Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion": A Review

In response to yesterday's blog entry reviewing the Christopher Hitchens book "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," Dominic, a blog reader, mentioned Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion." I offer my review of "The God Delusion," below.

***

In "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins performs an Olympic medal-worthy feat. He writes 400 pages while simultaneously patting himself on the back and blowing his own horn. "South Park"'s satire of Dawkins' megalomania is better than Cliff Notes, because – unlike Dawkins – when it tries to be funny, it is.

I purchased "The God Delusion" expecting state-of-the-art atheism. Dawkins delivered a silly rant and a self-indulgent hodgepodge. He's preaching to the atheist choir, who exult "amen" at every burp.

The book is so scattered, so without intellectual discipline, so rife with falsehoods, misrepresentations, and blood curdling irresponsibility, that it is impossible, here, to deliver a thorough review. I can merely pick and choose.

Dawkins quotes letters from persons of faith who are, obviously, obnoxious. This proves nothing. Atheists can be obnoxious (Christopher Hitchens) or mass murderers (Stalin).

Dawkins, like Hitchens, conflates all religions and religious practices. They really do not perceive the differences between Jainism and Islam, between "zakat" and "jihad". They, thus, disqualify themselves as commentators, except to the most unquestioning of atheist acolytes. Luckily the rest of us, when assessing science, are not so blind - we can discriminate between a Mengele and an Einstein.

Dawkins insists that the foundation of the US is atheist. Dawkins fails to acknowledge that "all are created equal" is a Judeo-Christian invention. It is not Hindu (caste); it is not Muslim (dhimmitude); it is not scientific (eugenics; social Darwinism).

Dawkins, like Hitchens, is a broken faucet of snide comments about anyone who disagrees with him. His put down of Stephen Jay Gould, with its overtones of homophobia, is particularly egregious (55). Dawkins, unlike SJG, does not "bend over"! SJG is dead and cannot respond. Dawkins similarly puts down scientists, including Freeman Dyson – not dead but over 90 – who have accepted the Templeton Prize, calling them phonies and sell-outs. One of Dawkins' "jokes" depends for its impact on an atheist's resume being *longer* than a believer's (281).

Dawkins' cheap bullying makes you want to put him in the corner for a lengthy time-out, and restrict his cookie and juice privileges. His species of arrogance is no friend of scholarship; rather, it's the constant servant of brownshirt obscurantism.

Dawkins protests that he doesn't need knowledge of religion to critique it, because, after all, God does not exist. There is a most excellent London Review of Books essay addressing Dawkins' aggressive ignorance: "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching," by Terry Eagleton.

Dawkins flaunts his ignorance in his dismissal of Luke's mention of Quirinius (93). I don't have space here to address this – do a Google search of "Luke" and "Quirinius" and you'll see that Dawkins is pulling the wool over his naive atheist flocks' eyes.

Religion is persuasive, Dawkins says, "to people not used to asking questions" (92). This statement is so false, ignorant, or blind I'd let it go without comment, but, who's been asking, "Why am I here" for the past ten thousand years, except people of faith – thus, inventing universities, medicine, philosophy, and science? Copernicus, Mendel, Lemaitre - these religious men's questions gave us the heliocentric universe, genetics, and the Big Bang theory. Dawkins, and atheists like him, are smugly certain of their every whim; persons of faith ask all the time.

Dawkins divides the world into two mutually exclusive categories: really smart people like him, and everybody else. He dismisses out of hand the fact that many great scientists are or have been believers. He implies that scientists from the past were faking being religious – they were cowardly liars lacking integrity – and he implies that his contemporaries who believe in God are bad scientists and "embarrassing" (99).

A chapter entitled "Why There Is Almost Certainly No God" reports that there can't be a God because evolution directs biological life – and yet there are evolutionary scientists who are also Christians. As for the anthropic principle, Dawkins argues that any entity that designed physical reality would just be too complex to imagine; so God doesn't exist because Dawkins can't imagine him. Dawkins says that multiple universes cancel out God. There is more evidence for the existence of God than for multiple universes. Dawkins argues against intelligent design; Francis S. Collins does a superior job of arguing against ID in his book, "Language of God." Collins is a Christian. So much for that chapter.

