Almost Too Easy.
By sideways | Related entries in News, Religion
From today’s Washington Post, by Michael Gerson, under the headline, “What Atheists Can’t Answer.”
I’ll take up that challenge. Gerson’s text in italics :
British author G.K. Chesterton argued that every act of blasphemy is a kind of tribute to God, because it is based on belief. “If anyone doubts this,” he wrote, “let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.”
I no more think “blasphemous” thoughts than Hitchens or Dawkins or Harris do. Blasphemy is a term meaningful only to believers. It certainly does presuppose belief, but since the definition of blasphemy lies wholly in the believer’s mind and forms no part of the atheist’s thoughts, the writer is simply revealing that Chesterton was a prisoner of his own unexamined presuppositions.
By the evidence of the New York Times bestseller list, God has recently been bathed in such tributes. An irreverent trinity — Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins — has sold a lot of books accusing theism of fostering hatred, repressing sexuality and mutilating children (Hitchens doesn’t approve of male circumcision). Every miracle is a fraud. Every mystic is a madman. And this atheism is presented as a war of liberation against centuries of spiritual tyranny.
I don’t doubt that the boys revel in the notion of an “irreverent trinity.” In fact, as I see it, there are gradations within this trinity. Not all of the three fit into Gerson’s parodistic summation. But, okay, what the hell, close enough. Unsaid here is the fact that if Gerson is like the vast majority of believers, he also believes “every miracle is a fraud, every mystic is a madman,” except for that minority of miracle workers and mystics who happen to have the imprimatur of his particular faith. In other words, while Hitch is 100% faithless, Gerson is, say, 80% faithless.
The rest at Sideways Mencken.
This entry was posted on Friday, July 13th, 2007 and is filed under News, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 13th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
I don’t think the ontology of blasphamy is entirely dependent on belief. Atheist like to ingore their own constructivist epistemology and priori processes. Most atheist that I know are intelligent people with significant psychological issues and atheism serves a psychological purpose. The same indictment levied against Believers. Chesterton’s point was that many of the most ardent Atheists are still cultural products. Sorry, Sideways to burst your cool bubble, but I don’t believe for one second that your cognitive/spiritual response to blasphamy directed a Jesus Christ is the same as blasphamy directed at Thor.
July 14th, 2007 at 6:02 am
Sorry to burst yours, Dos, but my response is identical: puzzlement and a shrug of the shoulders. The only difference being that I kind of liked Thor from his line of comic books, while my affection for Jesus stems from his line of cathedrals, some of which are very lovely.
July 14th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Such is the state of Western Civ. I guess — an insult to both gods and legitimate blasphamers.
July 14th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
The whole concept of blasphemy being a crime is simply a matter of thinking that people should not be responsible for the results of their own actions. If you believe in personal responsibility, then you don’t feel compelled to trash anyone else whose beliefs differ from yours. If you’re right, he’s wrong and will suffer for it (if your religion has something equivelent to Hell). But that’s his problem, not yours.
At most, you may feel a responsibility to make him aware of your alternate vision. But not to force him to accept it. Nor to protect the rest of the world from his (wrong, you think) beliefs.
But blasphemy is possible only if you are saying something that you believe to be contrary to your own religion. And nobody else gets to denounce you for conflicting with his (as opposed to your own) theology.