Religulous

First, a comment on my last post: I don't like reading long blog posts, so I'm going to try not to write any either. In general, the longer a blog post gets, the more incoherent it becomes. I don't know who came up with the word "blog," but it's pretty perfect. A lot of Germanic words that begin with the "bl" consonant cluster relate to an outward flow of something: bleat, blast, bleed, blow, blare, etc. One bleats, blows, and blasts words in a blog: temperance and restraint are not usually the guiding principles of blogging. The blog is not amenable to long, sustained arguments: these belong elsewhere. Blogs are for bleating, which is what I will try to do from now on.

Religulous: This movie is exactly what you expect. Bill Maher says he wants to figure out why religious people are religious. Instead of any sustained conversation with interesting people about why they believe, he mostly seeks out the nuttiest folks and makes fun of their beliefs. He ends the film with a call-to-action argument directed at atheists. He says atheists should make their voices heard in public debate. What is ironic is that the voice we hear from Maher in the film is condescending and immature, and undoubtedly works against any possibility of dialogue between believers and non-believers.

I am opposed to supporting, tolerating or "respecting" crazy beliefs when those beliefs have proven themselves destructive. Religion falls into this category, but, of course, so do many non-religious belief systems. The biggest trick that religion plays is that it convinces non-believers, because it includes an explicit system of morality, that it is necessary to respect religion even if one doesn't believe in it. This is the conclusion that Maher (and Dawkins, et al) have reached (and I agree with it), but they completely misinterpret what should follow from it. Telling people that you don't respect their beliefs and ridiculing them is counterproductive to the political cause for which they claim to be fighting. I am constantly amazed at the rhetorical failures of the atheist vanguard, but I do understand that they are faced with a difficult question: how does one communicate disrespect without being an asshole?

It is necessary to communicate disrespect, because as long as religion is respected as a source of truth and guidance (even when one does not believe in it), it will continue to exert influence in the public sphere. The atheist vanguard's political focus is to secularize the public sphere, so it is rhetorically necessary to erode the perception that religion is the fundamental source of morality in Western cultures. The only way to do this is to divest people of the illusion that religion should be respected even when one doesn't believe in it, and to argue that morality is not actually grounded in religion (which is why I think that all of these genetic explanations for why we love, care, nurture, etc., while completely false, are politically advantageous for the non-religious).

I don't have a good answer for how to respectfully argue that a belief system should not be respected. It's a difficult problem. I do know, however, that being overtly disrespectful toward a system that you don't believe deserves respect is not a successful argumentative strategy. It's just a good way to get people to hate you more. Maher's film does for secularism what the Spice Girls' "Girl Power" did for feminism: it dresses itself up in politically progressive clothing but its specific content undercuts the goals of the politics with which it claims to associate itself.