On fundamentalism
Curious about the latest rash of misrepresentations of Dawkins, I’ve been re-reading The God Delusion in order to compare what he says with what people like John Cornwell and Mark Vernon claim he says.
First of all there’s the ‘he ignores sophisticated theology’ complaint, the ‘God is not an old guy in the sky, God is the ground of all fzzzwrkklppp’ complaint. He says right at the outset that he’s not talking about the more rarefied or ‘sophisticated’ ideas of god. Page 20:
My title, The God Delusion, does not refer to the God of Einstein and the other enlightened scientists…In the rest of this book I am talking only about supernatural gods, of which the most familiar to the majority of my readers will be Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament.
That’s what the book is about – so the grandiloquent but empty oratory of Terry Eagleton and Chris Hedges is simply thrown away, because irrelevant.
Then there’s the question of hostility, and the tension between religion and science, and whether it makes sense to call him a ‘fundamentalist atheist.’ Page 284:
As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.
That’s not a fundamentalist thing to say – it’s an inherently and searchingly antifundamentalist thing to say. Fundamentalists are not interested in changing our minds or in wanting to know all possible exciting things that are available to be known. It’s a perversion of meaning and of argument to claim that someone who defends the value of changing our minds and of wanting to know exciting things is a fundamentalist. It’s such a fundamental perversion of meaning that it’s hard not to suspect bad intentions.
Then there’s the issue of ‘moderate’ religion making the world safe for the other kind. Page 286:
Fundamentalist religion is hell-bent on ruining the scientific education of countless thousands of innocent, well-meaning, eager young minds. Non-fundamentalist, ‘sensible’ religion may not be doing that. But it is making the world safe for fundamentalism by teaching children, from their earliest years, that unquestioning faith is a virtue.
He could have worded that last sentence differently – he could have said ‘But it is making the world safe for fundamentalism to the extent that it teaches children, from their earliest years, that unquestioning faith is a virtue’ – and that would have been better, because it may be the case that some ‘sensible’ religion doesn’t teach children that unquestioning faith is a virtue. But I think the basic idea is reasonable, and probably right, and well worth pointing out at a time when the word ‘faith’ is valorized all over the damn place.
This is not to say that the book is without flaws; I don’t think it is. I think in the effort to reach a broad audience, Dawkins uses a demotic language which sometimes becomes merely vulgar. But all the same, so far I’ve found quite a few passages that simply say the opposite of what Cornwell and Vernon and Alibhai-Brown claim he says.
From what I’ve seen, many of the more moderate forms of religion teach that having a questioning faith is a virtue. You are encouraged to doubt and be uncertain, but only so it’s doubly clear that your faith is because you want to believe. It’s hard, b ut you do it anyway. And that sort of tentative faith — hope — is a reaching out to God, and a virtue. They see themselves therefore quivering humbly in the moderate middle ground between strident people who must be so very sure of themselves, to find themselves on an end of the spectrum.
On the positive side, those with a Questioning Faith usually seem more tolerant of atheists and other unbelievers in some ways — they consider them intellectually respectable. On the negative side, the emphasis on “hope” and the importance of the desire to believe sometimes tends to make them devalue the emotional maturity of the atheist. I noticed that many of the reviews of Dawkins seemed to do exactly that — grant him intellectual props but sniff over a perceived lack of sensitivity to the importance of moderation.
Not too much God, but not no God at all — just a bit God, balanced out nice. Anything else is extremist — read “fundamentalist.”
I would also ask the “Questioners” what they base their questioning, quavering faith on. Looking within the Book itself: Except for a very very few stories, the Bible is full of certainty. Jonah is TORTURED by the oh so loving Jehovah, basically just so he can prove to that evil Devil that God has his children properly obedient. One little wavering look back at her home for decades, bam, Lot’s wife is a pillar of salt.
I think the questioners have absolutely no grounds on which to base their “faith.” They contradict and ignore the fundamental foundational stories of their own religion.
I was thinking mostly of people who are religious for reasons other than ‘faith’ – social, ethnic, communitarian, historical, cultural – reasons of that kind. A sub-set of the ‘moderate religious.’
OB – Regarding your list of “Others”, errr…how exactly would you tell the difference?
Obviously, if someone says “I only go along with it so that all the religious people don’t set fire to my business and harm my family” [only hypothetical, naturally – can’t think of any supernaturalists who’d ever stoop so low… :-) ], then they’d be a pretty clear non-faith “other”, but aren’t the rest of ’em a bit harder to separate from that fuzzy, “warm feeling” ‘faith-lite’ (now comes abomination-free!) that many people seem to cherish – you know, the go to church at major festivals, weddings, funerals & christenings, vague belief in some sort of a deity folk?
