The fine art of missing the point entirely

As a sometimes actual-journalist, I'm familiar (and therefore partially sympathetic) with the demands placed on feature writers. Perhaps the most coveted prize for such reporters is the Holy Grail known as "balance." Without sufficient column inches or airtime, most debates, no matter how complex and muddy, get reduced to simplistic, bifurcated "he says" "but others say" routines.

This results in a kind of vague unspoken assumption that the truth must reside somewhere in the hallowed "middle ground." And with the renewed debate between science and religion turning into a war of attrition, it's no surprise the media are eager for their messiah of the middle. Enter Robert Wright and Newsweek.

Let’s Talk About God

by Lisa Miller May 28, 2009.

Alrighty, let's do.

The atheist writers Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have presented us with a choice: either you don’t believe in God or you’re a dope. “It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God, simply because that belief makes him happy,” writes Harris in the 2005 “Atheist Manifesto” now posted on the Web site of his new nonprofit, The Reason Project. Their brilliance, wit and (general) good humor have made the new generation of atheists celebrities among people who like to consider themselves smart. We enjoy their books and their telegenic bombast so much that we don’t mind their low opinion of us. Dopey or not, 90 percent of Americans continue to say they believe in God.

Straw men in place? Check. False dichotomy? Check. Obligatory populist nod? Check.

By the way, none of the aforementioned atheist writers have, to my knowledge, described believers one and all as "dopes." Miller leads with a Sam Harris quote taken thoroughly out of context. In the piece, Harris isn't name-calling or labeling the faithful as uniformly dumb; he's making a specific argument against any brand of reasoning that counts personal comfort as proof. And he's, of course, right. Believing my cock is humongous might boost my self-esteem, but it has no bearing on the decidedly average and kinda bent truth.

Robert Wright’s The Evolution of God, which comes out next week, is about to reframe this debate. Wright doesn’t argue one side or other of the “Is God real?” question. He leaves that aside. Instead, he grapples with God as an idea that has changed—evolved—through history.

(Read: And is, ergo, probably right.)

Scientists believe in electrons because they see the effects of electrons on the world. “You might say,” he writes in his afterword, “that love and truth are the two primary manifestations of divinity in which we can partake, and that by partaking in them we become truer manifestations of the divine. Then again, you might not say that. The point is just that you wouldn’t have to be crazy to say it.” ...

With those three sentences, Wright gives relief and intellectual ballast to those believers weary of the punching-bag tone of the recent faith-and-reason debates.

Ballast my balls. See, some things in life are, as much as we might wish otherwise, ultimately backed by evidence and some are not. One could say love and truth are the primary manifestations of Ed Asner's ass. One could say a lot of things. The point Harris and company drive home is not that believers are dopes, but that those who engage in the precarious balancing act of faith are pretenders to the throne of reason. By mistaking their emotions as the whisperings of an almighty force, the religious comfortably bypass the uncertain, harsh, and at times frightening demands placed on us by the universe. God is, in a word, an excuse.

Is balance a good thing? Absolutely. But it doesn't guarantee that journalists have cornered the market on truth by aiming their crosshairs at the middle. Sometimes one side actually is right. Not every playing field is level. Nor should it be. The Flat Earth Society simply hasn't earned a platform (no pun intended) upon which to stand. Not only can some groups not distinguish their asses from holes in the ground, they claim to have no assses at all. That is, despite their ability to talk out of them. What should we do? Forge ahead with a compromise position? The Earth is a not quite as round as we thought maybe?

The middle ground may feel safe and warm, but it's no less prone to earthquakes than the outskirts. "There may or may not be a god, but we have no reliable evidence that one exists" versus "There is a god, I know his name, and he tells me his perfect and holy will." Are these two positions really comparable on any level?

Methinks the center might not be where you think it is, Lisa.