The Political Enquirer has been hosting a debate entitled, “God in Society: An Atheism-Theism Debate.”
The first post of the debate was an intro to the debaters who are “M” from the blog Atheism is Dead (True Freethinker’s predesessor) and Leo Pardus from the blog De-Conversion.
Here I am writing a response to one of the arguments that Mr. Pardus made in Round One.
The question posed was:
“Can you please explain why you believe that Theism is beneficial or detrimental/dangerous to society in general?”
Mr. Pardus listed both benefits and detriments as follows:
“Benefits1. Oberlin, Harvard, and Princeton are just a few of the top schools founded, funded, and headed by Christians, and with Christian ideals.2. Churches have funded and founded many health care establishments.3. Many churches are truly marvelous at caring for their members.4. The Christian faith has inspired beautiful works of art, classics of literature, glorious music, and majestic prodigies of architecture.Detriments
1. Religion has been the caused [sic] of many wars, pogroms. et cetra.2. Religious leaders have been known to justify murder of [sic] the grounds of blasphemy.3. There have been plenty of instances of ill people ceasing to take medication prescribed to them by doctors, and dying as a result. Some Theist have died because they refused blood transfusions on religious grounds.4. Religious believers have been known to ostracize, and in some cases even murder, their children rather than allow them to become atheist or marry someone from a different religion.5. Religious motivations have been behind the destruction of many works of art, book [sic], and so forth.”
Recall that the question was generic and referred to “Theism,” and not to any particular brand. As Mr. Pardus rightly points out, “Theism is just too big and too varied to condemn or venerate en masse.” Granted. However, his answer shifts from particular and exclusive mentions of Christianity in the benefits to the miscellaneous in the determents (more on this in a moment).The first point is certainly true, the most influential institutes of higher learning were “founded, funded, and headed by Christians, and with Christian ideals.”The second and third points make odd bedfellows since #2 is broad and #3 unnecessarily narrow. Yes, “Churches have funded and founded many health care establishments” as well as charities, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, disaster relief organizations, adoption agencies, foster homes, etc., etc., etc. Hence the #3 point aught to have been a part of #2 with the end cropped off thusly, “Churches have funded and founded many health care establishments. Thus, many churches are truly marvelous at caring for everyone and anyone.”The forth point speaks for itself.All four benefits referred specifically to Christianity. While I am tempted to state, “Thank you very much for the compliment,” it did provide a, perhaps necessarily, narrowly focused answer. Next, in the detriments he offers a more generic answer referring not specifically and not necessarily to Christianity but to generic or miscellaneous theism.The first answer can be accurately rephrased in at least to ways, such as, “Atheism has been the cause of many wars, pogroms. et cetra.” Or, “Completely non-religious, non-theistic factors have been the cause of many wars, pogroms. et cetra.”
It is very relevant to note that the Encyclopedia of Wars (New York: Facts on File, 2005) was compiled by nine history professors who specifically conducted research for the text for a decade in order to chronicle 1,763 wars. The survey of wars covers a time span from 8000 BC to 2003 AD. From over 10,000 years of war 123, which is 6.98 percent, are considered to have been religious wars. Thus, this answer is generic and applicable to theism and atheism. For example, pogroms were conducted by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik movement.
The second point is somewhat valid although with regards to Christianity it is not a biblical doctrine whatsoever.In the third point Mr. Pardus is most of all referring to Jehovah’s Witnesses. While those who do not know, or do not care, place Jehovah’s Witnesses under the term “Christian” or even “Protestant” they are, in fact, an aberrant group. One reason being their un-biblical opposition to blood transfusions.In the fourth case Mr. Pardus seems to have Islam in mind although many other worldviews, including atheism, also do the same or come very close. For example, I, and many like me, can tell you anecdotes of being mistreated by atheist/agnostic family member simply because we do not agree with them.
The last point may also be restated thusly, “Atheistic motivations have been behind the destruction of many works of art, book, and so forth.” Whether it is individual atheists such as PZ Myers who publically ripped a page out of a Bible and subsequently “desecrated” various other objects (see here) to the fact that from 1917 to 1969 the Communists destroyed 41,000 of Russia’s 48,000 churches.
At the end of his answer, Mr. Pardus makes the following statement with regards to theists of whom he personally approves in accord to:
“Principles like: Do they help people in need? Do they follow the maxim of, ‘first do no harm’? Do they try to live the ‘Golden Rule’? Can they allow others to believe something different without condemning or attacking them (i.e. Evangelism is fine; sword-point evangelism is not). Any Theist or Theistic group that lives by such principles is probably beneficial. Any Theist or Theistic group that does not, we can all probably do without.”
We should grant that within a debate one cannot take the time to delve into the excruciating minutiae of one’s worldview. However, we should also ask why Mr. Pardus judges all things, all people and their actions, against his own particular views. Why “help people in need_do no harm_the ‘Golden Rule,’” indeed why go “without condemning or attacking”? Obviously, I am not arguing against these principles but I wonder how atheist arrive at them without borrowing morality from theistic systems, particularly from the Bible. How did Mr. Pardus come to view these principles to be of such import that through them he declares whether you are “fine” or whether we can “probably do without” you? This is clearly sword-pointing atheism.Ultimately, in a question dealing with whether a theist or atheist would be better on foreign policy and international relations as a politician Mr. Pardus stated:
“_if one’s faith fosters a respect and an appreciation for the beliefs and practices of others, that should be a good thing for international relations. Conversely, if one’s personal theology is superior-istic, or condescending toward other faiths, and that faith largely informs one’s foreign policy, then that foreign policy is going to have nothing but headaches and fire fights.”
While I do not care to discuss politics nor its policies it did seem relevant to note that the atheist virtually must be condescending toward other faiths since atheism is superioristic because it is the very ultimate in the concept I am right and you are wrong as one time atheist CS Lewis noted:
“If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.”1This is not to say that atheist would not make good politicians in the fields of foreign policy and international relations since atheists are in no way constrained to adhere to the activist faith bashing sect of atheism which is unfortunately, both for theists and atheist, in the spotlight these days.It does a debate no good to jump categories in mid-stride as we saw here: from theism, to Christianity to miscellaneous. Doing so only leads to disjointed arguments.
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