Ruse: Fighting the Fundamentalists

I just finished reading the excellent essay by Michael Ruse, "Fighting the Fundamentalists" (March/April 2007), and I want to say, "Hear, hear!" This is the sort of practical common sense we need--and by "we," I mean both religionists and atheists.

While I enjoy reading the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, I am often put off by the strident tone and what appears to be unreasoning dogmatism of some of the contributors. They sound just like the fundamentalists I am surrounded by here in the Bible Belt, only their scorn is directed at believers in God or ghosts instead of pagans and homosexuals. Some atheists seem to view the world in the same shades of black and white as some fundamentalists, as if one were a negative of the other. Open up and see the colors, people! There are good, intelligent people all over the spectrum.

My brother is a Catholic priest, and I am a nonbeliever. While we disagree on many things, there is an even greater array of issues on which we agree perfectly--arriving at the same opinion by different means. In those areas where we agree, let us work together instead of condemning and rejecting each other entirely for the opinion with which we disagree.

Sue Collins

Huntersville, North Carolina

After reading the article by Michael Ruse, I found myself as dismayed and frustrated as ever. Either Ruse is unaware of the history of the conflict between religion and science, or he labors under the delusion that Christians are being persecuted by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, and any other author who dares to identify religion as a collection of superstitious beliefs.

History does not support Ruse's naive notion that atheists and religionists can work together when it comes to science and politics. It is religionists that make the provocative moves that divide us--and, if Bush's faith-based initiatives are any indication, they show no signs of ceasing these provocations any time soon.

The fact is, religion has had its time. Superstition has reigned for all of our known history. Look where that kind of thinking has led us. We are on the brink of global destruction, the likes of which no generation has seen before.

As long as personal beliefs remain personal, people should be free to believe as they wish. However, when religion is brought into the public arena, government, or public schools, or when policies are made based upon mythology, then all skeptics, atheists, and scientists are obligated to stand up and say, "That is just plain stupid."

Dawn Wilson

Seattle, Washington

Regarding Michael Ruse's article, "Fighting the Fundamentalists," I can't speak for how Ruse may have been treated by the likes of Dawkins or Dennett (I haven't read their books, but if they compare Ruse to a Nazi collaborator, I certainly don't agree he is anything comparable to that). But I do find Ruse's take on the culture war to be frustratingly narrow-minded. He seems so obsessed with a single issue (creationism) that he slights the fact that creationism is just the wedge, the trick pony the fundamentalists use to get their real agenda through. Yet Ruse seems to imagine it's the central argument, the centerpiece of the culture war. It's not. It's just smoke and mirrors.

The real issue consists of an entire system of moral and political values that fundamentalists want everyone indoctrinated in and the whole nation governed by. And underlying that is an entire epistemology built on logical fallacies and dangerously misleading principles of knowledge and certainty.

I know this, because I am actually in the trenches, where the religious--liberal and conservative--use the very arguments Dr. Ruse claims they don't (page 41) against us. I've debated issues more central and important to the culture warriors, like the resurrection of Jesus, at UCLA; the existence of God, before an audience of a thousand Muslims in Michigan; and the meaning of life, in a Berkeley church.

I can tell you, creationism is only a tiny piece of the real monster, and not the central piece. The religious--even many so-called liberals--believe atheists are fundamentally dangerous (even potential murderers, as I was accused of being in the Michigan debate). Polls show a majority in this country would never vote for an atheist, so it's not just the fundamentalists who are thinking this. Atheists (and thus atheism) are widely considered the cause of society's problems, and a majority believe the only way to solve our ills is to spread religion, most commonly, to convert everyone to Jesus (or Allah) and get everyone to agree that the religious are right about what Jesus (or Allah) wants. That's what this is really all about.

And yet, this culture war only exists because the religious embrace a horribly faulty epistemology that actually convinces them of these conclusions. The problem, therefore, is not creationism. The problem is religious epistemology. As long as we have that, we will always have fallacious and ridiculous beliefs like creationism, biblical literalism, false beliefs about atheism, and so on (and on the liberal side, as Lee Silver's article in the same issue of SI shows, anti-biotech mania).