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The above quote was repeated by Richard Dawkins in his hard-hitting 2-part UK Channel 4 documentary series The Root of All Evil. The Root in question is religion. “Darwin’s Rottweiler,” as the promo referred to Dawkins, came out full throttle to argue that religion is not only “barking mad” but dangerous to boot. Focusing on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Dawkins doled out insults without restraint, referring to a parade of Catholic pilgrims en route to Lourdes as a “benign herd” and defining faith as “a process of non-thinking.” His interviews with priests, rabbis, mullas, and preachers were brittle with barely contained rage at their unwillingness to acknowledge the utter lack of evidence for their creationist nonsense. Dawkins is one of my heroes. Ever since the death of Carl Sagan, I have longed for a philosopher scientist to put forward the rationalist argument for the sake of positive political and social change. With this series, Dawkins announces himself as Sagan’s heir. Such a venomous display of anti-religiosity will not dissuade the faithful, mind you. They will find Dawkins arrogant, cold, and condescending. Despite his last minute plea that atheism is actually “life-affirming,” no devout Catholics, Jews, Christians, or Muslims will be picking up The Origin of Species because of him. But. It warmed my heart to see this righteous and much needed polemic in prime time on a major TV channel. It signals a readiness to explore the dark side of superstitious claptrap. And this is a dark side that very much needs exploring. A lie is a lie no matter how old it is. And when you prepare children to accept as truth the heaping bucketfulls of patently obvious lies religion ladles out, you prepare their minds to accept all manner of lies. The day The Root of All Evil airs on American television is the day we begin to step from the self-imposed darkness of religious delusion into the light of reason. 44 Responses to “Reason Bites Back”Leave a Reply |
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“Such a venomous display of anti-religiosity will not dissuade the faithful, mind you. They will find Dawkins arrogant, cold, and condescending.”
Well, then, one has to ask, What’s the point? I mean, if you’re not trying to convince anyone of something (and casting scorn on someone’s opposing viewpoint is a famously ineffective way to change their mind), all you’re doing is insulting one group and making another feel smug.
“The day _The Root of All Evil_ airs on American television…”
Ha! Like that’ll ever happen.
Whilst I found Dawkins arguments convincing I also thought he took extreme examples such as ; the guy who murdered the abortion doctor etc to illustrate religion being used to justify henious acts. Most religious leaders would condemn such acts. Dawkins further took the most unsympathetic figures from Judaism, Christianity and Islam to inflame the audience against religion. I doubt his arguments would have been so convincing if he took for example a liberal/reform rabbi or priest who don’t take the 7 day story of creation literally and who understand and even accept theories of evolution.
Fundamentalist religion might be a cause concern, but equally alarming is a society today which thinks it ok to steal, rape, murder with little regard for human life. Maybe religion offers certain people in society a moral framework which unfortunately seems to be lacking in communities around Britain today
I went to sunday school and it never did me any harm.
Steve, I think the point of Dawkins’ venom is to demonstrate the feasibility of an unflinching critique of religion in a very public mainstream forum. Although it won’t change a fundamentalist’s mind, it will probably have an impact on someone sitting on the fence. Persuading the fundamentalists is a whole different challenge. Honestly, I’m not sure how to accomplish such a task. A venom-free attempt at honest understanding, however, would probably be a good start. Clearly, Dawkins is not the man for that job.
Gastrochick, liberal and non-literal interpretations of scripture feel more like literary criticism than religion to me. If you don’t actually believe what the scripture says, are you still religious? Not sure. On a personal note, I’m a big fan of the bible. I think it’s full of truths, just not literal ones. According to every Christian religion I know, that still qualifies me to roast in hell. Also I’m not convinced that religion is the only reliable moral compass. As Dawkins explains, morality is older than religion. Social agreements to impede murder, theft, and other assorted malfeasance, are evolutionarily adaptive. If anything, religion mucks up the works of a clean and simple (if always evolving) morality with a bunch of senseless food taboos and fairy stories about celestial superheroes.
Gastrochick, do you think the problem of rape, murder etc is due to society’s lack of religion rather than, racism, entrenched poverty and poor education?
“According to every Christian religion I know, that still qualifies me to roast in hell.”
That should be, “According to fundamentalist interpretation of Christian religion that still qualifies me to roast in hell.”
