Theism and skepticism

June 9, 11:42 AMSacramento Spirituality ExaminerSteve Curless

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"Spirituality is our way of dealing with the numinous, the mysterious and the inexpressible ecstasy occasionally available in life." (Steven H. Propp)

"There is clearly no greater obstacle to a truly empirical approach to spiritual experience than our current beliefs about God." (Sam Harris)

In a recent 'Sacreligious' article in 'Sacramento News & Review,' Steven H. Propp writes of his evolution from sneering atheist to "the intellectual love of God." He says that in college in the mid-1970's, renowned philosopher Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian" was his favorite book, "Inherit the Wind" was his favorite play, and he just loved to go after Christian fundamentalists for preaching such literal absurdities as God commanding the sun to stand still in Joshua 10:12-13.

But then he decided to start visiting various churches, and he discovered that he felt more of a kinship with churchgoers, even though he still didn't embrace their religious beliefs, than he did with those who sat home on Sundays guzzling beer and watching football. In time, he saw religious people of all stripes as "spiritual brothers and sisters" to his own agnostic deism.

He came to embrace these words of Albert Einstein: "The deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning Power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God," and he came to share with Einstein and the celebrated Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza what both the latter referred to as "the intellectual love of God."

On the other hand, he feels no kinship with the emerging "new atheists" who take perverse delight in disparaging Christians who attend traditional churches. The intolerance of these atheists toward those who don't share their beliefs exceeds that of even the most fundamentalistic of theists, and he wants nothing to do with them.

Propp doesn't specify who these "new atheists" are, but among the most prominent atheists of this age are evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, neuroscientist Sam Harris, philosopher Daniel Dennett, and writer Christopher Hitchens who have all authored bestselling books and popularly lectured against theist beliefs. A goodly number of theists and agnostics alike have criticized this atheistic quartet, and it's probably fair to say that these prominent figures do, as their critics allege, spend a disproportionate amount of time and effort attacking the most simplemindedly literalist Christianity while failing to adequately address the more sophisticated expressions of Christianity and other major religions and spiritual paths.

One problem with this is that they and their readers may believe or be led to believe that all religion and, indeed, all spirituality is as dismissably foolish as is literal belief in Noah's ark and Jonah in the whale. On the other hand, it would seem that a large percentage of theists in this country and throughout the world actually do embrace literal interpretations of their scriptures and try, often with disconcerting success, to impose their dubious fundamentalistic beliefs on the politics, laws, morals, and mores of their societies and cultures. The "new atheists" argue that these beliefs and efforts need to be sternly countered with reason and evidence.

But if the spiral dynamics theorists are correct, even though people tend to progress through more and more evolved stages in their secular and religious worldviews, the process can't be hurried along by force-fed verbal arguments and empirical evidence. Good arguments against questionable religious beliefs might accelerate progress to some extent, but it takes a confluence of many factors to make people dissatisfied with their worldviews and primed to develop more evolved ones, and virtualy everyone tends to become defensively resistant to having his beliefs attacked and ridiculed by militant detractors.

So, just as theists turn off many conventional converts by not living up to their faith, so the belligerence of many atheists and religious skeptics turns off many theists from listening to them and giving their arguments and evidence the consideration they deserve. We must find a way to foster respectful dialogue between people of all kinds including theists, atheists, and skeptics.