And what about those “interesting” people who don’t subscribe to any branch of theology, but staunchly believe in “angels”?
apologies if I’m simply failing to understand the point. It’s very early in the morning, and I should really try to ignore the insomnia and GO TO BED!!
:-)
Andy, well, you wouldn’t, but you wouldn’t really need to, not for the purposes of this discussion. We’re talking about Dawkins’s argument here rather than specific policy; we’re talking about how we think about moderate religion rather than about how we act towards it. It just seemed to me that some moderate religion actually eschews faith altogether –
but to tell the truth I suppose it’s nevertheless my view that even purely social religion gives respectability to the other kind, so it’s still not something I would want to flatter and suck up to a whole lot. So I don’t insist on the point.
G. I dont realy see what a moderate christian like the Arch bishop of Canturbury(for example) is supposed to do to distance his church from waco types like Fred Phelps,does he have to denounce fundamentalism every time he makes any kind of public statement? I think it is more likely that moderate denominations dont do this because in the past that sort of thing has led to anti semetism and anti catholic sentiment being given the stamp of approval by the church.
It is fairly obvious that Cornwall has not actually read Dawkins’ book – as evinced a couple of threads back by someone saying, effectively: “mine’s got misprints in it!”
I am, as previously stated, thoroughly pissed-off with the christians (etc), because they won’t leave me in peace, but for people like Cornwall to claim that we have arrogant certainty is only too obviously self-delusion, at the very least (as well as being total bullshit).
The only people round here whom I meet with total certainty are the christians, whoi anwer all attempts to debate with “Jesus loves you – refuse to answer any questions, and behave so badly that you want to emulate the emperor Diocletion …..
Similarly with the fascists calling faor “khalifah” – god is great, and there is no debate to be had.
Meanwile, WE are being called “militant”, merely because we are asking awkward questions, and refusing to go back into our closet.
I think that Dawkins’ reiterated statements that we should be in the business of “consciousness-raising”, following the exampkes of other groups (women, gays) who were (and are) persecuted is probably one reason the religious are shouting so loudly – they possibly realise that they may be on the way to defeat – and are doing their best to stop what they see as the rot, before it is too late.
“He says right at the outset that he’s not talking about the more rarefied or ‘sophisticated’ ideas of god.”
OB forgive me but I don’t believe that the quote you provide refers to this “sophisticated” God, the God of theologians. This God, we are assured ad nauseum, bears as much comparison to the Personal Chum of the vast majority of the faithful as axiomatic set theory does to childhood maths problems featuring apples and oranges.
I was grateful when a previous commenter actually provided me with the names of a couple of books describing this God. They were by Arab scholars so I assume they do not refer to the God of Christ. But I digress…
The reason the God Of Smart People is important is that he is used in a bait-and-switch during debate. The existence of the God Of Smart People and of terribly complex and impressive proofs for Him are asserted, and then quickly the divinity of Christ and personal contact with The Lord during prayer are sneaked in under their cover.
Dawkins tackles the arguments of the God Of Smart People later in the book. Some of the responses are quite funny. Any one would disprove the claims of ignorance made by would-be Smart People. Naming no dsquareds.
Can I express general approval for posts in this thread without attacking anyone?
Nah, bugger it.
I approve distinguishing the intellectuallised ‘god’ as bait and switch. I approve recognising the degrees of faith-lite to be different from fundamentalism. I approve recognising social and other reasons for being in the church, and agree that it gives cover to wacky faith-based arguments.
And I like Andy’s nod at the ‘undifferentiatedly spiritual’ believers in angels.
If I can make a suggestion, preventing teaching bullsh1t as science, language or history in schools should be a top priority. To me it seems the majority needed to prevent it must include a LOT of those ‘moderate faith people’ (at least if what you say about anti-atheist climate in the US is so).
If so, creating a dividing line in popular ethical values between evidence-based ideas and the ‘other kinds’ is probably more important than dividing intellectually pure uncloseted atheists from contaminating sunday-only social christians and the like.
Richard, I think you’ll find that it was David Koresh that was the ‘waco’ type. And why the hell would pointing out that the views of the obviously mentally ill Fred Phelps are the antithesis of what christian’s claim to be their message (something about love, I seem to recall) lead to anti-semitism or anti anything.
Of course the problem’s not that they can’t do that (they do) but that it doesn’t work.
It seems to me that what the likes of Mark Vernon, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and the rest of the “I’m-reasonable-you’re-millitant” crew are defending above all is their own personal status.