I could go on, but I don't want to, because this hodgepodge bored me. But this must be mentioned – Dawkins reveals zero awareness of the impact of his ideas on real people who, unlike him, don't inhabit ivory towers. Ethically, humans are comparable to cows? (297) Parents should not be allowed to teach their children? (326) Tens of millions of innocents were murdered in Germany, Russia, China, Tibet, Cambodia in the real-world implementation of megalomaniacal creeds like Dawkins'. If he knows his, if he cares at all, no awareness of it is shown in this book, which is not so much a deconstruction of God, as it is a hate letter to all of humanity.

The most telling line in the entire book may be, "wouldn't the designer of the universe have to be a scientist?" (104) Wow, Richard, all I can say is, thank you for designing the universe. We've been so mistaken for worshipping anyone but you for the past ten millennia.

I did like two things in this book: Dawkins does a beautiful job of explaining why moths fly into flames (172-3). When reading those four paragraphs, I felt like I was reading a different book. An expert was enlightening me in the most elegant, ego-free way possible, on a very basic question. Dawkins also writes, briefly, about having been molested as a child (316). I felt great compassion for him, and I had to think that he could write an essay on that that would serve him, and others, well.

South Park's creators on Dawkins.

Favorite line: "It's getting too thinky."

Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything": An Amazon Review and Discussion

On June 6, 2007, I posted an Amazon review of Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." I titled my review "No Wonder So Many People Believe in God." I include the full text of my review of Hitchens' book, below.

The review generated a lively discussion that continues even as I write these words, five years later. I participated in the discussion at first but then I dropped out. Participation became too time-consuming.

I tried to convey something like the following message via the Amazon page:

"I dropped out of this discussion and I apologize for that.

'Save Send Delete' offers the best argument I have in response to many of the atheist points made here. I have a blog devoted to the book. It's easier for me to address questions posted to a centralized location than to continue to return to internet venues like this and others where I have contributed over the years."

Amazon deleted my post.

I wrote to Amazon. I received several replies. They all read like missives from a Kafka novel about a dystopian regime where robots attempt to discern the smallest particle of incorrect thought in the furthest reaches of the human mind. At first I thought these were automated responses, but then I noticed that the Amazon-bots were misspelling my name. Real people were sending me these messages? How sad.

The messages communicated the following, "We don't care what explanation you offer. We KNOW you've been bad, bad, bad, and we are going to continue to delete your posts."

So, I gave up. If anyone from the Amazon discussion found his or her way here, I admire your perseverance. Maybe we can talk here.

Below please find the full text of my Amazon review of Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great."

***

If "God Is Not Great" is the best argument for atheism, it's no wonder that so many believe. There is much wrong with this book. Given the word limit on Amazon reviews, one can only scratch the surface.

Hitchens' style: So many names are dropped you need an umbrella. Hitchens rubs elbows with glamorous people; he reads famous writers. On the other hand, Hitchens refers, repeatedly, to anyone who believes in God as a "yokel." This patina of sophistication shielded by venom intimidates some into deferring to Hitchens as a great mind.

Namedropping equals leftovers. Hitchens innovates no paradigm in relation to his, and humanity's, grave concern – ending religiously-justified atrocity like 9-11. Given this, it is egregious that Hitchens does not mention works that have responded to criticisms he quotes. For example, he rehashes John Cornwell's accusations against Pope Pius XII, without ever mentioning Ronald J. Rychlak's or David G. Dalin's refutations of Cornwell. This approach – airbrushing out of his picture anything that weakens his point – would not be possible in a volume published by a reputable academic press. So much for scholarship.

Hitchens' method is the classic one of prejudice: create an enemy, an "other"; insist that all members of this category are an undifferentiated mass; voice an entrenched bigotry – people of faith are stupid, hypocritical, and evil; scapegoat this other as the cause of all the world's problems, and then "support" this construct with decontextualized anecdotes.

Hitchens conflates Hinduism, Judaism, Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism. Obvious facts prove this false: Jews, for example, don't proselytize, and, therefore, constitute less than one percent of the world's population. Male to female ratios are skewed in Muslim countries like Pakistan, where conditions mitigate against female survival. The Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Mormon: very different books. But, in Hitchens' construct, all are undifferentiated.

Then Hitchens voices, about this undifferentiated "other," bigoted stereotypes, using the classic imagery of prejudice that associates the scapegoated "other" with subhuman life forms. In an appearance with David Horowitz promoting this book, Hitchens equated persons of faith with plague-bacilli-ridden, sewer-breeding rats.

