2. On religion and prejudice

"For them, religion is dangerous, outdated, irrational, malicious, exclusionary, a distortion of existence. And do you know what? I mostly agree with them. I simply reject their conclusion that religion is without redeemable value." -- Rabbi Don Berlin, The Messiah is Coming! - on the antitheism of Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris

I understand antitheism. I really do get where Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris are coming from. I am an American. America is a living history of Christianity at its worst. We have two legacies - one of freedom, progress, and tolerance - and another of hatred, ignorance, and oppression. More than anything else, the latter has found fertile ground in our national religion. Almost every great evil in the history of this country has been draped in a flag and standing under a cross.

At the same time, I refuse to overlook the violent history of my own religion. I won't ignore the Taliban-like behavior of the ultra-Orthodox extremists in Jerusalem. I will not pretend that this religion has always been fair to women - or even that it always is now. I will not pretend that Jews have been immune to the racism, sexism, and nasty myriad of other "isms" that have plagued humanity. While I firmly believe in the right of Israel to exist, I will not claim that Palestinian anger is unjustified, and that a radical form of Judaism has no role in the ongoing problems in the middle east.

While I love my Muslim neighbors, I also will not overlook the widespread evil of radical Islam, or say that 9/11 was caused by individuals, not ideology. I will not pretend that Islam has nothing to do with the violence, hatred, terror, and oppression practiced by radical Islamists around the world.

I get it. Watching the ongoing war in the middle east - watching the growing threat of terrorism - watching one civil rights movement after another unfold in this country, each showing how very little was learned from those before - I can understand the impetus to throw up the hands and say "religion is evil."

But to do so is to make a critical mistake - several, actually.

First, it is to engage in tribalism and evangelism - the very things that Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris argue are the evils of religion. Antitheism is inherently tribal, as it establishes a clear "us" vs. "them" - a "good guy" and a "bad guy" - those progressive, enlightened thinkers who are liberated from religion, and the superstitious, intolerant ignorami who are still trapped in its wicked clutches.

By declaring that religion is evil, it inherently suggests that religion must be eradicated. So what's the problem with this? It is the same problem that Martin Luther had with the Jews - what happens when the group of people that you're trying to convert fail to see the light and join your side? Luther in his early days was kind to the Jewish people. But after his attempts at evangelism failed, he became angry - and he eventually became one of history's greatest anti-Semites. Luther believed that Judaism should be eradicated. When he could not accomplish this - when Jews stubbornly chose to remain Jewish - he decided that the Jews should be eradicated. Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris believe that the religious should be eradicated. They hope - like Luther in his early days - to do so through assimilation. But history shows that when eradication through assimilation cannot be realized, eradication through other means comes into favor. As the Christian thinker Chris Hedges puts it, "Those who are blinded by utopian visions inevitably turn to force to make their impossible dreams and their noble ideals real."

Antitheism also fails to accept nuance - to see more than the 2 possibilities of good atheism and evil theism. Rabbi Berlin complained in his Rosh Hashanah sermon - "For they do what the media does. They set up these fundamentalist faiths as straw men just as CNN did a couple of weeks ago when Christiane Amanpour did a three part series on God’s Warriors depicting the Jewish, Christian and Muslim fringe extremists willing to kill and be killed. Then they proceed to critique each group severely. These eloquent thinkers carefully marginalize or ignore progressive views of religion. Where is my faith? Informed, critical, evaluative, evolving, pluralistic, modest, ideas representing most modern Jews, thoughtful Christians, and moderate Muslims? Who is describing us?"

And where is the Christianity of Martin Luther King? While it is irresponsible to overlook the role of religion in justifying the oppression he fought against - to overlook the Christianity of Dr. King is to overlook a driving force behind the civil rights movement. (Hitchens, rather than overlook Dr. King's Christianity, simply chooses instead to overlook the good that he did.) It is equally foolish to overlook the Judaism of Rabbi Jacob Rothchild at the Temple who marched alongside Dr. King and was a close friend of the man. The Temple was bombed in 1958 for its support of desegregation. I have stepped foot on the grounds of that place.

When the people marched for freedom, they sang "We shall overcome" - a spiritual - a Christian song. When the Jews of Atlanta marched alongside them, they did so holding fast to the Jewish teaching that all life is equal, and to Rabbi Hillel's famous words, "that which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor." They marched with a belief in tikkun olam - in a moral responsibility to make the world a better place.  This has not gone away. What of the Orthodox Judaism of Rabbi Brad Hirschfield - a great voice for tolerance in this day and age?

What of the Islam of the Radical Middle Way? What of the imams and everyday Muslims who emphatically decry the terror being perpetrated in the name of the faith they hold dear? Do we forget that much of our modern mathematics and science comes from Muslim and Arab scholars? Those numbers you write when you do calculations - they're not Roman. What of the revolutionary words of Mohammad's last sermon - "... an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action."? Over 1000 years before the civil rights movement, these words were spoken.

Antitheism also makes a much more deadly mistake. By assigning blame for the evils of the world to religion, it ceases to look for the true and deeper roots of those evils. The Holocaust? Hitler was Catholic. 'Nuff said. Never mind the issues of government, society and human nature that allow genocide to occur - it was the church's fault. Slavery, segregation, prejudice? They were justified using religion, so it must be religion's fault. Never mind that humans have always sought conflict - never mind the role of an adversary in society and government - never mind the social dynamics that prevent equality from being realized - blame it on religion.

And it is not as if secularism is some great untried experiment. There have been secular governments. Why were they not utopias? Why did they have the same problems of war, violence, injustice, inequality, poverty, and corruption that every other society has faced?

Maybe, just maybe, there's something deeper there than mere religion. Maybe there are problems in human nature and human societies that need to be addressed. And maybe religion is simply an institution that expresses that which is most profound in our humanity - both the good and the bad. Maybe there is room for disagreement. Maybe one does not have to be secular to embrace tolerance and reason. Maybe one does not have to be religious to embrace ethics and morality. Maybe it is possible to peacefully coexist - to even enjoy and learn from one another - without agreeing with one another.

One can only hope.