God Isn’t Great

God Isn’t Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by journalist Christopher Hitchens,  cashes in on the “New Atheism.” I’m going to begin with a quote  Stephen Prothero, from the Washington Post’s Bookworld, because he sums it up best.

“He writes about religious people the way northern racists used to talk about “Negroes” — with feigned knowing and a sneer.”

That pretty much is the best summary of how I feel about this book. To paraphrase further, if you knew nothing about religion except what you read of this, you would think all Catholics are proud of the Inquisition, and that there is no difference between taking communion and drinking the Kool Aid.

God is Not Great is filled with the old stand bye arguments against religion, it encourages sexism, racism, the Bible contradicts itself and can be used to justify whatever atrocity is going on at the moment, (human trafficking, genital mutilation, genocide,) etc. Furthermore, worship is simply groveling (6), monotheism is simply dictatorship (16), all Christians believe AIDS is God’s judgment (49), all preachers are con-artists (165), and all churches supported slavery in America (173). My personal favorite is that proof that the Bible is man made lies in that it doesn’t mention every single creature in the Creation account, including germs and microbes. How many people when reading the Bible skip over the genealogy parts, can you imagine trying to read it if it did this? Who wants to read a whole list of organisms from the Tyrannosaurus to syphilis. The only good I can think of that would come from this is we’d finally know if the Loch Ness Monster was real or not

Sexual immorality is one subject that always gets people uptight, so let’s talk about that. “Why was the subject of sex so toxic?” he asks. (3) Well it’s not. Of course humankind has suffered through misunderstandings and taboos about sex, and yes some of that came from mis-use of religion. Still, god made sex for us, what Christians believe is simply that there are some parameters with it (which of course is book in of itself) but that is not to say that sex is bad period.

Page 54 and 55 lists numerous sexual taboos, and throws in the now cliché claim that Christianity is abhorrent to women. Now we cannot pretend that the Church never inflicted taboos on us, nor that religion has never been used to promote sexism, but to say that Eve was made solely for “his (Adams)use and comfort” (54) is more than simply an error. It shows a true lack of understanding of Christian theology. What this allegedly contradictory bible tells us is that both men and women were both created in God’s image. Genesis 1:27 tells us “So god created people in his own image. God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them.”

One argument against god’s existence is that if god is real, than what created god. According to Hitchens, religion has “consistently failed to overcome this objection” (71). No we haven’t, god is eternal. That’s what we believe. I don’t know anyone who is stumped on that question. It’s both mind boggling and simple. Even in science we know that the universe either just always was, or has gone through an eternal sequence of big bangs. ( I don’t have a source for this but I remember reading this somewhere, little help anyone?)

How does Hitchens counter the argument of the good things religion has inspired, like Civil Rights? Easy, he just says Martin Luther King wasn’t really a Christian. Why? Because he didn’t talk about hellfire and brimstone. (176) Okaaaaaaay. Further proof according to this book is that King never spoke of revenge for his attackers. Again, okaaaaaaay. Even if you believed that makes him unchristian, were none of his followers Christian?

It is moments like this I realize I just can’t take this New Atheism stuff seriously. Maybe this says something bad about my faith, but so far I’ve found it more offensive as an intellect than as a Christian. It offends me as a teacher, it offends me as a writer. It offends me as someone who has done research papers for college professors. What I find most amusing is its claims of intellectual superiority, (the smartest people are atheists, according to them) coupled with the sloppiest most piss poor arguments, cemented with a inexcusably poor understanding of religion.

Hitchens has written other books, not about religion, such as Why Orwell Matters. (One I’d like to read) I’ve seen him speak on You Tube debating the anti-war movement, in which he unapologetically supports the removal of Saddam. He flat out says the war in Iraq was a necessary and just war. In these moments he appears intelligent, articulate, and dead on the money. So I wonder how someone who seems so much to know what he’s talking about on one hand, writes such a disappointing book on the other? Well, in my humble cynical opinion, the New Atheism is all the rage at the moment, so why not cash in.

Nothing wrong with making a few bucks, except this is the most disappointing book I’ve read since A People’s History of the United States. The difference being that Hitchens is actually capable of saying something significant about the world, this book seeming to be an off day. Oh well.

God bless.

