Our Inescapable Pluralism

7/28/2019 Our Inescapable Pluralism

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Our Inescapable Pluralism

NATHAN JACOBSON MAKING THE MOST OF OUR DISAGREEMENTS MARCH 22, 2010

The great 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.

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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 wasundercut 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


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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,


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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 arguedthat 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 naturalrationality 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


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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 questionsat 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


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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 thepossibility 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


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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, inethics, 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


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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 aboutwhether Einstein's Theory of Relatively is true? Absolutely nothing."

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


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"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.

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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, anti-

intellectualism, 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


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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.

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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.


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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


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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 presumingto 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,


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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 besupposed 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 anyof 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.


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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 thesupernatural. 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 conversationbetween 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."


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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:


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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)


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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 justgo 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 22=? 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.


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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 knowit! 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 wereto 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


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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.


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SDG.

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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


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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 hostilitiestoward 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


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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'ttreat 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, likeJesus, 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.


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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 anti-

religious 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)


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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 self-

righteousness 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' self-

appraisal 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, itwill 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


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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 realstory. 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.


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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". Christianconcerts 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.


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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


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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


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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 self-

seeking, 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


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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 writ

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Our Inescapable Pluralism