I heard an interesting interview with Richard Dawkins on the radio Monday. I was driving to an interview at a wine bar, and Dawkins was on a radio call in show I listen to on NPR. He was doing his usual thing where he dumps on religion both conceptually and culturally, and said that it should be child abuse to teach children to follow their parents' religion. In fairness, he said similar things about Santa Claus. This isn't the interesting part.
The interesting part is that the host asked Dawkins a question. Apparently a series of recent (or relatively recent) studies suggest that people who are religious tend to be happier, more well balanced, and deal with stress better. The question regarded those studies, the host asked something along the lines of, "If there are such health and life benefits of religion, isn't it worthwhile to practice religion whether or not there's evidence to support it.
Dawkins dodged the question by saying that whether the person is healthier or happier doesn't actually change whether the belief is right. It was at that moment, when I wrote off Richard Dawkins entirely as a great thinker or someone with anything to say outside of his particular scientific fields. I realize that may seem harsh, but it also seems obvious. Here's why: I hate people who dodge direct questions and use that opportunity to spew talking points. I hate it when politicians do it, and I hate it even more when allegedly great thinkers do.
I'm gong to tell you a secret about the world. It's complicated, and circumstances vary wildly. There exists no philosophy or belief system which will not be challenged at some point by the world. I'm against the death penalty. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't want to kill someone who had committed a horrible crime against someone I loved. It means that society should act with greater restraint than a person in personal crisis brought on by grief. Dawkins has a personal philosophy, that there is no G-d, there can't be one, and that refusal to believe in G-d is good. When faced with a challenge to his belief, "But what about happiness?" He didn't accept that criticism, nor did he acknowledge that failing of atheism. He, rather chose that opportunity to ignore the meat of the question and focus on an alternative value.
Even if you are right, there are sometimes measurable advantages to being wrong. If that's the case, maybe being right doesn't matter. Ignoring this fact is a terrible way to live your life. It's also a terrible way to govern, and I point this out because it's how the extreme right is governing right now. The extreme right is arguing that it's unfair to require individuals to get health care now, but not require employers to provide it until next year. In theory, that's true. However, it's better to have our federal government working with one bad law than have it not working.
Period. There's no debate. It doesn't matter if Ted Cruz is right, what he's doing is awful. And it's time we stop having the debate. I don't care about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I care about having a government that won't default on its debts.
Tomorrow I'll try to do the piece on what happens if we default.
Well thought out criticism is essential for an evolving point of view. It's too bad he didn't take that opportunity to explain views on how despite the advantages of spirituality, that there might be a greater cost. That would have been really interesting.
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