So I just read this article on “liberal atheism.” Problem is, Damon linker, you’re not a “liberal atheist” at all. You’re a doormat atheist. There’s a difference.
The fundamental principle of liberalism is the idea that a society should not restrict access to information, ability to freely determine one’s own identity, and the ability to perform one’s identity in a manner which does not cause positive harm to others in one’s proximity. A liberal atheist, then, is someone who believes that all information should be legally available, who believes that all identities should be considered legitimate, and that performance of these identities in manners which do not cause positive harm should be permitted.
Note that I’m emphasizing the issue of identities, not religion. Religion is a nebulous identity that exists separate from the individual. I am a Jew by identity. This does not mean that in all forms be tolerated; it means that the Jewish identity must be permitted and fostered so long as the practice of the Jewish identity does not cause positive harm. It’s perfectly acceptable for me to be Jewish if being Jewish, for me, means lighting candles, saying prayers, learning Hebrew, etc, etc, ad nauseum. It ceases to be acceptable for me to be Jewish if, for me, being Jewish means stoning Muslims as they’re leaving a Mosque. This is no different from secular identities. It’s acceptable to identify as a basketball player because you play basketball. It is not acceptable to identify as a serial killer, as such an identity requires that you’ve committed murder.
It is, thus, not illiberal to state matter-of-factly that it is not acceptable to identify as a God-Fearing Christian if this identification means that you will deny proper health care to minors for whom you serve as a guardian. It is not acceptable to identify as a Muslim if this identification means that you will commit acts of violence against women in your community who abscond the Hijab. It is not acceptable to identify as a Hindu if this identification means that you will throw acid in the faces of Untouchables. It is not acceptable to identify as an Aztec if that identification requires that you chop out a slave’s heart every morning to feed Huitzilopochtli.
Similarly, there is no reason for us to accept the increasing tendency towards censorship by the religious right under guise of “intelligent design” and “religious tolerance.” This trend is not “liberal.” It is emphatically anti-liberal. The moderates need to get this through their thick heads.
Radical religious identities as we see them in the world today cannot be considered “acceptable” by a liberal of any stripes. Can we tolerate a tame, toothless version of Christianity and Islam, similar in many ways to the current state of Judaism in America? Yes, but we should make damned certain that it’s teeth are definitely gone, and that it is definitely tame. The current beast is far too dangerous for “liberals” of any sort to tolerate.
Here’s how I see it, and you can feel free to disagree with me as you’d like or not.
Linker criticizes Dawkins for his stance that religious indoctrination is child abuse and openly states that the logical follow-up to Dawkins’ accusation is legal prosecution of people who raise their children in faith. Whether or not we agree that this is a reasonable step, Dawkins doesn’t make that assertoion … and I think he does it for good reason. The next logical step is not to immediately prosecute. Doing so would require changing the private culture. It would require regulation of family life and would only encourage the religious to hold on even stronger to their martyrdom. Rather, what Dawkins advocates is that the public perception and treatment of religion change. The climate in our schools and on our streets is decidly not neutral when it comes to the subject of religion. Rather, the fact that the mere mention of religion in anything but a positive light is, basically, a tacit endorsement of religion. High Schools don’t teach the atrocities of the crusades and put a huge gloss on religious wars for fear of offending? Is this honest? No … but it’sa paraded as neutrality, because in today’s climate, true, rational neutrality is advertised as secular. We explicitly prevent our school systems from saying anything that might damage a child’s faith, even when that faith is insane and harmful. That needs to stop. When we raise our children in reason, we can only hope that we will not need to tell them that polluting their own children’s minds with hellfire and irredeemable sin is abusive and psychologically damaging; we will, hopefully,have producd a generation capable of making that moral and ethical decision with no need for outside guidance. And I think that it’s culturalchange rather than religious repression that Dawkins and his ilk are advocating.
Secondly, I agree with your definition of liberalism here, but I think that you don’t go far enough. You’re specifically referencing physical harm as the negative effects of religion today, but physical harm is a very minor part of the offences commited by the extreme Christian right — mental and verbal abuse are characteristic of this movement, and not nearly enough is being done to curtail those violations. Few Christians advocate militancy and suicide attacks (although it’s happened…) but how many Chistian fundamentalists have come to our campus and begun to spew at the mouth? How many of them have told students that they were going to hell? How many have used racist language? How many have insulted the sexual orientation of students? How many have spewed hatred towards women? That sort of behavior should, rightly, be condemned by a liberal society, because the mental wel-being of a pluralistic society is, if anything, more important than the physical wellbeing of its inhabitants. Mental intimidation is the preferred tactic of the Christian right, and what Linker sees as outspokenness is nothing more than a (tempered, measured) response to the outright nastiness of vociferous Christianity. If he wants to criticize an intellectual tradition for outspoken nastiness, why doesn’t he begin with Falwell and Robertson, not Dawkins and Dennett?
Mainly, I’m posting this so that you can find my blog, muffin.
Comment by taenia — December 19, 2007 @ 4:38 am