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 7 of 17)
91. To initialfaith:
"What would I have "missed out" on? Binge drinking, drug addiction, promiscuous sexual activity, stealing, cheating.....etc?"
I don't do those things, and I'm an atheist.
" The Christian lifestyle promotes all that is good for the body and soul,"
No it doesn't. It preaches hatred of being humans just for being human, i.e. original sin. It preaches that one must deny one's self, period, and go with the will of god. Self-abnegation is mentally destructive.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 10:38AM on Jun 28th 2007
92. To speak of religion on the terms of other scientific debate is a fraud and a malice.Religion is a personal matter.It is a matter of faith to the individual and sometimes to the group. Organized religion has grown over the centuries because of mans instabilities and the need to be told what to do. We are for the most part beings that need to belong to a group or a society. Religion gave us that. This also explains the need for a hierarchy in the group from the parishioners to the priest to the pope to the ultimate higher being. We need that hierchy to justify our place within the group.
john at 10:39AM on Jun 28th 2007
93. " I once heard a very wise Christian tell a non-believer that if at the end of life the non believer"
SHEESH! Will Pascal's Utterly Refuted To Death Wager never die?
Look: what if we're both wrong, initialfaith: what if there is a god, but it's not the one you believe in? OOOOPS! You never thought of that, did you? Further, utilizing Pascal's Wager means that you have to be roman catholic, since Pascal believed the choices were solely between roman catholicism and atheism (which, of course, it's not, but in order to use the wager correctly from the christian side that's how it must be).
"Christianity does nothing if not promote a lifestyle that is conducive to moral living and accountability,"
No, it does not. It promotes the idea that one can rob, rape, murder, etc. and in the end, all will be forgiven just by accepting jesus.
Also: there's no such thing as sin. No: sin is not the same thing as something immoral. Two separate concepts. Sin is disobeying god's orders. When Abraham refused to sacrifice his son, technically he was sinning.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 10:42AM on Jun 28th 2007
94. To: LMatthews
"Atheists seems to be so concerned about the need of Christains to believe in a Supreme Being,"
Rather, it's the christians who are so fearful of atheists, because atheists put to lie the belief that one needs a supreme being to live.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 10:44AM on Jun 28th 2007
95. this conversation is brilliant! i don't know much about any of this, dinesh and his discourse, religious arguments or philosophies that is. but one thing is clear -- humans are awfully judgmental and always looking to put their beliefs on others. i have a very strong belief in my idea of god, keeping in mind that "god" is not actually the word god, but instead some strange and personal idea that we all create from our logical (or illogical) little minds. as far as i am concerned -- it's this whole other thing that must encompasses all life and all energies which we see, don't see, perceive or don't perceive -- and not weird, touchy-feely, new-age energies, but energy as we know/understand it in our universe. i like athiests very much because they don't seem to judge others and their beliefs as much as other "religious" people. with all of my "belief" and love for MY definition of god, i have found that non-judgmental, open-minded quality in "athiests" or "non-believers" far more readily than those attached to their own limiting beliefs. to remove beliefs that have been handed down or to question that authority is exactly the brilliance and breeding ground needed to find out what is real. . . whatever that may be. outside of that, i may as well continue to believe that i am princess jasmine and alladin is coming to save me soon -- and no other fantastic belief should trump that. rock on athiests -- in being true to questioning what is told, believing none of it, and searching for answers in yourself and this reality and all of its ridiculousness, you truly embody the qualities that many believers long to find and boast about so arrogantly.
anjula at 11:23AM on Jun 28th 2007
96. @Knight of Baawa
It is a fact that several people here have been pulling your strings, or at least I did. Is it so hard to believe that anyone of us whom pulled your strings--someone or something could have pulled one of our strings. Keep dancing puppet. Keep putting up your counter-culture facade. It's kinda cute. :D
MrWiteKES at 11:42AM on Jun 28th 2007
97. Nice job Dinesh...you let Baawa out of the closet and he goes bananas. A perfect example of why atheism is untenable. You have to change what everyone else says to make it fit what you "believe". Absolute inability to make a logical argument. Talk about fanaticism...buddy...you got it in spades. You're a great poster boy for the atheistic "religion". Keep it up!
Chris S. at 12:34PM on Jun 28th 2007
98. To Mr WiteKES
"It is a fact that several people here have been pulling your strings, or at least I did. "
Mmmhmm. So say you after you realize that you have nothing to offer.
Try again.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 1:06PM on Jun 28th 2007
99. To ChrisS:
"Nice job Dinesh...you let Baawa out of the closet and he goes bananas."
No, I didn't.
"A perfect example of why atheism is untenable"
Prove it.
"Absolute inability to make a logical argument."
Except that I made logical arguments.
Did you just want to demonstrate what a liar you are? Or did you have some actual argument you wanted to make?
Knight_of_BAAWA at 1:08PM on Jun 28th 2007
100. MrWiteKES wrote: “I need help understanding atheism. To me, it seems like a paradox, and I don't need to hear how religion is a paradox. I know it is. But the lack of religion or belief is still a belief.”
