The Lesson Plan

Religion is one of my favorite subjects in history.

I owe this a lot to a college theology professor from Yale who introduced a masterful exegesis of the book of Genesis and put forward an interpretation of what those famous first words in creation — Let there be light! – meant. Written in the darkness of Babylonian exile and adapted from the Enuma Elish, the Genesis account of creation was the ancient Israelites’ way of seeing hope where there was none. It was also their way of affirming their identity as a people in a foreign land bereft of everything they could call home.

I was very open to this interpretation since it was something I always looked for since I was first told by a priest that the Genesis story is a myth and thus should never be taken literally. I was in the 5th grade then, around 11 years old, and I began to wonder why the story is taught in the first place.

Like a lot of middle class Filipinos, I attended a Catholic school but I consider myself fortunate to enter into a cadre that didn’t take their Bible too literally. They never threatened us with hell or zombified us with religious ritual — all the experiences I could recall such as retreats, recollections and even masses were either fun or invigorating. They also never antagonized science and religion, but also explained how the two seem to butt heads all the time. Above all, we were taught that loving God is reflected in how we conduct ourselves with other people, and that the Kingdom of God is not something that comes at the end of time but is an ongoing project which we all contribute to right now.

I began with my own experience of how I was schooled as a Catholic to say that, in reading “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins and “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris, I entered relatively open-minded. And yet, after I put both books down, I walked away with much more enlightenment than I expected. A large part of my stance on religion has been affirmed, and an even more sizable chunk is now under review. I even began to look critically at the school years I hold so fondly, since I realize that those interpretations too can lead to drastic conclusions.

Let there be light, indeed.

Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist. That is clear in the way he systematically debunked the major ‘proofs’ about God and continuously argued about how the Darwinian imperative would eventually discard the wasteful and excessive rituals of religion. However, I am not completely sold on his “Tea Pot Atheist” argument — that we are all atheists relative to the pantheon of other religions — since belief in gods arise from certain contexts. Nonetheless, I don’t take this against him as I recognize that Dawkins is neither a historian nor an anthropologist.

As a student of history, I initially feared that he is another scientist who would reduce historical phenomena to evolutionary science or mathematical models — case in point Jared Diamond and Peter Turchin, though there is nothing inherently wrong with it, just prone to error — thus silencing the humanistic aspect of religion. However, I find it interesting to note that Dawkins’ analysis is incredibly humanistic, even though it may appear incredibly cold at first. He recognizes that irrational belief has survived all this time and thus he seeks to learn exactly why.

Why does religion persist when it stifles man’s capacity for reason since religion, as he defines it, is founded on the acceptance of certain historical and dogmatic claims without evidence? Even worse, why does it persist despite the fact that people are dying in Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan (my addition, just to update us) because of religious strife which is of course founded on identities that are fundamentally baseless?

These are just some of the questions from where he stages his assault on religion. While those questions aren’t completely alien to me, I found his comments about children and religion rather insightful. He sees something profoundly disturbing with passing on religion like a genetic trait. It is from his observation that we label children a ‘Christian child’ or a ‘Muslim child’ where we can find the gulf between faith and reason since children are compelled to believe things they can’t understand because mother, father, teacher or Father said so.

It was an interesting point, but not one that I can completely relate to; that is why I began this piece as I did. Nonetheless, my case alone does not change the fact that borders between religions deepen with every child born. And the danger is that some children are taught that The Other Children are bad, impure, and must be killed.

“The God Delusion” is a good polemic but not a powerful one. In the end, I found his ending lacking — or should I say, excessive — especially when he proposed his alternative to a world without God. I agree that man doesn’t need a god to bask in the wonders of creation. However, I am not too sure whether the the thrill of discovery in the pursuit of scientific mystery is something every person would appreciate. To a large degree, one needs a wide grasp of science in order to even peer through “The Mother of All Burkas” and appreciate what he sees or doesn’t see. I resolved the book by acknowledging that Dawkins found an alternative for him and other scientific-minded people. I conceded that perhaps mine lay elsewhere.

And that is where Sam Harris comes in.

“The End of Faith” is terrifying. I say that in the most positive way possible. This is a much more powerful polemic, and Harris is a much more effective pundit. As a graduate of philosophy from Stanford and a holder of a doctorate in neuroscience, he knows how to ask all the right questions.

He advocates a certain form of intolerance which he calls conversational intolerance in which personal convictions are scaled against evidence, and where intellectual honesty is demanded equally with religious and non-religious views. He also argues for the need to counter popular — and comfortably-held — notions in order for us to openly critique various religious practices, ideas and beliefs. It is when these notions are ripped away that the book is frightening, but even then impressively so.

Like Dawkins however, Harris can get too self-indulgent especially when it comes to chapters on the neuroscience of belief, right and wrong, and even consciousness. In fairness, he wrote those parts really well for the casual reader to understand, but then there is still the danger of being swept away with all the science — unless you speak his language, of course. Thankfully though, Harris can shift effortlessly into a language I appreciate and comprehend very well above all; and this is why I prefer this work over “The God Delusion”.