To "prove" bigotry true, Hitchens, rejecting the scientific method, cites anecdotes. Hitchens repeats as true the slander that Jews have sex through holes in sheets. Hitchens fills his reader's mind with pornographic images in relation to the Jewish practice of circumcision.

The Christian Rev. Martin Luther King, as Hitchens mentions in one anecdote, was, indeed, a plagiarist, and a rabbi did, indeed, give a child VD via circumcision. Neither of these true anecdotes, though, sums up the most important truth about MLK, Jewish ritual, or faith. MLK played an irreplaceable role in the Civil Rights Movement, and that is more important than his failures. The Talmud is a vast document that has been the foundation of a people, Jews, who have contributed greatly to mankind, and that is more important than one rabbi's crimes.

Hatemongering, though, snips out isolated, true anecdotes, *decontextualized*. If you Google Hitchens' most inflammatory claims, about MLK, for example, chances are the first website you find will be Stormfront, a white supremacist site. And quoting isolated verses from the Talmud has long been the anti-Semite's favorite tactic – visit the David Duke website. No, Hitchens is not a supremacist. Yes, he uses the same tactic as they.

Hitchens, in reporting anecdotes about the failures of persons of faith, never cedes that faith has been the sine qua non – the indispensable element – in much that humanity cherishes. For example, Hitchens mocks the founder of Mormonism – easy to do – but fails to mention the awesome achievements of Mormonism, as chronicled by scholar Harold Bloom.

At the same time, Hitchens refuses to acknowledge the failures of organized atheists and atheism. The largest pile of corpses in human history was left by atheist, scientifically-inspired "reformers:" Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. In a shameless and transparent ploy, Hitchens claims that Stalin, et al, were religious! By that "logic," up is down, war is peace, and hate is love. How convenient.

As a solid critique of faith, "Not Great" is toothless. Devastating critiques of faith: Carroll's "Constantine's Sword," Collins' "Language of God," Bawer's "Stealing Jesus," Garry Wills, Daniel Boyarin, Rachel Adler, Ali Sina, Brian Victoria, William Wilberforce, the 88th psalm. For a heart-wrenching, take-no-prisoners, fully invested critique of the failures of religion, read Jesus Christ. Excepting Ali Sina, a former Muslim, these authors – Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Buddhists, are *still* persons of faith, and they have authored soul-rattling critiques of their religions.

Hitchens' anecdotes of badly behaved persons of faith – his *entire bag of tricks* – have already been addressed, and acted upon by . . . persons of faith. Collins, a Christian, doesn't just go after Intelligent Design rhetorically – he is a key DNA researcher. Wilberforce, an Evangelical, didn't just critique the irreconcilability of Christianity and slavery, he devoted his life to ending slavery.

In the plus column: Hitchens, unlike so many published writers today, knows how to construct a sentence. And he is, weirdly, endearing. He is like the child – in the very best sense – in all of us who recoils when he discovers that revered figures have feet of clay. MLK plagiarized. Recoil! These recoils have resulted in Hitchens checkered ideological history. He is a former Trotskyite; currently he's a red-white-and-blue, Iraq-quagmire-cheerleading, chicken hawk – a harsh term but an accurate one – neo-con. And, by his own admission, he is drunk all the time, to help him deal with his disappointment in his fellow mortals.

On Being Called a "Passionate" Writer

Source.

"Passionate": one word that, more frequently than any other, is applied to my writing.

Yesterday I submitted an excerpt from "Save Send Delete" to an editor. He wrote back this morning. "Passionate" was the third word in his email. He also called the excerpt "enthralling," which I really liked. That email will never be thrown away!

But … "Passionate?"

I just don't get it.

I am anything but passionate when I write. I am rational. What's going on in my head is very much not "pant pant" but "tick tock."

I'm a teacher and a dyslexic. I've devoted many hours to thinking about how the mind and body work. I note my own processes. I know how the inside of my head feels when I am reading a kissy-face novel, and I know how the inside of my head feels when I am balancing my checkbook.

I have different postures, locations, furniture, even CDs for each: Bach for the checkbook. Tchaikovsky for the kissy-face.

In day-to-day life, I am an emotional person. I produce tears just at the thought of the final ten minutes of the 1957 Cary Grant - Deborah Kerr film "An Affair to Remember." The scene where Cary Grant realizes that the reason Deborah Kerr didn't keep their planned rendez-vous atop the Empire State Building was that she'd been hit by a cab. If you need a good cry, or if you just need to get something out of your eye, you can watch that scene here.