Their columnist ‘brands’ are based on them having something interesting to say to the rest of us by virtue of their personal beliefs. It is great for their careers that religion has become such a topic of general interest. But unfortunately, for them their ‘smart people’s’ version of god and religion – all humbleness and doubt – bears absolutely no resemblance to the recognizable world of religion which impacts on public life, and is likely to be about as interesting to most people as their progress in yoga, or their love of gardening.
Nevermind, a bit of sleight-of-hand and the old magicians trick of misdirection – “Look at Richard Dawkins!” and they make the switch.
So Yasmin Alibhai-Brown makes great play of being a Muslim but never says what this means she believes. Similarly Mark Vernon isn’t really agnostic about Jehovah, Jesus, Allah, Zeus and the rest of them, but about an unknowable god who doesn’t have any opinions on abortion, schooling, the State of Israel, stem cells or anything at the boundaries between religion and public life which is where these columnists ply their trade.
dirigible – eh?
‘OB forgive me but I don’t believe that the quote you provide refers to this “sophisticated” God, the God of theologians.’
It refers to it in order to say it’s not the God under discussion – just as your next sentence says. I think one of us is confused. I’m not sure which one!
Tingey –
I’ve just checked my email. Listen (read) carefully – pay attention. Don’t ever, ever again send a third party an abusive email in which you put “B&W” in the subject line and quote something I said as a concluding question followed by an impertinent “Well?”
I’m going to have to send Mark Vernon an apology now – in which I will of course say that I’m not responsible for and I don’t endorse the atrocious manners of every random putz who reads my comments.
If you want to send abusive emails to people you don’t know, don’t drag me into it and don’t borrow my words; use your own. Yes I realize I write better than you do, but that’s just too bad, it doesn’t give you license to pretend that I go along with your credulity-straining rudeness.
Of course you can always go on doing such things without cc-ing me – but the recipients are quite likely to email me in protest, so I probably will find out about it.
Your name is mud around here, buddy. I’d piss off if I were you – after an abject apology.
(Why am I doing this in public? As a warning – to anyone else who might get an abusive email from you. I might do the same thing on the main page, for the same reason.)
Aha – that last sentence is crucial. Well spotted, G.
G. the reason we had this argument before and now is because however eloquently you say it I do not acept that moderate christians enable fundamentalist christians,even if they did what can they do about it?I used the anti semetism and anti catholic example to explain why the church in this country is reticent to condem other denominations, I share a common label of human (almost) does that mean I am enabling my fellow humans bad acts? because you seem to say that because christians share a label they give cover for the lunatic element. Politicians make warm and fuzy statements about faith does that mean they are giving cover for self exploding moslems?
I will concede that belief on faith rather than reason is a problem.
“Politicians make warm and fuzy statements about faith does that mean they are giving cover for self exploding moslems?”
In a sense, yes – when it is in the power of those who head modern, secular societies to denounce the role of faith in bringing people to such extremes of lunacy, and yet they choose, see the thread above, to continue to actively propagate the idea that such faith [and in some cases, faith which seems not much more than a whisker divided from the ideas of the loony killers] is a positive good, a panacea for social ills, no less.
So yes, it is their fault too. This is the bizarre double-bind that the UK govt in particular has put this country in – no. 1 military and political ally/lapdog of the Great Satan, AND no. 1 European shelter of militant Muslims, and facilitator of faith-based militancies of all kinds.
OB – It’s most likely me. My point is/was/would be that the God of theologians *is* supernatural, unlike the God of enlightened scientists, and it is this theological God that Eagleton et al are defending. Unless I am completely confused, in which case I apologize.
Richard: I used the anti semetism and anti catholic example to explain why the church in this country is reticent to condem other denominations
Ah, I see. But there’s a problem here, insofar as I’d be perfectly happy to see moderate Christians simply show a little willingness to criticize fundamentalist CHRISTIANS. Ditto for Muslims. They rarely do, you know.
And I readily admit that any criticism whatsoever of any religious group always results in knee-jerk accusations of anti-something prejudice (Islamophobia being the new favorite rhetorical move in such debates), no matter how clearly the criticism is based on reason and evidence and is directed towards actual behaviors and policies rather than against believers as such. So what? False accusations of prejudice are a very common complaint when ANYONE is criticized for ANYTHING. Going out of one’s way to avoid such false accusations seems like a pretty lame excuse to never, ever criticize.
Richard: I share a common label of human (almost) does that mean I am enabling my fellow humans bad acts?
Blatant false analogy, Richard. Being human isn’t a bad thing. I’ve given a pretty clear argument for why faith IS a bad thing. So the comparison is not at all relevant or appropriate.
