I was at the Michael Novak book event, too. I agree with Mike Potemra that Heather Mac Donald’s closing shot went right home. Irreligious people cannot forget, though the religious would dearly like us to, how the disciples of Universal Love, Compassion and Brotherhood behaved when they had real power over people’s lives. The Christian churches (Islam is, of course, a different matter) no longer have real power, and have become meek as lambs. What a surprise. Last night’s event was terrifically genteel. It was good to hear Heather remind us that three hundred years ago, things went somewhat differently.

Heather’s other strong point was her insistence on the truth value of religious teachings. Is it really true, this stuff about invisible spirits and undetectable essences, miraculous impregnations and consciousness after death? How do you know?

Listening to Michael and reading his book, it is hard to avoid the impression that believers are not at all interested in the matter of truth value, certainly not in verification by ordinary evidentiary standards. Belief is anterior to facts and reason. They believe because they believe because they believe. Reading religious apologetics – I am currently reading my way through a stack of them, for (of course!) nefarious purposes – this impression grows and grows. Our late founder, in his own apologetic, quotes Fr. Andrew Greeley saying the following on the topic of misbehavior by officials of his church:

The question is not whether the Catholic leadership is enlightened but whether Catholicism is true. A whole College of Cardinals filled with psychopathic tyrants provides no answer one way or another to that question.

So if an atheist like Lenin does something grossly wicked, that tells you all you need to know about atheism; but if an entire College of Cardinals were to do the same, that tells us nothing, nothing! about Christianity. Uh-huh. Every fact proves the thing I believe, and every contrary fact likewise proves it. Virtue in the clergy? Evidence of God’s grace. Vice in the clergy? He works in mysterious ways. Christ’s miracles? Proof of His divinity. Subsequent absence of miracles? Further proof! (John 20.xxix.) Everything, and also its converse, proves the thing that is to be proved, because, doggone, I believe it.

It’s a watertight system. The belief is anterior, the words posterior. Mike’s argument that the Enlightenment plainly shows God at work, falls into the pattern. (I would love to hear Voltaire’s comment on that argument!)

Apropos which (I am just regurgitating random thoughts I had yesterday while listening to Heather and Michael), could believers please lay off bringing out their precious, nursed and petted “doubts” and displaying them to us? You guys don’t really have any doubts. You believe the thing you believe, and you fully intend to go on believing it, because it’s what you believe, and you believe it because it’s true, and you know it’s true because it’s what you believe. Your “doubts” are all bogus. I, at any rate, find them deeply unconvincing. You just play with the idea of having doubts, “like playing at cards for no money.” These doubts of yours are mere valueless tokens of humility, fake driver licenses to get you served at the Free Enquiry bar. There is no free enquiry in religion. The answers are all known in advance.

Footnote: A pal just sent me this from today’s LA Times. The subject line on my pal’s email, which I think would have done perfectly well for a headline, was: God Kills Passengers, Saves Priest. Priest: “Right Choice”. Just so.