New Atheism and the Evolution of God

I've been basically supportive of the New Atheism, but Robert Wright's new book, the Evolution of God, really made me reconsider. There seem to be three broad pushes in New Atheism. The first is proselytizing, and I think this is perfectly healthy. I think a lot of modern, sensitive atheists have taken "live and let live" too far, and have sought some sort of moral high ground by attempting to not be like the religious folks in trying to convert other people to their beliefs. But this attitude, besides acquiescing to a double standard, implicitly grants religious folks one of their most nefarious weapons, the notion that religion is "special", and off the table for rational discussion. But it should be no more off the table than politics or any other ideology-fraught topic. Of course rules of engagement need apply, namely the Don't be a dick rule.

The second push is PR and consciousness raising, and this is great. From Richard Dawkins' insistence that people stop referring to children as "Catholic" or "Hindu" children to Hemant Mehta's really powerful perceptual tool of replacing "atheist" with "Jew" or "Christian" in any statement about atheists to see if it would still pass muster with common tolerance norms. For instance, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' statement that "Atheism leads to brutality" does not jar the typical American brain the way "Judaism leads to brutality" does, and this needs consciousness raising.

But the third push of New Atheism is intolerance of believers. Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris especially harp on the idea that in a world of nuclear weapons and means of large scale destruction, we can't afford to tolerate irrational belief systems. Atheists (not just New) spend a lot of time finding ridiculous and/or evil passages in holy texts, passages where the deity in question commits genocide or encourages his (almost always 'his') followers to slaughter a people wholesale in his stead, advocates stoning or other brutal punishment for homosexuality or menstruating on the sabbath or whatever, or describes reality in some way modern science has rendered fanciful, to put it generously. The atheists are obviously right in these criticisms, but they're wrong in the "Ha! I've got you now!" that follows.

This exercise usually seems to be used more to persuade other atheists just how crazy believers are. It would fail to persuade most believers even if they deigned for a moment to listen. One reason, I think, is that they don't believe whatever absurd scriptural story you just regaled. How could they? You've probably just pointed out that they'd never heard it before in an attempt to prove their ignorance of their own revealed Truth. When they see for themselves it really is right there in the scripture (call it the Bible, say), they might claim they believe it, because they think they should (because it's right there in the Bible!), but they won't understand why they should. It will be something like a symbolic belief. And chances are they won't try very hard to integrate these uncomfortable stories into their belief systems, because they like their belief system just the way it is thank you very much, and anyway listening to some atheist isn't their preferred method of learning moral and spiritual truths. 

And do you really want them to incorporate these stories into their worldview? There's a great gotcha here. You've just shown an inconsistency. They say they believe everything in the Bible and you've demonstrated 1) there's something in Bible they've never even heard of and 2) they can't integrate the whole scripture into their worldview. But you already knew this, because you already knew what a hodgepodge, multi-author, contradictory mess the Bible was. What was the point again?

The far more interesting question Robert Wright tackles in his book is why you had to point out the ugly Biblical tale in the first place. These darkest bits of the Bible are left out of sunday school classes, and pastors and priests leave them well alone. In many Christian churches in the west, the ridiculous and awful passages about women are quietly retreating into obscurity. The Roman Catholic church, among others has accepted the reality of biological evolution. (About time, I know). This doesn't excuse anything, certainly not the sexism, homophobia, other bigotries, and anti-science stances that persist in different pockets of the religious world. But clearly progress is possible, and it's interesting to ask how it happens.

This kind of rhetoric coming out of the New Atheism, rhetoric I've been guilty of in the past, suggests a certain scriptural determinism. That is, believers are liable to behave in the ways they do because they take their scriptures literally, just as they claim they do. So whatever darkness dwells within the pages of the holy text will manifest in the actions of the believers. This is suspect in principle, because as atheists unceasingly point out, scriptures offer contradictory advice. Believers simply must project prior preferences onto their religion. But more importantly, empirically it just doesn't seem to be the case that people get their world view from their religious texts.

