Now, back to you as a person. It is not your refusal to “trash” her that I object to in and of itself, but rather that you turned (and continue to turn) a very specific blind eye to the places in which she is clearly wrong, and even to defend her in some of those places. Nor are these two mutually exclusive: you could clearly have offered a substantive criticism of the sections you saw presented in the other post but still have supported her.

You’re right, I could have written a lengthy post detailing exactly where I agree and disagree with Becky, but I didn’t for a number of reasons:

1) Plenty of others were already doing that. The points she got wrong were already pretty well covered, and I noted several times when I agreed with someone else’s assessment of those. I didn’t feel like I had anything else to add that hadn’t already been mentioned.

2) There really wasn’t a whole lot of substance to interact with in these posts in the first place, and I have the suspicion that what was there was slightly skewed by Hemant’s presentation (like I said, he only gave us the worst parts of the book, and those mostly out of context). I have corresponded with Becky privately about this and she confirmed that the presentation was rather lopsided. So until I have a chance to read the book for myself I don’t want to pass judgment.

3) The bottom line is, like it or not, I agree with a lot of Becky’s opinions of the New Atheists. They are offensive, most of them are pretty poor philosophers, and they consistently misrepresent or overgeneralize regarding Christians. I didn’t critique everything she had to say because frankly I don’t think she was wrong about all of it. Some of it, but not all.

Now I finally understand what my high school algebra teacher meant when he said:

“The product of the memes is equal to the product of the extremes.”

That’s absolutely a fair question: I obviously haven’t (democrat, btw). That’s a personal failure of mine, but I’m also not in a position to address the religious nature of the beast, being as I’m not Christian. I try to do what I can in other areas, but I think it’s fair of me to ask Christians to do more of the things that only they can do. And it absolutely bothers me when anybody makes ridiculous claims like that (you can’t even be at war with a religion in the first place), and like I said earlier, I’m not going to excuse him for being an atheist. It bothers me in the same way, though, when people say things like “freedom requires religion,” but most Christians – even progressive ones – apparently aren’t bothered by it all that much. Acting bothered, for instance, would be a good start. I realize that neither Mike nor anybody else here can control a group that large, but that doesn’t mean I’m not correct in pointing out the group’s failings.

With respect to memetics, you’re making two different arguments, only one of which is accurate and only one of which I agree with – i.e., the one she didn’t present. One argument you make, and the one she made in the quoted text and in her answer, was that memetics as a field isn’t even legitimate. That it refers to nothing, it has no relevance to any part of the world at all, and that it’s at best a distraction. This is not true, and moreover it’s contradicted by your second argument, namely that memetics is simply a watered-down version of fields that already exist and therefore not terribly useful in and of itself. I said earlier, and I’ll say again, that memetics certainly is a valid field, but one that can only really be used in this context as, essentially, propaganda. That the propaganda is true doesn’t make it any less so propaganda, because it isn’t relevant to the underlying (philosophical) issues (of course, as I pointed out earlier, theists have not hesitated to use propaganda on their side, so in some sense this is fair play via turnabout). Her initial argument and her defense thereof were blatantly unfair because she ignored the support for memetics – including its relationship to other, better established fields. That is not satire, but rather propaganda in and of itself, and false, perhaps intentionally misleading propaganda at that. Even Mike eventually admitted that memetics makes sense, so I don’t think she has much of a defense in presenting it so uncharitably.

Or here’s a thought, we could all stop pointing fingers and instead take responsibility for doing something about our collective body politic.

Second: how did Becky present a “blatantly unfair” picture of memetics? I’m not going to defend anything else she has said, but I too am unclear about what a meme is and why this concept of learning and cultural dissemination provides any sort of unifying framework that would bring together or improve on insights from anthropology, linguistics, and cognitive psychology. It seems like most proponents of memetics are just unaware of work that has been done in those fields. I’ve never met a memetics proponent who was familiar with Stith Thompson, for example.

That’s right, and those things weren’t the false attitudes and opinions that she ascribed to her subjects, nor the apparently one-sided treatment of their work – it was her word choice. I don’t really care what you do, but it would be nice of you to at least try to think about the differing standards to which you hold atheists and theists.

I also don’t recall criticizing the original author for those things – the only problem I had with her writing was that she drew a blatantly unfair picture of memetics. I fully believe that she spends lots of time criticizing (fairly or unfairly) hardline Christians, but this discussion doesn’t operate on some kind of credit system. I’m not going to overlook the ways in which she’s wrong just because she’s right sometimes (even often), and I’m not going to overlook the ways in which you’re wrong because you claim to be on my side. Equally, I’m not going to overlook the ways in which atheists (New or otherwise) are wrong just because they’re right sometimes – although, and here’s my problem, it sure looks like you’re willing to overlook the ways in which they’re right just because they’re wrong sometimes.

