A culture of ignorance, intolerance, and disrespect
It's deplorable what passes for discourse in the West today. Someone like Richard Dawkins (who in another life was a world-renowned biologist) can publish a book in which he does no or practically no research, does not seriously engage his opponents or their works, and the central thesis of which is pure question-begging, and it sells 1.5 million copies and is translated into 31 languages! A thousand outraged, erudite philosophers (e.g. Alvin Plantinga) and theologians (e.g. Alister McGrath) can and do decry the sheer idiocy of his arguments (there are better arguments for atheism, but he does not seem to know them), but it makes little to no difference.
Dawkins' question-begging goes like this:
1) Only matter exists.
2) God (and anything supernatural) is immaterial.
3) Ergo, God does not exist.
But at no point does he ever even attempt to prove to us that his major premise is true, namely that only matter exists. Thus his arguments, which he repeats ad nauseum in books and on talk shows (like The Colbert Report), are a waste of breath and paper. An amazingly well written review is available on Amazon.com which briefly and clearly explains how his book is a complete failure. It would fail, according to Plantinga, a sophomore level philosophy class.
But not only does Dawkins exemplify the fact that we live in a culture of ignorance, so ignorant that it can even overtake world-renowned biologists, it also exemplifies that we live in a culture of intolerance and disrespect for people who disagree with us. The whole point of Dawkins' article is to attack religion and religious practice as vituperatively as possible and to do so without actually taking the time to try to understand why someone would believe something different from him. Dawkins' book contains, I am told, practically no references to the works of the modern philosophers and theologians who disagree with him. When confronted on this issue, he replies that theism is too foolish to bother spending time learning about. This, of course, is more question-begging, since the proposition that theism is foolish is precisely what he is trying to prove, which requires engaging with what theists say. If I wrote a paper at my school in which, say, I railed against feminist theology without reading the major works and articles of feminist theologians, my professor would tell me that I had to re-write it. If I responded that feminist theology is too stupid to waste time reading about, I would fail the class and possibly be dismissed from the university.
Someday I hope to get a book published, but it is not easy to get a scholarly book published. The intellectual standards are extremely high. It requires not just having a strong grasp of the texts and topics you're dealing with, which are frequently not in English, but also a thorough knowledge of all the secondary literature on the those texts and topics that other scholars before you have published (again often not in English). After analyzing and reviewing all that information, you have to carefully set own your argument and carefully argue it. If you commit a logical error or misrepresent someone's view, you can be sure that this will be reflected in negative book reviews. Too many such mistakes and you can be sure your book will be quickly forgotten since it does not contribute to the scholarly discussion. And even if you manage to do all that and get it published, your book will only be read by a few scholars, mostly specialists in your own field. Furthermore, unless your topic is really fascinating to the general public, you will probably have to get it published by a university press, which is not-for-profit, and in which case you may have to pay the publisher some amount of money to pay for their expenses (hopefully the royalties will eventually repay this, though).
Alternately, I could write a book that rails wildly and idiotically in favor of a popular thesis (actually, atheism is decidedly unpopular in America, but perhaps his books sell better in Europe), ignoring what all my opponents say, and maybe I'll become famous, sell millions of books, and be on The Colbert Report.
Finally, it's clearly not just Richard Dawkins who is contributing to this culture of ignorance, intolerance, and disrespect. I merely chose his book as a convenient example that many people are familiar with. Another good example might be the Democratic debate held in Philadelphia this week. It was hosted by one of the major networks, ABC, but was filled with sensationalist questions that have nothing to do with meaningful discourse (e.g. not wearing a flag pin on your lapel) about the common good. Barack Obama criticized these "manufactured controversies" and distractions and later put them "on notice" on The Colbert Report, which I thought was great (it's a sad day when the most thought-provoking news commentary comes from a network called Comedy Central). I don't know if ABC is aware of this (presumably they are), but there are a lot of serious things going on in our country and in our world (as always). Terrorists successfully attacked our country seven years ago, which led us, whether rightly or wrongly, into two wars in which thousands of people have died. Tyrants like the President of Iran are threatening to genocidally destroy other countries with nuclear weapons. There's a global food crisis (apparently!). The economy is doing poorly (apparently!). People are shooting each other in schools and malls with automatic weapons. The country is polemically split between so-called conservatives and so-called liberals on a million different issues (e.g. abortion, health care, foreign policy, gay marriage, etc.). But we'd rather talk about flag pins.
The social or political divide (red states vs. blue states) in this country is completely unacceptable. Colbert may be joking when he divides our country up into The United Status of Canada and Jesus-land, but is he that far off? Unity is essential to any society and if things don't change and keep going this way for the rest of this century, we may not be a country by the end of it. Laws depend on some sort of common consensus on what is right and desirable and good and what is wrong and undesirable and bad, but such a consensus seems less and less common. I think that this divide could most certainly be overcome if Americans would take the time to listen to the other side and engage issues intelligently and thoughtfully instead of simply spouting off inane, meaningless sound bytes and putting stupid bumper stickers on their cars. A bumper sticker that says "Abortion is murder" is pointless and so is one that says "Keep your laws off my body." Neither actually engages the issue. Dialogue depends on common ground. If you have no common ground whatsoever, then you can't talk. I am sure, though, that there are still lots of things that all or almost all Americans hold in common, no matter how "liberal" or "conservative" they are.
