The latest IPCC report's "summary for policymakers" on climate change came out a few days ago. I downloaded it and have been working my way through it. You can download it for yourself from the IPCC's main website (look under "The AR4 Synthesis Report" mid-way down the page). Given that many have criticized this latest IPCC report for perhaps not being bold enough, it is quite striking how serious the projected outcomes and scenarios are. (It also does a good job of demonstrating the human contribution to global warming, by the way, with helpful pie charts of greenhouse gas [GHG] contributions from various sources, continental temperature trends, etc.) I'm sure there will be more insights to come from this report--and I encourage readers to comment on them here--but I would like to focus on just one thing that caught my eye. I noticed under "Examples of some projected regional impacts" (p. 10), that some noticeable effects on food production are expected ALREADY BY 2020. While most effects, in all areas, are negative for human welfare, there are some exceptions. For example, while Africa is expected to see 75-250 million people under water stress and up to a 50% reduction in rainfed agriculture by 2020, in that same period the rainfall-based portion of North America may actually experience short-term increased yields of 5-20% in the aggregate due to warming. This inequitable pair of outcomes seems especially cruel and ironic given that we North Americans have been far greater contributors to global warming than most Africans. Of course, even North America is expected to face some problems in the short term, such as droughts and decreased mountain snowfall (the main source for irrigation-based agriculture) in the West--not to mention heat waves, coastal impacts, and health consequences. But I find it a great tragedy that the poorest (and lowest GHG emitting) regions of the world may suffer the most, just when the need for action will be greatest in the industrialized world. I had heard about this before, but it was sobering to see it spelled out in the IPCC report summary.
Over the long term, of course, the consequences seem quite unequivocally dire for the entire planet, if dramatic action is not taken. I hope that we can all remember during this holiday season the natural world that we have (as a gift from God, if you are religious, like me) to be caretakers of. Maybe for this Thanksgiving, we should give thanks that our planet can still support human life.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Thursday, November 08, 2007
The Perils of Demonizing Religious People (Muslim Version)
Before another craven, clueless right-wing politician utters the phrase "Islamofascist" again...please, please, please, I hope that person reads Middle East scholar Juan Cole's recent article in The Nation, "Combating Muslim Extremism". Cole is responding to the recent resurgence of anti-Muslim bigotry among many of the G.O.P. presidential contenders.
For those still unswayed by the basic principles of fairness, tolerance, and avoiding group stereotyping, perhaps the following argument from Cole's article might be worth pondering: "The Republicans are playing Russian roulette with America's future with their bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric. Muslims may constitute as much as a third of humankind by 2050, forming a vast market and a crucial labor pool. They will be sitting on the lion's share of the world's energy resources. The United States will increasingly have to compete with emerging rivals such as China and India for access to those Muslim resources and markets, and if its elites go on denigrating Muslims, America will be at a profound disadvantage during the next century."
Nothing like a good business argument for the Republicans, right? But Cole's article offers much more in the way of data and analysis to put everything into better perspective. And, seriously, I believe that Cole is absolutely right that we Americans will all suffer the long-term consequences of this reckless, short-term political posturing by the men who (shudder) want to convince us they are fit to be the next President. (Giuliani seems to the worst, from recent statements.) This situation is way beyond when I thought it could be settled by pointing out the obvious--that Islamofascism is a ridiculous, incoherent phrase--and it is now devolving into a stubborn presence in that netherworld where ignorance and ambition combust in a spectacular display for the crazy remnant of loyal Bush supporting Republicans who constitute the party's core.
For those still unswayed by the basic principles of fairness, tolerance, and avoiding group stereotyping, perhaps the following argument from Cole's article might be worth pondering: "The Republicans are playing Russian roulette with America's future with their bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric. Muslims may constitute as much as a third of humankind by 2050, forming a vast market and a crucial labor pool. They will be sitting on the lion's share of the world's energy resources. The United States will increasingly have to compete with emerging rivals such as China and India for access to those Muslim resources and markets, and if its elites go on denigrating Muslims, America will be at a profound disadvantage during the next century."
