Fundamentalism

Is dangerous? “WHAT'S WRONG WITH RELIGION? WHY BE SO HOSTILE?”

Richard Dawkins,The Delusion, Chapter 8. Other naturalists ask Dawkins:

“Why are you so hostile? What is actually wrong with religion? Does it really do so much harm that we should actively fight against it? Why not live and let live, as one does with Taurus and Scorpio, crystal energy and ley lines? Isn't it all just harmless nonsense?” • And they sometimes continue:

• “Doesn't your hostility mark you out as a fundamentalist atheist, just as fundamentalist in your own way as the wingnuts of the Bible Belt in theirs?”

• Doesn’t a fundamentalist have to be religious? • What is meant by “fundamentalist” here? Dawkins on

• Fundamentalists are dogmatic. (“…they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their ”) • Fundamentalists form beliefs on the basis of authority (e.g. holy books) rather than empirical evidence. • Dogmatism is actually ok, Dawkins says, when based on overwhelming evidence. E.g. that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere.

• (So dogmatism as such isn’t a feature of fundamentalism?)

• I guess dogmatism without evidence is a characteristic of fundamentalism. “Evidentialism”

• Evidentialism is the view that beliefs are justified only to the extent that they’re supported by evidence.

• “Evidence” here includes things known by sense perception, memory, introspection, and logical truths.

“Philosophers, especially amateurs with a little philosophical learning, and even more especially those infected with ‘cultural relativism’, may raise a tiresome red herring at this point: a scientist’s belief in evidence is itself a matter of fundamentalist .” • N.B. The evidentialism that seems required here goes far beyond “a scientist’s belief in evidence”.

• Also, (one of the “amateurs with a little philosophical learning”?) has argued that evidentialism is self defeating.

• (Evidentialism doesn’t seem to be supported by any evidence.) • Dawkins’ response to his critics: “All of us believe in evidence in our own lives, whatever we may profess with our amateur philosophical hats on.”

This completely misses the point of the objection. Straw man fallacy. • Dogmatism is also not the same thing as being passionate. Being passionate is ok.

I might retort that such hostility as I or other atheists occasionally voice towards religion is limited to words. I am not going to bomb anybody, behead them, stone them, burn them at the stake, crucify them, or fly planes into their skyscrapers, just because of a theological disagreement.

(Watson: “This polarization of the religious and non‐ religious may not explicitly prescribe violence, but it encourages hatred and derision of the religious. ) (sociologists) Collins and Pinch

Fundamentalist religion is:

“… mysterious, revealed, hierarchical, exhaustive, exclusive, omnipotent and infallible. The language is that of the Crusade or the Witch Hunt; victory, confession and retraction are the goals wherever heresy is encountered."

(The Golem: p. 152) • They’re talking about (some) scientists, however! Here’s the full quote:

“The science warriors who hate or scorn the Golem notion will countenance no alternative view of science. They seem to think of science as like a fundamentalist religion: mysterious, revealed, hierarchical, exhaustive, exclusive, omnipotent and infallible. The language is that of the Crusade or the Witch Hunt; victory, confession and retraction are the goals wherever heresy is encountered.“ Science!TM Simon Watson, sociologist

“Review Essay: Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Atheist Fundamentalism”, Anthropoetics 15, no. 2 (Spring 2010).

“In his 2006 bestseller, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, presents an argument against “God” that mirrors the rhetoric used by the religious fundamentalists he sets out to criticize.” “… like the Christian fundamentalist who misrepresents and oversimplifies Darwinian evolutionary science, Dawkins presents a monolithic and oversimplified straw man of "religion," which he belittles and denigrates. Generalizing from religious extremism and fundamentalism to all religion, Dawkins demonstrates a deafness to the religious other and an inability to step outside his Darwinian “Theory of Everything,” …” (Simon Watson, p. 1) Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man—living in the sky—who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time ... But He loves you!

—GEORGE CARLIN, quoted in GD, p. 317. (Straw man) • Watson characterises fundamentalism as a reaction to an external, sinister threat.

“The term "fundamentalism" emerged in early twentieth century American after the publication of a series of twelve mass-produced booklets called The Fundamentals (1910-1915). Organized by Reverend A. C. Dixon, these booklets presented the conservative stand of an influential group of British, American, and Canadian writers against the ever-growing influence of continental European theologians such as Albrecht Ritschl, Martin Rade, and Adolf von Harnack.” • Similarly, says Watson, Dawkins is reacting to the threat of the power of the religious right.

He speaks in crude binaries, distorts evidence, and oversimplifies complex realities. Preaching disdain and intolerance, he stokes the fear that feeds religious extremism. Christian fundamentalism

“Those who refuse are not only dumb but also different, dangerous, and possibly contagious. The believer is obliged to rub up against the taint in the commandment to convert, which implies a conquering of death. But to stay with that death too long can be a dangerous affront to the self.”

