CelticBear’s Musings

(Busy blog day, today.)

HUZZAH! I contacted the Point of Inquiry people asking about transcripts for the essay by Lauren Becker in the latest episode, referred to in my post: A Rock and the Battle of Science Over Delusion.

And Lauren sent me a copy of the essay, “Hope Evolves”! It is a fantastic commentary on how important hope is, and should not be taken for granted or lightly. But how fundamental and conservative religious beliefs, ironic to their stated dogma, actually harm the hope we as human need to embrace in order to continue the amazing progress we have made as a species. Questions the notion that one can’t comment on theology if they’re not a “theologian” and the absurdity of being an “expert” of something that may be so subjective that no one can be an expert in something unique to the individual.

Well, I can’t begin to summarize the essay adequately. It must be read (preferably out loud, per the recommendation by the author herself as, after all, it was written to be read.) So, with only another sentence of ado, here with permission is Lauren Becker’s “Hope Evolves.”
(Please, if possible, download and listen to the audio version at http://www.pointofinquiry.org/?p=84 as hearing the tone and emphasis of the author reading the piece is always preferable.)

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This past October, I had the envious job of representing The Center for Inquiry at two stops on Richard Dawkins’ speaking tour where he discussed evolution and his new book, The God Delusion. I’m happy to report that the reception for him and his ideas was overwhelmingly positive. Picture thousands of people migrating to the University of Kansas to hear a biologist give a talk about evolution! The place was packed – standing room only. In Oregon, so many people showed up, the bookstore had to make a hasty change of venue and moved us all to a hotel ballroom three blocks down the street to accommodate the crowd. I wish you could have seen it: hundreds of atheists walking through downtown Portland, each with that silver mirrored copy of The God Delusion under their arm, hoping they might get an autograph from a biologist.

So, when I returned to Amherst, elevated by such encouraging experiences, I was surprised to discover that a whole host of people had written derogatory and spiteful reviews of the book and of Richard Dawkins himself. Many of them carried this theme, as expressed by Terry Eagleston in his write-up for the London Review of Books: quote “Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you might have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.” The point being, I guess, that Dawkins is a biologist and not a theologian and, therefore, he has no right to talk about God. To be fair, we scientists do not look too kindly on theologians who try to talk about biology so, at first glance, this might seem like a valid argument.

But listen to how this “expert theologian” (who is really an English professor) goes on to talk about God – the God, he bemoans, Dawkins just doesn’t understand: quote “For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person…nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent.’ He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves… He is what sustains all things in being by his love; and this would still be the case even if the universe had no beginning…Because the universe is God’s, it shares in his life, which is the life of freedom. This is why it works all by itself. God is… the power that allows us to be ourselves. Like the unconscious, he is closer to us than we are to ourselves. He is the source of our self-determination.” This, according to Eagleston, is traditional doctrine, and he chastises Dawkins for not knowing it, but I have to tell you, this God is nowhere in the Bible.

Which has lead me to the following questions, “What does it mean to be an expert in something that you made up? Is it possible for someone else to be intimately familiar with a character that you’ve created in your head?” As we have said before, there are so many definitions of “what God is”, it’s become clear that he is a creation of ours rather than the other way around. Far from “traditional doctrine”, these riffs about God are at best a kind of “fan fiction” – spin-offs where people have stolen characters they like (God/Jesus) from somebody else’s story (the Bible) and thrown them into a whole other universe of their own creation.

I know a little bit about this because, like Eagleston, I am also an expert about something that someone else made up. Now, you all have been very kind to me, so I hope I don’t disappoint you too much to confess that I, too, was an expert about the Lord – no, not that one – The Lord of the Rings – and I have to tell you these arguments about the nature of God are an awful lot like the disagreements we Ringers have about the nature of a Balrog, which, it must be admitted, are about as useful as the arguments theologians have about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Sure, these discussions are a blast at cocktail parties, but you know what? If a tree falls in a forest it will make a sound because sound waves are air in motion and you can bet that tree is movin’ air whether you’re there to hear it or not. It’s time to stop wasting energy on these artificial problems and move on. These games should be played for entertainment only, not for purposes of investment.

Though they are fictional, the stories we create, the stories that move us, the stories we believe in, are a reflection of our psyche and they expose deep-seated ideas that, otherwise, we might not fully realize we have. In his critique, Eagleston continues giving us pieces of his story and reveals this alarming belief: quote “The Christian faith holds that those who are able to look on the crucifixion and live, to accept that the traumatic truth of human history is a tortured body, might just have a chance of new life – but only by virtue of an unimaginable transformation in our currently dire condition…[the resurrection]… Those who don’t see this dreadful image of a mutilated innocent as the truth of history are likely to be devotees of that bright-eyed superstition known as infinite human progress.”

What?! Allow me to paraphrase. According to this expert, because some people killed an innocent person in a violent way 2000 years ago, Christians believe that killing and violence are all that humans are capable of and if you believe otherwise you must be one of those foolish stupid people that think this condition can change and even improve. The great irony, of course, is that he’s calling this crazy story a “truth of history,” but ask anyone who benefits from indoor plumbing every morning and I’m sure they’ll tell you that the historical trend of humanity has been one towards progress. Okay, that’s a trite example. How about this instead: talk to an independent woman, a child with a free education, a freed slave, a cancer survivor. Ask them if they think it’s possible to improve the human condition.

Because I respond to a different kind of story, I find Eagleston’s narrative not only offensive, but dangerous. You see, one of the most profound insights I gained from the Lord of the Rings was the importance of hope. In Tolkien’s saga, the most tragic characters were good people who turned bad because they lost hope. Boromir, Denethor, Theoden, Saruman – they all presumed that they could see the outcome of the story. They despaired of what they saw, and it caused them to do all the worst things for all the right reasons. The good guys, the heroes, recognized repeatedly that they could not see the end. They did not know what was going to happen, so they kept struggling, they kept working, trying to do all the right things, hoping that things would get better. Tolkien, always the clever wordsmith, gave us a big clue about this lesson when he gave the king, the hero Aragorn, the childhood name of Estel – the Sindarin elvish word for “hope.”

When creators of a religious narrative operate from a base assumption that humans are, well, base and cannot improve, they presume to know the end of the story and create a natural state of despair. Life becomes something to be saved from. There is no hope in a worldview like this, but it is deep in the psyche of all people waiting for salvation and, if Tolkien’s hunch is correct, it leads good people to do bad things. But it’s not just dangerous that people believe this story; it’s also really sad because it’s just a story that somebody made up, one that actually goes against all the evidence of experience, cultural history, and biological history. The belief that the human condition is fixed in a dire condition, that our story has already been written and is only being acted out, is the ultimate anti-evolution story. In reality, all the evidence shows that things can and will get better if we keep working and trying to do the right things.

Richard Dawkins, of course, gets this, and it’s why they are coming to get him. As an outspoken proponent of evolution and human potential, he is, to them, the editor from hell, the ultimate fact-checker who has clearly and precisely ripped their story to shreds.

Good scientists, ever replacing bad ideas with better ones, understand that we do not know the end of the story – we can’t even accurately predict what will happen tomorrow – and in this there is great possibility and great hope. Yes, human beings are capable of terrible and violent acts, but we are also responsible for creating good deeds, great beauty, and enduring love. This is not made up. It is the true human story. Eagleston and his fellow believers have created a story that works only if we deny progress – and we’re not buying it anymore. The world is weary of these “expert” theologies based on despair. It’s about time we scientists started telling the story of hope.