Book of the Week: "The Case for God"

Last summer, we adopted a little girl who'd been fostered by a deeply evangelical couple, "called" to minister to children in China. I'm more accustomed to mocking the faithful than to thanking them, and I'm not good at hypocrisy. I picked up The Case for God looking for a reason to change.

I had a purely secular education, and except for a brief flirtation with the Christianity of Amy Grant (I'm so ashamed), I've never left the atheist fold in which I was raised. I had to respect the way Rory's foster parents acted on their religious convictions—who wouldn't?—but in my mind, evangelical Christians were those who "blindly accepted that 'Jesus could be eaten in the form of a cracker.' " My effort to reconcile those two ideas led me to The Case for God. Karen Armstrong, once a nun and now a TED prizewinner, argues that it is the actions, rather than the doctrine, that have constituted "religion" for most of its history, and she effectively let me off the hook. If what people do with their religion (rather than what they say about it) is "God," then that's a God I can believe in.

The Case for God is a massive book, covering the history of the major religions and their varying descents into fundamentalism and including a thorough investigation into philosophy. I liked it. But in my mind it's misleadingly titled—I'd call it The Case for God (Kinda). Armstrong's God is not the "God" that Richard Dawkins et al. protest, nor one that most people would recognize as such. She takes religion back to a time when examination, not faith, was its purpose, and the God she defends can't be argued with because, in a sense, her God is argument itself. She makes a case, not for "God," but for the kind of examined life that a search for God delivers. "Why is there something, and not nothing?" The answer, for Armstrong, isn't God. But the question is. Which makes "The Case for God" that rare (maybe singular) book that lets you argue with your atheist cousin AND your fundamentalist aunt—or just reconcile your affection for the two.

KJ Dell'Antonia Former Manhattan lawyer and prosecutor, Xxtra Small reviewer, parent of four. Lover of books and bacon.

Comments

In response to anonymous'

By: Medusas_Laugh | Sun, 11/08/2009 - 02:04

In response to anonymous' comment: "In regards to the last little bit of your comment: I think there is a slight difference between the quality of atheists' and theists' belief systems. It seems to me that it's one thing to entirely to dream up this being (or accept the existence of such a being that was dreamt up by people eons ago) and choose to continue believing in that being despite not having real evidence that it exists. It's an entirely different thing to look around one's self, not see or experience any sort of "god" and then decide it doesn't exist. Yes, they are both belief systems, and I know many theists will say they have felt the presence of god or whatever, but I still think there is an important difference that we need to acknowledge in any intelligent discussion."

Apparently you are unfamiliar with formal logic. I was not arguing that I could "look around" and see evidence that a God exists. I was stating that you can no more prove that God doesn't exist than I can prove that God does exist. My argument isn't based in any religious experience; I never said anything of the sort. Perhaps you should actually read the comment and respond to it instead of posting knee-jerk reactions.

And about the book

By: anonymous | Tue, 10/27/2009 - 08:42

I'm actually really interested in reading it. I've tried to get through her "A History of God" at least three times, and have maybe gotten halfway through. It's interesting reading, but dense. This one seems like it might be more readable as less of a straight-up history text.

clarification

By: anonymous | Tue, 10/27/2009 - 08:38

I didn't say that atheists' beliefs/experiences are of better quality than those of theists. I said they had a different quality. I meant that in the same way that strawberries have a different quality of taste than artichokes; one's not any better than the other, just different, and subject to our individual interpretations.
I admit I may have been a little bit flippant in referring to theists' experiences of god as evidence for their beliefs. I apologize for that, as I didn't mean it to come off that way. I just wanted to point out that it is a different type of experience than those that we can all look around us and see, feel, taste, touch, etc. Your analogy to love is actually a good one, and I respect that.
I guess it's just that for myself, from my experiences of this world, I have (tentatively) concluded that there is a spiritual aspect of life, but it is in all the things and people we come into contact with daily. I don't see evidence of a being or "god" of any sort. But that's just me. I respect others' beliefs, and I understand that we all need something to help explain the world and we all come to those explanations differently.

