If you want to play a constructive role in an ongoing cultural conversation, the sizable majority of your disputational effort should be spent engaging with the best people out there with whom you disagree — confronting the strongest possible arguments against your own view, and doing so with a respectful and sincere attitude.

He’s writing in the context of the atheist/religious argument, but the point (and grid) applies to all cultural arguments. I wish this approach were followed by the media and by politicians, particularly surrounding such important issues as insurance reform and economic stimulus. Here’s the grid Carroll developed:

Of course, the cheapest move in any argument is to label your opponent as "crazy" regardless of their actual sensibility. If you can discredit "the other side" through this tactic, then you can win even if your arguments are unsound. So, while in general I agree with the grid, I would revise it to the following:

Where "rational" is defined as adhering to logic and based on evidence. I would hope it goes without saying that an argument must always be open to differing views when presented rationally. It is the job of the media and of our politicians to keep national arguments in the lower-right quadrant as much as possible and to follow the guidelines of respectful debate. Sadly, they seem to be mostly failing in these regards.

So, I’m confused, but I am genuinely trying to understand. I hope that some people will bother to read this whole thing, trust that my intentions are what I say they are, and help me out by sharing their thoughts and resources.

I do want to say a few things up front, though…

First: I’m confused … which means I’m admitting that there are many things I don’t know and don’t understand related to the issues I’ll be raising. I’m hoping to get some responses that help clear things up for me.

Second: I have no definite party affiliation, and I don’t blindly vote on party lines. There are plenty of Republicans and plenty of Democrats who are driven by corporate corruption and strange ideas, and I don’t believe any party, political movement, or political figure is beyond reproach. Case in point: Obama’s appointment of Arne Duncan infuriated me and sadly confirmed my suspicion that neither one of them knows anything about education.

Third: I’m raising concerns about issues and problems, but not backing any one approach to addressing those issues or solving those problems. In other words, I feel strongly about “good and bad” results for each of the issues below, but I’m not sure about the best way to remedy bad results or achieve good ones.

Also note that “the best way” is not even the point of this post. I’m trying to understand the thinking behind two groups in relation to a few big issues … nothing more.

Fourth: I’ll be talking about “right-wing conservatives” and “Christians” throughout the post, but I’m trying to pick on anyone. I realize that I’m making generalizations and that my points won’t apply to all people in all situations. However, I don’t want to keep repeating things like “on average” or “broadly speaking” or “as a generalization.” I also recognize that I’m talking about popular conceptions of both. I’m trying to get a handle on the big picture, not trying to pin entire groups to their stereotypes.

The Confusion

The simplest way to express my confusion is this: I don’t understand why Christians and right-wing conservatives are friends. From my perspective, the teachings of Christianity seem to be more in conflict with current conservative political views (typically mapped with the Republican party) than with current liberal political views (typically mapped to the Democratic party).

Sure, I can understand lining up under issues like abortion, but on many of the large issues dominating our national discussion right now, I just don’t get it.

The Environment

For example, I don’t get why so many Christians seem so opposed to concerns about the environment or the idea of climate change. I won’t even go into the merits of the argument for climate change … I’ll leave that to scientists who study this for a living and who, with an amazing level of agreement, believe that climate change is occurring and is impacted by human activity. But even if 97% of climatologists are wrong, I still don’t understand the opposition to a more careful approach to our environment.

The Christian attitude toward the earth can be summed up in the word “caretaker.” The environmental movement supports exactly that attitude. And even if there is no climate change, why would anyone fight against creating new jobs (through alternate forms of sustainable energy), securing the future of the planet through careful management and cultivation of resources, saving money by reducing wastefulness, striving for cleaner air and water, supporting biodiversity, supporting local farmers, holding corporations accountable for their impact on the environment, etc.? What am I missing? And why wouldn’t Christians want concern for the environment to triumph over corporate greed? Because that’s the popular perception that results from aligning with right-wing conservatives on this issue.

