Devil's Advocacy

Rant | Published on April 12, 2008

Image: Christian tract, Jack. T. Chick.

I heartily endorse the New Atheists' strategy of taking the firefight to the enemy's doorstep. As someone who is truly soul-sick of his fundie relatives' condescending, culturally arrogant prayers that he find The Light© before he's cast into the lake of everlasting fire, I'm thrilled by the new strain of what might be called "evangelical" atheism. Watching Dawkins or Harris or Hitchens hand Christian apologists their heads is my idea of fun for the whole secular-humanist family, a popcorn-friendly bloodsport that's as entertaining for the little ones as it is edifying. It's high time those proselytizing god-botherers who materialize on my doorstep every Sunday morning understand what it's like to have their beliefs treated as self-evidently absurd, the foundations of their world-view vigorously challenged by a devil's advocate who gives no quarter. Spread the love, I say.

But Dawkins and Hitchens (both of whom I admire immensely as vorpal swordsmen in the Enlightenment cause, Hitchens's intellectual glaucoma regarding the Iraq question notwithstanding) reveal an almost willful ignorance about religion as a social construction and American evangelical Christianity as a subculture.

Following cultural studies, ethnography, and cultural anthropology, I believe it's important to understand the radically utopian impulses, unspoken yearnings, and unconscious desires that flicker through contemporary evangelical Christianity. Dawkins and Hitchens make short work of Christianity and all its bigoted, irrational works and ways, for which we owe them a debt of gratitude. But their analysis lacks subtlety, and their understanding of why so many are seduced by religion, especially in America, is millimeter-deep. To say that Christianity is a Bronze Age fable, a holdover from the primitive childhood of the species, may be deeply satisfying to those of us tending the Enlightenment flame in these new dark ages, but it's also thumpingly obvious. Harris and Hitchens may be right, but they're not terribly enlightening, at least to anyone not living on a flat earth, in a pre-Copernican cosmos.

Then, too, there's the obvious problem that Dawkins is a humorless prig, as sanctimonious in his unbelief as true believers are in their faith. (I'm with Cartman on this one.) He's on a Mission From God when it comes to prosecuting the atheist case---a one-man crusade so obsessively all-consuming it runs the risk of elevating his unfaith to a sort of faith. He makes an ornament of power, as the postmodern Marxist McKenzie Wark would say. Meaning: he so fetishizes the object of his critique that he ends up exalting it, giving it more power than it actually has. As for Hitchens, he's blind to the situational irony of his own position, namely, our most mordant critic of religion is, at the same time, a fervent fundamentalist on the question of Iraq. Buried under an avalanche of evidence to the contrary, he insists that our little imperial adventure in Iraq is a Just Cause; that all the blood and treasure spilled there is just the price of "sewing democracy" in the Middle East. If that isn't the limit case in blind faith, I don't know what is.

Christian tract, Jack. T. Chick.

Yes, the Enlightenment tradition of reasoned debate and the scientific method's appeal to fact trump evangelical Christianity's "faith-based" obedience to scriptural "truth," its cowering fear of the Deeply Disapproving Daddy in the Sky. Those points being eagerly granted, how much more interesting to excavate the historical, class-based, and economic roots of American evangelical Christianity, to understand it in all its oxymoronic complexity as a conservative counterculture. There is a reductionistic, black-and-white binarism to Dawkins and Hitchens arguments that, irony of ironies, replicates the very same Manichean dualism beloved of American fundamentalism.

(And no, I'm not echoing the sophistic argument, made with her usual blunt-trauma subtlety by Ann Coulter and with somewhat more nuance, on the left, by Chris Hedges. I'm not arguing that a dogmatic atheism is a fundamentalism by any other name; rather, I'm arguing that using the sledgehammer of reason to smash to smithereens religion's preposterous epistemology and its hypocritical morality leaves half the job undone. Conservative Christianity has little to do with theology and everything to do with the culture wars; making sense of it requires not just a rationalist-materialist critique but an ethnographic/anthropological angle of attack.)