Nothing like a good business argument for the Republicans, right? But Cole's article offers much more in the way of data and analysis to put everything into better perspective. And, seriously, I believe that Cole is absolutely right that we Americans will all suffer the long-term consequences of this reckless, short-term political posturing by the men who (shudder) want to convince us they are fit to be the next President. (Giuliani seems to the worst, from recent statements.) This situation is way beyond when I thought it could be settled by pointing out the obvious--that Islamofascism is a ridiculous, incoherent phrase--and it is now devolving into a stubborn presence in that netherworld where ignorance and ambition combust in a spectacular display for the crazy remnant of loyal Bush supporting Republicans who constitute the party's core.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Take America Back
Since Barak Obama is looking for new ways to invigorate him presidential campaign, I have some advice. The new take on Iran is a good start. But something bigger is what you need, and the country needs it too.
If I were a candidate (and I'm ready to form an exploratory committee if anyone out there asks me to, and gives me hundreds of millions of dollars), I would pledge to undo the Bush presidency. Virtually anything he's done, I would overturn. My presidency would take America back, policy-wise, to at least 1998, and in many areas we'd go back much further.
I know this is not the kind of rhetoric you politicians favor these days, with all the talk about the 'new economy,' and how we need a 'new politics' for the 21st century. But many of the things progressives want to do in the next decade or two are things the United States used to do pretty well. We used to have a more progressive tax structure. We used to have an economy that provided more secure livings to a broad middle class. We used to actually regulate industry and business to help ensure safe practices and products. We used to have fairly strong unions. In foreign policy, we used to work with large coalitions of other nations to promote mutual interests, and took a leading role in organizations like the United Nations.
I could go on with this list, but the point is: Why can't we go back to doing these things again? At the top of my list of things to undo would be Bush's disastrous war in Iraq and his steady erosion of civil liberties and rule of law. After we begin to restore our international reputation in these areas, I think we need a 'truth and reconciliation' commission to look into all the areas of government that the Bush administration has worked so assiduously to cover with secrecy. It's important for political and policy reasons that the public know as soon as possible just what these people have been up to in their eight years in power. We have to show that we've restored accountability to our political system, and we have to find out what hidden policies remain for us to undo.
Certainly, there are some areas of policy where the solution can't be found in our own history. The health care problem is the biggest one I can think of. But other countries have dealt rather effectively with their citizens' health care needs, and we could definitely learn from what they've been doing successfully for decades.
Together, these restorations of former policies will, I believe, restore something much larger that we have lost in the last eight years: a sense of national purpose and progress. As part of the community of nations, the United States can look forward to working with willing partners to address international problems like global warming, and local humanitarian crises like Iraq and Darfur. As US citizens, we can look forward to increasing economic security and the continued enjoyment of robust civil liberties.
The final goal of going back to a pre-Bush era is to restore our vision of the future as a better place to live in than the present. Rather than freaking out over terrorist threats and starting petty scraps to protect a decaying American empire, we can move more confidently, more calmly, into the 21st century, and look forward to a country and a world becoming more healthy, more prosperous, and more peaceful with each passing year.
If I were a candidate (and I'm ready to form an exploratory committee if anyone out there asks me to, and gives me hundreds of millions of dollars), I would pledge to undo the Bush presidency. Virtually anything he's done, I would overturn. My presidency would take America back, policy-wise, to at least 1998, and in many areas we'd go back much further.
I know this is not the kind of rhetoric you politicians favor these days, with all the talk about the 'new economy,' and how we need a 'new politics' for the 21st century. But many of the things progressives want to do in the next decade or two are things the United States used to do pretty well. We used to have a more progressive tax structure. We used to have an economy that provided more secure livings to a broad middle class. We used to actually regulate industry and business to help ensure safe practices and products. We used to have fairly strong unions. In foreign policy, we used to work with large coalitions of other nations to promote mutual interests, and took a leading role in organizations like the United Nations.
