Ryan, Phil. 2014. After the New Atheist debate , University of Toronto Press.
Part One of this book examines the New Atheist debate from various angles. Chapter one opens with an overview of the New Atheist charges against religion. Religion, we are told, promotes violence and stupidity, divides humanity, supports tyranny, and is generally meddlesome and power-hungry. The chapter will then critique various quick answers offered by the defenders, such as the claim that the New Atheists grossly misrepresent Christian faith.
Chapter two wrestles with the claim that religion has been “the most prolific source of violence in our history,” as Sam Harris puts it. The chapter begins by considering a common response to such claims: religion is a mere pretext for the evil committed in its name. “Piety is the mask,” claimed philosopher William James, but “the inner force is tribal instinct” (rpt. 1999, 370). The defenders also counter the attacks on religion by pointing to the history of twentieth century atheist totalitarianism, to which the New Atheists respond: totalitarianism was not atheist. Naziism, they argue, was a Christian phenomenon, a claim that will require a brief examination of the relation between Christians and the Nazi movement. Even Stalinism or the Khmer Rouge, it is argued, manifested many of the traits of religion. But to make a monk out of Stalin or a priest out of Pol Pot, the New Atheism does two things: it considerably stretches the concept of religion, and it divides humanity itself into two camps, those who cling to unwarranted belief, and those who “live by evidence.” This requires two problematic assumptions: that anyone can entirely “live by evidence,” and that “reason” and science can deliver us from all manner of evil. Both assumptions will be challenged.
Chapter three examines the New Atheist debate’s dueling caricatures. What image would one have of believers, if everything one knew about them was drawn from the works of the New Atheists? And what would one think of atheists, if one had met them only in the pages of the defenders? The New Atheists tell us that believers are infantile, dogmatic, stupid, dishonest, violent and intolerant. Unbelievers are a different matter altogether: mature and psychologically healthy, open-minded, better educated, more moral, courageous and non-violent. Various defenders respond in kind. Atheists are in the grip of a worldview that is immoral, even insane. They are morally corrupt, and often embrace atheism to give free reign to their corruption. When they get their hands on political power, they are often genocidal. The chapter critiques these dueling caricatures, and points to some of their underlying similarities. The chapter also examines what I call the “geography of belief and unbelief,” a reality obscured by the caricatures, one that shows how misleading it can be to talk of belief and unbelief as abstract unchanging phenomena.
Unfair stereotypes, however, tend to be resilient. A nasty caricature of the “others” provides one with good motives to avoid those others, distrust their arguments, ignore disconfirming evidence and focus on information favorable to one’s prejudices. Various supporting beliefs also protect stereotypes against inconvenient facts. Chapter four tackles one of the most effective supporting beliefs: the distinction between the “true” believer or atheist, and those who are “wishy-washy.” The New Atheists grant that many believers are not notably violent or intolerant. But that is simply because they are not true believers. Unlike the true believers, they do not take their sacred scriptures seriously, which for the New Atheists means that they do not read scripture literally. One becomes moderate, reasonable, and tolerant, precisely to the extent that one strays from the path of belief. Defenders offer an analogous argument: yes, some atheists seem like reasonable and moral people, but that is simply because they have failed to follow their own worldview to its logical conclusion. They are moral parasites, unconsciously borrowing their ethics from the believers around them. The true “hard core” atheist, on the other hand, cannot be moral, having lost all possible moral foundations.
Such supporting claims are harder to refute than simple caricatures. This chapter will address the New Atheist vision of the “true” believer. (The corresponding claim concerning the “true” atheist will be addressed in later chapters, when discussing the idea of moral foundations.) The chapter argues that violence is as likely to arise from uncertainty and fear as from theological certainty. A rigid religious certainty, far from being the motor of violence, may be its byproduct: since beliefs often flow from actions, violence can generate the certainty that justifies it. And as much violence today is sponsored by violent organizations, we need to understand the reciprocal influence of belief and action as a person becomes more deeply involved in such an organization. The New Atheists’ related assumption, that serious faith demands a literal approach to scripture, reflects a misunderstanding of Christian history, a misunderstanding shared by many modern Christians. This is not a point of theology, but of historical record: as the chapter will show, Christians throughout history have not read the Bible literally.
