Philosopher Julian Baggini is an atheist, and in fact the author of Oxford University Press’s Atheism: A Very Short Introduction.  Several years ago I wrote some posts about his lucubrations, which were largely soft on religion despite his own unbelief.

Later, however, after maintaining repeatedly that religion was not about belief in empirical propositions but was really about “practice,” Baggini took two informal polls of churchgoing Anglicans, and found, to his surprise, that far more of these Christians went to church “to worship God” than for “the feeling of community”. But there’s more. As I mention in Faith versus Fact (p. 52):

There was also widespread agreement that the stories in Genesis, such as Adam and Eve, really happened (29 percent), that Jesus performed miracles such as that of the loaves and fishes (76 percent), that Jesus’s death on the cross was necessary for forgiveness of human sin (75 percent), that Jesus was bodily resurrected (81 percent), and that eternal life required accepting Jesus as lord and savior (44 percent). Chastened, Baggini retracted his previous views:

“So what is the headline finding? It is that whatever some might say about religion being more about practice than belief, more praxis than dogma, more about the moral insight of mythos than the factual claims of logos, the vast majority of churchgoing Christians appear to believe orthodox doctrine at pretty much face value. They believe that Jesus is divine, not simply an exceptional human being; that his resurrection was a real, bodily one; that he performed miracles no human being ever could; that he needed to die on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven; and that Jesus is the only way to eternal life. . . This is, I think, a firm riposte to those who dismiss atheists, especially the “new” variety, as being fixated on the literal beliefs associated with religion rather than ethos or practice. It suggests that they are not attacking straw men when they criticise religion for promoting superstitious and supernatural beliefs.”

Of course this should be evident from not only other polls, but from the proposition that you can’t really accept the moral teachings of religion without at least some acceptance of its factual propositions. You can hardly call yourself a Christian, for instance, unless you accept the divinity of Jesus as well as his resurrection; or a Muslim if you don’t think Allah, via Gabriel, dictated the Qur’an to Muhammad. But good for Baggini for testing his propositions and admitting he was wrong—that Christianity did involve belief in facts.

After this, Baggini went quiescent, at least on his faitheism, which was once regularly espoused in the “Comment is free” section of The Guardian.

But he’s back again with a wonky piece in the Guardian, brought to my attention by reader Phil (click on screenshot to see it). As you can see, from the title, it’s an atheist-dissing piece based on the proposition that nonbelievers don’t really understand the nature of faith:

The point of Baggini’s article is that we atheists need to have more understanding of how apparently intelligent people can believe irrational things like the Easter story.  His points are these

1. Doubt is an important part of religion
2. Many Christians accept that their beliefs are implausible and irrational, and anyway, God is beyond comprehension, so it’s okay to believe pretty much what you want
3. Atheists don’t realize that smart people can accept contradictions, sustaining a cognitive dissonance
4. Atheists who denigrate true believers as “deluded” don’t really understand how it’s possible for believers to accept things they don’t really think are rational or plausible

Here are some quotes from Baggini’s piece supporting this interpretation:

Some believe the unbelievable because they have had religious experiences so strong that they are literally unable to doubt their veracity of. It’s hard for those of us who haven’t had such an experience to appreciate how powerful it can be. But once you accept the existence of a divine creator who has a personal relationship with you, almost anything else is possible. It is not crazy but logical to conclude that what such a God says or does will sometimes be beyond our comprehension. It follows that there is nothing irrational in accepting a story that we are unable to make sense of rationally.

Note that he accepts as a basis for faith the “religious experiences” described so thoroughly by William James. But that’s the first bit of pure irrationality: accepting your own revelations, without supporting evidence, as sufficient reason to adopt not only a belief system, but one that comes with a morality and empirical claims. And what about a Muslim who has a revelation that leads to an entirely different worldview?

Further, is it not logical to realize that humans have revelations that, amazingly, comport with the belief system already dominant in their own culture? And that people have all kinds of revelations that tell us nothing about what is true? And is it really logical to conclude that what God says is “beyond our comprehension”? Is that then a reason for believing anything? And given that different believers accept different bits of the “story,” even in Christianity, which stories should we accept? And if we can’t adduce reasons for the stories we do accept versus those we reject, we are indeed behaving irrationally. Further, if God is beyond our comprehension, why accept any stories, since they’re all filtered through humans? Is a revelation enough?

