As you can imagine, this has caused quite the uproar. There are people saying they want to take as many as they can and throw them away, or rip out the introduction and redistribute it, or even organize book-burnings because of the introduction. Until now, I’ve stayed quite on the issue, because I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. It’s not the clear-cut issue that some people would make it out to be.

First, if the theory is good, it should stand up to criticism. As long as he doesn’t lie outright about the facts, shouldn’t a discerning mind be able to decide if the introduction has better arguments or the book itself? Of course, this relies on the “discerning mind” to do the legwork, and if we’re talking about someone who only decided to investigate the issue because a free book was handed to them in the course of their daily campus stroll, then maybe they won’t. Still, I remember college being full of people on the sidewalk handing out pamphlets and bibles for free, and that doesn’t mean that I read them and immediately agreed with them.

But then I read about how his introduction would be fraught with, at the very least, deceptive tactics in order to discredit not only the theory, but the man (who I might add has nothing to do with the merit of the idea). Indeed, some on his side even find this admirable:

The introduction gives a time line of Darwin’s life, and his thoughts on the existence of God. It lists the theories of many hoaxes, exposes the unscientific belief that nothing created everything, points to the incredible structure of DNA, and notes the absence of any undisputed transitional forms.

To show the dangerous fruit of evolution, it also mentions Hitler’s undeniable connections to the theory, Darwin’s racism, and his disdain for women. In addition, it counters the claim that creationists are “anti-science” by citing numerous scientists who believed that God created the universe — scientists such as Einstein, Newton, Copernicus, Bacon, Faraday, Pasteur, and Kepler.

“The dangerous fruit of evolution”? “Hitler…racism…distain for women” ? What do these have anything to do with the validity of the theory? Unfortunately, I don’t always think that people correctly see through these misleading issues. I was about to jump right in and say “shame on him” for trying to win a scientific (well, at least on one side) debate with such sleaze. But I investigated and it seems that he’s trying to change it to make it a little less repulsive. According to his website, he’s changing the introduction to account for a lot of this: check it out for yourself. It isn’t available by the time of this writing, so we should keep checking back. I want to read it. If he’s willing to make it not such a complete mockery of real debate, then maybe this will actually turn out to be good.

Can giving away 100,000 copies of a very thought-provoking book be bad? I would hope that anyone who had their consciousness raised to this debate would use this as motivation to search for more answers. For me, it’s clear where that should lead. If we get him to make his introduction even-handed and let him spout bible-literalism, I really think it will do the opposite of what he wants.

Obviously, I’ve already got a side on this issue, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who did not. And I think it benefits both sides to consider from the point of view of the other. In my research and conversations with Christians, one thing that really sticks with me is the argument I sometimes hear about evangelism, converting unbelievers. Think of it this way: If you believed, really, truly believed, what they say that they do – that all of humanity was in danger of eternal hell, that there was only one way out, that they alone could guide you into salvation – what kind of person could not be adamant, even pushy about it?

Unfortunately, I think that they use this argument selectively. I generally find it hard to believe that most Christians actually believe to the level necessitated by this argument. If they really, truly believed, what would that imply? Should you go to a doctor? If you happen to die because you didn’t go to a doctor, is that a sin for not trying to preserve life, or are you in God’s hands at that point? Do you wear a seatbelt? I mean, if you’re saved right now, and you happen to get into a car accident, wouldn’t it actually be better to just jump to eternal bliss right now? If you really believed, wouldn’t you sell all of your possessions and follow Jesus with as little as you need? The implications for this kind of belief are many, and I don’t usually see it.

On the other side of the coin, what about the anti-theists which is a big difference, though not mutually incompatible, with atheism? If you really see religion as an evil in the world – teaching children that blind belief is more virtuous than common sense, that it adds guiltless justification for atrocities which far outweigh any redeeming benefits – that you would fight tooth and nail to get it out of here? There are proponents on both sides, and getting inside their heads sometimes sorts out the confusion a little bit. To honestly hold such a world-view and not be almost confrontational about it would be hypocritical. So who is right?

It’s not so obvious how you might show that you are correct. The real problem is a difference of basic principles. Anti-theists tend to hold reason and evidence as of utmost importance (I happen to do this too), and theists usually have “divine inspiration” on their side. And while some of them may claim that it’s a very logical and provable proposition to believe in God, I’ve yet to see anyone actually defend that well. In all of my experience, when we push down to it, they always admit that there is a leap of faith, however small in their eyes, required to get where they are. And who am I to say that this is wrong?

But the key difference I see is that in most things, they want to rely on reason and evidence as well. Intelligent governance depends on sound ideas, and a common position that I see a lot on both sides is that a theocracy mangles both the government and the religion horribly. This is something that I think the FFRF works for, quite nobly. And I see such ’separation of church and state’ as the only possible way of coexistence (and even then it’s a stretch). There are specious arguments against this too, such as a recent commentary out of Memphis which says,

Every “freethinker” in the world screams for tolerance… They are an example of the adage that if you tell a lie — such as the myth of “separation of church and state” — often enough, it becomes accepted as truth.

That phrase does not appear in our country’s founding documents. The First Amendment guarantees that one particular religion or denomination would not be forced upon the country, that no one would be allowed to infringe upon our rights to exercise and express our religious beliefs. It was, quite clearly, freedom for religion, not from religion.

I disagree completely with this interpretation, because it rests on the fundamental assumption that everyone has a religion. It’s the letter of the law, not the spirit. It also opens the door for someone to get fed up and say, “Fine! Call atheism a religion and lets enjoy the freedom that entails.” This is extremely harmful in the long run, and defeats the whole purpose. We’d open the floodgates of, “See! You have just as much faith as me!”, undermining the whole idea of rational belief in atheism. And I’ve said this before: even if that’s exactly what the law meant, that doesn’t mean it’s right. If that’s what it means, then we need to work to change it.

There’s no simple solution for the war of fundamentalists, because to truly believe what each one says they do, you simply must act the way they do. But if we keep it out of our government, then neither side steps on the other’s toes. We can have our debates and our fights and disagreements, but they don’t have to destroy the way everyone caught in the crossfire lives their lives. I think to both sides, this had better be an acceptable goal, since they both claim to care about us so much.

Now, I understand the reasoning, but I’m used to questions that are about the authenticity of the gospels. There are all kinds of debates that talk about whether or not we can believe them, who they were written by, when they were written, how the canonical gospels were chosen and the gnostic gospels were rejected… lots of interesting topics. But he seemed to be saying that it doesn’t matter. The new testament is (I guess?) evidenced by Genesis, rather than evidence for it. Huh.

It was honestly something I hadn’t even thought to prepare for. I would say that the credibility of Genesis is already in doubt to all but the most die-hard literalists. The book is how old? Written by who? Changed and translated when, how, why, and by whom? But those aren’t facts. And anyone who’s debated with a fundamentalist knows that, unfair though it be, the burden is on you to know the facts, because their default position when you don’t is: “I win”. It’s not like a gospel where you can say, “So and so couldn’t have written this, and it wasn’t formalized for 100 years. Then it was chosen by popular vote to be in the bible 300 years after that.” Nope, all you have is “How on earth can you put so much trust in that ancient myth?” That just lets them (fallacious as it is) smugly say “God says so. It’s in the divinely-inspired bible.”

I like to think that I’m fairly quick on my feet with most topics, but I just didn’t really come up with what I would have liked at that moment. What would you say?