Does quantum mechanics show a connection between the human mind and the cosmos? Are our brains tuned into a "cosmic consciousness" that pervades the universe enabling us to make our own reality? Do quantum mechanics and chaos theory provide a place for God to act in the world without violating natural laws?
Many popular books make such claims and argue that key developments in twentieth-century physics, such as the uncertainty principle and the butterfly effect, support the notion that God or a universal mind acts upon material reality.
Physicist Victor J. Stenger examines these contentions in this carefully reasoned and incisive analysis of popular theories that seek to link spirituality to physics. Throughout the book Stenger alternates his discussions of popular spirituality with a survey of what the findings of twentieth-century physics actually mean. Thus he offers the reader a useful synopsis of contemporary religious ideas as well as basic but sophisticated physics presented in layperson's terms (without equations).
Of particular interest in this book is Stenger's discussion of a new kind of deism, which proposes a God who creates a universe with many possible pathways determined by chance, but otherwise does not interfere with the physical world or the lives of humans. Although it is possible, says Stenger, to conceive of such a God who plays dice with the universe and leaves no trace of his role as prime mover, such a God is a far cry from traditional religious ideas of God and, in effect, may as well not exist.
Like his bestselling book, God, The Failed Hypothesis, this new work presents a rigorously argued challenge to many popular notions of God and spirituality.
Analyzing the previously unexplored religious views of the Nazi elite, Richard Steigmann-Gall argues against the consensus that Nazism as a whole was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it. He demonstrates that many participants in the Nazi movement believed that the contours of their ideology were based on a Christian understanding of Germany's ills and their cure. A program usually regarded as secular in inspiration - the creation of a racialist 'people's community' embracing antisemitism, antiliberalism and anti-Marxism - was, for these Nazis, conceived in explicitly Christian terms.
His examination centers on the concept of 'positive Christianity,' a religion espoused by many members of the party leadership. He also explores the struggle the 'positive Christians' waged with the party's paganists - those who rejected Christianity in toto as foreign and corrupting - and demonstrates that this was not just a conflict over religion, but over the very meaning of Nazi ideology itself.
By Austin Cline of About Atheism
Traditional evaluation of Christian complicity in the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes focuses on the degree to which Christians allowed themselves to be used for Nazi purposes, but this presupposes a distinction between Nazis and Christians which did not entirely exist. Many Christians actively supported the Nazi agenda. Many Nazis were not only devout Christians, but also believed that Nazi philosophy was animated by Christian doctrine.
The Christianity promoted by the Nazis was labeled “positive Christianity,” a perspective that focused on the relationship between Christian promises of salvation and the German Volk as a special race of people. Point 24 of the NSDAP Party Program, created in 1920 and never rescinded, reads:
“We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession. It fights the spirit of Jewish materialism within us and without us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our Volk can only take place from within, on the basis of the principle: public need comes before private greed.”
How is all of this possible? How can the reality of the relationship between Nazism and Christianity be so far removed from popular perception? The truth about all this is detailed in Richard Steigmann-Gall’s book The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945.
Christians avert their faces from the true relationship between their religion and Nazism in part because the truth is difficult to bear, but also in part because they simply don’t understand what Christianity was like in Germany at the time.
“Positive Christians may have said little or nothing about the Augsburg Confession or other signifiers of theological orthodoxy, but they nonetheless regarded Christian social theories — "practical Christianity" as it was also known — as a linchpin of their worldview. Although generally unconcerned with dogma, many of these Nazis nonetheless adhered to basic precepts of Christian doctrine — most importantly the divinity of Christ as the son of God. Although they clearly departed from conventional theology in their rejection of the Old Testament and insistence on Christ's Aryanhood, they were not simply distorting Christianity for their own ends or engaging in idiosyncratic religious meandering. Only by ignoring the intellectual precedents for these ideas can we argue that positive Christianity was an “infection” of an otherwise pristine faith. Rather. These ideas found expression among bona fide voices of Kulturprotestantismus before the Nazi Party ever existed.”
