"Time to Stand Up"
By Richard Dawkins
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Distinguished British scientist, author and atheist Richard Dawkins,
who was scheduled to accept an "Emperor Has No Clothes Award" on Sept.
22 at the Freedom From Religion Foundation convention, cancelled his
appearance in light of travel difficulties after the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks against the United States.
He supplied an exclusive article, reprinted below, which was read at
the Foundation convention in his stead by James Coors, a professor of
Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The essay is a follow-up to Dawkins' powerful article, "Religion's
Misguided Missiles," appearing in The Guardian on September 15, 2001.
See excerpt following the article.
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Written for the Freedom From Religion Foundation
(http://www.ffrf.org), Madison, Wisconsin, September 2001.
"To blame Islam for what happened in New York is like blaming
Christianity for the troubles in Northern Ireland!" Yes. Precisely. It
is time to stop pussyfooting around. Time to get angry. And not only
with Islam.
Those of us who have renounced one or another of the three "great"
monotheistic religions have, until now, moderated our language for
reasons of politeness. Christians, Jews and Muslims are sincere in
their beliefs and in what they find holy. We have respected that, even
as we have disagreed with it. The late Douglas Adams put it with his
customary good humor, in an impromptu speech in 1998 (slightly
abridged):
Now, the invention of the scientific method is, I'm sure we'll all
agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful
framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and
challenging the world around us that there is, and it rests on the
premise that any idea is there to be attacked. If it withstands the
attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand
the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that.
It has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy
or whatever. What it means is, "Here is an idea or a notion that
you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why
not?--because you're not!" If somebody votes for a party that you
don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like;
everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If
somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an
argument about it. But on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't
move a light switch on a Saturday,' you say, "I respect that."
The odd thing is, even as I am saying that, I am thinking "Is there an
Orthodox Jew here who is going to be offended by the fact that I just
said that?" But I wouldn't have thought "Maybe there's somebody from
the left wing or somebody from the right wing or somebody who
subscribes to this view or the other in economics" when I was making
the other points. I just think "Fine, we have different opinions."
But, the moment I say something that has something to do with
somebody's (I'm going to stick my neck out here and say irrational)
beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive
and say "No, we don't attack that; that's an irrational belief but no,
we respect it."
Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Labor
party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model
of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows--but to have an
opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe .
.. . no, that's holy? What does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that
for any other reason other than that we've just got used to doing so?
There's no other reason at all, it's just one of those things that
crept into being and once that loop gets going it's very, very
powerful. So, we are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's
very interesting how much of a furor Richard creates when he does it!
Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed
to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no
reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other,
except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be.
Douglas is dead, but I think he would join me in asking people now to
stand up and break this absurd taboo. My respect for the Abrahamic
religions went up in the smoke and choking dust of September 11th. The
last vestige of respect for the taboo disappeared as I watched the
"Day of Prayer" in Washington Cathedral, where people of mutually
incompatible faiths united in homage to the very force that caused the
problem in the first place: religion. It is time for people of
intellect, as opposed to people of faith, to stand up and say
"Enough!" Let our tribute to the dead be a new resolve: to respect
people for what they individually think, rather than respect groups
for what they were collectively brought up to believe.
Notwithstanding bitter sectarian hatreds over the centuries (all too
obviously still going strong), Judaism, Islam and Christianity have
much in common. Despite New Testament watering down and other
reformist tendencies, all three pay historic allegiance to the same
violent and vindictive God of Battles, memorably summed up by Gore
Vidal in 1998:
The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is
monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old
Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved--Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are,
literally, patriarchal--God is the Omnipotent Father--hence the
loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the
sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god,
of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he
is not just in place for one tribe, but for all creation. Those who
would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good.
In The Guardian of 15th September, I named belief in an afterlife as
the key weapon that made the New York atrocity possible. Of prior
significance is religion's deep responsibility for the underlying
hatreds that motivated people to use that weapon in the first place.
To breathe such a suggestion, even with the most gentlemanly
restraint, is to invite an onslaught of patronizing abuse, as Douglas
Adams noted. But the insane cruelty of the suicide attacks, and the
equally vicious though numerically less catastrophic 'revenge' attacks
on hapless Muslims living in America and Britain, push me beyond
ordinary caution.
How can I say that religion is to blame? Do I really imagine that,
when a terrorist kills, he is motivated by a theological disagreement
with his victim? Do I really think the Northern Ireland pub bomber
says to himself "Take that, Tridentine Transubstantiationist
bastards!" Of course I don't think anything of the kind. Theology is
the last thing on the minds of such people. They are not killing
because of religion itself, but because of political grievances, often
justified. They are killing because the other lot killed their
fathers. Or because the other lot drove their great grandfathers off
their land. Or because the other lot oppressed our lot economically
for centuries.
My point is not that religion itself is the motivation for wars,
murders and terrorist attacks, but that religion is the principal
label, and the most dangerous one, by which a "they" as opposed to a
"we" can be identified at all. I am not even claiming that religion is
the only label by which we identify the victims of our prejudice.
There's also skin color, language, and social class. But often, as in
Northern Ireland, these don't apply and religion is the only divisive
label around. Even when it is not alone, religion is nearly always an
incendiary ingredient in the mix as well.
