ALL:
This is off-topic -- in terms of the content of our first two meetings, one past and one future. But for those in the group who know me, it is very much on-topic. To say I am disappointed so far with the new administration would be an understatement. Where are the voices of dissent against illegitimate wars that were so loud and strong during the Bush era? I can give Ted Kennedy a pass since his health has been in decline since the inauguration. But the mantle simply must be picked up and carried forward.
What do my fellow freethinkers think? :-)
Thanks,
Tim
- Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Kennedy Was a Lion, but War Remains King
Posted By Kelley B. Vlahos On August 31, 2009 @ 11:00 pm In Uncategorized 1 Comment
Nearly seven years ago this month a lion roared, attempting, however unavailingly, to compete with the Iraq war drums that had begun immediately after 9/11.
Sen. Edward Kennedy said the following on Sept. 27, 2002, at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies:
"Let me say it plainly: I not only concede, but I am convinced that President Bush believes genuinely in the course he urges upon us. And let me say with the same plainness: Those who agree with that course have an equal obligation – to resist any temptation to convert patriotism into politics. It is possible to love America while concluding that is not now wise to go to war. The standard that should guide us is especially clear when lives are on the line: We must ask what is right for country and not party.
"That is the true spirit of September 11th – not unthinking unanimity, but a clear-minded unity in our determination to defeat terrorism – to defend our values and the value of life itself. …
"Now, on Iraq, let us build international support, try the United Nations, and pursue disarmament before we turn to armed conflict."
In the end, President George W. Bush told the UN to shove it when the Security Council wouldn’t agree to a resolution of force against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Despite what Kennedy had called the best vote cast in his 47-year Senate career – against military action – Bush invaded Iraq anyway in March 2003. Kennedy’s soaring oratory – and the exceptional political prowess we’ve heard so much about since his passing Aug. 25 – proved futile.
Then two years later on Sept. 28, 2004, the lion let it rip again, calling out Bush during his reelection campaign against Kennedy’s fellow Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, from the Senate floor:
"I’d like to speak today about the war in Iraq."
"The president’s handling of the war has been a toxic mix of ignorance, arrogance, and stubborn ideology. No amount of presidential rhetoric or preposterous campaign spin can conceal the truth about the steady downward spiral in our national security since President Bush made the decision to go to war in Iraq. If this election is decided on the question of whether America is safer because of President George Bush, John Kerry will win in a landslide.
"Enough time has now passed to make us sure of that verdict, beyond any reasonable doubt."
But the "preposterous campaign spin" and effective smearing of Kerry’s character indeed generated enough "reasonable doubt" among voters, and Bush won 50 to 48 percent. The U.S. military immediately entered the bloodiest months of the occupation.
In 2007, Bush wanted to "surge" tens of thousands of U.S. troops into Baghdad for triage. Again, Kennedy opposed the move, and he even introduced legislation to restrict the funding for it.
Kennedy roared, but Bush always returned with the last laugh. The other son of a political dynasty, Bush sat poised with a crown Kennedy would never obtain, balanced on the shoulders of a mighty political war apparatus and scores of courtiers, neoconservative consiglieri, and confidants, who were making sure the war pressed on – the King of the Forest indeed.
So it is only with wariness that one can view the recent grumblings and numbly politic handwringing over the direction of the ongoing occupation and counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, now a Democrat’s war. Washington is certainly anxious over the expected military request for more U.S. troops for the fight. The public is markedly down in the dumps over the rising death toll for U.S. and NATO troops, with a solid majority of Americans calling the whole thing a mistake. Even one lone senator, Democratic liberal Russ Feingold, has taken up the banner and is calling for a (flexible) timetable for withdrawal.
"After eight years, I am not convinced that simply pouring more and more troops into Afghanistan is a well thought out strategy. … I think showing the people there and here that we have a sense about when it’s time to leave is going to be one of the best things we can do to succeed in Afghanistan. … So I want a conversation in this country to begin."
A conversation you might very well have, Mr. Feingold, but satisfaction? Highly doubtful.