Recently I was lecturing a friend who is thinking about writing for publication. "Why do this to yourself," I asked? "The rejections, the crashed hopes, the humiliations, the expense."

So many writers die young: Dylan Thomas after drinking eighteen straight whiskies, Edgar Allan Poe in someone else's clothes, F. Scott Fitzgerald after a year in which he sold fourteen – fourteen! copies of "The Great Gatsby." Women writers who commit suicide are their own genre.

"Why do this to yourself?"

Me? I write because I have to. No, I really have to.

I'm dyslexic, and something else. I don't know if there is a name for it. I'm very confused by supermarkets, for example. I experience them as a blur of stimuli. To find something I'm looking for amidst the confusion, I have to say its name to myself: "Oranges. Oranges. Oranges," and the names of the items I don't want. "These are apples. I want oranges."

I do the same thing when I birdwatch. I describe the bird to myself in words: "Striped chest, central dot, eye-stripe. Oh, that's a song sparrow."

Placing words on things defeats my cognitive dysfunction that renders the world a chaotic buzz. Words are the skeleton keys that unlock reality for me.

It is what I do when I write.

"Save Send Delete" concerns two things that have sucked my mental energy: God and Love.

When I sat down to write every day, I did not allow myself passion. Had I, I would still be crying at the desk. Crying and swooning and careening.

No. I was in balancing checkbook mode when I wrote "Save Send Delete." My posture was erect. I was listening to Bach and wearing Ma Grife, a severe, spinster-schoolmarm perfume that smells of citrus and juniper.

I never allow myself emotions while writing. I do, rather, what I do in the supermarket, what I do when birdwatching. I translate the overwhelming throb of reality that beats against my anxious brain like moth wings beating against a hurricane lamp. I don't say, "This is an orange," I say, "This is the way his eye moves when he tells a lie."

Drop by drop, item by item, bird breast by bird breast, I apply discrete words to discrete realities and the world comes to make sense. For the day, mystery is tamed, anxiety quelled, and I can find some cognitive peace.

This is a cool process. This is a rational process. Believe me. I'm an early morning, caffeinated, green eye-shade, add-subtract writer. Not a puffy sleeve, quill-dipped-in-purple-ink, absinthe-quaffing midnight writer.

"Passionate," though. People keep calling my writing "passionate." Why?

Here's why, I think. It's exactly because of my writerly process.

I tell my students: Don't use hyperbole. Don't use ad hominem. Don't bother.

The facts, ma'am. Just the facts. If you just report the facts, no embroidery, no hyperbole, if you just, as 12 Step puts it, "Show up and tell the truth," readers will shit their pants. The unvarnished truth is so rare.

That's what I strive for as a writer. Just to put the facts down on the page. To these facts, the reader brings his own passion.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Palisades hosting "Save Send Delete" on Sunday, June 3, 2012

Source.

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Palisades, a lovely and brilliant group of people, have kindly extended an invitation to me to be their guest speaker on Sunday, June 3rd, at 10:00 a.m. I'm delighted and grateful. I will read from "Save Send Delete." My talk title is "Why Does God Allow Suffering?"

Please come. You'll like this group. I promise!

And if you'd like me to read to your group, please contact me, using the contact link here.

You can find directions to the service at the UUCP website, here.

And don't forget to enter the contest to win a free copy of the book, here!

Win a Free Copy of "Save Send Delete" - Tell a Friend!

Amazon reviewers like "Save Send Delete":

"A fabulous, warm, fascinating and wonderful love story."

"Perhaps it was David Eggers 'Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' that last moved me this way."

"An education in the background and beliefs of many of the world's greatest religions - their strengths and their weaknesses."

You can check out more reviews here.

I'm celebrating. That's me, on the right of the photo. Robin is right across from me. 

Join the celebration. Enter a contest to win a free copy of "Save Send Delete."

Share news of "Save Send Delete" with five people who haven't heard about the book yet. Tell those five to email me that they've learned about the book from you. And your name is entered in the contest. A winner will be selected at random from those names.

Here's an example of the email you might send:

"Hi! I'm writing to tell you about a new book called 'Save Send Delete.' It's a true story about a devout Catholic and an atheist celebrity who debate the existence of God and fall in love. Reviewers have called it 'funny,' 'passionate,' and 'brilliant.' I am entering a contest to win a free copy. If you email the author and tell her that you learned about the book from me, I might win. Here's the Amazon page for the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Save-Send-Delete-Danusha-Goska/dp/1846949866 ."

