11 September 2010

Do "New Atheists" Ignore Liberal Religion?

[Note - this blog post started out as a reply to "Islam, Fear, and Lies" on Rev. Cyn's blog.]

Do the so-called "new atheists" ignore liberal religion? Do they uncritically condemn all religion by assuming that the most extreme religious fundamentalists are representative examples of religion in practice?

These are very common criticisms of the "new atheist" writers.

However, I don't think it's a matter of the so-called "new atheists" ignoring liberal religion.

It's simply a matter of liberal religion being so tiny in numbers and influence that's it's not relevant to the questions surrounding the harm that religion causes in modern society.

As a "first-order approximation," one can ignore the influence of liberal religion in the wider religious world.

I'm sure that any suggestion that liberal religious folks ignore our lack of religious influence that begins with the equivalent of "consider a spherical cow in vacuum ... " will be condemned as too simplistic.

But there is data to back up what I'm saying.

All one needs to do is look at the exit polling data after the California Proposition 8 vote that denied marriage equality for all California residents in 2008:

Protestants were supporting Proposition 8 (65% in favor vs. 35% against).

Catholics were supporting Proposition 8 (64% in favor vs. 36% against).

Contrast the majority of religious persons voting against against marriage equality with the "none" demographic group (no religious affiliation) -- they were 90% against Prop 8 and only 10% in favor of it.

Religion appears to interfere with the ideal of supporting justice, fairness, and equality for all citizens.

And having no religion seems to be much more helpful in promoting justice in this example.

Second, some of the so-called "new atheists" like Sam Harris think that the moderate and liberal religious members of the various religious traditions are ineffective at countering their religious fundamentalist co-religionists.

Here are a few passages from Sam Harris' book The End of Faith where he discusses this:
According to Gallup, 35 percent of Americans believe that the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of the Creator of the universe. Another 48 percent believe that it is the "inspired word of the same" ... still inerrant, though certain of its passages must be interpreted symbolically before their truth can be brought to light. Only 17 percent of us remain to doubt that a personal God, in his infinite wisdom, is likely to have authored this text or, for that matter, to have created the earth with its 250,000 species of beetles. Some 46 percent of Americans take a literalist view of creation (40 percent believe that God has guided creation over the course of millions of years). This means that 120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. If our polls are to be trusted, nearly 230 million Americans believe that a book showing neither unity of style nor internal consistency was authored by an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent deity. A survey of Hindus, Muslims, and Jews around the world would surely yield similar results, revealing that we, as a species, have grown almost perfectly intoxicated by our myths.
***
While moderation in religion may seem a reasonable position to stake out, in light of all that we have (and have not) learned about the universe, it offers no bulwark against religious extremism and religious violence. From the perspective of those seeking to live by the letter of the texts, the religious moderate is nothing more than a failed fundamentalist. He is, in all likelihood, going to wind up in hell with the rest of the unbelievers. The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism. We cannot say that fundamentalists are crazy, because they are merely practicing their freedom of belief; we cannot even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivaled. All we can say, as religious moderates, is that we don't like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. This is not a new form of faith, or even a new species of scriptural exegesis; it is simply a capitulation to a variety of all-too-human interests that have nothing, in principle, to do with God. Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance ... and it has no bona fides, in religious terms, to put it on a par with fundamentalism. The texts themselves are unequivocal: they are perfect in all their parts. By their light, religious moderation appears to be nothing more than an unwillingness to fully submit to God's law. By failing to live by the letter of the texts, while tolerating the irrationality of those who do, religious moderates betray faith and reason equally. Unless the core dogmas of faith are called into question ... i.e., that we know there is a God, and that we know what he wants from us ... religious moderation will do nothing to lead us out of the wilderness.
Finally, some "new atheists" like Greta Christina are concerned with religion from a philosophical point of view. Greta thinks that religion is faulty from an epistemological point of view. And she would raise this philosophical objection even with moderate and liberal religious voices like the United Church of Christ:
I think science and faith are mutually exclusive.

Now, before you jump down my throat: I think religious believers can be scientists, and good ones. The evidence for that is pretty obvious. Most scientists throughout history have been religious believers, and many scientists today are as well. I'm not saying that having religious faith means you can't be a scientist.

