A Response to Roger Scrutton

 

In “The Return of Religion”, (which you can find on www.edge.org) Roger Scrutton attempts, poorly, to paint Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens (The Four Horsemen of the Anti-Apocalypse as they are sometimes called) as evangelical, untidy, strident and even VIOLENT advocates for atheism.  He even goes so far as to suggest that they promote a type of blind faith in atheism, which limits our questioning nature and keeps us from defining our humanity accurately. 

Where he gets off attacking these gentlemen as VIOLENT, even in vocabulary, I’ll never know.  But worse, Scrutton’s entire essay provides what seems to be an attempted defense of the claims that religion makes, and the process of ignorance by which we humans are comforted, all the while scolding Dawkins, et al, for not having alternative, all-encompassing answers. 

The Four Horsemen are just the tip of the iceberg, of course, just a few among thousands of what Scrutton calls Evangelical Atheists, but what I call, much more appropriately, Fundamentalist Evangelical Agnostics.  For that is what The Four Horsemen are… agnostic.  They don’t THINK there is a God, and they also know they cannot prove that there ISN’T a God.  They have all stated, clearly, that they recognize this, and so their ‘atheism’ is only in practice (just as you and I are atheists, in practice, when it comes to Zeus).  What they DO claim is that the probability, based on evidence, that there is a personal, religious God that fits any religious definition, is so vanishingly small, that they can confidently attack the specific fact claims about the nature of God & the Universe that are being made by religions of all 6,000+ different sects (who happen to be worshipping some cross-pollinated version of a mythical Sun God). 

The reason opponents of religion (like the Four) promote the practical side of Atheism, is that for some reason (most likely a complete and total misunderstanding of the word Agnostic), religious folks tend to just brush agnostics off as ‘future converts who just need more time’ or ‘no real threat to the salvation of their children’ or ‘not REAL unbelievers’, much in the same way they misunderstand what the word Theory means, in “The Theory of Evolution”.  Many people tend to think that Agnostics simply say, “I don’t know” and then move on with their lives.  But what many an agnostic REALLY says, is ‘I don’t know, and NEITHER DO YOU.”  Promoting Atheism in practice, then, does not make Dawkins & Co. any less agnostic.  They are simply emphasizing the fact that all Theists in the world are claiming things that they, by every reasonable calculation, CANNOT and DO NOT know!   

Atheism, you see, can be defined as the simple absence of belief in deities.  It is that word, Belief, that most troubles your average fundamentalist agnostic.  Beliefs are counter-productive and distract from the purpose of finding out what is true.  And so, the Four Horsemen are simply taking a stance against theistic BELIEFS, as a part of a greater itch to eradicate blind beliefs of all kinds. 

Scrutton, unfortunately, makes the common mistake of saying that The 4 take away important questions, and by doing so, limit the answers we can come up with.  This is patently false.  These fundamentalist agnostics simply don’t want ‘holy’ people to ‘provide’ arbitrary  religious answers in the place of actual data or scientific theory.  That’s it.  Their approach takes away no questions, and only limits the answers, in that it requires any “answer” to have accompanying evidence. 

In calling Dawkins, et al, ‘strident’ he compliments them.  A loud, forceful and persistent (the definition of strident) voice in the defense of reason and in objection to the irrational claims that have, over centuries, proven to lead to unnecessary death, destruction, ignorance and the handicapping of critical inquiry is EXACTLY what we need.  What we don’t need are more blind sheep that aren’t creative enough to see the possibilities for transcendent experiences outside the framework of our present day religious insanity.  Besides, a critic can be strident and caring at the same time, can he not?  

Scrutton also asserts that , “All faiths, to the atheists, have remained in the condition of Islam today: rooted in dogmas that cannot be safely questioned.  Believing this, they work themselves into a lather of vituperation against ordinary believers, including those believers who have come to religion in search of an instrument of peace, and who regard their faith as an exhortation to love their neighbour, even their belligerent atheist neighbour, as themselves.” 

In saying this, he misses the point.   It’s not always a matter of safety.  It’s a matter of truth.  Not all religions are an immediate physical danger to humanity, but to the degree that any religion helps create a climate that is receptive to subjective opinions being presented as objective truths, that religion is creating a buffer between critical thought, and the extreme fundamentalists that HOPE to do harm by carrying out the word of their God.  While I certainly do not fault people for searching out ways to find peace & love, I do think that even the religious moderates have missed the target, and I think that there is no fault in persistently pointing this out to them.  After all, if it is true love & peace that moderate religious folks seek, they should be easily convinced that ANY significant level of blind faith is no avenue to their ends.  Unfortunately, these same moderates are NOT easily convinced.  They are steadfast in their blindness.  And that is the reason for the increase in volume & persistence of the message extolled by Dawkins, Harris & company. 

He admits that the existence of the universe, the galaxy, the planet, the primordial soup, the gene and the human experience raise questions that should be solved by discovering the laws of motion that govern the observable changes at every level of the physical world.  Further, he admits that any mystery we are confronted with results from our partial knowledge of the subject, and can only be solved by further knowledge of the same kind – the knowledge that we call science.  He goes on to state that only ignorance would cause us to deny this general picture of things, and says that our four fundamentalist agnostics (he calls them evangelical atheists) assume that religion must deny this general picture, and therefore must, at some level, commit itself to the propagation of ignorance or at any rate the prevention of knowledge.  All of this.  All of it… is RIGHT ON. 

