*Sightings* 5/23/2011

— Martin E. Marty

 ¢â‚¬Å“Same Old New Atheism, ¢â‚¬  last week ¢â‚¬â„¢s clipping about religion sighted in the
public sphere (it might as well be labeled  ¢â‚¬Å“Same New Old Atheism ¢â‚¬ ) is a
6800-word review which places the trendy  ¢â‚¬Å“New Atheism ¢â‚¬  in the context of
previous efforts to establish scientific positivism in the place of
religion. Religion, in turn, is to be done away with, as it ¢â‚¬â„¢s been done away
with for centuries. The review in question is not a fundamentalist screed
against defamers of the faithful, but the voice of Rutgers Professor Jackson
Lears, whose critics describe him as a  ¢â‚¬Å“man of the left ¢â‚¬  in a  ¢â‚¬Å“magazine of
the left. ¢â‚¬  Lears reviews three books by Sam Harris, who to Lears is a
 ¢â‚¬Å“scientific fundamentalist. ¢â‚¬  Harris, in turn, has responded that Lears ¢â‚¬â„¢s
review is  ¢â‚¬Å“idiotic. ¢â‚¬  It isn ¢â‚¬â„¢t.

We can only hit some high spots of Lears-on-Harris and hope that readers
will all follow through by reading the whole article, one of the best short
criticisms yet of the old/new or new/old atheism. Lears locates the genre in
a  ¢â‚¬Å“back-to-1910 ¢â‚¬  cultural fashion in which now  ¢â‚¬Å“deregulation ¢â‚¬  and
 ¢â‚¬Å“starvation of the public sector ¢â‚¬  have returned to the pre-World War I
style. The key in philosophy, including manifestly in Harris ¢â‚¬â„¢s works,
 ¢â‚¬Å“depends on the reductionist belief that the entire universe, including all
human conduct, can be explained with reference to precisely measurable,
deterministic physical processes. ¢â‚¬  The positivists, their outlook revisited
by Harris,  ¢â‚¬Å“assumed that science was the only sure guide to morality, and
the only firm basis for civilization. ¢â‚¬  With them came  ¢â‚¬Å“pop-evolutionary
notions of progress, ¢â‚¬   ¢â‚¬Å“scientific racism and imperialism ¢â‚¬  and, most
measurably,  ¢â‚¬Å“eugenics ¢â‚¬  and the like.

Sociologists of knowledge (Karl Mannheim, Peter Berger, Thomas Kuhn and
others) countered positivism, but it has come back in the works of authors
Lears cites. They were also countered, in turn, by fellow scientists who
found it philosophically and scientifically weak. But since 9/11 it is back
again in Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and, of
course, Harris, who now  ¢â‚¬Å“press the case against religion with renewed
determination and fire. ¢â‚¬  The Christian Right ¢â‚¬â„¢s absolutism next provided a
fat target, and Islamic Fundamentalism one even fatter. Its presence
legitimates torture ¢â‚¬”in Harris ¢â‚¬â„¢s books, at least ¢â‚¬”while  ¢â‚¬Å“multiculturalism,
moral relativism, political correctness, tolerance even of *intolerance,* ¢â‚¬ 
writes Harris, hobbles  ¢â‚¬Å“the West ¢â‚¬  in its war against  ¢â‚¬Å“radical Islam. ¢â‚¬ 

Harris argues that to be un-hobbled, the West must reject  ¢â‚¬Å“both religion and
cultural relativism, and [embrace] science as the true source of moral
value. ¢â‚¬  Lears praises sciences but rejects the implicit (and sometimes
explicit) metaphysic which the new atheists do not discern in their
putatively scientific empirical approach to morality. How Harris roots his
metaphysic in brain research, which is his main work, and how Lears
criticizes it is a story too complex for this brief article, but is
available in Lears ¢â‚¬â„¢s essay.

The title term  ¢â‚¬Å“Infidelity, ¢â‚¬  the colonial and early modern word for atheism,
agnosticism, and radical religion through three centuries, was the topic of
my Ph.D. dissertation in 1956 in  ¢â‚¬Å“The Uses of Infidelity. ¢â‚¬  Protestant
conservatives would show how unmoored Christianity and faith in general were
when infidels, never great threats on their own, got a hold of them. Now
again, it is usually  ¢â‚¬Å“infidels ¢â‚¬  who do the most telling reviews of fellow
infidels ¢â‚¬â„¢ books. Conservatives through the decades hollered, and gave those
of other faiths and no faiths a potency they had otherwise not known. Now,
again?

*References*

* *

Jackson Lears,  ¢â‚¬Å“Same Old New Atheism: On Sam
Harris, ¢â‚¬ 
*The Nation*, May 16, 2011.

*Martin E. Marty’s* biography, publications, and contact information can be
found at www.memarty.com.

———-

Can American Muslims be both loyal to their tradition and full participants
in American civil society? In this month ¢â‚¬â„¢s Religion & Culture Web
Forum,
Vincent J. Cornell argues that an embrace of the tenets of Shari ¢â‚¬Ëœa
fundamentalism has led even would-be moderate Muslim leaders to reject the
principles of American constitutional democracy. Consequently, they advocate
(often unintentionally) a retreat from full participation in American civil
society into sectarianism and  ¢â‚¬Å“millet multiculturalism. ¢â‚¬  Against this tend,
says Cornell, it is necessary for Muslim thinkers to find an  ¢â‚¬Å“overlapping
consensus ¢â‚¬  between Shari ¢â‚¬Ëœa and constitutionalism ¢â‚¬”one that gives warrant for
the exercise of  ¢â‚¬Å“unsupervised reason. ¢â‚¬ 

———-

*Sightings* comes from the Martin Marty
Centerat the University of
Chicago Divinity School.

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