Your friend could email me a message like this:

"Hi, I just learned about 'Save Send Delete' from my friend Betty." If your name is Betty!

To email me, your friend can use the "contact" link on the left hand side of this page.

You can also email me directly at:

my first name dot my last name at gmail dot com.

I wrote my email address that way in order to avoid spam. You have to replace "my first name" with Danusha. Etc.

Contest expiration: midnight on Memorial Day, Monday, May 28^th, 2012.

Thanks! And good luck.

Homosexuality and the Bible. Response to Dan Savage and Sam Harris

David Horne. Hoosier. Eagle Scout. Second grade teacher.  Gay  man and Gay rights activist. Devout Christian.

The photo, above, is of my friend David Horne. David was a Hoosier, an Eagle Scout, a second grade teacher, my fellow activist for Gay rights, and my fellow Christian.

David died at age 25. I talk about David in Save Send Delete.

I thought about David last night.

***

Saturday, April 28, a facebook friend posted a link to a Breitbart story about Dan Savage, a celebrity author, addressing high school students at a conference. Savage, looking and acting very Big Brother as he looms over and sneers at the high school students from his giant video screen, refers to the Bible as "bullshit" and advises the high school students to learn to "ignore" it. Savage quotes Sam Harris, a New Atheist who famously suggested that persons of faith should be killed for what they believe: "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."

Some high school students walk out of Savage's talk. Savage mocks them as "pansy ass."

***

Watching this video, I remembered a man I met only once but have never forgotten, a Catholic priest in Slovakia who was tortured by atheists for being a Catholic. I remembered secret Christians I met in Nepal who were imprisoned for the crime of being Christian.

I woke up this morning to headlines: sixteen killed in church in Nigeria.

Indeed, a recent study shows that members of the Christian church are the most persecuted in the world.

My liberal facebook friends, very sensitive to human rights abuses, never post about church bombings in Nigeria or Egypt, about Christians tortured and imprisoned for their beliefs.

I wonder if one of the reasons for leftist insensitivity to oppression of Christians is because ubiquitous, unquestioned hate speech against the Judeo-Christian tradition helps to desensitize otherwise sensitive people.

Would Dan Savage be invited to tell high school students that the Koran is bullshit? The Vedas? The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Mabinogion?

No. We all know he would not.

***

Dan Savage protests homophobia.

I protest homophobia.

I'm a Christian.

***

I moved to Bloomington, Indiana, to attend Indiana University.

Bloomington is in the Midwest. I had lived on the coasts: the New York metro area, and the San Francisco Bay area.

I encountered homophobia in Bloomington.

I had never encountered serious homophobia before.

I became an activist for Gay Rights.

I am not gay. I have no immediate family members who are gay.

I became an activist for Gay Rights because I am a Christian. My teacher said this to me: "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto me."

My teacher told me that the Good Samaritan was to be my role model.

I attended every PFLAG meeting I could make it to. I marched, organized, carried signs, broadcast essays, and published in the local press.

Our PFLAG meetings were often held in local Christian churches. One of our most active members was a Protestant clergyman. Most attendees were themselves Christian.

One of my publications, "Homosexuality and the Bible," is below.

If Dan Savage were correct, and the Bible were "bullshit" that we best ignore, I would not have done anything for Gay Rights.

Dan Savage is wrong. My friend, David Horne, a devout Christian, a Gay Rights activist, and a Gay man, knew that.

Homosexuality and The Bible
The Bloomington Voice
The Weekly Newspaper of South Central Indiana VI:23 (July 3, 1997): 4

Public debate on gender is frequently saturated with voices claiming the Bible as basis for political resistance to civil rights for homosexuals. Policy-makers may conclude that all constituents of faith demand public hostility to homosexuals. To spiritual seekers it may seem that the Judeo-Christian tradition was founded on and is obsessed with such hostility. This essay outlines one heterosexual Christian’s reading of scripture to understand anti-gay discrimination as profoundly contrary to the spirit and truth of the Bible.

Opponents of civil rights for homosexuals typically cite three Biblical passages understood to condemn homosexuality, and then declare that these three passages should direct public policy. Putting aside this tactic’s violation of the principle of the separation of church and state, this Christian finds two flaws in it: it is anti-Biblical, and, it is belied by the religious practices of the homophobes themselves.