I could go on with this list, but the point is: Why can't we go back to doing these things again? At the top of my list of things to undo would be Bush's disastrous war in Iraq and his steady erosion of civil liberties and rule of law. After we begin to restore our international reputation in these areas, I think we need a 'truth and reconciliation' commission to look into all the areas of government that the Bush administration has worked so assiduously to cover with secrecy. It's important for political and policy reasons that the public know as soon as possible just what these people have been up to in their eight years in power. We have to show that we've restored accountability to our political system, and we have to find out what hidden policies remain for us to undo.
Certainly, there are some areas of policy where the solution can't be found in our own history. The health care problem is the biggest one I can think of. But other countries have dealt rather effectively with their citizens' health care needs, and we could definitely learn from what they've been doing successfully for decades.
Together, these restorations of former policies will, I believe, restore something much larger that we have lost in the last eight years: a sense of national purpose and progress. As part of the community of nations, the United States can look forward to working with willing partners to address international problems like global warming, and local humanitarian crises like Iraq and Darfur. As US citizens, we can look forward to increasing economic security and the continued enjoyment of robust civil liberties.
The final goal of going back to a pre-Bush era is to restore our vision of the future as a better place to live in than the present. Rather than freaking out over terrorist threats and starting petty scraps to protect a decaying American empire, we can move more confidently, more calmly, into the 21st century, and look forward to a country and a world becoming more healthy, more prosperous, and more peaceful with each passing year.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Respecting Religion
I have often opined on this blog that I see little basis for the complaint of some of my fellow Christians that somehow secular liberals "disrespect" us. Most of my experience confirms this viewpoint, but I do occasionally encounter a rare exception. Let me dissect one recent example to show just how outlandish and illogical someone has to become in order to cross that line of respect. I recently read Richard Dawkins's 2006 book, The God Delusion, which provided one such extremely rare example of true disrespect of and arrogance toward sincere religion.
Now Dawkins does make a few good points in the book--for example, about the bad things that have been done in the name of religion, some of the morally despicable conclusions that one might reach by taking the Bible too "literally" (as if such a thing were possible in a consistent way), and the dangers of forcibly inculcating children with dogmatic, unquestioning religion-based fear. (Why after reading this book do I have a sneaking suspicion that Dawkins's militant materialist and reductionistic atheism might lead to similar problems? Hmmm...) But, on the whole, Dawkins's book projected such a tragic combination of arrogance (trust me, the tone is unmistakeable, from the very beginning) and ignorance (about the faith experiences and beliefs of the millions of us who don't conform to his simplistic caricature of religious belief) that I wondered if I should even bother typing up a blog entry on this book, which I had initially hoped (mostly in vain) would provide an interesting starting point for a thoughtful discussion of the various arguments for and against religious belief.
Nevertheless, given the wide publicity Dawkins's book has received, along with my propensity to use this blog as a forum for venting frustrations in all directions, let me proceed anyway. I could critique any number of aspects of this book, from his bizarrely non-comprehending dismissal of the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God (ummm...Prof. Dawkins, I think the whole point of envisioning a Creator that is beyond the physical world is to get beyond the infinite regress of material causation, not to prolong it) to his absurd inability to grasp the fundamental inanity of citing a carefully controlled double-blind study based on praying for a first name and last initial (!) supposedly showing the non-efficacy of prayer (and I don't care who funded it, it is an utterly ridiculous--and substantively irrelevant--idea to "test" prayer in this way). But beneath Dawkins's contemptuous sneers peppered throughout the book, I actually began to feel sorry for him, due to his inability to comprehend ideas that cannot be reduced to objectively verifiable scientific truth claims--ideas that speak to the mystical side of human experience, of mystery, of awe and wonder. What an impoverished way of looking at life and existence he seems to have. But now I feel myself sliding into the same pitying contemptuousness with which Dawkins approaches people who hold religious beliefs. So I will ask his pardon and proceed with a close reading of what is perhaps the most relevant chapter of his book for all of us Christians like me (and I think this would describe far more than those of us who are left/radical) who would never in a million years subscribe to the supertitious, hocus-pocus caricature of religious belief that he uses most of the book to critique.
