Oh God, the stupidity

In an LA Times op-ed, Lee Siegel makes a very stupid attack on atheists:

When our anti-religionists attack the mechanism of religious faith by demanding that our beliefs be underpinned by science, statistics and cold logic, they are, in effect, attacking our right to believe in unseen, unprovable things at all. Their assault on religious faith amounts to an attack on the human imagination.

...

You don't have to be a religious person to cherish the idea of faith in the absurd. When artists have an unverifiable, unprovable inspiration, and then seek to convey it in words or images, they take a leap of faith every bit as vertiginous as that of the religious person.

This is more than just stupid. As an artist who doesn't believe in God (and who believes in reason when it comes to determining what is and is not true), I actually find it offensive.

The idea that imagining things that aren't literally true is exactly the same thing as believing that things for which there is no evidence are literally true is...God, what is Lee Siegel, five years old?

I imagine every day that the characters I draw are real. I don't believe that they are. You'd think I was mentally ill if I started believing that, and you'd be right.

Every time I read a book or watch a movie I imagine that the characters in it are real. I never, for a moment, believe that they are real.

The idea that, in order to protect the human capacity to imagine the untrue, we must continue to embrace fact-free assertions of literal truth is...I'm sorry, I don't know a word for that level of stupidity.

Neil the Ethical Werewolf says it very well:

Belief and imagination are two very different states of mind, and the norms that apply to them differ dramatically. To say that belief ought to be based on evidence isn't to say that imagination should be based on evidence. As an atheist, I'm often happy to imagine that God exists (for example, when reading myths, daydreaming, or considering a philosophical argument). I just don't think there's sufficient evidence to believe in God. Lovers of the imagination have nothing to fear from atheism, since atheists are fine with you imagining whatever you want.

Amen. (If we unbelievers get to use that word.) Art and imagination to not require us to embrace delusion. I actually think it helps if you know what's factual and what isn't.