Confronting the Ahistoricism of New Atheism

New Atheist culture is becoming very hard to defend. It's not the anti-theism, though that can be overbearing; it's the rhetorical depths the authors will go to in order to find historical anti-theism, as if it's needed as a defence.

Case in point: The God Delusion is a book with some good points to be made on the nature of religion, but it's smothered in so much secular sanctimony it's hard to take the book all that seriously. It's easy to see why the book is such a favourite for Internet atheists, what with every sentence written as if meant to be slapped on a picture of the universe, but Richard Dawkins' book is hardly a classic.

And The God Delusion does something far more egregious than simply being smug, something which proves that Dawkins, when forced to talk about something outside his purview, couldn't do more than a cursory Internet research. He relays a bunch of Founding Father quotes - from Ben Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson - to show that they weren't pious, God-fearing people, but rather reasonable deists who mistrusted religion.

Bill Maher did the same thing in Religulous, and a quick glance at Reddit's Atheism subreddit makes it clear that these quotes have gained traction. They are also almost 100% inaccurate. Dawkins' quotes come from page 43 of The God Delusion:

• John Adams: “This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." Here it is in context: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, “this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!! But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion in this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell." Huh, looks like he meant, you know, the opposite. 
• Benjamin Franklin: “Lighthouses are more useful than churches.” Possibly intended to paraphrase a story he relayed to his wife about a dangerous night at sea, but not actually said by him. 
• Thomas Jefferson: "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man." Close, but not as damning. Jefferson, to Joseph Priestly: "...those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy, the most sublime & benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man, endeavored to crush your well earnt, & well deserved fame."
• James Madison: “During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” This one's accurate; it comes from a speech given to the Virginia General Assembly in 1785. Madison's religious life is up for interpretation, and was probably close to that of Jefferson's deism, but the speech from which this quote comes from does attack the mingling of religion and government, not an attack on religion itself. 

With this, and after Cosmos' reinterpretation of the story of Giordano Bruno, atheists, skeptics, and freethinkers are quickly going to gain a reputation as people who don't care about accurate history. I understand why they regurgitate these quotes. The "other side" uses this manipulative tactic, and uses it well. The Founding Fathers have a special place in American Christian mythology, where they are regarded as earthly saints who enshrined Judeo-Christian principles in the character of their country. David Barton, Mike Huckabee, Southern school boards, and other culture warriors seem to be making inroads with the appeal to past religiosity tactic. If you can find "atheism" in the fundamental character of America, you can counter the theocratic historians and keep religion and government separate.

So sure, it's understandable. But it's not condonable. For people hung up on reason and skepticism, Maher, Dawkins, and their acolytes sure swallowed these quotes without any vetting process. Whatever their actual religious beliefs, which are far more nuanced than either side's interpretation, the Founding Fathers didn't make it a "Christian" nation, what with Article VI, no mention of God, Jesus or the Bible in the Constitution, etc. Some were men of devout faith, some were not, and they came together to make a nation that would, one day anyway, welcome people of all beliefs under the rule of law, because they knew that religious freedom was important. This should be enough, and we don't need to wrangle enough secular-humanist quotes to fight fire with fire. Real history is on the side of those fighting for church-and-state separation.

And while looking to the thoughts and conjectures of Madison, Jefferson, and all the others is good, it's not the final say on anything, be you Christian or atheist. Appeals to tradition are the weakest sorts of defences. Atheists shouldn't leave one cult of a fictitious personality, only to set up cults of real ones. The label "freethinker" should mean we aren't obliged to follow anyone; we should be able to argue against laws based on religion without appeals to men who also thought slavery wasn't a sin.

If we must, though, fine. Here's a letter from TJ to Virginian lawyer and author Samuel Kercheval:

I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

There! Now we've been given the right, by the divine authority of the Author of the Declaration of Independence, to change the way we think about laws and freedom. Now we can blaze our own trail. So many people have left religion so that they wouldn't have to be beholden to the thoughts of past lives. Why are so many now insistent on doing just that?