• (Strozier, quoted in Watson, p. 3) • “Replace the word "Jesus" with "the of Dawkins" and this paragraph could very easily apply to The God Delusion.” Should Darwinians be humble?

“Michael Ruse also recognizes the limitations of reason and and the evidence of the senses. … the Darwinian knows that our limitations come from having evolved in certain ways. These are ways appropriate to our station as "midrange primates who came down out of the trees and went into the garbage and offal business" (140). … A Darwinian, then, should be dubious that his selection-based powers and attributes, including mental attributes and powers, can provide total insight into ultimate physical reality (141). Dawkins, however, like the religious fundamentalist who that he knows and carries out the will of God, fails to recognize human limitations.” (Watson, p. 5) Misrepresenting “faith”

• Dawkins says: "Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument"; people who have faith are not "taught to question and think through their beliefs" (308).

• “Yet, according to the classic definition of Christian faith, is fides quaerens intellectum, “faith seeking understanding” (Anselm)” • Richard Harries states that the idea of faith and reason being inherently opposed to one another is "mind- boggling in its lack of historical perspective" (19). He notes that all philosophers, ancient and modern, have believed that reasons can be adduced for and against a religious view of life: "Most of them have, in fact, believed in God but all have thought religious belief a matter of rational argument." • Watson also criticises Dawkins for acting like a fundamentalist:

• “Dawkins overlooks and distorts evidence that does not serve his proselytizing agenda.” The case of Kurt Wise

American geologist • B.A. in geology at the University of Chicago • M.A. in geology at Harvard • Ph.D. in paleontology at Harvard, supervised S. J. Gould

• As Dawkins tells the story, after getting his Ph.D., “tragedy struck”. Somehow his fundamentalist upbringing reasserted itself, and Wise became a creationist. “I had to make a decision between evolution and Scripture. Either the Scripture was true and evolution was wrong or evolution was true and I must toss out the Bible ... It was there that night that I accepted the Word of God and rejected all that would ever counter it, including evolution. With that, in great sorrow, I tossed into the fire all my dreams and hopes in science.” (Kurt Wise) • Dawkins:

“All he had to do was toss out the bible. Or interpret it symbolically, or allegorically, as the theologians do. Instead, he did the fundamentalist thing and tossed out science, evidence and reason …”

(As Dawkins notes, most theologians, even conservative ones, shake their heads here as well.) Chronology is wrong

• While Wise gets the earth’s chronology wrong, Dawkins gets Wise’s chronology wrong.

• Wise cut up his bible with scissors in high school (grade 10) not after he finished his Ph.D. at Harvard. (According to Wise’s own account, which Dawkins quotes from.) http://creation.com/kurt‐p‐wise‐ geology‐in‐six‐days

• So, while studying at U. Chicago and later Harvard, Wise was already committed to a young earth. (This changes the story considerably.) Wise’s reasoning

• Wise initially liked the idea that each ‘day’ in Genesis 1 was really a period of millions of years. But the order of events didn’t correspond to the scientific account either. (E.g. sun and moon appear on day 4, land plants appear before sea animals, etc.) Wise’s reasoning

“Beginning only a couple of weeks later, however, God began to show me that the rejection of evolution does not necessarily involve the rejection of all of science.”

‐‐ This may help to explain how he did 3 science degrees, in top schools, after becoming a young‐ earth creationist. “…the claim of an old earth denies the veracity of the first 11 chapters of Genesis (e.g., the order of creation, the distinctness of created kinds, the absence of pre-Fall carnivory, the lack of higher animal death before the Fall, the creation of Adam and Eve, the “very good” status of the creation at the end of the Creation Week, the great longevities of the patriarchs, the global nature of the Noahic Flood, the dispersion of people away from the Tower of Babel).

This in turn challenges the integrity of any concept built upon these chapters. Yet, it is my understanding that every doctrine of Christianity stands upon the foundation laid in the first few chapters of Genesis … Thus, an earth that is millions of years old seems to challenge all the doctrines I hold dear.” Conservative theologians

• E.g. at Regent College, UBC campus, Vancouver

Iain Provan James Packer

“I can’t say how “In the Genesis story there’s a fares as science. But I do know talking snake. What better clue that it is poor theology” do you need?” • So why didn’t Wise take this route?

• It is certainly disorienting to allow (for example) that the Adam and Eve story is allegory, or myth. How then do we explain evil in the world? At what point did humans really appear?

