Sam Harris is wrong.

“This is already an old and boring story about old, boring, and deadly ideas.” — Sam Harris

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece critiquing the tendency of the atheist community to analyze the nature and impact of religion through the exceptionally narrow lense of truth claims and discreet ideas. I summarized my position at one point by arguing that ideas, in and of themselves, have far less agency than atheists usually assume they do. Just as important as the contents of a certain idea is the social, economic and political context which gives rise to it. Atheists tend to ignore these, instead preferring to compose arguments which presume the dominance of ideas, and consequently often end up producing analyses of situations that they have less than stellar understandings of.

And then last week, along came Sam Harris, with this gem of an example of just what I was trying to argue against. Energized by the recent attacks and murders at US Embassies, Harris composed a stirring call for moral clarity – of the sort that comes only in shades of black and white.

Before I get going with what is wrong with Harris’s rhetoric and assumptions, let me state unequivocally that I agree with him completely on the issue of free speech – all nations which claim to value freedom of speech should not engage in any kind of censorship to appease anyone, be they Islamic radicalists or outraged conservative evangelicals or overly sensitive identity-politics laden liberals. Insofar as the liberals Harris criticizes really were recommending restriction of freedom of speech (enforced either through the government or social pressure), to address the problem of radical Islamic terrorism and, more broadly, Muslim alienation, they are wrong. First, it is unethical. Second, it would not work anyway. So let’s make it clear that we agree on that and move on from there.

However, I take serious issue with almost everything else about Harris’s approach to this question.

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Huff and puff — the surprisingly ineffective Religious Right.

I recently rewatched the last two installments of PBS’s excellent documentary, God in America, which I’ve seen before. These final episodes deal with the rise of the Religious Right, from its origins as a Cold War creature and reaction against the secular excesses of the 1960s all the way through the Bush administration.

The final portion of God in America seems to make the argument that the political clout of the Religious Right hit an apex with the election of Ronald Reagan, and while evangelicals have remained an important part of right wing politics ever since, they have never really regained the optimism they once had that if only they could get someone in the White House to represent the “Moral Majority,” the legislation that they all craved would finally become a reality.

Renewed hope blossomed shortly with the election of George W. Bush, a sincere evangelical who, unlike Reagan (a believer but hardly a devout evangelical himself), was one of them. However, as his term unfolded it became clear that whether or not he had a personal relationship with Christ, President Bush was not going to put his political neck on the line to seriously prioritize the evangelical agenda. Not that this kept him from starting two wars on the assumption that God put him in the White House to make sure a clear-headed decider was around when the devil struck the USA.

But the remarkable thing about most of the commentary in the last two episodes is how disappointed most of the commenting evangelicals sound. We’ve sold our soul to the Republican Party, they more or less assert, and look what we’ve got for it? Prayer in school is still illegal, abortion on the other hand is not, and in several states, homosexuals are allowed to get married and have children. Certainly on the gay rights front, the grip of evangelicals on the culture and on our politics has done nothing but degrade in the past two decades.

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David Barton: still not an historian.

David Barton, the pseudo-historian and Religious Right activist, went back on the Daily Show this week to promote his new book The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson. Now, I haven’t read Barton’s book, so I do not know every wrinkle of every argument within it – nor do I think I want to make the effort, lest you find me in the bathroom the next morning with a bullet through my skull.

But based on the conversation between Jon and Barton, it’s very clear that Barton spends a good time arguing against the belief that Jefferson was an atheist – he was actually a devout man, Barton wants us to believe. So real quick, two things:

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The Saccharin and the Profane

I was on a walk with my three year old daughter when she heard one of her favorite sounds; a train’s whistle. In the evenings you can hear the whistle of the local line if you’re in the right spot and things are otherwise quiet. My daughter has taken quite a liking to these trains and it’s not uncommon for us to stop when walking near the tracks and wait for the Sprinter Line to go by on our way to the beach.

She looked up to me, brimming with excitement, and asked, “Train, daddy? Train, daddy?”

“Yeah, sweetie-pie,” I replied, “that’s the train.”

With her excited tone dropping, however, she then said, “No. No train.”

“Why not?”

