Julian Baggini's Heathen Manifesto ? Choice in Dying

Julian Baggini has a new post up at the Guardian. He thinks we?ve reached stalemate in the struggle between faith and unfaith, and between polite atheism and the new atheism, as well as over the question whether science and religion are compatible. He thinks the public discussion is only repeating the same tired old arguments, and no one is going to be convinced by anything that is said. The battle lines have been drawn, but instead of mobile warfare, we?re bogged down in the trenches, and there is little if no movement. It?s now?time, he thinks, for something new. So he?s going to give us what he thinks needs to change?in a series of Guardianista articles. He doesn?t know where he?s going to end up yet, he says, and is asking the Guardianista commentariat to contribute ideas, questions, and just in general new ways of looking at old questions so that things can move on from here.

I wrote a post at the beginning of this year (25th January to be exact) on Julian Baggini and the New Atheism, in which I showed, pretty comprehensively, that despite his pose of honest broker between the strident new atheists and believers, he was really a new atheist at heart, even though, at other times, he was taking the new atheists to task for not being more accommodating and generous. This time he doesn?t throw any brickbats towards atheists or believers. He just says a pox on all your houses! But he does acknowledge something important. He acknowledges that:

Broadly speaking, the problem is that the religious mainstream establishment maintains a Janus-faced commitment to both medieval doctrines and public pronouncements about inclusivity and moderation; agnostics and more liberal believers promote an intellectualised version of religion, which both reduces faith to a thin gruel and fails to reflect the reality of faith on the ground.

This needed to be said. Religious defenders of religion have simply used the quicksilver nature of religious believing to slip away whenever?their beliefs are called into question. All they have to say is something like, ?No one believes in a god like that,? or some such prevaricating piece of shimmering ambiguity, and they think they?ve got off scot free. But then he goes on to say of?new atheists:

[T]he new atheists are spiritually tone-deaf, fixated on the superstitious side of religion to the exclusion of its more interesting and valuable aspects.

Now that?s a harder case to make out. I think?quite a few?new atheists are much more spiritually attuned than this suggests. Though Jerry Coyne, for example, gives no quarter when it comes to theology, he is not only well-read in theology, he also offers pretty sensitive appreciations of what religious people believe and say. And besides, it has been shown that atheists seem to know more about religious beliefs than believers themselves, which, if it generally holds, is really quite remarkable. And I have been saying for quite some time that we do need to appreciate what is valuable in theology and religious belief, because it does, after all, fulfil emotional needs, even if?its intellectual foundations are crumbling, and that theology itself is?sometimes (and I?emphasise that ?sometimes?) contains very sensitive analyses of the nature of being human. I have urged that people not give up entirely on theology, since that was the primary means of expression for so many centuries that it would be surprising if it contained nothing of human value.

Anyway, what shall we say about Baggini?s heathen manifesto? Well, of course, the answers are not in yet. So those who are interested in his project should go over to the Guardian and suggest ways in which he might develop the project from this point. I would say, on the face of it, that the attempt to resurrect the idea of heathenism is scarcely to the point. Heathens, in the Christian tradition, were like infidels in the Muslim tradition: namely, those who worshipped false gods. I don?t think the word itself is particularly helpful, and is not likely to be adopted generally by disbelievers.

Nor, I have to say, do I think we have really reached a stalemate. The movement of Karl Giberson away from the dark and dirty form of evangelicalism is a significant movement away from the broadly anti-intellectual forces of fundamentalism, and the transition of Biologos from a science-friendly attempt at understanding more conservative forms of Christianity looks, at this point, to be going through a?virtual?sea change that will see it?ally itself more closely to the forces of unreason, which, if ture, will mean that?unbelief has made a significant victory. Indeed, I would say, given the evidence, that the new atheism ? a term of abuse that has been accepted a built upon by a number of the more militant unbelievers on the?disbelieving side ? has made significant gains over the last few years, and has got some of the religious very worried indeed. I wonder just why we should let up the pressure at this point. This is not just a stalemate, if it?s a stalemate at all, and it?s a mystery to me why Julian Baggini can?t see that we?ve been making great strides just by repeating a few home truths until they become the common possession of many amongst both believers and unbelievers. There are many more disbelievers now that are right out there in the open, challenging the most egregious failures of the churches, both in terms of their moral failures, as well as in their failure to be able to defend their beliefs against the corrosive effects of science and disbelief.

