If literary critic Stanley Fish deconstructed anything, one might expect him to deconstruct Christianity. Instead Fish uses his unquestioned rhetoric skills to deconstruct atheism. Fish takes up the argument, advanced by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, that belief in God is a kind of evasion. We avoid the responsibilities of this life by putting our hopes in another life. Religion makes us do crazy things.
Fish takes as an example of the Harris-Hitchens-Dawkins critique the behavior of Christian in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Christian becomes aware that he is carrying a huge burden on his back (Original Sin) and he wants to get rid of it. Another fellow named Evangelist tells him to "flee the wrath to come." Evangelist points Christian in the direction of a shining light. But Christian can't clearly see the light. Still, he begins to run in that direction. Bunyan describes his wife and children who "began to cry after him to return, but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying Life! Life! Eternal Life!"
For Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins, this is precisely the kind of crazy behavior that religion produces. Here is a man abandoning his duties and chasing after something he isn't even sure about. Fish writes, "I have imagined this criticism coming from outside the narrative, but in fact it is right there on the inside." Bunyan not only has Christian's wife and children imploring him to return, he also has Christian's friends struggling to make sense of his actions.
Fish comments, "What this shows is that the objections Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens make to religious thinking are themselves part of religious thinking. Rather than being swept under the rug of a seamless discourse, they are the very motor of that discourse." Citing the atheists' portrait of religion as unquestioning obedienece, Fish writes, "I know of no religious framework that offers such a complacement picture of the life of faith, a life that is always presented as a minefield of difficulties, obstacles and temptations that must be negotiated by a limited creature in the effort to become aligned with the Infinite."
Fish's conclusion: while religious people over the centuries have dug deeply into the questions of life, along come our shallow atheists who present arguments as if they first thought of them, arguments that Christians have long examined with a seriousness and care that is missing in contemporary atheist discourse. We can expect our unbelieving trio to react with their trademark scorn, but Fish has scored a telling point.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 17)
1. I don't really see religion as unquestioning obedience. After studying Western European History and the history of religion, I see religion as uncontrolled insanity. Atheists came along when questions behind religion couldn't be answered by logical means, which there sure are a lot of them. To believe, based only on faith alone, when you have no logical proof, is quite silly.
clud at 11:12AM on Jun 27th 2007
2. A five year old can think long and hard about Santa. Who is he? Where does he live? How does he want me to behave? But all that introspection doesn't make Santa real. It is not a telling point to suggest that some folks have delved deeply into life's questions if they continually fail to accomplish the realization that they have missed the point. If I spend 20 years calculating that 1+1=3, please don't congratulate me on all the hard work I've devoted to the problem. Corrrect me so that I can move on.
Jon at 11:13AM on Jun 27th 2007
3. Is that it? Is that all Stanley Fish can come up with? A reference to the Canterbury Tales?
What allegations of unquestioning obedience? Relgious folk waste a lot of time on minute analysis and discussion of fairy tales.
And how does this tie into atheists? Beats me. Just more religous fuzzy thinking mumbo jumbo.
cdnbirch at 11:42AM on Jun 27th 2007
4. While there will always be Svengali types who convince the weak-willed or uneducated to kill themselves, the fact is religion doesn't force anyone to do anything he or she isn't already predisposed and prepared to do.
What religion does is provide a framework to help us understand that we don't know or need to know everything. In fact, none of us know very much about anything. It relieves us of the responsibility of thinking we are responsible for forces often beyond our control.
Ask a Ph.D. in philosophy to repair an air conditioning system or a brain surgeon to fix an automatic transmission. Chances are great s/he will give you a blank look while someone with a technical school education solves the problem in minutes.
The point is, it is hubris for anyone to state that any force that eludes our senses or understanding doesn’t exist. Lister and Pasteur were scoffed at for suggesting that microbes were responsible for infection of wounds. Every new scientific discovery demonstrates just how much we don’t know.
Is it by chance we humans are the only creatures in the known universe who share awareness of our being? Is it chance that of all the exploration we’ve accomplished to date, our small planet seems to be the only one with any kind of life, much less intelligent life?
Whether one believes in a supreme being, a thinking person, through observation alone must at least consider the possibility of an intelligent creator. Moreover, paleontological findings of primitive tribes seem to indicate human beings are hard-wired to accept the notion of a supreme being.
David Skocik at 11:53AM on Jun 27th 2007
5. No other religious leader in history made the exclusive claims about himself as Jesus did about Himself. [ie. 'I am the way & the truth; No one comes to the Father but by Me; I am the resurrection & the life' , etc etc...].
Virtually, every man's belief will boil down to what that person believes or disbelieves about Christ Himself & the exclusive claims He made about His own divinity, as God's Son. ['I & the Father are one..' John 10:30].
