Peace on Earth

My wife and I read the electronic edition of The New York Times each day. A piece by Nicholas Kristof on Sunday struck a responsive chord in each of us. While we’re not nearly as cynical as Professor Dawkins (below), we visibly flinch when we hear that some form of “healing” is being attributed to the prayers of the faithful, particularly when someone is “cured” of cancer. Countless people of faith, literally around the world, prayed constantly and fervently for Danny’s healing. He died of cancer, nonetheless.

It seems that one person’s awesome God is another person’s arbitrary God. Of course, no one likes the idea of an arbitrary God, so other explanations are offered as balms to the wounded, such as, “It’s God’s will, which we can’t comprehend;” or, “Sometimes God answers our prayers in ways we don’t understand or intend;” or, “All things happen for a reason, which will be revealed in due course.” The thing that no one seems willing to say out loud is that maybe God doesn’t answer prayers for some people and then fail to answer them for others – in other words, maybe God doesn’t answer prayers at all – some people just believe that s/he does.

Personally, I don’t know if God answers prayers directly, indirectly or not at all; I don’t know if everything happens for a reason that will be revealed in the future; I don’t know if God’s will is unfolding in all things. I believe these things to some extent; but, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone else knows, either. I think we’re all just believers, of one thing or another, of this or that opinion on a given subject. Said another way, to some extent we’re all agnostic, literally meaning we are “without knowledge”. If only we’d act accordingly.

Kristof’s point is that the “other side” of the God/religion debate is now speaking up with a disquieting zeal that is equal to those who profess to know this or that about God and religion. He suggests that its time to tone down the rhetoric, to declare a truce on the subjects, because both sides have become not just dogmatic and intolerant, but militant and contemptuous of each other. His thoughts are worth reading.
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“A Modest Proposal for a Truce on Religion” – Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, December 3, 2006

If God is omniscient and omnipotent, you can’t help wondering why she doesn’t pull out a thunderbolt and strike down Richard Dawkins.

Or, at least, crash the Web site of www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com. That’s a snarky site that notes that while people regularly credit God for curing cancer or other ailments, amputees never seem to enjoy divine intervention.

“If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day,” the Web site declares, adding: “It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them.”

That site is part of an increasingly assertive, often obnoxious atheist offensive led in part by Professor Dawkins — the Oxford scientist who is author of the new best seller “The God Delusion.” It’s a militant, in-your-face brand of atheism that he and others are proselytizing for.

He counsels readers to imagine a world without religion and conjures his own glimpse: “Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles,’ no ‘honor killings,’ no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money.”

Look elsewhere on the best-seller list and you find an equally acerbic assault on faith: Sam Harris’s “Letter to a Christian Nation.” Mr. Harris mocks conservative Christians for opposing abortion, writing: “20 percent of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. There is an obvious truth here that cries out for acknowledgment: if God exists, He is the most prolific abortionist of all.”

The number of avowed atheists is tiny, with only 1 to 2 percent of Americans describing themselves in polls as atheists. But about 15 percent now say that they are not affiliated with any religion, and this vague category is sometimes described as the fastest-growing “religious group” in America today (some surveys back that contention, while others don’t).

Granted, many Americans may not yet be willing to come out of the closet and acknowledge their irreligious views. In polls, more than 90 percent of Americans have said that they would be willing to vote for a woman, a Jew or a black, and 79 percent would be willing to vote for a gay person. But at last count, only 37 percent would consider voting for an atheist.

Such discrimination on the basis of (non) belief is insidious and intolerant, and undermines our ability to have far-reaching discussions about faith and politics. Mr. Harris, for example, makes some legitimate policy points, such as criticism of conservative Christians who try to block research on stem cells because of their potential to become humans.

“Almost every cell in your body is a potential human being, given our recent advances in genetic engineering,” notes Mr. Harris. “Every time you scratch your nose, you have committed a Holocaust of potential human beings.”

Yet the tone of this Charge of the Atheist Brigade is often just as intolerant — and mean. It’s contemptuous and even ... a bit fundamentalist.

“These writers share a few things with the zealous religionists they oppose, such as a high degree of dogmatism and an aggressive rhetorical style,” says John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “Indeed, one could speak of a secular fundamentalism that resembles religious fundamentalism. This may be one of those cases where opposites converge.”

Granted, religious figures have been involved throughout history in the worst kinds of atrocities. But as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot show, so have atheists.

Moreover, for all the slaughters in the name of religion over the centuries, there is another side of the ledger. Every time I travel in the poorest parts of Africa, I see missionary hospitals that are the only source of assistance to desperate people. God may not help amputees sprout new limbs, but churches do galvanize their members to support soup kitchens, homeless shelters and clinics that otherwise would not exist. Religious constituencies have pushed for more action on AIDS, malaria, sex trafficking and Darfur’s genocide, and believers often give large proportions of their incomes to charities that are a lifeline to the neediest.

Now that the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars, let’s hope that the Atheist Left doesn’t revive them. We’ve suffered enough from religious intolerance that the last thing the world needs is irreligious intolerance.
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It strikes me that we might need the hard-edged atheist responses to some degree, in order to provide a little balance to the zealous barrage we receive from the hardcore who know that they’re possessed of or by the one and only true religion. After all, there’s seldom any meaningful opportunity for a truce if only one side of a conflict has ammunition.

Both sides of this debate are well-armed for battle on this or that argument. Both sides win some, lose some, and inflict damage on “the other”. But, as Kristof suggests, isn’t it time to step back from the firing line and assess that damage and become more aware of the volatile mixture of ignorance and arrogance that lies at its root. Isn’t it time for a little more “Peace on Earth”, a little more good will to men and women everywhere.

Maybe we should have a season each year that’s devoted to promoting Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men. Who knows; the spirit of the season might catch on.