http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Athe-ists-Nar-row/126027/the author sees that the western liberal contempt for religion is wrong. He wants to rescue religion, but his way of doing it is to tell us that religion is actually somehow liberal. At the same time, he wants to put down western religion and inform us that non western religions are somehow more liberal that western religions. So he writes things that don’t make sense.
The author sees that a contempt for religion will lead to a contempt for the most religious, which are non western peoples. So he wants to prevent that by defending animism, which is fine. But his defense is to tell us that they will stop being animists when they make more money (debatable) and that animism or any religion has nothing to do with morality (wrong). The morality argument is important for liberals to attack because that is the argument that western conservatives make about religion. So the author must defend the religion of non western peoples and at the same time absolve them of the horrible notion that their religion is connected to their morals.
The author’s position reveals the inherent dilemma liberals face when defending non western cultures. You end up defending the non liberal position and giving the advantage to conservatives in the west. This is the basic problem of liberals who defend Islam and at the same time put down what they call fundamentalist Christianity. If Muslims have the right to lead a life of conservative, “family”, values and that is good and proper, then why is it wrong for a Christian to do the same and oppose, for instance, gay marriage and abortion. This is not an idle question, but one that is becoming more important.
He says that religion has nothing to do with morality. This is an astounding statement and the author must know it is not true. Religion is all about morality and right and wrong and what is fitting and decent or disgraceful and indecent. People need a way to be able to figure out what someone will do and when someone is the same religion as you, you have guidelines and a framework. This woman will not have premarital sex or make a blasphemous remark. This person is unlikely to steal my cows. Our Gods that we have in common says don’t do that. This person has the same Gods as me and I can trust his conduct more than I can trust the conduct of an unbeliever. The author sees that religion is about consolation. But Consolation is all about morality. About this person did something wrong and even though I can’t do anything about it, the Gods will punish him. Or if the society punishes him, it is doing God’s will. Animist cultures are full of people fearing spells and witchcraft, afraid of their neighbors doing wrong to them, attributing every ill to supernatural forces. People use morality, that is religion, to put things right, to stop the evil spell.
Religion as Stephen Pinker said is about creating a community. People want to live among those who have the same values. In fact, it is difficult to do otherwise.
The author is so eager to put down the west he makes many nonsensical remarks. He tells us that there is no tension between animism and science. Of course there is great tension, much more so than there is between Judeo Christianity and science. Science destroys animist cultures. There is nothing like a scientific demonstration or explanation of fire or clouds or water or a western rationalist explanation of sex roles (westerners who go to an African village and give the women aid or education or anything that frees them from men or family obligation are doing great harm) to drop the bottom out of an animist village. Pretty soon, people are anxious and confused, not sure what is real or not anymore. They have lost their Gods.
Western fundamentalism has not been able to stop science from doing anything, even if it wanted to. Stopping people from murdering babies in the womb and using their cells is not stopping scientists, just as stopping experiments on prisoners is not stopping them. We could find out a lot if we could do brain experiments on prisoners, but we don’t do it.
In his zeal to do the proper liberal PC thing and show that he is part of the adversarial culture, the author comes close to saying that animism is superior. Let’s say that it is superior to other religions. Would we be better served if we all became animists? Would that increase or decrease liberalism, non racism, the assumption of equality, etc.?
Animists are not liberal. The author assumes that all non western cultures are liberal. They are not. They are racist, classist, sexist, and all the other “ists”. They had/have slavery, human sacrifice, caste systems, and all that other stuff we now regard as bad. In other words, they are human. All the “bad” stuff is normal and natural. The liberal stuff is invented and takes much more effort.