Most people, including atheists, have made up their minds already about their thoughts/beliefs about Jesus & His claims & then developed their belief(s) accordingly. But, when examining His claims, one must arrive at either one extreme decision or the other extreme: He is either ALL that He claimed to be: the Savior & Lord & God's own Son, OR to the contrary, He lied to us & is an imposter. There is no 'middle ground' about believing in Christ such as thinking that "he is just a good man..' or 'is a great teacher'.....
I for one, have experienced His life-changing power & Words & overwhelming presence to be absolute truth at the very first moment when I completely 'believed' in Him over 26 years ago.
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Patmos Ministries at 11:56AM on Jun 27th 2007
6. Dinesh... can you get your head around this?...
The "atheists" are only arguing against the TRUTH CLAIMS of religionists... claims which are falsifiable - statements like "humans were intentionally designed by an omniscient designer".
The atheists are in no way arguing for or against philosophies of life - such as how we grapple with subjectivity, and our personal ontological frameworks. That is not to say atheists are not concerned with these things... only that there is no argument with these things between atheists and religionists.
The fact is that many religious people believe the validity of falsifiable claims, for which there is either no evidence (such as the existence of an omniscient being), or for which these is a considerable amount of evidence against (such as the claim of intelligent design).
So you are COMPLETELY missing the point of the atheist's crusade against religion, and are constructing a most pathetic strawman.
Individual atheists may be just as deep, or even more-so, than theists - this "deepness" may even be an independent variable, to an extent.
Atheists grapple with philosophical struggles just as much as atheists - and in many ways, we are able to transcend the limits of theist philosophy, since there is no upper-limit to our ability to question and analyze life and reality.
brian at 12:04PM on Jun 27th 2007
7. The fact that you "grapple" with anything philisophical confirms the fact that you are not an accident or incidental being. You were created and you have your choice. I pray it not your final decision.
stella at 12:34PM on Jun 27th 2007
8. Dinesh sure spends a lot of time attacking atheists. I think he needs a hug and kiss from an atheist to make it all better.
Some researchers (say more than 50 %to be fair and balanced) than 10% of Dinesh's comments are insane, 20% are juvenille, 30% reflect a troubled childhood, 5% reflect an escape from reality, and 35% reflect a desperate need for attention (see Ann Coulter).
jeff wismer at 12:37PM on Jun 27th 2007
9. Organized religion is a by product of individuals spiritual growth. To think of religion as leading individuals is to say the cart is pushing the donkey.
Jerry Brown at 12:58PM on Jun 27th 2007
10. Lister and Pasteur solved their problems within a relatively short period of time. They based their theories on scientific observation and empirical thought and proved them. Fish has struck a blow for the bankrupt thinking that can make a reasonable-sounding psuedo argument to support something that does not exist. One can be clever with words, but Fish still cannot prove his theory as did Lister and Pasteur.
John at 12:59PM on Jun 27th 2007
11. I experience little difference between militant atheists and fundamentalist Christians. Both believe there is something wrong with me that can be fixed if I will just become like them. I don't want to be like them, and so I pursue a humanistic Christianity (both words carefully chosen)that lets me be who I am, morally and ethically.
Chuck Swann at 1:08PM on Jun 27th 2007
12. Arguments for justifying atheism by "falsifiable statements" are impossible if you are trying to identify a creator as a created being. The only hope for humans to find out if they are created is careful study of history, a creator can tell us of his existence and that will be in the recorded history. Anything made, no matter how intelligent cannot look back and identify the maker, it is a one way street. Curiously about 95% of all recorded history is concerned with the makers doings. It takes very careful study to make out the reported facts within all the ideas put forth by the men doing the writing.
Weldon at 1:08PM on Jun 27th 2007
13. Religion covers a broad area. Christians are forgiven sinners trying to be "Christ Like". We don't blindly obey, we make a choice daily to obey the laws, and live moral lives. We take responsibility for our actions,and follow our hearts regarless of what our family or friends might want us to do. Why is this silly? You cannot make another believe like you, so why is it such a big deal to get the name of God out of everything? Look at history, our ancestors believed in God, and we prospered. Today, man is trying his best to eliminate Him, and we have more death and immorality in our young people.
E.Parker at 1:13PM on Jun 27th 2007
14. The my-belief-system-can-beat-up-your-belief-system pissing contest is as obnoxious between those who believe in God and those who don't believe in God as it is between those who believe in different gods. My kinship is with those of any faith or no faith at all who treat others as they would have others treat them.
richter at 1:16PM on Jun 27th 2007
15. While atheism may not be an entirely new convention, we are only now reaching a point in history where such a view point is allowed to exist. The irrationality of religion has caused millions of people over centuries to be tortured and killed for having beliefs contrary to the popular Judeo-Christian model. To say that atheism is in itself a religiuos dogmatic practice because it acknowledges the idea of God, is flawed. Religion has shaped the world and especially this country. If there was no religion, or concept of God, then you could truly be atheist? That makes no sense.
Scott Rosenbluth at 1:32PM on Jun 27th 2007