But why would non-Christian readers be interested in matters such as the history of Christian approaches to the Bible? Has the argument not turned excessively “intra-mural” at this point? No. It is clear today that widely shared Biblical interpretations have social and political implications for everyone. No matter what one’s metaphysical orientation, it is helpful to know that Christianity has not been characterized by scriptural literalism throughout its history. Knowing this, one need never allow Bible-based moral or political claims to be “conversation- stoppers” (Rorty 1999, 171).
Part Two takes up a central question of the New Atheist debate, the challenge of identifying and supporting the ethics with which we are to live together. Chapter five examines New Atheist views on post-religious ethics. I pay particular attention to Sam Harris’s attempt to develop an ethical “science,” as he is the most explicit of the New Atheists on ethical matters. While dialogue is in principle open to anyone, science is a matter for experts. Thus, a new scientific ethics is to be worked out only by “those who are adequate to the task,” as Harris puts it. But Harris’s efforts carry him in some disturbing directions. His “scientific” system of ethics approves of torture, even of innocent people, and is open to a nuclear first strike on a civilian population. One might attribute these conclusions to the failings of an individual thinker, but none of the other New Atheists objects to Harris’s ethical arguments. Indeed, their own ethical musings also provide serious cause for concern, as we will see.
The New Atheists’ failure to present a plausible post-religious ethics would seem to support the view that morality requires a religious foundation. This is the defenders’ central claim. It is the basis for the assertion that atheism is an inherently immoral worldview, and that the consistent atheist must be a monster. Chapter six argues, however, that religious belief itself cannot provide us with a shared ethical foundation. At first blush, this claim will strike many believers as absurd. But I take it as given that we live in a pluralistic society, and I stipulate that a shared ethical foundation would be recognizable as such to all reasonable people willing to inquire diligently into ethical questions. Understood this way, we can see that “Biblical morality,” or some more sophisticated version of religious ethics, cannot give our society a firm ethical foundation. The chapter shows, in particular, that the arguments advanced by the defenders to demonstrate that unbelievers lack ethical grounding can easily be turned against the defenders’ own claims.
Chapter seven generalizes the finding of the previous chapter, advancing the falsifiable claim that no shared ethical foundations are available to us. It points, moreover, to serious dangers associated with the view that any morality without foundations is subjective and arbitrary. Our lack of shared foundations does not leave us with moral chaos or nihilism. Rather, we are left with the imperfect world in which we in fact live, a world in which we face a contradictory welter of normative demands aimed at us from a variety of sources, demands to which we respond for a variety of non-foundational reasons. Each of us individually, and all of us together, thus face the task of identifying the oughts that are truly worthy of our respect.
The analysis suggests that a just and humane society must sort, develop, defend and transmit its moral world. It will do this in part through ongoing ethical dialogue, which we examine in Chapter eight. The chapter argues that such dialogue cannot put all our norms to the test: any particular dialogue subjects just some norms to scrutiny, and must take other existing norms as given in order to do so. The chapter also considers whether “faith-based” arguments may be put forth in all contexts. I will argue that, while society needs broad-based dialogue in which all arguments can be put on the table, there are specific spheres in which we must exercise argumentative restraint. The chapter will conclude by addressing the temptation to avoid broad dialogue through real or psychological withdrawal from “mainstream” society.
Finally, the Conclusion asks “Is this enough?” Can our existing welter of norms, our various non-foundational reasons for respecting norms, and a relatively modest practice of ethical dialogue, save us from chaos? Can it give us the “ethical fiber” we will need to meet future challenges?