Both thinkers forget the (admittedly done-to-death) Fitzgerald adage that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." Religion has been both the indefatigable enemy of our intellectual evolution, as a species, and an inspiration to the John the Baptists of social justice, from Gandhi to Martin Luther King to the liberation theology proponents of the '60s. American Christianity has spread the thought-killing viruses of misogyny and homophobia and anti-empiricism/anti-rationalism and it has, in African-American culture, rewoven the social fabric and ministered to the material as well as the spiritual needs of a community under assault from without and within, often as the only institution left standing in economically decimated neighborhoods abandoned to their social pathologies by the institutions of white power (codeword: the government, whether local or federal).

American evangelical Christianity is a perverse thing, much of it demonstrably extrabiblical if not outright contradictory of scripture. Arguably, this is because it's not about God; rather, religion is simply the only philosophical (or, if you will, mythic) language available to some Americans to articulate their discontent and their visions of social change. The Dawkins/Hitchens question---What's wrong with religion?---is far less illuminating than the question they might have asked: What are American evangelicals really talking about when they talk about religion? Following Tom Frank's argument in What's the Matter with Kansas?, I believe that Christian fundamentalism, American style (like its Islamic counterpart in the extremist madrasahs of the East and the Middle East), uses religion to articulate the social, political, and economic discontent and utopian fantasies of a certain segment of American society. It does so because religion is the explanatory narrative and metaphoric language that segment has used, throughout American history, to make sense of the social changes taking place around it. As well, religion has been that class's primary mode of public address in American culture.

Christian tract, Jack T. Chick.

Posted by Mark Dery at April 12, 2008 01:57 PM | | TrackBack

I find Hitchens, Harris, and Dawkins nearly unreadable these days -- they've replaced argument with arrogance. Hitchens I could read when he attacked Mother Teresa -- when he made a case based on facts -- but now he simply attacks all those who don't think as he does. I dread the thoroughly rational world he dreams of. I'm glad for the fundamentalists, glad, even, for spiritual warfare -- what would writers like you and I do in a country without strange towns like Colorado Springs, weird terrain like that of Southern California? I think Hitchens' anti-religiosity, pro-imperialism, and former Trotskyism are all of a piece, all manifestations of his hatred for minds lesser than his (almost all of ours) and his desire to conform the world to his will. I wish he'd drop his bazooka and go back to sniping.

Posted by: Jeff Sharlet at April 13, 2008 10:56 PM

This is the most interesting thing I've read in quite some time. Thank you very much for the excellent post!

(linked from BoingBoing)

Posted by: Andrew Wilchak at April 14, 2008 02:20 PM

Are you really suggesting that the concept that Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens fail to understand is that American's Christian zeal is really just a cypher for their reactionary fears and, sure, their (narrow, exclusionary) Utopian wishes?

Seems to me that they, along with anyone not living on a flat earth, would find that notion to be thumpingly obvious, to borrow some of your phrases.

Furthermore, your take on the issue strikes me as the one more arrogant by far: rather than taking the religious community's professed beliefs at face value and challenging them on their merits, you propose that we instead talk about what we know they really mean. What a paternalistic notion. In any discussion, is there any argument more obnoxious than one that begins "oh, you only think that because..."

It seems to me that you hit it on the head when you said that Dawkins et al. were being willfully ignorant. Of course they recognize where this religious impulse is coming from. (If the Evangelical Christians were really motivated by true fundamentalism, and not their own prejudices, they would be just as intolerant of shellfish eaters or wearers of clothes woven from two types of thread as they would of homosexuals.) Of course Christianity is just a left-over cultural and linguistic tool that the Evangelicals have picked up and repurposed to suit their agenda.

What the radical atheists have recognized is that in order to address the fear and ignorance that is at the root, they need to first "disarm" them of the "explanatory narrative and metaphoric language" they use to defend their beliefs from being subject to rational evaluation on their merits.

So if Dawkins and Hitchens seem ignorant of what's behind the American Evangelical impulse, it's because they know that until they do something about the infallibility that their faith grants their prejudices, the only thing pointing out their real motives will accomplish is putting an immediate and hostility-laden end to the discourse.