GastroChicks point is that liberal/moderate religious vicars/rabbi/priests etc don’t have fundamentalist beliefs, don’t think we evolved from Adam and Eve and certainly don’t want you Lauren to burn in hell for eternity.
“Also I’m not convinced that religion is the only reliable moral compass.”
No one ever said it was – not here anyway. I think someone did on that program though.
And Woofy, the answer to your question is No.
Lauren, I disagree with Dawkin’s argument that morality or altruism is an inherent part of human or animal adaptive evolution. . With regard to the Gorillas, they act in a certain way because they understand that it is more productive to work as part of a team, this has nothing to do with altuism, they essentially derive something positive from their actions, which they benefit from.
Woof I believe that crimes today are committed largely due to the breakdown of family. Children have no moral guidance from their parents etc therefore they have no conception of right and wrong. Es
sentially, children need to be taught morality. Religion is positive in the sense that it fiercly advocates family life, and gives people a basic moral framework.
I agree gastrochick that the breakdown of family contributes to someone becoming a criminal. Unfortunately in the U.S. the areas where religion is most prominent, the rates of divorce are the highest. I think the fundamental problem with religion is it doesn’t teach rationality. Rationality is at the heart of human progress. If you look at the world and see which areas are the most religious you will see that crime rates are the highest as are, poverty, sexism, homophobia and racism to name a few. I don’t think this is a coincidence. It’s hard to be capable of truly rational thought and also be sexist, racist or a homophobe.
I dont think you can make assertions just based on crime rates being high in religous areas.
It could be an equally rational assertion to say that religion is high because of crime rates.
Consider 2 towns of 10000 people.
In town A there is 1 criminal, thus the other 9999 people are rarely affected by crime hence feel safe, they dont need to seek comfort or reassurance or need to pray that everything is going to be ok. The national average of people (I dont know what this is) in this town are religious.
In town B there are 100 criminals, thus lots of crime is therefore going on, peoples sons and brothers are getting shot and killed, mothers and fathers look desparately for hope and turn to god. In this town far more people then the national average are religious.
So is that proof that religion is the cause of crime?
It’s correlation if not causation, the point I was making is that theres no evidence that religion stops crime.
And furthermore I just bought a chicken which will be fried tomorrow night.
Its all very well backtracking now eh. I believe it was a correlation to which you added “I don’t think this is a coincidence”.
what kind of chicken is it
just a tesco free range, there actually surprisingly good.
damo-Woffy actually said that the American south had a higher divorce rate, not a higher crime rate. But you’re right, crime rights are generally higher in the south.
But I don’t think southerners tend to become religious because their towns are riddled with crime and divorce. I think they are born into religious families and stay religious because their environment militates against other possibilities. There are social consequences to being an admitted atheist in the south, even financial ones. (A lot of people won’t do business with atheists, or with anyone not in their church.)
But I don’t think the south has a higher divorce rate (and crime rate) because they are religious, but because southerners are on average poorer and less educated than the rest of the country. And I think southerners are also more likely to be religious (and fundamentalist) because they are poor and uneducated.
So the correlation is not that religion causes crime/divorce/whatever; the correlation is that both social disfunction and religion are the result of the same basic underpinnings: poverty and lack of education. As regions, countries, and families get richer, crime rates tend to get lower and religion tends to fall away. (And those relgious types you mentioned, the nice liberal ones with a nuanced view of the bible? They are generally not as easy to find in the south, and in other poorer, less educated communities.)
So if we attack religion, or we treating a symptom (or a co-factor) rather than the cause?
Well, maybe not. Social systems tend to develop self-reinforcing feedback loops. That’s why, famously, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. If your religion keeps your kid from studying science properly, or learning to question authority, or taking control of her own reproductive system, it’s clearly part of a system that keeps poverty and ignorance in place.
And it’s a feedback loop that’s particularly hard to change, because of the general difficulty in saying anything against religion at all, anywhere, ever. I think the first chink in that wall is what Lauren was applauding.
Well said, Scott. What are you a writer or something?
Hey Scott, ennit?
Woofy, mate, ennit’s “innit”, innit?
well thats what I thought but Lauren claims it’s ennit. I reckon innit though, in fact lets say it’s officialy oficial, it’s innit, innit.
You’re getting advice on this from an American? Please! It’s definitely, innit, innit?
Here you go:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/yourvoice/conversation3.shtml
And that’s from the BBC, innit?
quite right
innit!