The relevant chapter is number eight, "What's Wrong with Religion? Why Be So Hostile?" Indeed I had spent most of the book wondering that exact question. Perhaps some of his reviewers did too. Or maybe he has enough self-awareness to realize that his reasons for promoting such an aggressively urgent and ardent atheism will seem strangely flimsy without it. But let me give him credit, for he states his central argument in this chapter very clearly, as follows: "...my point in this section is that even mild and moderate religion helps to provide the climate of faith in which extremism naturally flourishes." (p. 303)
An interesting claim. One might even call it an empirical claim. Yet does Dawkins provide any hard historical or social scientific data to show that "If X, then Y," where X is is a preponderance of mild and moderate religion and Y is a consequent flourishing of extremist religion? Sorry, nope. I must admit that I don't have any disconfirming evidence either, but it seems wildly implausible to me that religious moderation fosters religious extremism. It's almost a contradiction in terms, but not quite, for we could perhaps live in a society where militant atheism stamps out all religious belief completely, and perhaps that society would have less religious extremism. But, to my mind, it seems much more plausible that militant atheism and religious extremism feed off each other. Kind of like religious extremists of different faith traditions often feed off each other. Dawkins's own anecdotes of victimized atheists wrongly disowned or shunned by strongly religious relatives (whose plight I fully sympathize with) provide ample testimonial evidence of this point.
Now if you will indulge me, let me deconstruct several subsequent pages (pp. 303-306) in detail, in which Dawkins sets forth his reasoning for reaching this paradoxical conclusion...
Dawkins: "As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers. The alternative, one so transparent that it should need no urging, is to abandon the principle of automatic respect for religious faith. This is one reason why I do everything in my power to warn people against faith itself, not just against so-called 'extremist' faith. The teachings of 'moderate' religion, though not extremist in themselves, are an open invitation to extremism."
Is it not possible to respect someone's religious faith (even Osama bin Laden) and yet still disagree adamantly with him or her about a great many things? One would hope that Dawkins is not so stingy with his respect of others in everyday life. But that's not what he is complaining about, I don't think. What upsets him, as I read him, is not "respect" per se, but when people invoke religious claims as a trump card to justify any behavior they wish. And who could disagree? True, the USA has an exceptionally permissive view on the freedom of religion (allowing religious schooling of children, for example, or allowing some drugs in religious ceremonies), but no one--I repeat, no one--is arguing that "respecting" religion demands letting people do whatever they wish in the name of religion. No sane person, even in America, would condone letting a serial killer in Montgomery go free because he claimed that his religion demands that he kill Alabamans. In practice, the line is often trickier to draw, but how could this possibly justify a blanket disrespect of all religion? I am tempted here to remind Dawkins that people have used "science" to justify some pretty extreme and awful things in the past, but that would in no way force me to oppose everyone who invokes "science" as a reason.
"It might be said that there is nothing special about religious faith here. Patriotic love of country or ethnic group can also make the world safe for its own version of extremism, can't it? Yes it can, as with the kamikazes in Japan and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka."
Okay, once you admit this, Prof. Dawkins, you have basically undermined your whole argument. (Oops!) And you need not look half way around the world to find ample examples of nationalism and patriotism that distort people's moral sensibilities. Once you accept that "extremism" can come in many forms (oh no, even militant atheism? or worship of scientific reductionism, such as a genetic basis for everything?) it is hard to single out religion as somehow different.
"But religious faith is an especially potent silencer of rational calculation, which usually seems to trump all others. This is mostly, I suspect, because of the easy and beguiling promise that death is not the end, and that a martyr's heaven is especially glorious. But it is also partly because it discourages questioning, by its very nature."
Nice try wiggling out, but I won't buy it. Forget for the moment that "it's in our genes" (among many other popular non-religious articles of faith) has also lately been a favored silencer of critical thinking for some people. Let me just beg to differ that religious faith "discourages questioning, by its very nature"--not my religion, not my faith. That is about the most backwards way to characterize a deep inquiry into the mystery of life and existence. My own (and many others') journey of faith is all about questioning, probing, admitting that we don't have all the answers. The irony of all this is that Dawkins's own book is arguing strenuously for shutting out other alternatives to his own belief, declaring in the book's very title that God is a "delusion".
