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How Not To Promote Religious Tolerance

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Originally from Gus Van Horn,

In the January 20 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education is an article by Daniel C. Dennett called "Common-Sense Religion", in which the author attempts to make a case for religious tolerance. The article is remarkable because its author makes a fundamental error that undercuts him every step of the way. Namely, he does not appeal to his reader's implicit (though perhaps delimited) acceptance of the idea that man's life is the standard of value by which to judge ethical decisions.

I intend to quickly outline how one should approach the issue of promoting religious toleration, before moving on to explore a few of the many interesting ramifications of the particular form Dennett's error takes, which is to attempt to appeal to his reader's religious convictions after first implicitly challenging them.

How to Promote Religious Tolerance

The fundamental problems presented to society by religion are (1) that a religion offers ethical guidance for its followers, (2) part of that guidance very frequently includes orders to oppress or murder those who do not follow all the rules of that religion, and (3) that it is held on faith, without evidence or proof. In order, this means that religion (1) attempts to fill the need for human beings to have some sort of guidance for their actions, (2) makes its followers "other-directed", and (3) preempts rational debate when there is disagreement about whether some action is in accordance with its strictures or even about what those strictures say. In short, as thousands of bloody years of history have shown, there is never enough room for two religions (or sometimes even one) in one place -- unless enough followers from each value their "earthly" lives enough to set aside the requirements of their faith to enforce it on others.

How do we promote religious tolerance (i.e., a respect for the rights of those whose opinions differ) among people who will not simply abandon religion? In the Christian West, where many sects have coexisted at once (but not always peacefully), the hard lesson that religious differences promoted bloodshed was gradually learned. Countless individuals, wishing to live their lives, even if only by the (remaining) lights of their respective faiths, agreed to lay off the murder and mayhem. This was because these men implicitly held their own lives as the standard of value, at least in matters pertaining to how they chose to react to the fact that someone did not agree with them on religious matters. The way to encourage and spread this attitude among the religious is not by appeals to religion, but by appeals to objective self-interest, namely, to the desire to remain alive and free. Such appeals would be educational in nature, and would focus on ensuring that the lessons of the past are not forgotten.

This will not, of course, convince everyone who adheres to a given sect to practice religious tolerance, for some emphatically do not value their own lives. But I am not speaking of such lost causes here. And, of course, even though most religious people in the West implicitly value their own lives, many do not fully appreciate that certain laws they advocate based upon their religious beliefs violate the rights of others. Thus, so long as a a large portion of a population remains religious, there is always a danger posed to individual freedom.

How NOT to Promote Religious Tolerance

But Daniel Dennett does not appeal, even implicitly, to his (religious) reader's love of his life when he makes his argument for religious toleration. Instead, he goes to great lengths to outline his explicit position that one should not challenge religious beliefs at all (while smuggling in moral relativism), and then attempts to smuggle in his idea of an appeal to reason -- based on those religious beliefs and some other premises he smuggles in.

Here is why Dennett argues as he does.

Many would say that without [religion], their lives would be meaningless. It's tempting just to take them at their word, to declare that nothing more is to be said -- and to tiptoe away. Who would want to interfere with whatever it is that gives their lives meaning? But if we do that, we willfully ignore some serious questions. Can just any religion give lives meaning, in a way that we should honor and respect? What about people who fall into the clutches of cult leaders, or who are duped into giving their life savings to religious con artists? Do their lives still have meaning, even though their particular "religion" is a fraud?

...

Dilemmas like that are all too familiar in somewhat different contexts, of course. Should the sweet old lady in the nursing home be told that her son has just been sent to prison? Should the awkward 12-year-old boy who wasn't cut from the baseball team be told about the arm-twisting that persuaded the coach to keep him on the squad?
In spite of ferocious differences of opinion about other moral issues, there seems to be something approaching consensus that it is cruel and malicious to interfere with the life-enhancing illusions of others -- unless those illusions are themselves the cause of even greater ills
. The disagreements come over what those greater ills might be -- and that leads to the breakdown of the whole rationale. Keeping secrets from people for their own good can often be wise, but it takes only one person to give away a secret, and since there are disagreements about which cases warrant discretion, the result is an unsavory miasma of hypocrisy, lies, and frantic, but fruitless, attempts at distraction. [bold added]

So we are to smugly regard the beliefs of others as "life-enhancing illusions" and tiptoe around them! In fact, by considering the religions of others as illusory, the reader is basically told to play the game of treating his own religion as such.

