Let’s not attack religion
06Jul. 09
For those that know me, the prospect of my ever writing an article with such a title would generally be considered to be on a par with a certain chilly meteorological event happening in the nethermost infernal regions. But hear me out.
I was listening yesterday to PZ Myers being interviewed on a UK Christian radio show called Unbelievable? The topic was around the inherent incompatibility of science and religion, and his opponent (or conversationalist) in the debate was a pleasant enough chap who simply didn’t understand what all the fuss was about, and why on earth should the “New Atheists” be getting so worked up?
Personally, I think that the whole “New Atheists” thing is simply a derogatory smokescreen thrown up to confuse the argument — sandbox your opponent and you’re halfway there — and you could tell that PZ was becoming increasingly frustrated with the conversation. He was as lucid and rational as ever, but it was like he was trying to punch fog.
I think that the “science vs religion” debate has stalled to the point where it can’t continue in any meaningful or productive manner. Why? Because the definitions are too blunt and too broad. Perhaps not from the perspective of scientists, but trying to land solid punches on “religion” is doomed, because religion is far too rough a concept. You can have two people who believe utterly different things, don’t agree with each other about anything and yet who are still both religious. As atheists if we want to argue against their position, we increasingly find that we have to use lowest common factor arguments in order to have any relevance. And I don’t believe that this approach works.
Here, I line up with Sam Harris’ argument that atheist is too blunt and instrument to bring into the debate. Our opponents are so disparate and believe such a wide array of gumpf that trying to present a consistent anti-thesist case will almost always fall flat.
Not that it’s not important to tackle specific beliefs when specific beliefs are the key issue. But have you noticed that the faithful don’t like being tackled about what it is they actually believe? And when we try to pin them down we’re accused of having a simplistic understanding of what it means to be religious.
OK then — no more attacking religion (except for whenever an opportunity too good to miss arises!). And no more science vs religion arguments. Let’s bring it back to basics — what’s the one ability which any decent scientist has to have? The ability to reason. And what’s the one thing which is common to all religious people, regardless of what they actually believe? Faith.
On a day-to-day basis, scientists have to reason — they have to figure out where their work is taking them, how to get there and what the implications are. Of course scientists are people too and can make mistakes, fail to follow up on findings correctly or allow their personal biases to get in the way. But the inherent failsafes of the scientific method are geared to smooth out these bumps in the road over time.
As for people of faith, no matter how intelligent, reasonable or rational they may be, at some point they will come up against a particular precept or dogma which has absolutely nothing to back it up, support it, or otherwise indicate its veracity — it may be (and probably will be) utterly counter-intuitive and contrary to all the evidence. And in order to remain faithful, they will have to believe it. Jesus was born of a virgin, Mohammed rode on a flying horse, Joseph Smith wasn’t a spectacular fraud, Scientology really has something going for it…
The argument isn’t between science and religion, it’s between reason and faith. So as rationalists, skeptics and atheists lets not get dragged into the wrong fight.
Tags: atheism, faith, James Bannan, Pharyngula, PZ Myers, reason, Religion, Sam Harris
July 6th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
James this is an excellent post.
I prefer to take the approach of educating about religion, as appose to attacking religion. Of course sometimes attacking is necessary or too good to pass up as you say, and some may have seen my debate with Professor Batterham on the this site as attacking but that was not my idea. I simply wanted to inform about the current scholarly consensus. I think you will find, if you can establish common ground in debate i.e. in this case evidence destroys the need for faith, then you may get your opponent to be a lot more open minded. That is just my experience. I’m not sure if you place disagreeing in the same basket as attacking ones faith, but i suspect one will find if the ‘argument’ is approached in the right way much progress can be made.
Admittedly, and as brilliant as they are, the New Atheists do me and other scientists who happen to be studying theology (in a non-pious manner) no favours by being so attacking. Attacking religious folk tends to make them more steadfast and less open to reasoning however, in many HUGE cases dialogue and disagreement worked wonders. Take for example to Roman Catholic stance on things like the dating of the Book of Daniel and evolution. When the church was presented with the scholarly evidence on the date of the Book of Daniel, it may have seemed as though their faith was being attacked but the realised the evidence was far to strong and changed their teaching.
I do think, however, the idea of faith needs to be ‘attacked’. Those who haven’t thought about it too deeply may miss the inherent illogic in having faith, as i did for 20 years of my life, especially in the light of current evidence.
I feel you may be underestimating the strength of dialogue even if it is only in the form of blogging. Sprouting from the Jesus Seminar a new group of the worlds leading NT scholars have assembled to discuss the historicity of Jesus. Called the Jesus Project, the worlds best are starting from the basics by working out what methods for establishing historicity actually work and then applying those methods to the historicity of Jesus. What’s more all these scholars disagree vehemently with one another but they all have 1 thing in common, high standards of evidence which is perhaps where they differ from the lay Christian.
I guess my point is, discussion is important but one must use the utmost amount of discernment and be careful not to come off as attacking. I understand PZ’s frustration i really do, but if the Richard Carriers of the world can get their ideas across in one piece then i think there is still hope.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Hey Firefly — thanks for the feedback, and I’m glad you liked the article.
I do agree that discussion and discourse is probably the best track to take to take, although I do find that I side with the likes of Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and Shermer quite strongly, and I’m encouraged by their wit, perceptiveness and ability to argue convincingly.
An interesting thing to consider about the New Atheists is that they’re only “new” compared with the older generation of philosophical atheists who didn’t know as much about the world as we do now, thanks to scientists’ ability to discover new things about the fabric of our existence, and the intelligence of non-scientists to understand the implications of what they’ve discovered.
And one other thing which I do think is important is that although it’s seen as confrontational in nature, that style of debate does have the advantage of raising the bar, putting the most ludicrous non-rational arguments on the back foot (if not destroying them completely) and creating a space in which reasoned discourse can take place. It’s like a healthy and robust clean sweep, after which we can sit down and say “Now that that rubbish is off the table, what would you like to talk about?”
But regardless of which approach you take, it’s a fascinating time, and I can’t get enough of it :-)
July 7th, 2009 at 9:29 am
I find myself siding with the NA also, i feel like a simpleton among intellectual giants when it comes to those guys. I saw Shermer at Melbourne uni last year on Why Darwin Matters, truly admirable and encapsulating.
Fascinating time indeed my friend!
July 7th, 2009 at 10:42 am
I think for the average Christian you should take baby steps. First find out what they know and dont know before getting into specific arguments, unless they start one. I have found that the Christians i have met have spent almost no time thinking about atheism and about the same with their own faith. They just live it. When i was talking to a few friends the best they could come up with was that the universe had to have been created and that scientists dont know everything. On discussing hell their church believes that hell is just the absence of God. Pretty lame arguments so i decided to stay pretty broad and discuss a bit of histirocity. I will wait for them to ask me stuff.