The Washington foreign policy establishment, like a woolgathering old uncle snapped back to reality from time to time by mounting casualties, torture scandals, and of course, presidential elections, has launched varying "discussions" of our Iraq and Afghanistan adventures over the last eight years. While one wouldn’t know it, public opinion polls have been consistently disapproving of the wars since the Iraq invasion. This has not in the least prevented the more hawkish impulses in the Bush and now Obama administrations from ultimately pressing forward with more military force as a solution, despite the rhetoric of "resetting" policy, "exit strategies," benchmarks, and the like.
"We’re certainly hearing the rumblings of a debate," says Erik Leaver of Foreign Policy in Focus, in an interview with Antiwar.com. However, as for "public outrage and an outcry" from pols when McChrystal’s request for more troops arrives C.O.D., "I don’t think it’s going to happen."
"A Rising Sense of Queasiness"
After months of election-driven euphoria over the prospect of taking Gen. David Petraeus’ supposedly crash-tested COIN (counterinsurgency) doctrine from Iraq to the still-unfinished Ring Road from Kabul to Kandahar and on to Helmand, the party poopers arrived sometime mid-summer.
"Perhaps it is my imagination (or just wishful thinking) but it sure seems like over the past week or so there has been a rising sense of queasiness about the current U.S. mission in Afghanistan. Not a moment too soon it would seem since Gen. McChrystal now seems poised to ask for an additional 10,000 troops for the fight."
So says New America’s Michael Cohen in one of several "Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch" installments on the Democracy Arsenal blog, published by the National Security Network. He’s right, the tone has shifted, particularly among COIN-centric blogs and writers who just weeks before had been replaying the surge heroics of Petraeus and Gen. Raymond Odierno like a homily. When Gen. David McKiernan got the ax and was replaced by COIN-friendly McChrystal, there was all but a declaration that Surge II would deify Petraeus. But all that seemed to hit the dreaded "jump the shark" moment on Aug. 12 at the swanky St. Regis Hotel in Washington.
"It was supposed to be an event detailing how thoroughly the Obama administration was preparing to handle the non-military challenges of the Afghanistan war," wrote Spencer Ackerman for the Washington Independent Web site. "But to a large degree, Holbrooke’s interlocutors wanted to know about the wisdom of the entire eight-year war in Afghanistan – and President Obama’s definitions of success for a conflict he may decide to escalate."
It was John Podesta, one of President Obama’s closest aides and head of the prominent think-tank the Center for American Progress, who lobbed the first stink bomb, asking whether it would be acceptable to U.S. interests to reconcile with the Taliban leadership, focus instead on getting al-Qaeda, and leave Afghanistan, albeit as a "weak state."
"Would that be an acceptable end state?" he queried Holbrooke, who when asked what "success" would look like, retorted, "We’ll know it when we see it," setting off a wave of twittering and tut-tutting across the blogosphere for days. "Since President Obama has made accountability a pillar of his Afghanistan policy," wrote Cohen, "I’m hoping Holbrooke’s comment was just an attempt to be funny and nothing more than that."
The uneasiness over the Afghan strategy truly became apparent when McChrystal’s small coterie of advisers – including neoconservative husband-wife team Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, cheery COIN salesman Andrew Exum, and Washington policy establishment staples Anthony Cordesman and Stephen Biddle – came back with varying degrees of long faces from their field work in-country.
Their sour reports seemed to give blessing to a new wave of criticism from the milquetoast elite. Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haas, who penned a whole book about why he opposed the Iraq invasion but wouldn’t fall on his sword for his principles, recently wrote that Afghanistan was not a "war of necessity" but "a war of choice" and there "should be a limit to what the United States does in Afghanistan and how long it is prepared to do it." In his ilk’s typical fashion, however, he wants it both ways, insisting ultimately that American interests are "sufficient enough" and that "achieving limited success" looks doable.
Former congressman Lee Hamilton, whose report to Congress in 2006 was dissed and dismissed by the Bush administration in deference to Kagan’s surge plan, now offers up his humble opinion on Afghanistan, asking, "[I]s this type of war really the best use of American power and resources in today’s world?" Again, not to be seen as too illuminating, he doesn’t attempt to answer his own questions.