Also, I never said it was *simply* a matter of sharing a label. It is the frequent use of rhetoric which deliberately declares the unity of all “people of faith” that so many so-called moderate religionists engage in that leads me to say that they aid and abet the fundamentalists. I also specifically and clearly talked about the frequent cooperation of so-called moderates with fundamentalists on faith-driven politics such as anti-gay legislation, and “hate speech” statutes that amount to nothing more than special protection from criticism for religion. Go read what I said again. And this time, try not to pick out just tiny bits and pieces to object to, and instead look at the whole of the argument.
Richard: I do not acept that moderate christians enable fundamentalist christians…
Well, I gave multiple lines of argument that moderate Christians (and Muslims, and Jews, and Hindus, etc.) do in fact aid and abet their fundamentalist co-faithful. Above, Dave gives another fine argument showing how politicians do in fact aid and abet fundamentalists with their fuzzy pro-faith blather. So if you don’t have any actual counter-arguments in answer to these arguments – and so far all you’ve done is provide empty rhetoric, no actual counter-claims or criticisms – then your refusal to accept the conclusion is itself a a faith position: Evidence and reason show that your position is false, but you have decided to believe it anyway. So if you concede that belief on faith rather than reason is a problem, that puts you in a bit of a bind, dunnit?
..,even if they did what can they do about it?
That, at least, is a legitimate question. For one, religious moderates can stop using and promoting the “people of faith” rhetoric and instead try to draw clear distinctions between themselves and the fundamentalists. They can openly talk about the dangers of rigid dogmatism in matters of faith instead of not mentioning it at all: Of course, they do not do so because that would open them up to legitimate criticism of their areas of dogmatism: But if religious moderates are SERIOUS when they declare that they aren’t like fundamentalists, they should be able to stand up to a little reasoned criticism.
Also, instead of allying with the fundamentalist conservative religious organizations, which they too often do, religious moderates could instead keep the hell out of politics and vocally support the separation of church and state. Only a tiny minority of religious organizations/denominations vocally support the separation of church and state, too few and too quietly.
Of course, by virtue of being religious and embracing/promoting faith as a good thing, religious moderates will always be in the position of giving *some* political & cultural cover to fundamentalists. If you agree that belief based on faith rather than reason is a real problem, then you ought to also agree that promoting faith is a real problem – and be willing to criticize religious moderates for doing so. Clearly, one reason for criticizing even religious moderates is that they are in fact embracing and promoting something – faith – that is bad for humanity, individually and collectively, for all the reasons discussed in this and recent threads.
But another reason for criticism is the cover that moderates provide for their fundamentalist co-religionists. When religious moderates declare that believing claims because you simply want them to be true rather than because reason and evidence leads you to conclude that they are true is a good and noble thing to do – that’s what the phrase ‘valorizing faith’ really means – then they make themselves the opponents of everyone who points out that it is the FAITH of fundamentalists which leads them to hold and rigidly cling to so many beliefs that are not only false, but downright dangerous.
As long as fundamentalists cite faith as their primary motivation for holding harmful, bigoted, or simply ludicrous beliefs, then every time moderates promote or defend faith and faith beliefs as such, then they are also necessarily promoting and defending even the harmful, bigoted, ludicrous faith beliefs of the fundamentalists. No, the moderates don’t share the same beliefs in terms of content. But they validate the way those beliefs are arrived at, by faith, and so their promotion and defense of faith itself does in fact promote and defend the fundamentalists’ faith beliefs as well.
Thus, the true answer to what religious moderates could do to stop providing any cover whatsoever to fundamentalists is to stop being religious – or at least, adopt a form of religion that does not feature faith. (Buddhists have nothing to do with faith for the most part, and ditto for Unitarian Universalists.) Obviously, of course, that’s not going to happen, and I’d be happy to see them adopt some of the lesser steps I pointed out above. But just because some person or group is not willing to change some harmful position or action is not a reason for anyone to stop criticizing them for the harm they do. So I will continue to criticize fundamentalist religionists for the direct harms they do, and also criticize moderate religionists for the ways they aid and abet the fundamentalists.
G. This is probably my fault for not being clear enough in my position,the reason I only take isue with a small part of your argument is because I only disagree with that part of your argument,I view christianity as positive influence on western culture rather than a negative and destructive one. e.g. during the Thatcher years there were countless attempts to bring back the revolting pratice of hanging,the church was a very staunch critic of this and probably swayed enough tories to make sure that this practice was not reinstated,(it came close at one time 15 votes I think)I am not sure if you realise just how the shadow of the holocaust still effects discourse of religion in this country and many other nations in europe and is probably why these stupid speech laws are supported by the church. Thank you for your first rate answers they provide me with a lot of food for thought but I dont think I will ever be convinced on the moderate christians giving cover to fundamentalists.