Our Inescapable Pluralism NATHAN JACOBSON MAKING THE MOST OF OUR DISAGREEMENTS MARCH 22, 2010 The great

at variety of contradictory religious views is for many reason enough to conclude that there is no truth to be had in such matters, that no one religion is at all likely to be closest to the truth. For example, in his debate with Dinesh D'Souza, John Loftus makes the gravamen of his case against the Christian God these inter-religious and intra-religious disagreements, arguing that in effect they cancel each other out in virtue of the mutually exclusive nature of their claims.1 He does not see, apparently, that by such reasoning, the ageless debate between naturalists and theists is also cancelled, each position nullified. Indeed, every point of view falls prey to such a criterion. When we look within naturalism, we also find denominations and sects, a cacophony of diverse and contradictory positions on fundamental questions. It turns out, the problem of pluralism is an equal opportunity employer. Worldviews are like personalities. Each one is unique. Though there are types of personalities, just as there are broad worldview categories, none is identical. Whatever our worldview, that view must countenance the fact that many others think it mistaken. This is the problem of pluralism. The implication of this reality, however, need not be the defeat of any particular set of beliefs. Rather, the proper response is epistemological. It begs modesty, a profound intellectual humility about our take on reality. And second, it should serve as a call to personal responsibility for our beliefs, and therefore to the epistemic virtues, for there is no consensus on ultimate questions that we can simply adopt by proxy. Print In adolescence, when I was for the first time really struck by the pervasiveness of irreconcilable differences between peoples, my confidence in my own beliefs was shattered irreparably. What had seemed obvious seemed less so. What I believed based upon what I thought was good reasoning was undercut by the realization that my reasoning was unpersuasive to others. And so began my journey as a truth seeker haunted by the fear that truth could not be found. Like Sisyphus, who was condemned to roll a rock up a hill only to see it roll back down, ad infinitum, I found again and again that the briefly confident conclusions of my inquiries crumbled each time with the realization that others who had traversed those same paths had concluded otherwise. This is to say, the problem of pluralism is a real and ever-present foil in my own thinking. Nonetheless, the fact of disagreement about reality is often overstated and misappropriated to prove what it does not. Here I propose what we should, and should not, take from pluralism, by which I mean the evident fact of irreconcilable differences between individuals and communities on both the details and broad strokes of reality.

But why, exactly, is pluralism so problematic? The problem is that, to the extent that we hold mutually exclusive beliefs, it follows necessarily that very nearly all of us are wrong about many of the things we believe. This is not to minimize that which we hold in common. Graciously, substantial agreement is possible about a great deal that is required for the necessities of life. Nonetheless, our political, ethical, philosophical, historical, and religious beliefs exemplify virtually every conceivable point of view, and

insofar as they reference an external world that does not indulge contradictions, many of those beliefs must be erroneous. Unfortunately, the realization that many of our beliefs are mistaken does not thereby reveal those which are true and which are false. Rather, pluralism casts suspicion on all of our controversial beliefs. The problem is exacerbated in that we must make decisions of great consequence not only for ourselves but also as families, communities, and nations. The stakes are high, and our great need is to ground our beliefs on secure foundations. But the pervasive error entailed by our pluralism persistently undermines our efforts. Our human quest for knowledge and understanding, especially in the Modern era, has largely been the effort to find solid ground amidst the quicksand, but to no avail. It seems our pluralism is inescapable. Or is it?

Consensus by Circling Years ago, in conversation with some Mormon missionaries, I was presented with an argument that was part of Joseph Smith's own departure from the received Christianity of his day. Smith was frustrated by the profusion of Christian denominations who disagreed with each other on points of doctrine large and small. He perceived these disagreements as an indication that none of them had the truth, and was at a loss until, as the story goes, the truth was restored to him by the angel Moroni. These missionaries appealed to my own frustration with the endless disagreements amongst Christians, suggesting that in Mormonism I could finally escape the squabbling and find a set of beliefs agreed upon by all. As the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has grown and evolved, that promised consensus is harder to find even from within, even with a "living prophet". The main problem with their argument, however, was that these earnest missionaries did not see their own church as yet one more party to the debate about the way of things. Of course I could find more consensus by joining their party and renouncing the claims of others, just as I could by joining the Moonies or the Marxists and forswearing the rest. It is always possible to find some level of consensus by simply drawing the circle smaller. But drawing circles only underscores the persistent factiousness. And if complete consensus is demanded, that circle will have to be drawn so small as to include only oneself.

Arguments from pluralism against religious truth proceed in the same vein. The disagreement at every level of religious affiliation is regarded as a pox on them all, without seeing that criticism as one of the dissenting parties to the discussion. If it is merely disagreement that invalidates all sides, the naturalist's own views on God, religion, and ethics are swept away by that same tide. The irreconcilable differences between the varieties of religious expression are no more ageless or intractable than that between naturalists and theists. For at least several thousand years, humans have disagreed about whether atoms or gods are at the bottom of the universe. Sure, the religious enterprise has failed to come to unanimous agreement about the nature of God. But the philosophical enterprise has failed no less in achieving any real consensus about fundamental reality. It is no answer to say, "but we basically agree amongst ourselves". The problem is not Christian pluralism or religious pluralism, but rather universal

pluralism. Disagreement is a definitive fact of the human condition, and one cannot escape the problem of pluralism simply by choosing another circle.

Problem Solved? Positivism. In the early part of the twentieth century a solution was proposed. Keying off on the more general agreement achievable when talking about things like rocks and trees and red apples, logical positivists sought agreement by banishing more ethereal subjects from the land of meaningful propositions. Whatever could not be touched, smelt, seen, heard, or deduced thereof, would not be considered a sensible subject or object of a sentence. On this proposal, the proposition "God exists" is neither true nor false. It is meaningless. "God" is not a thing we can point to or show to others in order to speak meaningful sentences about it. No doubt, if universally accepted, positivism promised to drastically diminish the range of human disagreement by constraining what was up for discussion. But in the end, positivism fell on its own sword, for its own criterion of meaning was philosophical, unfit to be weighed and measured.2 Furthermore, by so strictly limiting the explanatory options, it led to positions that were obviously wrong. For example, since conscious states are not sensible objects, feelings like pain were of necessity redefined in terms of something observable. So, behaviorists proposed that pain was not that felt sensation in the mind as we had thought, but rather the act of saying "ouch!", or somesuch. Michael Egnor suggests that the final blow to the viability of behaviorism was a joke. After a night of passion, one behaviorist rolls over in bed and says to the other: "that was good for you; how was it for me?" However discomfiting the problem of pluralism, positivism presumed an artificial constraint that could not be sustained and led us down dead end trails. It was no escape.

Problem Solved? Naturalism. Though shedding the hard and fast rules of positivism, naturalists continue in that tradition by constraining what can exist to that which can be a subject of the sciences, especially of physics. And who can blame them? Science rocks! By positing hypotheses, winnowing out successful hypotheses by methodical, experimental testing, only to start the process over again,3 scientists have achieved remarkable feats and bested all other means of winning agreement about how the world works. Thomas Nagel sympathizes with the impulse to universalize science: "This reductionist dream is nourished by the extraordinary success of the physical sciences, not least in their recent application to the understanding of life through molecular biology. It is natural to try to take any successful intellectual method as far as it will go."4 Thanks to science, we've sent men to the moon, and no educated person doubts the reality of elliptical planetary orbits or the double helix structure of DNA. Science is superlative at mastering matter and energy and has significantly extended the range of facts that are agreeable to us all. But here we arrive at the point of contention. Should we, because of that tremendous success, foreclose on questions science cannot answer and on hypothetical entities beyond scientific verification? The question is the answer. It is precisely the kind of question that science cannot answer about itself. To adjudicate the question, we will have to defer to reason, including the unquantifiable canons of logic,

and to the history of science and ideas. We will have to appraise other supposed sources of knowledge, such as introspective awareness, moral intuition, and wisdom based on life experience. Nagel continues: "Yet the impulse to find an explanation of everything in physics has over the last fifty years got out of control. The concepts of physical science provide a very special, and partial, description of the world that experience reveals to us. It is the world with all subjective consciousness, sensory appearances, thought, value, purpose, and will left out; what remains is the mathematically describable order of things and events in space and time." Is science sufficiently expansive to capture the full breadth of reality exhaustively? Whether it is or is not is not self-evident. Once this inevitable question is on the table, the problem of pluralism returns in full force, a multitude of positions vying for acceptance.