The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945, by Richard Steigmann-Gall
Although Christians today may find it implausible that religion as they practice it could have anything in common with Nazism, they need to recognize that Christianity — including their own — is always conditioned by the culture where one finds it. For Germans at the beginning of the 20th century, this meant that Christianity was often profoundly anti-Semitic and nationalistic. This was the same ground which the Nazis found so fertile for their own ideology — it would have been amazing had the two systems not found a great deal in common and been unable to find a way to work together.
Germany after World War I was regarded as a godless, secular, materialistic republic which had betrayed all of Germany’s traditional morals, values, and religious beliefs. An important aspect of the Nazis’ appeal to the great mass of religiously conservative Germans was the fact that they said all the right things about the evils of atheism, materialism, greed, corruption, law and order, communism, and religious values.
Alongside the Christian Nazis were a number of anti-Christian Nazis who sought to create a new, neo-pagan religion for the German people. These were, however, relatively few in number and their views were never officially endorsed by the Party or by Hitler. Slightly more common were anti-clerical Nazis who continued to accept basic theistic and Christian doctrines, but who repudiated churches and priests. This seems to have been a view gradually adopted by Hitler himself.
Isn’t it true, though, that Hitler sought to eliminate churches and Christianity from Germany? It’s been said that Hitler only spoke positively about Christianity in public because he had to in order to maintain support from the German people; in private, he admitted to his true hatred of all things Christian. This view is based upon allegedly private comments recorded in the book Hitler Speaks, but Steigmann-Gall argues that the balance of evidence indicates that these statements are probably forgeries and are regarded as such by many scholars.
“The conspiratorial tone of this account of the “private” Hitler has convinced many church historians that Hitler was “a wolf in sheep's clothing,” anti-Christian to the core and from the outset of his career. The caricature Rauschning presents of Hitler’s ranting should alone have raised questions as to its authenticity; but the more troubling fact remains that Rauschning’s book stands completely alone in handing down sayings of this nature from this period.”
“It is not for nothing that these factors should raise questions: Hitler Speaks is now considered to be fraudulent. As a recent biographer has put it, “Especially the chapter ‘Hitler in private’ ...‘is untrustworthy through and through — a product of war propaganda... [Rauschning’s] ‘conversations with Hitler’ are far-off fantasies." Moreover...Rauschning was too peripheral to the movement to have been part of Hitler's inner circle of confidants, as he consistently maintained.”
Sometimes people use passages from Hitler’s Table Talks to argue that Hitler was really anti-Christian, but even if the authenticity of this entire collection of reminiscences is acknowledged, there is far more ambiguity and pro-Christian commentary than is usually acknowledged. It would be surprising if Hitler had never said anything critical of churches, priests, and Christianity and so the existence of some negative quotes is expected. What matters most is the overall balance of his commentary — and that is indisputably pro-Christian and pro-religion.
The deliberate promotion of pagan beliefs was a minority within the Nazi Party. Alfred Rosenberg favored the creation of a new religion, but Hitler went so far as to threaten to take action against his book Mythus, and it was banned by some lower-ranking party organizations. Himmler was obsessed with ancient Germans, but Hitler dismissed this as ridiculous — and even Himmler insisted that Christian viewpoints be respected within the SS. At times he admitted that he was less anti-Christian than anti-clerical.
The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945, by Richard Steigmann-Gall
One important point about all this which may be missed is the fact that these and other pagan Nazis never pretended to be anything else — they never affected a pro-Christian stance in public in order to win over the approval of the German people. When Nazis were pagan, it appears that they were unabashedly and enthusiastically pagan, without apology.
This makes it difficult to argue that other leading Nazis, like Goebbels, Goering, and Hitler himself, only pretended to be pro-Christian for the sake of public relations. If they had wanted to endorse a new paganism in Germany, they had ample opportunity. Instead, what we have are a few Nazis publicly endorsing paganism, but most Nazis publicly endorsing Christianity and all official party organs endorsing Christianity, right up to the official party platform.
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Reviewed by Steven Paul Leiva an Atheists United member.