The cornerstone of the Judeo-Christian tradition is not a traffic signal, nor is it a Marine drill sergeant. God did not choose to direct this tradition with the kind of stimulus that requires blind obedience. Our guide, rather, is a lengthy book, which must be studied and discussed as books are studied and discussed.

One can no more abstract one sentence from the Bible and understand it in isolation than one can abstract one sentence from War and Peace or any other complex work. This approach is folly on a Swiftian scale. It does great disservice to the Bible. Shaving, wearing of mixed fabrics, intercropping -- isolated Bible verses can be found to condemn all. Menstruation is “abomination,” the same word used to describe homogenital acts. Couples intimate during menstruation are condemned to exile. Verses can be found to support human sacrifice, the veiling of women, the genital mutilation of corpses, the exile of victims of skin disease, absolute communism under pain of death, slavery, racism, the blood guilt of Jews, and consumption of poison as proof of marital fidelity or Christian faith. Unless and until the homophobes follow all these verses literally, they demonstrate their own argument as without merit.

Given that isolated Bible verses can be found to support any number of heinous or exotic policies, one might be tempted to jettison the Bible and dismiss Jews and Christians as primitive lunatics. This Christian feels no such temptation. Rather, logic demands that each idiosyncratic interpretation and application of Scripture answer for itself. So-called Fundamentalists must announce why they promulgate verses condemning homogenital acts as central; those of us who do not must provide our criteria.

This Christian would offer two supports for her rejection of homophobia as a Biblically supportable position. One, the Bible itself offers a check to literalism. The Bible, to this Christian, is true; it is just not true in the way the homophobes need it to be. Too, advances in knowledge demand that we engage with the Bible, testing everything we read in it against what it is and what we have come to learn since it was set down.

Selection of one verse as foundation for public policy applies a literalist concept of “truth” that is anti-Biblical, secular, and anachronistic. And it is sin. Fundamentalists apply to the Bible the approach to words that evolved after the invention of texts like package instructions, legal documents, and science experiments. Such texts, and the mindset that produced them, altered how people processed words. Fundamentalists now -- sinfully, foolishly, unsuccessfully -- apply that secular approach to sacred words that were once heard in a very different way.

A Native American, testifying in a trial, was adjured to tell the truth. He hesitated and said, “I don’t know if I can tell you the truth. I can only tell you what I know.” Paul encapsulated the concept this way: “We know in part and we prophesy in part...We see as in a glass, darkly.” Folk cultures tacitly accept that truth, like the oral canon, has versions and variants. The Bible, from the secular, anachronistic standpoint adopted by homophobes, “lies” beginning in Genesis, which offers two different versions of the creation story. Berkeley folklore scholar Alan Dundes has demonstrated that every major Biblical passage, from basic prayers like Judaism’s “Hear, oh Israel” and Christianity’s “Our Father,” to historical accounts like that of Jesus’ death, is recorded in at least two differing versions. The folk concept of truth that allows for such variation is not antiquated; post-Heisenberg physics and postmodern philosophy support it.

The check the Bible offers to self-serving applications of literalist concepts of “truth” is a strong condemnation (Mat 26:61; Mark 14:58; John 2:20). Further, in Matthew 23, Jesus literally damns righteous hypocrites who, like modern homophobes, attempt to assassinate the immortal spirit of God’s word while denying the Kingdom of Heaven to those who do not measure up to the dead letter of the law.

Argumentation, rather than blind obedience, is the model offered by Biblical heroes. Abraham, Mary, and Jesus are but prominent examples of the Biblical model of debating the absolute commandments of God. Abraham changes God’s mind about the number of good men that can redeem a town; Mary defies Jesus’ resistance and nags him into performing his first miracle. Jesus openly disobeyed tenants of the meticulous and rigid law. When asked directly, Jesus selected some commandments as being worthy to follow, to the exclusion of others (Mat. 19:18-22). Jesus explained that the law was made for man, not the other way around. The law’s test and proof was love of God and love of others (Mark 2: 27; Mat. 22:35-40). Love, in Jesus’ radical approach, was to be granted even to those his contemporaries had been trained to hate because of accidents of birth (Luke 10, 25-37). In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus depicted a despised minority group member as superior to a priest and a high caste Levite. It is the Samaritan who obeys the spirit of the law, and rescues a brutalized stranger. Application of the tenets of this parable to homophobia exposes homophobia as anti-Biblical.