In any case, the problem of pluralism rears its head even if we accept science as the sole or preeminent source of knowledge. Even within naturalism, each of the conceivable positions allowed by the data is well represented. We find strong physicalists and emergent property dualists, compatibilists and incompatibilists, determinists and libertarians, moral realists and nonrealists, ontologists and nominalists, conservatives and liberals. Human experience simply begs questions that are not answered decisively by the scientific data, and some that cannot be in virtue of its inherent limitations. Furthermore, it is impossible not to ask what the data means, to venture beyond data into synthesis and interpretation. The debate about the meaning of the surprising and strange quantum world is illustrative. No one disputes the experimental data, that photon and electron trajectories can only be determined probabilistically, and quantum mechanics is employed everyday in real life applications. Nonetheless, though the Copenhagen interpretation of this phenomenon is the orthodox one, notable naysayers persist, as well as at least half a dozen rival interpretations that are also consonant with the data. Scientific data is in one sense not unlike religious texts. It is a core set of givens that serves as a jumping-off point for a multiplicity of interpretations. It is no surprise, then, that even having given science pride of place, naturalism eludes precise definition. It lacks a universally accepted set of truths and can only be roughly characterized: epistemologically, it's science aided by reason; ontologically, it's elementary particles at bottom; etiologically, the story is neo-Darwinian; theologically, no God or gods exist. Beyond this central creed, disagreement runs amuck.

Finally, naturalism as a worldview is not entitled by right to appropriate the special esteem we grant science. The scientific enterprise emerged out of a Christian culture, was forged by an eclectic mix of orthodox and heterodox "natural philosophers", and continues to be practiced by the religious and nonreligious alike. Scientific methodology is a heritage we share in common and is largely embraced by all. But while the success of science within its domain is indisputable, it is arguable whether naturalism as an all-encompassing worldview is likewise superior to its competitors in mitigating or eliminating our irreconcilable differences. Naturalists disagree amongst themselves and with others. Whatever else it may be, naturalism is not an escape from the problem of pluralism.

The Upside of Pluralism As the proverb goes, iron sharpens iron. Disagreement, dissension, and debate are a refining fire, par excellence. The desire and need to control nature for our own ends and our innate desire for knowledge are powerful generators of discovery, but there is no greater engine for the refinement and discrediting of ideas than the ceaseless argument about how the world works and what it all means. I have argued that there is no escape from pluralism. We are condemned to live at ideological odds with others. But this is not to say that our arguments are stagnant, are without purpose. On the contrary, in many of our most interminable disagreements, there has been real movement, even progress.

There is no more contentious arena than the political. It's to be expected. Political systems effect our lives intimately for better or worse. And, as James Madison opined: "What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?" The debate over proper governance is epic. Great thinkers have pondered and disputed it endlessly. Wars and revolutions have been fought. Contemporary political debate is a morass of intemperate wrangling. And yet, with a historical perspective, we can see a remarkable shift in the terms of debate. As Fareed Zakaria points out: "For the vast majority of the world, democracy is the sole surviving source of political legitimacy. Dictators such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe go to great effort and expense to organize national elections which, of course, they win handily. When the enemies of democracy mouth its rhetoric and ape its ritual, you know it has won the war."5 Moreover, some measure of both free markets and of government regulation are largely taken for granted. The raging debate resides in the center and is largely one of degree, of the appropriate measure of each. Many old arguments that seemed irreconcilable at the time were, in fact, settled. New arguments have taken their place. The moral legitimacy of American chattel slavery was so intractable that its resolution cost over 600,000 lives. A hundred years later, fully equal treatment for all was no less divisive. Graciously, the second time around it was resolved politically, though not without great personal sacrifice by civil rights activists. Today the legitimacy of slavery and legal discrimination isn't given a second thought, and we debate instead the merits of affirmative action and reparations. The argument continues, but that is progress nonetheless.

So be it for politics, but one might think that religion is categorically different, that with its dogma, "leaps of faith", and eternal stakes it is immune to the refiner's fire. Such a view requires a strange anthropology, a belief that religious people are some alien creature, somehow divested of their natural rationality and sensitivity to recalcitrant facts. The history does not bear this out. Most ancient religions are just that, relics of the past. Their followers were persuaded or otherwise motivated to discard their beliefs. Conversions to and from religions as well as the loss of religious faith altogether are commonplace. And within religious traditions, believers individually exhibit a diversity and varying confidence in their beliefs, each believer uniquely persuaded by their experiences and the evidence available to them. Religions as communities evolve as well. To name but one example, there was a time

when for many Christians it was plausible to think it appropriate to persecute dissenters and wage wars over doctrinal disputes. But by exegetical debate and the weight of decisive events, such as the Thirty Years War, the consensus interpretation of scripture was reformed to such an extent that coercive indoctrination is unthinkable now. It's no different in the philosophy of religion. To everyone's surprise, the logical argument from evil against God was basically put to rest, and the terms of debate relocated to an inductive form of the argument. Big Bang cosmology and our increasing awareness of the necessary fine-tuning of the universe weigh heavily in the debate about God's existence, prompting the formulation of new or revived atheistic explanations like quantum tunneling and bubble universes. Demonstrations of mind-brain correlation in neuroscience have given succor to physicalist monists and forced refinement, or at least clarification, in the substance dualist's view. In biblical studies, the development of new methods of textual criticism has infused a vast body of widely accepted facts that inform questions of authorship and dating. Indeed, even the most conservative articulations of belief in biblical inspiration have been shaped by these developments. Though we are far from the end of many such debates, religious inquiry is by no means stagnant or immune to the refining fire.

Far from inhibiting the expansion of human understanding, in every field our inescapable pluralism is its catalyst. The quest for knowledge and understanding is a community project, a human project. Public debate and discourse is the principle means of moving it forward, kicking and screaming. And as Robert Frost would have it, "the only way around is through". We cannot skip ahead to the resolution of the debates that so exercise us today. In any case, we cannot assume that these debates will be settled on behalf of the good and the true. Our only recourse is to participate in the debate in the hope that our best efforts to understand the world may lead to our own enlightenment and also contribute to the betterment of human understanding. Our communal quest for knowledge cannot proceed without individuals who are willing to slog through the difficult and unseemly debates that litter the path.

The Imperatives of Pluralism If there is no escape from pluralism, as I think the case, what follows? As communities, the reality of pluralism warrants tolerance, freedom of speech and of conscience, and the preservation of mechanisms that facilitate the dialectic, such as journals, editorials, peer review, round tables, public debates, etcetera. These are vital, but here I want to consider the personal imperative. Pluralism presses upon each of us an obligation to earn our beliefs by earnest inquiry, whether we welcome this onus or not. On consequential issues where there is significant disagreement, we neglect the relevant questions at our own peril. Of course, we may throw in with the majority or our own circle of friends, but to do so is a gamble. Majorities have been wrong. Authorities have been wrong. There is simply no reliable way to defer our personal responsibility to others. Again, history is instructive, and in this case fearfully so. I shudder to think that I may have opposed Galileo, Locke, Wilberforce, King or sided with Calhoun, with Torquemada. Many did, and it is naive to think we are immune from aligning ourselves against the good and the true. The contentious scientific, political, religious, and ethical issues of our own day demand

our care. If we have done our due diligence and end up on the wrong side of history, we may be forgiven. But if we sit it out, we may be the unwitting enablers of ignorance and injustice in our own day, without excuse. It is imperative that we take the pursuit of truth as a serious and personal calling.

Secondly, it is imperative that we believe knowledge is possible. As much as the tradition of skepticism, the postmodern rejection of the possibility of knowledge is a resignation to our inescapable pluralism and just as demoralizing to our quest for truth. Postmodern analysis is deservedly renowned for its deconstruction of the self interests that incline us to believe one way or the other. Ironically, there is much Truth in this analysis. But when postmoderns prescribe relativism, they take a right when they should turn left. To suggest that because of our apparently irreconcilable differences we are all right that it is "true" for you is to paper over our differences and end the dialogue that promises the possibility of convergence on the truth. It would be better to infer that we are all wrong, or more accurately, partially wrong. None of us has the complete and final account of reality. This turn, by contrast, serves as an impetus for the ongoing quest. We must likewise reject the notion that our beliefs are captive to our cultural context. Culture is powerful, but not all powerful. There have always been dissenters and revolutionaries who have been able to see through the assumptions taken for granted by their countrymen. The pronounced pluralism of our own time only makes this easier because it is so obvious that our assumptions can and should be questioned.6

It follows from our incomplete knowledge that intellectual humility is in order. Remember that pluralism entails by necessity that we are very likely wrong about some of our beliefs. We are not omniscient. Not by a long shot. "For now we see through a glass, darkly... For now we know in part." Intellectual humility is to seriously entertain the possibility that we may be wrong, and on the flipside, to be open to the possibility that others may be right. This principle of fallibility is well put by James William McClendon, "that even one's most cherished and tenaciously held convictions might be false and are in principle always subject to rejection, reformulation, improvement, or reformation."7 On either side of every debate there are those that seem utterly incapable of second-guessing themselves. Such certain minds, who are not troubled in the least by the fact that others see things differently, escape my comprehension. But because of their intransigence, we should not follow their lead nor despair at the apparent impasses in the contemporary conversation. They too can serve as foils in our own deliberations about the merits of one view or another. And only if we ourselves are open will we be able to be corrected if we are in error. Basil Mitchell gets it exactly right with his recommendation that a spirit of self-reflection and self-criticism is apt no matter the subject.

