Science Junkie –
June 26, 2011
The shallows I’m talking
about are virtual cesspools of right-wing religious dogma that pollute the
cultural and political landscape of the U.S., especially in the South (where I
live) and the Midwest. The outrages being committed in the name of dogmatic
religious myths are growing, as the faithful and their political cohorts in
God’s Own Party continue their relentless assault on vulnerable people’s lives
and our democratic traditions.
True believers –
those Biblical literalists who buy into the Talking Snake of Eden, the
6,000-year-old earth/universe, the idiotic Noah’s Ark story, the coexistence of
dinosaurs and humans, homophobia, creationism, etc. – are no doubt
offended by the term, dogma. I’m sure they would prefer something more
respectful, such as beliefs, or faith. So I thought about it, briefly, but I
kept seeing images of blathering fundamentalist gasbags like John Hagee, Pat
Robertson, and Franklin Graham strutting their shtick. And I thought of all the
“Left Behind” rapture lunacy; and regressive “leaders” like Sarah Palin,
Michelle Bachman, recent Catholic convert Newt Gingrich, and Texas Governor
Rick Perry. And religion-inspired denial of established scientific facts,
coupled with intimidating pressure on school systems and teachers to present
creationism alongside evolution in science classrooms. So my first thought was,
“What a huge and obscene blot on the image of the world’s most prominent
secular nation. Followed quickly by a second thought: It’s late in the game and
those fanatics are winning! Just consider how much damage they will yet do in
all those state legislatures they control.
Too bad the
Constitutional separation of church and state that has been a defining feature
of our nation is rapidly being relegated
to a mere technicality, honored, if at all, in the breach more than the
observance. The religious majority, aided by conservative courts, always seem
to find ways to impose their 14th-Century values on the rest of us. And now
that they’re on a roll, it seems only a matter of time until the
ultra-conservative majority on the Supreme Court gets the
separation-of-church-and-state issue clearly in its crosshairs. The majority of
those justices are right-wing Catholic ideologues first, legal scholars second.
They are of the same ilk as religious apologists who can rationalize any
belief, regardless of the preponderance of disconfirming evidence. And also
lawyers, whose modus operandi is finding plausible ways to cherry-pick
evidence, to obfuscate, and to frame issues to support pre-determined
positions. And they share the extreme political goals of the latest breed of
radical conservatives. It’s enough to make us long for the good old days of the
“moderate” Bush administration. So what we have here is a Supreme Court
majority that’s an integral part of a well-organized right-wing movement that
holds the “Holy Word of (their) God” above the Constitution. Far above. So when
the chips are down, they will manufacture legal justifications for siding with
the religious-right on church-state Constitutional issues. I doubt that any
Republican these days can be trusted to protect and defend the U.S.
Constitution.
Anyway, if the term
dogma upsets the dogmatic, that’s too damn bad. When dealing with fanatics, no
good can come from phony respect, especially at the expense of accuracy. And
the fanatics who are bent on theocratic domination will only view any respect
from the left, feigned or otherwise, as a sign of weakness to exploit to their
advantage in their long-term war against all forms of enlightenment.
All that said, I am
happy to acknowledge that there are still a great many non-fundamentalist
persons of faith in this country who are tolerant and open-minded, including
some long-suffering friends who have put up with my intemperate rants for
years. And let me add that I reserve the respectful term “person of faith” for
those believers who, like my liberal and moderate religious friends, support
our democratic traditions, value cultural diversity, and consistently strive to
be tolerant, fair and compassionate. I realize that the great majority of
liberals and moderates, like most readers of this column, are people of faith
and, despite our differences, I don’t want to alienate them. Now If only they
will join us freethinkers in vigorous condemnation of the religious right and
the threat it poses to Constitutional democracy. I fear their silence has the
unintended consequence of lending support to the fundamentalist theocratic
fascists, who constantly boast about the Christian majority in this country.
But not all Christians are cut from the same cloth – far from it; and I
like to think that liberal and moderate Christians are closer, in most ways
that matter, to rational, evidence-respecting non-theists like me than they are
to fundamentalists who support the likes of Palin, Bachman, Perry, et al. Like
their cohorts on the political right, the religious right operates from
arrogant, dogmatic certainty and is perpetually in attack mode. Bipartisan
fantasies like those espoused by our president simply play into their hands.So
does silence.
No one disputes that
organized religious groups do much good; but in the case of fundagelicals,
there is abundant reason to think their primary goal is proselytizing –
saving souls from eternal damnation. After all, if you were totally convinced
that this life was but the briefest audition for an eternal role singing in
God’s choir in the hereafter, saving your own and others‘ souls would quite
sensibly be your highest priority. But if you turned out to be wrong, you might
have wasted a lot of time and effort, and also done a lot of harm inculcating
children and impressionable adults with fears of hellfire and damnation.
In the unlikely case it
isn’t obvious, let me go on record as saying I hold the religious right in
contempt. Their primitive, shallow belief system violates virtually everything
I value – logic, reason, sound evidence, and good sense. They proudly
promote a simplistic abdication of our legacy of knowledge and understanding, a
retrograde submission to natural tendencies that evolved to enable us to cope
with the rigors of physical survival during the Stone Age. They dogmatically
(not rationally or evidentially) reject the powerful intellectual and
problem-solving tools of science. Too bad, because we didn’t attain our current
level of knowledge and technological achievement based on our natural
tendencies, but in spite of them.