McChrystal’s long-awaited review, which was completed and handed over to NATO and Pentagon officials Monday, may strive to provide the answers. It remained confidential Monday night, but reports called it a "mixed bag" that would in essence call for an entire shift in strategy. Again. "The situation in Afghanistan is serious, but success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort," McChrystal said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the avalanche of demanding but hardly challenging mainstream headlines: Is Afghanistan really in our national interest? How important is it? And the perennial, is this Obama’s Vietnam? Senators who have recently returned from Afghanistan don’t even try to put a happy face on it.
There are even hints of a White House divide, with Vice President Joe Biden leading the skeptics. On NPR’s Diane Rehm Show Friday, mainstream scribe and consummate insider David Ignatius said he thought Biden "would like to bring down the level of troops, not increase it."
Why McChrystal Will Likely Get What He Wants
But what seems to be a healthy awakening to reality may in fact be a futile waltz further into the quagmire, say experts who have done this sweep around the parquet floor countless times before. Remember, in 2002, six months before the Iraq invasion, the Bush administration was losing its rapt establishment audience to the pre-escalation jitters, too.
From Salon, Sept., 12, 2002:
"Though lauded for its discipline and ability to stay on message and control the public debate, the Bush administration has done a surprisingly poor job of persuading the public, mainstream pundits, Congress, and foreign allies of the need to confront Hussein. …Today, there’s a whiff of desperation in the air, with the White House and its allies in the press realizing that the reasons they’ve been floating this year for going to war have not been embraced by most Americans."
Of course we all know what happened next. "The neocon hawks outside the administration, trying hard to influence decisions being made inside the Oval Office," as described then by writer Eric Boehlert, got their war, convincing the majority of Americans by February 2003 that Saddam was an imminent threat with chemical and biological weapons and that an attack with or without UN support was the right thing to do.
The hawks are still circling in September 2009, slightly mollified by the change in guard at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but just as restive, and this time around, they are all but daring Obama to ignore critics and spill more blood for the cause. Their allies are McChrystal’s aforementioned civilian advisers, who despite their uneasy reflections about progress on the ground, seem to accept or – in the case of the Kagans and Cordesman – overtly endorse the case for more troops.
In fact, it is in this small group that the mainstream brief for escalating COIN is gelling. In the words of Stephen Biddle in the latest issue of The American Interest, despite all of the pitfalls, the costs, and all of the reasonable arguments against it, "[The stakes] are important even though indirect: Failure could have grave consequences for the United States. … On balance, then, reinforcement is a better bet than withdrawal."
Such sobriety – combined with always effective neocon taunts about Obama’s stomach for the fight – will likely rein in the conventional establishment fence-sitters who ultimately prefer consensus, and despite any roars (squeaks?) offered up by Democrats in Congress, new COIN skeptics, and the limp and scattered antiwar Left, McChrystal will likely get what he wants. It’s a safe bet he will ask for a relatively small number – 20,000 according to most recent reports (which will hardly have a real effect on the ground, according to strategists) – and those squeaks will turn to whispers. Until the next contra dance.
Remember, the man in the Oval Office may have changed, but the war machine is the same, and the courtiers, consiglieri, and confidants all look lamentably familiar.
Kennedy died before seeing an end to perpetual war. That he – or any other powerful figure in Washington – was unable to accomplish that is a bitter pill that seems to go down reluctantly, but sadly easier, every time.
Read more by Kelley B. Vlahos
A Primer for the Neo-Patriots – August 17th, 2009
No Color-Coded Revolution for Afghanistan – August 10th, 2009
Who’s to Blame When Vets Turn Homicidal? – August 3rd, 2009
Today, Henry Gates; Tomorrow, You – July 27th, 2009
COIN Meets Reality in Hindu Kush – July 20th, 2009
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2009/08/31/kennedy-was-a-lion-but-war-remains-king/
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
An Interesting Report about Gay-to-Straight Programs
CNN recently posted this report that gay to straight programs do not work and may often be harmful, according to the American Psychological Association. This is certainly relevant to next month's meeting topic.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Follow-up discussion for first meeting
Feel free to post your comments about the first meeting here.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Article on "The New Atheists" and dogmatism
This article is relavent to the discussion on August 2:
ON LINE opinion - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate
New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?