The Market

Right-wing conservatives don’t want any government intervention with the market (unless it’s protecting the profits of their supporters, of course), and certainly don’t want any “redistributing” of wealth going on. Never mind that wealth is being redistributed all the time, and for the past 20 years or so, it’s been redistributed from the poor to the wealthy at an increasing rate. Why would Christians be in support of this? Or put differently, why wouldn’t Christians want a government that takes an active role in preventing corruption and the pooling of wealth among the very few? (I’m not taking political sides here: there are corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle.)

Now, I can see all kinds of dangers when we start talking about how this is to be done. But that’s not what I hear people arguing about … not really. The argument starts and stops at whether or not there should be any government involvement at all … and the answer from Christians and conservatives alike is mostly “no,” followed quickly by accusations of socialism. Yet, isn’t one of the tenants of Christianity that we should help those less fortunate than ourselves? And wouldn’t creating a government that played a role in making that happen be a more-Christian government by extension?

I’ve heard the argument that the government should stay out and self-regulation should rule, but the past 20 years has demonstrated that self-regulation doesn’t work. And Christianity would seem to suggest that self-regulation is a bad idea, given its pessimistic view of human nature. I mean, the love of money is still the root of all evil, right?

I’m not talking socialism or communism here … I’m mostly talking about more regulation, and I’m condemning the complaints from the wealthiest 2% of the nation (who are orders of magnitude more wealthy than even the “middle” class) when they’re asked to contribute more to the general welfare of the nation.

Again, the “how” is certainly a difficult issue, and I don’t have any grand ideas there. But I have a hard time understanding people who think regulation of some sort isn’t necessary, particularly in light of what we’ve just experienced during the last year, or who see injustice in asking those who benefit the most from society to also be the ones who give the most in return.

Health Care

Related to this is the issue of providing health care for everyone. How any Christian can be opposed to this is completely beyond me. Again, we can argue a lot about the best way to achieve this, but I don’t understand why Christians wouldn’t see it as a worthy goal. Currently, we have an industry driven by greed that does whatever it can to protect its wallet … concerns for the patient are far down the list. Yet, the Christian value of caring for others is central to the faith … so why wouldn’t Christians want a government that makes provisions to ensure that all people can receive care? And isn’t the moral of the story of the good Samaritan that aid and kindness should be given to all, regardless of their standing in society (or, dare I say it: legal status)?

Once again: I’m not arguing that the current proposal is the best way to achieve this, I just can’t believe that we can’t get consensus that it’s a goal worth achieving.

Private Liberties

Now, on moral issues, the friendship between Christians and right-wing conservatives seems to make more sense, but the real question for me is: why are conservatives in agreement with Christians on this? Typically, conservatives are concerned with the individual’s rights and, in general, oppose government intervention in how an individual chooses to exercise those rights. (This is true historically and in theory, though with the Patriot Act, illegal wire-tapping, etc., that stance has been greatly eroded.) So, at least historically and theoretically, a true conservative wouldn’t want the government to have any say at all in how one chooses to conduct his/her private life (you know, things like sexual preference …) provided basic prohibitions against things like theft, murder, and so on. So why do conservatives align themselves with a religious group who are very much interested in not only telling others how they should live but in employing the government to enforce the kinds of lifestyles they condone? This seems backwards to me.

In fact, with many of these issues, the issue doesn’t seem to be that one side doesn’t want the government to intervene and the other side does, it seems to be that each side wants the government to intervene for them but not for others, pointing fingers and placing blame hypocritically at every turn, depending on who has the upper hand at the moment. Which is why I think finding some common agreement about which goals are important must be the first step before any talk about how to achieve those goals can happen. I don’t hear that discussion happening, though.

And also … guns!?

The love for guns among the religious right completely baffles me. If you take a minute to think about it, it should baffle you, too.

Conclusion

Now, if I take an historical approach to these issues, I can make some sense of them, but it’s usually a very unflattering kind of sense, which is why I’m trying to take a step back and point out that the two schools of thought don’t really seem to belong together, despite their historical entanglement.