It is not an exaggeration to say that religion is the most
inflammatory enemy-labelling device in history. Who killed your
father? Not the individuals you are about to kill in 'revenge.' The
culprits themselves have vanished over the border. The people who
stole your great grandfather's land have died of old age. You aim your
vendetta at those who belong to the same religion as the original
perpetrators. It wasn't Seamus who killed your brother, but it was
Catholics, so Seamus deserves to die "in return." Next, it was
Protestants who killed Seamus so let's go out and kill some
Protestants "in revenge." It was Muslims who destroyed the World Trade
Center so let's set upon the turbaned driver of a London taxi and
leave him paralyzed from the neck down.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted
in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in
an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it
must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity
with the Old Testament had given the European and American
decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the 'historic
homeland' of the Jews (though the horrific stories of how Joshua and
others conquered their Lebensraum might have made them wonder). Even
if it wasn't justifiable at the time, no doubt a good case can be made
that, since Israel exists now, to try to reverse the status quo would
be a worse wrong.
I do not intend to get into that argument. But if it had not been for
religion, the very concept of a Jewish state would have had no meaning
in the first place. Nor would the very concept of Islamic lands, as
something to be invaded and desecrated. In a world without religion,
there would have been no Crusades; no Inquisition; no anti-Semitic
pogroms (the people of the diaspora would long ago have intermarried
and become indistinguishable from their host populations); no Northern
Ireland Troubles (no label by which to distinguish the two
'communities,' and no sectarian schools to teach the children historic
hatreds--they would simply be one community).
It is a spade we have here, let's call it a spade. The Emperor has no
clothes. It is time to stop the mealy-mouthed euphemisms:
'Nationalists,' 'Loyalists,' 'Communities,' 'Ethnic Groups.' Religions
is the word you need. Religion is the word you are struggling
hypocritically to avoid.
Parenthetically, religion is unusual among divisive labels in being
spectacularly unnecessary. If religious beliefs had any evidence going
for them, we might have to respect them in spite of their concomitant
unpleasantness. But there is no such evidence. To label people as
death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real world
politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a
delusional world inhabited by archangels, demons and imaginary friends
is ludicrously tragic.
The resilience of this form of hereditary delusion is as astonishing
as its lack of realism. It seems that control of the plane which
crashed near Pittsburgh was probably wrestled out of the hands of the
terrorists by a group of brave passengers. The wife of one of these
valiant and heroic men, after she took the telephone call in which he
announced their intention, said that God had placed her husband on the
plane as His instrument to prevent the plane crashing on the White
House. I have the greatest sympathy for this poor woman in her tragic
loss, but just think about it! As my (also understandably overwrought)
American correspondent who sent me this piece of news said:
"Couldn't God have just given the hijackers a heart attack or
something instead of killing all those nice people on the plane? I
guess he didn't give a flying fuck about the Trade Center, didn't
bother to come up with a plan for them." (I apologize for my friend's
intemperate language but, in the circumstances, who can blame her?)
Is there no catastrophe terrible enough to shake the faith of people,
on both sides, in God's goodness and power? No glimmering realization
that he might not be there at all: that we just might be on our own,
needing to cope with the real world like grown-ups?
Billy Graham, Mr. Bush's spiritual advisor, said in Washington
Cathedral:
But how do we understand something like this? Why does God allow evil
like this to take place? Perhaps that is what you are asking now. You
may even be angry at God. I want to assure you that God understands
those feelings that you may have.
Well, that's big of God, I must say. I'm sure that makes the bereaved
feel a whole lot better (the pathetic thing is, it probably does!).
Mr. Graham went on:
I have been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy
and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer
totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that
God is sovereign, and He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in
the midst of suffering. The Bible says God is not the author of evil.
It speaks of evil as a "mystery."
Less baffled by this deep theological mystery were two of America's
best-known televangelists, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. In a
conversation on Robertson's lucrative television show (religion is
tax-exempt), they knew exactly where to put the blame. The whole thing
was obviously caused by America's sin. Falwell said that God had
protected America wonderfully for 225 years, but now, what with
abortion and gays and lesbians and the ACLU, "all of them who have
tried to secularize America . . . I point the finger in their face and
say you helped this happen." "Well, I totally concur," responded
Robertson. Bush, to his credit, swiftly disowned this characteristic
example of the religious mind at work.
The United States is the most religiose country in the Western world,
and its born-again Christian leader is eyeball to eyeball with the
most religiose people on Earth. Both sides believe that the Bronze Age
God of Battles is on their side. Both take risks with the world's
future in unshakeable, fundamentalist faith that He will grant them
the victory. Incidentally, people speak of Islamic Fundamentalists,
but the customary genteel distinction between fundamentalist and
moderate Islam has been convincingly demolished by Ibn Warraq in his
well-informed book, Why I Am Not a Muslim.
The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta
across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people
rather than see them as individuals. Abrahamic religion gives strong
sanction to both--and mixes explosively with both. Only the wilfully
blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most,
if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today. Without a
doubt it is the prime aggravator of the Middle East. Those of us who
have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous
collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out. Things
are different now. "All is changed, changed utterly."
Richard Dawkins is professor of the Public Understanding of Science,
University of Oxford, and author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind
Watchmaker and Unweaving the Rainbow.
--
Larry C. Lyons
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Life is Complex. It has both real and imaginary parts.
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Chaos, Panic and Disorder. My work here is done.
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