To use a religious
cliche, I’m well aware that a lot of what I’ve said can be classified as preaching
to the choir. Except for this: far too many liberals/progressives underestimate
the seriousness and urgency of the threat from the religious right. We liberals
have been steeped in respect for the Constitution and its clear provisions
supporting religious freedom, including the freedom to reject religion. We have
a long history of tolerance and respect for differences, and it goes against
our nature to attack people based on their religious beliefs. But we err, I
think, far too much on the side of giving the benefit of the doubt to people
who vilify us without mercy, who vocally deride and distort almost every value
we stand for. Like our well-meaning president, we are far too nice and far too
understanding towards a group that’s at war with the Enlightenment values that
shaped our Constitution. These fundamentalists are bent on nothing less than
gaining control at any cost and remaking America as a Christian theocracy.
So while I hate to do
it, I must chastise my liberal and moderate friends, irrespective of their
religious views, for being far too tolerant of the madness of the religious
right. It is very late in the game, and the well-organized religious fanatics
already have a lock on one of our major political parties. So, contra President
Obama, it is way past time to abandon the suicidal notion that we can reason
with them or work with them constructively. Instead, we must match their
determination. How about we start by dropping any pretense that they are
rational people or that anything they are saying is even worth talking about?
How about recognizing that our overriding goal must be to do everything in our
power to prevent them from expanding their power, before it’s too late? We can
start by publicly rebuking them any time they express their crazy ideas and by
exposing their anti-democratic agenda at every opportunity. We need to match
their determination, go into attack mode on all fronts, and make our voice
heard in the timid, bought-and-paid-for mainstream media before they completely
own it.
So let’s stop acting
like the current crop of democrats, stop treating brainwashed fanatics like
they’re worth talking to. If you doubt this advice, please read these three
credible voices of reason, three former religious-right insiders who are
sounding the alarm about what’s happening to us. I’m speaking of Frank Schaeffer, John Lofton,
and Dan
Barker. And there’s a fourth, Mikey
Weinstein, founder of the Military
Religious Freedom Foundation, who may
be the most important insider voice of all.
Okay, I’ll wrap this up.
As I said in my previous column, I have no interest in debating deists about
the existence of a creator-god/intelligent designer who jumpstarted it all but
otherwise takes no active role. However, some readers might be interested in a
small sample of the kinds of questions that cause me to reject Bible-based
theism as even a possibility. The theism of the Abrahamic religions (and also
Mormonism) goes far beyond deism and purely logical argument, making very
specific and detailed claims about the nature of an anthropomorphic, personal
god, mostly based on the alleged truth of “His” Holy Books. Now in this day and
age it shouldn’t be necessary to point out that a great many of those claims
about creation and the nature of reality are provably false, making claims of
Biblical inerrancy ludicrous.
Believers also make
unsubstantiated and highly dubious claims that their god takes an active role
in the world, works miracles, and even “speaks” to them. The latest prominent
right-wing buffoon to put his primitive superstition on display is Texas
Republican governor, Rick Perry. Can you believe that he actually expects to
make an impact on real-world problems by holding a mass prayer
rally in Houston? It is becoming
increasingly evident that prayer rallies are among the best ideas Republicans
can come up with. They sure has hell can’t govern effectively.
Anyway, here are a few
questions for Biblical literalists:
Why would the omnipotent
Creator of the Cosmos hide himself and go to such great lengths to make his
existence seem improbable?
Why would He make it
evident, based on the best science, that the earth and the universe are
actually billions of years old? For example, why would He distribute the
fossils in strata so as to create overwhelming evidence for gradual evolution
over millions of years? Why would he create a 6000-year-old universe and give
it the appearance of great age (13.75 billion years, to be precise)?
Why would such an
incredibly sophisticated Being choose to hide Himself and all evidence for His
existence and yet deem believing in Him to be the most important virtue? That
is, why does He make “faith” in Him a condition for eternal bliss and avoiding
eternal torment? (If you listen to the Southern Baptists and other
fundamentalist sects, an
“eternal hell” is real and is where
most humans are going to end up.)
Supposedly He knows
Everything that has happened or ever will happen – every thought and
action, from the most sublime to the most depraved. Now that’s way beyond mere
sophistication! In fact, it is so ultra-sophisticated that it makes His petty
concerns “recorded” in the Old Testament seem totally absurd. Doesn’t it?
Why would the book He
wrote, or inspired, make the laughable claim that the entire earth was flooded
at the time the Sumerians were happily brewing beer without noticing that they
were breathing under water?
Why would His most
strident believers be so conspicuously ignorant and bigoted?
As I said, these are
just a few questions off the top. There are many, many more.
So in conclusion,
religious fundamentalists talk and act like they expect some special privilege
to be granted to their religious beliefs; but as soldiers in the cultural and
political wars, they deserve no privilege to be protected from criticism.
Everyone understands that democracy is meaningless unless it permits vigorous
debate. But they have no commitment to Constitutional democracy, which is an
obstacle to the domination they seek.
Finally, a closing
quotation from Christopher Hitchens:
“Since it is obviously
inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion
is that they are all wrong.”
Amen.