The main thrust of my argument has been to the effect that the charge that to accept the possibility of criticism is to rule out commitment is palpably untrue to the way our thinking really works in matters of any importance, whether religious or not. Even in the realm of the natural sciences, where the advancement of knowledge is the central concern and where the subject matter is strictly delimited, a

considerable degree of tenacity is required if new theories are to be adequately tested and properly developed. Hence, established scientific systems are not abandoned in the face of problems and puzzles that are not immediately soluble. Science advances precisely by the sustained attempt to iron out these anomolies. ~ "Faith and Criticism as Interdependent" in Faith and Criticism (Oxford University Press: 1994), p.46.

The rejection of the possibility of religious truth with which we began, merely in virtue of its contentiousness, is a case of special pleading and dismissiveness. I am sympathetic with that impulse, divisive as the history of religious differences have been. And yet, it is all too easy to dismiss religious claims in this way, with one fell swoop. It relieves one of the trouble of having to examine and weigh them. To do so, however, is to throw stones in a glass house. It is a failure to see that one's own house is not in order. Pluralism is a challenge to us all and these imperatives are just the tip of the iceberg. The epistemic virtues are many and plot the course well. Pluralism itself settles nothing. We are left right back where we started with the need to appraise the evidence as best we can. But we arrive there, I would hope, with a profound sense of modesty about our ability to do so definitively. Thank God, the continuance of a stable and inhabitable natural world does not depend on us. And just as Camus thought Sisyphus could find joy and significance in his redundant task, we too can make the most of our inescapable pluralism.

Notes 1 "Does the Christian God Exist?" A Debate between Dinesh D'Souza and John W. Loftus (February 9, 2010). Loftus states: "When they [the world religions and sects] criticize each other, they're all right. What's left, I think, is the demise of Christianity and religion as a whole." Later, Dinesh responds to a restatement of this argument: "The presence of disagreement does not invalidate the possibility of truth."

2 C. A. Campbell summed up the status of Positivism nicely as it waned in influence: "In the days when the Verifiability Principle was accepted by its devotees as a secure philosophical truth, one could understand, though one might not agree with, the sweeping claim that many of the traditional problems of philosophy had been shown to be mere 'pseudo-problems'. It was easy to see how, given the Principle's validity, most of the leading questions which agitated our forefathers in metaphysics, in ethics, and in theology, automatically become nonsensical questions. What is perplexing, however, is that despite the pretty generally acknowledged deterioration in the Principle's status to that of a convenient methodological postulate, the attitude to these same questions seems to have changed but little. To admit that the Verifiability Principle is not an assured truth entails the admission that a problem can no longer be dismissed as meaningless simply on the ground that it cannot be stated in a way which satisfies the Principle. Whether or not a problem is meaningless is now something that can only be

decided after critical examination of the particular case on its own individual merits. But the old antipathies seem in large measure to have survived the disappearance of their logical basis. One gets the impression that for at least many thinkers with Positivist sympathies the 'liquidation' of a large, if unspecified, group of traditional philosophic problems is still established fact. If that impression is mistaken, well and good. One may then hope for an early recrudescence of interest in certain problems that have too long suffered the consequences of an unhappy tabu. If the impression is correct, a real service would be done to philosophy if it were plainly stated which of the traditional problems are still regarded as pseudo-problems, and what are the reasons, old or new, for passing this sentence on them. The smoke of old battles, perhaps understandably, darkens the philosophic air, to the considerable inconvenience of all concerned." "Is 'Free Will' a Pseudo-Problem?", In Defence of Free Will (Routledge: 2004, orig. 1967), p. 17.

3 This is, of course, a caricature of scientific method. Philosophers of science will be quick to point out that there is no strict demarcation of what is and is not appropriately scientific methodology, and here too a debate continues.

4 Thomas Nagel, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament (Oxford University Press: 2009), p. 25.

5 Fareee Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (W.W. Norton: 2003), p. 13.

6 D'Souza makes this very point: "If you happen to be born in Afghanistan, you'd be a Muslim. If you happen to be born in Tibet, you'd be a Buddhist. That's true, but what on earth does that prove? I happen to have been born in Bombay, India, which happens to be a Hindu country. The second largest group is Muslim. Even so, by choice, I am a Christian. Just because the majority religion is one thing doesn't make it right or wrong. By the way, what he says about Christianity or Islam is equally true about beliefs in history or science. If you are born in Oxford, England you are more likely to believe the Theory of Evolution than if you are born in Oxford, Mississippi. If you are born in New Guinea you are less likely to accept Einstein's Theory of Relativity than if you are born in New York City. What does this say about whether Einstein's Theory of Relatively is true? Absolutely nothing."

7 McClendon, Understanding Religious Conviction (University of Notre Dame Press: 1975), p. 118.

"But you seem pretty sure that your point of view is correct. Good luck. So are the Islamists. So are the Hindus. So are the Jains. So are the Zoroastrians." Deepak Chopra on "The Future of Faith", Faith Under Fire (April 30, 2005) Episode 10, Season 2.

Send to a friend Is God Good? NATHAN JACOBSON JUNE 17, 2007 A number of recent books making the case against God have hit the best-seller list, most notably Christopher Hitchens' God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. If you follow the argument closely, you'll notice that the gravamen of the case against God is their judgment that God, and specifically the Christian God, as he is commonly understood, is not good after all. Whatever its status as a logical proof against theism, the argument is existentially forceful because we meet a God in their arguments that is deserving of their unmistakable disdain. The argument against the goodness of God usually advances on three fronts: God cannot be good because the world is rife with evil and suffering; The God we meet in the Bible, especially in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, is repugnant to our moral sensibilities; and, Those who claim to follow this God are responsible for epic evils like the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the "troubles" in Northern Ireland as well as for more quotidian evils like intolerance, antiintellectualism, and being bores. While it's almost impossible not to relish Hitchens' and Dawkins' turns of phrase, it is hard to get past their exceedingly strident tones. Nonetheless, the basic thrust of their arguments should be, and is in fact, troubling to believers. LeaderU.com has collected a number of articles wrestling with the first question. Marilyn McCord Adams' well regarded, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God also deals honestly and poignantly with this difficult question at greater length. The second concern about the biblical God is largely a theological question. The attributes of God, including the Goodness of God, are enumerated without much in the way of soul-searching at Grace's Online Library and at The Christian Courier. As for the third contention, Robert Royal's, The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West and James Kennedy's What if Jesus Had Never Been Born consider the impact of Christianity on history. Finally, Christianity Today is featuring a conversation between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson regarding Hitchens' accusations against God and religion. It is truly a clash of the Titans. One Less God NATHAN JACOBSON MARCH 15, 2009

An increasingly popular rhetorical meme in debates about God, it seems, is the idea that the theist is really on the same trajectory as the atheist. After all, the theist has also rejected every god, save one. It seems that it was Stephen Henry Roberts who revived this charge: "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." Richard Dawkins echoes: "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has believed in. Some of us just go one god further." Or, in Christopher Hitchens' words: "Everyone in this room is an atheist. Everyone can name a god in which they do not believe." Interestingly, the charge dates back to at least AD 155, when devotees of the Roman pantheon of gods leveled a similar accusation. At the trial of Polycarp, the Martyrdom of Polycarp records that the crowd yelled: "This is the teacher of atheism, the father of the Christians, the enemy of our gods, who teaches so many to turn from the worship of the gods and not to sacrifice."1 Despite its pedigree, and however effective it is rhetorically, this meme doesn't strike me as trenchant in the least. As I see it, the question of God's existence is a fundamentally different sort of question than whether any one of the purported gods is in fact God. Allow me to draw an analogy. I believe that my mother is Margaret. She told me so and she's been around as long as I can remember. Not only do I believe that she is my mother, but also that none of the other countless candidates is. Say that I learn that in fact I was adopted and she has concealed this from me my whole life till now. I would be left without belief in any particular mother. And yet, I wouldn't for a second think that I didn't have any progenitor whatsoever. That is a different kind of conclusion, and I would still have reason to believe that I was birthed, that I didn't spontaneously emerge from, say, a dandelion. Likewise, the rejection of belief in God is not merely one of subtraction from the sum total of gods on offer, but more like choosing one kind of geometry over another from the beginning. Just as the reasons I have for believing that Margaret is my mother comprise a different set than those I have for believing I have some mother, so too are the relevant considerations for whether God is versus who God is. Print The Role of Natural Theology To the extent that the traditional arguments for the existence of God play a role, belief in God is logically prior and independent of reasons for belief in any particular deity like Zeus, Odin, or the God of Abraham. I believe that the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments for the existence of God usually unarticulated play a significant doxastic role for most theists. They certainly do in my own judgment that the existence of God is more likely than not. Were I to conclude that all of our notions of God throughout history were mistaken, I may still be inclined to think that I and the material world are contingent beings, that we bear the marks of intentionality, that we have objective moral obligations. And so, I might still believe it most likely that a first-cause, a designer, a source of morality exists. The preponderance of those who have some vague notion of God on such bases, people like a Stephen King or Antony Flew, are an indication, I think, that beliefs about the existence of God are arrived at for their own reasons. Their trajectory is not the remainder of a process of elimination, but rather the terminus of a positive line of reasoning.