By Benjamin O'DonnellPosted Friday, 25 January 2008
A lot has been written about a group of recent best-selling authors that, back in November 2006, Wired Magazine dubbed "the new atheists". Principally, they are the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), the neuroscientist Sam Harris (The End of Faith and Letter to a=2 0Christian Nation), the philosopher Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell) and the journalist Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great and The Portable Atheist).
These authors have not just sold a lot of books (over 1.5 million for the English language edition of The God Delusion alone). Dawkins runs a website with a lot of traffic and has started a charitable foundation in the US and the UK. Harris has smaller, but similar projects. Hitchens takes on all comers in his inimitably confrontational style. Google any of their names or the phrases "new atheist" or "new atheism" and you'll see a torrent of arguments, for and against. The “new atheists” are clearly trying to start and sustain an intellectual movement.
What is strange is that, when one actually reads them, one gets the feeling that the real target of the "new atheists" isn't religion at all.
Indeed, they all explicitly say they have little or no problem with deism, or Spinozian pantheism or what Dawkins calls "Einstein-ian religion". Harris, Dennett and Hitchens (and possibly Dawkins) have indicated that they wouldn't necessarily want to see the synagogues, churches and mosques emptied, though they would want to see them abandon their “metaphysical bullshit” (see this video towards the end).
It seems that the new atheists’ real problem is with dogma, and specifically with the dogma of religious faith - with the belief that it is acceptable, even admirable, to believe propositions without logically sound reasons based on good evidence. They aren't really the “new atheists” at all, but the “new anti-dogmatists”.
So, what's the problem with dogma?
The forms that dogmatically believed propositions can take are potentially infinite. One might dogmatically believe in the historical inevitability of a communist utopia, under which the State will wither away, after a brief but necessary period of a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Or one might dogmatically believe in the existence of something called the Aryan race, in its inherent superiority to all other races, and in the inherent inferiority and perfidy of the Jewish race.
Or one might dogmatically believe that the creator of the universe called on one's religion to convert the world, or take it by force through holy war; that death in the defence of (or attempt to reconquer) lands so acquired is the greatest of all actions; and that=2 0such martyrs will go to paradise after they die to be attended by 72 virgin brides and joined in due course be all their family and loved-ones.
Or one might dogmatically believe that the creator of the universe condemns condom use as a sin.
What all four of these beliefs have in common is that there is very little or no evidence for them and there is much evidence against them. Yet all four beliefs have at times been passionately believed and acted upon by otherwise rational, sane and civilised people - often resulting in those people performing some of the most irrational, insane and barbaric acts imaginable.
The physicist Steven Weinberg has said that, left alone, “you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” If you change the word “religion” to “dogma” or “faith” you have my view - and the view I suspect people like Weinberg, Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris are really getting at.
Thankfully, Fascist, Nazi and Communist dogmas have been so discredited that almost no one believes them any more. This is a development to be celebrated. But as the events of New York and Washington DC and Bali and Madrid and London demonstrate; and as demonstrated by the genocidally stupid anti-contraceptive policies of the Catholic church in Africa; and the homicidally stupid stem-cell policies o f Christian churches in the US, religious dogmas are alive and kicking and at work in the world today.
Reason and evidence and empiricism and science and liberal democracy - in short, the forces of the Enlightenment - have discredited Communist and Fascist dogmas. Now, say Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, it is time for them to do the same to the dogmas of religious faith.
Isn’t atheism just as dogmatic and dangerous?
At this point, a committed theist might point to the history of 20th century Communism and say that there is something about atheism that leads to barbarism, immorality and dictatorship. He or she might even say that there is something about atheism that leads to the very dogmatism that I and the "new anti-dogmatists" decry. But any theist who said that would have to explain the inconvenient fact that some of the most civilised, liberal and prosperous nations in the world are “atheistic”, in the sense that a majority of their populations do not believe in God.
Take Sweden, for example. When polled, more than 80 per cent of Swedes say they don't believe in God and more than 40 per cent explicitly identify themselves as atheists. Yet Sweden has some of the lowest homicide, poverty, teenaged pregnancy and STD rates in the world. It is a functioning liberal democracy with high levels of wealth, very little social unrest and a near 100 per cent literacy rate.
