Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

David Sloan Wilson, Beyond Demonic Memes: Why Richard Dawkins is Wrong About Religion, eSkeptic, July 4th, 2007

Richard Dawkins and I share much in common. We are both biologists by training who have written widely about evolutionary theory. We share an interest in culture as an evolutionary process in its own right. We are both atheists in our personal convictions who have written books on religion. In Darwin’s Cathedral I attempted to contribute to the relatively new field of evolutionary religious studies. When Dawkins’ The God Delusion was published I naturally assumed that he was basing his critique of religion on the scientific study of religion from an evolutionary perspective. I regret to report otherwise. He has not done any original work on the subject and he has not fairly represented the work of his colleagues. Hence this critique of The God Delusion and the larger issues at stake.

Where We Agree and Where We Part Company

In The God Delusion Dawkins makes it clear that he loathes religion for its intolerance, blind faith, cruelty, extremism, abuse, and prejudice. He attributes these problems to religion and thinks that the world would be a better place without it. Given recent events in the Middle East and even here in America, it is understandable why he might draw such a conclusion, but the question is: What’s evolution got to do with it?

Dawkins and I agree that evolutionary theory provides a powerful framework for studying religion, and we even agree on some of the details, so it is important to pinpoint exactly where we part company. Evolutionists employ a number of hypotheses to study any trait, even something as mundane as the spots on a guppy. Is it an adaptation that evolved by natural selection? If so, did it evolve by benefiting whole groups, compared to other groups, or individuals compared to other individuals within groups? With cultural evolution there is a third possibility. Since cultural traits pass from person to person, they bear an intriguing resemblance to disease organisms. Perhaps they evolve to enhance their own transmission without benefiting human individuals or groups.

If the trait is not an adaptation, then it can nevertheless persist in the population for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it was adaptive in the past but not the present, such as our eating habits, which make sense in the food-scarce environment of our ancestors but not with a McDonald’s on every corner. Perhaps the trait is a byproduct of another adaptation. For example, moths use celestial light sources to orient their flight (an adaptation), but this causes them to spiral toward earthly light sources such as a streetlamp or a flame (a costly byproduct), as Dawkins so beautifully recounts in The God Delusion. Finally, the trait might be selectively neutral and persist in the population by genetic or cultural drift.

Anthony Gottlieb, I’m a Believer, New York Times Book Review, December 23, 2007

In 2001, rumors started to hit the blogosphere that Antony Flew, a British philosopher born in 1923, had found God after six decades of atheism. At first Flew denied the reports. But in May 2004 he told a conference in New York that he had indeed changed his mind and become a believer. A flurry of online pundits debated the meaning of this shocking conversion.

Now, in a book written, according to its title page, “with” Roy Abraham Varghese — of whom more later — Flew tells the story of his “discovery of the divine.” This sounds like a victory for the faithful in the God wars: a welcome riposte to the atheist tomes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Although Flew is not “the world’s most notorious atheist,” as the subtitle of “There Is a God” claims, and never was, even in his native Britain, he ought to count as quite a catch. Now retired from the University of Reading in Berkshire (he has also taught at Oxford and in Scotland, Canada and the United States), he is the author of several cogent and elegant works of philosophy, including accomplished critiques of religion. In many public debates he has vigorously made the case for unbelief. But I doubt thoughtful believers will welcome this volume. Far from strengthening the case for the existence of God, it rather weakens the case for the existence of Antony Flew.

The book has five main parts: a preface and an appendix by Varghese; an intellectual autobiography and an account of his case for God, attributed to Flew; and another appendix, on the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, by N. T. Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham. Varghese is an Indian-born business consultant who founded the Institute for MetaScientific Research in Texas, and writes and edits books on the interplay between science, religion and philosophy. He helped organize the conference at which Flew announced his conversion and is the author of a book, “The Wonder of the World,” that Flew recommends. Varghese has also written “God-Sent: A History of the Accredited Apparitions of Mary,” which argues that more than 50 such apparitions cannot be explained away as hallucinations and that there is better evidence for them than there is for any ostensible U.F.O. sighting.

Paulson, John Haught theology | Salon, December 18, 2007

Theologian John Haught explains why science and God are not at odds, why Mike Huckabee worries him, and why Richard Dawkins and other “new atheists” are ignorant about religion.