"More generally (and this applies to Christianity no less than to Islam), what is really pernicious is the practice of teaching children that faith itself is a virtue. Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument. Teaching children that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them--given certain other ingredients that are not hard to come by--to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for future jihads or crusades. ... And they were taught that lesson not necessarily by extremist fanatics but by decent, gentle, mainstream religious instructors, who lined them up in their madrasas, sitting in rows, rhythmically nodding their innocent little heads up and down while they learned every word of the holy book like demented parrots. Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong."
Prof. Dawkins has simply not even begun to do justice to the rich and thoughtful tradition of religious thinking that has a more sophisticated view of what faith entails. What is funny about his caricature of religious faith is how strikingly divergent it is from the notions taught at most mainline Protestant theological schools these days (to take the example I know best). The kind of critical thinking about all of our taken-for-granted beliefs--including science, including capitalism, and even including selfishness (hah!)--is exactly what good education is all about, including in our churches, synagogues, mosques, and seminaries. If you define "faith" as acceptance of beliefs without questioning them or attempting to justifying them, then I can kind of see his point, but then it would apply just as equally well if not more urgently to so many other unquestioned beliefs in American society, such as the intrinsic superiority of the USA, the value of using market forces to solve our social problems, that science will solve everything, that all valuable questions can be reduced to "objective" and reductionistic factual analysis, or even more particularly the ridiculous notion that we are somehow ruled by our genes. By the way, one could also skewer Dawkins's assertion that suicide bombers are created primarily by mild-mannered, moderate religious teachers in madrasas by pointing out that such moderates are our best hope and key allies in the struggle against extremism in all its forms--not to mention that if the stunning recent book by Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11 (University of California Press, 2007), is any indication, at least one of the leading terrorist trainers of Al Qaeda was an agent of the United States government (and of course we also know that that in its early days, al Qaeda in general was supported by the USA as "freedom fighters" against the Soviets). And this is not even to begin mentioning all the other varied factors that are widely known to be major contributors to the origins of extremist violence in the Muslim world--struggles for control over resources, American military presence in the Middle East, even the contempt of Muslim extremists for moderate Muslim governments, for goodness sake. So to somehow pin the worst acts of religious extremism on co-religionist moderates is far too much ignorance of historical fact for me to take seriously.
Now Dawkins does make a few good points in the book--for example, about the bad things that have been done in the name of religion, some of the morally despicable conclusions that one might reach by taking the Bible too "literally" (as if such a thing were possible in a consistent way), and the dangers of forcibly inculcating children with dogmatic, unquestioning religion-based fear. (Why after reading this book do I have a sneaking suspicion that Dawkins's militant materialist and reductionistic atheism might lead to similar problems? Hmmm...) But, on the whole, Dawkins's book projected such a tragic combination of arrogance (trust me, the tone is unmistakeable, from the very beginning) and ignorance (about the faith experiences and beliefs of the millions of us who don't conform to his simplistic caricature of religious belief) that I wondered if I should even bother typing up a blog entry on this book, which I had initially hoped (mostly in vain) would provide an interesting starting point for a thoughtful discussion of the various arguments for and against religious belief.
Nevertheless, given the wide publicity Dawkins's book has received, along with my propensity to use this blog as a forum for venting frustrations in all directions, let me proceed anyway. I could critique any number of aspects of this book, from his bizarrely non-comprehending dismissal of the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God (ummm...Prof. Dawkins, I think the whole point of envisioning a Creator that is beyond the physical world is to get beyond the infinite regress of material causation, not to prolong it) to his absurd inability to grasp the fundamental inanity of citing a carefully controlled double-blind study based on praying for a first name and last initial (!) supposedly showing the non-efficacy of prayer (and I don't care who funded it, it is an utterly ridiculous--and substantively irrelevant--idea to "test" prayer in this way). But beneath Dawkins's contemptuous sneers peppered throughout the book, I actually began to feel sorry for him, due to his inability to comprehend ideas that cannot be reduced to objectively verifiable scientific truth claims--ideas that speak to the mystical side of human experience, of mystery, of awe and wonder. What an impoverished way of looking at life and existence he seems to have. But now I feel myself sliding into the same pitying contemptuousness with which Dawkins approaches people who hold religious beliefs. So I will ask his pardon and proceed with a close reading of what is perhaps the most relevant chapter of his book for all of us Christians like me (and I think this would describe far more than those of us who are left/radical) who would never in a million years subscribe to the supertitious, hocus-pocus caricature of religious belief that he uses most of the book to critique.