“The End of Faith” masterfully tackles the dangers of irrational religious belief from historical and even political perspectives. It was very refreshing to read the citations of people and books I’ve read such as Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” and Fareed Zakaria’s “The Future of Freedom”. His command of religious texts is also impressive, although rather on the academic (read: predictable) side — he lacks the gravitas of a religious historian but of course, that is understandable.

Just in my first reading of this book, a lot of my thoughts and personal stances on moderation, pragmatism, tolerance and even pacifism have been drastically overturned. I paid special attention to his discourse on moderation, and how a more ‘nuanced’ and ‘humane’ reading of ancient texts is not a characteristic of the text — the Bible and the Koran, especially the Koran — since the very act of interpreting these ancient texts is a modern invention. (With this I recalled my ‘liberal’ teachers back in the day.)

Moreover, moderates are just as dangerous as fundamentalists, he argued, since they don’t offer any critique against fundamentalism. In trying to understand where a terrorist is coming from and how their acts are interpretations of their text, we practically tolerate their actions. Moderates can’t have their faith and eat it too.

However, my main contention with all these is that Harris seems to presuppose that all believers adhere to a fundamentalist reading and understanding of their religion. This is apparent in his handling of certain political analyses that trace the roots of Islamic fundamentalism to alienation and deprivation in the Middle East. While Harris is effective in reminding us that those reasons can’t excuse irrational religion from responsibility (ie. the 9/11 hijackers weren’t poor; not all poor people blow themselves up), he also tends to downplay a lot of structural factors that lead to fundamentalism in the first place. (If religion is the seed for all this violence, where is the soil?) In this regard, Karen Armstrong’s “Battle for God” is still my source on the matter as it offers a lot of insights into the history of religious fundamentalism.

Here I see some inconsistency with Harris. He has little regard for moderation but says that moderation is essential to the co-existence of Islam with other faiths. I sorted this out by saying that despite the inherent weaknesses of the moderate position, it is historically inevitable — it is a product of the modern mind — and essential if we are to sustain a civilized discourse between religions. I suppose Harris could sort this even more cleanly.

Nonetheless, I’m still taking a lot with me from this book. His final chapter, in particular, makes for a much more satisfying conclusion. Though contrary to Dawkins’, I found this ending a little short. Just when he was beginning to talk about Eastern (read: Asian) philosophy and how they are forms of rationality, the book ends. He claims that these Eastern forms of spirituality and mysticism articulate empirical observations of the world and I completely agree with this! As I read that, I could already fill in the gaps with Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and even Confucianism, and I was hoping for Harris to go beyond that random excerpt from a Buddhist text. Perhaps this could be the subject of his next book after A Letter to a Christian Nation? Or maybe I can try filling in the gaps in the meantime.

Both of these books are great commentaries for anyone bothered by the evils brought on by dangerous and irrational religious beliefs. I’ve been on this path since 9/11 when I first began wondering how One God would let thousands of people die while blessing the suicide mission of a select few. Perhaps there is more than one god? Or even more likely, there is none. Seeking the answer to this led me to the study of history.

Yet while I immersed myself in learning of the political and social functions — and dysfunctions, most of all — of religion, I also realized that faith has an immensely powerful and personal spiritual dimension as well. Perhaps, it is here where I would begin commenting on Harris’ argument about the Eastern philosophies.

In his text, he makes a stark contrast between the consciousness-raising precepts we can find in Buddhism and the dark social condemnations of the Abrahamic religions. However, I would like to draw the line between what is clearly a personal pathos (spirituality) and a social ethos (religion). These are not the same. Moreover, it is possible for these Eastern philosophies to exhibit a dangerous sociality as well, ie. the caste system in India which leads to discrimination and social imbalance. Likewise, it is also possible for the Abrahamic religions to take on more positive and spiritual forms. Case in point, Sufism, a branch of Islam where one can contemplate the nature of Allah — and thus the mastery of the self — through meditation. Then that would be a form of rationality too, wouldn’t it? And it presupposes the existence of a god, al-Lah, as well.

Thus, the belief in a god can be an integral part of one’s spirituality in the same way that dharma, karma, Tao and Li dominate the language of the non-theistic Eastern belief systems. Nonetheless, it is when we bring this ‘god’ beyond the particular and into the universal that we begin to forge group identities, draw up our borders and potentially shed blood. I believe that this, above all, is the concern of Dawkins and Harris. It should be ours too.

One central insight I have gleamed from these books is that atheism is a largely personal and spiritual quest, but its concerns are public and social. They remain relatively quiet, but once people are dumbed down, ostracized and killed in the name of God, they will be the first to be speak up. But do we listen to them? I think we should. It is my firm belief that the world will be better for it.

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P.S. I have omitted a paragraph where I comment on the religious forces in our beloved country, the Republic of the Philippines. Fresh from reading Dawkins and Harris, I am afraid that I may have too much force behind my arguments but not enough facts to back it up. Moreover, I recognize that these two books were written for an American audience under threat by the conservative, religious right. We are different. Religion in the Philippines is right, left, front, center and back. It goes without saying that that comes with all of its own dangers.