The book review quote can be found here.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446579807/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-4368131-4062233?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194678825&sr=1-1)

The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins promises by the time you finish his best seller The God Delusion, you’ll be an atheist. Always up for a challenge I gave it a read, and needless to say, I’m still a theist. One reason this is,  however, is due to a personal philosophical matter I will address now. In my upbringing I was never taught to have a problem with evolution. It never occurred to me that I should find Darwin objectionable, and never heard of creation science until I got to college. Personally I think creation science is a great embarrassment to modern Christianity, take that for what you will. Anyway, one argument against the existence of god is where did god come from. Theists answer that god is eternal. Dawkins rejects this philosophy, just because I guess, and from there illustrates how the universe and life itself went from simplicity to complexity. (The bulk of his argument against god centers around Evolution, see the above point.) Given this turn of events, God itself would naturally be the most complex thing in existence, and therefore could not have created the universe, because it couldn’t have existed yet. Sounds good enough, unless you do believe in an eternal god. Next he gives an interesting survey of the creation science vs evolution scene in America, pointing out that creation science primarily focuses on attacking evolution. Philosophically, when a scientists don’t know something, they investigate it, and hopefully find out what they don’t know. Creationists on the other hand, according to Dawkins, refuses to investigate what they don’t know, satisfied that God is “in the gaps.” If you’re a creationist, this book might be pretty devastating, but then again maybe not. One interesting note is his theory on how religion came about. To put it simply,  he describes religion as a meme (a cultural unit of information passed down through society). This meme is possibly a  misfire of our brain during the course of evolution, as we evolved into beings that could fall in love. (There’s a whole lot more detail but I won’t rehash an entire chapter) Basically certain aspects of religion are comfortable psychologically, and our brains are sort of designed for religious faith. Interesting when we compare that to Romans 1:18-21, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse”. Interesting. There’s a whole bunch of other topics here, from the nature of morality, (if there was no god would you rape and pillage? If so you’re not very moral.) the religious beliefs of the founding fathers, Bible stuff, abortion, and how religion should not be immune to criticism and parody. I’m just sticking with a few topics for brevity, but he makes many good points. However the most disappointing part of The God Delusion is when countering the arguments for god, he critiques the argument from personal experience. All he talks about are people who had mental breakdowns, hallucinated, and killed people. (All us religious folk do that right?) The former Catholic in me was curious as Dawkins admitted the 70,000 people who had visions in Fatima Portugal in 1917 is harder to write off. That’s a minor point though, a bigger point he makes which is just plain naive, is his opposition to raise children into religion. Dawkins basically calls religion child abuse, and insists that we do away with terms like “Christian child,” Jewish Child,” etc. Children should not have these “labels” forced on them by their evil brainwashing parents, and should wait till they are thinking adults to decide their spiritual beliefs. On the surface it sounds like a reasonable idea, as most naive ideas are. The reality is any involved parent is going to teach their kids whatever they think the truth is. We can have this discussion about any issue. Parents should teach their kids to be environmentalists, not to be racist, homophobic, sexist, to save your money, to not do drugs, etc. (Or consequently, to teach our kids NOT to be environmentalists, TO BE racist, homophobic, sexist, TO smoke pot, etc etc) We all see parents teaching their kids things we find objectionable, and we all need to just get over with it. That’s living in a free society, deal with it. Besides, what could we do about it? The only solution would be to snatch kids from their parents at birth and have them raised by the state, with state instituted values. The same argument can be made about economics. People love to whine about the advantages of the rich and yadayadayada, but to abolish family privilege is to abolish the family. (While on this tangent, for everyone who holds fairness as the highest virtue, consider this, how about not feeding your kids tonight. After all, there are children who won’t eat tonight, so it’s not fair that yours should, right?) Anyway, back to religion, Dawkins is simply too old to not get this thing about raising kids. This is the second book I’ve read from the New Atheist gang. It’s written much better that that waste of space God Isn’t Great. It’s much better researched and in fairness has it’s merits. If the New Atheist movement becomes signifigcant, it will go down as a historic book. The beginning of the second chapter is probably an anthem by now. “The God of the Old Testament is probably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it, petty, unjust, …homophobic, racist… genocidal…bully.” (51) If you’re in this movement the full quote will undoubtedly leave you howling in laughter. Either way so far in reading this stuff I’ve seen a picture painted of religion that, while not totally alien, is mostly unfamiliar with many religious folk. According to Dawkins, we don’t really believe in the miracles, stories like Noah, etc, ignore the Old Testament because it’s too violent, ignore the alleged contradictions in the gospels, and really only go to church because our parents raised us too. Plus we all hate science. Are none of us curious about the world around us? Personally I was totally into science as a kid. Do none of us think that science and religion are compatible? Dawkins closes his book not with a final attack on religion, but on the potential that science has to offer us in this new millennium. He talks about Quantum physics and the concept of multiple realities. (Which to a nerd like me is HUGELY interesting) What he evidently doesn’t realize, is that there are a lot of theists out there that are just as excited Originally published on myspace on 6/10/98

Thoughts on the New Atheism

       Have you ever had a friendly conversation with an atheist? Perhaps after a stimulating talk, where you both exchanged your ideas, they respectfully told you that they did not believe, but if you did that was okay. Their unbelief did not give them any feeling that they should take your faith away from you. If the New Atheists have their way, those days may soon be gone. In the last few years several prominent atheist published new books calling not only for atheism to be more prevalent, but for an end to religion itself. These books include The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, The End of Faith, Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, and Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris, and Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett. These books in part call for a new social movement to eradicate religion in society. The New Atheists suppose that by logic there is no God, and therefore all of religion must be wrong, therefore, it should be disposed of. Religion is seen as inherently evil, as something that only does harm for the world. The actions of both Islamic and Christian extremists give ammunition to this idea. However, the New Atheism, in it’s outlook of the world that is soley based on logic, finds itself with a vision of the world as skewed as any fundamentalist, and fails to see the benefits of religion in society.

