Rhetorical Analysis Of Atheists Are Not The Problem By Richard Dawkins

The world is full of opinionated people and there are always two sides to every argument, sometimes even more than two. There are topics throughout history that have warranted fierce debates from very large, outspoken groups; republicans versus democrats, communism versus democracy, free-will versus instinct. Yet, there is one dispute that has garnered fire from the opposing side than perhaps any other; Christianity versus atheism. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and best-selling author attempts to persuade his audience that Christianity is the problem as it relates to modern society, not atheism, in his article “Atheists Aren’t the Problem, Christian Intolerance is.” He uses incredibly impassioned, emotional language as he examines

“If former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s disparagement of atheists was just the ranting of a tinpot… it could be left without comment or fuss.” He quickly delves into a powerful dissection of Huckabee’s comments on atheists and atheists’ role in government. Dawkins uses very colorful language as he continues into the semi-rant about the hopelessness of Huckabee being taken seriously as a presidential candidate. Beneath the mean-spirited comments, Dawkins works in some logical arguments, particularly his remarks about the legality of Huckabee’s plans for removing atheists from office. “…Huckabee is suggesting that we should find out whether government employees are true believers and fire those who aren’t.” He continues shortly after, “Yes, that is illegal, which makes the suggestion all the more stunning…” Michael Stone also wrote on this topic in his article, “Huckabee Wants to Fire Atheists Working for the Government.” Stone comes to essentially the same conclusion, albeit with much less bias. It is hard to ignore the issues that Huckabee’s plan would cause, especially in a government that was designed to be secular, so it excusable to an extent the less than appealing and biased arguments coming from both authors. More than anything, Stone’s article justifies Dawkins’ choice of words, even though Dawkins’ was considerably more partial. There is almost a direct parallel, “The suggestion that federal

Citing two independent studies by two different men, Dawkins proposes that when societies do away with belief in supernatural beings, they become better for it. Specifically, citing the work of Phil Zuckerman at Pitzer College, he says, “Secular societies such as Sweden and Denmark… are more likely to enjoy broadly shared prosperity and a high level of… happiness than traditionally religious ones…” Gregory Paul’s study was much more localized, focusing on differences between individual states in the U.S. and found similar results. This appeal to logic is in stark contrast to Dawkins previous attempts to sway his audience to his understanding, and one might infer it is stronger because of it. The emotion is stripped away for a brief two and half paragraphs and the logos becomes the dominate trait of the article. The evidence for Dawkins point doesn’t stop there either. An article written by JT Eberhard in “Psychology Today,” titled, “Secular societies fare better than religious societies.” Hypothesizes essentially the same theory as laid out by Zuckerman and Paul. “…the more secular tend to fare better than the more religious on a vast host of measures, including homicide and violent crime rates, poverty rates, obesity and diabetes rates, child abuse rates, educational attainment levels, income levels, unemployment rates, rates of