In addition to criticizing both Judaism and Christianity, Richard Dawkins also takes the time to criticize Islam. Dawkins first correctly points out that Islam was spread by the sword from the very beginning. One may quibble about to what extent, and whether or not Islam is a religion of peace—that is not what I want to comment on. For that matter, at the very least, it is acknowledged that Muhammad was a military commander, and that fighting and war has been around in Islam from the beginning—justified or not, it was most certainly there.
Christianity, Islam…Ob La Di, Ob La Da?
What I want to focus on is Dawkins’ attempt to equate the spread of Christianity with the spread of Islam. He writes:
“Christianity, too, was spread by the sword, wielded first by Roman hands after the Emperor Constantine raised it from eccentric cult to official religion, then by the Crusaders, and later by the Conquistadors and other European invaders and colonists, with missionary accompaniment.” (58)
This charge, around since the dawn of the Enlightenment, is simply not true. It relies on a scant knowledge of history and propensity to believe anything. Let’s clarify the differences between the spread of Islam and the spread of Christianity.
First off, Muhammad died in 632 AD. Within one year of his death his followers had engaged in a bloody civil war with each other. Within 25 years (657 AD) Islam had been established, via military conquest, as far north as Syria. Within a mere 100 years (732 AD), the Islamic empire had reached as far as Spain, via…you guessed it…through military expansion. There is no doubt at all that Islam really was “spread by the sword.”
The spread of Christianity, on the other hand, followed a much different arch. It had survived for 300 years as a persecuted minority religion within the Roman Empire. By the time Constantine rose to power and had become a Christian, probably anywhere between 10-20% of the population was Christian. By 350 AD, no doubt because of imperial backing, approximately 56% of the population was Christian. But the fact is that Constantine did not persecute pagans and he did not “spread Christianity by the sword.” All he did was make it illegal to persecute Christians (or anyone, for that matter, on the basis of their religious beliefs). Yes, he gave imperial funds to the churches so they could build churches and extend their charitable efforts, but the basic historical fact is that Constantine did not spread Christianity by the sword—he did not force pagans to convert or die. What Dawkins is claiming is historically not true.
For that matter, the Crusades were not an attempt to “spread Christianity.” They were, in fact, primarily a European reaction to Muslim aggression and attempt to regain the Holy Land so that European Christians could go on their pilgrimages in safety. By the time they started around 1100 AD, Europe had been on the defensive for 400 years, while Muslim armies had tried to advance into Europe. This is not to say the Crusades were “good” by any means, but one thing is for sure: they weren’t an attempt to “spread the Gospel via the sword.”
The same holds true even for the Conquistadors—they were simply interested in gold and conquest for Spain. In fact, that missionaries came over to the new world often saw what the Conquistadores were doing and actually spoke out against the brutality of the European military might. Now of course there were some “religious people” who supported such barbarism, but the fact is what Dawkins claims is simply not true. It is historical revisionism, pure and simple.
What Kind of God Does Dawkins Deem Worthy?
There is one kind of “god” that Dawkins seems to think worthy of worship, although it certainly isn’t the biblical God. He write:
“Compared with the Old Testament’s psychotic delinquent, the deist God of the 18th-century Enlightenment is an altogether grander being: worthy of his cosmic creation, loftily unconcerned with human affairs, sublimely aloof from our private thoughts and hopes, caring nothing for our messy sins or mumbled contritions.” (59)
I find this quote by Dawkins to be truly astounding. Never mind the blatant name-calling, let’s just consider the fact that for Dawkins, the only kind of God worthy of consideration and worship is one who is unconcerned and aloof about His creation. The grand and worthy “god” of Dawkins is one who doesn’t care.
I think the real reason Dawkins likes the deist god isn’t so much that the deist god is unconcerned with human beings, but rather that a deist god is a being of which Dawkins doesn’t have to be concerned about. Deism, for all practical purposes, is atheism for arrogant philosophers who are still too cowardly to be like Nietzsche and take their atheism to its logical conclusion. It gives a brief “tip of the hat” to “God,” but then picks His pockets to retain some sense of “Christian morality.”