• Conservative theologians like Provan and Packer don’t have clear answers. • Fundamentalists like everything to be clear. They don’t like uncertainty or vague, fuzzy boundaries. • “I am hostile to religion because of what it did to Kurt Wise”

• What about Lawrence Krauss? ? (Etc.) The case of abortion

• Is moral opposition to abortion based only on religious dogma, as Dawkins says?

• Human embryos are examples of human life. Therefore, by absolutist religious lights, abortion is simply wrong: fully fledged murder. (p. 329).

• In his usual style, Dawkins also focuses on the most extreme (religiously motivated) anti‐abortion activists, like Randall Terry, Paul Hill, etc. “The American Taliban” • A consequentialist or utilitarian is likely to approach the abortion question in a very different way, by trying to weigh up suffering. Does the embryo suffer? … [not much] Does the pregnant woman, or her family, suffer if she does not have an abortion? Very possibly so; and, in any case, given that the embryo lacks a nervous system, shouldn't the mother’s well- developed nervous system have the choice? (p. 331)

• (The main issue with killing people, according to consequentialism, is not the suffering involved with the killing itself but the loss of one’s future. And this would apply to fetuses as well as to children and adults.) All religion fosters extremism

• “even mild and moderate religion helps to provide the climate of faith in which extremism naturally flourishes.” GD, p. 342

• Faith promotes extremism in two ways: – It makes people obedient to authority, and dulls questioning, rational criticism, etc. – It immunises people against the natural fear of death, by the promise of a martyr’s paradise. • Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument. Teaching children that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them—given certain other ingredients that are not hard to come by—to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for future jihads or crusades. Immunized against fear by the promise of a martyr's paradise, the authentic faith-head deserves a high place in the history of armaments, alongside the longbow, the warhorse, the tank and the cluster bomb.

• (pp. 347‐348) Christian anti‐intellectualism

• Religious groups aren’t the only ones (sometimes) opposed to scholarship. E.g. dictatorships. • The evangelical church in the 20th century perceived the academic world as hostile, and so rejected it. This is the culture that Dawkins is describing. • Hence today, (older) Christian philosophers are almost all Catholic or Dutch (Christian Reformed). Christian intellectualism

• However, let’s not forget that (virtually?) all the oldest universities in the world were founded by Christians. • Islam also had a strong intellectual tradition in its “Golden Age” of 8th –16th century. • There are plenty of denominations today who encourage questioning • “Sadly enough, there is a kind of an anti-intellectualism among many Christians: spirituality is falsely pitted against intellectual comprehension as though they stood in a dichotomy. Such anti-intellectualism cuts away at the very heart of the Christian message. Of course, there is a false intellectualism which does destroy the work of the Holy . But it does not arise when men wrestle honestly with honest questions and then see that the Bible has the answers. This does not oppose true spirituality.”

Francis Schaeffer (Christian philosopher, 1912‐1984) Secular zeal and dogmatism? • Atheism is a faith-claim like any other religious faith- claim in that it cannot be supported with empirical evidence. In this sense, atheism is a belief that can facilitate and ground other beliefs, in the name of which violence can be committed. Dawkins argues, "I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca—or Chartres, York Minster, or Notre Dame" (italics mine) (249). In reality, Marxism is an atheist ideology for which Soviet authorities systematically destroyed and eliminated the vast majority of churches and priests during the period 1918 to 1941. This violence and repression was undertaken in pursuit of an atheist agenda—the elimination of religion (Watson) • “When a society rejects the idea of God, it may transcendentalize alternatives, such as the ideals of liberty or equality or reason. These now become quasi-divine authorities, which none are permitted to challenge.”

• Or safety! The zeal of “safety” organisations

• There are many organisations (and people) devoted to reducing the burden of traumatic injuries in society. From my point of view, the views and policies of these groups are (mostly) irrational.

• For example, according to these groups salvation (i.e. “safety”) is to be found in modifying human behaviour, and forcing people to use safety gadgets like infant car seats and helmets. They have a narrow, blinkered view. • Such groups are dogmatically opposed to recognising certain facts: – Humans adjust their behaviour in response to perceived changes in risk – Real‐world data shows no evidence of health benefit from seatbelt or helmet laws – Reducing the total injury burden from road crashes and air pollution requires drastic changes to urban infrastructure (to create less driving, and slower driving) – Active travel has huge health benefits and needs to be encouraged rather than restricted. • One injury group states on its website: "... motor vehicle collisions which costs the BC healthcare system approximately $8.8 billion per year”. • I tried to explain to them that this was ridiculously overblown, by a factor of about 20, but thy replied, “While we stand by our references and calculations, you have provided us with thought-provoking points that led to good conversation at our Unit this week.” E.g. John Adams

• “Gatherings of road safety researchers tend to have an evangelical atmosphere.” (p. 148) • “[Adams] has produced an eccentric paper and has made the preposterous suggestion that wearing belts encourages people to drive more dangerously. (Roger Moate)”