Why should we be seeking d?tente with the religious at this point? On his trip to Germany Pope Ratzinger has been trying to stir up fellow-feeling amongst non-Catholic Christians, urging them to join with him in a blitzkrieg against secularism. The Church of England, in its Challenges for the New Quinquennium?(that is, the next five years), names, as the first of half a dozen emphases, the following:

The first is to be explicit about the need to counter attempts to marginalise Christianity and to treat religious faith more generally as a social problem. This is partly about taking on the ?new atheism?. Bishops have a key role here both as public apologists and as teachers of the faith. Church members look to their leaders to speak out on their behalf and to help them in their own understanding and witness.

This is an astonishing admission! ?This is partly about taking on the ?new atheism?.? And not only that, but the formulation of the problem in the first sentence is vital.?Religious faith is a social problem. This is?precisely what the new atheism has been at pains to say. Religion is a social problem. Instead of the cement of society, in the new?situation of plural religions, religion has become a problem. Notice that the pope didn?t encourage Muslims of Jews or Hindus to join in the fight against secularism. No, he addressed himself solely to Christians, simply?underlining the point that religion is becoming an issue for the peace and good order of society.?And, in its deliberate attempt to marginalise?disbelievers, and reintroduce into legislation values that are upheld by the churches alone, the pope is doing what?popes usually do: entering the lists against modernity, against freedom, against open society. And lest we forget, Islam has been waging this particular battle?in the West ever since the Muslim population in the West has grown to significant proportions.

Is this time to give up the struggle? Why does Baggini see a stalemate, rather than an?ongoing strife against religions and their power, and an attempt to shape a society truly free of its religious baggage? I don?t see a?stalemate. We may have to repeat things until we are hoarse, but?I suspect that the message is getting through, slowly but surely. We don?t need religions to keep order and decency in society ? though I suggest that disbelievers do have a problem of acknowledging, in their failure to accommodate women in their ranks without?making the same kinds of mistakes that the patriarchal religions are guilty of, that disbelieving is a wide house, and not just a place?for men to play testosterone powered games?? we don?t need religions at all, and the further marginalised they are the better off societies will be. But I do see one thing that religions are good at, and that the disbelieving community needs to adopt, and that is simply civility and courtesy. That doesn?t mean that we don?t us strong language when it?s needed, or that we don?t condemn idiocy in the most graphic terms that are necessary, but that we learn to treat people, unless there is a good reason to decry their words or actions from the housetops, with the kind of civility and courtesy that we would like for ourselves. One of the faults, often pointed out, about the movement of disbelief is its domination by men, and the correlative discomfort that women have been forced to endure. This is something that has to stop. This is an intellectual movement. Women should not feel that they are welcomed only for their titillation value, but for themselves, as intellectual partners in the struggle against belief. There is no place here for ?Tailhook? incidents, and no place for masculine posturing.

But the struggle is still a real one, and it needs to be joined. I think Baggini is looking for solutions to a problem that does not exist, though I am prepared to keep an open mind over the next few weeks to see what is wrought by his new heathenism and its manifesto. The real struggle against religious ways of believing and monopolising community is just in its early stages. It?s not time to cut the Gordian knot yet. The situation is still fluid. It?s not bogged down in a stalemate as Baggini suggests. There is some truth in this, however:

As a querulous member of the atheist camp, one of my aims is to end up with a richer, more constructive vision for what should follow the ?new atheism?, which may well have been needed, but does not appear capable of taking us much further. To use another military analogy, the new atheism seems designed for effective invasion, but not long-term occupation.

The funny thing is that, though he has been shadow boxing with the new atheism for some time now, the acknowledgement that it may have been needed seems to come a bit late. But he is right in one thing ? as I?ve been suggesting for some time: we need to have ways of making the new atheism a permanent reality, whether this means some kind of institutional?embodiment, or something else. We do need an occupying force ? a mistake that NATO made in Afghanistan ??and I?m prepared to go along with that.?But, as I say, I don?t think the new atheism has run its course yet. It?s still?giving more than just diminishing marginal returns on its investment.?What we do need is some way to give it more social presence, something that can cross swords with the church?s commitment to claim back some of the ground it admits to have lost.

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Source: http://choiceindying.com/2011/10/01/julian-bagginis-heathen-manifesto/

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