By Steve Paulson

Dec. 18, 2007 | Evolution remains the thorniest issue in the ongoing debate over science and religion. But for all the yelling between creationists and scientists, there’s one perspective that’s largely absent from public discussions about evolution. We rarely hear from religious believers who accept the standard Darwinian account of evolution. It’s a shame because there’s an important question at stake: How can a person of faith reconcile the apparently random, meaningless process of evolution with belief in God?The simplest response is to say that science and religion have nothing to do with each other — to claim, as Stephen Jay Gould famously did, that they are “non-overlapping magisteria.” But perhaps that response seems too easy, a politically expedient ploy to pacify both scientists and mainstream Christians. Maybe evolutionary theory, along with modern physics, does pose a serious challenge to religious belief. To put it another way, how can an intellectually responsible person of faith justify that faith — and even belief in a personal God — after Darwin and Einstein?

That’s the question John Haught has set out to answer by proposing a “theology of evolution.” Haught is a Roman Catholic theologian at Georgetown University and a prolific author. His books include “God After Darwin,” “Is Nature Enough?” and the forthcoming “God and the New Atheism.”

Annabelle Gurwitch, Why I Won’t Be Invited to Mitt Romney’s White House, TheNation.com, December 13, 2007

1. Shellfish. My God would never make mussels, clams and oysters taste so good and then prohibit me, a Jewish gal, from eating them.

2. The meek shall inherit the earth. In my family, like much of America’s workforce, not only have the meek inherited nothing, they are barely holding on to their standard of living. So on this point alone, I reject the Bible.

3. American Gladiators. If there were a God, American Gladiators would not be returning to TV this winter.

4. Iran. If there were a God one part of our government wouldn’t be opening doors to negotiate with Ahmadinejad, while another fans the flames for military action.

5. There’s not enough good Szechwan in Los Angeles. If there were a God, he would make better Chinese food more readily available in Los Angeles. LA is mostly made up of transplanted New Yorkers, so why can’t we get good old chicken and broccoli in garlic source out West?

6. Britney Spears. If there were a God, Britney Spears wouldn’t be one of the most Googled topics on the Internet. Although perhaps there is a God and this is one of the signs of the apocalypse. Example: Spears gave us views of her vajayjay: 3,450,000 Google hits. Jonas Salk gave us the polio vaccine: 212,000 Google hits.

8. God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle. My God wouldn’t allow people to make up inane aphorisms about him. I’m disorganized, easily distracted, have a fear of anything medical and have a kid with health issues. My God would know that I was a poor choice for this assignment, that this saying is just moronic and only serves to make people like me feel worse when we inevitably fail.

Turkey Takes Publisher to Task Over Book Questioning God - New York Times, November 30, 2007

ISTANBUL, Nov. 29 — Turkish prosecutors on Thursday questioned the Turkish publisher of the book “The God Delusion,” by a British author, Richard Dawkins, after a young reader complained that it was offensive, the publisher said.

Erol Karaaslan, whose publishing house is Kuzey Publications, does not face formal charges at this point for bringing out the book, which is a best seller in the United States. But he was informed by prosecutors that a young reader from the neighborhood of Kadikoy filed a complaint against him under a law prohibiting “inciting hatred,” Mr. Karaaslan said in a telephone interview.

In Turkey, the government can open cases against authors or publishers based on complaints about content filed by private citizens, a far-reaching power that sharply limits freedom of expression and is an enduring part of Turkey’s rigid state-controlled past.

The rules have led to the prosecution of authors including Orhan Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize for literature. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is working to soften these rules as part of Turkey’s effort to join the European Union.

The book, which argues against the existence of God, upset the reader, who argued that it meets the criteria of “inciting hatred,” because it insults God and is offensive to Muslims, Christians and Jews in Turkey.

Munson’s comment: I am the kind of “buttery” atheist Dawkins criticizes in the following article. Rather than focus on the substance of the arguments he criticizes, Dawkins focuses on the “tone of voice” of those who make them. With respect to the “I’m an atheist, but religion is here to stay” argument, Phil Zuckerman cites a series of polls indicating that somewhere between 4 and 9 percent of Americans do not believe in God (The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, p. 48). These numbers could of course increase some day to the 31-39 percent found in Britain (p. 49). But the fact remains that if one looks at the world as a whole, trying to eradicate belief in God, or gods, is almost as futile as trying to eliminate sex. This may not always be true, but it will clearly be true for the rest of the twentieth-first century. So rather than trying to eliminate religion, a more fruitful strategy is to cooperate with moderate believers who support the kind of tolerant society favored by most atheist intellectuals.

‘I’m an atheist, BUT . . .’ by Richard Dawkins - RichardDawkins.net, Nov. 2006

I’ve noticed five variants of I’m-an-atheist-buttery, and I’ll list them in turn, in the hope that others will recognize them, be armed against them, and perhaps extend the list by contributing examples from their own experience.

1. I’m an atheist, but religion is here to stay. You think you can get rid of religion? Good luck to you! You want to get rid of religion? What planet are you living on? Religion is a fixture. Get over it!