Wright takes the Judeochristian faiths as his example, and plots out the way the stories, translations, and interpretations evolved against what was happening to real people at the time. He argues, I think persuasively, that people changed their God to fit their experiences down on earth, rather than fitting their experiences to the prior desires of their God. So when the Israelites were incorporated into the Persian empire and began to trade peacefully with similarly subjugated former foes, Yahweh started describing these old enemies as not so bad, even human and worthy of respect and fair treatment. Or now, as more religious people realize they actually know and like a homosexual or two, they're less inclined to persecute them, and consequently their God is much less likely to command such persecution. God evolves to fit circumstances.

The point, finally, of this rambling post is that the intolerance of believers coming from the New Atheists is counterproductive in the extreme. If the vilest excesses of religious belief can be tamed by positive-sum interactions between peoples, as they have in most of the developed world, then such interactions should be pursued. Sowing hostility, as many of the New Atheists do, indeed by dehumanizing believers as shallow zombies capable of any bloody act mentioned in a book, will never change beliefs, because that's by and large just not how beliefs change. Instead, it creates a zero-sum atmosphere between believers and non-believers. God will evolve accordingly. This is not to say that faith and absurd beliefs shouldn't be challenged; they should. But the most effective way to neuter faith, and bring about a world where weapons of mass destruction are less likely to be used regardless of irrational beliefs, is to build bridges, and act in such ways that make it as easy as possible for the faithful to humanize the rest of us. God is infinitely adaptable; steer her in a benign direction.

the moral imperative of economic growth

I haven't been following the brouhaha over the Cordoba House/Park 51 very closely. In part this is because when the issue came up I thought some people would say some stupid things and then we would all get on with our lives. But people keep talking about it, from Harry Reid and other prominent Democrats opposing its construction to Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin making some shockingly disgusting utterances. And the opposition to mosques and Muslims is not limited to Lower Manhattan, as this Yahoo story discusses:

Public protests against three planned mosques have made news in the past week: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined others in opposing the building of a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. Hundreds demonstrated against a proposed mosque in a small town in Tennessee (pictured above). And some residents of Temecula, California, are opposing the local Muslim community's plan to build a bigger mosque, saying it could become a hotbed of radical Islam.

And something like two-thirds of Americans polled oppose the building of the Cordoba House.

After 09/11/2001 I remember there was a great fear that there would be some dreadful backlash against Muslim-Americans and, at least to my recollection, it just didn't materialize. What's going on now seems like some nine year delayed reaction. One big difference that springs to mind about our relatively enlightened reaction to a terrorist attack (at least in terms of our behavior to Muslims within our borders, if not our foreign policy or surveillance apparatus) nine years ago compared to our current reaction to a building explicitly devoted to interfaith dialogue is the normal state of low unemployment and economic growth then and our high unemployment and stagnant growth now.

Our less-than-generous attitude to immigrants now, in a time of decreased immigration rates, compared to just a few years ago, when prominent politicians from both parties could be found to advocate immigration reform, is another example of the same phenomenon. In times of economic expansion, we appear to be more gracious with one another. In times of stagnation, we're less so. This is the argument Benjamin Friedman apparently makes in his book, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth (which I would know if I'd read it, but it's reviewed here by Brad DeLong).

It's striking to me how all these issues are related. High unemployment is not just an issue narrowly for the sake of creating employment for those unemployed; it's an issue broadly for the sake of the rest us. We will become better people again when the economy resumes more robust growth and employment returns to normal. And for those of us concerned about the plight of immigrants, about the religious freedoms and property rights of Muslims, and about our moral growth generally, perhaps the surest way to return to sensibility is to return to prosperity.

on Mehserle

I don't have strong feelings on the verdict of this case. I haven't been following the case in detail. I understand the defense claimed Mehserle meant to grab and use his other potentially lethal weapon while Grant was face down on the ground. Mistakes can be made very easily in high stress situations. Perhaps it is not unreasonable to give the benefit of the doubt in such conditions.