I'm saying that -- as approaches to life, as approaches to understanding reality and engaging with the world -- faith and science are radically different. Science is an approach to life and learning that is willing to question anything, give up any belief or opinion, if a preponderance of evidence contradicts it. Faith is an approach to life and learning that starts with an assumption that it isn't willing to discard. The more progressive faiths are willing to bend and change to adjust to reality; but the basic assumption -- the existence of God and the soul -- can't be relinquished if you're going to maintain the faith. It's an approach to life based on an assumption that's not only unproven, but unprovable. And it's an approach to life that says it's okay to make this big, unrelinquishable assumption about the nature of reality based entirely on tradition, authority, and personal intuition.

(That's an oversimplification -- of both faith and science -- but for the purposes of this post, it'll have to do.)

And if you're a scientist with religious faith, it's very likely that, at some point, your faith and your science are going to collide. And when/if it does, you're going to have to make a choice. You're going to have to decide which approach you value more.

(The big conflict in the 20th century was obviously evolution, colliding with the idea of life being designed. In the 21st century, I think the big conflict may be neuroscience, colliding with the idea of the soul.)
If most religious folks were religious liberals (e.g. Unitarian Universalist, United Church of Christ, Quaker, Reform Jewish, Ethical Culture, etc), Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Greta Christina, and other "new atheist" writers probably would not be the outspoken critics of religion that they are today. There might be much quieter philosophical objections but we wouldn't be seeing the large number of best-seller books.

We deceive ourselves and others when we object to the "new atheists" first-order approximation descriptions of religion by pointing to religious liberals as a counter-example.

9 comments:

DairyStateDad said...

A question:

Harris writes: The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism. We cannot say that fundamentalists are crazy, because they are merely practicing their freedom of belief; we cannot even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivaled. All we can say, as religious moderates, is that we don't like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us.

Has Harris spent any time actually talking to and listening to religious moderates?

I have heard very sharp criticism of fundamentalist theology in DairyStateMom's progressive Presbyterian church. The quote you present here seems to just demonstrate what Rev. Cyn was saying: that the NA's basically adopt the Fundamentalist version of doctrine and write off the moderates as not accurate representatives of the religion in question...

Steve Caldwell said...

DSD - I'm pretty sure that Sam Harris is aware of moderate and liberal religious voices.

The question here isn't one of liberal, moderate, or conservative versions of a religion being the most "authentic" version.

One should ask if moderate and liberal religion are effective responses to fundamentalist and conservative religion and the harmful effects that come from it.

Desmond Ravenstone said...

Good philosophical discussion, which prompts this question...

Have the "New Atheists" ever addressed nonreligious philosophies which can be as repressive and ridiculous as fundamentalist religion? I've yet to see it.

There are still some hard-core Ayn Rand followers, for example, who hold some rather antiquated beliefs about gender roles and sexuality. And what about white supremacists who base their beliefs not on religion but pseudoscience?

So, I wonder -- are they focusing on conservative/fundamentalist religion because (a) there's more wrong with it than with other groups, (b) they have a bigger impact than the other groups, (c) they're a bigger and therefore easier target, or some combination of the above?

Steve Caldwell said...

Desmond Ravenstone asked:
-snip-
"Have the 'New Atheists' ever addressed nonreligious philosophies which can be as repressive and ridiculous as fundamentalist religion? I've yet to see it."

Ask and you shall find:

"What Can the Atheist Movement Learn from the Gay Movement?"
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2010/02/what-can-the-atheist-movement-learn-from-the-gay-movement.html

Greta's article is based on talk she gave at a conference where she talked about the lessons that the atheist movement can learn from from the post-Stonewall GLBT movement's mistakes regarding gender and racial inclusion.

And PZ Myers routinely writes about non-religious "fundamentalisms" like libertarianism including the worshipping of greed and selfishness that happpens all too often:

"Rarely have I been so thoroughly misconstrued"
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/09/rarely_have_i_been_so_thorough.php

"A taxonomy of libertarians"
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/a_taxonomy_of_libertarians.php

And PZ has also addressed racism and sexism as well in his writing:

"Stereotyping women right out of science"
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/stereotyping_women_right_out_o.php

"Lessons learned from Breitbart and Sherrod"
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/lessons_learned_from_breitbart.php

Steve Caldwell said...