I could bear any of these downers, if they were uttered in something approaching a tone of regret or concern. On the contrary. The tone of voice is almost always gleeful, and accompanied by a self-satisfied smirk….

2. I’m an atheist, but people need religion. What are you going to put in its place? How are you going to comfort the bereaved? How are you going to fill the need?

I dealt with this in the last chapter of The God Delusion, ‘A Much Needed Gap’ and also, at more length, in Unweaving the Rainbow. Here I’ll make one additional point. Did you notice the patronizing condescension in the quotations I just listed? You and I, of course, are much too intelligent and well educated to need religion. But ordinary people, hoi polloi, the Orwellian proles, the Huxleian Deltas and Epsilon semi-morons, need religion.

The Nonbelievers - The Boston Globe, September 16, 2007

Over the past two years, Greg Epstein, 30, has become a kind of ministerial paradox, a member of the local clergy who disavows God, preaches to atheists and agnostics, and seeks to build the equivalent of a church for nonbelievers and others skeptical of or alienated by religion. A former lead singer of a rock band, he now serves as the humanist chaplain at Harvard University, one of a small but growing number of such chaplains for nonbelievers on college campuses. In his position, which is endowed, he has helped marry and bury fellow atheists. He has presided over baby-naming ceremonies and organized a “coming out” ceremony for a congressman, Representative Pete Stark of California, one of the few public officials to acknowledge he doesn’t believe in God. He also counsels students and approximates evangelizing by handing out pamphlets with the question: “Are you a humanist?”

Today, 12 percent of Americans surveyed age 20 and older describe themselves as not religious, up from 8 percent in 1987.

The publisher of Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything had printed some 300,000 copies less than two months after it went on sale this year. Other popular titles include evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion, of which there are more than a half million hardcover copies in print….

…unlike other humanists, many of whom argue that acceptance of even moderate views about religion legitimizes religious extremists, Epstein is more ecumenical in his atheism. He has even sparked controversy by criticizing more militant, religion-bashing atheists – in a press release promoting a conference on humanism last spring, his office referred to that group as “fundamentalists.”

James Fieser, David Hume — Writings on Religion [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

Although we find religious themes throughout Hume’s publications, the discussion here are largely restricted to six items: (1) “Of Miracles”, (2) “Of a Particular Providence and of a Future State”, (3) “The Natural History of Religion”, (4) Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, (5) “Of Suicide”, and, (6) “Of the Immortality of the Soul.”

Hume on Religion (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

David Hume’s various writings concerning problems of religion are among the most important and influential contributions on this topic. In these writings Hume advances a systematic, sceptical critique of the philosophical foundations of various theological systems. Whatever interpretation one takes of Hume’s philosophy as a whole, it is certainly true that one of his most basic philosophical objectives is to unmask and discredit the doctrines and dogmas of orthodox religious belief. There are, however, some significant points of disagreement about the exact nature and extent of Hume’s irreligious intentions. One of the most important of these is whether Hume’s sceptical position leads him to a view that can be properly characterized as “atheism”. Although this was a view that was widely accepted by many of Hume’s critics during his own lifetime, contemporary accounts have generally argued that this misrepresents his final position on this subject.

Dawkins, like Hitchens, fails to address the crucial point that people have slaughtered millions of their fellow human beings for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. Even if religion were to be eradicated from the human imagination, humans would still slaughter humans.

Bible belter - TLS Highlights - Times Online, September 5, 2007

Hitchens is especially good on the idiotic challenge “Stalin and Hitler were atheists, what d’you say to that?” – doubtless after plenty of practice. Stalin, Hitler and the others may not have been religious themselves, but they understood the ingrained religiosity of their subjects, and exploited it gratefully. Hitchens makes the point only briefly in the book, but he has enlarged upon it in later speeches and interviews:

The Reality Club: MORAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION, Edge, September, 2007

Michael Shermer:

Is religion a force for good or evil? Yes. And with the confirmation bias firmly ensconced in our brains—where we look for and find confirmatory evidence for what we already believe and ignore disconfirmatory evidence—it is simply a matter of scanning the social landscape and picking out examples to support whatever answer you have already formulated to this question.

On the good side, there is Arthur C. Brooks data in his 2006 book Who Really Cares, showing that religious conservatives donate 30 percent more money than liberals and nonreligious people even when controlled for income, they give more blood and log more volunteer hours; religious people are four times more generous than secularists to all charities, 10 percent more munificent to non-religious charities, and 57 percent more likely than a secularist to help a homeless person. Those raised in intact and religious families are more charitable than those who are not. In terms of societal health, charitable givers are 43 percent more likely to say they are “very happy” than nongivers, and 25 percent more likely than nongivers to say their health is “excellent” or “very good.”

