1. Comment #64304 by drive1 on August 19, 2007 at 1:13 pm

A superb essay .. erudite, clear and insightful. And depressing. The author's ability to present the history of theological politics up to the present day, in plain language, is masterful. I read Hobbes' Leviathan at Uni .. I'm going to dig it out and read it again .. properly, this time.

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2. Comment #64308 by 601 on August 19, 2007 at 1:38 pm

"...the problem: the more a biblical faith is trimmed... the fewer reasons it gives believers for holding on to that faith in troubled times..."

It could be that reason can only hold the middle ground. In conditions either too bad or too good, irrationality reigns.

"When the urge to connect is strong, passions are high and fantasies are vivid, the trinkets of our modern lives are impotent Amulets against political intoxication."

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3. Comment #64309 by Veronique on August 19, 2007 at 1:42 pm

This essay is one of the most comprehensive I have read. It's also frightening. I keep forgetting that our modern liberal democracy is so young, has such a tenuous hold on our political constructs and still an experiment. Lilla's essay shatters any complacency I may entertain in my little world.

He brings into sharp focus my inability to understand the mind of a dedicated political theocrat like Ahmadinejad. I will have to read this again and I will buy his book. I have to make myself understand what I so dismissively call 'religious delusion'. And I have to understand it in the wider political arena. I don't mean the mad fundamentalists of Christianity, although I am worried at their emergence or re-emergence on the political scene. The solid, implacable faith in theocracy that underscores the lives of people in power like Ahmadinejad is truly frightening. And Lilla is quite right in that the understanding of this lies with us in the West.

I sound like I have never thought of this before; I have, but I need to think more. Thanks for posting this essay, Josh.
V

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4. Comment #64311 by Friend Giskard on August 19, 2007 at 1:45 pm

Here's a more convenient link to the whole article on one page:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/magazine/19Religion-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

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5. Comment #64312 by Veronique on August 19, 2007 at 2:08 pm

Thanks Giskard

Much easier to read without all the moving blips on the page.

Cheers
V

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6. Comment #64359 by jonahemery on August 19, 2007 at 6:23 pm

Reading this article just rammed home the fact that anti-theism is not enough. There must be a positive movement that advocates against the narrative and "purpose" religions offer. Humanism, to me, is that narrative. The religion of Einstein, or the vision of Sagan. Sagan's series Cosmos matches the Bible, heck exceeds it because its true, in the feelings of being attatched to something larger.

My positive atheistic religion?

The Pale Blue Dot.

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7. Comment #64362 by Russell Blackford on August 19, 2007 at 6:47 pm

Wow, this article is really good stuff. I need Lilla's book, when it comes out.

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8. Comment #64363 by magetoo on August 19, 2007 at 7:06 pm

Great article. I'll be keeping an eye open for the book.

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9. Comment #64367 by BAEOZ on August 19, 2007 at 7:55 pm

Great article. I just preordered the book from Amazon. Richard Dawkins has a lot to answer for. I've bought so many books this year on philosophical and atheistic themes since I've read and had my consciousness piqued by the god delusion. He's evil I tell you!
Russell, if you're about, which Plantinga books do you recommend? I thought of just getting the warranted christian belief book. Is that enough to get the gist of his philosophy?

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10. Comment #64397 by Logicel on August 20, 2007 at 1:22 am

I appreciate Lilla's saying that in order to understand a topic which we consider so alien that we can't begin to get a handle on understanding it and providing solutions, that we need first to focus on what is familiar to us contained within this bizarre and frightening topic--a very handy tool in general for understanding and learning.

It was, however, unsettling/unfortunate, that Lilla used the word 'miracle' to describe the present American situation of a very religious country which has its wall of separation between government and religion intact (though some powerful religious people have been and are trying to crack through that wall). Hopefully, less vague language will be used to explain the American situation in the book.

This is the kind of sociological/historical/psychological work that we have been discussing needs to be done. And now, with religion no longer being protected under the tacit agreement that it can't be criticized, we will see more and more writing and studies done in this direction. In this manner, I do not consider Lilla's grasp of the situation to be depressing, but rather a direct confrontation with the truth--that despite all the horrors connected with Religion, its ubiquity and historical life has to be reckoned with in an enlightened, knowledgeable, and effective manner.

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11. Comment #64495 by mjwemdee on August 20, 2007 at 9:17 am

Brilliant essay. I am going to read not only the entire book when it comes out, but also get myself a copy of Rousseau's Émile (which I was supposed to have read at university!)

The future looks bleak.

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12. Comment #64499 by MilesSmiles on August 20, 2007 at 9:34 am

can't wait for this to come out. looks like a good one. check out this new hitchens site...has a lot of interesting books the check out

http://www.buildupthatwall.com

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13. Comment #64735 by phil rimmer on August 21, 2007 at 2:06 pm

Astonishingly good. Depressing. Galvanizing. I learned more useful stuff in the last twenty minutes than...well..any other.

"All we have is our own lucidity, which we must train on a world where faith still inflames the minds of men."

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14. Comment #64883 by jonecc on August 22, 2007 at 7:27 am

It was a very interesting piece. I thought he was correct to argue that there was no inevitability to secular progress, but undervalued the importance of social and economic factors.

