Bunny Trail

As you might imagine, Easter in the Jablomi household is, if anything, a celebration of spring, an observation at least of renewal and life, if not an overt ritual of same. This time around, The Sopranos inaugurates its homestretch run on Easter, so the missus is whipping up her world-famous lasagna, with a couple bottles of Two-Buck Chuck chilling in anticipation. Oh yeah, we roll deep around here come springtime.

And of course we're aware of how most of the world's Christian denominations choose to commemorate the day. I couldn't be more disinterested, and I mean that in the best way possible, honestly. Whatever works.

So it's a bit odd to read E.J. Dionne's earnest missive, countering the throngs of strident atheists who are apparently thwarting their seasonal efforts. Really, I had no idea. All I did this morning was some yardwork, and checked out my next run of classes. I hadn't gotten the message to meet down at St. Dominic's in the morning to cock-block parishioners heading to Mass.

While some Christians harbor doubts about Christ's actual physical resurrection, hundreds of millions believe devoutly that Jesus died and rose, thus redeeming a fallen world from sin.

Are these people a threat to reason and even freedom?

Short answer: no, so long as they can keep their spirituality reasonably apolitical. I know of no atheist or agnostic that cares one way or the other about individual spiritual beliefs; the problem always arises when someone gets the bright idea to take organized money and power and start making policy from it.

The problem with the neo-atheists is that they seem as dogmatic as the dogmatists they condemn. They are especially frustrated with religious "moderates" who don't fit their stereotypes.

In his bracing polemic " The End of Faith," Harris is candid in asserting that "religious moderates are themselves the bearers of a terrible dogma: they imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each one of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of others."

Harris goes on: "I hope to show that the very ideal of religious tolerance -- born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God -- is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss. We have been slow to recognize the degree to which religious faith perpetuates man's inhumanity to man."

In the larger sense, polemic or not, Harris' assertion rings true. Name a current conflict or hot spot not informed by religious dogmatism and intolerance. I can think of only one -- North Korea, and even that country is only nominally atheist. The country is a textbook cult writ large; it's just that their god is a pompadoured dwarf with aviator shades. Atheism is not an organizing principle per se for them, because atheism is almost by definition disorganized to begin with. No, it's Sunni-Shi'a, Catholic-Protestant, Muslim-Jew, Hindu-Muslim, Muslim-Christian, etc. That's where the shit is being stirred.

But to be fair, it is not religious faith which perpetuates this, but religious certitude, the special kind of insanity that allows a man to kill another man over interpretations of books, sometimes even the same book. One figures that the truth is more plain than that -- that faith is merely used to justify and legitimize violence, whether proactively or retroactively. Cultural and tribal differences gets used in the same manner. And Harris, a PhD in neuroscience, tries to approach his thesis from a scientific perspective, rather than a dogmatic "we must do this to counter that" approach, which seems sensible. Indeed, he comes off pretty well in his debate with Rick Warren, where Warren sounds more like a guy who, when you get right down to it, is merely hedging his bets.

We're both betting. [Harris is] betting his life that he's right. I'm betting my life that Jesus was not a liar. When we die, if he's right, I've lost nothing. If I'm right, he's lost everything. I'm not willing to make that gamble.

These are very silly assertions, obviously, and not worthy of a truly serious, contemplative discussion. The idea that one retreats from rationally-based empiricism into a system of teleological reassurance is ultimately an intellectually static premise. This is why political Christianity has gained so much traction; since its intellectual stature is one of inertia and clutter, its driving forces go to the path of least resistance, the arena that welcomes its money and voting blocs.

Which is fine to a certain extent; believers and non-believers alike deserve to have their voices heard in the process. But they should not manifest themselves in inherently silly, needlessly provocative causes. I believe the Pledge of Allegiance should be returned to its original text at some point; I don't believe that going to the Supreme Court over it has any practical merit. I believe that Catholic dioceses should not be able to buy their way out of long-term criminal conspiracies to molest children and protect the molesters. I believe that as long as they are tolerant of other faiths desiring public representation, towns ought to be able to have nativity scenes without people bitching about it. I believe that intelligent design is a political hoax perpetrated by intellectual carnies, a needless waste of taxpayers' money and time. I believe that people of faith would be spending their time more intelligently by incorporating elements and developments of science and history, instead of ignoring or running from them.

Contrary to popular belief, atheists do believe in things, they just don't believe in autocratically imposing those beliefs just because they have a book that nobody is allowed to argue with.