By Science Junkie – January 22, 2012
As a non-theist and card-carrying member of the reality-based
community, I have found myself using the term arrogant with increasing
frequency these past several years. It just seems so descriptive of all those
right-wing ideologues who blatantly distort and deny established facts while
promoting their self-serving interests. My prime target has been Christian
fundagelicals, who can be recognized by their pious certitude and their
meddling in affairs that all people of good will consider personal choices.
Those fundies with their theocratic agenda represent arrogant ideology at its
most menacing. And to think that with so little to go on they actually fancy
themselves gifted with knowledge of nothing less than the ultimate truth
– the truth about life’s meaning and purpose, the existence and nature of
an afterlife; souls, free will, morality, sexual conduct, gender roles, all of
it. And of course they claim to get it all directly from The Source, the Big
Guy in the Sky, their creepy version of Almighty God. Boldly displaying their
signature arrogance, they yearn to replace our Constitutionally protected
rights with their “Biblical Law,” as several past and present Republican
presidential candidates have affirmed. Never mind that there is no real
evidence outside their own minds to support their bizarre fantasies, which
makes them just about the last people on earth who have the right to call
anyone arrogant.
Still, a devoutly religious acquaintance recently took offense
at some critical comments I wrote about the religious righteous, accusing me,
among other things, of being arrogant and condescending. I conceded that he had
“about two-fifths of a point,” but I emphatically denied the accusation of
arrogance. I suggested he might be misconstruing justifiable indignation
– outrage, really – at the religious right’s habitual, menacing
violation of all the canons of rational discourse and mutual respect.
I told him of my lifelong commitment to the primacy of
evidence and reason, citing David Hume’s dictum, “A wise man proportions his
belief to the evidence.” That commitment, if honored consistently, virtually
rules out arrogance. How, I asked, can a blanket willingness to abide by
evidence be called arrogant? I reminded him that arrogance is defined as “an
exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities.” If I gave him that
impression, I said, it was probably due to careless writing on my part or poor
reading on his, because I know this much about myself: I value evidence as much
as anyone and have devoted a good portion of my life, including a college class
in Bayesian
statistics, to trying to understand how to evaluate evidence. And not only
out of interest but because, in tandem with reason, sound evidence is the
foundation of everything I accept as likely to be true. So if we’re going to
debate who’s arrogant, let’s talk about devious denial of all scientific
findings that conflict with believers’ Bronze Age dogma. That, to me, is close
to the epitome of exaggerated self-importance.
I also pointed out that I feel as strongly about my
reason-and-evidence-based world view and morality as he and his fellow
believers feel about their religious intuitions and institutions. Despite using
the nice word, intuitions,
and not the mean word, delusions, I haven’t heard from him since.
Oh, well. I’m not writing for true believers who are inoculated against
well-established facts such as, say, evolution happened.
Anyway, about the only thing I care to communicate to
fundagelicals is this:
Well-informed people here and all over the world understand
that you’re deluded. You need to get a proper education and broaden your
horizons if you hope to contribute something useful to 21st century dialog.
So yes, I am guilty of condescension – more accurately,
contempt – toward many on the religious right, not because of my
self-importance but because they are so blatantly and belligerently ignorant.
For a very long time, Biblical literalism has been known to be so ridiculous
that it’s not even wrong.
So I’m responding to them the same way I would if a seemingly competent adult
were stubbornly arguing for the existence of elves or fairies. Or alien
abductions, or holocaust denial, or homeopathy (remember, it’s just water!). Or
if they asked me, in all seriousness, “If humans evolved from apes, why are
there still apes?” Or if they claimed that the Denver Broncos’ quarterback Tim
Tebow enjoys an advantage on the field because of his close relationship with a
“Lord and Savior”? (I had to get that in . . . Go, Patriots!) At some point it
is no longer rude to point out that the emperor is naked. I used this quote from
Thomas Jefferson in an earlier column, but it bears repeating here:
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against
unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon
them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere
Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.”
Now I don’t generally condone or enjoy gratuitous contempt (or
ridicule). It must be used appropriately, as a last resort; the target has to
deserve it, otherwise it is unfair, insensitive, mean-spirited –
Republican, if you will. So I try, not always successfully, to conduct my
discourse based on the principle that every individual deserves the benefit of
the doubt, until they demonstrate otherwise. Of course benefit of the doubt has
a very short shelf life for ideologues who immediately start waving red flags
in your face; but not every fundie is willfully ignorant and judgmental. Some,
perhaps most, are victims of childhood indoctrination by trusted adults. On that
I’ll go along with Richard Dawkins, who says childhood religious indoctrination
is a form of child abuse.
So I guess the take-home is this: There will always be
political strife in a free and diverse society. But if we’re going to survive
as a viable constitutional democracy, we must all make an effort to coexist in
some semblance of peace and harmony. The willingness to consider good evidence and to accept overwhelming evidence would seem to be a minimal
requirement. Regrettably, there are far too many individuals and groups in the
U.S. who fail to meet that standard, and I see no signs of improvement on the
horizon. On the contrary, any faint beacons of hope appear to be receding out
of sight.
One final point about the fundies among us: I would’t give a
damn about the nonsense they believe if they didn’t wield such excessive
political power, if they didn’t pose a serious threat to our freedoms. I’d feel
more like we teenagers did back in the day when the holy rollers did their
hooting and hollering in tents on the edge of town and we joked about them.
These days they have long since folded their tents and flocked to the
televangelists and megachurches, from whence they have gone
mainstream-political in a big way. And the harm they have caused here and in
other countries (e.g, with their heavy-handed opposition to contraception and
birth control) is incalculable. All because their leaders have convinced them
that they know the mind of some vengeful, Old Testament God.
Next time, chapter and verse on the sins of the religious
right. In the meantime, I urge you to purchase and read Sean Faircloth’s
revealing book,
“Attack of the Theocrats! How the Religious Right Harms Us All – and What
We Can Do About It.” It will disabuse you of any apathy or lingering sympathy
you may have for the religious righteous among us.