       The basic tenants of the New Atheism are a series of logical steps that lead to a completely negative view of religion. It begins with the statement that, from a logical point of view, there is no god. If there is no god, then all of religion, as well as the belief in anything supernatural, must be wrong. If religion is wrong, than you should not believe in it. If you should not believe in it, then you shouldn’t tolerate anyone else believing in it either. This last feature is what the New Atheists push for, an end to the idea that we should tolerate and respect other people’s beliefs, simply because they are other people’s beliefs. According to the New Atheists, people’s religious beliefs should not be tolerated or accepted, and dream of a day when there is so much pressure from society that it will simply be too embarrassing to believe in god. Examples they use supporting the idea that religion is inherently bad are the actions of fundamentalist Christians, with particular attention to the Evolution vs Creationism controversy, and Islamic extremists, particularly in regard to 9/11.

       From a modern Christian perspective, this movement is not surprising, and in my opinion, is a consequence of Christianity’s failure to engage fundamentalism. In looking at the initial objections to religion, many liberal theists may find themselves in agreement. Throughout the past century, fundamentalist and radical Christian dogma have done much to discredit Christianity in our culture, including, but not limited too;

General disdain for Biblical scholarship, in favor of a literal interpretation of the Bible.

The belief that you should only go to a Christian college, thinking you will lose your beliefs if you got to a state school.                                                        Related to that, that you should not take a philosophy class while in college.

Creation science and it’s related opposition to evolution.

 The Flat Earth Society, (In the words of Stan Lee, Nuff said)

Murders of abortion doctors.

Control of local school boards followed by the subsequent banning of books. Opposition to the feminist movement.

God Hates Fags.

The numerous and entertaining End Times prophecies, (88 reasons the world will end in 1988)

Support of general right wing conspiracy theories and urban legends, such as the rumor that Janet Reno made a negative comment about Christianity on 60 minutes, and Oliver North warning Congress about Osama Bin Laden during the Iran Contra scandal, subsequently being ignored by Al Gore.

Aiding in racial theories, (Blacks being a subspecies of man, etc) as well as Jewish conspiracy theories.

The idea that Global Warming is a liberal conspiracy.

Claims of backwards masking/subliminal messages in Rock n Roll music.    Relating to the above, objection to contemporary Christian music, on the grounds that it is satanic.

Within the Christian music scene, fear of being in the “secular world,” followed by disdain and ostracizing of any Christian artist who breaks into the main stream.

Various urban legends spread about Heavy Metal acts such as Ozzy Osbourne and Marylin Manson.

Burning of Heavy Metal records.

Claims that Dungeons and Dragons, and role playing in general, involves actual practice of magic, Satanism, and leads to suicide.

Claims of the works of J.R Tolkein, (Lord of the Rings) and C.S. Lewis, (Chronicles of Narnia) are satanic. This claim is of particular hilarity considering C.S. Lewis wrote some of the most widely read pro Christian books, and the Narnia series has blatant Christian allegories, with Lord of the Rings having more subtle allegories.

The general satanic panic of the 1980s, there is a Satanist under every bed, claims that thousands of children were kidnapped by satanic cults, etc

Claims that the film The Exorcist promotes Satanism.

Of the above items, obviously some are more serious than others, but all of them give the impression that Christianity is intellectually bankrupt, and in some cases even dangerous to society. It is partly our failure to engage these elements that leads to the current calls to exterminate all of religion.

