April 28, 2007

Staggering

If there was an award for ‘most nonsense in a single post’, this guy would get it. It starts out as a questions about the role of religion, and then does a triple lundy into the dangers of ‘political religions’. Sullivan seems to think this is a masterful analysis, but its based on a foundation as rickety as my great-aunt Thelma’s knees*.

Let’s start with the premise:

Not everyone these days believes in God. But pretty much everyone believes in religion.

By "believing in religion," I mean recognizing a significant categorical distinction between "religious" phenomena, and those that are "nonreligious" or "secular."

For example, the concepts of "freedom of religion" and "separation of church and state" are dependent on the concept of "religion." If "religion" is a noninformative, unimportant, or confusing category, these concepts must also be noninformative, unimportant, or confusing.

Since most atheists, agnostics, etc, consider the First Amendment pretty important, we can assume they "believe in religion."

I could spend a dozen paragraphs explaining what is wrong on these three, but let me try to be brief. Let’s start with the beginning ‘believes in religion’. The author tries to make a distinction between ‘religious’ beliefs and ‘believing in religion’, but then goes about ignoring the distinction. I ‘believe’ in religion**, because religion exists. It’s, in a sense, tangible. I don’t believe in it because of how important I view the First Amendment, I beleive in it because it exists.

It makes no difference, then, if religion is "noninformative, unimportant, or confusing", in my belief in its existence. The dogma, or practice of the religion is separate from the existence of the religion.

So, regardless of how orderly, chaotic, sensible, or (in my opinion) foolish a religious practice may be, my belief in the existence of that religion doesn’t impose those same descriptors on the constitutional treatment of that religion. That’s like saying cookies must be defined as tasting horrible, because I had one particularly poor almond shortbread.

Lets take it one step further. According to the author, then, the implications of the 1st amendment or “separation of church and state” would change depending on whether you were applying the ‘Amish’ view of religion, or the ‘Roman Catholic’ view of religion. And, yet, it doesn’t. The 1st amendment treats them the same – regardless of how "noninformative, unimportant, or confusing" they may or may not be.
The author then makes a few other unsubstantiated statements of facts (“If you believe in god, you must believe in religion”)

So, as atheists, why should we care about the former [the religious delusion]? Why not forget about the details of metaphysical doctrine, which pertain to an ethereal plane that doesn't even exist, and concentrate our attention on beliefs about reality?

Again, here, the author confuses belief in religious dogma, with belief in the existence of religion. They are not the same thing. The Author is setting us up for the surprise twist, though. And, perhaps not surprisingly, it starts with Hitler.

Suppose Hitler had declared that, rather than being just some guy from Linz, he was Thor's prophet on earth. (Some people would have been positively delighted by this.) Suppose that everything the Nazis did was done in the name of Thor. Suppose, in other words, that Nazism was in the category "religion."

…

But if we make this one trivial change, turning Nazism into Thorism and making it a "religion," which as we've seen need not change the magnitude or details of Nazi crimes at all, the acts of the Allies are a blatant act of religious intolerance.

Really? Is the author really suggesting that any act against any religious-focused group is morally equal? That allowing Germany to invade Poland in the name of this assumed ‘Thorism’ is morally the same as letting a worker have Saturday off because it is his Sabbath?

Is the author really suggesting that the Catholic metaphorical sacrifice of Jesus’ body and blood is the same as a Satanist’s sacrifice of a person? Both need to be treated the same, or else its considered religious intolerance? Arguable, the Catholic ‘delusion’ is less harmful than the Satanist’s .

You can see where it’s going, though. Right.

Suppose we gave the Taliban the same treatment? What, exactly, is the difference between Eisenhower's policy and Ann Coulter's?

Uh huh.

Marxism, unlike Nazism, is still very popular in the world today. A substantial fraction of the professors in Western universities are either Marxists, or strongly influenced by Marxist thought. Nor are these beliefs passive - many fields that are actively taught and quite popular, such as postcolonial studies, seem largely or entirely Marxist in content.

Ahhh yes. Most Western professors are Marxists.

This is certainly not true of Nazism. It is also not true of Christianity or any other "religion" proper. Many professors are Christians, true, and some are even fundamentalists. But the US educational system is quite sensitive to the possibility that it might be indoctrinating youth with Christian fundamentalism. "Creation science," for example, is not taught in any mainstream university and seems unlikely to achieve that status.

Right. We haven’t had any schools, say, ban the teaching of evolution and adopt intelligent design. We don’t have any bible classes in public schools. We don’t give school vacations around times of religious significance. We don’t ban the creation of gay student groups, because it is religiously inappropriate. Never happens.

If Marxism was a religion, Marxist economics would come pretty close to being the exact equivalent of "intelligent design." But, again, Marxism as religion and Marxism as non-religion involve exactly the same set of delusions about the real world. (Of course, to a Marxist, they are not delusions.)

The point here seems to be the tried ‘humanism is a religion’ argument. Why are atheists so focused on getting god out of the public square, while we’re not worried about equally harmful ‘delusions’ like Marxism. Off course, contrary to the Author’s contention, I don’t really see a lot of Marxist ideals being taught in America. True, we’re not purely a capitalist society. Sure, many on the left view the role of the government as including helping the poor, at the expense of those more fortunate. And, while Marx may have agreed with the sentiments, it’s hardly Marxist thinking.

If trivial changes to hypothetical history convert reasonable policies into monstrous injustices, or vice versa, your perception of reality cannot be correct. You have been infected by a toxic meme.

Trivial Changes to a Hypothetical history. Need I add more?


*This is a lie. I don’t have a great-aunt Thelma with rickety knees, but I needed an analogy. My mom has rickety knees, but I thought it would be in poor taste to use her.

**I consider myself an agnostic, not an atheist.

Comments:

libhomo said (at April 28, 2007 09:11 PM):

I wonder why anyone takes Andrew Sullivan seriously. His writings sound pretty, but are logically flawed. For someone who comments so much on the news, Sullivan tends to be poorly informed on the news.

I also find it odd that the hetero media have selected Sullivan as our spokesperson when his main notoriety in the queer community has to due with a barebacking scandal.

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