Posted by: JH at April 14, 2008 02:47 PM

It sounds like you are making a point very similar to the one that Obama is currently being unfairly punished for making.

It isn't that I disagree with you (or him) but the difference between the two points of view is very subtle. Who cares about the root cause of theistic irrationality if it is truly something we are powerless to change.

I also don't think that your point is missed by any of the new atheists. They, like myself, just don't see it as all that relevant.

The sources of the irrationality you cite will always exist. There isn't anything the new atheists, or anyone, can do about it.

-Mark

Posted by: Mark at April 14, 2008 03:36 PM

Why it is so important to understand that religion is the language through which people express "social, political, and economic discontent and Utopian fantasies." What work does such an account do? Why is that a especially deep part (as opposed to parts that display "millimeter deepness") of the analysis of religion in America?

One reason why I disagree with Mark when he says that new atheists leave "half the job undone," is because I think that much more than half of "the job" is answering the question 'should we believe in God.' The new atheists answer the fuck out of that question... and in the negative. The fall out is that, if you read this stuff you are either convinced, or have bad arguments for why you are not convinced (see especially: the ultra stupid, Cartman worthy, dogmatic-evangelicalism-of-atheists objection). Their work is important because it attacks the grounds that anyone could have for being religious.

But, why is this question so illuminating?

"What are American evangelicals really talking about when they talk about religion?"

The best answers that I can think of [the author doesn't answer this, as much as he repeats the claim that the question is important/deep/part of a special tradition] are the following:

Knowing more about the function religion plays socially (i) draws out needed sympathy toward religious folks or (ii) could help us to curb religious impulses on a large scale, if we were more aware of religions' root causes.

(i) I'm not sure that, given the atheist/theist power dynamic in the US, it is really important to generate more sympathy for religious types. Sure they were there is the civil rights movement, but religious types were (different people though) responsible for civil rights problems in the first place (not to mention almost every other war). I guess sympathetic explanations are only important if you think that the new atheists are too hard on theists, and the author doesn't reeeeeeeeeeeeally think this... So why is it so important to talk about what religion means to people?

(ii) I suppose if you grant the premise that religion hurts the world, it is not very hard to reach conclusions about the importance of reducing its influence. If you know why people like it, presumably you can ween people off of it better. This kind of point has a place, although I doubt that omitting it in a discourse on theism in America is to somehow miss the deeper point, or leave half the work unfinished.

I also reject the claim that the new atheists are silent on the issue. In fact, at least Dawkins has some interesting things to say here (I strongly disagree that his "understanding of why so many are seduced by religion, especially in America, is millimeter-deep."). Consider, for example, his account of the naturally-selected-for childlike mind, and its readiness to believe what its parents tell it. Such hard wiring makes us especially likely to be hosts for religious viruses. These points are a part of the story about why religion catches on as it does... and they are hardly uninteresting. So Dawkins, at least, has done some of this work.

Am I missing something? Why is this anthro-based objection to new atheists any good?

I suspect that the exaggerated role the author sets out for anthro-questions has more to do with a view of the sexiness of "unconscious desires" and "Utopian impulses" than with the practical consequence of those matters.

Posted by: Bramben Perrywater at April 14, 2008 04:29 PM

"Religion has been both the indefatigable enemy of our intellectual evolution, as a species, and an inspiration to the John the Baptists of social justice, from Gandhi to Martin Luther King to the liberation theology proponents of the '60s"

I broadly agree with your position. I think what you're describing in the quote above is much, much older than you're giving it credit for. Religion has always had a significant component of social justice and support. Orphanages, tending the sick, etc. It's also had a similarly bipolar relationship with knowledge, nurturing the likes of Mendel while oppressing the likes of Galileo.

JH: I think you (and Dawkins, etc.) are missing the part where the religious zealots cheerfully ignore reason that doesn't suit them. How do you use reason to "'disarm' them of the 'explanatory narrative and metaphoric language'" when they don't accept reason as valid?

