The "Truthiness of Religion" (I)

In December 2009, Shaun McGonigal, a self-styled new atheist, posted a thought-provoking essay entitled, "Truthiness of religion," on his personal blog (here) and in the on line edition of the Philadelphia Examiner (here).  In the essay, McGonigal explains why he is an atheist, which is because so far as he can see religious thinking is not about truth.  He states, "Our creative powers which provide us with the transcendent experiences, sublime emotions, and inspiring ideas are a great tool for the creative process, but not for attaining truth.  If we want to know what is real, we need to be critical, meticulous, and scientific."   He acknowledges that people have religious experiences, which he styles as being the "sensation of transcendence" and even avows having such feelings himself.  But they are just sensations.  We don't actually transcend ourselves.  He also denies that artistic creativity, such as in poetry, leads to truth.  McGonigal, by the same token considers religious revelations as being nothing more than the imaginings of our minds.  Truth, he believes, can only be attained by the careful critical application of the scientific method.  The word "critical" is, well, critical to his view of obtaining the truth.  Truths are provisional and must be tested and criticized, which is precisely where religious thinking fails to meet the test.  He, in sum, has no problem with religion as sentiments and feelings—just so long as it does not claim to have anything to do with the truth.  He writes, "Allowing ourselves to be swallowed up by stories birthed in the ecstatic moments of artistic creativity and then to claim it to be true is not clear thinking.  We need to train ourselves to be better thinkers and to accept criticism or to get used to feeling disrespected."  He closes with the thought that, "The truth, as the Vorlons  say, points to itself.  It does not need us to create it."

McGonigal's essay is worth a pause in spite of his penchant for zingers and a bit of a smart-alec attitude witnessed by his use of the word "truthiness," a word coined by the comedian Stephen Colbert meaning, " a 'truth' that a person claims to know intuitively 'from the gut' without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts."  Then there's his closing citation of scifi superior beings, "the Vorlons," for his description of truth as self-authenticating.  Funny.  Well, not really.  It is but another indication that McGonigal shares the new atheists' typical thinly disguised disdain for theists.

Stephen Colbert, Oct. 17, 2005

Even so, he gives us pause to reflect, which I would like to do in this post and those that follow.  The goal here is not to answer McGonigal, which is the first point I would like to make.  When it comes to matters of faith, his mind is clearly made up.  He not only doesn't see the point of it but he also sees in faith something for which he has no use or sympathy.  In his world, the world would be best done with religion in all of its various forms.

For those of use who seek to bring science and faith into a mutually beneficial dialogue, McGonigal is a closed book, and we need to accept that fact.  He is as closed to us as are our sisters and brothers in Christ who profess biblical literalism.  In actual fact, we do not stand on middle ground between the new atheists and biblical literalists; we stand in a different place.  The reason they are so angry at each other is because they are fighting over common territory, which they both agree is "the truth."  They both think about truth in absolute terms.  The new atheists believe that there is only one truth, which is the truth of science.  For them science is an absolutely dependable method for discovering the truth.  The literalists posit their absolute truth in the "facts" of their faith.  There is no room for dialogue with either group.  We best leave them to their war.

That does not mean, however, that we cannot learn from them.  McGonigal's essay, in this case, offers us important insights into what it is we seek when we bring science and faith into what is for us a fruitful and exciting dialogue.  More on that in what follows.