Yesterday, I was sorting through my notes from the genetics class I took a term ago. Talking about eugenics was a big part of it, and although I’m all about history, the projection of what might happen in the future regarding gene & infant selection and society really interested me. Much of this is in the future, dependent on whether or not certain traits can be specifically selected for.

The current touchy topic is, I think, abortion as selection.

A peculiar situation arises when disability activism and pro-choice feminism clashes. Pro-choice feminists often argue that each person has the right to control their own body. Therefore if a woman decides to abort a fetus, for whatever reason—including deformity/disability, it should be legal and socially acceptable. The right to choose has moved beyond whether to choose to birth a child or not; it has become the right to choose what kind of children we will have.

On the opposing side, from what I’ve read, disability activists often argue that living with disabilities is possible, and that people with Down’s Syndrome, for instance, often can lead good and happy lives. Thus they frequently oppose prenatal screening and/or abortion of fetuses with Down’s Syndrome or other “abnormalities.” Some 90% of fetuses diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome are aborted. This, to me, is clearly a form of eugenics, albeit one not enforced by the state.

This trend suggests that women are choosing fetuses that are “normal.” However, what is normal? This is a very fluid category. It seems to me that people with Down’s can lead very satisfying and productive lives.

To bring the argument forward a few years: it has been suggested that in the future, some sort of genetic basis for homosexuality will be found. Same with obesity. Should this occur, should women be allowed to test for and abort fetuses with these genetic inclinations?

What is the ethical difference between aborting a fetus because you don’t want the costs of raising a child, or aborting a fetus because it might grow up to be fat or gay? I’m not completely sure.

The unalloyed right to choose may have some major consequences on society. Take China, for instance. Selection for male fetuses has really messed up the makeup of recent generations, with severe social problems to come when women are scarcer than men. But if we reject abortion on some grounds (Down’s Syndrome, sex), how can we countenance it on other grounds (social circumstances, the right to choose)? Does the right to choose include the right to reject fetuses for disabilities, sex, sexual orientation, eye color, and so on? I’m at a loss.

Despite not being an organized-religion person myself, I think that certain religious conservatives (Roman Catholics, mainly) really have it easy with this one, philosophically. If all life is sacred/holy/gift of God, then it’s unacceptable to abort a fetus that has Down’s syndrome, is male/female, has genetic inclinations towards homosexuality, has blue eyes, etc. etc. Very black and white. I envy them, while the rest of us are mired in gray.

When I grew up in a very, very conservative community, I maintained a staunch feminism throughout my junior high and high school years that went against most everyone else’s opinions about abortion. This continued through college. I still don’t think abortion should be totally illegal. However, these days, I find this issue less straightforward. I never thought I’d be reassessing my views on abortion, but here I am.

I’d love discussion on this topic, if anyone’s interested, but let’s keep it civil.

*key to this article is that I simply don’t care if Christianity is true. Or if atheism is true. I don’t care if the idea of “Jesus” is true or not true. I’m not interested in debating the dogmatic value of one or the other.  

I keep reading stuff in the news about atheism rising up against the evil of religion. Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, et al. I’m puzzled by their assertions that religion is on its way out. (And also by their assertion that the danger of religion is greater than ever, which seems to clash with the idea that it’s fading. Perhaps they mean that religion is on its way out among Western intellectuals, but increasing among the irrational masses. Elitism?).

Let me provide a historian’s perspective on faith vs. reason, or whatever you want to call the battle. Religion is not going away. It has perhaps drifted off for varying portions of the intelligentsia, but for regular Joes and Janes, it never left. It will never leave. People have been predicting the end of faith for a couple of centuries now, and it’s only grown in the United States (91%, last I checked, which is an increase due in great part to immigration). As my 19th century history prof said last term: “academics always think that ‘oh, this happened; now religion will go away and people will be nice and secular.’ But it’s never gone away.”

It just keeps changing. Faith is a moving target, whereas atheism depends on a fairly static concept of what religion/faith is. You want to talk Darwin? Religion mutates far faster than atheism possibly can. Atheism is forced to define itself in the negative, against that which religion is. Survival of the fittest, yo.

