The Village Atheist Unbound

John Harris offers us a vitriolic attack on religion in the LA Times today. His criticism seems to consist of two distinct components:

a) Religious beliefs are false and/or irrational, and shouldn’t be treated as beyond rational criticism

b) Religious beliefs lead people to engage in morally objectionable forms of political action(e.g. suicide bombing, opposing embryonic stem cell research)

Concerning (a), obviously I think that some religious beliefs are true (e.g. that God exists) and that one can rationally affirm some religious beliefs. I do, however, agree that religious beliefs are not, and should not be, exempt from rational criticism.

However, Harris has done nothing (at least in this piece) to show that religious beliefs are false or irrational except by claiming that they lead to morally objectionable actions, which leads us to claim (b).

Harris claims, for example, that some religious people believe, on religious grounds, that destroying human embryos for research purposes is wrong:

Consider the subject of stem-cell research. Many religious people, drawing from what they’ve heard from the pulpit, believe that 3-day-old embryos — which are microscopic collections of 150 cells the size of a pinhead — are fully endowed with human souls and, therefore, must be protected as people. But if we know anything at all about the neurology of sensory perception, we know that there is no reason to believe that embryos at this stage of development have the capacity to sense pain, to suffer or to experience death in any way at all. (There are, for comparison’s sake, 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly.)

For starters, I’ve never seen a convincing argument for why size is a morally relevant category. Is it less wrong to kill a very short man than a very tall one?

Also, note the straw man Harris has constructed to represent the opponents of stem-cell research. Those who oppose the destruction of embryos do not do so because they think the embryos can feel pain. Surely Harris knows this, all his hand-waving about “the neurology of sensory perception” notwithstanding.

Harris seems to assume that we (i.e. we sophisticated cosmopolitan readers of the LA Times) will take it as self-evident that it’s okay to destroy 3-day-old embryos for research purposes. But if you don’t take this as self-evident, then the fact that some religious people oppose it really has no bearing on the issue. Moreover, there are plenty of atheists and agnostics who believe that life begins at conception too. All this does nothing to show that religious belief qua religious belief lead to dangerous consequences. Though it may show that religious beliefs sometimes lead to conclusions that John Harris, for reasons that remain mysterious to me, finds unacceptable.

Likewise Harris’ treatment of suicide bombers:

Anyone who thinks that terrestrial concerns are the principal source of Muslim violence must explain why there are no Palestinian Christian suicide bombers. They too suffer the daily indignity of the Israeli occupation. Where, for that matter, are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers? The Tibetans have suffered an occupation far more brutal. Where are the throngs of Tibetans ready to perpetrate suicidal atrocities against the Chinese? They do not exist. What is the difference that makes the difference? The difference lies in the specific tenets of Islam versus those of Buddhism and Christianity.

Leaving aside whether he’s accurate in his exegesis of the tenets of Islam, this actually seems to undercut Harris’ main point – that religion per se is somehow uniquely responsible for evil. Some religious beliefs encourage morally objectionable actions, just as some non-religious beliefs do. For instance, the brutal occupation the Tibetans have been suffering under is the result of a secular (indeed, explicitly atheistic) government’s belief that it has a right to their homeland. People can be motivated to do unspeakable acts for non-religious reasons as well as religious ones. And specifically religious (and non-religious) beliefs can motivate acts of supreme heroism, justice and compassion.

Whether, in the grand scheme of things, more evil has had religious or non-religious roots is probably unknowable (though the history of communism alone gives religion a run for its money). What is certain is that moral actions and the beliefs that inform them are proper subjects for critical scrutiny, whether those beliefs are religious or not. But this has to be judged on a case-by-case basis; sweeping generalizations like Harris’ only serve to undermine critical thought.