The Empty Happy Medium

Ed Halliwell on the Guardian's blog makes what I can only assume is an attempt at a kind of charming, I'm-okay-you're-okay détente between believers and atheists in an otherwise benign post about the Buddha's unwillingness to delve into the question of the existence of a supreme being.

I suppose that's all well and good, but in his admiration for the Buddha's disinterest, he woefully mischaracterizes the atheist position:

Part of what makes the argument [over God's existence] so comical is how the concept of "God" onto which atheists project is rarely the same as the one defended by believers.

Whatever images of God some atheists might like to invoke in heated antitheistic rhetoric, the God whose existence is denied is not limited to one or another caricature, but all gods, all supernatural beings, all unknowable, mystical, cosmic consciousnesses. So not only is the concept of God that is refuted the same as the one defended by believers, but every concept of God (that is not merely a shorthand metaphor for what actually is).

Halliwell goes on, and doesn't make me any happier:

As we appear to be getting nowhere on this, I'd like to offer a fresh perspective for the new year – that of a non-theistic approach. Following the Buddha's example, the non-theistic position refutes the extremes of both a nihilistic view (atheism) and an eternalist one (theism).

Again, how nice. Happy mediums are easy to applaud, but he wrongfully labels atheists as "nihilistic." I have yet to come across more than a handful of atheists (if that) I would say approach nihilism, and the most common atheist combatants in the battle of ideas are people who care enough to try to steer our species in a better direction for the benefit of generations to come.

Of course, Halliwell says nihilism represents an "extreme" of atheism, but that only makes his point essentially moot, as extremes of any view, be it religious or otherwise, are by definition not typical of that viewpoint. Anyone can "refute the extremes" of any position at all; it doesn't take a Buddha to do it. Nihilistic atheists are almost never part of the discussion, so there's no reason to even bring it up, other than to set up a straw man against which he can place Buddha, and more importantly, himself.

And even if atheists were a bunch of curmudgeonly nihilists, it wouldn't make them wrong, just unpleasant.

Oh, and here's what really gets my goat.

In doing so, it cuts through intellectual speculation concerning the origin of the universe, in order to free up the space in which we can systematically investigate, engage with and appreciate the world as it is in this moment, right now.

I have no problem with this kind of "investigation," as he puts it (and the quotation marks are not intended to imply sarcasm), but Halliwell sets it up as an obviously preferable and somehow morally superior alternative to attempts to understand the origins of existence itself.

Cosmologists and seekers of scientific truth all, stop wasting your time! Your quest to understand the universe is harshing our mellow.

[Cross-post at Bloc Raisonneur]