What atheists often forget is that many – perhaps most – religious believers are less than completely convinced anyway. [JAC: He apparently doesn’t know many Muslims or Evangelical Christians.] Many of them are fully aware of the dissonance between what their faith and their rational mind tell them. Religion offers many tools to help manage this. It tells people that faith is superior to belief based on evidence. “Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed,” Jesus told “doubting Thomas”, adding: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Religion also tells believers that doubt is to be expected, even welcomed, as part of the journey of faith, all the time reassuring them that God is beyond our understanding. The Easter story thus ends up rather like quantum theory: if you find it easy to believe, you haven’t understood it. Illogicality is a design feature, not a design flaw.

Isn’t that convenient: the easier it is to believe a religious tale, the less likely you are to have understood it!

But no, the Easter story doesn’t end up “rather like quantum theory”, for quantum theory isn’t the same thing as wish-thinking. Quantum theory is based on evidence, and although we have trouble wrapping our minds around it from our everyday experience, there’s plenty of evidence that the theory is true. And it makes highly precise predictions that are in fact validated by further study. In contrast, there isn’t any evidence for the Easter story save what’s written in the New Testament—and even the different Gospels tell different stories. Those stories do make one prediction, but it’s a false one: Jesus will come into his kingdom before the death of some people who heard him preach.  We’re still waiting. Finally, quantum theory is not illogical, it’s just contrary to everyday experience.

In the end, Baggini somehow manages to turn the “cognitive dissonance” (he misconstrues this, for true cognitive dissonance leads to mental distress, which most believers don’t suffer vis-à-vis their faith) into a cudgel to bash atheists. We can’t understand it, so we have no basis for calling believers “delusional”:

Anyone surprised that people manage to sustain this dissonance all their lives hasn’t been paying enough attention to what psychology has taught us about our capacities to assert contradictions. What we call our “selves” are far less unified and coherent than common sense suggests. When we say “a part of me” believes one thing and another part something else, we are being more literal than we think. Dismissing believers as simply deluded could therefore itself be a way for us atheists to deal with our own dissonance between the belief that Easter is palpable nonsense, and the awareness that seemingly intelligent people believe in it. If we really do find implausible beliefs offensive, we ought at least to have more plausible explanations for why others have them.

No, there are plenty of theories of why people are religious, and most of us know some: it gives us comfort, provides a sense of comity with others, counters the horrible fact of our mortality, and appears to make sense of things we don’t understand (consciousness, the laws of physics, etc.). Are those not “plausible explanations”—plausible enough to make people believe in the face of counterevidence? And don’t we know many people who have adduced these reasons? Atheists aren’t as dumb as Baggini makes them out to be.

But no matter why people believe, for if they believe on the basis of no evidence, they are deluding themselves.  Would Baggini be so kind to anti-Obama “birthers” or 9-11 conspiracy theorists, many of whom seem otherwise intelligent? (I recently met a biologist who was quite smart, but then presented me with a bizarre document proving that the World Trade Center plane attacks were the work of the Jews).

It’s hard not to lose patience when one sees an intelligent person like Baggini trying to excuse a faith he rejects himself, presumably on the grounds of “no evidence”. The fact is that it is irrational to accept religious stories, no matter how comforting they are. It is a delusion to take things as true when all the evidence says they’re false—or we don’t have any evidence for them. While I’m harder on people whose faith prompts them to do bad things, like persecuting women and gays, than on those whose faith is less injurious to others, having faith is in general bad because it leads society to think that there’s something admirable about believing without evidence. And that general attitude is inimical to social progress.

In the end I have to agree with this commenter:

It’s heartening to read the comments, for, Britain being largely secular, most of them aren’t putting up with Baggini’s nonsense.

When I stayed in England in my younger years, I used to read the Guardian, which I was told was the only good liberal newspaper in the country.