The idea of God in such cases is not entirely empty, of course. In the above scenario, though I wouldn't know much at all about my birth mother, I could at least know she was human, that she had a womb, that she was of at least a certain age, that she was caucasian, etc. Similarly, though we may not know much about God based on natural theology, we may still think it rational to believe that God is powerful, intelligent, and good. Not surprisingly, we find that these attributes constitute a core of theistic belief that is consistent across a broad spectrum of deities. So, if natural theology carries any weight at all, it is not true, as Roberts suggests, that in understanding the reasons he dismisses all such particular deities, one will also understand why he dismisses the existence of any deity whatsoever.

The Same Sauce for Ganders and Geese? There is also a more immediate question raised by Roberts' claim: "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." Is it really the case that the reasons for rejecting any one of the competing visions of God are roughly the same in individual cases? This suggestion strikes me as implausible on the face of it. For example, I'm strongly disinclined toward Mohammed's vision of God in part because the life of war and plunder that he led does not commend itself to me as befitting that of a spokesperson for God. By contrast, I'd venture to say that few reject the Christian view of God on this basis, due to repugnance at the life of Jesus. Ahistoricial religions, like the many flavors of pantheism, are problematic for other reasons, in part because they often deny the helpfulness of reason itself. The relevant considerations in these examples are incommensurate. It is a gross oversimplification to think that Hinduism and Judaism, Animism and Bah', each of which makes profoundly different kinds of truth claims, could be swept aside by one devastating insight. What exactly would that insight be? That homo sapiens evidently have an almost irrepressible urge to see something supernatural beyond the natural world? That theories about whatever that something is are almost endlessly diverse and contradictory? That by necessity, then, most of them must be wrong, at least in part? If Roberts had supplied the reason (or reasons) he thought that you and I had rejected all the other gods, we could determine whether his reasons were the same as our reasons. But, of course, no such reason is forthcoming, because our reasons for rejecting other beliefs in favor of our own are as diverse as believers themselves, just as the atheist's reasons for disbelief are many and uniquely personalized in each case. Even were I to acutely understand the reasons I have rejected each of the purported gods I've given pause, I wouldn't presume to guess at what constituted Roberts' reasons. In this case, what was sauce for the gander may not be sauce for the goose.

Equivocation for the Sake of the Argument Perhaps the biggest problem in these quotes is the strange use of the term "atheist". If a Christian theist doesn't believe in Allah or Ahura Mazda, is it accurate to say that she is an "atheist" with respect to them? Not really. On the contrary, she is likely to observe the common belief that there exists a transcendent being who is good and powerful, the reason for our being. She remains very much a theist with respect to the various understandings of who God is, while differing with a number of supposed

attributes of said God. It is a disagreement about properties, not about existence. In Denver, where I live, there is an anonymous merrymaker who each Christmas drops a gold coin in the Salvation Army bucket somewhere in the city and who, dressed as Santa, hands out hundred dollar bills to strangers. I have reason to believe that this individual may be a member of my extended family. Others have other ideas about whom this cheerful soul is. Though we disagree about his identity, whether or not he is bespectacled with a grizzly beard (as I think), nonetheless we are sure that this person exists. We are not "amerrymakers" with respect to each other's beliefs, so to speak.

Indeed, we always differ to some extent in the properties that we attribute to individuals. If you ask five people to think of the pop icon Madonna, each person will fix their minds on Madonna using a unique set of associations in their minds. (Two cones and a bottle come to my mind. Tsk, tsk.) Some of these associations may be contradictory, even incorrect, but each person is still able to think of and talk about Madonna. How this works is the subject of a subtle and surprisingly puzzling area of the philosophy of language. While there are a number of competing theories of reference, suffice it to say that we generally take for granted that we can talk about the same entity even when we have deep disagreements about its attributes. If not, political, religious, philosophical, and scientific discourse would be impossible. A-theorists and B-theorists simply couldn't debate the nature of time because they would be unable to talk about the same thing. With respect to the existence of God, Eric Reitan's advice is apropos.

And, if as most theists would agree, God transcends our finite understanding, wouldn't it be better to define "God" in a way that makes our understanding of the divine susceptible to development in the light of critical reflection? What we need is a definition that points us to something without presuming to describe every key detail; a definition that gets all of us "looking in the same direction" so that we can have a debate about the properties of what we're looking at. (Is God a Delusion?, p.45)

Again, there are two questions. First, is there a transcendent person who is the ultimate reason for our being? Second, is that transcendent person like this, or like that? We should not confuse answers to the second question for answers to the first. It is my answer to the first question that determines whether I am a theist or atheist. In this, the theist stands with the plurality of humankind both past and present, in spite of the disconsolate disagreements in virtually every other respect.

A Reductio Ad Absurdum Over the course of human history, humans have pledged allegiance to an almost limitless diversity of governmental systems, most of which we now consider unjust or unworkable. We largely reject feudalism, monarchism, fascism, theocracy, chiefdoms, communism, pure democracy, tyranny, etcetera,

etcetera. I can just imagine, with half a smile, an anarchist appropriating the line of thought considered here to argue that, therefore, we should reject belief in any form of government whatsoever, including representative democracy. After all, we have all rejected most of the governmental systems that have preceded our own. The anarchist merely "goes one step farther" and rejects the legitimacy of any government. Though the analogy may be imperfect, it should be clear that the rejection of a wide diversity of competing visions of governance does not in the least constitute an argument for the wholesale rejection of the necessity and efficacy of some form of government. It would be easy to generate further absurdities following the logic of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Roberts in virtually every field of human inquiry wherein we have discarded former modes of thought in favor of our current theories. Whether it is in physics, climatology, astronomy, or political science, the history of discarded theories in these realms does not imply the non-existence of some underlying reality that is the subject of their investigations, mutatis mutandis. That, simply, does not follow.

Alternate Trajectories There's no question, loss of faith in a particular God often leads to atheism. John Loftus at Debunking Christianity and Luke Muehlhauser at Common Sense Atheism are but two of many examples. Nonetheless, other roads are also well traveled. My sense is that, perhaps the more likely vector for the theist who rejects the last god whom he thought may have been the God is an attenuated theism. For example, Thomas Paine, who criticized organized religion and the Christian notion of God as vociferously as any of the "new atheists", was nonetheless a fervent defender of the existence of a Deity.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. ... But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. ~ The Age of Reason (The Truth Seeker Co.: 1898), p. 50.

Paine's deism was rather formal, including a defined, though minimal, idea of God and morality. More often, attenuated theism is less delineated, a vague belief or hopeful half-belief that some undefined "higher power" is "out there". This sort of belief in God is perhaps even more common than belief in any of the particular visions of God advocated by the world's great religions. As I have said, the reason for this, I think, is that the grounds for rejecting particular gods are of a different sort than those for rejecting belief in God. Disenchantment with the gods of these religions is not uncommon, and if Dawkins and company were right that the next step is the rejection of belief in any God whatsoever, we'd expect them to be in much larger company. Rather, we find that, however limited our knowledge of God, the belief in some God remains remarkably persistent.

I take it that the rhetorical impulse behind the atheologian's point is to reverse the polarities of human opinion. One might be impressed that the overwhelming majority of humans have believed in a supernatural reality, and that many have thought that reality personal. The atheologian reorients our attention away from that apparent consensus to the almost limitless divergence of beliefs about the supernatural. The radical diversity of theological views is worthy of attention in its own right. Nonetheless, it hardly does away with theism as the commonly held belief that it is, nor is it, in the form considered here, an explanation of or an argument for the move from theism to atheism. When disputants protest, as they often do "That's just semantics!" very rarely is the disagreement just a matter of semantics. In this case, we may have a genuine case of an "argument" that in fact relies crucially on an equivocation about the meaning of a word. Worse still, even if the equivocation is allowed, nothing follows from the fact that atheists believe in one less god than "Christian atheists". This is a meme that should go the way of the dodo.

