Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.2008, Page 15

of Pennsylvania. “Nationalism is the most powerful religion in the United
States.”8 Marvin’s comment makes the point that there are many belief
and value systems which can achieve religious status. Indeed, the noted
English philosopher Mary Midgely argued that evolution had itself become
a religious belief system, as developed by Richard Dawkins and others.9 The
porous and imprecise concept of “religion” extends far beyond those who
believe in God, embracing a wide range of beliefs and values. As Richard
Wentz points out, the real issue is absolutism.10 People create and sustain
absolutes out of fear of their own limitations, and people react with violence
when others do not accept them. Religion may have a tendency toward
absolutism, but the same tendency is innate in any human attempt to find
or create meaning, especially when it is challenged. The key thing here, it
seems, is not the ideas or values, but the dedication, even fanaticism, of
those who follow them.
This leads into a central theme of many postmodern critiques of modernity
- that it creates an intellectual context which legitimates suppression of what
it regards as aberrant or “irrational” beliefs. The “New Atheism” is a superb
example of a modern metanarrative - a totalizing view of things, locked
into the worldview of the Enlightenment. So what happens when this same
Enlightenment is charged with having fostered oppression and violence,
and having colluded with totalitarianism, by its postmodern critics? When
a new interest in spirituality surges through western culture? When the
cultural pressures that once made atheism seem attractive are displaced by
others that make it seem intolerant, unimaginative, and disconnected from
spiritual realities?
The “New Atheism” advocates a “return to the Enlightenment” without
any attempt to confront the dark side of modernity. Where in the manifestoes
of the movement is there any attempt to deal with the influential view, set
8 Carolyn Marvin, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag. With David
W. Ingle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
9 Mary Midgley, Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears. 2nd ed. London:
Routledge, 2002.
10 Richard E. Wentz, Why People Do Bad Things in the Name of Religion. Macon, GA: Mercer
University Press, 1993. See also Sudhir Kakar, The Colors ofViolence: Cultural Identities, Religion,
and Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
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