She stopped walking and thought for a moment, looking up and down the street with her hands stretched out, and she said, very matter of fact, “No tracks. No train.”

I was stunned. She was looking for evidence and didn’t see any.

“No tracks, daddy,” she reiterated. “No tracks. No train.”

At three, my daughter already understands the very basic necessity of evidence for the formation of a belief. I did take a moment to explain that the tracks are only a mile away, which is why we can hear the whistle even though we can’t see the train, but I had to commend her on her desire for proof. Continue reading…

An Open Letter to Religious Conservatives

To whom it may concern,

We, the People of the United States of America, understand that many of you don’t like the idea of same-sex marriage. We only wish you would realize that you are free to not get one. You are free to marry whoever you wish, or no one at all. You are also free to not recognize same-sex marriages in your church. You are free to count no gay couples among your friends and shun those who may happen to be part of your family tree. This is your choice, and we see no reason to deprive you of it.

However, please do not confuse your failed attempts toward limiting the rights of those outside your religious community with your own rights being somehow limited.

Likewise, if you don’t wish contraception to be a part of your family planning, you are free to not use it. You are free to not offer such services through your organizations. You are free to encourage those who are within your sphere of influence to abstain from such preventative measures, and you may freely dictate that members of your religious community must abstain from contraception or find community elsewhere.

But please don’t confuse your freedom to limit your own life choices, and the choices of those within your community, with your misguided desire to place limits on the lives of those people who choose to live outside your religious community.

Gays getting married does not trample your religious freedoms. If you don’t like the idea, then such marriages will take place in more welcoming churches. The gay community does no harm to you by making such choices, and their basic civil rights, as defined by the Supreme Court of the United States, should never be subject to a popular vote.

Women having access to birth control does not trample your rights. If you don’t like it, then those women who see the need to avail themselves of birth control may freely choose to attend church elsewhere. They do no harm to you by making such choices, and their basic rights should likewise never be subject to a popular vote.

These basic rights are inherent to what it means to be a human member of our society. They have the same guarantee as the rights you hold dear.

This country should no sooner pass a law banning the consumption of bacon or insisting that all women wear burkhas because other religious groups observe such rules than should we make any of your religious observances into law because you wish to make everyone live the way you do.

We are all Americans, but we have not all chosen to be a part of your religious community.

No one is insisting you marry someone of the same gender. No one is insisting you use birth control. No one is trying to trample your freedoms in these ways, and simply repeating these lies over and over hoping that they become your version of the truth will not work.

The sooner you realize this, the sooner our government can get back to focusing on more pressing matters instead of mitigating attempts to make your religious opinions into law.

Regards,

Anthony David Jacques, et al

(P.S. Feel free to add your name to this letter and circulate it wherever you like.)

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Appealing to Tradition is Still a Fallacy

If you take an introductory logic class or even a class on composition, you’ll encounter some basic fallacies. One of these is the appeal to tradition. This fallacy is to appeal to the past as a guide for the present or future. For example, Americans wouldn’t point to slavery as an example of how we ought to construct our society today.

Like all informal fallacies, the appeal to tradition doesn’t automatically falsify your conclusion. It means the appeal does not necessarily support your conclusion. You cannot show a necessary connection from has been to should be. You’ll need independent reasons to make that jump.

So why does this basic fallacy matter? I bring it up because it seems to be the cornerstone of a popular defense of religious privilege, like cases dealing with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. You’ll see many of these discussions turning into a debate over the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers, religious legislation in the past, court precedent, etc. In the case of Jessica Ahlquist, the debate focused on the history of the school and its banner. Yet, all of this is ironically built on the assumption that an argument committing one of the most basic fallacies will be a reliable guide to truth.

Here is what I propose instead. Notice the problem: we are trying to get to a decision about what should be the case from what has been the case. Why not just skip straight to discussing how things ought to be? The history of religion in this country seems largely irrelevant to me. What I want to know is whether we, as a society, should promote the continued default privilege in favor of Christians. Give me reasons for or against this privilege as a continued practice, rather than an attempted history lesson (especially one that is often embellished).

If independent reasons cannot be given beyond tradition, then the claims should be ignored.