Yes, I believe that there is no God. Specifically, I believe that there does not exist (and never has existed) an intelligent being that contributed to the existence of the known universe. But some people don’t actively believe that there is no God.
Also, my beliefs can change. But right now I believe that there is no God.
“That is the same as Buddhist seeking the freedom of desire, which is still a desire. You are essentially desiring not to desire in the existence of a higher order, or at least take part in the discussion of the possibility.”
I don’t desire that there is no God. If the existence of a God would enable there to be an afterlife and/or to have one helped out now and then in times of need, I would like for their to be a God. But I believe that there is not a God. Specifically, I believe that there does not exist (and never has existed) an intelligent being that contributed to the existence of the known universe.
“I can't respect that. It seems like a stand of indifference. It is as if you respond to the Do you believe in God question with I don't care.”
I care. Some people don’t.
“That's fine...I can understand that...I've certainly been indifferent to the whole issue myself at times, but to sustain that belief... That's insanity.”
I don’t see your point here.
Wes at 1:43PM on Jun 28th 2007
101. Amused wrote:
"It strikes me as faulty thinking when Athiests claim that they do not believe in God because there is no proof that God exists. They are confusing belief with rational thought, the very thing they accuse a believers of."
I don't say that. But I don't believe that there are any Gods partly because I haven't experienced anything remotely similar to a God, and no person knows of any event that has been caused by a God.
"The most anyone can say from a rational perspective is that no one really knows because God's existance cannot be proved one way or another."
I can't prove that there is no God. But the question is: Which hypothesis is more plausible? Is it more probable than not that there is no God?
"It seems to me that it is the intolerance of not knowing that people can't stand. The atheist's pat answer is just as pat as the blind faith response."
I'm not sure I see your point here. I don't know that there is no God. But I believe that there is not. And my belief is warranted.
Wes at 1:48PM on Jun 28th 2007
102. Mike wrote: "Einstein was actually aware of something far greater than even he was capable of comprehending."
Einstein’s views on the issue of whether there is a God are hard to characterize. Here are two quotes from Einstein from 1954:
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
"I am a deeply religious non-believer. This is somewhat of a new kind of religion."
However, Einstein also has quotes that are more pantheistic. Here is a quote from 1921:
"I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."
Maybe he believed different things at different times of his life. He died in 1955.
Wes at 1:58PM on Jun 28th 2007
103. To me atheists are no different in their views than the extremist of religions (christianity, buddhism, islam, judaism, and all others) they all believe that their idea their individual belief is solely and absolutly right with no exeception. This is even more prevalent within the christian religion itself. Demoninations fighting over whose view is the most biblically accurate and absolute right. Maybe we should for once in our lives shut-up and listen with open minds. You know you might just learn something. Whether it be just plain old respect for another person and his/her belief or something more profound like the secret of life. Who knows. But you will never know until you accept the fact that in order to learn one must pay attention, listen, and understand.
Personally, I believe in God and Jesus, and if you don't know by now; I am a christian. I also believe in evolution, we as humans have evolved over the past thousands years of recorded history. I believe that no one person, denomination, or religious belief is 100% right. I believe that the real truth is hidden in parts in other cultures and beliefs. There are too many people, ideas, cultures, and beliefs in this world for only one person, idea, culture, and belief to be absolutely and utterly right.
I'm not here to change anyone's way of thinking or their belief. All I can hope to do is influence. So maybe atheist and christian alike can finally agree one thing: respect.
r3b3lgrl14 at 2:51PM on Jun 28th 2007
104. r3b3lgrl14 writes: "To me atheists are no different in their views than the extremist of religions (christianity, buddhism, islam, judaism, and all others) they all believe that their idea their individual belief is solely and absolutly right with no exeception."
Well, I do think I'm right that no intelligent being contributed to the existence of the known universe. But there is nothing unethical about holding a reasonable position. And my position is reasonable.
"Personally, I believe in God and Jesus, and if you don't know by now; I am a christian. I also believe in evolution, we as humans have evolved over the past thousands years of recorded history. I believe that no one person, denomination, or religious belief is 100% right."
Not to quibble, but evolution has been occurring on earth for hundreds of millions of years. In fact, the oldest fossils that humans have discovered are the remains of bacteria that lived about 3.5 billion years ago.
Wes at 3:10PM on Jun 28th 2007
105. r3b3lgrl14 wrote:
"Maybe we should for once in our lives shut-up and listen with open minds. You know you might just learn something. Whether it be just plain old respect for another person and his/her belief or something more profound like the secret of life. Who knows. But you will never know until you accept the fact that in order to learn one must pay attention, listen, and understand."
We should listen to others. And we should be civil. But if we disagree, sometimes we should voice our views and give reasons for our views. This approach tends to help us arrive at more reasonable ideas.
And sometimes we should just ask people to clarify their points. Sometimes we find that we don't disagree but that we didn't understand the person's original point.
And disagreement is good. We can sometimes convince people to change their minds to a better position.
Wes at 3:16PM on Jun 28th 2007