@Medusas_Laugh

By: anonymous | Mon, 10/26/2009 - 19:51

In regards to the last little bit of your comment: I think there is a slight difference between the quality of atheists' and theists' belief systems. It seems to me that it's one thing to entirely to dream up this being (or accept the existence of such a being that was dreamt up by people eons ago) and choose to continue believing in that being despite not having real evidence that it exists. It's an entirely different thing to look around one's self, not see or experience any sort of "god" and then decide it doesn't exist. Yes, they are both belief systems, and I know many theists will say they have felt the presence of god or whatever, but I still think there is an important difference that we need to acknowledge in any intelligent discussion.

Belief structure = Religion

By: phpeter | Mon, 10/26/2009 - 15:03

Whether you are Athiest, Agnostic, Jewish or Christian...you have a belief structure, a religion by definition (the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects) that you hold to. You can try to call it "free thinking" or whatever intelectually soothing label you would like, but the point is that you will pass on a belief structure to your children and no matter how "free thinking" you want them to be, if they came home from college a Christian, would you still be happy with their choice?

A few things:

By: Medusas_Laugh | Mon, 10/26/2009 - 11:04

First, this is not a book review. Book reviews evaluate the structure, style, and argument of a book. This piece doesn’t really do any of these. Also, I don’t understand your need to personalize the piece by advertising how cranky you can be about your adopted daughter’s foster parents. It’s great that you can respect them acting on their religious convictions, but I don’t see why you would want to condemn them for their beliefs in the first place. What difference should it make to you if they’re Christian, Buddhist, or whatever? Live and let live. They took care of your daughter before she came to you, and from what I can gather from this piece, delivered her to you to without any qualms about your atheism. Perhaps that in itself is reason enough to view them with respect, kindness, and gratitude.

Secondly, just as atheists do not wish to be characterized as angry, hateful, nasty people, some of us Christians do not wish to be characterized as being puritanical, close-minded, science-hating Bible-thumpers. Please know that evangelical Christians do not represent the overwhelming majority of Christians in the world, although their numbers and political power are increasing at an alarming rate. Your reference to Sam Harris’ The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason when referring to how you view Christians' ritual of Eucharist speaks volumes for your prejudice. If you take seriously the writings of a man who likens all religious faith to terrorism, then Karen Armstrong isn’t going to do that much for you.

Thirdly, I know I’m going to catch hell for saying this, but atheism is a belief system, similar to Christianity and others. How so? I cannot prove to you or anyone that God exists. Not with empirical evidence. It is impossible. I can argue, I can make a logical case, but the fact is that I cannot prove to you that God exists the way in which I would prove that gravity does. The converse of this is that you cannot prove to me that God doesn’t exist with empirical evidence. You can argue, you can make a logical case, but it cannot be done. Just as I choose to believe something that I cannot prove, so do you. You choose to believe that God doesn’t exist, without empirical evidence, just as I choose to believe that something does exist. Regardless of the positivity or negativity of the belief itself, the fact remains that there is no way of knowing for sure. So in this way, atheists and theists are similar. It's something to think about.

Good to know and I stand corrected

By: Amy | Sun, 10/25/2009 - 15:38

@ Brent - thanks for the kind words and that's great to hear about your kids. I'm really looking forward to it but have never actually witnessed it happening in real life, so it has an exotic air to it for me. I'm excited about Dawkins forthcoming kids book though - it will definitely be a good way to start a "skeptic kid" bookshelf!

@ anon - you're right, I totally misread what Drinne said there - my bad! I guessed I sensed a lot of anger and sweeping judgment towards atheists and was responding to that, although I should have paid more attention to her actual words. Thanks!

@Amy

By: anonymous | Sun, 10/25/2009 - 08:00

Just a little clarification: I'm pretty sure Drinne was not claiming that atheists want to pass laws restricting religious freedom. He/She was saying that atheists shouldn't want to make agnostics "choose sides" because agnostics are doing no harm to atheists, and are actually on their side, in that they would never want to limit anyone's freedom to practice or not practice any religion. That's all.

