Matt and Trey's Broadway musical, "The Book Of Mormon" has won a lot of praise. It's well deserved (judging by the cast recording). It's not just funny, like the South Park episode, "All about the Mormons", it's also quite touching. However, one criticism that I haven't quite heard enough to my satisfaction is this. Isn't the moral of this story kind of cynical?
To explain, let me sum up the plot. Two 19 year old Mormon Elders are sent on a 2 year missionary trip to Uganda. The conditions there are terrible, women are mutilated, human life carries little to no value, and 80% of the villagers have AIDS. After the more "capable" of the two fails to persuade any villagers to convert, his chunky sidekick has better luck by tweaking the content of the Book of Mormon to include morals about dealing with AIDS, not cutting off clitorises (clitorii?), and not raping babies (not to mention inserting Boba Fett, Sauron and the fiery pits of Mordor). This persuades the entire village to convert and reform. Mormon bigwigs don't like the liberal attitude toward the scriptures and throw the two (along with the villagers) out of the church. They all decide to continue with their own scriptures and their own church.
The moral of the story is that it's OK to tweak the facts, or to put only 50% belief into those "facts" as long as, at the end of the day, you're helping people live a better way.
This seems like a popular viewpoint. The viewpoint of lukewarm believers and non-believers alike, that what's true or real is not as important as taking the stories and proverbs and rolling with them. What's true is not as important as avoiding being a dick. Like by being a stickler about truth and falsehood.
Yeah, I kinda take exception to that. What is real and what is true does matter. I enjoy a rest from reality as much as the next guy. Taking a break to read some fantasy or sci-fi is fun. But to live your life according things which you figure are probably false, but ignore because your quality of life is better. That's just bogus and wrong. Or the flip side, to believe that you do indeed possess some understanding of the truth, but refusing to engage others for fear of looking like a dick.
It just surprises me that this isn't more amity, or at least grudging respect between devoted evangelists and "new atheists" like Dawkins and Hitchens. They both share the quality of belief in hard truths which should be promoted, and conversely, blatant falsehoods which should be publicly refuted and given the boot.
I think, privately, there may be a measure of respect between the activists on the side of religion and Hitchens/Dawkins, but not a lot.
ReplyDeleteYour leaders on both side of this debate are not the "Kill the Pope" or "Kill Dawkins" crowd, but more tempered intellectuals. As such, I'm sure they develop some kind of respect for their adversary.
Still, Christian belief is that atheist activists are on a path likely to end in hell and they're trying to bring others along for the ride.
(Yes, though many won't say it, Christians should probably say the same about non-Christian faiths as well, but there is a matter of comparison that has us hold them above atheists, right or wrong)
Dawkins and Hitchen seems to view Christians as infantile, blind, sheep, immoral etc.
That said, you're not likely to hear either one pat the other on the back in public, though there would be nothing wrong with noting that an adversary is worthy.
For me, I guess it's not amity, and maybe not even respect, but I do prefer my adversary to be clear about their ideals.
ReplyDeleteTrying to challenge a wishy-washy is like trying to nail jello to the wall. It's difficult enough to nail Christian (delicious pun), but if their attitude towards truth is shadowy and vague, it's so close to futile as to become unworthy of the effort. Better to simply mark them for what they are, and find someone else to play with.
Those with clear and uncompromising ideals, on the other hand are much easier to analyze, understand and attack. Their values are, in some way, parallel, so there's a common ground on which to make a serious challenge.
Let's just throw our hands up into the air and shout, "hasa diga eebowai."
ReplyDelete"It just surprises me that this isn't more amity, or at least grudging respect between devoted evangelists and "new atheists" like Dawkins and Hitchens. They both share the quality of belief in hard truths which should be promoted, and conversely, blatant falsehoods which should be publicly refuted and given the boot."
I am not at all surprised that there is little to no respect between evangelists and atheists. After all, even though they are both interested in uncovering the truth, their methods of doing so are on two opposite ends of a spectrum.
Richard Dawkins doesn't seem to have any respect for religious people at all. He refuses to debate young-earth creationists (he thinks doing so makes the creationist's position seem creditable), he criticizes moderate religious people for liberalizing their belief systems, and supports the movement to refer to people with a naturalistic worldview as "Brights".
I think you might be able to find some degree of begrudging respect for the opposite team within Hitchens and Dennett. Hitchens is more open about the types of religious people he will debate and is also critical of that absurd Brights Movement. As for Daniel Dennett, he had at least a few nice things to say about William Lane Craig in this youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb10QvaHpS4
I don't know about Sam Harris. He's never really interested me as a figurehead of "New Atheism."
Of course, I needn't remind anyone that the majority of religious people do not have a positive view of atheists.
Let's just throw our hands up into the air and shout, "hasa diga eebowai."
ReplyDelete"It just surprises me that this isn't more amity, or at least grudging respect between devoted evangelists and "new atheists" like Dawkins and Hitchens. They both share the quality of belief in hard truths which should be promoted, and conversely, blatant falsehoods which should be publicly refuted and given the boot."
I am not at all surprised that there is little to no respect between evangelists and atheists. After all, even though they are both interested in uncovering the truth, their methods of doing so are on two opposite ends of a spectrum.
Richard Dawkins doesn't seem to have any respect for religious people at all. He refuses to debate young-earth creationists (he thinks doing so makes the creationist's position seem creditable), he criticizes moderate religious people for liberalizing their belief systems, and supports the movement to refer to people with a naturalistic worldview as "Brights".
I think you might be able to find some degree of begrudging respect for the opposite team within Hitchens and Dennett. Hitchens is more open about the types of religious people he will debate and is also critical of that absurd Brights Movement. As for Daniel Dennett, he had at least a few nice things to say about William Lane Craig in this youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb10QvaHpS4
I don't know about Sam Harris. He's never really interested me as a figurehead of "New Atheism."
Of course, I needn't remind anyone that the majority of religious people do not have a positive view of atheists.