It seems to me that many nonbelievers have forgotten—or never knew—what it is like to suffer an unhappy collision with scientific rationality. We are open to good evidence and sound argument as a matter of principle, and are generally willing to follow wherever they may lead. Certain of us have made careers out of bemoaning the failure of religious people to adopt this same attitude.
However, I recently stumbled upon an example of secular intransigence that may give readers a sense of how religious people feel when their beliefs are criticized. It’s not a perfect analogy, as you will see, but the rigorous research I’ve conducted at dinner parties suggests that it is worth thinking about. We can call the phenomenon “the fireplace delusion.”
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Sam Harris’s attempt to build an analogy for his ‘noble’ crusades against religion is ironically also faulty to the same flaws of that crusade.
The opening paragraphs of the article discuss burning wood as the issue, however, the article soon makes it clear that the concept of wood as fuel is not inherently a problem. It is instead the toxic gases released when wood is burned. If these gases did not exist, burning wood would not be a problem. It would indeed be a healthy source of heat and comfort.
The same applies, as ever, to the fatal flaw of anti-theism. Religion is set up as the enemy, but the concept of religion is completely innocuous. It is specific harmful doctrines which have supposedly made religion so horrific, and it is the doctrines that can be reasonably critiqued. Were it not for those doctrines, the misguided anti-theist would not exist, there would be nothing to complain about.
The analogy breaks down here, of course, for obvious reasons. We cannot reasonably separate wood from its harmful gases. We are forced to abandon wood fuel, no matter how attached, because of this inseparability.
Luckily, despite anti-theist claims to the contrary, religions are not so inflexible. Religions change doctrines constantly throughout the ages, moving closer and closer to what an all-loving deity, should one exist, would want. The internet is filled, too, with individual journeys of theists who broke free of hateful doctrines and into innocuous beliefs.
Harris fails to realize that when religion is stripped from the doctrines he critiques it for, religion can indeed serve as a fuel. And what a fuel it is - a fuel for charity, community, love. That isn’t to say humanism or secular alternatives aren’t equal fuels, but every human ‘vehicle’ runs on something different, their own positive philosophies. And when we can accept this variety in fuels, a lot more progress is made in making the world a better place.
(Also, I love how in an analogy to religion he mentions an unequivocal need for legal action against the “cause” of harm. Hey, anti-theism’s just verbal critique… it will never eventually lead to legal discrimination against theists… riiiiiiight.)