In any case, the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. The word is never used. Three passages condemn male homogenital acts performed a part of gang rape, temple prostitution, or idolatry. These verses are few, especially when compared to the Biblical torrent of words lambasting greed, gluttony, and power without conscience. Lesbianism is never mentioned in the Old Testament. Jesus never mentioned homosexuality or homogenital acts. Bible scholars argue that the reason the Bible does not address homosexuality as such is that homosexuality was not fully understood by the ancients.

The three passages repeatedly cited by homophobes need to be understood in context. For example, homophobes cite the Sodom story as evidence of Biblical condemnation of homosexuals. The Bible, in fact, reports the sins of Sodom as pride, gluttony, ease, and greed (Ezekiel 16:49). An illuminating version of the Sodom story appears in Judges. There the predatory gang, mistakenly identified by modern homophobes as homosexuals, rapes a woman sacrificed to protect her male companions (Judges 19:22-26). Clearly, gang rape, rather than homosexuality, was these men’s crime.

The Bible does record extraordinary love between members of the same gender. Perhaps the most poignant love vow in world literature was spoken by Ruth to Naomi (Ruth 1:16, 17). Jonathan risked and sacrificed incalculably for David, with whom he exchanged numerous love vows, and whom he loved as he loved his own life (1 Samuel 20, 17). When Jonathan died, David said, “your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women” (2 Samuel 1:26).

Study reveals that the Bible is not the gay bashing handbook so-called Fundamentalists would like to pretend it to be. The Bible’s text erodes the Fundamentalist position; the kind of document the Bible is erodes their position even further. Jesuit Walter J. Ong, Eric Havelock, and other scholars of oral cultures tell us that folk literature served as encyclopedia. In the absence of libraries and computers, sacred scripture, memorized by tribe members, had to encapsulate every byte of data deemed important to the tribe. Modern Christians dismiss much of such data found in the Bible as simply inaccurate. No Christian physician would tell his patient, as the Bible does, to cure illness by drinking alcohol (Timothy 5:23). No contemporary preacher calls for the incarceration and torture of Stephen Hawking, although Galileo once suffered such a fate under the church because his findings contradicted the Biblical concept of the solar system.

The Bible is not the contemporary Christian’s physician’s Desk Reference -- hydrocortisone works better for eczema than forcing the itchy to muss their hair, dwell apart, and shout, “Unclean!” The Bible is not our political system -- we can rejoice that we no longer practice the slavery so vigorously defended by Paul. Christian historians seeking the truth of Jesus’ life must juggle competing and contradictory versions of his genealogy in Mathew and Luke; versions that, it is openly acknowledged, were written to appeal to special interest groups. The Bible as databank of secular knowledge has lost ground. To ask the Bible to teach us about aspects of human sexuality that were deeply misunderstood in ancient times is to torture the book, to force it to perform tasks it cannot do.

Sister Wendy Beckett has pointed out that art starts at the top; that today’s art may be different from the cave paintings of Lascaux, but it is no better. Spiritual writing, too, starts at the top. Nothing written today surpasses the spiritual classics. The Bible remains an inspiration for modern Christians and Jews, and that inspiration is found in words like, “Love God; love your neighbor as yourself; that is the law and the prophets.” To reject such words because of the politicized application of their neighbors is to unnecessarily impoverish ourselves, to surrender to the forces of oppression and cruelty, and to lie to ourselves about our birthright.

It is not enough to claim the Bible; one must also live it. In The Good Book, Reverend Peter J. Gomes describes how so-called Christian rhetoric directed against homosexuals makes fertile the ground for brutal beatings and, yes, even religion inspired murder. The Bible’s overall message, the Bible’s repeated warnings against a crafty, self serving literalism, adjure Christians and Jews to speak up and out when scripture is prostituted to serve homophobic campaigns of violence and hate.

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The Dan Savage video can be viewed here.

Suicide, Catholicism, and Atheism

"The Suicide" by Edouard Manet. Source.

"Save Send Delete" is a hard book to pigeonhole. It's been compared to "Griffin and Sabine," "84 Charring Cross Road," "Eat Pray Love" "Life of Pi" and C. S. Lewis' work.

Marketers ask who my audience is. "Intelligent people who like to laugh and who aren't put off by the occasional dirty word and who want the big answers or at least the big questions."

"Save Send Delete" is really a long conversation between two people: a devout Catholic (me) and a celebrity atheist (Anonymous – but he jokes that he wants to play himself in the movie version.)