Throughout most of history it has been easy for people to assume — and accept — the existence of gods or, later, a god, and the religions they engendered. Even in the beginning of this assumption, in the most primitive of times, there must have been those who doubted, minority though they were, causing “discussions” of the matter. Those discussions have been fairly heated on occasion when such thinkers as, in the ancient world, Democritus, Diagoras, Epicurus, and Lucretius became quite annoying with their doubts, and, in the Renaissance, when Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton challenged the Church’s spiritual views with material realities. Then there were the thinkers of the Enlightenment, Spinoza, Locke, and Jefferson, among others, who, responding to generations of religious wars, doubted not just the metaphysics of the assumption, but also the politics. And, of course, in the 19th Century, Darwin sparked not a few heated exchanges on the subject.
Because of the recent notoriety of the so called “New Atheists” — Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens among them — due to their bestselling books and eloquent presentations of their views, we are in another period of heated exchanges between theists and non-theists. In continuity with the discussions from the past, the current one centers on two philosophical points. One is cosmic: either there is or is not a god, a supreme being of some kind that not only created the universe but maintains a control and concern over the creatures in it. The other is more down-to-earth: whether the state, which maintains a more mundane control and concern over its citizens, shall be separated from the various religions within its territory by a wall, and if so, how tall, thick, and strong should that wall be? As important as the first point is, it is the second that has truly motivated the current debate. Religion, despite its eternal concerns, has never been shy about wanting to wield temporal power, and does so today in many nations in the East, and certain conservative factions of religion would be happy to do so in the West. Whereas more liberal theists, and certainly non-theists, feel such theocratic power does nothing but damage to liberty, human rights, and the unfettered pursuit of knowledge — all central concerns for Dawkins and Harris as scientists, as it was for Hitchens, a tireless campaigner against totalitarian power in any form
Into this debate on the second point comes Russell Blackford’s Freedom of Religion & The Secular State. Written to be an academic text, it also serves as a handbook on the subject (especially in its more popularly priced trade paperback and eBook editions). Although an avowed atheist, Blackford writes with the dispassion of a legal scholar. This is not surprising as he was once a practicing lawyer and is currently a practicing philosopher with several Ph.Ds, including one in English literature.
Basing his consideration of the question on the work of John Locke, the father of classical liberalism (1632-1704), Blackford lays out the role of the state as being one of the protection of “worldly interests,” or as Thomas Jefferson might have said, “Each citizen’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness here and now in this material world.” He contrasts this with religions, which “offer rival paths to spiritual salvation” in a transcendent plane of existence. The two roles, Locke says — and Blackford agrees — should not intersect. “Religious claims,” Blackford writes, “about a transcendent order may be true or false, and, in theory, some are even testable. In practice, however, disputes about religion defy resolution by reason.” That is to say, since one person’s faith, through analysis, study, and reasoning, can never determine to be more or less true than any other person’s faith, then, “wherever it can, the state should step back from all this, neither promoting nor discouraging religion (or any particular form of it).” Religion, by it’s very nature, is not a worldly interest, and therefore, should not be of interest to the state.
But even secular states with a tall, thick and strong wall separating them from religions can still do damage to the lives, liberty, and happiness of its citizen’s of faith, as Stalin’s Russia and modern China so ably demonstrates. Blackford believes that states should not derive power from religions, but also believes that they should have no undue power over religions and their practices, as long as such religions, by their practices, bring no harm to other citizens of the state. Therefore states should be restrained in their power by the “harm principle,” first described by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), which Blackford explains, “…is essentially the idea that an individual’s liberty may rightly be abridged, through the exercise of social or political power, only in response to acts that cause certain kinds of harm to others.” This applies to all individuals, of course, not just to the religious, but as a state’s relationship to religion is Blackford’s brief, he concentrates on matters of religious freedom.
Blackford gives a brief history of religious tolerance and persecution, noting that the ancient world was far better at tolerance than we moderns have been, the difference seeming to be the creation of monotheistic religions that gave no room for all the other gods tolerated when polytheism was the norm. “The Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — rejected ancient paganism’s ‘easygoing approach.’ From the beginning the cult of Yahwea condemned the worship of any other gods.” The monotheists went on from there not just to condemn but to deny “…their (other gods) very existence.” Believing, as Islam declares, “that there is no god but God” tends to make one intolerant of being told otherwise, which led to centuries of violence and persecution leading up to, in Europe, the Wars of Religion and the Thirty Years War in the 16th and 17th centuries. All of which caused thinkers such as Locke and Mill to look for another way of civic existence by separating the emotions and loyalties of otherworldly religions from the rational protection of worldly or secular interests.