The answer is that you don't, directly. You work to re-engineer society and their collective world view so that their religious beliefs are no longer the only apparent source of "utopia" for them. That's where the social and anthropological aspects come into play. This may involve waiting for quite a lot of the current zealots to drop dead, unless the metaphorical culture war suddenly stops being metaphorical.

Posted by: Arcanum at April 14, 2008 04:37 PM

Hey all,

Mark suggested that I post this here to get more general feedback. I'm a educational psychology student working on conceptual change in science education, with a focus on biological evolution. As a result, I've spent a lot of time studying North American Fundamentalists and their mythologies. So I was delighted to read:

"Arguably, this is because it's not about God; rather, religion is simply the only philosophical (or, if you will, mythic) language available to some Americans to articulate their discontent and their visions of social change."

and further:

"I believe that Christian fundamentalism, American style (like its Islamic counterpart in the extremist madrasahs of the East and the Middle East), uses religion to articulate the social, political, and economic discontent and utopian fantasies of a certain segment of American society."

Couldn't agree more. But this does raise the question - do you or other authors go into any more depth along these lines? I've been working on my history, anthropology and sociology background, but the mythic element just came into focus for me about a year ago, and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any information you can provide!

Posted by: Nate McVaugh at April 14, 2008 05:07 PM

Atheism itself is dangerously close to becoming a religion.

While in agreement with Arcanum up to his proposed resolution, it should be noted that there are two arguments to be won.

Dawkins et. al. are fighting the "is there or isn't there a god argument". It's a fight I don't particularly care who wins, having come to my conclusion long ago.

However there is a societal fight which cannot be won simply by eliminating the gods. As Arcanum points out, reason and logic do not work in these arguments. Re-constructing society might work, however you would need at least a decent-sized minority, capable of rapid growth, for it to have an effect.

Instead these battles must be fought on an emotional level, as that is the power that moves and controls the religious following.

For proof - you can look to the Bible itself as a moving art form. Or the preachers in their Sunday glory, the images of the after-effects of abortion (you'll notice that no one spreads images of a happy gay couple holding hands as anti-homesexual propaganda), or the continued fear of terrorism used to keep this war going.

Posted by: Michael at April 14, 2008 05:10 PM

This essay stopped just as I thought it was about to get started. I was waiting to see how the sledgehammer of ethnography/anthropology was going to smash to smithereens the half of Conservative Christianity left still intact from the reason angle of attack.

Is that going to happen in the next essay?

Posted by: DavidFT at April 14, 2008 05:18 PM

Sounds like Americans are just too stupid for atheism to me.

Posted by: Comrade at April 14, 2008 06:01 PM

"What are American evangelicals really talking about when they talk about religion?"

They're talking about a business where they profit handsomely by selling a time-worn bill of goods. They're talking about a pyramid scheme. And all they have to do to totally confuse clever, well-meaning intellectuals is to pretend that there's something special and magical and *deeply meaningful* about what they do. It's literally the oldest trick in the book, and it still works.

Posted by: YASHWATA at April 14, 2008 06:01 PM

Arcanum:

Of course the religious nuts of the world won't listen to the reason presented in opposition to their faith-supported positions. The goal of the discourse isn't so much to change the minds of any of the present participants, but to reframe the national debate in more rational terms so that the next generation will grow up with atheism being accepted, available and uncontroversial option.

For a long time now, in the name of tolerance, the secular humanist movement has obeyed an absurd tradition that the religious are not to be questioned about the faery-tale like quality of their belief set and the many contradictions therein. To believe the Christian bible is to believe in magic, and it is for some reason impolite to the point of taboo to acknowledge this.

All Dawkins + Hitchens are doing is pointing out how ridiculous these beliefs are and how hypocritical are those who most strongly profess them. The fact that this is considered controversial in the first place is a symptom of the problem, which is that for the longest time, nobody has been willing to step up and speak the truth.

When it comes down to it, the fact is that one side of the debate holds up in the clear light of reason, and the other side ends up looking ridiculous and resorting to dissembling. The problem comes when, for the sake of argument, we try to move past the first part, and act as though the religious don't need to first prove that their belief set isn't a risable mess in the first place.