One of the big questions that the Catholic and the Anonymous Atheist discuss is suicide.

People are so steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition and its values – like a fish, they don't realize that they are in water.

In fact, though, there are value systems in which suicide, and, indeed, infanticide – killing your own children – make sense. In some value systems, they are required. In Ancient Sparta, for just one example, deformed or weak infants were left to die. Suicide in Japan is seen very differently than in the West.

But we are in water – we are surrounded by Judeo-Christian values. And so we automatically assume that suicide is a tragedy. We make this assumption whether we are Christian or Jewish or not. We do so because of the values of our culture, a culture based on the Judeo-Christian tradition.

What if the New Atheists had their way? What if we eliminated the Judeo-Christian tradition, and its influence on our values? Would the New Atheists be able to offer any intellectually coherent argument against suicide?

When I was writing "Save Send Delete," I asked that question on an internet discussion board for atheists. The question aroused some anger – sometimes I wonder if you can say anything to a New Atheist without arousing some anger.

But no one was able to offer a response. If material reality is all there is – if the only reality is what we can hear, smell, see, touch, taste – if there is nothing unseen by us – if there is no God, no soul, no afterlife – if the Judeo-Christian tradition is wrong and there is no hell, no heaven, no eternal consequence for every choice we make, every action we perform – what argument is there against ending an unhappy life? None, maybe. I'm asking, here.

For Catholics, of course, suicide is a huge taboo. I remember a priest mentioning, during a sermon I heard in my childhood, that suicides could not be buried in consecrated ground. This sent a chill through me. For a sin to be so heinous that the sinner's dead flesh could not even be allowed contact with something as common as dirt, no contact with soil that had been blessed by a Catholic priest – shudder. That solemnly flamboyant sacramental rejection struck me as the worst kind of exclusion a human being might ever experience.

The Catholic rejection of suicide is consistent with what Cardinal Joseph Bernardincalled the "seamless garment." Catholicism supports the life of each individual. Abortion, suicide, euthanasia, unjust war and the death penalty are all big no-nos in the "seamless garment" school of Catholic thought.

I thought about this debate while reading the New York Times on Sunday. There were two prominent articles about suicide.

"Increasingly, Suicide by 'Economic Crisis' Is a Symptom of the Downturn in Europe" talked about an "alarming spike in suicide rates" among men in Europe killing themselves because of the economic crisis there.

A 53 year old Italian man, Antonio Tamiozzo, hanged himself in his warehouse after debtors reneged on their debts. Giovanni Schiavon, 59, a contractor, shot himself after contemplating Christmas firings of workers. "Sorry, I cannot take it anymore," his note said. A 77 year old retiree shot himself outside the Greek Parliament on April 4.

In Greece, the suicide rate among men has increased 24 percent from 2007 to 2009. In Ireland, suicides among men rose 16 percent. In Italy, suicides increased 52 percent. In Veneto, Italy, thirty small business people have committed suicide in the past three years for reasons related to work. One Irish businessman considered suicide after a banker said to him, "Save the sob story. We want our money. If that means taking your family home, we'll do it." The man did not kill himself; rather, he went on to found a group to help struggling businessmen.

The Times attributed the spate of suicides in Veneto, Italy, to a lessening of the centrality of Catholicism in people's lives. "Work became the religion here, and over time it has weakened the family, because if all you do is work, work, work, you have little else to fall on when work fails." Caritas, a Catholic charity, is trying to help businesspeople cope. In Ireland, a Catholic church in Clonmel offered a three-day seminar, "Suicide in Recessionary Times."

The second article on suicide in Sunday's New York Times was "A Veteran's Death, the Nation's Shame" by Nicholas D. Kristof.

This article about military suicides contained truly shocking numbers: "For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands…Veterans kill themselves at the rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year – more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined…For men ages 17 to 24, being a veteran almost quadruples the risk of suicide."

Kristof focused on one suicide, Ryan Yurchison. Kristof asked his mother, Cheryl DeBow, why she was allowing him, Kristof, to draw national attention to her son's suicide. "He was willing to sacrifice his life for his country," she said. "And he did, just in a different way, without the glory."

I'm guessing that anyone reading this post feels, as I did, sad when I read of these suicides among businessmen in Europe and veterans in the US. Our reaction is based on the assumption that each individual human life has value. We could have a very different reaction. We could say, Well, these men have failed, and it is good that they have ended their lives. In many cultures, that would be the "normal" response.