But how low it’s sunk!  I find little of interest there, and what we find is polluted with the mush-brained and predictable rants of Andrew Brown, as well as a spate of ill-tempered and poorly argued pieces attacking New Atheism, “Islamophobia”, and the like. The paper must be desperate for clicks. Whatever. It is to kneejerk liberals as the Sun is to soccer yobs.

This latest accommodationist post, though, takes the cake, or, as the Germans say, “nimmt den Kuchen” (my grammar’s probably wrong). The piece is by the unholy duo of Reza Aslan and Chris Stedman, and is called, “‘Violent’ Muslims?’ ‘Amoral’ atheists? It’s time to stop shouting and start talking to each other.”

Stedman, of course, is a religion-friendly atheist (head of Humanist Community of Yale University), whose book was called Faitheist; while Aslan is the premier apologist in America for the excesses of Islam, someone who pretends to be a credentialed religious scholar. Their joint article should really have been called “Why can’t Muslims and atheists be pals?”

Here is their argument:

1. Both Muslims and atheists are reviled in America, especially by Christians.
2. Both groups are also numerical minorities.
3. American Muslims are more critical of civilian “collateral damage” in wartime than are members of other American faiths, hence, they are not only benign, but appaarently more liberal than non-Muslim Americans—if one considers this single issue.

Their conclusion: Muslims and atheists should talk to each other, find common ground, and be friends.

As the duo write:

So why hasn’t there been more dialogue and solidarity between Muslims and atheists? Can’t we all just get along?

The divide has to do in part with our natural inclination to retreat into our own communities or get defensive when confronted with difference. As a result, stereotypes about both groups not only go unchallenged – they become amplified as each side clings to its preconceived notions of the other. While it’s certainly not the only cause, the amplification of this “us against them” attitude has contributed to large majorities of Americans labeling Muslims as “violent” and atheists as “amoral”.

The irony is that when atheists and believers get to know one another, they often discover that many of their values are not so different after all. That is something that we, a Muslim and an atheist, have learned from our friendship – even as we acknowledge our differences and disagreements.

This dialogue between Muslims and Heathens is supposed to be mutually beneficial:

When 46% of Americans think Islam is more violent than other faiths but only 37% even know a Muslim, and when atheists remain one of the most distrusted groups in the country, it’s clear that a conversation between these two communities could benefit both. But that won’t happen until we Muslims and atheists commit to spending less time speaking past one another and more time speaking with one another.

Sadly, their argument is utterly ridiculous, and for several reasons. First, who really wants that dialogue? Do Muslims hunger for dialogue with atheists? No. Perhaps they want to be accepted by atheists and others, but I doubt they want to talk to atheists with the aim of benefitting themselves. I suspect that if anyone wants dialogue, it’s accommodationist faitheists like Stedman (remember, he applied the term “faitheist” to himself). Even Aslan hasn’t shown himself to be particularly desirous of conversing with atheists. So far, his “discourse” has consisted of nonstop sniping at atheists who, he claims, simply misunderstand Islam, and impute to the faith perfidies that are really cultural in origin, or stem from colonialism. Does Aslan really want a dialogue? I’ll believe that when I hear him actually listen thoughtfully to what New Atheists say.

Second, American atheists don’t revile American Muslims that much, for that group, embedded in a liberal democracy that prevents obvious extremism, is indeed far less harmful than many of their extremist coreligionists elsewhere. Nevertheless, I deplore most of the doctrine of Islam, which includes institutionalized marginalization of women, calls for death of apostates, the imposition of repressive sharia law, and so on. To the extent that Muslims adhere to this kind of belief, I criticize those beliefs.  And I will criticize them in the U.S., precisely as much as I criticize the pernicious beliefs, of, say, Catholic.

My own quarrel with Islam is not with the actions of American Muslims, but with how Islamic belief is translated into action in other places. It is odd that the Guardian, a British paper, chooses to promote friendship between American atheists and American Muslims when the real quarrel is between worldwide atheists or liberals and worldwide extremist Islam—the form that is misogynistic, oppressive, and even murderous.  Do you have to know a jihadi personally to criticize him? I don’t think so.