But he doesn’t stop there.  Unfortunately Scrutton goes on to say that all of his religious acquaintances accept this general picture, but don’t regard it as posing the remotest difficulty for their faith (which I find hard to believe).  In fact, he blames our Agnostic Four, for simply pointing out that there are TONS of things we simply don’t know.   Apparently, he thinks it’s a good thing that religion provides, as Scrutton says, “Something that removes the paradox of an entirely law-governed world, open to consciousness, that is nevertheless without an explanation: that just is, for no reason at all.”  Well, yes, religions DO offer ideas about this paradox.  Unfortunately, and this is important, religions don’t present these ideas as THEORIES.  They take subjective opinions and present them as objective facts.  In other words, what religions offer are lies, to fill the gaps in our understanding.   

Moreover, Scrutton says that Dawkins & Co. , “are subliminally aware that their abdication in the face of science does not make the universe more intelligible, nor does it provide an alternative answer to our metaphysical enquiries.” 

Well, he’s wrong that science does not make the universe more intelligible, but what, you may be asking yourself, is an alternative answer?  Seriously?!  What is the definition of an alternative answer?  What a ridiculous premise, that we should be offering alternative answers simply because the “answers” provided by an ill-equiped forum (religion) turned out to be false.  Why can’t we just say, “There is no evidence that there is a God.”  Why do we have to fill people with falsity so that they can sleep at night?  Shouldn’t humanity just get used to saying, “I don’t know” and then endeavor to correct our ignorance, and not simply provide fake answers to our biggest questions?  Isn’t THAT the most humble realization of our finite nature that exists?  

He then goes on to say that because these brave men don’t offer this equally fake ‘alternative answer’, it simply brings inquiry to a stop, which is, again, patently false.  Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens want ALL questions to be asked.  They want ALL answers to be attained.  It is a bogus claim, therefore, that they want anything less than the truth through inquiry.  Wanting to end religious dogma is very different than wanting to end inquiry.  The reason this is true, is that religion is NOT inquiry.  It’s subjective opinion being presented as objective fact.  Mr. Scrutton must not recognize that the most enquiring minds in the world are likely to be atheist leaning agnostics, not Baptists.  And the reason?  Because the intelligent folks out there cannot bring themselves to make stuff up, or pretend to believe things that, from all accounts, are made up.   

As Scrutton says, “The thought of consciousness gives rise to peculiar metaphysical anxieties, which we try to allay with images of the soul, the mind, the self, the ‘subject of consciousness’, the inner entity that thinks and sees and feels and which is the real me inside. But these traditional ‘solutions’ merely duplicate the problem. We cast no light on the consciousness of a human being simply by re-describing it as the consciousness of some inner homunculus – be it a soul, a mind or a self. On the contrary, by placing that homunculus in some private, inaccessible and possibly immaterial realm, we merely compound the mystery.”  He argues that it is this mystery which brings people back to religion. 

“People continue to look for the places where they can stand, as it were, at the window of our empirical world and gaze out towards the transcendental.”  And I support this.  GO FOR IT!   To look at the unknown with wonder is no crime.  In fact, it may be the most important thing we do, as long as we admit we’re are looking at the unknown, and not claiming to know it’s  nature… and I think Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens would agree with me.  I don’t think they are fighting against some nebulous, impersonal, non-dogmatic, doctrine-free set of pseudo-transcendental personal experiences. 

These experiences of looking towards the transcendental are quite different than making Theist claims about the nature of God.  This is what Religions do everyday.  Social endorsement and theological infrastructure, though comforting to us as social beings, mean next to nothing if they represent something that is false.  

Religion is the problem, and this is where people fail; by turning to religion as a comfort to their awareness of the incomprehendable nature of Universe.  Religions do NOT satisfy our need for answers. Feeding today’s Religions to the true seekers, is like feeding Iceberg Lettuce to the starving.  Sure it’s SOMETHING, but all you’re really getting is Vitamin K and some water.  This isn’t nutrition.  Where’s the meat?  Where’s the fruit?  Where’s the bread?  Where’s the truth?  People don’t HAVE to have these all-encompassing answers.  They just WANT them.  People come back to religion because they aren’t comfortable not knowing.  I’m not saying it’s surprising, I’m just saying it’s an outdated practice and because we can see the harm in this process, I argue that religious beliefs are not useful anymore. 

You see, real answers ARE scientific, thoughtful, evidence based, answers.  If an ‘answer’ doesn’t qualify as a knowable fact, then it’s a theory, hypothesis, hunch, etc.  Religion offers claims.  Conjecture.  Smoke & mirrors.  Science offers a competitive marketplace of ideas.  All the best ideas win.  You tell me, Roger, who is the truly reasonable group?   Life is a beautiful and wonderous thing.  Let’s find out more about it, and stop stunting the process of finding things out, by making or defending aggregiously inaccurate claims about the nature of reality, especially when those claims are force-fed to the innoncents.  

In other words, let’s be reasonable.  If God is not dead, it’s going to be the thinkers that clue us in.  Not the believers.  Right?

 

CCD, 

Ben