Atheists Against Village Atheism. A like-minded correspondent sent me a link to that Dawkins article on "brights" that's been making the rounds. You can follow the links and find it; I can't be bothered because, frankly, my reaction to just about anything Dawkins writes outside his field of expertise is "Oh please stop. You're embarrassing both of us." Yup, I'm all tore up about that "one man, one vote" thing. Or, as my correspondent puts it, "There he goes again: 'Look at me! Look at me! I'm fifteen years old!'"

Now, is this because we're offended believers who don't like our religion dissed? No, we're both atheists. I would qualify myself as "agnostic" only in the sense that, if I take a materialist view, then I have to believe that the human brain, shaped by natural selection, is thereby limited in its capacties, and unlikely to be able to grasp reality whole. A little humility would be consistent.

I detest the puerile effusions of all village atheists. "Me so smart! Believers so dumb! Me so brave! Believers moral cowards needing crutches!" Well, I'd say you a leetle bit smarter than the fathead fundies who apparently inhabit the intellectual stratum into which your natural gifts have delivered you, is my usual mental response. At least, I've always suspected that this scenario explains the posturing of a lot of the VAs I've run across, as I interact with a lot of believers on a regular basis, none of whom - except for the street corner buttonholers - evinces any simple-minded awe of the Great Alpha Male in the Sky or offers bible verses as proof of God's existence. Not that this makes me agree with them, but I do have to face the grim truth that some of these irrational crutch-dependent mental/moral cretins have enough IQ (and character) points on me that I can't, much as I'm tempted to, console myself in the circularity of "but I don't believe their unevidenced fairy tales, ergo...".

And often sailing along with the above is the truly thickheaded implication - particularly thickheaded coming from people who lay claim to a materialist, and therefore necessarily biologically based view of man - that if human beings gave up their irrational belief in God, human nature would be miraculously redeemed and human beings would stop doing the terrible things we've always done. Would it were so. Oh twentieth century.

Perhaps I'll make a link category titled "dim bulbs" noting bloggers I've caught professing belief. Then some brighty can outline for our edification how irrational morons such as, ya know, Dave Trowbridge, or Natalie Solent, or Iain Murray, or Medpundit ought to be contributing to the advance of humanity instead of mumbling over their prayer beads and proselytizing for holy war.

UPDATE: Ah ha. One of the aforementioned dimmies has weighed in already. Well, she hadn't yet when I checked in before linking. Don't want to be slower than one of those people, you know.

UPPITY UPDATE:

Dipnut and Angie Schultz also comment, and I think they strike exactly the right tone.

Mark Wickens, however, is distressed at all this impiety toward the Church Ladies of the Order of the Brights. He's muttering darkly about the cowardly deference toward religion assuredly motivating the strong negative response to the fatuous self-regard, finger-wagging evangelism, and pimply-faced posturing sound thinking so liberally on display in the articles in question. Well, Mark, it's your call if you want to give sanctimonious schoolmarms a pass because they happen to share your view of reality. Frankly, if reverential assent, and not a good honest horse laugh, was your primary response to this gasbaggery...well, I dunno. I'd almost suspect you were a Randian or something.

Posted by Moira Breen at June 25, 2003 01:41 PM