What To Do?

Last night, my Dearly Beloved and I watched Andrew Denton's excellent documentary "God on My Side", screened on ABC TV. We also watched the first part of the TV adaption of Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion", likewise screened on ABC. So it was somewhat serendipitous that I read this article in the current edition of Eureka Street.

I provided some comments in response to the article, provided below. However, read the article first then my comments for the proper context.

I plan to provide my thoughts the Dawkins documentary after its conclusion.

Thankyou for this interesting and timely piece.

Like many Australians, I am watching (with interest and fascination) the TV series of "The God Delusion" currently screening on ABC; and I also watched Andrew Denton's "God on My Side" last night, also on ABC.

I actually agree with you that the current surge of anti-theism is a substantial good - although I'm not sure I'd agree with you as to why. My essential feeling is that it is time that "moderate" persons of faith made it clear that the phrase "thinking Christian" (or Jew, or Muslim, or Hindu, etc) is not an oxymoron - which is essentially Dawkins' argument, inasmuch as he asserts that religion, a priori, prevents free thinking and destroys intellectual freedom.

For me, this was brought home when, at the conclusion of Denton's excellent documentary,my wife sighed rather wistfully: "I wish they'd do a film about moderate Christians to show the world we're not all like the fundamentalists".

And that, of course, is the rub; films about fundamentalists get made because they're "interesting" - that is, they are so far outside the lived experience of the vast bulk of the population as to be assured of generating a response (and, hence, commercial success). But the danger, of course, is that the fundamentalists become the sole projection of faith; just as right-wing Republicanism has, sadly, become the sole projection of US society.

And that, in turn, is why the likes of Dawkins regard religious belief as a synonym for unthinking, authoritarian imbecility.

But here's the other rub: the dilemma facing all "moderates" or "progressives" is that, in order to be true to their philosophical raison d'etre, they have to allow others the freedom they claim for themselves. In other words, if someone wants to be a fundamentalist, I have to give them the freedom to be a fundamentalist, otherwise the freedom I claim for myself is simply an illusion at best, a lie at worst.

Extremists of any persuasion don't have this problem: in their minds, they are right, and everyone else has to tow their line. But this "dilemma of conscience" can effectively cripple "moderates" and prevent them asserting themselves, lest they trip over the thin line between self-assertion and oppression. So the question is: how do "moderates" ensure that fundamentalism doesn't become the sole projection of faith, thereby adding more fuel to the anti-theist fire?

I don't have any easy answers to that; partly because I don't think there are any such easy answers; but also because I think part of the solution is to be found in the good that the current wave of anti-theism will do for people of faith. Which is to say, how "thinking Christians" (or Jews or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists, etc) respond to the charges laid by Dawkins and co in such a way as to demonstrate the fallacy of their position (whilst at the same time recognising any legitimate criticisms they may have to make), may give those same groups an insight into how to ensure fundamentalism doesn't become the sole projection of faith.

Which brings me around to the basic reason why I disagree with you about why the present prominence of Dawkins and Hitchins is good for faith. To be honest, I am rather tired of this notion that Western culture is a bland wash of relativism or that our efforts to afford dignity and respect to competing worldviews is some fatuous ornament to liberal pluralism". On the contrary, I think that Western society is amazingly robust and dynamic, and that its attempts to facilitate multiple approaches to being is both its strength and its greatest validation. No, we don't always do it right, and yes, we must ensure that critical debate and analysis continues and that we do not meekly accept "whatever is going" in some facile gesture to "pluralism" or "multiculturalism" or even "tolerance"; neither must we turn a blind eye to the cruelties and inhumanities practiced in the name of culture, or religion (our own included) out of some misguided notion of respect. But that is a completely different thing from asserting that Western pluralist culture is suffering from some fatal malaise that Dawkins and co will help knock us out of.

In this respect, I would make two observations. 1) If we are being assailed by ennui at present, it is one that exists within faith generally and Christianity particularly. That is why the fundamentalists on the one hand, and the anti-theists on the other, are so attractive to so many: because they appear muscular, robust, alive, and this is interpreted as synonymous with intellectual or moral integrity. 2) The solution to the problem of fundamentalist monopolisation of faith, and the anti-theist critique, lies with ourselves, not in any suggestion of Western cultural malaise. We need to get our own house in order, because the fight is not between faith and a relativistic society, or between faith and anti-theist criticism: the fight is between faith as freedom, diversity, and vigour and faith as uniform, monochrome, authoritarianism.

Thanks again for this article.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: A fanatic is a man who does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case. (Finley Peter Dunne)