However, benefit of the doubt in uncertain, high stress conditions should be given to more than just police officers. Another example of uncertainty and high stress that could possibly lead to honest mistakes is when police bust down a door unannounced in the middle of the night, shooting every dog in sight. A sleepy resident might be confused, frightened, and unprepared as to the best way to react, possibly leading to violence by mistake. But non-police are not always given the same benefit of the doubt.

If anything, the police should be held to a higher standard, given their training and their status as bearers of the public trust. But really, it would just be nice if the law applied to police and non-police civilians with the same presumptions and the same force.

the ethical emigrant

On a gut level, I really loathe the argument against expanding immigration (in this case specifically for skilled immigrants) that it will result in a brain drain for the poorer sending country, hurting that society by removing its top talent. Counter-arguments point to the role of remittances; the often temporary nature of the migration, as in the case of education; and possibly the value to the sending country of expanded networks and further global integration. But regardless of the economics, the argument bothers me because this should be the choice of the individual migrant, based on her own wholly personal motivations, whatever they may be. The idea that receiving nations would adjust their immigration policies based on such considerations is disturbing, the mirror image of the Berlin Wall.

And yet, from that individual's perspective, there are ethical considerations. One of the main reasons I support more open migration policies worldwide is because I like the idea of a world where people can vote with their feet, where they might travel the world not only for work or fancy but also to shop around for public goods jurisdictions to their liking. An aspiring migrant might want to leave a really bad situation, like a totalitarian regime. The enlightened emigrant's departure from a particularly benighted realm will make that realm marginally more benighted. Of course the negative effect on the country of one departing migrant would be minuscule compared to the benefits accruing to that migrant, but they shouldn't be discounted from an ethical calculation altogether. After all, the same argument could be made for any private, voluntary effort to correct for negative externalities or majoritarian ethical hiccups; doing what you can to reduce your greenhouse gas footprint in the absence of a price on carbon dioxide comes to mind.

I've been thinking of this because lately I've been in an uncharacteristically anti-American mood, almost certainly because I've been reading too much Glenn Greenwald. Really though, the American government in the last ten years has launched two aggressive wars, killed God Knows How Many innocent human beings in Predator drone strikes in foreign countries we're not even at war with (not that the USA has officially been 'at war' since WWII), locked up GKHM innocent human beings in cages without any kind of due process, tortured GKHM innocent human beings, and asserted the authority to assassinate American citizens, again, without due process. This is all sold as necessary to win a phantom conflict against an idea. And these abrogations of the rule of law join the police militarization, weakening of the Fourth Amendment, and racist horror resulting from our drug war (another war on a concept) that has resulted in America earning the dubious distinction of imprisoning more of its citizens, by both percentages and naked numbers, than any other nation.

While I realize that if I die in Canada, I'll die in real life, it does not seem unreasonable to consider getting up and leaving as an appropriate response. After all, I'd prefer to live in a place where the government, after determining an individual has been wrongfully caged and tortured for eight years, gives him an apology and a cool $8 million, rather than a place where the government does everything in its power to deny him his day in court.

Finding much of the American government's activities unconscionable, the eager young Enlightenment idealist might consider leaving its jurisdiction, only to remove her positive influence and have the vacuum filled with the likes of Sarah Palin and Barack Obama. On the other hand, from the cosmopolitan perspective, the important thing is only that the Open Society flourishes somewhere for its ideals to remain alive; in the end it doesn't matter if America succumbs to its worst demons. Well, it does matter for the people affected, which is why the ethical emigrant might consider sending back moral remittances, money sent back to liberal institutions fighting the good fight, like the ACLU.

Perhaps it's not a thorny question after all. I think in the end this post was just a vehicle for grievance airing.

blood, commerce, and culture: another immigration post

Karl Smith at Modeled Behavior has an interesting post with some less commonly mentioned aspects of immigration. After noting the scale of the situation, that if everyone who expressed a desire to emigrate to the United States did so, the US population could surge by as much as 180 million, he writes

First, an increase in immigration permanently dilutes the costs of military action. Military expenditures are invariant to the population. Yet, over the long term this is actually a much larger concern than either Social Security or Medicare. As China, India and Brazil industrialize, either the United States will have to drastically increase the percentage of GDP spent on the military or it will have to relinquish its position as a world superpower.