What if Gortner were to con a cadre of sincere evangelical preachers into doing his dirty work? Would their innocence change the equation and give genuine meaning to the lives of those whose sacrifices they encouraged and collected? Or are all evangelical preachers just as false as Gortner? Certainly Muslims think so, even though they are generally too discreet to say it. And Roman Catholics think that Jews are just as deluded, and Protestants think that Catholics are wasting their time and energy on a largely false religion, and so forth. All Muslims? All Catholics? All Protestants? All Jews? Of course not.

This, he says just before noting that (1) Mel Gibson believes his wife is going to hell because she is not Catholic and (2) many religious people do not accept their religions' own teachings about the fate of loved ones not of the same faith (let alone whether any religious differences merit persecution).

At this point, I was wondering where Dennett could possibly be going. As it turns out, he is behaving much like a preacher setting up his congregation to accept his moral dictates by making them feel guilty.

So we've got ourselves caught in a hypocrisy trap, and there is no clear path out. Are we like the families in which the adults go through all the motions of believing in Santa Claus for the sake of the kids, and the kids all pretend still to believe in Santa Claus so as not to spoil the adults' fun? If only our current predicament were as innocuous and even comical as that! In the adult world of religion, people are dying and killing, with the moderates cowed into silence by the intransigence of the radicals in their own faiths, and many adherents afraid to acknowledge what they actually believe for fear of breaking Granny's heart, or offending their neighbors to the point of getting run out of town, or worse.

Here is what I would get from Dennett if I were religious (I am not.) and tolerant: (1) "Your religion is an illusion." (2) "You are a hypocrite because you are tolerant." And here is what I have not gotten: A good reason to be tolerant. In other words, Dennett has failed to appeal to his religious readers as rational adults, opting instead to focus on an unnecessary challenge to that person's deepest convictions and delivering an insult in return for what is really a virtue: love of one's life. Worse still, he has indicated that religious tolerance -- what he is trying to promote -- is immoral! (I am not saying that one must pretend to be religious or withold one's own views on religion. But I am saying that this issue is irrelevant and counterproductive in this context.)

Dennett then pursues the "life-enhancing illusion" angle for quite some time, hoping to confuse the reader enough to get him to throw his hands up and agree that he can't be certain of the dictates of his own faith. He tries to have things both ways. He will not openly challenge anyone on his religion and yet he makes a big deal of the fact that it's a confusing world out there and others believe other things just as strongly as his reader, with the clear implication that his reader might just be wrong.

Importantly, one must rely on others to interpret one's own religion. Dennett then seizes on this intellectual division of labor to make an argument I've never heard before. Basically, it goes along the lines of "Even if you have very good reasons to trust your own moral authorities, you should appreciate the fact that others may not see why you trust them." Applied:

Notice that my stand involves no disrespect and no prejudging of the possibility that God has told you. If God has told you, then part of your problem is convincing others, to whom God has not (yet) spoken. If you refuse or are unable to attempt that, you are actually letting your God down, in the guise of demonstrating your helpless love. You can withdraw from the discussion if you must -- that is your right -- but then don't blame us if we don't "get it."

The first thing that one could say to this argument is: "Well, Dr. Dennett, don't blame me if I don't 'get' your argument." The second thing is: "God told both of us the same thing and you clearly didn't listen." The third thing is: "Who said we had a 'right' to withdraw from such an important discussion."

As if all this weren't bad enough, Dennett then ends by smuggling in his own idea of what constitutes a God "worthy of worship".

It is time for the reasonable adherents of all faiths to find the courage and stamina to reverse the tradition that honors helpless love of God -- in any tradition. Far from being honorable, it is not even excusable. It is shameful. Here is what we should say to people who follow such a tradition: There is only one way to respect the substance of any purported God-given moral edict. Consider it conscientiously in the full light of reason, using all the evidence at our command. No God pleased by displays of unreasoning love is worthy of worship.

How does one know he can trust this stranger Dennett? And how does this potentially false prophet Dennett know what pleases God? If there is one thing that the religion I am most familiar with, Christianity, made abundantly clear, it was that mere mortals should not question the divine. If Dennett hasn't lost a Christian reader yet, this will probably do the trick. And if not, he was only preaching to the choir anyway, since no one who believes in a vengeful God is going to buy this.

It is useless to attempt to base a rational argument on arbitrary premises. As we have seen, Dennett never offers his reader an earthly reason -- his continued existence -- to be tolerant. He promotes religious tolerance while making the point that it is hypocritical (at least for the reasons he claims people are tolerant). He thus comes across as something of a weasel, and as impugning his reader's character. He spends a huge amount of time pretending not to challenge his readers' beliefs while in fact doing just that. Having thus told his reader that his God is a "life-enhancing illusion", he then claims to speak for this illusion in order to get him to do something. If anyone comes off as the hypocrite, it is Dennett, and if anything bad, it is religious tolerance!

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