Why atheism is winning-2: Religion’s Achilles heel

(For previous posts in this series, see here.)

In the previous post, I looked at some of the theoretical arguments made by accommodationists for not criticizing religion and discussed why I did not think them very credible.

The other arguments that accommodationists make are practical ones. Belief in a god, we are told, serves some positive ends, such as inculcating moral values or causing people to refrain from bad actions for fear of divine retribution, and eliminating it would result in antisocial behavior by some. The counter to this argument is that there is no evidence that religious people are more moral than non-religious people or that lack of religious beliefs drive people to evil actions.
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The latest budget

The White House has released the president’s proposed budget for 2011-2012. Given that we still don’t have a budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year that began on October 1, 2010 and are operating on continuing resolutions, it is not clear that this budget should be taken seriously.

But the New York Times has put together a very nice interactive graphic that breaks down the president’s proposals.

Why atheism is winning-1: The current state

For some time now I have had this feeling that the struggle between atheism and religion is over and atheism has won. I believe a tipping point has been reached in which religion has begun an inexorable slide towards oblivion. Not total oblivion, of course. There will always be pockets of people who feel the need for belief in some supernatural being. But sooner rather than later, perhaps within two generations, religious people will not be the majority that they have been up to now but will consist of small scattered sects like the Amish, viewed with amused indulgence for their devotion to maintaining a bygone lifestyle. This will seem counter-intuitive when viewed with the public religiosity we see all around us, especially in the US and the next series of posts will flesh out why I think this is the case.

Readers of this blog are aware of the current debate between so-called new (or unapologetic) atheists (some of whom refer to themselves jokingly as ‘gnu atheists’) and accommodationists. The former group (of which I am a member) feels that belief in gods and the supernatural are unsupported by evidence and that at a fundamental level religion is incompatible with science and should be treated in much the same way that we treat other myths and superstitions like unicorns and fairies and Santa Claus, beliefs that we might indulge in children but which no self-respecting adult would admit to. The new atheists think that one of the reasons that beliefs in gods survive is because religion has created a protective cocoon around it and made it a social taboo for people to point out that it has no credibility.

These views have ruffled the feathers of some and there has been some pushback. We are told that we must respect the sincerely held beliefs of religious people and not offend them by asking awkward questions as to why religious people believe what they do or pointing out all the logical and evidentiary contradictions. It is never made clear why we should give religion this special privilege that is not extended to other sincerely held beliefs concerning politics or history or human behavior. In every area of knowledge other than religion, shining the bright light of reason and science on it is seen as desirable, a way of separating truth from falsehood and the credible from the absurd.

Accommodationists, on the other hand, consist of people (some of whom are self-proclaimed atheists) who think that science and religion are either compatible or that if we do not think so, we still should not violate the taboo of pointing out the incompatibilities. The compatibility argument, when probed, eventually comes down to saying that there are areas of knowledge that science does not and cannot investigate and thus god can act in that sphere and hence religion has dominion over that area of knowledge. Of course, the claim that some area is outside the reach of science is an old one that has been refuted repeatedly as formerly inexplicable phenomena have been subsequently shown to be explainable by science. There is no reason to think that the currently alleged designated areas of inexplicability (the origin of the universe and of life) are any more immune to scientific encroachment than the behavior of the solar system and the diversity of life, former candidates for inexplicability subsequently explained by Newtonian mechanics and Darwinian natural selection.

An alternative form of this accommodationist argument is that issues such as morality and ethics and some vaguely defined spirituality are intangibles that do not have the material basis that is amenable to scientific investigation and that we must look to religion as the source of such values. One counter to this is that it is not at all clear that such things do not have a material basis. After all, all thoughts and behavior are governed by decisions of the brain which does have a material basis. In fact, there is a huge field of evolutionary biology and psychology directed towards understanding just how our behaviors evolved.

The other counter is that it is not self-evident why, even if we concede for the sake of argument that science cannot investigate these claims, these areas of knowledge should be ceded to religion. Why should only religion be credentialed to say what is and is not moral and ethical behavior? Why not psychology or sociology or anthropology or literature? Why should we infer our moral values from the Bible (to choose one source of religious values) instead of the works of William Shakespeare or Leo Tolstoy or Rabindranath Tagore or Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Confucius? The only reason to do so is if we think the Bible (or the Koran or equivalent other religious text) has been shown to be true. The fact that it has not been shown to be true and in fact is riddled with claims that we know to be flat-out false means that there is no reason to give it preferred status. Religion has not earned the right to claim default status of truth for those areas of knowledge that are supposedly outside the realm of science.

Next: Other arguments for religion’s durability

The consequences of condoning torture

The US, like the governments of many nations, has long practiced torture and the killing of people. But at least in the past it had enough sense of shame and awareness that it was wrong that they would take pains to make sure that there was plausible deniability. With the advent of the Bush-Cheney regime and the ‘war on terror’, torture practices became acceptable and not only did they not deny that they authorized things like waterboarding, they even took pride in it as a sign of their toughness.