Dawkins and the Founding Fathers of the United States
Dawkins then proceed to discuss the founding fathers of America. While acknowledging many of them were, in fact, deists, Dawkins just can’t help from refraining in idle speculation: when he writes, “Certainly their writings on religion in their own time leave me no doubt that most of them would have been atheists in ours” (60). A few pages later, Dawkins speculates on the 535 present members of Congress as well: “…it is statistically all but inevitable that a substantial number of them must be atheists. They must have lied, or concealed their true feelings, in order to get elected. Who can blame them, given the electorate they had to convince? It is universally accepted that an admission of atheism would be instant political suicide for any presidential candidate.” (67)
Think about what Dawkins has said. Apparently, he thinks he can traverse both space and time and then look into the very hearts of the early founding fathers of America (as well as the present members of Congress) and determine that, although they said they believed in God—even a deist god—that they really were atheists. This is very much akin to how Ken Ham often frames his arguments: he throws out speculation, and then turns around and uses that speculation as “evidence” for his argument. It is a shell game, pure and simple.
Now, Dawkins does correctly say that the United States was not “founded as a Christian nation.” It was meant to be a secular state. We must remember, though, that this does not mean it was to be an irreligious state. “Secular” in the sense that the founding fathers wanted simply meant that there is the freedom in the United States to practice whichever religion you believe to be true, and that you cannot compel someone else to follow your own religion.
Simply put, in the United States, all religions have an equal footing in public discourse. It is ironic, therefore, when Dawkins notes that the United States, having been founded on secularism, is the most religious country in the Western world, whereas England, who has the king as the official head of the established church, is one of the least religious countries. “Why is that the case?” Dawkins wonders. The answer is simple: when people are given the freedom to pursue faith, they do. By contrast, when religious faith is forced upon them, they reject it.
Religion in America
In any case, in his discussion about the religious life in America, Dawkins continues with a certain amount of flourish, but with a lack of historical accuracy:
“The genie of religious fanaticism is rampant in present-day America, and the Founding Fathers would have been horrified. Whether or not it is right to embrace the paradox and blame the secular constitution that they devised, the founders most certainly were secularists who believed in keeping religion out of politics, and that is enough to place them firmly on the side of those who object, for example, to ostentatious displays of the Ten Commandments in government-owned public places.” (63)
We need to be clear: the founders did not want to “keep religion out of politics.” They wanted to prevent any one religious denomination or faith from exclusively dictating political policy and exercising political power to persecute any other opposing faith or denomination. There is a huge difference between not wanting the government to force a particular faith or denomination on the populace (which is what the founders were getting at), and not wanting religion or religious belief to play any part in politics (which is what the founders were not getting at). Even Jefferson, who clearly often ridiculed the institutionalized church, would have ever dreamed of barring believers from the public square of ideas.
As for Dawkins’ claim that the founders would have been horrified and object to displays like the Ten Commandments in government-owned public places, he apparently has never been to the Supreme Court itself, where there is a display of that very thing. In fact, all around Washington D.C. there are “religious displays.” Ever since George Washington was sworn in as the first president, each president is sworn in on a Bible.
There is no other way to say it: what Dawkins is doing is blatantly dishonest. In light of this, it should come as no surprise that he feels free to present rumor and gossip as further “evidence” of his claims. Here’s what he wrote regarding George H.W. Bush:
“All the Founding Fathers, whatever their private religious beliefs, would have been aghast to read the journalist Robert Sherman’s report of George Bush Senior’s answer when Sherman asked him whether he recognized the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists: ‘No, I don’t think that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.’ Assuming Sherman’s account to be accurate (unfortunately he didn’t use a tape-recorder, and no other newspaper ran the story at the time…” (65)
Does this raise any red flags? It should. Let’s get this straight: Dawkins is saying that Sherman said that George H.W. Bush said atheists were not citizens or patriots….oh but there is no actual recording of the conversation to substantiate it. And oh, Robert Sherman is a liberal activist and atheist—there’s certainly no reason whatsoever for him to make something up like that. For someone who rails against “religion” for basing things on no evidence, Dawkins has a strange habit of putting forth as “evidence” that which does not exist.
But let’s hypothetically suppose for a moment that George H.W. Bush did in fact say that, and that what how he really felt. Did he ever pursue a policy to arrest atheists or strip them of their constitutional rights? Did he ever persecute atheists? Did he round them up into ‘Christian concentration camps’?” Of course not.
So why did Dawkins put such an unsubstantiated claim in his book? It’s not because he is trying to tell the truth. It’s because he has an agenda, and ideologues with an agenda can’t be bothered with the facts and the accurate accounting of history.
