Sign of the Times

Several weeks ago the Connecticut Valley Atheists spurred a bit of controversy with their unholy seasonal display.

The structure the atheists placed in the park features on two sides a dramatic image of the sun shining between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, framed by the words “Imagine No Religion.” The image of the towers is meant to convey that without religion the towers would still be standing, said Dennis P. Himes, a Vernon resident and coordinator for Connecticut Valley Atheists. On the third side, facing the town hall, is information about the winter solstice.

This particular graphic is also promoted at RichardDawkins.net, and is presented as a clever commentary on the perils of religious belief. The imagery is certainly dramatic and thought-provoking, but is this simply another case of throwing the baby Jesus out with the baptismal bathwater?

The argument that society would be better off without religion is one that is viscerally satisfying to atheists. But it is a mistake to rely on a straw man argument to suggest that religious belief is inherently evil (or at least moreso than would be a universal secularism). This fallacy is nicely debunked at Atheist Ethicist, where Alonzo Fyfe fantasizes about the concilatory and explanatory speech that might allow this pitiful demonstration to have a more substantive effect on public discourse about the role of religion and government. This proposed speech reads, in part:

When given an opportunity to put up a holiday display in front of town hall, we decided to put up a sign that showed the World Trade Center towers as they were before 9/11, with the words: “Imagine: No Religion.” That sign was an insult to anybody who accepts some religion, but who would never participate in or condone an act such as 9/11. We were wrong to put up that message, and we apologize for doing so.

Two wrongs do not make a right. We are forced to endure a barrage of writers and speakers who hold up Stalin and Mao Tse Tung and say, in effect, “Imagine: No Atheism.” As if we are somehow personally responsible for crimes committed by other atheists. Crimes we did not commit and do not condone.

That makes us angry. We were not there. We had nothing to do with those events. Yet, we are being held accountable for them.

In a previous post on this subject, Fyfe noted:

My criticism of this sign is not that it is unkind. My criticism is that the claim it makes is untrue – that the inference it draws is sophistry motivated by a desire to condemn the innocent. It also portrays and promotes a set of values that I think we would be better off inhibiting rather than encouraging – the claim that we should value a good sound byte, a verbal jab aiming to inflict pain, over truth and reason. I think that the world has suffered enough from that type of attitude.

Did religion (or the exploitation of religious fervor) enable the tragic events of 9/11? Almost certainly. But to assert that, in essence, to rid the world of religion would make us automatically safer is to strain credulity.

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