Notes 1 Veselin Kesich, Formation and Struggles: The Church, AD 33-450 (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press: 2007), p. 142.

2 It appears that Richard Carrier has also followed along in this equivocation. "But if the idea of a god is inherently illogical (if the very idea is self-contradictory or meaningless), or if it is contradicted by the evidence, then there are strong positive reasons to take a harder stance as an atheist with respect to that particular god. For in this sense, even believers are strong atheists they deny the existence of hundreds of gods. Atheists like me merely deny one more god than everyone else already does in fact, I deny the existence of the same god already denied by believers in other gods, so I am not doing anything that billions of people dont do already." (Sense and Goodness without God, p. 255.)

3 This notion apparently has no bounds. Skeptic Report is now selling t-shirts.

4 In Angels & Demons, the distinction is nicely made during one of its better scenes, a conversation between Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor) and Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks). McKenna: "Do you believe in God, sir?" Langdon: "Father, I simply believe that religion..." McKenna, interrupting: "I did not ask you if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believe in God." Langdon replies: "I'm an academic. My mind tells me that I will never understand God." McKenna: "And your heart?" Langdon: "Tells me I'm not meant to. Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive."

5 William Lane Craig addresses the "we're all atheists" idea in a short clip on YouTube. He also discusses the definition of atheism at Reasonabe Faith.

6 To underscore the extent to which Christian theists are prone to rejecting alternative, specific gods, Luke Muehlhauser maintains an impressive list of the panoply of gods which both Christians and atheists reject.

7 J. W. Warwick offers an analysis of the rational incoherence of this meme in his "On the Statement that 'We Are All Atheists'" at Always Have a Reason.

Send to a friend On the statement that we are all atheists POSTED BY J.W. WARTICK APRIL 4, 2011 71 COMMENTS

FILED UNDER APOLOGETICS, ATHEISM, ATHEIST, ATHEISTS, CHRISTIAN, CHRISTIANITY, ONE STEP FURTHER, PHILOSOPHY, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, RICHARD DAWKINS, THEISM, WE'RE ALL ATHEISTS, WE'RE ALL ATHEISTS WE JUST TAKE IT ONE STEP FURTHER, WILLIAM LANE CRAIG We are all atheists to other religions, we *atheists+ just take it one step further.

The phrase initially has some kind of shock value, and then it gets you thinking. As a Christian, it may have you thinking, Wow, I never thought of it that way maybe there is something to this atheism thing. As an atheist, it may have you saying Yeah, you Christians are just as rational/skeptical as we atheists about other religions, why not just apply that same logic to your own?

Ive addressed this statement/argument/quip/whathaveyou before: here. Yet I keep seeing it pop up in everyday conversation and even from people like Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss in his debate with William Lane Craig.

Theres a problem though, in fact, theres more than one problem:

1) The statement is false

2) The statement is irrational

3) The statementas with many false or irrational statementsproves too much (or too little).

Lets examine to each of these in turn.

The Statement is False

The idea that Christians are atheists to all other religions is simply false. As Ive explained elsewhere, to other religions, I am not an atheist, I am a rival theistan adherent of another religion. Im not an atheist to a Hindu, I am a theist of a different tradition. To the Muslim, Im not an atheistIm a rival theistic believer. So, simply put, the statement is false.

Atheism, by definition, is the belief that there is no God. Therefore, because I believe in a God, I am not an atheist, by definition. William Lane Craig addresses this statement here. The person who brought up the question curiously counters Craig by saying Thats semantics. Funny, considering thats what the atheists are doing: making up semantic word games. Redefine terms to win a debate: atheism at any cost.

The Statement Is Irrational

As Ive argued elsewhere, the statement is simply irrational. The atheist is literally saying that the theist is an atheist:

necessarily, for any human b, b is either theist (T) or ~T. But Christians are T, therefore they are necessarily ~~T. In English, it is true that any human being is either an atheist or a theist. Christians are theists, therefore, they are necessarily not atheists. (here)

But then what the atheist is saying is that the b who is T = ~T in regards to T`, T, etc. This is simply false, however, because the b who is T is necessarily ~~T. So the atheist is claiming that a contradiction is true.

The Statement Proves Too Much

Consider the following statement:

there are a theoretically infinite number of possible answers to the equation Two plus two, but only one actually true answer. To say that Two plus two equals four is to automatically make me an unbeliever in all the other possible answers. Its not rational, however, for the atheist to say, Well I just go one step further and choose to disbelieve that four is the answer either. (Dean Todd)

The same type of argument could be made for any true statement. Therefore, the type of reasoning employed in the were all atheists statement would undermine all true belief.

But its just a quip

In regards to my previous post on this statement, several respondents said variations of Youre taking it too seriously, its just a phrase meant to inspire discussion or Its just a quip. As one respondent put it:

The original formulation didnt use the word atheist. It simply said, You disbelieve in all the gods of all the religions other than your own. Well, we godless folks only disbelieve in one more than you do. We disbelieve in them all. Stated this way, your hair splitting over the poetic use of atheist becomes irrelevant and the central point stands

But it can be seen that this falls victim to the same difficulties already pointed out above. For it could be said that You disbelieve in all the possible answers to the statement 2+2=? except one *4+, I just disbelieve in them all. Its simply positively irrational to even use it as a talking point. That, or its trivially true and therefore pointless.

Finally, consider the reasoning behind the statement that its just a quip. Does using a phrase as a mere expression excuse it from being contradictory or false? Suppose I were to go around saying atheists are theists too, they just dont know it! After all, in the Bible it says Gods existence is plain and can be easily discerned (Romans 1:18-20). So it follows that atheists are theists! Obviously, if I were to use this as a quip or expression it would be seen as an insult or a jab. Not only that, but it would be seen as obviously false Im not a theist, the atheist would respond. But its just a quip! I could reply. That doesnt excuse it from being utterly false. Or again, many Hindus claim that all people are really Hindus, they just dont know it. After all, Brahma is all, so anyone is really Brahma and part of Hinduism, whether they know it or not. But this is clearly false. I am not a Hindu. I think the concept of Brahman is self-referentially incoherent. To assign a label to me that is false is not to make a quip, but an insult; to assign a label that is incoherent is irrational.

A Dilemma

I present a dilemma:

Those who assert the We are all atheists phrase are either:

1) Making an argument for atheism from the phrase, which is irrational and contradictory

or

2) Being disingenuous and actively making ad hominem jabs at theists (and therefore being irrational)

To maintain the use of this phrase is to live in a world of either irrationality or insult: either way, it is to disrespect ourself and our fellows.

The Underlying Reasons For Making the Statement

In discussing this statement with atheists, Ive found that often it is seen as a simple attempt to try to point out to Christians their inconsistency. The reasoning is that Christians use their cognitive abilities when rejecting other faiths, but they apparently dont in regards to their own. Following from this, it is argued that if Christians were to just be as skeptical about their own faith as they were about others, theyd be atheists too (or at least understand atheism).

There are problems with this reasoning. The first is that it begs the question against Christianity by assuming that there are no good reasons to be a theist (i.e. if you examined Christianity, youd reject it too). There have been many who have examined Christianity and found it to be epistemologically robust; so the reasoning of the atheist is question begging. But it also assumes that atheism is a kind of epistemic neutral ground (something I examined here): if one is an atheist, he/she can examine all worldviews without bias. Again, the problem is that this is false. Atheism is grounded upon the idea that there is no God. As such, that doesnt make in unbiasedrather, it makes it biased against the existence of a God(s). So to assume that atheism is an unbiased viewpoint through which all religions should be viewed is to once more beg the question.

Therefore, it appears as though we are once more left wanting any good reason to use the phrase. The statement that we are all atheists is false, irrational, insulting, and epistemically question begging.

Other resources on this statement:

Edward Feser has a phenomenal discussion of this same topic in his post: The one god further objection

William Lane Craig discusses the definition of atheism in writing. Interestingly, Anthony Flew, the renowned atheistic philosopher (who turned deist late in life) admits that atheists have twisted the meaning of atheism so as to weaken it and allow for agnostics to enter the fold of atheism (and therefore they dont have to argue for the position that there is no God). Craig quotes him herein.

Craig also discusses it in another video here.

Another interesting post on this topic.

SDG.

The featured picture is a poster featuring Soviet Anti-Religion Propaganda.