Posted by: JH at April 14, 2008 06:23 PM

I'm with DavidFT: the essay stopped just as it was starting to get good. Okay, so rather than starting with the Bible and saying "the Bible says we should have a society that looks like X, I wouldn't have thought so but I'm prepared to do what the Bible tells me", they're starting with a desire for a society that looks like X and then using the Bible to justify this desire. Tell us more about the society they desire, how it fits and doesn't fit with the Bible, and how people with those same desires express them in cultures without the American evangelical tradition--i.e., what alternatives do they have?

Posted by: Nat Torkington at April 14, 2008 07:49 PM

I like this post. I read some of the critical comments questioning the point of it; I disagree with them I do think there is point to this way of thinking.

The question is really what is more important: 1.convincing someone to not believe in god or 2.convincing someone not to be a bigoted homophobic jerk (the consequences of a lot of conservative religious thought).

and how to best change peoples mind on these issues.

It would seem to be more effective to learn to speak the "language" of the religious zealots and convince them to believe in a better version of God (they already believe in a different version of God than the one in the Bible- which the original post alluded to) than to just call them stupid and say god doesn't exist. Calling anyone ignorant/stupid normally just makes them more likely to ignore you. But you can chip away at them from the inside and make change. Maybe they will eventually stop believing in God if you start to attack the consequences of that belief first.

I personally wouldn't care about the metaphysical position of anyone if they were all like MLK or Gandhi and I would rather hang out with an open minded Christian over a bigoted racist atheist. Being a theist or an atheist has absolutely no baring on your moral/ethical behavior so it really matters very little what people believe except when it relates to the consequences of their belief.

Posted by: Renwick at April 14, 2008 07:51 PM

I'd love to hear more. I'd especially be interested in psychological explanations. What is the appeal of demonstrable irrationality? Cultural and social, but also individual psychological explanations would be extremely intresting.

Posted by: EdgeWise at April 14, 2008 09:12 PM

I blogged about this recently as well; I've been fascinated with the lack of understanding Dawkins et al. have for the nonrational American Evangelical mind. One huge component that's missing in their larger critique of religion and mythology is its role in coevolving with the human species; our myths and religions have always been reflections of our fears and desires, and American fundamentalism is no different. Anyways, take a look if you're interested:

http://blog.davidgolightly.net/?p=3

I think, though, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Reason doesn't work with evangelicals; if it did, they wouldn't be evangelicals. What might, however, is appealing to the mythos they seek in the modern American interpretation of the Bible.

Posted by: David Golightly at April 14, 2008 09:22 PM

I know that many people use religion as a crutch, to ward off anxiety (they want to believe there is a powerful benevolent force) or other psychological problems, much as an alcoholic self-medicates in a way that can be more or less harmful than the root problem. Similarly, instilling resilience through positive psychology (learned optimism, etc.) along with critical thinking skills and rational critique will naturally lessen susceptibility to religious indoctrination. That's an understanding at an individual level, with an individual solution.

What I don't see is what the cultural and social understanding can do to massively turn the tide. I would like the author to provide more on that subject.

Posted by: EdgeWise at April 14, 2008 09:26 PM

Nat,

] Tell us more about the society they desire, how it fits and doesn't fit with the Bible, and how people with those same desires express them in cultures without the American evangelical tradition--i.e., what alternatives do they have?

You may want to take a look at Diamond, S. (1995). Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and
Political Power in the United States.

It goes into a fair amount of detail about the different strands of 'right wing' constituents (religious/cultural, economic and militarist) and how they've grown and co-developed from the early 50s to the mid 90s. It needs an update to bring it to the current relations between these strands, but it's not a bad read.

EdgeWise,

] What is the appeal of demonstrable irrationality? Cultural and social, but also individual psychological explanations would be extremely intresting.

It's pretty adaptive, actually. We're social creatures, and group identification is central to our identities. You also have the big plus of knowing that you have the Right Answer, and that anything which threatens your beliefs is simply wrong.

David,

] I think, though, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Reason doesn't work with evangelicals; if it did, they wouldn't be evangelicals. What might, however, is appealing to the mythos they seek in the modern American interpretation of the Bible.