Apparently, though, I need to be more clear in my use of the second-person plural pronoun. I thought including the word “guys,” which itself is plural, would have tipped it off, but evidently not. I obviously have very little knowledge of what you personally have done, nor have I ever cast aspersions against your effort generally. I appreciate that you’re standing up for what you believe. However, you guys – progressive Christians (plural!) – have very clearly not done enough. How could gay marriage have been a major issue of the ’04 elections if you guys (plural!) were “on the front lines” making your case? How can gay marriage now be a non-issue if you guys (plural!) are still there? What about the scads of other “value” issues that no longer get any play? Are you saying that the combined might of the progressive Christians in this country is insufficient to move this country’s policies on things like torture? We may see the results of your (plural) work in the upcoming election, but given what’s happened in the past few decades, I find it hard to believe that you (personally) are satisfied with the effort that you guys (plural) are putting out.

Now, back to you as a person. It is not your refusal to “trash” her that I object to in and of itself, but rather that you turned (and continue to turn) a very specific blind eye to the places in which she is clearly wrong, and even to defend her in some of those places. Nor are these two mutually exclusive: you could clearly have offered a substantive criticism of the sections you saw presented in the other post but still have supported her. That you chose to do only one is tacit support for the bad behavior displayed by hardliners, and slight though it may seem, it underlies the kind of success the real fanatics have had. In fact, it’s exactly what I meant when I questioned whether you (personally or plurally) were really open to doubt. I don’t have the space here to go into this with you, although I’ll gladly do so elsewhere if you like. If you want to be the fair-minded person you obviously think you are, you’ve got more work to do.

Not to mention that Becky is hardly a conservative Christian. As I’ve pointed out already, she is one of those who is doing exactly what you are asking us to do in that she criticizes the Religious Right far more than she ever does atheists. You want to see Christians who speak up against their own? Look at Becky (and start with The Door).

The reason he won, arguably, is that you guys – the sane Christians – are given to keeping your big mouths shut when it comes to criticizing other Christians (even in a relatively benign context, like this conversation). This amounts to tacit support on your part, so it’s hard to see how you don’t share in the blame.

So let me get this straight: you actually want progressive Christians to start bringing their faith into politics? It’s not enough that we oppose Bush’s policies, speak out against him regularly, campaign against him, criticize the way he uses his faith to justify his policies, and vote against him in mass numbers? That’s somehow “tacit support”? That somehow amounts to “keeping our mouths shut”? I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. The last people who have been quiet in their opposition to the Religious Right are progressive Christians. We’ve been on the front lines of this fight for decades now, both theologically and politically. Again, anyone who claims otherwise simply hasn’t been paying attention.

And you don’t think I’ve personally done it enough just because I didn’t trash Becky as harshly as the rest of you? Well frankly you don’t know me from Adam, and you have no idea what kinds of stands I’ve taken or what I’ve spoken out on. I suppose the fact that I got fired from a church for opposing the senior pastor’s pro-war, anti-homosexuality, anti-Separation of Church & State stances, for instance, means nothing? Is that still just “tacit support”?

The only criticism that I see from Mike is related to tone. That’s a literary criticism, not a substantive one. That’s not good enough for the same reason it isn’t good enough to say, “I’m sorry that you feel bad about what I did.”

Well, we can quibble about whether his criticism was “good enough” by your standards, but to say that he “flatly refused” to criticize Garrison is just inaccurate. He criticized both her premise (stirring up division rather than striving for better understanding) and her style, and when others of us found things we didn’t like (such as her poor attempt at satire), he agreed.

You had a perfect opportunity to criticize one of your own – that is, in fact, the premise of this whole situation – and you flatly refused. What you are doing is not the same as what we have been doing.

Actually, if we’re back to talking about Garrison, Mike did make several critical comments about her piece and agreed with some of us that her premise and research seemed to be flawed or inadequate. He did make the point that she is a friend of his, but did not “flatly refuse” to criticize her.

Though he didn’t “go ballistic” like some of us angry atheists did.

Mike C:

BTW, Karen, I wanted to let you know that my in-laws are in town for most of this week, so it may take me a bit longer to get back to you about that Harris-Sullivan article.

Oh goodness, take your time. It’s a loooong debate, and best read in small chunks and digested slowly, I think. Whenever you have a moment to post your thoughts, I’d be interested, but no rush.

Ah, but you see, that’s not the same. What you’re doing is passive: “here’s some work other people have done, I agree with them.” What we’re doing is active: “after having directly interacted with the texts, here’s what I think.” You had a perfect opportunity to criticize one of your own – that is, in fact, the premise of this whole situation – and you flatly refused. What you are doing is not the same as what we have been doing.

“And do I need to point out one more time that, even if your reference to electoral politics is valid (which I don’t think it is – it’s too simplistic to think that religion alone is the sole determining factor in how most people vote), the fact is that conservative Christians only made up about 30% of George Bush’s support, and that even if every non-Christian in America voted against Bush, that still leaves tens of millions of Christians who also voted against him?”

Not directly, of course, or else Romney’s candidacy would be a joke (although, as it is, he’s under considerable pressure because of his religion – you don’t think that’s worrying?). The funny thing about your argument is that, despite the remaining 70% of Bush’s support (all of whom are conservative, yes? and most of whom are Christian, yes? so how, again, does that not qualify them as conservative Christians?) and the tens of millions of Christians who voted against him, he won. The reason he won, arguably, is that you guys – the sane Christians – are given to keeping your big mouths shut when it comes to criticizing other Christians (even in a relatively benign context, like this conversation). This amounts to tacit support on your part, so it’s hard to see how you don’t share in the blame.