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Colin McGinn on the Emergence of Consciousness THE MYSTERIOUS FLAME: CONSCIOUS MINDS IN A MATERIAL WORLD (BASIC BOOKS: 2000), PP. 13-4. But in the case of consciousness the Darwinian explanation does not tell us what we need to know, for the simple reason that it is unclear how matter can be so organized as to create a conscious being. The problem is in the raw materials. It looks as if with consciousness a new kind of reality has been injected into the universe, instead of just a recombination of the old realities. Even if minds showed no hint of design, the same old problem would exist: How can mere matter originate consciousness? How did evolution convert the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness? Consciousness seems like a radical novelty in the universe, not prefigured by the after-effects of the Big Bang, so how did it contrive to spring into being from what preceded it. This big problem manifests itself countless times a day. Every time a sentient organism comes into existence, its consciousness freshly minted, we have the same transition from insentient matter to "mindedness." Cells combine and grow during gestation until the brain is mature enough to decant experiences: At first this clump of cells is without mentality, and before you know it there is consciousness throbbing away in there. Where does it come from? What manner of secretion is this? How does mere meat turn itself into conscious awareness? Once you were just insentient cells, no more aware of anything than your liver is now. Today you are brimming with consciousness. How did you make the grade? What catapulted you into consciousness? There must be some kind of natural process

behind this astonishing leap, but this process is obscure. How to Criticize Religion NATHAN JACOBSON REFLECTIONS ON CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS' GOD IS NOT GREAT Christopher Hitchens' god is not Great is an expression of the profoundest moral outrage at the transgressions of religious people. As such, Hitchens follows in a long and honorable tradition. Indeed, in his life and teaching, Jesus also was a consummate critic of corrupted religion. In particular, it was the religious authorities of his time and place the pharisees that he most roundly denounced. His criticisms were many, but included charges of hypocrisy, pride, legalism, and unkindness. Like Hitchens, a consistent theme in Jesus' criticism is how inhumane their religious strictures had become. For example, in one of a number of confrontations over Sabbath observance, Jesus reminds the pharisees that the Sabbath was instituted for the sake of humankind, not vice-versa. Furthermore, the letters of early church leaders follow Jesus' precedent in confronting the failings of his earliest followers. And they all stood in a long line of prophetic voices that, according to the biblical record, were called by God to correct the recurring degeneration of Hebrew, and then Christian, religion. Finally, today you can browse the bookshelves of any Christian bookstore to find volume after volume lamenting this or that shortcoming of the Church. Clearly religion can be corrupt, even poisonous, and it is hardly exempt from criticism. But though Hitchens is in good company in his indictment of religious transgressions, god is not Great is something of a missed opportunity. Because his rhetoric evinces such a profound contempt for people of faith, Hitchens fails to speak persuasively to the very people he thinks need saving. If intended merely as a call to arms for his compatriots, god is not Great is a tour de force. But if he hopes to deconvert the converted, to liberate those captive to religion, another course is needed. If that is the aim, here's how to criticize religion. Print 1. Be a "Friend of Simpletons" Though Hitchens' criticism of religion is an honorable venture, his approach is markedly different to that of Jesus. One of the most intriguing aspects of Jesus is the reputation he earned as a "friend of sinners". Jesus had strong words for those who, like himself, claimed to speak for God. But he was notorious in his time for befriending, dining and drinking yes, really drinking with tax collectors, prostitutes, and other social pariahs of first century Palestine. To the pharisees' chagrin, such people were drawn to Jesus, and he welcomed their company. As he said himself, he came for the lost. It's easy to miss the power and subversiveness of the way of Jesus. Times have changed. The notion of "sin" sounds medieval to modern, and especially postmodern, ears. What hasn't changed is that each of us harbor hostilities toward certain members of society whom we deem repugnant. If not the taxman, it's our political adversary. If not the prostitute, it's the child molester. I confess a perhaps peculiar resentment for the spammer. As a web developer, I've had my share of forums for which I was responsible defiled. It doesn't matter if you've built an online playground for pre-school kids, if you leave the gate ajar, before long you'll be flooded with 24 point type offering free gang bangs and bestiality with just a click. Every year, businesses lose tens of billions of dollars in lost productivity and on filtering spam. Spammers

throw a thousand tons of excrement a second against the world wide wall in the hopes of finding one in a thousand who likes the taste. For the rest of us, it stinks. To be honest, I'd struggle to dine with the likes of them without giving them a piece of my mind. And if we search our souls, we find that we all have such people for whom we harbor disdain, "sinners" in our eyes.

Pharisees Among Us For Hitchens, the "sinners" are a vast swath of humanity,those guileless sheep still beholden to religious faith, and especially the shepherds who beguile them. From his writings, interviews, and debates, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Hitchens can hardly stand them. He has mined every nook and cranny of the english language for every possible pejorative to express his contempt. Meanwhile, Hitchens has nothing but pats on the back for his fellow secularists, saving all his vitriol for those who have not been so enlightened. The contrast with Jesus could not be starker. Hitchens is akin to the pharisee, looking down his nose at the unwashed masses, denouncing their willful ignorance, their simple faith. They are sick, "poisoned" by religion. He has come to save the sick and the lost with the good news of the Enlightenment, and in this his intentions are noble. But his strategy, it would seem, is to shame them, to make them so embarrassed that they will abandon their faith if for no other reason than to escape his scorn, his lashing tongue. No doubt his rhetoric will be an antidote for some, but most will reject even a dose because the doctor seems more cruel than kind.

Hitchens and his cohorts like to say that religion has nothing to teach us about ethics that we didn't already know. However, in Jesus we see something completely unexpected, something that challenges our natural selves. We don't befriend those whom we consider "sinners". We don't love them. We don't treat them with respect. We judge and reject. Pharisees are still among us. Some are religious, some are not. They are us. Richard Dawkins, for example, typifies this reaction in his shunning of former atheist Antony Flew. In 2005, Flew had the gall to travel to Biola, an evangelical Christian university, where he accepted the Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth. This was too much to let pass: cavorting with conservative Christians, accepting an award named after the godfather of the Intelligent Design movement. For his sins, Dawkins dubs Flew "ignominious", and intimates at senility (The God Delusion,pp. 106, 123). Michael Ruse has been similarly lambasted as an appeaser and "clueless gobshite" for his too friendly disposition toward the ID theorists and creationists with whom he contends. I applaud Hitchens' willingness to spar and debate with the defenders of religion in a variety of venues, from Christianity Today to Kings College, and even the aforementioned Biola. But, what if, like Jesus, Hitchens were to come alongside those he considers to be suffering the ill-effects of religion's toxicity not as the consummate critic but also as a faithful friend? I can envision a senior seminar at Biola University or Notre Dame discussing at length with Doug Geivett or Alvin Plantinga the prospects for religion in this, the twenty-first century, all things considered.

Interestingly, the reviled Flew is an example of just such a friendly disposition. Though for most of his life he was unsparing in his reasoned criticism of theism, from an early acquaintance with the late C.S. Lewis to the warm friendships he developed with Gary Habermas and other Christian thinkers, Flew apparently didn't let his idealogical differences devolve into enmity. On a recent episode of the Michael Medved Show (Sep. 28, 2009: Hour 3), a caller asked Christopher Hitchens this very question of befriending rivals. The caller described himself as an atheist who was increasingly concerned by the antireligious vitriol and judgmentalism he finds amongst his atheist friends compared to the equanimity of his Christian acquaintances. Based on his experience, the caller asked: "Do you make an effort to associate and make friends with Christians?" Hitchens responded: "I don't make a special effort, no. I was brought up amongst them. I was educated with them. I have a number of friends who are quite devout. ... These people that you're hanging out with sound to me like the insipid, cultural Christians that you meet all over the place that are effectively no better than Unitarians." It would seem, unfortunately, that for Hitchens, his sharp disagreement precludes befriending the "simpletons". Only the mealy-minded can cross the barricades.

The Pitiful Truth The keys to being able to befriend and treat with kindness those whom we are inclined to detest, I think, are love and pity. We'll get to love, but pity? This is counterintuitive, to be sure. We naturally revolt against being pitied. Indeed, we often say something like: "Detest me, revile me, but whatever you do, don't pity me." It is the ultimate insult to our pride. So, to be clear, I'm not recommending that the critics of religion make a habit of channeling Mr. T: "I pity the fool". Rather, I'm speaking of an unspoken pity that is grounded in a stark awareness of one's own pitifulness. Christians come at this realization in part from their belief that we are fallen, all of us. Their pity, or empathy, then, is grounded in the belief that we are all shadows of our ideal selves. To the extent that Christians trade in self-righteousness and judgmentalism, they have failed to apprehend this central Christian claim. But I do not think such an awareness requires a religious view. Surely a survey of humankind reveals that we are, on the one hand, misshaped by imperfect and sometimes terrible life experiences; and on the other, we ourselves fail to follow our best instincts and sometimes willfully submit to our worst.