And while Sweden is the extr eme, the figures show that liberal democracies with low levels of theistic belief tend to be have high levels of societal health, and vice versa. Even in the heavily religious United States of America, the less religious a State is, the lower its rates of things like homicide, STD infection and teenage pregnancy tend to be. (See P Zuckerman, "Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns" in M Martin (ed), Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge University Press, UK, 2006), summarised here and here)
Clearly, a widespread disbelief in God is not incompatible with a healthy, happy, prosperous and civilised society. (Note I do not claim that atheism has caused these wonderful societies to be so wonderful. I cite these facts merely to show that atheism is compatible with social harmony.)
So, what is the difference between the slaughterhouses built by the Godless Communists of Russia and China and the civilised liberal polities built by the Godless progressives of Western Europe and elsewhere? The obvious answer is that Western European countries are liberal democracies committed to science and empiricism and reason, and freedom of speech and debate; whereas Soviet Russia and Red China clearly were not. It was not its atheism per se, but the illiberalism, the undemocratic nature, the dog matism of Communism that made it the architect of so much 20th century horror.
The two Enlightenments
Another common criticism of atheists (particularly atheist scientists like Dawkins) is that they are robotic philistines, determined to destroy art, culture and community and reduce the world to a place of steel and chromium, spreadsheets and catalogues. But the really interesting thing about these new anti-dogmatists is their spirituality. Dawkins has written with such wonder and poetry about the natural world in books like Unweaving the Rainbow that he's been referred to as a “deeply religious non-believer” (and he is, after all, the man who once wrote an article entitled “Atheists for Jesus”).
Hitchens waxes lyrical about the beauties of religious music and art, but insists we separate the transcendent from the supernatural. Dennett's Breaking the Spell devotes a great many pages to examining and praising the community-building and altruism-sustaining qualities of religious institutions.
Most radical of all, Sam Harris is a former seeker, a man who spent ten years in meditation retreats and with yogis and monks (including a stint as a bodyguard for the Dalai Lama). In the last chapter of The End of Faith, Harris argues that there really is something worthwhile and wonderful about the mystical experiences that lie at the root of most o f our religions. These experiences are real and important and increasingly measurable by neuroscientists - but the truth about them is buried beneath mountains of “metaphysical bullshit”. Harris extols the virtues of the contemplative disciplines at the same time as he is withering in his criticism of the ancient theology and modern "New Age" waffle that so often goes with them. What we need, argues Harris, is to take a ruthlessly logical and scientific approach to these ancient disciplines, to separate the wheat from the chaff (see also Harris’ confronting article, “Killing the Buddha” (PDF 534KB)).
The new anti-dogmatists are children of the European Enlightenment. But Sam Harris, at least, is no stranger to that other meaning of the word enlightenment - the meaning that stands at the root of many of our religions. Reconciling these “two enlightenments” is a project where rationalists like Dawkins might join in common cause with ultra-liberal theologians like Bishop John Shelby Spong. But such a project is not a call for misty-eyed live-and-let-live compromise. Far from it. To get at the common core of truth that lies within both the religious and rationalistic meanings of the word “enlightenment” we need to be ruthless with obscurantism - whether it comes from orthodox theology,20post-modern nonsense, new age silliness or naïve mechanistic psychology.
The baby and the bathwater
And here I return to my terminological criticism. This "spiritual" side to the new anti-dogmatism is not helped by the conflation of the terms "religion" and "faith". Dennett, as one would expect from a professional philosopher, has been by far the least sloppy in his use of the terms; but he is also the most subtle and least read of four.
Harris can slide between the terms "faith" and "religion", but his sophisticated treatment of spirituality makes it clear that his real target is the dogma of faith.
Dawkins and Hitchens are the two who most often conflate religion and faith in their use of language - and they are also the two most well known. In my view, this is unfortunate. As Dennett points out at length in Breaking the Spell, religions are social institutions that are very effective at providing community, solidarity and mutual support. But they needn't be based around dogma. By being sloppy in their language, I fear the new anti-dogmatists are driving away potential allies.
ON LINE opinion - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate
New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?