So, I ask this sincerely: why do Christians and right-wing conservatives so often appear on the same side? What am I missing? Or is my perception actually off and the two are more opposed than I realize? It would seem to me that they should be in opposition on some of our major issues. Can you help me understand why they’re friends?

If you know me, you know that I’ve been a long-time admirer of Whedon as a creator, thinker, and activist as well as a fan of his work, particularly Firefly/Serenity and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

He sees education as humanity’s greatest hope. Stay around for the final quote:

The enemy of humanism is not faith. The enemy of humanism is hate, is fear, is ignorance, is the darker part of man that is in every humanist, every person in the world. That is the thing we have to fight.

He also offers some insightful comments on gender in his Equality Now acceptance speech from 2006.

There are a number of problems with this essay still, but I think the central ideas are sound. What I was most impressed with when I first began studying various tribal religions was the immediacy and all-pervasiveness of “the sacred.” This was a sharp contrast to the distant Southern Baptist Christianity I had grown up with. Looking back at this essay, I can see myself trying to impress the reader with the same sense of powerful difference I found in a worldview that “reified” the sacred.

For what it’s worth, here it is …

Nevertheless …

I found this “tract” this morning:¹

I’ve always found fear-mongering to be the approach taken by those with the most to fear, and book burning to be the act of intellectual cowardice and weak faith.² Here are a few Rowling quotes on this on-going controversy:

You have a perfect right, of course, as every parent does, and I’m a parent, to decide what your child is exposed to. You do not have the right to decide what everyone else’s children are exposed to. So that’s how I feel about it.

[The moral significance of the tales seems] blindingly obvious.

The key for her was the choice between what is right and what is easy,

because that, that is how tyranny is started, with people being apathetic and taking the easy route and suddenly finding themselves in deep trouble.

Read more about the Potter/Christian controversy on Wikipedia. ³

1. “Tracts” are those little pamphlets distributed by the fervently religious, often with cartoons, that apparently have the power, in a few tiny pages, to entirely change your views and beliefs; this one came to my attention through A Distant Soil
2. I understand that some people burn books in protest, as a symbolic act to try to bring attention to an issue. I still feel conflicted about it, though, even when the purpose is legit.
3. Wikipedia is another oft-demonized work, though in this case its accusers tend to be librarians, note-card-carrying English teachers, and stuffy members of the intelligentsia.

Here’s my diigo highlights and annotations.

The same is usually true on blogs and forums simply because it’s often hard to say much of substance in a comment box.

This is probably why I confine my attention to this topic almost exclusively to books. A book allows an author space to develop an argument, consider alternatives and counter-points, provide support, and (in theory) excise emotion-fueled hyperboles and categorical dismissals.

This might be why I’ve avoided posting anything of a religious nature on this blog until just recently (though I am glad to say that the comments running on the Harris/Prager post have been civil so far).

Nevertheless, I’m going to play the fool again (and I think Harris would encourage all of us to do so … keep reading). I received a request to give a response/review of Sam Harris‘ The End of Faith, and I’ll do my best.

I want to start by saying that the book is fairly dense, is very well-written, makes sound arguments and provides extensive support (in the main text, in the 30-page notes at the end of the main text, and in the 30-page bibliography). Nothing I can say here can adequately compare, so if you are interested in this topic, read the book. It is well worth the time, whatever your opinions on the topic may be.

As for my personal overall assessment: I consider it one of the more important books that I’ve read on the subject. This is not because I agree with everything Harris has to say, but because he does his job well (make a clear argument, address implications and objections, provide support, extend the discussion) and because he’s addressing issues that really matter, and matter right now.

So … my attempt to outline his major points (doomed to fail from the start):

Harris’ main contention is that, by making “belief” a topic that is “off limits” to public discussion in terms of reason and accountability, we allow these beliefs to drive us, globally, closer and closer to catastrophe.

I see no reason for us to expect to survive our religious differences indefinitely. (from his talk at Idea City 2005)

I want to be clear: Harris is calling for exactly what the title of his book suggests. He “believes” (and provides some compelling arguments along the way) that many of our religious beliefs are so dangerous that they will eventually lead to our mutual destruction.