I know that seems like a fine idea to many, especially to many libertarian minded folks. However, liberal democracy has flourished almost entirely under the canopy of Anglo-American hegemony. It is entirely possible that a truly multi-polar world could sustain liberalism but it is not, however, entirely certain. To my mind the maintenance of the Open Society is our primary responsibility and I am not inclined to leave it to chance.

Now let me be clear. I am not an evangelical liberal. I don’t see it as necessary or even in all cases desirable to attempt to spread the basic principles of the Open Society.  I do see it, however, as crucial to maintain the Open Society where it currently exists.

All emphases in block quotes are his. This is a fascinating point. I think it's an uncomfortable fact that many periods of globalization throughout history have been supported by empire: The Romans, the Mongols, the British, etc. One really hopes that this will not always have to be the case, that we will one day be able to harness the benefits of globalization without needing to suffer the violence of imperialism. In any case it appears impossible to maintain hegemony in perpetuity. In light of this I actually think diluting the cost of the military is an argument against liberalizing immigration because cheapening military action will lead to more ill-considered adventurism, leading to more suffering abroad and loathing of the hegemonic power. Loathing from inevitably rising powers will not help to preserve the Open Society.

But there are clearly countervailing effects of immigration as well. Since Smith pointed out that over 20 million of those 180 million aspiring immigrants are Chinese, I was reminded of one of my all-time favorite Brad DeLong posts:

Think of it this way: Consider a world that contains one country that is a true superpower. It is preeminent--economically, technologically, politically, culturally, and militarily. But it lies at the east edge of a vast ocean. And across the ocean is another country--a country with more resources in the long-run, a country that looks likely to in the end supplant the current superpower. What should the superpower's long-run national security strategy be?

I think the answer is clear: if possible, the current superpower should embrace its possible successor. It should bind it as closely as possible with ties of blood, commerce, and culture--so that should the emerging superpower come to its full strength, it will to as great an extent possible share the world view of and regard itself as part of the same civilization as its predecessor: Romans to their Greeks.

In 1877, the rising superpower to the west across the ocean was the United States. The preeminent superpower was Britain. Today the preeminent superpower is the United States. The rising superpower to the west across the ocean is China. that was the rising superpower across the ocean to the west of the world's industrial and military leader. Today it is China.

Throughout the twentieth century it has been greatly to Britain's economic benefit that America has regarded it as a trading partner--a source of opportunities--rather than a politico-military-industrial competitor to be isolated and squashed. And in 1917 and again in 1941 it was to Britain's immeasurable benefit--its veruy soul was on the line--that America regarded it as a friend and an ally rather than as a competitor and an enemy. A world run by those whom de Gaulle called les Anglo-Saxons is a much more comfortable world for Britain than the other possibility--the world in which Europe were run by Adolf Hitler's Saxon-Saxons.

There is a good chance that China is now on the same path to world preeminence that America walked 130 years ago. Come 2047 and again in 2071 and in the years after 2075, America is going to need China. There is nothing more dangerous for America's future national security, nothing more destructive to America's future prosperity, than for Chinese schoolchildren to be taught in 2047 and 2071 and in the years after 2075 that America tried to keep the Chinese as poor as possible for as long as possible.

Immigration is 'blood, commerce, and culture' all at once. Happily, I reckon the illiberal effects of cheaper military aggression are overwhelmed by the formation of peaceful bonds that immigration facilitates.

Second, immigration temporarily dilutes expenditures on Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the national debt. However, temporary counts for a lot. The future is inherently uncertain and so truly pushing off consequences into the future is inherently a net gain. There is a chance of catastrophe, in which case your sacrifices were useless and there is a chance of explosive growth, in which case your sacrifices were unnecessary. These are real possibilities and should not be ignored.