And don’t forget that many Muslims in the U.S. and the U.K. while criticizing the barbarity of ISIS, fail to do so with respect to the other malevolent and unenlightened brands of Islam. So long as a religion oppresses the half of its members that lack a Y chromosome, I will oppose it. Do male Muslims in America allow their daughters and wives the same kind of freedom of opportunity as members of other faiths (I except here some of the Pentecostal Christians as well as some Mormon sects)? I hope so, but I’m not sure.

Now, what is the benefit of atheists talking to each Muslims? I may learn that some Muslims are nice people, but I know that already, having traveled in countries where Islam is prevalent (Turkey and Morocco, for instance). This is not news to me. But that doesn’t mean that I will become soft on Islamic theology, just as knowing Catholics doesn’t make me softer on Catholic theology. I do not hate Andrew Sullivan (in fact, I kind of like him sometimes), but I will criticize to my last breath the views of the Church to which he adheres. And I will never accept, in dialogue with Muslims, the widespread view that woman are like breeder cattle whose job is to produce nascent Muslims, and whose testimony is, in sharia court, worth but half of a man’s.

And shouldn’t atheists and Muslims be talking not to each other, but to the Christian majority who reviles both of us? Wouldn’t that effect more comity than friendship between two reviled groups? What is the point of two small minorities talking to each other rather than seeking acceptance from the majority. Aslan and Stedman don’t explain.

In the end, I see nothing substantive to be be gained by this conversation except getting to know our neighbors. What thoughtful atheists oppose is the pernicious effect of Islamic doctrine, not the existence of peaceable Muslims who live alongside us. If they embrace Islamic doctrine but don’t act on it (i.e., if they allow Muslim women complete freedom of dress, of opportunity, of mate choice, and so on), then that’s fine. But if they oppress women or gays in any way, that’s not fine, even if Muslims don’t like the killing of civilians in wars. Oppression of women and hatred of gays is also collateral damage: a byproduct of Islamic faith. And if they tacitly support coreligionist extremists by remaining silent about that excesses of Islam, that, too, is bad. Needless to say, there is no branch of atheism that supports killing those who revert to religion, or seeks to murder those who still believe in God or who have sex with someone of their own sex. Muslims don’t go around with bodyguards because they fear assassination by atheists. And atheists issue no fatwas.  You have to look hard to find any kind of “doctrinal” parity between atheists and Muslims. And there lies the problem. Finally, we have this quote from Aslan and Stedman:

“When 46% of Americans think Islam is more violent than other faiths but only 37% even know a Muslim, and when atheists remain one of the most distrusted groups in the country, it’s clear that a conversation between these two communities could benefit both.”

As a friend said who sent me this piece:

It is a complete non sequitur if you follow the implied course of actions to their logical conclusion: Muslims and atheists can become a group that is hated by the Christian majority together? How is that going to be useful or productive?

Two more points: atheists and Muslims have talked to each other, but both parties must rely on rational discourse and not extremist dogma. Productive discussion can be seen between, for example, Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz. (Nawaz, as a liberal Muslim who decries coreligionist extremists, is widely hated by both Muslims and liberals.) Unproductive dialogue can be seen between Richard Dawkins and people like Mehdi Hasan, who adheres to preposterous tenets of Islam and is certainly not interested in any kind of comity.

There are many comments at the Guardian, and lots of them highlight the inanity of Aslan and Stedman’s argument, but I’ll just post the latest two comments:

Alain de Botton is about to unleash another bout of Religion for Atheists on us—in fact, that’s the title of his last book, and I suppose his principles are summarized in this handy little “Manifesto for Atheists.”

Call me a curmudgeon (on second thought, please don’t), but do we really need these bromides, posted yesterday afternoon on his Twi**er feed?

Read and be virtuous! My own Manifesto for Atheists would be much shorter:

1. There is no evidence for gods. The rest is commentary

The rest you can find in the “self help” section of any bookstore. The ten above are in fact qualities for anybody to aspire to, not just atheists.  In fact, their connection to atheism is obscure to me.