By Benjamin O'DonnellPosted Friday, 25 January 2008
A lot has been written about a group of recent best-selling authors that, back in November 2006, Wired Magazine dubbed "the new atheists". Principally, they are the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), the neuroscientist Sam Harris (The End of Faith and Letter to a=2 0Christian Nation), the philosopher Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell) and the journalist Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great and The Portable Atheist).
These authors have not just sold a lot of books (over 1.5 million for the English language edition of The God Delusion alone). Dawkins runs a website with a lot of traffic and has started a charitable foundation in the US and the UK. Harris has smaller, but similar projects. Hitchens takes on all comers in his inimitably confrontational style. Google any of their names or the phrases "new atheist" or "new atheism" and you'll see a torrent of arguments, for and against. The “new atheists” are clearly trying to start and sustain an intellectual movement.
What is strange is that, when one actually reads them, one gets the feeling that the real target of the "new atheists" isn't religion at all.
Indeed, they all explicitly say they have little or no problem with deism, or Spinozian pantheism or what Dawkins calls "Einstein-ian religion". Harris, Dennett and Hitchens (and possibly Dawkins) have indicated that they wouldn't necessarily want to see the synagogues, churches and mosques emptied, though they would want to see them abandon their “metaphysical bullshit” (see this video towards the end).
It seems that the new atheists’ real problem is with dogma, and specifically with the dogma of religious faith - with the belief that it is acceptable, even admirable, to believe propositions without logically sound reasons based on good evidence. They aren't really the “new atheists” at all, but the “new anti-dogmatists”.
So, what's the problem with dogma?
The forms that dogmatically believed propositions can take are potentially infinite. One might dogmatically believe in the historical inevitability of a communist utopia, under which the State will wither away, after a brief but necessary period of a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Or one might dogmatically believe in the existence of something called the Aryan race, in its inherent superiority to all other races, and in the inherent inferiority and perfidy of the Jewish race.
Or one might dogmatically believe that the creator of the universe called on one's religion to convert the world, or take it by force through holy war; that death in the defence of (or attempt to reconquer) lands so acquired is the greatest of all actions; and that=2 0such martyrs will go to paradise after they die to be attended by 72 virgin brides and joined in due course be all their family and loved-ones.
Or one might dogmatically believe that the creator of the universe condemns condom use as a sin.
What all four of these beliefs have in common is that there is very little or no evidence for them and there is much evidence against them. Yet all four beliefs have at times been passionately believed and acted upon by otherwise rational, sane and civilised people - often resulting in those people performing some of the most irrational, insane and barbaric acts imaginable.
The physicist Steven Weinberg has said that, left alone, “you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” If you change the word “religion” to “dogma” or “faith” you have my view - and the view I suspect people like Weinberg, Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris are really getting at.
Thankfully, Fascist, Nazi and Communist dogmas have been so discredited that almost no one believes them any more. This is a development to be celebrated. But as the events of New York and Washington DC and Bali and Madrid and London demonstrate; and as demonstrated by the genocidally stupid anti-contraceptive policies of the Catholic church in Africa; and the homicidally stupid stem-cell policies o f Christian churches in the US, religious dogmas are alive and kicking and at work in the world today.
Reason and evidence and empiricism and science and liberal democracy - in short, the forces of the Enlightenment - have discredited Communist and Fascist dogmas. Now, say Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, it is time for them to do the same to the dogmas of religious faith.
Isn’t atheism just as dogmatic and dangerous?
At this point, a committed theist might point to the history of 20th century Communism and say that there is something about atheism that leads to barbarism, immorality and dictatorship. He or she might even say that there is something about atheism that leads to the very dogmatism that I and the "new anti-dogmatists" decry. But any theist who said that would have to explain the inconvenient fact that some of the most civilised, liberal and prosperous nations in the world are “atheistic”, in the sense that a majority of their populations do not believe in God.
Take Sweden, for example. When polled, more than 80 per cent of Swedes say they don't believe in God and more than 40 per cent explicitly identify themselves as atheists. Yet Sweden has some of the lowest homicide, poverty, teenaged pregnancy and STD rates in the world. It is a functioning liberal democracy with high levels of wealth, very little social unrest and a near 100 per cent literacy rate.