For instance, he talks about Nazism almost as if it was a theological event, appealing to Germans for religious reasons. In 1928, support for the Nazis was limited to a few per cent of the German population. Then the Depression arrived, millions of Germans lost their jobs, and Hitler came to power as a result.

Across the world today, there is a clear negative correlation between religious observance and economic wellbeing, education, political freedom and so on. If we want to make a secure secular world, then we have to arrange things so everyone gets a slice of the good life.

Of course, that isn't the whole story. Islam, for instance, has evolved (I think it's reasonable to use the E-word) the ability to pass down from parents to children by undermining the child's ability to think for themselves before social forces can act. Other religions also do this, of course, although it's arguable that Islam is the most successful. Thus we see doctors and the like strapping bombs on and hurling themselves (rather incompetently) at British airports.

If we want to erect a wall of separation where it doesn't exist and protect it where it does, then we need a two-pronged approach. We need to make it as hard as possible for one generation to prevent the next having a free choice, whilst making secular prosperity and security accessible to as many as possible.

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15. Comment #64885 by sane1 on August 22, 2007 at 7:35 am

Great great sentence: "And the debilitating dynamics of belief don't end there." (from part II)

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16. Comment #64892 by Veronique on August 22, 2007 at 7:50 am

I sent the link to my brother. One day he may post here, but in the meantime this is what he emailed back to me.

I agree with you about the essay from Mark Lilla for which you sent me the link, and I agree with his analysis. Most people have absolutely no idea the price Europe paid for the secularism we now enjoy - the Wars of Religion he talks about affected most of Europe, but in particular what we now call Germany. They involved what we would now regard as war crimes on a scale that is barely imaginable.

Whole cities were wiped out, with deliberate slaughter of the civilian inhabitants (so much for targeting civilians being a 20th century phenomenon). The population of Germany in 1648, at the close of the Thiry Years War, was only one third of what it had been at the start, and it took some 200 years to recover.

Hobbes may have been leading the intellectual charge (and I was fascinated by the case Lilla makes for that), but an exhausted Europe basically said to religious warfare: "Never again!" I don't how much RD knows about this monumental harm that religion did to 17th century Europe. It makes what is going on in Iraq between Sunni and Shia look like side skirmishes.

Unfortunately, not only is this a lesson others have no intention of learning from, it is one many of us Westerners seem eager to forget. Some of our fundamentalists show the sort of arrogance that can only proceed from profound ignorance - they are like children playing with fire.

I don't know whether Lilla is consciously defending Huntington's thesis in The Clash of Civilizations, but I must admit I am much less dismissive of it than is popular today.

Thanks for the nudge Baeoz - I also pre-ordered the book today from Amazon.

I listened to The Religion Report on Radio National this morning. Both Germans and the Brits are concerned with the massive super-mosques that are planned (and financed by the Saudis) for London and Europe. Here's a brief quote from the ABC

In cities all over Europe - Marseilles, Lyons, Cologne and London - there's controversy over plans to build large mosques. The proposed 'mega' mosque in East London would cover 17 acres and may end up housing 70,000 worshippers, and 200,000 people have signed a petition against it on the website of 10 Downing Street. Here's the link to the transcript if anyone wants to read the interviews:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2007/2011495.htm#transcript

Cheers
V

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17. Comment #64901 by hungarianelephant on August 22, 2007 at 8:59 am

14. Comment #64883 by jonecc on August 22, 2007 at 7:27 am

Across the world today, there is a clear negative correlation between religious observance and economic wellbeing, education, political freedom and so on.

But which are the effects and which the causes?

This is a serious question. Take Ireland, which has seen something akin to the end of the Middle Ages writ small in recent years. It's very tempting to conclude that its modern prosperity has led to a decline in Catholicism. But there's a respectable argument that the people who kicked off the boom are those who in earlier generations would probably have joined the priesthood, and that declining piety led to a decline in guilt about indulging in productive economic activity. Or it could be argued that each fed off the other.

Or look at the UK's home-grown terrorists. These people are not poor by any reasonable standard. Nor can you blame their actions solely on parenting: many British Muslims consider themselves more Islamic, more radical and less integrated than their parents.

I think you are right in your conclusion, but I am unconvinced that a good social and economic system provides all the answers.

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18. Comment #64904 by jonecc on August 22, 2007 at 9:15 am

Veronique:

As your brother rightly says, Europe's religious wars have been unjustly neglected. Part of the problem is that in the English speaking world German history is absurdly focussed on the period of Nazism. I wanted to read a book about the general history of Germany, so I went to my local bookstore. The German history section was 90% about that period, with a few books on the first world war or East Germany under the communists. In the end, I bought one from Amazon. Now the Amazon personality profiler has me down for German history, and continually offers me new books about Hitler.

hungarianelephant: As you say, it's hard to draw definite conclusions, and there's probably a pushmepullyou kind of effect going on. I have often argued on this site that this is a subject we need to understand better. If there is a book out there which collates existing data on the relationship between religious belief and social and economic factors, I would love to read it. I would write it, but I don't have the skills, resources or leisure time. Many books seem to touch on it, but I've been unable to find a concise summary. Does anyone have any suggestions?

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