Published here [1], you can read the ongoing lively debate between Sam Harris and Dennis Prager, who hosts a nationally syndicated radio talk show.
Here’s how Harris responded [2] to the common claim that atheists are arrogant believers that everything “just happened”:
Atheism does not assert that “it is all made by chance.” No one knows why the universe came into being. Most scientists readily admit their ignorance on this point. Religious believers do not. One of the extraordinary ironies of religious discourse can be seen in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while condemning scientists and other nonbelievers for their intellectual arrogance. You have done a fine job of this above. And yet, there is no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: The Creator of the Universe takes an active interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell…
An average believer has achieved a level of arrogance that is simply unimaginable in scientific discourse—and there have been some extraordinarily arrogant scientists.
Prager argues here [3] that God’s existence is proved by the alleged lack of moral fiber found in secular societies.
My argument is that unlike Judeo-Christian America, secular societies—generally meaning those of Western Europe—lose their will to survive (by not reproducing), and stand for nothing (they were largely morally worthless in the Cold War against Communism and are worthless or worse in helping to keep Israel alive against Muslims who vow to exterminate the Jewish state.) When people realize this, they may conclude that something that is necessary for society to survive—belief in the God of Israel—may in fact exist.Judeo-Christian Values?
Although Prager’s examples are clouded by numerous confounding variables, I find this to be an interesting issue. Atheists certainly aren’t as willing as Believers to pick up guns to impose their philosophical viewpoint on others. For example, there haven’t been any atheist Inquisitions. On the other hand, doesn’t a strong shared religious belief system provide an advantage to a community that is forced to defend itself against an external enemy? Consider, for instance, the melding of religious and political outlook in post 9/11 America. It brings to mind David Sloan Wilson’s suggestion (in Darwin’s Cathedral) that religion can serve to coordinate numerous individuals into a socially cohesive super-entity, similar to the way in which human cells cohere into human bodies.
I’m suggesting that societies that are religiously charged-up might be better socially coordinated and, therefore, more effective than secular societies at carrying out warfare. I’m not suggesting that such an advantage (to the extent that it really exists) makes a society smarter. In fact, probably the opposite. Where action is emphasized, thought is de-emphasized. Highly religious societies are (I believe) much more likely to do things like demonizing and attacking the wrong country (e.g., Iraq). I don’t agree, then, that Prager’s data set proves his point (that secular societies “have less will to survive”), but I think that the point is worthy of further consideration. Maybe I’d term it this way: Do theists make better fighters? To avoid confusion, whether or not God actually exists is an entirely separate question.
The argument between Harris and Prager often returns to the burden of proof. Who bears the burden of proof on whether God exists? Skeptics often cite Carl Sagan’s “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence [4].” In this particular debate, Harris cites Bertrand Russell’s orbiting China teapot example [2]:
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.
Using his own burdern of proof argument, Prager ends with a quote by Rabbi Milton Steinberg [3]:
“The believer in God has to account for the existence of unjust suffering; the atheist has to account for the existence of everything else.”
And that is why your task, Sam, is infinitely greater than mine.
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