Barack Obama seems be going along with the practice of torturing prisoners in its own bases abroad or by the practice of ‘rendition‘, sending prisoners to other countries to have their forces torture people. The US practices a form of ‘torture shopping’, selecting countries depending on the kinds of brutalization of prisoners they want.

Foreign nationals suspected of terrorism have been transported to detention and interrogation facilities in Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Diego Garcia, Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and elsewhere. In the words of former CIA agent Robert Baer: “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear – never to see them again – you send them to Egypt.”

While moralizing about human rights, the US has become quite accepting of torture as long as we are the ones who do it or it is done by other countries for our benefit.

But now other countries seem to be not quite so forgiving of these crimes. George W. Bush has had to cancel a trip to Switzerland because of fears that he might be arrested for war crimes, although the official reason given is that the hosts were concerned about disruptive demonstrations.

Scott Horton reports on what transpired.

Two victims of torture in U.S. detention have prepared a criminal complaint against Bush (PDF), backed by a coalition of international human rights groups, two former United Nations rapporteurs, and two Nobel Peace Prize laureates. The indictment appears to have been furnished to Geneva’s cantonal prosecutors with a request that they act on it by arresting the former president. There’s no indication that the Geneva criminal justice authorities would have taken such a step—which would have been certain to provoke a diplomatic incident between Switzerland and the United States. On the other hand, an attorney involved in the complaint stated that she had no doubt that Bush’s change in travel plans had to do with the criminal case against him. “Waterboarding is torture, and Bush has admitted, without any sign of remorse, that he approved its use,” said Katherine Gallagher, who works with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights. “The reach of the Convention Against Torture is wide—this case is prepared and will be waiting for him wherever he travels next.”

Even the Conservative Mayor of London Boris Johnson warned Bush that if he comes there to promote his book, he may be arrested for authorizing torture.

Donald Rumsfeld reportedly had to flee France because of the threat of arrest for war crimes. Other people such as Dick Cheney also face the threat of arrest if they venture abroad. Henry Kissinger is another person who deserves to be arrested and tried on war crimes.

How has it come to pass that American leaders are now effectively fugitives?

Scott Horton says that this is because the US government has created a culture of impunity within the CIA and its security forces. He says that the CIA operatives who tortured people, including the ones who committed the horrendous injustice to Khaled el-Masri, not only did not suffer any consequences, they were shielded from prosecutions by other countries and even received promotions. But there is a price to be paid for this condoning of war crimes and the creation of a culture of impunity where lower-level people are given carte blanche to violate the law in the war on terror. As Horton writes:

Such a culture has certain legal consequences. Under the doctrine of command responsibility, when an organization involved in warfare fails to punish or discipline those who engage in criminal conduct, criminal liability passes to the senior officers of that organization.

So because they refused to take action against torturers, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld could all be arrested for war crimes if they go to other countries.

This is what happens when a country abandons the rule of law and respect for human rights. Its leaders can end up becoming fugitives from justice. Obama could well face the same threat when he leaves office since he has done little to dismantle the arbitrary detention and torture system set up by Bush-Cheney and has even expanded its scope.

Belated anniversary commemoration

What with one thing and another, I forgot to mark the sixth anniversary of this blog, which began on January 26, 2005. I never imagined that it would continue for this long. I estimate that I have written close to two million words. For most of the time, the blog consisted of an op-ed length essay every weekday but last year I started adding some short posts as well.

I am now undertaking a new book project that will take up some time so I may have to cut back on the essays a bit. These take more time because they consist of reasoned arguments that have to be thought through and worded more carefully. But at the same time, those essays are the ones I like the most because I also learn from researching and writing them, so they will not disappear.

Thanks to all the people out there who read and comment.

Bye, bye Hosni

The abdication by Hosni Mubarak is wonderful news and the Egyptian people deserve our congratulations and admiration for their determination and unity in the face of the forces arrayed against them.

But the battle is not yet over. The country is still being run by the military and that odious torturer Omar Suleiman, favored by the US and named as vice-president by Mubarak, is still playing a key role in the government.

I would dearly love to see Mubarak, Suleiman, and all the other torturers in that country tried for their crimes.
The next phase is critical. The Egyptian people united around the goal of getting rid of Mubarak and were successful. Will they be able to remain united around new goals of democratization? Will the army actually give up its power in favor of a totally civilian government elected by the people? Or will it claim that is has gone far enough and repress any further attempts at relinquishing control?

The overthrow of Mubarak is undoubtedly inspirational for freedom-loving people the world over. It shows what ordinary people can do when they unite around a common goal. People in that region are taking note of what is possible and their rumblings are sending shivers down the spines of other autocratic rulers.

There are lessons here for the US and transglobal oligarchy too. You can push people just so far before they turn on you.