Now the flip side of that is I think there have always been unbelievers. Historically speaking they’ve been silenced, but now they are free (at least in the Western world) to voice their opinions. And what do they do? Go after religion with all the rhetorical zeal of the Spanish Inquisition. This current burst of atheist attacks are just so deadly boring, vindictive, and unoriginal.

Moreover the idea that atheism ought to be enforced from the top down (preventing parents from passing on their religious beliefs, which Dawkins considers a form of child abuse) is a dangerous idea. This is the exercise of force, and a violation of the private sphere. I have yet to see an instance in which forced un-belief has worked. Christianity has come back to Eastern Europe and Russia in a big way, and I know from my childhood in China (last atheist Communist bastion?) that many Chinese are not rational atheists. There was always some quiet variety of Buddhism, ancestor worship, even Christianity. I emphasize that these are common people–farmers, shopkeepers, laborers, etc, not intellectuals.

I’m interested in reading E.O. Wilson’s Creation, which is meant to appeal to religious people to join with scientists to save the earth. I bet it’s a worthy approach. However, if scientists like Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett keep spewing vitriol and preaching damnation against the faithful, how can they expect the religious to fall in line with them? It’s like beating the shit out of a stranger and then asking him to help you move next Saturday.

As for where I stand, I’m constantly reassessing my position. At this point I’m not a believer, but I’m certainly not an atheist or a non-believer. I don’t see myself joining any religious group. But I do believe that there are people who do want to attend church or temple, who do want to believe in something that sparks their imaginations, and also that there are people who don’t want to do these things. Fine. The idea of a democracy is that we can and ought to allow all these worldviews to exist.

The troubling thing is the militancy of these atheists, which is just as troubling as the militancy of evangelicals (Haggard etc). If you want to convince people to be atheists, go for it. That’s free speech. Atheists should definitely be allowed to send missionaries around to annoy people while they’re trying to have dinner. During said missions, it would be much more productive to talk to prospective converts with respect for their intelligence and integrity as human beings, and not to ridicule them and advocate the seizure of their children. (Or even suggest murder, because “some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them,” in the words of Sam Harris. Yes, kill the infidels).

p.s. an interesting article showing that belief in the paranormal increases with education. Though I agree with the suggestion that it’s probably just that education makes students better at justifying their previously held beliefs. I would also add that belief in the paranormal does not necessarily make anyone a believer in God or religion per se.

Today, the Harvard Crimson published an opinion letter from Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology that could be considered “militantly atheist.” The article’s called “Less Faith, More Reason,” and its direct thrust is that education requirements should have less about religion and more about science.

I’m going to address some of the points that I consider particularly prickly:

1. He complains that “missing from the report is a sensitivity to the ennobling nature of knowledge.”

2. “The discoveries of science have cascading effects, many unforeseeable, on how we view ourselves and the world in which we live: for example, that our planet is an undistinguished speck in an inconceivably vast cosmos; that all the hope and ingenuity in the world can’t create energy or use it without loss; that our species has existed for a tiny fraction of the history of the earth; that humans are primates; that the mind is the activity of an organ that runs by physiological processes; that there are methods for ascertaining the truth that can force us to conclusions which violate common sense, sometimes radically so at scales very large and very small; that precious and widely held beliefs, when subjected to empirical tests, are often cruelly falsified.

I believe that a person for whom this understanding is not second-nature cannot be said to be educated.”

3. “Religion is an important force, to be sure, but so are nationalism, ethnicity, socialism, markets, nepotism, class, and globalization. Why single religion out among all the major forces in history?”

4. “For us to magnify the significance of religion as a topic equivalent in scope to all of science, all of culture, or all of world history and current affairs, is to give it far too much prominence. It is an American anachronism, I think, in an era in which the rest of the West is moving beyond it.”

Ok. Response:

1. I’m not sure that the only knowledge that is ennobling is scientific. Or even that scientific knowledge is more ennobling in degree or kind than any other kind of knowledge, religious or not. I bet you any amount of money that Pinker doesn’t think as highly of historical or literary knowledge as he does of scientific. Science can be ennobling when we use it to improve the lives of people and the planet (say, vaccines). But it degrades us when we use it to pipe tons of pollutants into the atmosphere or use it to kill.

