The kids are in bed and Amanda and I have assumed our positions in different corners of the living room. She is reading Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion. Though she is only on the Preface to the paperback edition, she breaks into frequent giggles. My game is not to ask what has amused her. So far, I always find out anyway. Dawkins is addressing, one at a time, the various objections of the pious. "You can't criticize religion without a detailed analysis of learned books of theology." "You always attack the worst of religion and ignore the best." His response to one or the other involves P.Z. Myers's "The Courtier's Reply." The theological enterprise--explaining why, appearances notwithstanding, the emperor is clothed.
I don't know about all that but have my own complaint. Let us put to the side the fundamentalists and related crackpots. What of the rest, the so-called "best"? To me they seem to present a moving target. When they preach to Joe Pewsitter, it's hard to know that there is much space between them and the fighting fundamentalists. God cares for us, hears our prayers, sent his son to die for our sins that we might have eternal life, and so on. For someone like Dawkins, however, they have a different speech. Doctrines are given a metaphoric interpretation and the crude drawings of the fundamentalists are now works of abstract expressionism. Those inclined to be sympathetic say it is sublime but outsiders may sense a fraud.
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