In today's Wall Street Journal, Peter Berkowitz takes on the new atheists, and the result is a resounding victory for the new atheists. While accusing atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens of setting up a straw man, Berkowitz begins with a couple of Goliath-size staw men of his own. He accuses the atheists of claiming that "we can now know, with finality and certainty, that God does not exist." Of Christopher Hitchens he writes, "His arguments do not come close to disproving God's existence or demonstrating that religion is irredeemably evil." Actually none of the atheists claims that we know "with finality and certainty" that God does not exist. Dawkins and Hitchens merely proclaim God's existence extremely improbable, and on this point Berkowitz has no answer. Moreover, Hitchens can easily satisy his thesis short of showing that religion is "irredeemably" evil. He merely has to show that it is mostly evil.
Berkowitz then takes up some specific claims. Hitchens condemns the ancient Jewish practice of "an eye for an eye" as a harsh doctrine, which it is. Berkowitz counters that it's preferable to take an eye for an eye than to take "a life for an eye." Berkowtiz claims that Judaism established the notion of proportionality: that the punishment should fit the crime. In reality, the anthropological literature shows that proportionality is a very ancient principle that has been held in some form in many cultures. The basic idea is that if your tribe raids mine and kills 50 people, I am justified in raiding your tribe and killing 50 people, but I am not justified in killing 10,000 people. The best one can say is that the Old Testament (in sharp contrast with the New Testament) shares this severe morality with many of the other religions and cultures of the world.
Then Berkowitz takes up the story of God ordering Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar--a story understandably viewed by Hitchens and other atheists in a dim light. Berkowitz, however, draws a rather strange lesson from the episode. "Hitchens's categorical claim that religion poisons everything is undermined by the common interpretation according to which God's testing of Abraham taught, among other things, that the then widespread practice of child-sacrifice was contrary to God's will and must be put to an end forever." So God's order to Abraham to kill his son teaches us that we should not engage in child sacrifice! What a way to teach this lesson! I don't know if Berkowitz's reading is a "common interpretation" in Judaism but it certainly is not in Christianity. Usually the story is read merely to demonstrate Abraham's unwavering fidelity to God.
Eventually it becomes clear what Berkowitz is up to. He doesn't particularly care about Christianity or even Judaism for that matter. He simply wants to unite Jews, Christians and atheists to fight "militant Islam" which for him seems to mean Islam in general. Now we see why his arguments in defense of theism are so bad. The whole project is political. I suspect that the atheists are laughing uproariously at Berkowitz's sophistries, and I for one am on their side here. With friends like Berkowtiz, does religion really need enemies?
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 4)
16. [[You are telling me God allowed his son to be killed. What a guy! God needs some parenting classes.]]
ROTFLMAO! I will use this line the next time a Christian attempts to convert me.
OomYaaqub at 8:43PM on Jul 16th 2007
17. In every picture this man takes of himself he looks just as queer as a three dollar bill. He is constantly going on about how it is wrong to be Gay, and is it not true the ones who scream the loudest are in the closet?
Steven Parker at 8:32PM on Jul 16th 2007
18. I agree with D'nesh. Oh My God!!!
This was a very shallow discussion all around and many 'persons of interest' will have much to pick at, but this was pretty good.
Is there no other ground to stand on than that of 'fundamentalist' or 'athiest'? I think so.
Tip o' the hat to our normally myopic Indian friend.
tom at 8:32PM on Jul 16th 2007
19. [[Also, they all are, most certainly, not Arabs, K? K.]]
Who said they were? In fact only about 20% of Muslims are Arabs. I'm sure Berkowitz knows this.
OomYaaqub at 8:44PM on Jul 16th 2007
20. Odd that D'Souza can spot straw men arguments by others, but not his own. He spews plenty whenever he talks about atheists.
Brian Westley at 9:05PM on Jul 16th 2007
21. My stars, Dinesh! You made sense for a change, and I must commend you on that. If theists could stop fighting with one another and mixing politics with out-dated and easily disproved dogmatics, then perhaps they could learn to abstract the real value of all sacred scriptures: meaning for the heart and lessons about human nature. Control obsessed fanatics toss out as heretical anyone who tries to express the "true" message behind most religions: Treat others as you yourself would want to be treated.
web jones at 9:05PM on Jul 16th 2007
22. Dear dOr: The Torah is the Law, not the Talmud. The Talmud is commentary upon the Torah made by many different rabbis over a period of more than a thousand years and not every rabbi therein agrees with every other rabbi. So the rabbi you refer to makes many restrictive qualifications upon when it is permissible to murder one's "wayward son", but the passage in the Torah mentions no such qualifications. So the rabbi you defer to is most likely one of the people I refer to as being better than their religion, just like the pope who, unable to stomach the implications of infant damnation as laid down by Augustine, invented "limbo". Their respective actions are a credit to these two men, but not to their religions.
emelpe at 9:08PM on Jul 16th 2007
23. For once, D'Souza's right. I may have to jump out a window. To the Talmudic scholar: he explained what "eye for an eye" meant. It's not that deep.
niki at 9:07PM on Jul 16th 2007
24. Emelpe wrote: Dear dOr: The Torah is the Law, not the Talmud. The Talmud is commentary upon the Torah made by many different rabbis over a period of more than a thousand years and not every rabbi therein agrees with every other rabbi.
