Holy War: Tired of the Well-Worn Athiest Critique

"More lives have been taken in the name of God than for any other cause. I have seen grown men kill each other over who has the best imaginary friend."

And folks accuse the Christian Right (which I do not affiliate with) of using bumper sticker argumentation! Yet the typical response we give is normally a silently uttered sigh and an invisible roll of the eyes, followed by a few remarks about how "we can't blame God for what his creations do." And why not?? If, as Christian orthodoxy suggests, God is indeed "the First Cause" and free will is largely an illusion or at least no more than a product of decisions God made eons ago (which we must conclude if us, in all of our complexity, ex nihilo).

Since, by and large, the already-convinced read this blog, I must acknowledge that I will probably not be moving any hearts to a new vistas. In addition, if I sound cavalier when talking about terrible things, it is sad necessity. All too often, argumentation requires coldness, at least when one is faced with space limitations.

It's a well-worn (and well-worn) trope of the recently popularized Athiesm movement a la Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Indeed, some fellow Latter Day Saint historians writing on the Mountain Meadows Massacre place their inquiry squarely into this discourse, asking rhetorically whether citizens would be "better off without religion." They seem to prefer that we worship ourselves (leading us to believe that whatever we do is right? Would that not have the same horrific effects that the wars of religion have had??)

Our critics assume that religiously motivated attacks are particularly heinous (one might ask Eugenia Ginzburg...the 18-year survivor of the Gulag...whether she was thanking her lucky stars that Stalin didn't say his prayers daily...spoiler: she wasn't...she even had a few moments of religious conversion herself as her German friend began reciting the Psalms to her as she traveled on the Siberian railway to Vladivastok...touching indeed). They might cite some terrible crimes (such as the Mountain Meadows Massacre or a few others) to demonstrate how terrible they were...though I'm pretty sure I could find equally terrible instances from folks who hadn't gone to church, read scriptures, or said a prayer in years.

And here is where the critics find themselves indulging in a bit of tautology: "Well, any war/violence is promoted by a "faith" of some kind, even if it is in a secular faith in Pol Pot or Stalin." Odd, indeed. If we believe that names and labels can inform us at all...and aren't just cogs to promote some kind of Foucaultian power structure...is it really honest to blame Stalinism on the idea of faith? Would the critics prefer that our religion be small, mnanageable, and ultimately insignificant?

It useful for critics to believe that -isms make the world go around...not people. As David Horowitz (who, while pursuing certain noble goals which I share, all too often resembles a right-wing hack) so noted: "To the revolutionary, 'the people' matter far more than the people themselves." It reminds me of my friend in Utah (who shall remain nameless) who, though wildly articulate, has a penchant for knee-jerkness when she sees an injustice. Blame religion, blame capitalism, even blame communism...but just make sure you blame the ideological system. Doing so helps the thinker to feel particularly big, like an ideological dragon-slayer. Normally, no solution is proposed other than ideological genocide. Interestingly, just as these theorists accuse the religious fanatics of "otherizing" the enemy, so do they "otherize" the ideas they attack.

Indeed, I would suggest that when we speak of religion as a motivator for war, we cannot view it as an independent variable that influences one's prejudices aside and apart from other motivations. They speak as though belief in a higher power alone is cause sufficient to bring about pain and suffering; never mind that the patient might also have other diseases that could kill even more quickly. The Israel-Palestine conflict, for example, has far more to do with secular nationalism of the 19th century. heodor Herzl wanted Israel to be a secular state; indeed, German rabbis opposed the formation of his World Zionist Organization. Indeed, the Ottoman empire of the 19th century, while no Shangrila of religious cooperation was hardly the madness we see now in "occupied territories" of the Middle East.

Motivations for war are often-multi-layered...and those who suggest otherwise are either polemicists or ill-informed. They speak as though every soldier were muttering "Allahu Akhbar" or "Every Knee Shall Bow" while wielding his sword or firing his gun. The best evidence we have regarding the Mountain Meadows Massacre, for example, does not draw a direct correlation between the emigrant trains' religion and the militia's decision to kill them. These prejudices only surfaced after it was known that an army of thousands were en route. Indeed, if religion were an inevitable cause for war, What are we to make of the times of tolerance in world history? Maria Menocai has written an excellent work on the vibrant culture of arts and sciences which medieval Spain produced through a convergence of Muslim, Judaic, and Christian faiths.

My friends, let us all do better at answering the athiest critique of war. It is as much of a bumper sticker campaign as anything you will see in on the pickup trucks of backwoods Appalachia.