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Dawkins
seems unduly preoccupied with
a
1960’s era science versus
religion battle. Community
political life is
just not
particularly logical or
scientific. Testing
hypotheses by scientific
inquiry has transformed the
world and can
inform what
we “believe.” Nonetheless,
Dawkins assumes too easily
that science is
“good.” Perhaps
it would be more reasonable to
view both science and religion
as
contributors
to the mixed human political
story of devastating wars and
cultural
triumphs. In
the end, I suspect few
will care about what a tiny
community of
believers do together. It is when
the activity reaches the level of
advocating
with the ruler and the overall
politics of a polity that what
believers
do
together matters.[1]
For me,
major
religions – including a church
– are traditions tangled up in the
politics of government with other
religions. In this mix with
government,
alongside the negatives Dawkins
points to, religious people have
contributed
scholarship, have developed science
and have promoted a kind of
egalitarianism
which has extended education and
empowerment to all classes of
people.
This notion
of religion goes beyond the detail
of beliefs in a particular religious
community and it goes beyond the
issue of whether
or not
“god” exists, as Vosper would agree.
Major contributions to the
evolution of
science and humanitarianism have
come from people in communities
professing
irrational formal beliefs. If there
is a “god,” she personifies
something
spanning humanity which speaks to
persons in a religious community
about
where
humanity is going at that moment and
what they should do about it -
politically. [1] When Vosper describes major national church structures coming together to generate public understanding and concern about freshwater supplies she is describing activities comparable with the work of the ancient axial age prophet Amos who challenged his ruler about the treatment of the poor in his society. Dawkins gets incensed about creationism because it touches the school system in large political units – a state in the US and a school in the UK. [2] Several centuries BCE, there is the story of ancient Israel and its prophetic age where prophets challenged the politics of the king. There is also the tale of the Buddha, part of the ruling elite setting off to find another way. There are accounts of Chinese political figures who established religious movements. In addition Karen Armstrong, who does popular writing on such matters, treats the blend of science and religion of the ancient Greeks as an axial age religious movement. This of course lead into the Macedonian ruler Alexander’s blend of expedition of exploration and march of military conquest at the beginning of recorded human history. The 1st century Christian movement was an echo of axial age Judaism. The 9th century Muslim movement was an even later echo in the context of Christianity and then contemporary Judaism. These major religious movements were tied to, and often a counterpoint to, the centralised forms of government. In some of these situations, religion was tied directly to government. For example in the Roman world, the early emperors were also treated as a “god.” The present dominant forms of the ruler-religion counterpoint put religion at arms length from the ruler although there is an uneasy mutual coexistence with varying forms of interference of the one with the other. The notion of an “opposition” party makes sense within this dynamic. [3] The Greek view of Greek history is not the Turkish view. Religion accounts for part of the difference. The Scottish view of Scotland’s history is not the English view. Religion cannot be a huge factor, but feelings still run high. The Soviet era history of human abuses was, to me, a mix of religious style beliefs and politics, but this mix did not include “the god delusion.” |