That separation, or wall, was erected here in the United States by our Enlightenment inspired Founding Fathers, but not always to the complete satisfaction of our citizens, leading to a tension between those who don’t mind the state not having control over religions and their practices but think it’s proper for religion to have some control over the state and its laws; and those who wish for religions to have no control over the state and its laws, but think it’s proper for the state to have some control over religious practices. Both sides seem to want the wall to have a gate, but want that gate to swing only one way — their way.
For example, in Martha C. Nussbaum’s Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality Blackford finds much support for his contention that “for much of human history governments have imposed religious conformity on citizens, marginalizing…different beliefs…,” and therefore a modern secular state, by contrast, should treat all beliefs equally while maintaining a separation from them and their practices. However he find’s Nussbaum’s deference to religions and their mandated behaviors that may conflict with secular realities to be too accommodating, the gate swinging only to the advantage of the religions. He takes the example of the wearing of burqas by Islamic women. It is assumed that Nussbaum would consider it an abridgment of religious freedom for the state to allow employers to ban it in the workplace. Blackford sees that the worldly consequences need to be weighed — what is the job and how does the wearing of a burqa affect the performance of the employee? — before a blanket allowing or abridgment of the behavior is decided upon. If “good workplace performance…require face-to-face effective communication with clients…” then burqa wearing employees can harm the business of the employer, and it would be proper for the state to defend the employer’s rights here. On the other hand, if all employers were allowed to ban the burqa from the workplace, then conservative Muslim women would become unemployable bringing harm to them, not to mention the society that could use their skills, therefore a blanket ban would be an overreach. Blackford, as opposed to Nussbaum, is neutral as to the value of religion, and believes that the state should be too, its criteria being only the worldly interests of all, not the otherworldly interests of some, allowing the gate to swing in the direction that causes the least harm to all.
As easy as it seems applying the Millian harm principle to such decisions should be, it’s not because the secular state, despite its neutral position in the otherworldly concerns of religion such as morality, adherence to “divinely” mandated behaviors, or other matters of conscience, can so easily be accused of “persecuting” religion when it is only, in fact, trying to protect the general welfare of its citizens. This can best be illustrated by giving consideration to a recent state/church controversy here in the United States that happened after Blackford finished his book.
Earlier this year the Obama administration made the decision that religious-based institutions such as Catholic universities and colleges are required by the new health care reform law to include free contraceptives in health insurance coverage for their employees, many of whom are not Catholic. The Catholic Church responded by claiming that this ruling violated the separation of church and state, some Catholics and other Christians even calling it one more attack in an ongoing “war on religion.”
Despite these objections, the Obama administration maintained that if this part of the law was not complied with by all, harm could be brought to women, while, at the same time, complying with it did not bring substantial harm to the Catholic institutions, as the law does not require Catholics to use contraceptives, only that Catholic employers — like all employers — should provide free contraceptives for their employees who have no conscientious objection to their use. Nonetheless, President Obama, sensitive to the feelings of the Catholic Church, came up with a compromise that “puts the burden on insurance companies, ordering them to provide workers at religious-affiliated institutions with free family planning if they request it, without involving their employer at all.”
I believe Blackford, who feels that the state should show some discretion and accommodate the religious who are “…sincere and otherwise law-abiding people who would be adversely affected by demands of strict compliance” to a law that runs counter to their beliefs, but only, he suggests, to a limited degree, would applaud Obama’s compromise.
Freedom of Religion & the Secular State could not be more timely. If it becomes a standard text in colleges and universities, and, more generally, became a handy reference to those intimately concerned with questions regarding the separation of religion and state, then possibly, despite continuing heat over the subject, a little cool reflection could mediate the divide.
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Steven Paul Leiva, a novelist whose latest book is Travelling in Space from Blüroof Press, is a member of Atheist United. You can read more from Steven on his blog.
