I finished Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything this weekend. I must say that even though I agree with him pretty much 100%, I was underwhelmed. Whom is Hitchens writing for, and what is he trying to accomplish? Anyone who is likely to read this book doesn't really need to have it explained to them that the crusades, the Inquisition, and sharia have caused immeasurable suffering to countless people because they are based on dogmatic faith rather than rational principles. The vast majority of people with even a modicum of Western education would not find it in the least surprising that the Bible, or any scriptural text, for that matter, is a collection of fables written by many individuals, over the course of decades or even centuries, and are meant to instruct through allegories and analogies. And those who do view their chosen scripture as literal truth, whether in the Gaza Strip or in Springfield, MO, are not likely to run to their local bookstore for a copy of Hitchens. Even his observation that ostensibly secular totalitarian systems on the Stalinist model in fact replace, rather then negate, religions, while important and correct, is not really original.
On the other hand, Hitchens conspicuously ignores the one question that does have relevance to our understanding of human behavior. Namely, what continues to make religious practice attractive to otherwise modern, educated, tolerant and rational people? People who fully accept Darwin and the scientific method. People who advocate free inquiry and reject dogma. Is it the comforting nature of ritual in a world full of uncertainty? Is it a desire for moral guidance they feel is unavailable elsewhere? A lack of intellectual sophistication to understand the world to a sufficient degree in purely rational, scientific terms? And what of inner spirituality, unconnected to a specific form of organized religion? Is that even faith as he defines it? These are all fascinating questions, and an attempt to answer or at least suggest some approaches, would go a long way towards understanding human behavior. Yet Hitchens does not do this.
Perhaps this book was a pet project. In the Acknowledgments section, he even says that he has been writing this book his entire life, and will continue to do so. Fine. I guess we can allow this indulgence to someone who risked his freedom reporting from North Korea, and his life in Bosnia. For my money, however, I would remain perfectly happy if he stuck to topics on which he has something meaningful to say.
Thank you to C.S. for lending me the book.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Namely, what continues to make religious practice attractive to otherwise modern, educated, tolerant and rational people?
Pascal's wager. Most people see no harm in believing, and the social (and sometimes personal) benefits are enormous.
That's my theory, anyway.
Fair enough. Hitchens says nothing about the social benefits. Or personal ones, for that matter, and that would be the most fascinating to me. What are those personal benefits and how do they obtain?
Just a few reasons why membership has its privileges:
Regular social meetings
Networking (in case you ever need a job, a mechanic, or a real estate agent)
Protection from isolation (via religious friends or thanks to your "personal relationship" with a spiritual friend)
A prefab Weltanschauung for making sense of the world
Oh, and let's not forget about eternal life.
Steve,
This is too big a topic for comments, obviously, but I was fine up until your penultimate one (I'll just assume eternal life was a joke, as it must be). I'm talking about your college-educated, professional, upper-middle-class suburban protestant. Do they really need a prefab weltanschauung for making sense of the world? I find that difficult to believe.
Pascal's wager is really a non-starter because it sets up a false dichotomy between Catholicism and atheism. In reality, there are numerous religions besides Catholicism and many freethinker positions besides atheism. Many of these religions offer sanctions for having the "wrong" imaginary friend. So, if you're going to try to evaluate religions seriously, you are not free to assume belief is potentially harmless.
I'll assume for the sake of argument that there are social benefits to being involved in a religion (I'm not sure I couldn't get the same benefit by joining a softball team or going to the gym) but those benefits come at a cost - alienation from your self and the world (because you have placed an imaginary being at the center of your worldview) and wasted time spent on irreal rituals.
It's not clear to me that there is an overall gain when religion is evaluated as a total package.
Tony, I assumed you were talking about sincere believers, and not cynical participants who play along just for the social benefits. In a country where most people believe in angels, there are clearly many who go for the whole package. (But a religious person who can "reject dogma"? Seems almost a contradiction in terms.)
For those in the fold, belief in a omnipotent benevolent power cannot but inform their world-view and presumably help them cope with misfortune.
And, far from a joke, the promise of eternal life is probably the main selling point of religion, and it seems to be a rare common element in almost all religions.
Jane and beowulf make good points too: Pascal's Wager has all the appeal and validity of a Ponzi scheme.
Post a Comment