A word from the opposition

If I were that sort of believer, I might suspect that “God is testing my faith” (notice that I put that in quotes) after all that quasi-religious ranting a few days ago. A path of several links (which is how I learn most things these days) started with my guru (not on his blog but through an e-mail) linking me to “Only in America: Secular Scribblings of a Grumpy Old Man”. This particular page was a quiz on how many of the targets of the Rude Pundit’s rude insults the reader could recognize, but earlier posts of the “Grumpy Old Man” (actually a grumpy old British atheist) in turn linked me to two YouTube clips.

I cannot now find the path that linked me from Grumpy to the first YouTube clip, a 2-part post done by another atheistic Brit (the Church of England is not very alive and well), Nick Gisburne. I thought (wrongly) it was linked from “Driving lessons, child abuse, etc.”, because Jesus Camp is certainly related to that subject. (Many bloggers simply give you a link with no further comment and expect you to open it and reach your own conclusions. I use links as an excuse for my own ranting commentary, hoping you will find it dull and boring.) Gisburne has evidently taken clips (interspersed with his own commentary) from a larger documentary, which seems to be what’s available, without Gisburne’s commentary, at FluNIGGS A nation down the drain. The second is a fuller depiction of one of the most vile, psychotic atrocities of lunatic evangelicalism I’ve ever seen: a camp (in rural North Dakota, of all places!) where demonic adults basically brainwash and terrorize a bunch of helpless, vulnerable kids with a crash course of their sick, vicious garbage, reducing many of them (9 or 10 years old!) to tears for their “sinfulness” during the “Spirit-filled” orgies that pass for worship. It’s really quite sickening for anyone who loves and respects children to watch.

The second one (which was linked from “Driving lessons, child abuse, etc.”) was Part 3 of The virus of faith, a 5-part documentary (actually a 50-minute program chopped up into five 10-minute segments) which was probably run on BBC, done by Richard Dawkins. The name should be recognizable to most atheists, as Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist (called “Darwin’s Rottweiler” by someone), is probably the most well-known, articulate, and (I hate to admit) convincing of all contemporary apologists for atheism—or, viewed from the other side, critics of Christianity. Since Grumpy linked me directly to Part 3, I didn’t see the first two parts, but this one was devoted to more examples of moronic, insane, vicious heresy among the evangelicals—and of course it wasn’t at all difficult for Dawkins to find lots of them, like sadistic maniacs further scaring the shit out of kids with “Hell Houses” during Halloween, and an interview with an apologist for a guy who murdered an abortion doctor (actually, that’s in Part 4). Well, I’d heard and seen it all before, though never done as skillfully as Dawkins did it—tarring all Christians with a brush dipped in the most hideously evil perversions the critics can find—which strikes me as less than entirely fair to what is considered the mainstream faith. It’s like vilifying all Americans on the basis of the criminal thugs and psychotic halfwits in the government. Later in the same part, Dawkins discusses what a nasty asshole Yahweh is (“the most unpleasant character in all fiction—jealous, petty, vindictive, racist”) and the appallingly barbaric, “poisonous” tribal morality of the ancient Hebrews who called themselves “his people.” Okay, again I’ve heard all that dozens of times and agree with most of it, as I suggested in my last post. But things get better in the New Testament, don’t they?

In Part 4, Dawkins says, No, not much. He calls Paul’s “tortuously nasty, sadomasochistic doctrine” of Atonement, which is a fundamental Christian belief, “barking mad” (nice Briticism there); and indeed, quite a few people have claimed that the message of the gospels, for whatever worth you want to grant it, was totally fucked up by St Paul, who was, by the massive evidence of his writings and his own admission in his letters, a thoroughly loathsome creature. (In fact, he bragged about what a nasty shit he used to be because it showed how loving Jesus was in forgiving him, but it didn’t stop him from still being a nasty shit after being forgiven.) In an attempt to give the moderates a voice, Dawkins interviews the liberal Anglican Bishop of Oxford, who, typically for a liberal, says that modern believers are quite entitled to reinterpret Scripture to meet our “evolved” understanding of the nature of, specifically, homosexuality, according to which is not sinful, and to emphasize biblical passages which reinforce this interpretation. But, says Dawkins, if you can just “cherry-pick” which parts of the Bible to believe and decide on the basis of secular input how to interpret them (which he calls “fence-sitting”), then why bother with the Bible or Christianity at all? As a sanction for a code of morality? But, he says (and, as I think I alluded in an earlier post, John Stuart Mill says), a good moral code doesn’t need religion to sanction it; it finds sufficient support in common sense and human decency.

And, Dawkins goes on to say in Part 5, in evolution. Morality is based on “altruistic genes” which we share with (we DO NOT “inherit from”!!!) chimpanzees. Well, that’s as may be, Richard, after all the evidence you present to show how sweetly altruistic chimps are, but Bonzo has a darker side, which we also share with him. The altruistic genes only work in their own small kinship group; outside that, in relations with other groups, the chimps show an eerily human propensity for conflict and murder, and I can remember when Jane Goodall was traumatized by witnessing cannibalism among them; there are, in fact, what could be called sociopathic chimpanzees. Even their motives for such behavior are uncannily similar to those of humans, when the veneer of “civilization” is stripped away: sex and territory. Even religious wars are fundamentally about ideological territory, and about power over others, which is a form of lust related to sex. So the argument that “altruistic genes” are a sufficient basis for a moral code is, in my opinion, his weakest point.

But aside from that I found Dawkins, as I said earlier, convincing, and I must admit that, after the dual attack of his persuasive arguments for atheism on the one hand, and on the other hand the humiliating spectacle of all the evil insanity perpetrated by some of the sick assholes who call themselves Christians, my faith has been slightly shaken. But only slightly. Faith is beyond reason, although not necessarily against it. Whether reason is used to support faith in philosophical theology or to attack it in atheistic controversy, neither one has any effect on faith when the chips are in. To quote Pascal’s famous line, the heart has its reasons which reason cannot know. I know that sounds pitifully lame, and it’s probably a piss-poor answer to Dawkins, but it’s the best I can do—and the best I feel I need to do. Remember, I’m a lousy apologist.