Following Jesus' lead, John Dickson commends just such a disposition to Christians when reflecting on Hitchens' recounting of the ignominious deeds committed in their name.

Modern believers have to face the facts and admit that the church has often failed to live up to Christs standards. ... "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 5:3). The kingdom, Jesus says, belongs not to those who think of themselves as morally and spiritually rich, but to those who look into their souls and find poverty. ("Religion and Violence" at CPXtra, Oct 28, 2009)

I'd like to think that Hitchens himself is aware of ways in which he falls short of his own moral and epistemic aspirations. And yet, there is little evidence of empathy in his rhetoric. His intellectual selfrighteousness prevents it: "And here is the point, about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith... we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, open mindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically..." (GISG, p.5) Hitchens' selfappraisal is a noble ideal, but let's be frank: neither he nor his co-thinkers are perfect paragons of the way of science and reason. It is too much to rehearse Hitchens' biases and shortcomings in reasoning here, but the bevy of books published in response to god is not Great enumerate them at length. Some of them at least, hit the mark. And the point is, that's to be expected. He's human, and yes, flawed. But as long as we see ourselves as perfectly righteous, or perfectly reasonable, we will be unable to come alongside the unenlightened as trusted friends and will be left throwing stones from a distance with the pharisees. If what religious people need is a kind of "intervention" to ween them from their addiction to "blind faith", friends are precisely what is needed.

Sales or Suasion Considering the tremendous success of god is not Great interms of sales, it is tempting to think that it could not have been more effective. If Hitchens had written more empathetically and irenically, no doubt it would not have been such a bestseller. The popularity of certain radio shows and political blogs is ample evidence that demagoguery is a reliable recipe for popularity. But, does it persuade? Does it change hearts and minds? It remains to be seen what kind of enduring impact Hitchens' brand of criticism will have on the ranks of the religious in the years to come. I suspect that, for the most part, it will merely have served to deepen the entrenchment between the secular and the religious. If Hitchens is right that religion is an irrational relic that "always" ravages or retards the good of society, that failure of persuasion is a tragedy. In his life and teaching, Jesus offered another way. And, if the remarkable spread ofChristianity in the first and second centuries is any indication, that way has the power to transform the thinking of cities, nations, and empires. The way of Jesus commends itself all the more since the best antidote for irrationality would be careful and patient instruction in a thoughtful and reflective life. Though Jesus is, of course, a religious figure, religion's critics could benefit from appropriating his way of persuasion. And if the effort failed, at least we would be left as friends.

2. Tell the Whole Story Hitchens' catalog of the misdeeds of religious people is like a Headline News version of the religious world. If it bleeds it leads. The local evening news predictably leads with a recounting of the police blotter, before, of course, getting around to the weather. When the weather is severe, it leads. You would never know that the city in which I live is an exceedingly safe and pleasant place. International

news is even more one dimensional. Often it seems the only way to register in the international headlines is to either experience or commit a great tragedy or atrocity. And so, in the popular consciousness: drought stricken Ethiopia was but a vast wasteland populated by children with distended bellies; Apartheid South Africa was an endless landscape of riots on dusty streets; Bangladesh is just a swampland perpetually inundated by floods; Los Angeles was aflame in riots from San Diego toSanta Barbara after the Rodney King verdict, and what was left has been burned to the ground ever since by unrelenting wild fires. I've often wondered if there is a certain level of schadenfreude at the root of this kind of reporting. "My life may not be perfect, but at least I don't live in a dreadful place like that." Perhaps it makesus feel better about our own lot in life to be reminded constantly of the suffering and wickedness of others. Having lived in a number of international locales, I've often been frustrated by how poorly places I know well are perceived from afar. This type of journalism is no small part of the problem. And as a journalist, Hitchens seems prone to exactly this kind of reporting. Apparently, only when religion fails is it newsworthy.

A Tendentious Tale As someone nurtured from birth in a religious community, I'm in a privileged place to judge whether Hitchens' account of religion tells the story well. I have a wealth of first-hand experience of the subject matter. Do I recognize myself or those I know anywhere in Hitchens' two-hundred-eighty some pages? I don't. A number of times while reading god is not Great, I've wondered how I would fare if I ever merited the attention of Hitchens' pen. I'm an average bloke, a mix of strengths and weaknesses,virtues and vices. But, as a person of faith, I suspect that somehow I would emerge in his account as some kind of degenerate, an utter failure of a human being. If Mother Theresa and Billy Graham are reduced in this way, certainly he could manage a hatchet job in my case as well. To wit, my mother occasionally ponders politically incorrect thoughts about the causes of urban poverty. My brother is a driven and successful corporate executive. My sister-in-law is a bit obsessive about health and diet. I am a single male, chaste even in my mid-thirties. Sometimes I interrupt people mid-sentence. I can imagine Hitchens' summation of me and my family: "They are but an inbred clan of unrepentant racists and craven materialists, gullibly taken in by fad diets and superstition. As for Nathan, he's obviously repressed and full of himself, a willing victim of impossible sexual taboos and religious certitude." If you think this imagined caricature is exaggerated, then you probably haven't read Hitchens.

While such an account might have grains of truth, it wouldn't be the whole story, not even the real story. My mother's questions and sometimes impolite thoughts are the result of laboring for fifteen years in the inner city, working to give disadvantaged youth an exit from poverty's revolving door. Now she and my father work in SouthAfrican townships, educating young people on the front lines of theAIDS epidemic. Her heart breaks for the people she serves and loves. My brother and sister-in-law are both fine specimens of humanity, whatever their faults. I won't defend my own foibles, but my experience of Christians couldn't be more contrary to Hitchens' account of religion and its effects.

A Different Story From a young age I was philosophically inclined, profoundly interested in life's big questions. My parents always encouraged my studies and helped me acquire books to that end. When my curiosity led to questioning my own childhood faith, none of the Christians in my life ever scolded my doubtfulness, but rather encouraged me to seek answers.At the local Christian seminary I checked out George Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God and Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian, along with C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity and Craig Blomberg's The Historical Reliability of the Gospels.A Princeton and later Cambridge grad who was studying there mentored me throughout high school and college, modeling and encouraging academic excellence and intellectual honesty and humility. After receiving my BA in philosophy at a well regarded public university, I went on to pursue an MA in philosophy at a Christian college where the academic standards were far higher, and the spirit of learning and truth seeking sacrosanct. I havenever wanted for Christian mentors and peers who sought a faith that was reasonable and true.

My moral aspirations have my whole life been elevated by biblical exhortations and the example of Jesus and those who follow him today. I learned about the genocide and inhumanity in Darfur not from the evening news or George Clooney, but from Christian aid workers who were on the ground in Sudan many years before it became a cause clbre, purchasing slaves to free them and providing humanitarian aid. My conscience was horrified reading Disposable People, a book I discovered in Books and Culture: A Christian Review. And my solidarity with the enslaved peoples of the world has been sustained by the work of International Justice Mission,who are risking everything to live out the biblical mandate to "seek justice, protect the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow". Christian concerts I attended when I was young were often preceded by a call from Compassion International to sacrifice some of the earnings from our minimum-wage jobs to provide food, health care, and education for a child in the third world. My church youth group spent some of its weekends serving food at the innercity homeless shelter or mopping floors at a "street school" for high school dropouts.

My mind and moral convictions have been nurtured by a Christian family and community from the beginning; not to mention the unconditional love and security my brothers and I felt in our home,never concerned for a moment that my parents would be unfaithful to us or each other. In each case, these good people who contributed to my upbringing believed they were living out what it means to follow Jesus.Meanwhile, Hitchens has the temerity to answer his own question, "IsReligion Child Abuse?", in the affirmative, without the slightest qualification.

Where are the Christians who have populated my life in Hitchens' considerations of whether religion is palliative or poison? The tragedies and atrocities of religion to which Hitchens almost exclusively draws our attention are a part of the story to be sure, but they are not the whole story. They are the antithesis of my story. I do not have first-hand knowledge of all the religious subjects Hitchens condemns,and no doubt many of them are condemnable. But in cases where I do have some familiarity, Hitchens' characterizations are a cruel farce. He is all too economical with the truth. Were Hitchens to paint a more complete picture of people of faith, his credibility when naming their obvious failures would be all the more compelling.