I probably sound like Barack Obama, saying all those things, and I have to admit that his talk about how there is only one United States of America and how we are being misled by political distractions is very appealing to me. Maybe I'll vote for him, if he beats Hilary Clinton (in spite of the fact that he is pro-choice).
Dawkins' question-begging goes like this:
1) Only matter exists.
2) God (and anything supernatural) is immaterial.
3) Ergo, God does not exist.
But at no point does he ever even attempt to prove to us that his major premise is true, namely that only matter exists. Thus his arguments, which he repeats ad nauseum in books and on talk shows (like The Colbert Report), are a waste of breath and paper. An amazingly well written review is available on Amazon.com which briefly and clearly explains how his book is a complete failure. It would fail, according to Plantinga, a sophomore level philosophy class.
But not only does Dawkins exemplify the fact that we live in a culture of ignorance, so ignorant that it can even overtake world-renowned biologists, it also exemplifies that we live in a culture of intolerance and disrespect for people who disagree with us. The whole point of Dawkins' article is to attack religion and religious practice as vituperatively as possible and to do so without actually taking the time to try to understand why someone would believe something different from him. Dawkins' book contains, I am told, practically no references to the works of the modern philosophers and theologians who disagree with him. When confronted on this issue, he replies that theism is too foolish to bother spending time learning about. This, of course, is more question-begging, since the proposition that theism is foolish is precisely what he is trying to prove, which requires engaging with what theists say. If I wrote a paper at my school in which, say, I railed against feminist theology without reading the major works and articles of feminist theologians, my professor would tell me that I had to re-write it. If I responded that feminist theology is too stupid to waste time reading about, I would fail the class and possibly be dismissed from the university.
Someday I hope to get a book published, but it is not easy to get a scholarly book published. The intellectual standards are extremely high. It requires not just having a strong grasp of the texts and topics you're dealing with, which are frequently not in English, but also a thorough knowledge of all the secondary literature on the those texts and topics that other scholars before you have published (again often not in English). After analyzing and reviewing all that information, you have to carefully set own your argument and carefully argue it. If you commit a logical error or misrepresent someone's view, you can be sure that this will be reflected in negative book reviews. Too many such mistakes and you can be sure your book will be quickly forgotten since it does not contribute to the scholarly discussion. And even if you manage to do all that and get it published, your book will only be read by a few scholars, mostly specialists in your own field. Furthermore, unless your topic is really fascinating to the general public, you will probably have to get it published by a university press, which is not-for-profit, and in which case you may have to pay the publisher some amount of money to pay for their expenses (hopefully the royalties will eventually repay this, though).
Alternately, I could write a book that rails wildly and idiotically in favor of a popular thesis (actually, atheism is decidedly unpopular in America, but perhaps his books sell better in Europe), ignoring what all my opponents say, and maybe I'll become famous, sell millions of books, and be on The Colbert Report.
Finally, it's clearly not just Richard Dawkins who is contributing to this culture of ignorance, intolerance, and disrespect. I merely chose his book as a convenient example that many people are familiar with. Another good example might be the Democratic debate held in Philadelphia this week. It was hosted by one of the major networks, ABC, but was filled with sensationalist questions that have nothing to do with meaningful discourse (e.g. not wearing a flag pin on your lapel) about the common good. Barack Obama criticized these "manufactured controversies" and distractions and later put them "on notice" on The Colbert Report, which I thought was great (it's a sad day when the most thought-provoking news commentary comes from a network called Comedy Central). I don't know if ABC is aware of this (presumably they are), but there are a lot of serious things going on in our country and in our world (as always). Terrorists successfully attacked our country seven years ago, which led us, whether rightly or wrongly, into two wars in which thousands of people have died. Tyrants like the President of Iran are threatening to genocidally destroy other countries with nuclear weapons. There's a global food crisis (apparently!). The economy is doing poorly (apparently!). People are shooting each other in schools and malls with automatic weapons. The country is polemically split between so-called conservatives and so-called liberals on a million different issues (e.g. abortion, health care, foreign policy, gay marriage, etc.). But we'd rather talk about flag pins.
The social or political divide (red states vs. blue states) in this country is completely unacceptable. Colbert may be joking when he divides our country up into The United Status of Canada and Jesus-land, but is he that far off? Unity is essential to any society and if things don't change and keep going this way for the rest of this century, we may not be a country by the end of it. Laws depend on some sort of common consensus on what is right and desirable and good and what is wrong and undesirable and bad, but such a consensus seems less and less common. I think that this divide could most certainly be overcome if Americans would take the time to listen to the other side and engage issues intelligently and thoughtfully instead of simply spouting off inane, meaningless sound bytes and putting stupid bumper stickers on their cars. A bumper sticker that says "Abortion is murder" is pointless and so is one that says "Keep your laws off my body." Neither actually engages the issue. Dialogue depends on common ground. If you have no common ground whatsoever, then you can't talk. I am sure, though, that there are still lots of things that all or almost all Americans hold in common, no matter how "liberal" or "conservative" they are.
I probably sound like Barack Obama, saying all those things, and I have to admit that his talk about how there is only one United States of America and how we are being misled by political distractions is very appealing to me. Maybe I'll vote for him, if he beats Hilary Clinton (in spite of the fact that he is pro-choice).