Mini-Review: God is Not Great
Ethics, Religion, Reviews January 11th, 2009I few thoughts on Christopher Hitchens’s “God is Not Great”: this book has a more current affairs focus than the other atheist blockbusters by Dawkins and Harris. His style is fairly humorous with many asides. Some of them, while probably correct and funny, are really ad hominem and are not relevant to the issue being discussed. The core of the book is similar to the early debates on this blog – score counting on how many atrocities were committed in the name of religion or atheism. Hitchens appears to conclude that both sides are capable of going good and bad. He adds that followers of religion are more evil but put that thought to one side for a moment. In a realist sense, this is damning enough for religion’s case: if religious people behave no differently to non-religious people then religion loses is claim for morally improving people.
Hitchens’s approach to arguing against the religious view is limited because Hitchens keeps his scores of good and bad acts to determine if religion is harmful – as if “good” and “bad” were real things. But from within the ancient religious point of view, having thousands die as part of a crusade is “good”. Today, we call that “bad”. The point is if the labels of “good” and “bad” are subjective, we can’t meaningfully call religion “bad” or if we do, we can only mean “religion is distasteful to me”.
This use of ethics in some ways falls into the moralizing trap that religion is also guilty. Calling something “good” is again setting up an unalterable standard imposed without choice. Admittedly there a few contemporary moral standards I agree with. But to assume any good or bad is static goes to the very core of what makes religion, well, “bad” – or at least incompatible with an evolving culture.
If I seem rather harsh, I could say some nice things: being based on current affairs, it is more original than simply rehashing the ancient arguments. Being able to say something original in this ancient debate is very difficult. Hitchens references the usual skeptical classics but does not reproduce them. That is good for a jaded reader like me!
Anti Citizen One
January 13th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
“In a realist sense, this is damning enough for religion’s case: if religious people behave no differently to non-religious people then religion loses is claim for morally improving people.”
We often hear atheists claim that their irreligiosity does not make them immoral. Similarly then we should get used to the reverse that religiosity has no impact upon ones morality.
I think we have a problem here of a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of religion. It is a typically shabby logical positivist point of view that attempts to buttonhole a concept and provide an essentialist and thus objective description or definition of it. Not all religions make moral claims upon their adherents. The religion of the Iban, the Inuit and Shinto are three particular examples.
I am also at a loss to understand wherein any religious canon that I know of it is stated that people are morally improved by virtue of their being religious?
In fact the only near approximation one could make is that a moral philosophy (such as religious ethics) provides a framework against which the actions of the individual may be analysed, interpreted and judged. Thus a christian may fail in their christian “duties” and yet continue to be a christian.
I think Hitchens et al display an irritating level of anti-existentialist bias by encouraging such descriptions of group-think.
This is the same for any moral system and as you rightly point out the variety of moral systems are such that as Kierkegaard put it “truth is subjectivity”.
“But to assume any good or bad is static goes to the very core of what makes religion, well, “bad” – or at least incompatible with an evolving culture.”
Similarly it is “bad” to assume religion as static – the doctrinal development of christianity is a case in hand. Certain aspects of Aquinas and Augustine’s moral philosophy has been thoroughly rejected in the current age by their co-religionists. Such adaptation has occured through increased scientific knowledge and philosophical re-calibration. Any ethical system is based upon a series of metaphysical assumptions and these (by virtue of their being meta-physical beyond the ken of empiricism) are subjective in nature.
An evolving culture influences the evolution of religion. They are intertwined aspects of each other and it is pretty unconvincing to propose religious stasis.
January 13th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Let me repair some of the last comment!
1- The majority of religions with a moral philosophy emphasise the concept of morality as a quest – thus say in christianity although baptism “purifies” and washes away “sin” its effects are not permanent (unless you opt for the deathbed conversion). Thus the idea of original sin is introduced – and a narrative is provided about why supposedly “good” people do “bad” things.
2- Most ethical systems are born out of metaphysical systems of thought (not all as I suggested). Logical Atomism that rejects all talk of ethics as nonsense (thus elucidating a sort of nihilist ethics) is one extreme example. A more sensible one of course is utilitarianism which attempts a sort of empirical and scientific approach to ethical decision making (although one could argue that happiness albeit an emotional state of affairs is somewhat imbued by the early utilitarians with a metaphysical aura).
3- I enjoyed the review more or less as it follows our recent themes of subjectivity. And as you say the subjective nature of the good/bad binary opposites pretty much undermine Hitchens particular method.