And while Sweden is the extr eme, the figures show that liberal democracies with low levels of theistic belief tend to be have high levels of societal health, and vice versa. Even in the heavily religious United States of America, the less religious a State is, the lower its rates of things like homicide, STD infection and teenage pregnancy tend to be. (See P Zuckerman, "Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns" in M Martin (ed), Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge University Press, UK, 2006), summarised here and here)
Clearly, a widespread disbelief in God is not incompatible with a healthy, happy, prosperous and civilised society. (Note I do not claim that atheism has caused these wonderful societies to be so wonderful. I cite these facts merely to show that atheism is compatible with social harmony.)
So, what is the difference between the slaughterhouses built by the Godless Communists of Russia and China and the civilised liberal polities built by the Godless progressives of Western Europe and elsewhere? The obvious answer is that Western European countries are liberal democracies committed to science and empiricism and reason, and freedom of speech and debate; whereas Soviet Russia and Red China clearly were not. It was not its atheism per se, but the illiberalism, the undemocratic nature, the dog matism of Communism that made it the architect of so much 20th century horror.
The two Enlightenments
Another common criticism of atheists (particularly atheist scientists like Dawkins) is that they are robotic philistines, determined to destroy art, culture and community and reduce the world to a place of steel and chromium, spreadsheets and catalogues. But the really interesting thing about these new anti-dogmatists is their spirituality. Dawkins has written with such wonder and poetry about the natural world in books like Unweaving the Rainbow that he's been referred to as a “deeply religious non-believer” (and he is, after all, the man who once wrote an article entitled “Atheists for Jesus”).
Hitchens waxes lyrical about the beauties of religious music and art, but insists we separate the transcendent from the supernatural. Dennett's Breaking the Spell devotes a great many pages to examining and praising the community-building and altruism-sustaining qualities of religious institutions.
Most radical of all, Sam Harris is a former seeker, a man who spent ten years in meditation retreats and with yogis and monks (including a stint as a bodyguard for the Dalai Lama). In the last chapter of The End of Faith, Harris argues that there really is something worthwhile and wonderful about the mystical experiences that lie at the root of most o f our religions. These experiences are real and important and increasingly measurable by neuroscientists - but the truth about them is buried beneath mountains of “metaphysical bullshit”. Harris extols the virtues of the contemplative disciplines at the same time as he is withering in his criticism of the ancient theology and modern "New Age" waffle that so often goes with them. What we need, argues Harris, is to take a ruthlessly logical and scientific approach to these ancient disciplines, to separate the wheat from the chaff (see also Harris’ confronting article, “Killing the Buddha” (PDF 534KB)).
The new anti-dogmatists are children of the European Enlightenment. But Sam Harris, at least, is no stranger to that other meaning of the word enlightenment - the meaning that stands at the root of many of our religions. Reconciling these “two enlightenments” is a project where rationalists like Dawkins might join in common cause with ultra-liberal theologians like Bishop John Shelby Spong. But such a project is not a call for misty-eyed live-and-let-live compromise. Far from it. To get at the common core of truth that lies within both the religious and rationalistic meanings of the word “enlightenment” we need to be ruthless with obscurantism - whether it comes from orthodox theology,20post-modern nonsense, new age silliness or naïve mechanistic psychology.
The baby and the bathwater
And here I return to my terminological criticism. This "spiritual" side to the new anti-dogmatism is not helped by the conflation of the terms "religion" and "faith". Dennett, as one would expect from a professional philosopher, has been by far the least sloppy in his use of the terms; but he is also the most subtle and least read of four.
Harris can slide between the terms "faith" and "religion", but his sophisticated treatment of spirituality makes it clear that his real target is the dogma of faith.
Dawkins and Hitchens are the two who most often conflate religion and faith in their use of language - and they are also the two most well known. In my view, this is unfortunate. As Dennett points out at length in Breaking the Spell, religions are social institutions that are very effective at providing community, solidarity and mutual support. But they needn't be based around dogma. By being sloppy in their language, I fear the new anti-dogmatists are driving away potential allies.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Welcome to HMFA
Welcome to the new site for the HMFA. This is to be the collaborative space that we use to discuss topics of interest and to follow up on our monthly meetings.
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