• John Adams, Risk and Freedom, 1985 • “It is time for anger, it is time to tell the Minister of Transport that his failure to enforce the wearing of seat belts is tantamount to being an accessory to murder. And murder it is – mass murder.” (Dr. Stanislaw Gebertt, quoted in The Times, 1.7.81)

• (Adams, p. 148) • The atmosphere in which research on road safety questions is conducted can be morally intimidating. Anyone who cannot see the dramatic effects of road safety regulation in the United States risks being labelled by the American Journal of Public Health as an “ignorant nihilist” who is “symptomatic of a sick society”. (p. 149)

• In the House of Lords debate on June 11, 1981 Lord Underhill insisted “it would be terribly dangerous if credence were to be given to any arguments against the benefit of wearing seat belts.” Be Afraid!!!!

“Thudguard is just one more option that we didn’t have before, taking the safety straight to the child’s head by reducing the risk of head injury even more!” The Case of Homosexuality

“In 1954 the British mathematician Alan Turing, a candidate along with John von Neumann for the title of father of the computer, committed suicide after being convicted of the criminal offence of homosexual behaviour in private.” (Dawkins, p.326)

• Reverend Jerry Falwell, founder of Liberty University: “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals” What does the Bible say?

• 250 Bible verses about money (mostly negative) • 3‐6 Bible verses about homosexuality (negative) ‐‐ only 1 refers to lesbians.

• The main text (New Testament) is Romans 1:18‐32, where St. Paul describes homosexual acts as “shameless”, “dishonorable” and “contrary to nature”. • N.B. These views of St. Paul were not unique to Christians at the time. • E.g. the historian Josephus (a Hellenistic Jew, 37 – 100 A.D.) wrote: “That law owns no other mixture of sexes but that which nature hath appointed, of a man with his wife, and that this be used only for the procreation of children. But it abhors the mixture of a male with a male” (Against Apion, Book 2, Sec. 199) • (The Jewish philosopher Philo said similar things.) • Greek society was generally fine with homosexuality, although many Greek and Roman writers also took this “contrary to nature” view, including Plato and the Roman stoic Cicero. • Some writers, especially John Boswell, argue that St. Paul and other Biblical writers have pagan temple prostitution in mind when they write such verses. • Boswell, a Yale historian and Roman Catholic, wrote Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. He also argued that the medieval rite of adelphopoiesis (“the making of brothers”) was a same‐sex marriage rite. (Mainstream scholars have rejected this view.) • Dawkins apparently takes a utilitarian approach to homosexuality:

• The 'crime' itself being a private act, performed by consenting adults who were doing nobody else any harm, we again have here the classic hallmark of religious absolutism. (p. 326)

• Dawkins seems to ignore the fact that many acts that don’t harm others are either morally wrong or unhealthy in themselves. (E.g. self injury.) • What alternatives are there to St. Paul’s “contrary to nature” view?

1. Natural law may include homosexual acts. Aquinas held that sex is moral when it furthers the goods of marriage, which include love and companionship as well as procreation. This arguably opens the door for homosexuality being natural. (E.g. Michael Sandel takes such a view.) 2. Queer theory. On this view ideas of “natural” sexuality are social constructs. There is no “natural law” at all. “Since most anti-gay and lesbian arguments rely upon the alleged naturalness of heterosexuality, queer theorists attempt to show how these categories are themselves deeply social constructs.”

(Stanford Encyclopedia of , entry Homosexuality – hereafter ‘SEP’) • (N.B. Not all pro‐LGBT authors accept queer theory.) • But if the (Aristotelian, Thomist) concept of human nature is a social construct, then what intrinsic limits are there to human life?

• Can we say that anything is deviant?

• This is the problem that Stanley Fish was addressing. Is there an objective basis for rejecting “paraphilias” like pedophilia, sadomasochism, transvestitism, fetishism, bestiality, etc.? “A related criticism is that queer theory, since it refuses any essence or reference to standard ideas of normality, cannot make crucial distinctions. For example, queer theorists usually argue that one of the advantages of the term ‘queer’ is that it thereby includes transsexuals, sado-masochists, and other marginalized sexualities. How far does this extend? Is transgenerational sex (e.g., pedophilia) permissible? Are there any limits upon the forms of acceptable sado-masochism or fetishism? While some queer theorists specifically disallow pedophilia, it is an open question whether the theory has the resources to support such a distinction.”

(SEP) • Can there be morality without natural law?

• If not, then Dawkins’ treatment of homosexuality and religion misses the main issue. I was having a conversation of this sort with a moral philosopher.

• “If there’s no human nature, then what’s wrong with rape?”

• “Rape is wrong because women don’t like it”

That’s it???