On the evil side, there is Gregory Paul’s 2005 data published in the Journal of Religion and Society demonstrating an inverse correlation between religiosity measured by belief in God, biblical literalism, and frequency of prayer and service attendance and societal health measured by rates of homicide, suicide, childhood mortality, life expectancy, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, and teen pregnancy in 18 developed democracies, where the U.S. scores the highest in religiosity and the highest by far in homicides, STDs, abortions, and teen pregnancies.

In his thoughtful Edge essay Jonathan Haidt wrestles with this problem, correctly demonstrating that the response by atheists and secularists toward the insurgence of extreme religionists in American politics is more emotional than it is rational. Although I have been actively and emotionally involved in combating some of these religious intrusions into social life e.g., the teaching of intelligent design creationism in public school science classes, I find myself in agreement with Haidt in his conclusion that “every longstanding ideology and way of life contains some wisdom, some insights into ways of suppressing selfishness, enhancing cooperation, and ultimately enhancing human flourishing.”

Chien, The New Atheism, Znet, September 10, 2007

“This is atheism’s moment.” That according to David Steinberger, CEO of Perseus Books LLC, which recently signed Christopher Hitchens to edit a book of atheist readings for publication this fall. The book will come on the heels of Hitchens’ God is Not Great, the latest in a string of books critical of religion that have become modest bestsellers in recent years. As of June 2007 there were 296,000 copies in print of Hitchens’ book; 500,000 of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion; and 185,000 of Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation. Harris’ previous book The End of Faith was on the New York Times bestseller list for thirty-three weeks in 2004.

How could this happen in a country where upward of 80% majorities assert belief in God, Christ, and miracles? According to some booksellers, wanting to “know thine enemy” is partly why books have been selling even in the Bible Belt. But another dynamic may also be at work. Dawkins suggests that what John Stuart Mill wrote in the nineteenth century remains true today: “The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete skeptics in religion.” But in a highly religious culture, declaring oneself an atheist can be as difficult as open homosexuality was fifty years ago. Today, after the Gay Pride movement, 55% of Gallup respondents declare willingness to vote for a homosexual candidate: a lower percentage than those who would vote for a Catholic, African-American, woman, Mormon, or septuagenarian, but higher than the 45% who would vote for an atheist . Dawkins and others hope to help inspire an Atheist Pride movement, building a critical mass that would encourage closet non-believers to come out.

On Faith: Georgetown Blog, July 16, 2007

Query: Can an atheist or agnostic commentator discuss any aspect of religion for more than thirty seconds without referring to religious people as imbeciles, extremists, mental deficients, fascists, enemies of the common good, crypto-Nazis, conjure men, irrationalists, pedophiles, bearers of false consciousness, authoritarian despots, and so forth? Is that possible?

First, some basic definitions. Politically speaking, American secularism is made up of two overlapping, albeit distinct, constituencies. The first is comprised of the aforementioned nonbelievers whose best-selling spokespersons are fast becoming the soccer hooligans of reasoned public discourse. The second is much larger and much quieter. It encompasses religious Americans who favor strict Church/State Separation this they share with the nonbelievers.

Nonbelievers of late have been churning out loud, unsubtle, anti-religious manifestos. The world would be a better place, they all seem to suggest, if religion and all of its associated personnel were simply to disappear. In this regards the new nonbelievers seem stuck in the ‘90s—and by this I mean the 1890s. This calls attention to one glaring problem with atheism and agnosticism today: it lacks new ideas. The movement abounds in polemicists, but has not produced a thinker of real substance since perhaps the days of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Mazower reviews Sacred Causes, washingtonpost.com
Burleigh is nothing if not opinionated. He despises “sneering secularists” but is a considerable sneerer himself. Targets include “humanist radical eggheads,” “tenured radicals” who take a “vampiric interest in female students,” the “horde of bodgers and shysters” in the English construction trades and “dingy Irish theme pubs” with their “relentless, mindless gabbling.”

As the book moves on, jibes and bile clog the writing, and one has the sinking feeling of being cornered by the pub bore, ranting on about 60s swingers, the threat to European civilization, terrorists and trade unions — pretty much everything and everyone except the pope, Ronald Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher.

Religion and Violence by James Hitchcock, March 6, 2002
Religious believers are accustomed to being accused as perpetrators of intolerance and violence, and there is enough truth to such charges to take them to heart. At the same time it should be recognized that what is called religious strife is usually only partly that. The “religious wars” of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were at least as much about politics, with, for example, Catholic France supporting German Protestants in order to weaken the Catholic German emperor. Today it would be extremely simplistic to think that religion is all that fuels the strife in Northern Ireland or the Near East.