2. His idea of an “educated person” is fine. I appreciate the importance of science in nurturing the way we understand the world. But this assertion caught my eye: ” that there are methods for ascertaining the truth that can force us to conclusions which violate common sense, sometimes radically so at scales very large and very small.” Sounds like he’s going on faith there. (Oh no, the dirty dirty word!)

Additionally this definition of an educated person is basically atheist, based on that last sentence about “precious and widely held beliefs.” So is he saying that to be an atheist is the only way to be fully educated?

3. Why minimize the importance of beliefs held by billions upon billions of human beings? If you asked Muslim extremists, I think they would call their religion the reason for their actions, not necessarily economics or nationalism. Whatever we think their “real” problem is, isn’t it worthwhile to know where they’re coming from? It’s frankly dangerous to brush off religion as mere superstition when there are people who would kill for it. They will not be convinced by scientific or atheistic condescension.

4. Being “informed” is not elevating religion over other fields of study. I hardly think that the Harvard committee is prescribing religion fortheir students. They are simply recognizing that religion is important to a large part of the human race, and is therefore worthy of study (whether or not its ideas can be “empirically proven or disproven”).

Furthermore, that snide little comment about the rest of the Western world moving beyond the anachronistic study of religion: would France and Denmark be having such issues with its Muslim population if it was a little more considerate and informed about their beliefs?

So, the West is moving beyond religion. Should the United States follow? Pinker implies that the intellectual/social superiority of the West in this suggestion. What an imperialistic assumption. Let’s not sully ourselves with the beliefs of the third world, shall we? Someday, we’ll be able to help our little brown religious brothers out of the depths of their ignorance.

In any case, religion–as it’s taught in universities–is profoundly secular in many respects. Religion departments do not try to convert their students, but rather to educate them about what others believe. At Dartmouth, we had to take one PHR–a philosophy, history, or religion course,but we had to take two science courses. Pinker would no doubt approve, but I think that to require only one out of three rich and important disciplines is much too little.

The purpose of an education is to prepare the student to engage with and understand the issues of life and the modern world. Whether or not we as individuals espouse certain beliefs, it is necessary to become acquainted with as many of them as possible. And it is remarkably short-sighted to exclude the study of religion and faith from such an education.

I’d like to quote the eloquent Coconut who commented on my post on Dawkins & Eagleton:

I thoroughly agree with your suggestion “that rabid atheists like Dawkins and rabid fundamentalists like Pat Roberts have a lot in common.” In addition to the similarities you pointed out, I think that both think not in terms of religion as the collective expression of the common elements in individuals’ relationships with God but in terms of social and cultural institutions.

When religion becomes “organized religion” it loses touch with that individual striving you refer to that makes religion compelling in the first place, and becomes just another social institution. It’s not the faith itself or the philosophical system that’s to blame, but the social institutions that have become entangled with those things.

It seems that the debate continues to build. I ran into an article in Wired magazine yesterday which declared the agenda of the New Atheism. I think it’s about as extreme as I’ve ever encountered an atheist political manifesto.

This is the challenge posed by the New Atheists. We are called upon, we lax agnostics, we noncommittal nonbelievers, we vague deists who would be embarrassed to defend antique absurdities like the Virgin Birth or the notion that Mary rose into heaven without dying, or any other blatant myth; we are called out, we fence-sitters, and told to help exorcise this debilitating curse: the curse of faith.

The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it’s evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there’s no excuse for shirking.

The New Atheist insight is that one might start anywhere — with an intellectual argument, with a visceral rejection of Islamic or Christian fundamentalism, with political disgust — and then, by relentless and logical steps, renounce every supernatural crutch.

This is exactly the same rhetoric used by evangelical Christians to call “lax, fence-sitting” half-believers to become full on warriors o’ faith. The other side is evil blah blah blah. Renounce them blah blah blah. Have faith that what you believe is true for everyone blah blah blah. They’re going to destroy us if we don’t destroy them first blah blah blah. Remember intelligent design’s blasting of evolution in the classrooms? Check out the atheist rejoinder:

But the atheist movement, by his lights, has no choice but to aggressively spread the good news. Evangelism is a moral imperative. Dawkins does not merely disagree with religious myths. He disagrees with tolerating them, with cooperating in their colonization of the brains of innocent tykes.