The relevant chapter is number eight, "What's Wrong with Religion? Why Be So Hostile?" Indeed I had spent most of the book wondering that exact question. Perhaps some of his reviewers did too. Or maybe he has enough self-awareness to realize that his reasons for promoting such an aggressively urgent and ardent atheism will seem strangely flimsy without it. But let me give him credit, for he states his central argument in this chapter very clearly, as follows: "...my point in this section is that even mild and moderate religion helps to provide the climate of faith in which extremism naturally flourishes." (p. 303)
An interesting claim. One might even call it an empirical claim. Yet does Dawkins provide any hard historical or social scientific data to show that "If X, then Y," where X is is a preponderance of mild and moderate religion and Y is a consequent flourishing of extremist religion? Sorry, nope. I must admit that I don't have any disconfirming evidence either, but it seems wildly implausible to me that religious moderation fosters religious extremism. It's almost a contradiction in terms, but not quite, for we could perhaps live in a society where militant atheism stamps out all religious belief completely, and perhaps that society would have less religious extremism. But, to my mind, it seems much more plausible that militant atheism and religious extremism feed off each other. Kind of like religious extremists of different faith traditions often feed off each other. Dawkins's own anecdotes of victimized atheists wrongly disowned or shunned by strongly religious relatives (whose plight I fully sympathize with) provide ample testimonial evidence of this point.
Now if you will indulge me, let me deconstruct several subsequent pages (pp. 303-306) in detail, in which Dawkins sets forth his reasoning for reaching this paradoxical conclusion...
Dawkins: "As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers. The alternative, one so transparent that it should need no urging, is to abandon the principle of automatic respect for religious faith. This is one reason why I do everything in my power to warn people against faith itself, not just against so-called 'extremist' faith. The teachings of 'moderate' religion, though not extremist in themselves, are an open invitation to extremism."
Is it not possible to respect someone's religious faith (even Osama bin Laden) and yet still disagree adamantly with him or her about a great many things? One would hope that Dawkins is not so stingy with his respect of others in everyday life. But that's not what he is complaining about, I don't think. What upsets him, as I read him, is not "respect" per se, but when people invoke religious claims as a trump card to justify any behavior they wish. And who could disagree? True, the USA has an exceptionally permissive view on the freedom of religion (allowing religious schooling of children, for example, or allowing some drugs in religious ceremonies), but no one--I repeat, no one--is arguing that "respecting" religion demands letting people do whatever they wish in the name of religion. No sane person, even in America, would condone letting a serial killer in Montgomery go free because he claimed that his religion demands that he kill Alabamans. In practice, the line is often trickier to draw, but how could this possibly justify a blanket disrespect of all religion? I am tempted here to remind Dawkins that people have used "science" to justify some pretty extreme and awful things in the past, but that would in no way force me to oppose everyone who invokes "science" as a reason.
"It might be said that there is nothing special about religious faith here. Patriotic love of country or ethnic group can also make the world safe for its own version of extremism, can't it? Yes it can, as with the kamikazes in Japan and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka."
Okay, once you admit this, Prof. Dawkins, you have basically undermined your whole argument. (Oops!) And you need not look half way around the world to find ample examples of nationalism and patriotism that distort people's moral sensibilities. Once you accept that "extremism" can come in many forms (oh no, even militant atheism? or worship of scientific reductionism, such as a genetic basis for everything?) it is hard to single out religion as somehow different.
"But religious faith is an especially potent silencer of rational calculation, which usually seems to trump all others. This is mostly, I suspect, because of the easy and beguiling promise that death is not the end, and that a martyr's heaven is especially glorious. But it is also partly because it discourages questioning, by its very nature."