Amy

By: brent | Sat, 10/24/2009 - 22:12

Amy, great posts by the way, you articulate the atheist position very clearly and accurately! You asked "I'm extremely curious about people who were raised by atheists, especially since I plan to raise my (eventual) child(ren) to be skeptical of all supernatural belief." From watching others I have observed that it takes a lot more work to raise children to believe several thousand year old mythology. That takes large amounts of repetition and reinforcement. I found raising two freethinkers was very easy. They find it easy to observe and evaluate what they are seeing, feeling and being told. We did caution them to not be to confrontational regarding religious beliefs and they are getting along great! It just isn't a big deal to them...

@Drinne

By: Amy | Sat, 10/24/2009 - 14:07

If I may clarify the atheist position to which you refer, atheism is about doubt, not certainty or dogma. Dawkins is quite clear about this in 'The God Delusion' and other writings. The only commonality between atheists is the lack of a god belief. As it is impossible to prove a negative, it is impossible to prove without question that there is no god; it is similarly impossible to prove that there are no fairies at the bottom of the garden, to paraphrase Dawkins. It is, however, reasonable to reach the opinion that the existence of a god(s) is approximately as likely as fairies.
***
The semantic debate between 'atheist' and 'agnostic' is unending (much of that having to do with the American social stigma placed on identification as 'atheist' but what is fabulously misunderstood is that 'atheist' identification, being NOT A DOGMA, means different things to different people. Even Dawkins lays out a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being certainty that god(s) exists (a logical impossibility) and 10 being certainty that god(s) do not (also a logical impossibility). Dawkins places himself around a 9.5 on this list, as do I. The agnostic position, as I understand it, basically says 'we have no way of knowing either way if god(s) exist." Not terribly different from being, say, a 5-7 on that spectrum, except for the fact that it's socially acceptable to identify as agnostic in America and virtually social suicide to identify as atheist.
***
I'm sorry that you have the impression that atheists (as some sort of monolithic, dogmatic group, which is the opposite of what they are) seek to "pass laws limiting religious freedom or freedom from religion." You are partially mistaken. Atheists are not a dogmatic "group" as I've said, and no reasonable person, including atheists, wishes to limit freedom of thought expression, which includes religion. The establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution is the basis for 'freedom from religion' in this country, which established precedents interpret to mean that while individuals, private entities, churches, etc are free do think and do whatever they want with respect to religious beliefs, public entities (governments), public tax dollars, etc MAY NOT be used to promote or favor religion. I can assure that the 'Atheist Conspiracy To Close Down Churches And Ban Relgion' is a fiction of the exceptionally paranoid.
***
Nor does anyone (as a monolithic group) wish to force agnostics to declare or do anything. However, as atheist is a dirty word in America (precisely why so many atheists feel the need to stand up for themselves and remind the public that one can be 'Good without god'), many people are afraid to identify as atheists and agnostic is the socially permissible opt-out. We see the exact same problem whenever a woman utters the unfortunate "Well I'm no feminist, BUT...(I believe in equal pay for equal work, etc)" - this is the motivation behind the argument that Armstrong is an atheist hiding under cover of more acceptable labels. I'm not saying that agnostic is an illegitimate position, just that Armstrong has put herself in a position where she needs to be clear about where she stands.
***
The point that I make, and I understand Dawkins and Myers to be making, is that Armstrong's position may be whatever it may be (she is certainly entitled to it), however when one is writing a book titled 'The Case for God,' it is incumbent upon her to clarify where she's coming from; to hedge on this is an intellectually dishonest attempt to be accommodating by disguising the basis of her assumptions. Dawkins is not an absolutist - this is the caricature made of him by those who haven't bothered to read his writing or have grossly misinterpreted it. He doesn't demand Armstrong be an absolutist either; he asks for intellectual honesty in defining one's position, something which Armstrong is avoiding in her attempts to avoid the controversy attendant with identifying as atheist. Call a spade a spade, in other words; be proud of your position and don't be afraid of what others will think.