No, Emelpe, the Talmud is the Law. It is the Oral Law which is equally valid as the Written Law contained in the Torah.
leor613 at 9:24PM on Jul 16th 2007
25. Religion is culturally accepted form of psychosis; that is why everyone feels comfortable with thier version and regards others' religion as unreal and fake.
If Abraham came during this age, he would be locked up in a mental institution.
Saif at 9:27PM on Jul 16th 2007
26. I am a Christian. I went to Christian school. My family was always active in church. The main things that happened in my church when I was a kid included raising money to buy a girl in the congragation a liver transplant, and supporting her family when the operation failed. Now for that family, when their daughter died, their only consolation was that she had been taken to be with her Lord. If you had taken that away I'm not sure they could have gone on. Now I believe that I am going to heaven. Even if their is no after life, wouldn't it be better to try to get to go to heaven. The alternative is eternal pain and suffering. If you do not believe this read a Bible. Begin with the gospels. Then go to acts, psalms, and proverbs. Pray and expect answers. Try several times and see if you do not begin to believe. MIRICLES HAPPEN
timjjr3 at 10:01PM on Jul 16th 2007
27. Stoning disobedient children starts to sound good when they hit about 13 and start the eye rolls.
Why did God order Abraham to kill Isaac when he was 12? Because if he'd waited 'till Isaac was 13 it would have been no sacrifice!
John at 10:30PM on Jul 16th 2007
28. ref post 324Jan, please don't think all Muslim men are of the radical
ilk, there is a site called "Muslim Bridges" go there and read what
Mohammed really said about women. You may actually find out that the
words of Mohammed are much kinder and well adjusted towards woman,
than the words King James had written into the bible.I am a Native
American and I practice the "religion" of my grandmothers, so I have
no vested interest in this one way or another but before you condemn
a whole race/religion for the actions of a few you do need to think
it all the way thru.Maybe as an NA I have felt ignorance so often I
have a hang-up about this pre judging thing.I have had the honor of
being accepted into an Indian Muslim family as a friend. I have
learned so much from that friendship. LMAO and let me assure you
those women are NOT door mats.You might want to look at how many
fundamentalist Christian men view women before you holler to very
loudly about another culture.
Mackie at 10:49PM on Jul 16th 2007
29. oneblood at 6:45PM on Jul 16th 2007 claims that Dinesh D'Souza's "spelling accuracy is atrocious." but there is hardly a single misspelled word in the article above. Why? I suppose a spelling-challenged person mightimagine she had found several of D'Souza's six-bit words misspelled. (This opinion comes to you from the 6th-grade spelling champion of the Wheat School, and the eighth-grade champion of the James Robertson Academy elementary school.)
Math Mathonwy at 10:25AM on Oct 31st 2007
30. Dear Emelpe, this is not true. The Talmud is the Law, not a "commentary" on the Torah. It is a set of laws that was once passed down strictly orally from father to son which paralleled the Torah. It is a teaching of what laws every word letter of the Torah comes to teach us, rather than just an explanation, and is therefore not considered a commentary. It is rooted directly in the teaching of Moses who learned it from God at Mt. Sinai after 40 days and 40 nights, and it comes as one unit with the Torah, although all world religions except the traditional orthodox Judaism do not accept this.
However, they have not much material to argue with because it was not their fathers and family traditions that were standing at the foot of Sinai.
When the teachings were starting to become forgotten, the law was allowed to be written down so it would not change too much, or become forgotten. Although, when the time came to write it, many rabbis with different traditions of slight variations of how they were taught the law came together. These are the debates that are found in the talmud. But when the Talmud ends a debate and agrees on a law, all of the opinions must adhere to the law, and the opinion of the council of rabbis BECOMES the law. That is what is reffered to in the Torah verse that states that the Torah is on Earth and not in the heavens. It was in the hands of the ancient rabbis to determine what the Torah meant according to their best judgement and following tradition passed from father to son. THEREFORE, the restrictions that made it difficult to kill a wayward son are what the Torah is refering to because that is what the ancient rabbis received through tradition, and that is what the Talmud established. (I say "ancient rabbis" because today's rabbis do not have this power to decide the law anymore. They are only experts who choose to teach it. And not all of them either, i'm talking about the orthodox ones.)
d0r at 7:50PM on Jul 19th 2007