It also gives additional time to prepare for changes in Social Security. One possibility is that the continued shift away from physically intensive jobs will mean that in 50 years a retirement age of 70 is feasible even if in 25 years it is not.

True enough. The advantages of a younger society are ample and fairly well known.

Third, the rate of world wide technological progress is likely proportional to the number of people living in countries at or near the technological frontier. Increasing the number of Americans increases the growth of technology generally.

This is a favorite of mine, and a point that applies equally to charter cities as to expanding immigration. From a brute counting perspective, a large, dense, well connected population simply affords more opportunities for serendipitous collisions of ideas. Perhaps the analogy is too simple, but likening society to a big brain can be illuminating. A large population has more neurons making possible vastly more neural connections. This is true in any case, including cities in developing countries, but as Smith suggests, it seems likely the innovation generating quality of population density will be even greater if more of those innovators have access to the tools, resources, and institutions of the rich world.

Fourth, immigration is the most effective poverty elimination program known. Not only does it dramatically increase the standard of living of the immigrants but remittances to home countries by immigrants represents a greater transfer of resources than all foreign aid combined.

This cannot be shouted from the rooftops loudly enough or often enough. If you are at all concerned with improving the welfare of the world's poorest human beings and you do not support liberalizing immigration, then you have a damn lot of explaining to do.

Glenn Beck and F.A. Hayek

As of the time of this posting, Hayek's the Road to Serfdom was at the top of the amazon.com bestselling list. Apparently this is all because of a Glenn Beck show, wherein he says it's the best book you can read, a "Mike Tyson right hook to socialism."

I'm not sure what I think about this. On the obvious hand, it's awesome Hayek is selling like hotcakes. At least some Beck fans will read it and gain enough sophistication points to level up.

But I'm guessing most Beck viewers will buy it, page through it, and let it collect dust thereafter, expecting that Glenn Beck has already told them everything they need to know about it (take home message: the folks in Washington are planning to enslave you!).

Worse, the few liberals curious enough to give Hayek a fair shake will have second thoughts after associating him with Glenn Beck. And it doesn't help that, in at least the first ten minutes of the show (all I watched) he kept waving around Atlas Shrugged, implicitly comparing Hayek to Rand the Reviled.

This is unfortunate because Hayek was quite a bit more nuanced than Rand (she thought he was a statist of the most dangerous kind) and quite a bit more liberal than most conservatives and liberals probably realize. I'm guessing, for instance, this passage out of the Road to Serfdom (chapter 9) will surprise recent buyers:

There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained [the certainty of a given minimum of sustenance] should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom ... An incautious handling of these questions might well cause serious and perhaps even dangerous political problems; but there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody.

[...]

Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance--where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks--the case for the state's helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.

I doubt Hayek would have had anything kind to say about recent health care legislation. But his objections would not have been motivated by knee-jerk opposition to government spending for social insurance.

framing innocents with immunity (impunity)

Here's something interesting from the CS Monitor:

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday is set to consider an unusual question: Do Americans who have been framed by unscrupulous prosecutors for crimes they did not commit have a right to sue the prosecutors when the fraud is finally exposed?

According to the Obama administration, the answer is no.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan argues in a friend of the court brief that local, state, and federal prosecutors must enjoy absolute immunity from citizen lawsuits – even when they sent innocent men to prison for life by fabricating incriminating evidence and hiding exculpatory evidence.

In the case at hand, two Iowa prosecutors solicited false testimony leading to the conviction of two (black) teenagers, Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington, for the murder of a retired (white) police officer. They were sentenced to life in prison and served 25 years before their innocence came to light.

The right to sue prosecutors in this sort of case would put them on par with law enforcement agents who can face such consequences. Kagan doesn't buy it: "But absolute immunity reflects a policy judgment that such conduct is properly addressed not through civil liability, but through a host of other deterrents and punishments." Very reassuring.

I'm open to the idea of having some form of limited liability for prosecutors who are just doing their job. I can see how lawsuits might get out of hand if prosecutors can just be sued for losing their cases, or making honest mistakes. But this, for instance, was a clear case of criminal intent.