One person (an atheist) recently made the following argument to me in favor of religion: He said that without religion to manipulate the masses, there’d be potential anarchy. People (not the educated segment of society but the masses) would have no reluctance to commit evil acts without the threat of divine retribution. When I mentioned the above quote by Stephen Weinberg, he retorted that evil is the “default setting” for man, that we’re essentially self-interested animals and that religion is one of the most important societal constructs keeping the masses in check. Furthermore, he pointed out that while you can see the wrongs done by those who hijack religion for their own purposes, you cannot see the harm that’s PREVENTED by religion. Its power to influence the masses cannot be disputed. If it is used and directed for positive purposes, he argues, it creates a positive social controls. When I mentioned that society’s laws can also affect the behavior of the masses, he scoffed that “you have to get caught in order to be punished. In the absence of religion, one might be as apt to pursue a lucrative line of criminality provided the risk adjusted returns (upside vs. risk of getting caught) exceeds the expected returns from a career in law or medicine.” Lastly, he forwarded me the following quote:
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Any thoughts and reactions?
Your friend is quite an optimist I see.
I’m not convinced we would descend into violence and anarchy without religion, but in all honesty I can’t rule it out. Religion is a form of social control. If it has the evil-preventing capacity your friend claims, however, we should see measurable differences in the quantity of evil practiced by religious people versus non-religious people. Rodney Stark would certainly dispute such differences. His landmark article “Hellfire and Delinquency” argued against a correlation between religion and crime. On the other hand, this study by the conservative Heritage Foundation claims to have found just such a correlation.
The problem I think with studies of this kind is that they must be conducted within a society that already posits religion as a principle moral authority. To really test your friend’s hypothesis, we’d have to wipe out religion wholesale and compare the new society with the old. I’m game.
I think this Richard Dawkins guy is nothing but an arrogant, foolish jerk he is nothing but a man who gained whatever little knowledge he gained from other men and he thinks he knows that there is no God and I am a person who hates God if he exist, we as a speicies have only if evolution is the truth, we have only just crawled out of the mud , he himself just popped out of his mother ,we haven’t even explored our own Solar System and this arrogant jerk like lots of arrogant Jerks come out with statements that there is no God
No one knows for sure OK, even Datrwin didn’t know actually Darwin was deeply religoius and for this arse to come out that he knows the fact’s he knows nothing for all his research.
I Agree , Religion is a backward ox and I resent that religion has the pwoer it has , especailly as this is the form of belief that had most of the kown world believe the Earth was flat, that women who healed others with herbs should be burned at the stake for witchcraft, the lie of an all Loving creator(yeah the one who put the the tree of good and bad on the planet for his test subjects )
Women are goods and chattel for men acording to The Roman Catholic Church and Islam seems to agree, so yes I think religion and religious fanatics are nothing but backward slime but to come out with crap that the Creationist theory iswrong when evolution is a theory itself is equally stupid and what you going to ban all relion are you just because of these three monolithic jackass religions?
Who is this arrogant fool?
I appreciate your passion, Black Angel. To be clear, Richard Dawkins does not advocate banning religion. Criticizing and banning are two very different things (something extremely religious people tend to forget).
Your charge that atheism is arrogant is a popular one. Who are we, after all, to claim with absolute certainty that there is no god? But if you think of atheism as the logical outcome of skepticism, it’s much less arrogant. I can’t say with absolute certainty, for example, that there are no unicorns because I have not scoured the planet in search of them. Nevertheless, until someone presents verifiable proof that they exist, I am comfortable with the assumption that they do not. As an atheist, I feel the same way about god. Is it possible that god exists? Sure. Is there any proof that god exists? No. Is there anything close to proof that god exists? Nope. Is there even a good theory as to why god is a necessary component of this universe? Nyet. That’s atheism, Black Angel. Skeptical, not arrogant.
I’m with you, Lauren. That guy’s theory about religion as a necessary moral check on the deluded, evil-inclined masses is too cynical–even for me.
My own argument in favor of religious tolerance is as follows: We live in a cruel universe where (1) we’re all going to die, and (2) terrible things can happen to us at any time for no reason. I can empathize with someone who seeks solace from those cruel truths by believing in (1) an afterlife and (2) an invisible entity who’s watching out for us and/or has “a Plan.” Religion is the ultimate coping mechanism.
