Anti-Belief-ism

I've been troubled lately by a number of instances of what I'll call here "anti-belief-ism."

Everyone is familiar with a number of nasty "isms" that have plagued the nation and world for as long as there has been civilization: various forms of racism (anti-Semitism being just one example of many), fascism and communism, religious fundamentalism, and so on. Belief in these isms in their various forms, has driven people to commit horrendous atrocities. The ideologies of the various isms are often at odds, and so those that hold them clash, often violently. The true believers of an ideology will often fight in order to defend the ideology or force others to agree with them.

In reaction to this, many people, especially in the U.S., Europe and other developed countries of western civilization, seem to have rejected all belief - or at least any strong belief. It seems to me that people have become afraid or suspicious of those that hold strong beliefs. This is understandable - look at all the harm that's been done throughout the ages by people holding strong beliefs of one kind or another. Of course, this belief in nothing that many have embraced is itself an ism. It's called nihilism. Donald Sensing links to an article by David B. Hart in First Things called "Christ and Nothing" that discusses this at length.

As modern men and women—to the degree that we are modern—we believe in nothing. This is not to say, I hasten to add, that we do not believe in anything; I mean, rather, that we hold an unshakable, if often unconscious, faith in the nothing, or in nothingness as such. It is this in which we place our trust, upon which we venture our souls, and onto which we project the values by which we measure the meaningfulness of our lives. Or, to phrase the matter more simply and starkly, our religion is one of very comfortable nihilism.

This may seem a somewhat apocalyptic note to sound, at least without any warning or emollient prelude, but I believe I am saying nothing not almost tediously obvious. We live in an age whose chief moral value has been determined, by overwhelming consensus, to be the absolute liberty of personal volition, the power of each of us to choose what he or she believes, wants, needs, or must possess; our culturally most persuasive models of human freedom are unambiguously voluntarist and, in a rather debased and degraded way, Promethean; the will, we believe, is sovereign because unpremised, free because spontaneous, and this is the highest good.

The article is long and heavy reading, written by an Eastern Orthodox theologian. Hart's reasons for the nihilism of the modern age are different than mine. His arguments are also undoubtedly more educated than mine, being based in the history of philosophy and on Christianity's impact on philosophy, both ancient and modern. However, I think from a personal standpoint, people today reject strong beliefs because they rightly see that those who hold some ideology strongly are often hateful, and even violent, towards others.

Ironically, those who reject strong beliefs sometimes do so vehemently; they are zealous in their nihilism, to the point that they are actively hostile towards people that hold beliefs. It is this attitude - hostility towards those that hold strong beliefs - that I am calling anti-belief-ism.*

Adding irony to irony, this anti-belief-ism often is called "tolerance" by those who hold it. It seems to me that what they mean by this is that to be tolerant towards other people, one must necessarily agree that "anything goes, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone." They equate strongly held beliefs with fundamentalism and intolerance, and so they justify their own intolerance with sophism by reasoning, "I am intolerant of intolerance." While claiming to be tolerant, they condemn those whose moral, religious or political beliefs draw them to different conclusions regarding any number of topics. Their anti-belief-ism is manifested in "political correctness," where the only absolute is that of avoiding offense at all costs, except when it comes to those that disagree.

Intolerance certainly does exist, perhaps even most often among people who are devoutly religious. But it is by no means limited to religious fundamentalists; it appears among those who strongly hold beliefs of any kind. True intolerance shows itself in desire to harm others, physically, psychologically or emotionally. True intolerance is motivated by hatred. Krystallnacht was an example of intolerance that was motivated by religious and racial hatred and political opportunism. There are many other examples that I could cite, serious and minor, where true, hate-motivated intolerance has been demonstrated by violent words or actions against groups or individuals.

True intolerance should be and must be condemned in all places and at all times, without equivocation.

Jihadists and religious fundamentalists that claim that "God hates fags," or that America must be destroyed, neo-Nazis and other fascists preaching racial hatred and anti-Semitism, and anyone else that advocates violence against others must be opposed, verbally and politically where appropriate, or by force if absolutely necessary for the defense of ourselves and others.

On the other hand, disagreement, even vehement disagreement, unmotivated by hatred, is not intolerance.

A number of people whose writings I have encountered lately seem to confuse disagreement with intolerance. If someone is opposed to their position, they automatically conclude that the person in opposition is intolerant. They demand that the person in opposition change his or her own beliefs to conform, and if he or she does not, then that person is, ipso facto, intolerant. In my opinion, that is wrong. It is indicative of a self-centered, even immature, view of the world. Such an attitude reveals that "no one else's beliefs are important; only my beliefs matter." It also strikes me as revealing insecurity. Seeking to suppress another's beliefs by labeling them as intolerant says to me that one's own beliefs aren't very firmly grounded.

Very often, I personally find it difficult to distinguish disagreement from intolerance, especially when I am reading the writing of someone I don't know at all. Motivation is especially hard to glean from text on a monitor. I can't ask questions easily or read the body language of the other person. Some people are more skilled than others at expressing themselves in writing. I am biased by my own circumstances, so I may misunderstand what he or she meant. The limitations of the medium, as well as my own limitations, mean that I am likely to misunderstand, unless the other person's writing is remarkably clear (unlike my own!).

So, what's the conclusion?

True tolerance is allowing those who disagree with me, even vehemently, to express their opinion.

They must be able to do so without accusation of intolerance. Unless someone is making threats, or is blatantly verbally abusive, that person is entitled to his or her opinion, whether I like the opinion or not. I should give others the benefit of the doubt when what they are saying or writing might be misinterpreted. Likewise, I am free to disagree with the expressed opinion, vehemently, but civilly. Accusations of intolerance or other abuse are just attempts to suppress opinion I don't like, and in my opinion, don't belong in civil discourse.

Of course, I've plagiarized this whole essay. Some really smart people thought of all of this over 200 years ago, and they wrote some of it down in something called the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

* It's admittedly an awkward term. Is there a better one that I don't know of?

Why did I write this?

In a number of blogs and blog commentary, I have come across people accusing Christians of being intolerant, even though the opinions being expressed by the Christians were quite reasonable and were not in the least hateful or threatening, but were in line with what many Christians believe. Specifically, statements were made something like "although I think homosexuality is a sin, I don't condone violence toward gays," etc. The responses were swift and vitriolic - that Christians are hypocrites, full of hate, stupid, and on and on. As a Christian that does not hate gays, I was very much offended. In one case, I was most offended by one person claiming to be a Christian that was threatening gays with physical harm. That is completely unacceptable. But I was also offended by the "anti-belief-ists" that accused anyone expressing a negative opinion of homosexuality, no matter how slight, with intolerance. You know, some people have different moral standards - ones that they hold strongly and for good reasons, and that don't condone homosexuality - and those people have every right to their opinion. Accusing them of intolerance, even though they just disagree, is just more intolerance, and a big load of hypocrisy. (And I was not one of those Christians being accused, by the way, so this isn't a response toward anything being said directly to me or written about me). As long as they express their opinions civilly, and aren't threatening or abusive, their opinions should also be tolerated - disagreed with, certainly, if that is warranted - but also respectfully tolerated. Fortunately, most people know this and behave accordingly, but some unfortunately, don't, and I felt like I had to address this issue, if only to clarify in my own mind what I felt and thought about it.

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