“How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?” Dawkins asks. “It’s one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?”

Yeesh. So, it seems that once religion is abolished, that once children are taught that their parents are chumps and fools, everything will be jolly on planet Earth. We can justify genocide, war, and mistreatment of our fellow man more “logically”; i.e. we can provide economic and political rationale why we should kill. It’s not religion that’s the problem, folks; it’s small minded people, and more provocatively, people in general. People rationalize their bad (evil?) actions in any philosophical paradigm they can get their grubby little hands on. Universal atheism will cure nothing, and I expect a controlled atheist state to be just as terrifying as a Christian fundamentalist theocracy.

Of all people, unexpectedly, Terry Eagleton (of Intro to Literary Theory fame–I find it difficult to believe that anyone who made a career out of critical theory could believe in a kind and loving God) wrote a scathing review of Richard Dawkins’ new book The God Delusion, which points at religion as the cause of the chieftest problems on the planet. Dawkins demands that religion be held to the same scrutiny as scientific theories are, and evidently believes that it will be found wanting. He’s especially harsh towards scientists who are also religious, seeing the two as incompatible.

By believing this, isn’t he elevating science into the same position as religion? And don’t scientists have faith in the fact that protons and neutrons exist, the laws of gravity never fail, the big bang occurred X billions of years ago? If anyone depended on evidence, evidence, evidence for everything they believed, then how could he or she live? Would you scrutinize your love for your parents with the scientific method? It’s impossible to demand constant evidence from your parents that they love you, and evidence can always be found lacking. Skepticism is a dangerous sword.

I liked this quote from Eagleton:

Because the universe is God’s, it shares in his life, which is the life of freedom. This is why it works all by itself, and why science and Richard Dawkins are therefore both possible. The same is true of human beings: God is not an obstacle to our autonomy and enjoyment but, as Aquinas argues, the power that allows us to be ourselves. Like the unconscious, he is closer to us than we are to ourselves. He is the source of our self-determination, not the erasure of it. To be dependent on him, as to be dependent on our friends, is a matter of freedom and fulfilment. Indeed, friendship is the word Aquinas uses to characterise the relation between God and humanity.

Jesus hung out with whores and social outcasts, was remarkably casual about sex, disapproved of the family (the suburban Dawkins is a trifle queasy about this), urged us to be laid-back about property and possessions, warned his followers that they too would die violently, and insisted that the truth kills and divides as well as liberates. He also cursed self-righteous prigs and deeply alarmed the ruling class.

Religion/faith should not be a crutch. It is not there to make you intellectually lazy. I remember the parable of Israel wrestling with the angel: man’s desire to engage with the universe is not a simple, easy thing. If you disbelieve because you think religion cripples people’s independence, then you are probably thinking of dogma rather than true spiritual grappling.

I find that rabid atheists like Dawkins and rabid fundamentalists like Pat Roberts have a lot in common. Neither camp would like to be grouped with the other, probably, but their approach to what they believe is remarkably similar. Dawkins and Roberts are both too busy pointing out the speck in each other’s eyes to notice the log in their own.

Ideal faith is, I think, balance between blind belief and blind skepticism. If you grow up as a strict atheist, who’s to say that you’re anymore openminded than a strict Mormon? Balanced consideration is so hard to achieve, yet likely– ultimately–most rewarding.
I abandoned organized religion years ago because of some of the horrible people I encountered within it. But rejecting spiritual exploration on account of a couple of jackasses is as rational as refusing to take math because the teacher is mean.

I find that Hebrews 11:1-3 speaks beautifully to the convictions of both scientists and the religious:

Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen.

By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible.

I have never seen an electron or quark or the Holy Spirit with my eye, yet I believe they do exist. By faith.

A quote from some poet I forget: “God says to the free mind--find me.” To get anywhere, we need freedom from both blind dogma and blind skepticism.

(discussion welcome, if anyone cares for it