underestimate of Stalin's brutal grasp on power.

If we pay close attention to tactics, we will then understand how to defend our faith, our traditions and our sacred logic. As a nation responding to post-WWII Communist aggression, we could have followed MacArthur's advice and dropped the bomb on China. And while this may have removed one set of dictators, it would do nothing to remove the public approval of such dictators, or prevent the installation of another set. Instead we fought expensive proxy wars of containment: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, NATO. The result is a flourishing Chinese church, a Christian majority in S. Korea, a Polish pope, a world ruled by more democracies than ever before.  We are not able to provide freedom by force, or we would make the world free tonight, but we are able to confront power with power, to prevent the spread of slavery, to oppose the oppression of the weak, the poor and the orphaned. The new atheists must be opposed by the same power that they so much crave, by the same tirades that appeal to youth and the disaffected. Spare no ridicule, leave no blasphemy unnamed, actively isolate the advocates, ruthlessly purge this evil from our campuses, and diligently pray for their souls. We may not be able to convert these heathen, but we might contain their blasphemies and let time and eternity persuade.

The miracle according to Guinness, is that at the end of their lives both A.J. Ayers and Anthony Flew recognized the empty rationale of their atheism. The pathos is that they did not find faith. Better to have never lost the gift than at the end discover it wasted.


[Note added Thursday] Robert Miller at First Things tries to explain the anti-Catholic bashing of the recent Supreme Court ruling on partial birth abortions. He concludes:
Over at National Review, they are concerned about the effect of Post-Modernism at Virginia Tech, and whether it affected madman Cho.

 We're not just talking about the effect of postmodernism on the actual criminal (of course many factors went into the making of Cho) but on the whole society, which gradually learns it cannot judge or make discriminations, and gradually begins to accept the false scenarios that are the real agenda behind the moral relativism promoted by pomo. It's not really possible to live without judgment, but instead of searching for the truth, weighing facts and evidence, and using common sense, we accept the "narratives" of contemporary theory, as we saw at  Duke and now also at Virginia Tech.

So whether it is a respectable MSM outlet like the Philadelphia Inquirer, or a respectable engineering school like VT, post-rationalism seems here to stay. Not for any virtue pomo has in reducing our guilt, increasing our wealth, or our lifespan (which Modernism did very well), but principally for its usefulness in attacking Christianity.