I do agree though that people should be curious about religion. (I actually wish the Bible was taught more in public schools–partly because so much of our culture does come from it, and partly because I think if people actually read the old testament most of them would flock to become agnostics.)

So I take your point about the Sistine Chapel and Bach.

As for the sincerity of the work…
Chomsky at one point was being challenged by Andrew Marr, who took objection to Chomsky’s view that the Media altered the truth. Marr said to him something like, “How do you know I’m being I’m being insincere. For all you know, I could thoroughly believe everything I’m telling you now.”
Chomsky replied, “I’m sure you are sincere. What I’m saying is that if you believed anything different from what you do, you wouldn’t be able to be in a high profile media position.”
(I’m paraphrasing as this is from memory, but you get the idea.)
I’m sure Bach did really believe in his music. But the reason Western tradition is so filled with religious music is that no one was paying for much else.

No, you haven’t, and your in my good books on that issue..

I guess my main point is that I don’t think a critic of the church should have to bend over backwards to address every variation. In a one on one debate it may be possible to tailor your philosophical arguments to your individual opponent, but when writing a book it would just be impossible to form any sort of a coherent argument. The dominant form of protestantism in Christianity believes the majority of the world is going to hell. I think it is fair to attack Christianity on this point. Same for the others. (Granted it’s always dangerous defending a writer I’ve not read as far as Ingersoll goes, but having read Dawkins and Hitchens, I support them on this one.)

Also, as I alluded to in the earlier comment, my subjective experience is that the church presents one face when they’re in control, and another face when they’re being challenged. When I go back and talk to Church leaders now about the various things I resent about my upbringing, I find them backpedaling on all kinds of stuff. That certainly wasn’t their attitude when I was a young naive child in their classes.
I don’t hold this against you, of course, but it is something I think about whenever someone says about Hitchens or Dawkins, “But that’s not what my church says.”–It is when the doors are closed and they know they don’t have to defend themselves against outsiders. They’ll put on a moderate face when they’re challenged on something, but just watch all the crap they’ll put into children’s heads when no one’s watching them.

My point in mentioning the Sistine Chapel was that it’s a bad thing to tell people not to even be curious about a force that sponsors so much of a culture’s history. If I were to make an ignorant comment about the people who built those awesome Easter Island heads, and then be critiqued for it by someone who actually knows something about that culture, I wouldn’t brush them off with the tooth-fairy argument. Nor, if someone says (for example) “Secular humanism tells us we’re all monkeys and leads to nihilism,” do I let them get away with that. Igrnorant caricatures=bad. That’s all I’m saying here.

(Also, I don’t know about Michelangelo, but many Bach fans seem to think that serious subjective belief, not just attraction to those big Lutheran paychecks, had a lot to do with the shape of Bach’s music.)

I certainly understand the feeling that a bait-and-switch has taken place. I often feel the same way myself. As a junior fundamentalist, I would ask certain questions, and people would put me on to C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton–who, as conservative as they are (and as much as I dissent from some of their opinions), presented an infinitely wider, smarter, and more compassionate vision than did Pat Robertson or James Dobson. (Lewis’s mind was clearly open to the possibility that many followers of other religions would be in heaven, for example. It’s right there in the Narnia books.) And then, when I would start to identify more with the imaginative Anglicanism of these people, I’d be sharply pulled back. Of course it’s frustrating, and I agree that it creates the picture you describe.

I think it’s pretty clear that I have a problem with one dominant-in-this-country version of Christianity–but I don’t think I’ve made that much of a secret, either. Have I? I don’t attack fundamentalists in the same flaming terms that some people do, mostly because I’ve got fundamentalists whom I deeply love in my immediate and extended families, and of course I’m not going to call them stupid or benighted. I do think they hold a lot of beliefs that are unnecessary and unworthy of them at their best, and I don’t think this is new information to any of them.

But I also have a problem with some of the critics of Christianity. I am a human being, and I get hurt when I’m insulted (1). I get annoyed as well as hurt when I’m insulted by someone who seems less philosophically sophisticated than, well, me (2). And (3), I get worried when I hear calls for, say, limitations on the religious freedom of the Amish (as in THE GOD DELUSION). Dammit, those people practice better ecology than Dawkins and E.O. Wilson and Jared Diamond put together. Get off them.