My two cents.
I like your outlook, Evil David. It reminds me of a line from The Philadelphia Story:
“You’ll never be a first-class human being or a first-class woman, until you’ve learned to have some regard for human frailty.”
Really good stuff you have going here Lauren. A debate about religion with both an Evil David an a Black Angel. A couple of unrelated points.
I cannot say that I agree with or understand Richard Dawkins suggestion that faith constitutes “a process of non-thinking” unless he means only to get a rise out of people through the use of hyperbole. A truly examined life can contain room for both faith and a willingness to confront head on the most fundamental vacancies of human existence and, thus, someone can be both rational (a concept you seem to have great respect for) and religious.
As for the discussion of the role of religion in economically and socially disenfranchised communities — in most of those communities the place(s) of worship comprises and constitutes the strongest fabric of the community and its best hope. And, unlike the failed public schools in so many of these same communities (at least in the United States), the religious schools are often the best (if not sole) hope that a child has to get a passable education.
Also, I am not sure that religion is an insult to the dignity of human beings because I am not sure that in the absence of religion good people would be good and bad people would be bad. How would we judge? For example, liberalism largely eschews religion in favor of moral relativism to the point where now even those who commit acts of inspeakable human depravity are largely beyond our condemnation. Arguably, without religion, there would be little if any moral courage left and no act could truly be said to be evil.
Finally Lauren, I think we are a lot closer to proof that God exists than we are to finding that elusive unicorn. I like Ignazio Silone in his sparkling novel Bread and Wine on this point: “Every time faith in God is in question, you must remember an old story. Perhaps you remember that it is written somewhere that in a moment of great discomfort Elijah asked God for death and God sent for him on the mountain. He kept the appointment but would he recognize Him? There arose a great wind which split the mountain and the rocks. But it wasn’t God. After the wind, the earth shook; but that wasn’t God. After the earthquake, there was a great fire; but that wasn’t God. Later, in silence, Elijah felt a light sound, like a rustling in the bushes, moved by the evening breeze. That rustling, it is written, was God.”
The word faith itself implies suspending rational though.
Thanks, Rocketeer. I’m not going to comment on Elijah’s inferring god from some wind because I wasn’t there so I can’t say.
Couple of responses:
1) Describing faith as a “process of non-thinking,” while admittedly inflammatory, does indeed capture the counter-rational nature of faith. To take something on faith means to resist analyzing, doubting, or questioning it. While there are certainly other valid thought processes besides analyzing, doubting and questioning, I can’t see how faith is one of them. Is faith a thought process or a suspension of thought in order to force an unexamined conclusion?
2) the superiority of religious schools to public schools in poor neighborhoods might have something to do with the fact that as private institutions they can keep out trouble-makers and poor students. Also, having parents who bother to make the effort to send you to private school is the surest predictor of academic success.
3) “liberalism largely eschews religion in favor of moral relativism to the point where now even those who commit acts of inspeakable human depravity are largely beyond our condemnation.” I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on some specific examples here, Rocketeer, as I can’t imagine what you’re referring to. But I can think of plenty of acts of unspeakable human depravity sanctioned by and in some cases inspired by religion. The crusades, the inquisition, 9/11, the enslavement of women, the Salem witch trials, and the murder of abortion doctors come to mind. Liberalism has some catching up to do to compete with that spectacle of depravity.
Finally, as I think I’ve stated before, I see ample evidence for the existence of strong moral values outside the boundaries of religion. I make moral judgments every day. So, I’m sure, do Evil David and Black Angel. I got my values from my largely secular parents. What I got from my church was a heaping dose of hellfire and some irritating sexual hang-ups.
Even accepting a lack of proof about the existince of God and even defining “faith” as a belief in something for which there is no proof, it still does not follow that the presence of faith implies a suspension of rational thought. Indeed, some of the best of human endeavoring, particularly in the hard sciences, couples a highly rational approach with a belief in something about which there is, at the time, no definitive proof.
Rocketeer, I think what you would describe as faith in the hard sciences I would describe as hypothesis, or to be more generous, hunch.
If you were to look at the two most important scientific revolutions of the last two-hundred years–quantum mechanics and natural selection–you would find that faith contributed precisely zero. Einstein did not “believe” in the inherent randomness his scientific discoveries demanded. In fact he rebelled against it. Nevertheless the evidence was there. Likewise, Darwin did not “believe” his trip to Galapagos would undermine the Christian creation myth. The fact that it did, disturbed him. Nevertheless the evidence was there.