Actually, it's more a matter of priorities. Reason works just fine. There are many rational evangelicals. However, there are certain sects that have a more nuanced relationship with reason. Since their starting point is that the world and the bible are both reflections of god. As a result, they cannot contradict each other. If reason fails to measure up to the bible, then clearly we must be reasoning incorrectly. In these cases, there is 'good' reason and 'bad' reason.

Good reason works just fine in engineering and many applied fields. Bad reasoning appears in Biology and Astronomy, since they contradict the bible.

Sorry to prattle on.

Posted by: nmcvaugh at April 14, 2008 10:07 PM

I would just like to elaborate on your point that American Christianity is more nuanced than Hitchens or Dawkins alludes to. It seems to me the majority of self-described Christians in this country aren't fully committed, dogmatically, to their religion at all, but instead take a passive or pragmatic view of their beliefs. They are incurious, for sure, and certainly unwilling to do any of the philosophically difficult work of learning the new language of a different religion. It's tough work, and, in the eyes of those passive evangelicals, not worth the effort. Christianity does them fine.

If you look past the most vocal anti-atheist and abhorrently pious evangelicals, you'll see congregations full of people who just want a community around them and are satisfied with the bric-a-brac religion they were born into. They don't want to start fights. They just want to live their lives and be accepted for who they are.

You are right about Hitchens and Dawkins crusade for atheism. It vilifies people who don't deserve it at. It attacks the sheep and not just the shepherds. I am a fan of their books and their ideas, but also find myself often criticizing their intentions.

Thanks for the post. It was a good read.

Posted by: brian at April 14, 2008 10:50 PM

I don't quite understand. You're criticising two English men for failing to sufficiently Americanise their arguments? Neither does a very good job of dealing with the peculiarities of Shinto beliefs, or Ughyur creation myths, but I don't see how you can reasonably describe that as a failing...

I can't speak for Hitchens, but I do know that Dawkins has a real day job. I think he can be forgiven for not being quite as involved as you yourself are in North American cultural studies (an ornament of power? Where'd Ken nick that from?) I could as easily criticise a cookbook for teaching me nothing about road safety.

You only seem to relate to the subject in terms of gameplay - of how best to win the argument, regardless of the validity of the position. Maybe they don't see it like that. And to complain that something may be true but 'lacks subtlety' doesn't demonstrate a firm grasp on the meaning of the word 'truthiness'.

Posted by: Chris Gregory at April 15, 2008 12:00 AM

Chris Gregory: I have also been saddened that Dawkins' amazing writing about DNA and evolution has been shadowed in the popular consciousness by his (sometimes) militant atheism.

But the fact is that he takes on American religion a lot. His blogs, his speaking engagements, are geared in many ways towards that audience. And while he may be making points like an Englishman (I'd like to see some more concrete examples of that assertion, by the way), the fact is that the American religious right is not going to go to the effort to understand his English way of thinking. At least, not the demagogues who have the most influence.

The problem is that he and Hitchens (whom I don't know as much about) are targeting their arguments at the demagogues who, in return, target them even more. Nobody can ever get on Bill O'Reilly's show and win, but they can present themselves as more likeable and human. If the religious fundamentalists or the atheists really want to change the minds of the general public, they will stop attacking the loudmouths on the other side for the satisfaction of their own side.

Sorry for the long-windedness from me too.

Posted by: historyman68 at April 15, 2008 06:02 PM

Congrats on your Boing. It happened to me once and I know how good it feels.

My own take on religion is that it's a bit like a placebo, in the sense that it shouldn't work, but it does; that the mechanism behind it is elusive but in principle discoverable by science; and that, most importantly, "believing" is something you can't fake. Religion works for people and societies that believe in it. If you cease to believe in it, it ceases to work for you. A society that ceases to believe in religion loses something important and hard to replace; and yet, for all that, there's basically nothing there. No "truth", at any rate. A placebo that you think is a powerful drug is a powerful drug. A placebo that you know is just a sugar pill, is just a sugar pill.

Devil's Advocacy

Rant | Published on April 12, 2008

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