Nice try wiggling out, but I won't buy it. Forget for the moment that "it's in our genes" (among many other popular non-religious articles of faith) has also lately been a favored silencer of critical thinking for some people. Let me just beg to differ that religious faith "discourages questioning, by its very nature"--not my religion, not my faith. That is about the most backwards way to characterize a deep inquiry into the mystery of life and existence. My own (and many others') journey of faith is all about questioning, probing, admitting that we don't have all the answers. The irony of all this is that Dawkins's own book is arguing strenuously for shutting out other alternatives to his own belief, declaring in the book's very title that God is a "delusion".
"More generally (and this applies to Christianity no less than to Islam), what is really pernicious is the practice of teaching children that faith itself is a virtue. Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument. Teaching children that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them--given certain other ingredients that are not hard to come by--to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for future jihads or crusades. ... And they were taught that lesson not necessarily by extremist fanatics but by decent, gentle, mainstream religious instructors, who lined them up in their madrasas, sitting in rows, rhythmically nodding their innocent little heads up and down while they learned every word of the holy book like demented parrots. Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong."
Prof. Dawkins has simply not even begun to do justice to the rich and thoughtful tradition of religious thinking that has a more sophisticated view of what faith entails. What is funny about his caricature of religious faith is how strikingly divergent it is from the notions taught at most mainline Protestant theological schools these days (to take the example I know best). The kind of critical thinking about all of our taken-for-granted beliefs--including science, including capitalism, and even including selfishness (hah!)--is exactly what good education is all about, including in our churches, synagogues, mosques, and seminaries. If you define "faith" as acceptance of beliefs without questioning them or attempting to justifying them, then I can kind of see his point, but then it would apply just as equally well if not more urgently to so many other unquestioned beliefs in American society, such as the intrinsic superiority of the USA, the value of using market forces to solve our social problems, that science will solve everything, that all valuable questions can be reduced to "objective" and reductionistic factual analysis, or even more particularly the ridiculous notion that we are somehow ruled by our genes. By the way, one could also skewer Dawkins's assertion that suicide bombers are created primarily by mild-mannered, moderate religious teachers in madrasas by pointing out that such moderates are our best hope and key allies in the struggle against extremism in all its forms--not to mention that if the stunning recent book by Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11 (University of California Press, 2007), is any indication, at least one of the leading terrorist trainers of Al Qaeda was an agent of the United States government (and of course we also know that that in its early days, al Qaeda in general was supported by the USA as "freedom fighters" against the Soviets). And this is not even to begin mentioning all the other varied factors that are widely known to be major contributors to the origins of extremist violence in the Muslim world--struggles for control over resources, American military presence in the Middle East, even the contempt of Muslim extremists for moderate Muslim governments, for goodness sake. So to somehow pin the worst acts of religious extremism on co-religionist moderates is far too much ignorance of historical fact for me to take seriously.
Friday, September 14, 2007
The Global Face of Christianity
I've disagreed in the past with Jim Wallis's attempts to foster a Christian progressive politics built on a framework "neither Left nor Right" (why can't we just follow our conscience directly to the Progressive Left?) and his complaint that somehow the secular Left isn't accepting enough of Christians (Huh? Aren't they our closest allies?). But this week I have to give Wallis credit for his perceptive commentary on the Iraq debate, in which he points out the global Christian condemnation of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. As Wallis points out: "Outside the borders of the United States of America, a vast, vast majority of the world's people are steadfastly against the American war in Iraq and the foreign policies of the U.S. in general. Take out all the non-Christians from that global population sample and among the people of God [sic] the opposition remains the same. Even reduce that number to only evangelical Christians worldwide and you are still left with an overwhelming majority of born-again, Bible-believing Christians who are against American policy in Iraq and, indeed, the entire Middle East region."
