While declaring war on religious belief would very likely be self-defeating and futile, the fact remains that we have to find ways to defeat it. We cannot make the mistake that Rand made of assuming that it will fade away as people become more enlightened. While many religious people may indeed keep their mysticism under wraps and behave otherwise like rational human beings, the premises underlying their world-view are in fact deadly. To understand why, consider the case of radio talk show host Dennis Prager, whom I listen to frequently.
He is fond of saying that the real war in the world today is between secularism and religion, and that what is needed is a return to Judeo-Christian tradition and values. He is a strong defender of George Bush and his neocon agenda of compassionate conservatism, with all of its huge outlays of lavish government spending and its “benevolent” nation-building efforts to establish democracies in Muslim hell-holes. It is of no apparent concern to him that thousands of American lives have been sacrificed so that primitive savages can have the freedom to blow each other up on a daily basis. Altruism and self-sacrifice are totally consistent with his absolute devotion to the Torah, which he teaches at a local seminary. (He is a nonorthodox Jew.)
Yet, he often pays lip-service to logic and reason, and will contend that his world-view is perfectly rational. He will acknowledge that his belief in God entails a ‘leap of faith,’ but argues that the atheist must make a similar leap to deny God. He believes in “Intelligent Design,” and argues that it is illogical to suggest that the universe we see around us could have come about by what he calls “chance.”
He debates foolish but well-known nonbelievers like Sam Harris (whose book, The End of Faith, openly embraces the mystical, anti-self doctrines of Eastern religion). And he rejoices in the conversion of atheist philosophers like Antony Flew, whose seduction by the proselytizers of “Intelligent Design” prompted lengthy discussions on his show. He cites this as proof that “intellectually honest” atheists must admit that their viewpoint is ultimately no more defensible than his.
He will not debate an Objectivist. The last time I spoke with his call screener, she informed me that he considers Ayn Rand’s ideas to be too radical for presentation on his show. I met him by accident at the Denver airport a few years ago, and informed him that I was an atheist but that I enjoyed listening to his show. He mentioned the encounter on his show the following day, and subsequently responded to an e-mail I sent him. I have sent numerous e-mails since, explaining the modernist philosophical premises underlying his defense of theism and his ignorance of the classical Aristotelian laws of identity and causality. He has never responded, and he continues to pepper his monologues with comments about how the secularist sees everything as inherently chaotic. ‘How is it possible that all of this came about by chance?’ he still wants to know, despite my multiple explanations of the Objectivist view.
His weekly “Ultimate Issues Hour” was recently devoted to analyzing and answering the atheist’s confounding question “Who created God?” He argued that the question itself was somehow invalid. The fact is, he had to say that because he doesn't have an answer.
His mind is clearly closed to the idea that someone could demonstrate the falsity of his belief in God. His abject devotion to religion shuts that out completely. He admits that he would find it very difficult to face life if he did not believe there was a God up there doling out justice to child killers and mass murderers in the hereafter. If he was an atheist, he says, he would suffer from chronic depression.
He has a number of favorite quotations and trite phrases that he cites frequently.
(1) “If people stop believing in God, they do not believe in something, they believe in anything.”
(2) “Without God, there is no wisdom.”
(3) “Without God, life has no meaning.” (An argument he has borrowed, unknowingly, from Immanuel Kant.)
He will not allow his belief in God to be subjected to doubt—nor will he allow his endorsement of the Ten Commandments to be seriously challenged. He has a stock response to any caller who suggests that we could have a well-defined code of ethics without God. It would just amount to whatever each individual felt, he will say. Ethics without God would be purely subjective. I have also informed him in e-mails that Ayn Rand showed how a truly objective code of ethics could be derived from human nature and the requirements of human life. Again, no response.
Prager devotes an hour of his show to the subject of happiness every week. Is he, therefore, an advocate of enlightened self-interest? No, he says we have an obligation or a duty to be happy—in order to make the world a better place.
He detests the self-esteem movement. He often says that one of his greatest insights was his discovery that his toughest battle in life was his battle against his own deepest self. (See my prior reference to Edwin Locke's profound insight about how religion promotes repression.) His views on sexuality are relatively enlightened, although he expresses opposition to sex outside of marriage. And he attributes sexual desire to the "baser aspects of human nature."
He praises religious fundamentalism and Christian evangelicals as the saviors of America’s future. Most of his callers are as pious as he is. That is typically his first question of them, if he elects to probe the reasons for their point-of-view.
The bottom line is this: Prager likes to cloak himself in the robe of reason, but his soul is that of a Bible-thumper. Like many religious people, he claims to be ready to face any challenge, but will not open any door that might potentially threaten his God-fearing view of life and the universe. He knows how to protect his theological perspective—and, along with it, his fundamental values of altruism and self-sacrifice.
Prager demonstrates how and why it will not work for Objectivists to simply try to co-exist with believers who pay lip service to reason. His veneer of self-proclaimed rationality notwithstanding, he is an altruist to the core, as are those who share his basic outlook. Because they are altruists, they will ultimately oppose any comprehensive effort to pare back the welfare state. Note how they defend Bush by pointing to all the federal money he has given to sundry humanitarian causes and programs. In some cases, they boast that he has spent more on such programs than Clinton.
And like George Bush, they often talk tough but are utterly lacking in the courage and self-confidence to seek out and destroy the fanatical, bloodthirsty savages in foreign lands who would kill us. As they see it, the sacrifice of innocent American lives is a small price to pay to demonstrate our moral purity to thugs in every rat hole across the globe. Despite superficial appearances, the avowed ethical principles of these “modernized” believers betray their alliance with fundamentally anti-American values that will ultimately ring down the curtain on America. They are not our allies.
Dennis
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