       The New Atheism in turn is not kind to the rest of us, referring to us as religious moderates, claiming that in our basic beliefs give power to the worst offenders. In short, my belief in Jesus Christ commanding me to love others puts me in league with the Taliban. This is not to let the New Atheism entirely off the hook. Like most radicals, the New Atheists start off with a few assumptions most people can agree with, but then get so wound up in their beliefs that they lose touch with reality. While lumping together liberal theist with suicide bombers, it paints all of religion with one broad stroke, leaving a picture of pure evil. This ignores the contributions religion has made to society. In accusing religion of supporting slavery, it forgets that the abolitionist movement was a Christian movement, as was the suffragist and Civil Rights movement. In claiming religion is bad for society, it ignores the multitudes of Christians doing missionary work, both in the third world and in developing countries, where peoples immediate needs are being met. In blasting Creation science, it neglects the fact that the Catholic Church has gone on record stating that evolution does not contradict Christianity. (and that no one outside of American fundamentalism takes creation science seriously) While criticizing the Catholic church, it does not consider the role of Liberation theology in helping the people of South America. Not to mention the role of Pope John Paul II in the Polish solidarity movement, which attributed the collapse of the Soviet Union. In making the overly simplistic claim that religion is bad, it finds itself intellectually lazy, or illogical if you will. It goes further down the path of equating raising children with religion to child abuse.

        Ah to be young and crusading. Just as every generation thinks they’ve invented sex, every generation also believes the now is the most critical time in history. According to the New Atheists, nothing short of the survival of our species is at stake in the battle against religion. Following this bravado is the sincere belief that they will be the ones to actually get rid of all forms of religion in the entire world. They truly believe that years from now it will be their names in the history books that saved humanity from the evil of religion, leaving our descendants to wonder why religion wasn’t banished sooner. This itself smacks of youthful naiveness. Say for arguments sake that I am wrong, and all religion is bunk. If this is so, than it is a bad belief, and bad beliefs, or bad ideas, especially in the internet age, never ever ever go away.

       Typical of many philosophical or even religious moments, the problem of religion is presented in an apocalyptic manner. Marx thought one day the working class would lead a violent result against their oppressors, leading to Ultimate Communism, a economic and creative paradise. Christians have their end times prophecies, or the 88 reasons why the world will end in 1988. Some environmentalists insist the end is nigh. The apocalypse of the new atheist, is that religious faith must be eradicated, or human civilization will end, and it will end soon. Since wars have always been fought over religion, why the civilized world would collapse this time escapes me. Such is the problem of a contemporary philosophy, it is historically short sighted. Whether religion is with us or not, future generations will always find something to kill each other for, while the world population keeps on rising.

       Another trap that many philosophers fall into is basing all of their beliefs and world views around one single aspect of the human experience. For Marx it was class conflict, for Freud it was sex, for some it is race, gender issues, etc, all of which are relevant factors, but when seeing the world through the interpretation of just one of these, our world view becomes distorted. For the New Atheism, the single lens is logic. In using logic to state there is no god, and from their concluding that all religion is false, Dawkings takes the great logical leap by claiming that raising kids to be religious is child abuse. It is in these moments that all radicals become trapped by their own beliefs. Dawkins actually believes that raising a child to be religious does worse damage than rape, sexual molestation, physical abuse, verbal abuse, and neglect, and that, my friend, is simply illogical.

       This leads me to my final point, which is that logic is not everything, because as humans we have an emotional as well as logical side to us. Love is not necessarily logical. What is love? How do you describe it? Can you prove you love someone? Why would you willingly give of yourself to another person? Why would you devote your time and resources to children, is that not, in some sense illogical? Have none of us in the course of our lives acted on gut instinct, did something that we felt we just had to do, without being able to fully explain it? Have we never, during our travels, or while participating in a sports event, acted on instinct? Where is our sense of awe and wonder?

       Religious faith itself is not logical. I can’t point to the sky and say “Oh look there’s God, hi god.” Faith is a personal experience, which basically can’t be proven to anybody. Atheists scoff at religious people who insist that they will not change their mind, not realizing that the reason they won’t change their mind is because they’ve had a profound personal experience with god. Profound personal experiences cannot be tested in laboratories. Dawkins says outright that “Religion is not life affirming.” It is in these moments that I simply cannot take this seriously. What do people of any faith find in their spiritual quest? They find that there is a higher power greater than them, and that they themselves have a purpose in the world.

       50 years from now these people will wonder why they have failed, where could they have possibly gone wrong. They will scoff angrily at all us idiots who still believe, and will wonder with all of the scientific advancements that will have happened, how can people still believe in god. This is not a call for apathy. Historical predictability is not automatic. People who do not take action never win against people who do. The New Atheism is something to be engaged, but so is religious extremism. As long as people of faith do not engage in the more radical elements of their religious cultures, there will always be half a point to be made in the case against religion.

       Logic is very important, it keeps us from doing lot of dumb stuff. But to rely on logic alone leaves us with a skewed sense of reality, no more mistaken than a view of history seen only through the eyes of class conflict, or a view of the human mind seen only through sex.

God is Dead.- Nietzsche

Nietzsche is dead.- God

For more on the new atheism, click on the following.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism.html

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Sam+Harris%2C+The+End+of+Faith

http://video.google.com/videosearchq=Richard+Dawkins+The+Root+of+All+Evil&hl=en

(Originally published on myspace on 12/19/06