3. The Love in Truth, and the Truth in Love It should be clear by now that religious people will hardly feel romanced by Hitchens' entreaties. Still, it can be an act of love to tell the truth, even when it hurts. There can be no mistaking Hitchens' earnestness, his sincere belief that religion is a terrible force for evil in society. If Hitchens fails to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, nevertheless there is much truth in his indictment of religion. Indeed, it is impossible to read god is not Great without being incensed. Even if many of his examples are dubious, enough hold up that nothing less than outrage is appropriate. Considering his subject matter, his utter disgust is the natural response of a moral being to the frequent inhumanity of religious people across the globe throughout history. So, I do not doubt that Hitchens is sincere in his desire for a better society. He believes that the diminishing of religion will be a good thing. Nonetheless, Hitchens' hostility towards not just the worst of religion's peddlers but to all the lost the religious dupes and do-gooders is a serious impediment to his message being received. As Anthony Gottlieb observes, "its possible to wonder... where plain speaking ends and misanthropy begins". Be that as it may, shouldn't the proclamation of truth be enough? The tender hearts be damned!

This mindset is described to a T by James Freeman Clarke.

To speak the truth, or what seems to be truth to us, is not a very hard thing, provided we do not care what harm we do by it, or whom we hurt by it. This kind of "truth-telling" has been always common. Such truth-tellers call themselves plain, blunt men, who say what they think, and do not care who objects to it. A man who has a good deal of self-reliance and not much sympathy, can get a reputation for courage by this way of speaking the truth. But the difficulty about it is, that truth thus spoken does not convince or convert men; it only offends them. It is apt to seem unjust; and injustice is not truth. Some persons think that unless truth is thus hard and disagreeable it cannot be pure. Civility toward error seems to them treason to the truth. Truth to their mind is a whip with which to lash men, a club with which to knock them down.1

There is a certain logic to this way of thinking. As a seeker of truth,I want it to be shouted from the mountaintops whenever it is found. And truth is no respecter of feelings. If I am satisfied merely by getting it off my chest, by having spoken my mind, then sure, the truth, as we see it, is enough. But if I care for those whom I think deceived, I will care whether the message is received. Perhaps another example will serve to illustrate.

The Religious Counterpart As many observers have noted, the tenor of Hitchens' commentary is in perfect harmony with that of many of the religious zealots he condemns. Some strains of Christian fundamentalism have a tradition of showing up at public gatherings with placards proclaiming what they take to be the urgent and prescient truth: "The Choice is Yours: Jesus or Hell." "Global Warming is Nothing Next to Eternal Burning!" Invariably you'll find a flock of offended passersby sparring with these heralds of damnation. The more inflammatory the placards,the more they serve their purpose to draw a crowd and begin the debate.I recently asked one such picketer why he didn't choose a message more consonant with the emphasis of Jesus' own teaching, something that could genuinely be called "good news", something like: "The Good Life is Found in Jesus", or, "Jesus is Water for a Weary Soul". His answer was pragmatic. He admitted they'd tried it, but it just didn't draw a crowd. He went on to argue for the importance of proclaiming the hard truth, no matter the response. No doubt these proclaimers return home with a sense of satisfaction, having done their "Christian duty". Never mind that for every "saved soul", ten turn away in disgust. "So be it", they might say, "Jesus taught that the truth would be too hard to accept for many" (John 6). In fact, that is what they told me. So, Hitchens' placard "god is not Great. Religion Poisons Everything." will continue gracing books leaves on the bestseller shelves of stores across America and the street preachers will keep painting their dire warnings on bulk newsprint for their day trips across the state: two ships passing in the night.

Here's the problem, as I see it. The problem is, Hitchens and his fundamentalist counterparts attend to the proclamation of what they deem the truth, but they fail to consider the conditions for it being received as such.

And So's Your Mom One of the most unfortunate but predictable human behaviors is to despise in return those whom we think despise us, even if for no other reason. The many years of French-American antipathy can largely be attributed to this tendency. Of course there have been historical offenses and differences of opinion one way or the other, but the average American who has never been to France nor parleyed with a Frenchman will often divulge a low-grade contempt for the French merely because he's heard the French don't think much of him. As a rule, when we feel dissed, we're more than happy to return the

favor. The mutual enmity this precipitates effectively makes dialog and persuasion almost impossible. It's why the way of Jesus is again so acute: "bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you" (Luke 6:28). Jesus' counsel reverses the spiral, returning hate with love, curses with blessing. No more perpetuating the tit for tat. An example of this took place, I think, at the Christian Book Expo where Hitchens joined a panel of Christian authors, each of whom bent over backwards to communicate how much they appreciated and were charmed by Hitchens. It's amusing to watch, and to me, quite heartwarming. Even Hitchens expresses the warmest regards for the audience, quite out of character with his written words.

Another Way Probably the most famous words on love are those in the thirteenth chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. What is often missed is that Paul's excursus on love is an elaboration of his teaching on speaking truth. Paul writes: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge... but have not love, I am nothing." Paul makes the point, in memorable imagery, that truth without love is but noise to those who hear it. However profound and urgent, it doesn't have the ring of truth. In a theatrical mood, I've pondered bringing my own set of cymbals to a public gathering to clang away, adding a soundtrack to the fundamentalist preachers of damnation, a way of raising Paul's concern with some dramatic flair.

But, lest Paul be accused of throwing clichs about love, it's worth considering how he spells out just what it looks like in this context.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not selfseeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Here we have a recipe for speaking the truth that could revolutionize the terrible state of uncivil discourse in society. To speak the truth in love is to speak with a spirit deeply motivated by goodwill for others, including one's foes. In its patience, love perseveres through misunderstandings and frustrations. In kindness, it addresses sensitive issues gently, concerned above all to respect the dignity of persons. Divested of excessive self-importance, love is not bombastic, nor does it belittle or mock. Love is not brusque, but considerate and civil. Love does not quarrel for kicks, but because truth is urgent in a world where our actions have real consequences for good or ill. Prizing truth in all things, love does not caricature or misrepresent. Finally, love is optimistic. It assumes the best of others. It

believes and hopes that dialogue will lead to greater peace and justice and human flourishing. Finally, love endures failures and setbacks, unflagging in its pursuit of the good.

One could be accused of a kind of kumbaya naivet for hoping for this kind of truth-telling, but I am convinced that love like this is the key to effective persuasion in controversial matters. In full view of the long history of philosophical, political, and theological disagreements that have led to violence, many have forsaken the enterprise of truth-seeking and truth-telling altogether. I too am weary of the debate, demagogic as it so often is. The only hope is another alternative, to rediscover the art of speaking the truth in love. Mastering this art will require being honest and disciplined in seeking truth, while also nourishing affection and goodwill for others in our hearts. It will require that we not be taken in by the demagogues who overwhelmingly populate the public square, and rather uphold and learn from those who embody Paul's vision of telling the truth in love.

4. Show Us the Way I have tried to be somewhat ironic in drawing upon Christian sources in this how-to guide for the critics of religion. Still, I think each of these principles are true, good, and effective. In yet another irony, if Christians themselves better followed these very principles, Hitchens would have written a very different book. His charges againstChristians hit the mark far too often. As a Christian, I am deeply grieved and confounded by how often we fail to be like Jesus. Though I can object to many distortions and examples of poor reasoning in god is not Great,I am left with a yet deeper sense of this mystery that has troubled me most of my life. Disposed as I am to disenchantment with Christianity,Hitchens fails to capitalize on my doubts and of those like me because he so closely resembles the zealots he condemns. Dani Garavelli echoes this sentiment.

As regular readers of this column may know, I am not hugely devout, my faith, at its lowest ebb, being based more on a desire for God to exist than on an overpowering conviction that he does. If I were to lose the last vestiges of it and become an atheist, I suspect the most liberating aspect would be the prospect of jettisoning, once and for all, any association with the intolerance and invective that has blighted some sections of my own Church for so long. So it strikes me as odd that so-called movement atheists should adopt the very tactics they claim to abhor in religionists to further their own cause. ("Believe it or Not" at Answer The Skeptic, January 31, 2010).

Hitchens rhetoric is so full of disgust and absolutism, so lacking in empathy and nuance, that his irreligious vision of life hardly looks like the way to a new age of human peace and flourishing. And then I look back at Jesus. Though I and others who follow him fail to live as he did, at least in him I see a way of peace for which I can continue to strive. And then I notice that many who have risen to the defense of

Christianity in response to Hitchens have done so with striking civility, care, respect...even, intelligence.Perhaps the way of Jesus does make a difference in some cases. My last suggestion for the critics of religion, then, if I may be so presumptuous, is: show us the way. Taking a mutual pursuit of truth for granted, by your example, also give me reason to believe that the shedding of my hopeful faith will make me less pitiful, less a shadow, more that person I want to be.

Notes 1James Freeman Clarke, Chp. 5 in Every-Day Religion (Ticknor: 1886), 63-76.

Send to a friend