Levitt on "anti-God" books
Steven “Freakonomics” Levitt recently puzzled over the popularity of recent books by the likes of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens on religion,
Here is what puzzles me: who buys these books?
I’m not religious. I don’t think much about God, except when I am in a pinch and need some special favors. I have no particular reason to think he’ll deliver, but I sometimes take a shot anyway. Other than that, I’m just not that interested in God. I’m definitely not interested enough to go out and buy books explaining to me why I shouldn’t believe in God, even when they are written by people like Dennett and Dawkins, whom I greatly admire. If I were religious, I think it would be even more likely that I would go out of my way to avoid books telling me that my faith was misplaced.
So who is making these anti-God books best-sellers? Do the people who despise the notion of God have an insatiable demand for books that remind them of why? Are there that many people out there who haven’t made up their mind on the subject and are open to persuasion?
I haven’t read any of the books he cited, although he did tip me off to a forthcoming book in this vein by one of my favourite authors, John Allen Paulos, which I’ll read immediately upon its release. If I didn’t have a million other books enqueue, I would definitely read the one by Dennett. And I have also seen Dawkins’ BBC series on religion which I enjoyed immensely, despite my disagreement with aspects of it (perhaps the topic of a future post).
Perhaps I am in the minority group of people who haven’t made up their minds and are open to persuasion. But even when I was less persuasible, I was fascinated with atheistic arguments. I have two observations: (1) I was always interested in what atheists thought of Christianity, but I wasn’t much interested in what equally disagreeable Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists thought about Christianity. Is there something more appealing about an Us vs. Them, then an Us vs. Them and Them and Them and Them?
(2) Being indoctrinated from an early age makes it very difficult to be as apathetic to religion as Levitt appears to be. If you keep your religion, there are always doubts about how much is independent of your upbringing. If you lose your religion, you lose a lot of comfortable beliefs. So maybe my group isn’t such a minority after all?
That said, I still don’t have a good answer to Levitt’s puzzle.
The insatiable urge to prove the other guy wrong, and reaffirm your own beliefs? I’m not sure, really. When I was deeply immersed in apologetics, I sought out critiques of books like the ones Levitt listed. Reading them ‘without goggles’ was a dicey proposal. Who knew what might shake my faith? The impulse was there, though, and was fueled by the conviction that I was a smart guy who could poke holes in any arguments.
From the other side of the fence, I find it easier to understand why an atheist would pick up one of those books. The climate of the States is such that religion is a pretty tough subject to avoid, and there’s a distinct social penalty for opting out. Clear, articulate arguments that lay the blame for bad stuff at the feet of religion would certainly seem comforting in that kind of climate…
Yeah, that’s a really tough one. It can trigger quite a bit of loopy self-examination…
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Submitted by Eaton on Wed, 08/08/2007 - 18:43.I think arguments from the perspective of the States to explain the popularity of these books tend to fail, because they’re just as popular in the UK, for example, where the balance of power between Christian and atheist is the other way around.
As a Christian in the UK, I’m a freaky outsider doing something counter-cultural, not somebody lock-step in with the majority. “I can’t play WoW tonight, I have home group,” is something I’m slightly wary of saying for the mockery that will follow.
In all honesty, I think the popularity of these books is to do with having a perceived weapon against the rise of more frightening forms of radical Islam in Europe and, to a lesser extent, the sort of radical “Christianity” we see in positions of power in the US.
A common thread in these books is how stupid (delusional, perhaps?) people of faith are. That can be a comforting notion when you have enemies that base a lot of what they do on religion.
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Submitted by Adam (not verified) on Fri, 08/10/2007 - 13:22.That’s an interesting point, Adam, and one that I hadn’t really considered that aspect of it. I was just reading some basic stats about belief breakdown; something like 37% of the population of Europe self-selects as atheist or agnostic, while that’s around 8% of the US population.
Francis Schaeffer — who I’ve been planning to do a more detailed writeup on — felt that the US was drifting mostly on cultural inertia after the early 1900s. Part of the argument is that Europe got past that ‘cultural inertia point’ much, much earlier and its current state is what the US ‘could become.’
I think that to some extent, the fear of that is what fuels the “Culture War” vision, and the “Europe is a wasteland” mentality that dominates a lot of folks in the politically active Christian circles.
Yeah, I can definitely see that. The catharsis factor is probably pretty big. I think that also explains the popularity of books like Godless and such. ‘Takedowns’ of one’s ideological opponents, etc…
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Submitted by Eaton on Fri, 08/10/2007 - 14:51.The demographics of religion is an interesting point. I am not sure how we (Canada) compare—I would imagine we are somewhere between the US and UK in terms of religiosity. I think a major contributor the religiosity gap between the US and Europe is the US’s long-term commitment to freedom of religion and banning state churches, which creates a unregulated free market of religion. This is a point Larry Iannaccone makes much better than I, and I’m hoping to blog on the economics of religion at some point because its been extremely influential on me.
It also forms the basis of my perceived disagreement with Dawkins that I hinted at in this post.
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Submitted by Clark on Fri, 08/10/2007 - 20:57.Looks like http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html has some interesting data — it’s also a lot more recent than any other lists I’ve found. The numbers are especially interesting because they have stats for BOTH self-identified atheists AND people who answered “No” when asked, “Do you believe in God?”
Canada does seem to be in the middle, with 20-30% being atheists depending on how you calculate it. Japan is way at the top of the list, curiously enough, with 64% of the country self-selecting as atheist.
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Submitted by Eaton on Fri, 08/10/2007 - 21:13.Post new comment