Undoubtedly, there are scientists who have faith. But I would not raise faith to any privileged status within the scientific endeavor. Great leaps are made in science despite not because of faith.
And by the way, I’m still waiting for those examples of liberal-sanctioned moral depravity you referred to so obliquely.
Here are three examples of what I mean by the depravity of moral relativism which you have re-packaged as liberal-sanctioned moral depravity — the first is anecdotal, the second from the late Susan Sontag and the third from your blog.
During law school some years ago I had occasion to attend a forum discussion summarizing a recent woman’s international human rights congress. The panelists, all western women and leading feminist scholars, refused to deplore as worthy of international human rights violation the practice of ritual, clitoral mutilation as observed by some cultures. When challenged as to why, they insisted that they had no right to pass judgment on the ritual acts of any single culture and therefore no right to suggest that the practice was morally wrong for all cultures. (Although no inspection was made, I believe each of the panelists was in continued possession of her clitoris.) That is an example of moral relativism leading to moral depravity.
Second, the late intellectual Susan Sontag had this to say about the events of 9/11: “Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a ‘cowardly’ attack on ‘civilization’ or ‘liberty’ or ‘humanity’ or ‘the free world’ but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word ‘cowardly’ is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others.”
The need to place the blame for these horrible attacks on anyone other than the terrorists who carried them out — and the suggestion that the attackers themselves were somehow courageous is an example of moral relativism leading to moral depravity.
And finally, on 7/7/05 you wrote on your blog the following about the London bombings: “Today’s attack is a limp gesture of generalized rage at a culture that can absorb such atrocities without permanent damage.” You are no doubt right about the resiliency of the British people but your comment would seem to suggest that the “rage” of the fanatics who carried out these bombings makes them somehow less blameworthy because it was fueled (at least in some part) by the very “culture” they attacked. Another example of moral relativism leading to moral depravity.
I hope the above three example at least illustrate my point even if I cannot expect you to agree with it.
Rocketeer, I am afraid you have misplaced your brain. The fact that you would interpret my own words about the London bombings as a morally relativistic blame-eraser of the actions of murderers suggests a passion for dissembling that surprises me. I never intended nor could my words reasonably be interpreted as excusing the London bombings in any way. To suggest that I am an example of depraved moral relativism is–really I’d better move on, because you’ve disapointed me.
As for clitoral mutilation, I have never, not once, in my entire life as a card-carrying, spear-throwing, died-in-the-wool feminist met another feminist who believes that clitoral mutiliation is anything other than a crime against women. I’d love to know the names of the so-called feminists who would suggest otherwise. And I’d like to introduce them to some righteous bitches that could set them straight.
Susan Sontag? A stupid comment. Certainly regrettable. But as stupid as her comment was, it is not, in fact, an example of moral relativism. It was a highly moralistic (if wrongly moralistic) critique of American foreign policy. Susan Sontag may have been wrong with that comment. She may have been offensive and she may have been stupid. But, if anything, she achieved these great depths of stupidity by being the opposite of morally relativistic.
Now back to the London bombings. I know you, Rocketeer. I’ve dissected poetry with you. I know you can parse phrases and analyze sentences better than that. So please, revisit my post on the London bombings and reconsider your analysis.
I will take your suggestion and revisit your earlier post but first I must locate my brain (cell, blackberry and coat) and then attend AIPAC’s Northeast Regional Dinner where John Bolton is the keynote speaker.
It’s utterly ridiculous to suggest that by describing terrorists as acting with “generalized rage,” Lauren doesn’t condemn and/or takes no moral position with respect to the terrorist’s actions!! Go back and read that blog entry indeed! E.g., “Filled with rage that her children had misbehaved, the woman killed them and cut them up into little pieces;” “Enraged that his wife burnt his dinner, the man beheaded her.” Saying that a person acted with rage is a looooong way from saying that the person’s acts are justifiable or that we can’t cast moral judgments on such behavior!
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Did you consider any other viewpoints before you wrote this??
Yesterday a fell asleep about 6 pm, and i woke up in the middle of the night o/.
Jim, please be civil. Last 3 on an amd 1ghz that didnt feel any load.
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