In asking (with tongue in cheek) our fellow Christian brothers and sisters in America--sadly, still over-represented among Bush's war backers--"what do some American Christians know that the rest of the global Christian community doesn't?" Wallis is highlighting the disconnect between the global, universal claims of Christianity and its absurdly parochial, nationalistic adherents in the USA. Now, I've never been one of those Christians who believes that our goal is to convert the world to Christianity (my view tends more towards seeing value in all great world religions and seeing the Christian global mandate as an open invitation and a call for the equal value of all people in the eyes of God) but even--or especially--if you do, can you possibly reconcile this glaring contradiction?
One of my greatest ongoing irritations about American political culture, which I am glad to see someone as visible as Wallis writing about, is the idolatry of linking "God and Country" in the manner so prevalent in the United States. And, actually, Wallis sticks out his neck pretty far. "Personally, to be frank," he writes, "I think it is because far too many American Christians are simply Americans first and Christians second." Now one might quibble with his apparent implication (dispelled in his other writings, and countless other observers) that the Iraq War might actually be in the interest of the United States. But I think he is saying that the call for allegiance or loyalty to the USA, however misguided it may be in any particular and real situation, has trumped religious faith for many American Christians.
Such an accusation is pretty serious, and I expect him to be criticized for it. But I think he has a good point--tough point, but one we need to hear. As the idolatry of nationalism works its ugly ways on American Christians, we have tended to forget the core messages of Christianity and simply transmute the religion into a worship of flag and militaristic nationalism, which is almost completely at odds with the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. I've complained before about having flags in church. (What more potent form of idolatry can we imagine in this modern world, except perhaps a gigantic pile of money that we worship?--oh wait, they do have the "Avenue of Christian Capitalists" or whatever it is called at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California...) The practice continues unabated in the vast majority of Protestant congregations (what about Roman Catholic...not sure?) Many churches sing patriotic hymns, mourn the losses of U.S. life far beyond how they mourn the loss of non-U.S. citizens (such as the ones the U.S. bombs), and otherwise display a contempt for the universal love and global ethics of Jesus. Thanks Jim Wallis, for sticking your neck out on this one. It's a message that the Christians of America need to wrestle with.
In asking (with tongue in cheek) our fellow Christian brothers and sisters in America--sadly, still over-represented among Bush's war backers--"what do some American Christians know that the rest of the global Christian community doesn't?" Wallis is highlighting the disconnect between the global, universal claims of Christianity and its absurdly parochial, nationalistic adherents in the USA. Now, I've never been one of those Christians who believes that our goal is to convert the world to Christianity (my view tends more towards seeing value in all great world religions and seeing the Christian global mandate as an open invitation and a call for the equal value of all people in the eyes of God) but even--or especially--if you do, can you possibly reconcile this glaring contradiction?
One of my greatest ongoing irritations about American political culture, which I am glad to see someone as visible as Wallis writing about, is the idolatry of linking "God and Country" in the manner so prevalent in the United States. And, actually, Wallis sticks out his neck pretty far. "Personally, to be frank," he writes, "I think it is because far too many American Christians are simply Americans first and Christians second." Now one might quibble with his apparent implication (dispelled in his other writings, and countless other observers) that the Iraq War might actually be in the interest of the United States. But I think he is saying that the call for allegiance or loyalty to the USA, however misguided it may be in any particular and real situation, has trumped religious faith for many American Christians.
Such an accusation is pretty serious, and I expect him to be criticized for it. But I think he has a good point--tough point, but one we need to hear. As the idolatry of nationalism works its ugly ways on American Christians, we have tended to forget the core messages of Christianity and simply transmute the religion into a worship of flag and militaristic nationalism, which is almost completely at odds with the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. I've complained before about having flags in church. (What more potent form of idolatry can we imagine in this modern world, except perhaps a gigantic pile of money that we worship?--oh wait, they do have the "Avenue of Christian Capitalists" or whatever it is called at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California...) The practice continues unabated in the vast majority of Protestant congregations (what about Roman Catholic...not sure?) Many churches sing patriotic hymns, mourn the losses of U.S. life far beyond how they mourn the loss of non-U.S. citizens (such as the ones the U.S. bombs), and otherwise display a contempt for the universal love and global ethics of Jesus. Thanks Jim Wallis, for sticking your neck out on this one. It's a message that the Christians of America need to wrestle with.
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