Proportion should probably be considered. I have problems with the New Atheists, but I don’t think it’s likely that a take-Amish-children-from-their-parents law will be making its way through congress anytime soon. The political threat from fundamentalists is much bigger and I should probably spend more time pointing that out (like Chomsky choosing not to write a lot of anti-Russia and Cuba articles because that job is already well-covered in the US). When you’re writing back-to-back posts about Hitchens and Ingersoll, though, and you’re an open Christian, it’s hard to completely avoid.

I was recently touring Buddhist temples around Malaysia. I’m not a believer, but was struck by how impressive and beautiful some of these huge architectural monuments are (they almost have to be seen to be believed). But I consider myself an unbeliever in Buddhism. Nor does it particular bug me that I don’t know a lot about Buddhism before I became an unbeliever. Maybe one of these days I might find the time to read up on some Buddhist scriptures, but maybe not.

Also when my students tell me that people born in certain zodiac years can not marry certain other people born in other zodiac years, I just calmly reply that there’s no scientific evidence for this. I don’t really feel the need to research exactly what the history of the zodiac says, or what the different schools of thought on astrology are. I know bullshit when I hear it.

As for the Sistine Chapel and the Mass in B minor…Well, you know what I’m going to say here before I even type it I imagine. The fact that the Church had the money to sponsor these artists is why it was so dominant in European art.

Years later, I decided I wasn’t a Christian, and one of the many reasons I gave when pressed on this by family or former church leaders was because I didn’t believe I could be happy about the fact that almost everyone was going to hell.
To which suddenly the response became, “But you don’t have to believe that. Not all Christians believe that. Why so-and-so just now has a new book out which is questioning the theological existence of hell….” et cetera. It seems like a very unfair bait and switch to me. Granted that’s my subjective experience.

Christopher Hitchens in his many debates will often say something like, “I’ve since discovered that I would have to write a separate book for everyone, because no two people believe the same thing about religion.” And this is true. I’ve found in my own experience before I debate Christianity with anyone I have to do a series of background questions to find out just which of the church’s doctrines they are willing to defend, and which ones they are going to try to weasel out of. But for a mass public debate this is an unreasonable expectation.

And this is true. Of course it’s not unique to Christianity. You could say the same thing about Marxists. And to a certain extent perhaps it’s an indication of healthy debate within a tradition.

But collectively it does create the impression of a church that’s going around as a cowardly bully telling people they have to believe one thing, and then shrinking back up and saying, “But I never said that!” the moment someone challenges them on it.
There is a dominant Christian tradition in America. If the more moderate Christians feel that this dominant religion is mis-representing true Christianity, then their issue is with their domineering brethren, not with the Church’s critics.
That said I agreed with much of what else you had to say.

I saw the TRIAL OF HENRY KISSINGER movie a long time ago. It’s excellent, and Hitchens is, I agree, fantastic in it. I don’t really enjoy watching him debate in general, in part because I can’t stand spoken debating itself. (I like written debating better because it’s more of a test of a person’s thinking and less of a test of their performing/bellowing/bullying skills.) He was very good at it; the genre itself turns me off.

George Sciabbala starts his (wonderful) essay “Farewell, Hitch” with the exact same point you make: suddenly Hitchens seems very silly when he dares to disagree with me! http://www.georgescialabba.net/mtgs/2005/03/farewell-hitch.html

We should probably just agree to disagree about the value of New Atheist Hitchens (I hate using that label, though I do it all the time; it’s reductive and sloppy). If they would frame their attack as one on “Intolerant, Unquestioning Certainty About Stuff” I would probably think they’re all wonderful. It’s the assumption that this trait is uniquely to be found in religion, or that religion requires it, that I have a problem with. That assumption flies in the face of my experience and what I know of history. (And frankly I think Sam Harris in particular is a living refutation of it.) Advance warning: you’ll probably be annoyed by my next blog post and might want to skip it, since it’s going to be about Robert Ingersoll. He’s the next interesting thing in the library, after all. (After that: Hugh Kenner’s MAZES, Joseph Wood Krutch’s collected essays, and some John MacPhee and Janet Malcolm. I love the alphabet!)