He also condemns religious tolerance because it misses an important point: beliefs have actual consequences. The reason we cannot just “let others believe what they want to believe” is that many of these beliefs have political, social, and military consequences. If you literally believe that God has granted you a certain patch of land, for instance, that belief may very well lead to the deaths of children.

Therefore, Harris argues that we should focus on the reasons behind a person’s beliefs. If s/he can provide sound reasons to support a belief, fine. If not, then we should not respect that belief, and we certainly shouldn’t go to war over it.

Though his stance against religious doctrine is harsh, Harris is not discounting a spiritual dimension. In his words:

This is not to say that the deepest concerns of the faithful, whether moderate or extreme, are trivial or even misguided … There is clearly a sacred dimension to our existence, and coming to terms with it could well be the highest purpose of human life. (16)

How we come to terms with this dimension is desperately important, though, and what we come to believe about this dimension should be supported by (or at least not contradicted by) reason and observation.

As long as a person maintains that his beliefs represent an actual state of the world … he must believe that his beliefs are a consequence of the way the world is. This, by definition, leaves him vulnerable to new evidence. Indeed, if there were no conceivable change in the world that could get a person to question his religious beliefs, this would prove that his beliefs were not predicated upon his taking any state of the world into account. He could not claim, therefore, to be representing the world at all. (63)

Beyond this brief sketch, the reasoning behind his major assertions are quite involved and each worthy of further consideration. His chapters deal with the following:

• The nature of belief (one of the most interesting, and a chapter to which I will likely return to explore further … its implications go far beyond religion)
• The history of conflict grounded in religious differences
• A specific examination of Islam
• A specific examination of Judaism and Christianity
• Non-religious reasons for ethical behavior (grounded in “the happiness and suffering of sentient creatures” and in which he repudiates moral relativism and pacifism; another chapter worthy of further discussion)
• A brief consideration of the nature of consciousness (and in which the book takes a surprisingly mystic/Buddhist turn)

As for my personal opinion, I agree with at least this much: ideas and beliefs have consequences, some are more dangerous than others, and we should be vigilant in our consideration of the beliefs and ideas that we hold and that are held by others–they should not be given a free pass from reasonable discourse.

… the only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new facts. (48)

If you’re looking for a quick glimpse into some of Harris’ thinking, this video is helpful. It’s not a replacement for his book, but it’s a start. Also see the resources at the end of the post.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3YOIImOoYM&rel=1]

Resources:

• Sam Harris website
• Sam Harris blog on Washingtonpost.com / Newsweek
• The End of Faith
• Letter to a Christian Nation
• His talk at Idea City 2005
• His talk on C-Span2’s Book TV: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
• Interview on TruthDig

My spiritual beliefs are fairly complex and still evolving (and are informed by a wide range of influences, as a glance at my growing LibraryThing tag cloud will reveal). In my constant search for understanding, I read and consider as many intelligent, informed viewpoints as I can find.

One voice that I’ve been particularly impressed with is Sam Harris and his work The End of Faith. While snooping around online to learn more about Harris, I found a fairly heated “open email exchange” between Harris and Dennis Prager in Jewcy’s “Big Questions” series.

If you’re looking for some lively religious debating, the exchange makes for interesting reading. Start here and follow the thread of entries at the bottom of each post.

In Jewcy’s words:

Why are atheists so angry? Sam Harris and Dennis Prager inaugurate Jewcy’s “Big Question” series by arguing this very question. In the Big Question, passionate thinkers will debate the weightiest, most contentious issues of the day via e-mail.

Author of the thundering anti-theist polemics The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, Harris may just be the Thomas Paine of an emerging movement to wrench religion out of American life.

Prager is a nationally syndicated talk radio host who trumpets the virtues of the Judeo-Christian tradition. For the next four days, each of them will send us one e-mail per day.

Day 1 (Sam Harris): Why Are Atheists So Angry? | Jewcy.com