Desmond asked:
-snip-
"are they focusing on conservative / fundamentalist religion because (a) there's more wrong with it than with other groups, (b) they have a bigger impact than the other groups, (c) they're a bigger and therefore easier target, or some combination of the above?"

Desmond,

The so-called "new atheist" movement became more vocal after 9/11.

Perhaps these writers were thinking that religious extremism had become an issue that could not be ignored.

At least that's my speculation.

Jim said...

"One should ask if moderate and liberal religion are effective responses to fundamentalist and conservative religion and the harmful effects that come from it."

Liberal religion does not, and in my opinion ought not, exist as a response to any other religious movement. We need to be here to transform ourselves and the world, not to serve as a counterbalance for fundamentalists. If we conceive of ourselves only as movement that exists in response to another movement, then we are selling ourselves short. And, if that is the case, then our irrelevance is clear and is clearly our own fault.

DairyStateDad said...

DSD - I'm pretty sure that Sam Harris is aware of moderate and liberal religious voices.

Well I see no evidence of it from what he says about us. The only evidence I see is of his own imagination about what liberal and moderate religious voices have to say, or don't have to say.

That's why I asked the question.

Also: what Jim said (above).

Steve Caldwell said...

DairyStateDad wrote:
-snip-
"Well I see no evidence of it from what he says about us. The only evidence I see is of his own imagination about what liberal and moderate religious voices have to say, or don't have to say."

DSD,

You may want to check out the archives of the UU World magazine online:

"Does tolerance disarm religious liberals?

The author of 'The End of Faith' has good news and bad news for Unitarian Universalists."
http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/5817.shtml

Here's a short passage from this article:

Does Harris’s criticism extend to Unitarian Universalism? Since he doesn’t mention our denomination in his book, I called him to find out. His initial response was comforting. “If I could wave a magic wand and make everyone a Unitarian Universalist,” he began, “I’d be tempted to do so, because I doubt that people would then fly planes into buildings, blow up children at street corners, or bend U.S. foreign policy to conform with biblical prophecy.”

He also acknowledges that on a purely pragmatic basis our being part of what is loosely called the faith community may be a strength, since “to the extent that UUs are extending a universal respect to all of the diverse faiths, you may be able to take part in the [interfaith] dialogue.” However, he adds, “we can talk about ethics and spirituality without ever referencing our ancient faith-based traditions. We have to grow out of the religion business and talk about what is true ethically and spiritually.” To do less is “morally and intellectually suspect.”

As for the common UU notion that all faiths share an ethical core, he says: “Religious liberals tend to believe . . . that if only you consulted the holy books more closely, if you read the Qur’an or the Bible as they should be read, that you would come out with a moderate theology. They believe that people like Osama bin Laden and Pat Robertson have distorted their respective religions. I don’t think there is a shred of evidence for that.”

“Insofar as you’re reluctant to criticize irrationality and sectarianism,” he adds, “you’re not offering what wisdom and rationality you could offer. No one is winning any points for holding their tongue, and to the extent that you are reluctant to offer a religious counterpoint, you are conceding the field to the dogmatists. Your position is that all religious traditions can be seen in a universalist light, that we should emphasize the common virtues of peace and justice and fair play. But there is a limit to that kind of discourse because there are beliefs that lead people to blow themselves up in public and those that don’t, and that distinction is becoming extraordinarily relevant.”

Jim said...

One of the assumptions (a wildly erroneous one, in my opinion) in the quote above is that a rational critique of extremism is going to keep people from blowing themselves up. You're not going to meet with much success if you try to reason with someone who is firmly convinced that God wants them to blow themselves up. I really don't think we're going to change many fundamentalists' minds by presenting rational arguments about why they are wrong. And I don't think that changing fundamentalists' minds should be our major concern anyway. We certainly do need to articulate and advocate for rational behaviors and policies, but the most pressing need in the world right now is meaningful and compassionate engagement across all kinds of divisions.