Before reading another word, define religion. Finished? Don't take this personally, but I suspect your definition sucks. And if you went with the goofy canard about your own faith being a relationship, not a religion, deduct ten IQ points from what those shitty online IQ tests tell you your score is. The Reverend accidentally directed to me to Scott McKnight's recent post, in which he praises one Zac Alstin for his thoughtful critique of...well, I'm not sure what. See, I think I like this Alstin guy because he tries to be very careful with words, a discipline I appreciate, but the key concept in this piece, religion, is left undefined. More on that later.
After reading the entire piece and then rereading the italicized portions, which McKnight admitted he selected (with no criteria given for the process), I moved into the comments section. You simply must read them, but if you only have time for this post, screw the comments. I'll pull out some highlights for you. The comments are largely concerned with defining what religion is, and since Alstin is convinced that politics is just like religion inasmuch as it's simply part of our nature, and since no one called him on his false analogy (we actually have to have rules to live together; we don't have to have gods, and I mean god as in supernatural beings), the commenters tried to differentiate between good and bad religion and tried to explain the point at which political convictions become religious. Sigh.
There is absolutely no point in having a discussion about a word that is left undefined. One of the genuinely smart commenters, a Ray Ingles, said "...atheism is, in effect, against supernaturalism, which includes gods as a subset." This is a critical point. Atheism, as defined by Hitchens, one of the whipping boys of the original post, is occasionally against political convictions that become religious (what the hell does that even mean?), as is the case in his ocassionally brilliant, occasionally trite, and frequently grating God is not Great. The point in the book, as in other atheist arguments, is to refute the charge that atheism when instantiated as the de facto political philosophy of a regime rises to the level of a metaphysical system, and if guilty of that charge, is as guilty as religion of accounting for mass murders and shitty politics. I disagree that the word religious is used properly in those terms. I'm quite happy to say, with Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, that politics is capable of being a fallen power. It doesn't need the help of religious vocabulary. This is not what is meant by religion when atheists, skeptics, agnostics, and freethinkers say they are opposed to religion. To allow for that definition muddies the waters so hopelessly one might just as well make up a new word that speaks of the use of power across all human relationships. As a non-atheist and a non-theist, I am happy to ask both sides to be honest about this point.
Back to the post. Alstin writes this line, one Inlges also singles out:
Religion had reached its nadir: no longer was the onus on the atheist to disprove god, now it was up to God to prove himself to the atheist….
I fail to see why this is unreasonable. You might say that it's hubris to demand of God that he prove himself extant, but I'd simply point out that you're arguing for a particular religion, not religion in general. Buddhism or Taoism wouldn't say this to me. Every religious argument between practitioners is about a particular instantiation of theistic or non-theistic religion, particularly areas of revelation, historicity, and doctrine. It is only when the theist turns to the skeptic that he argues for religion in general, as if that helps his case one whit. The grammar of reason may get you to deism (but I doubt it), but it won't get you anywhere close to "Christ crucified." Your own text tells you this: "we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles..." This is the true argument, not what religion is. It's clear what religion is in the area of praxis. It's an abiding belief in a supernatural being or force with all the attendant practices, or it's an abiding belief that we are all part of a hypernatural being or force with all the attendant practices. Either of those works for me. In both situations, the ability to prove the existence of the being or force is the crux of the argument. Theists rely on supernatural revelation; deists and pantheists typically rely on natural revelation (i.e., creation). Neither of those are all that useful, and both assume the existence of a being or force.
The deist looks at the universe and says, "How else did this thing come to be?" Both deist and theist then answer, God. They fail to understand they've offered a concept as an explanation, not a being. The concept requires definition, and it serves the purpose of both to call one of the concept's attributes "creator." As long as they understand the answer is as likely or unlikely as any other answer offered without evidence, I'm fine with them. In the case of natural revelation, to say that God must have created the universe seems epistemically equal to "I don't know," "I don't care," "It's always been here," or "the devil did it." What they all have in common is a lack of verifiable data. That's of no concern to me. I don't care how it got here. I care how people act now.
Which leads me back to the reasonable request. Why not ask God to reveal godself? I'm told by theists that he wants a relationship. Maybe make that known? Oh, that's right. He did once, and they have a text to prove it. Oddly enough, he stopped making himself known in the modern era, kind of like the space ships that only show up in Appalachia late at night, it seems. Once again, faith must be abandoned at this point, because the theist is now left with the unenviable task of proving his revelatory book is better than all the others. The tools of reason and historicity are picked up and corrupted for the sake of proving the unprovable. Wouldn't it just be easier to ask god to...I don't know...show up? I'm not being blasphemous, not intentionally. It just seems reasonable. He could put to rest once and for all the bickering about which book is right. Call me Don Quixote, I guess, because I'm holding out 'til I hear from him.
