Following-up last October's An Atheist Defense of Christianity, in which atheist Walter Block vigorously defends religion, we have another superb argument by an atheist in defense of religion.
By Karl Reitz : TCS Daily
Hitchens Is Not Great: An Atheist's Defense of Religion
Most reviews of these books and interviews with the authors have raised the not-so-hot record of atheistic societies. The authors, of course, promptly dismiss these concerns. As The Economist review of Mr. Hitchens "God is not Great" puts it:
"To the objection that irreligious fascists and communists found plenty of non-religious reasons for murder in the 20th century, Mr Hitchens retorts that these beliefs were types of secularised religion, and as such do not count."
However, it is not clear at all why "secularized religions" should not count. A world in which everyone stopped believing in God would likely provide fertile ground for such secular faiths. These secularized religions are what we would really have if we somehow got everyone to stop believing in God. Realistically, atheists (and we atheists take pride in only thinking realistically) may only have a choice between living in societies that are traditionally religious or ones that have adopted secularized religions.
So, far from "not counting," secular religions must be taken very seriously, and their implications understood, before we preach the benefits of godless society.
The obvious examples of secularized religions are communism, socialism, and fascism, each of which generally involves worshipping government by slightly different rituals or for slightly different reasons. As these convictions faded, faith in the welfare state, and especially environmental protection, has risen to take their place for reasons government should be worshipped. Environmentalist devotees claim that we will experience the apocalypse disasters, for which some people are rebuilding Noah's Ark. These disasters can be prevented if we take the advice of prophets people who understand, like Al Gore. Of course, if we sin pollute a little too much, well, we can always buy indulgences carbon offsets.
The fundamental difference between traditional religions and these secular religions is that secular religions promise us that perfection (heaven) is possible here, on earth, in present times. Conservatives, starting with Eric Voegelin, have long warned against buying into these secular religions by warning us not to "immanentize the eschaton."
For the same reasons that I don't want religion taught to my [theoretical future] children in public schools, I don't want Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to be a requirement for graduation. If the First Amendment prohibits the teaching of religion in public schools, shouldn't it prohibit showing that movie? After all, what's the difference between that movie and one that presented a traditional religion in the same way?
Even if the secular authors' ire is well-justified, we are never going to live in a world in which the vast majority of people don't have faith in something, whether that something is God or Government. As an atheist I feel much less threatened by someone who is willing to put off perfection by relegating it to another place than I do by someone who thinks they can create it here and now. In other words, I think that the chance that a religion will "poison everything" is indirectly proportional to the length of time the proponents of the religion think it will take to perfect this world. Therefore, nothing scares me more than the demagogue who promises to immediately do just that. Without traditional religion, I think we would have a lot of demagogues in this mold.
Read the whole thing here: Hitchens Is Not Great: An Atheist's Defense of Religion
H/T - Buttle’s World via Smash Mouth Politics!
