Second-guessing Cary Tennis: Creationism edition

An atheist wrote to Salon advice columnist Cary Tennis, seeking counsel on how to cope with the prospect of his fundamentalist Christian friend teaching young earth creationism as science:

I have a good friend of 15 years. I'm an atheist; he's a devout Christian who has expressed his doubts about God to me many, many times over the years. We used to engage in long and ultimately friendly debates about organized religion and the existence of God. Despite his dissatisfaction with what he sees as obvious contradictions between the Bible, the church's interpretation of the Bible and the facts of mankind's life on earth, he still ultimately believes in God's existence -- because of what he interprets as personal contact with him. He's an intelligent, hardworking man with a deep sense of right and wrong and unwavering loyalty to his friends, myself included.

Now he has been asked by his church's school (where he is an active participant) to teach "young earth" creationism. Moreover, they want him to teach this in science class as the predominant theory of life on earth. He's actively considering it, and reading as many texts as he can on the topics of intelligent design, creationism, and Darwinian evolution so that he can attempt to arrive at a decision as to whether to accept the school's request.

As my wife put it, we consider teaching young earth creationism (in any sense other than as a theology, if it must be taught at all) to be a form of child abuse. It seems bad enough that he has raised his two children with a belief system that he himself has acknowledged has serious holes in it, but it seems far worse that he is now thinking seriously about helping other children drink the Kool-Aid.

He repeatedly asks for my help in "weighing the evidence" and asks me not to judge him. The problem is that I am so blinded by anger and disappointment that he would even consider teaching, as science, such a blatantly anti-scientific concept, I can hardly bring myself to talk to him rationally. He is well educated in some areas of science, but somehow he has a blind spot here.

He currently lives over 2,000 miles away, so all our contact is through e-mail and Instant Messenger (and occasional phone calls). He seems to really want my input on this, but I'm having a very difficult time quelling my revulsion and nausea that this has even come up as a topic in our friendship.

Crazy for Reason

Cary's reply is condescending and thoroughly unhelpful. He rattles off some platitudes about how a real scientist would celebrate the whole spectrum human belief and not get all hung up about which ideas make sense, or which ones are true. He confides that he only liked science because it told a satisfying story about where rocks and cells and people came from. Tennis figures that if the atheist's friend wants to teach the kids an equally good yarn from Genesis, why sweat it?

Here's the advice I would offer:

Dear CfR,

Don't listen to Cary. He thinks you're upset because you're overly sensitive and intolerant, but he doesn't get it. 

You and your Christian buddy have been friends for 15 years. You're still close even though you live thousands of miles apart.

It sounds like you've had a lot had a lot of mutually enjoyable discussions about religion, science, and morality. He's very religious, you're a committed skeptic, but you've respected each other's intelligence and integrity, even when you didn't agree. Right?

You're probably pleased and even proud that you've been able to nudge your friend towards a more scientifically supportable worldview. I'm sure he's also influenced your intellectual development over the years. That's what friends are for.

Now your buddy is says he wants to teach innocent kids a bunch of hooey. Cary thinks you're upset because your friend isn't toeing some ideological line. That's not the problem.

You've always known your friend believed a bunch of hooey. In fact, you probably know more about the intricate details of the hooey he believes than his own pastor--because you've spent years coaxing him to think more critically.

You're not mad because your friend disagrees with you. You're mad because your friend knows that young earth creationism is crap. He knows he's doing his students a disservice by replacing real science with Bible stories and lies about the Grand Canyon. But he's going to teach it anyway.

It's not about theology, is it? It's about intellectual honesty. You're frustrated and hurt because your friend being intellectually dishonest.

It's probably a little bit about ego, too. You've invested all this time trying to change his mind, and now he's acting like the principle never really mattered anyway.

So, what to do? Well, try to get the ego part under control. If he's your friend, you like him as an end in himself, not just as a project.

Try to have some empathy for him. Step back and think about the pressures he's facing. Is the school making him teach this class? Are his growing doubts generating pushback from his family or his church?

Remember, we all make compromises to get along in life. Don't write him off just because he caved on one relatively minor issue. Judge not lest ye be judged and all that.

Believers like to say that faith is a journey. Well, so is free thought. Your friend isn't ready to tell his church school to stuff their sub-pseudoscience but he might be someday. Just because he's teaching young earth creation this semester doesn't mean he's pledging to do it forever.

In fact, this awkward teaching assignment could be just the opportunity you've been waiting for. 

He's in an uncomfortable position because he knows that you know he has doubts. So, give him the opportunity to blame the school, or his church for making him do something he feels bad about.

Remind him that he's a smart guy who can think for himself. Let him know that your friendship isn't contingent on him believing or not believing anything. Make him wonder why this supposedly godly institution is forcing him to teach kids nonsense.

If he teaches lies in the service of authority, is he really following the example of Jesus?

[HT: Amanda]

Comments

[Norman Costa]

Lindsay,

This is a very interesting post. It's interesting because of what it reveals about the writer, not about the writer's friend.

Personally, I regard any kind of creationism as nonsense. As a construct of ancient literature and as part of human mythology and culture, creation stories can be a fascinating study. I oppose the teaching of Intelligent Design (ID) as an alternate scientific view within a science curriculum.

Asserting that teaching creationism in a church school is the equivalent of child abuse is an inappropriate labeling of a faith community with great opprobrium. It is also a diminishing of the terror and horrible consequences of real abuse of children – emotional, physical, and sexual. It's comparable to the pedestrian and vernacular use of the word 'holocaust' when making a reference to situations that may be outrageous to the user but can never compare to the Nazi program for the elimination of European Jewry.

The writer ends the post with another overdetermined reaction by proclaiming revulsion and the disgusting feeling of nausea, and then justifies it with an overly sentimental embrace of reason. Who can argue with an Everyman's Critique of Pure Reason?

We don't need another belief system that characterizes an out group, in this case a faith community in their own church and school, in the most vile and disgusting terms in order to – dare I say it – 'demonize' them. There is something wrong, and perhaps narcissistic, when the writer asks for help to stop incipient child abuse that is to be visited upon the student body of a church school. There are too many evangelizing believers who feel sorry for and disgusted at 'those who will not listen'. Rationalists don't need to enter an already overcrowded field.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

The child abuse claim is excessive.

I wouldn't be too hard on the letter writer. He's angry. He feels like his friend is being intellectually dishonest for teaching students stuff that he no longer believes.

The atheist is taking it all way too personally, but I don't think he demonizing people of faith.

He's been friends with this guy for 15 years. So, it's not like he thinks that his friend is some kind of savage for being a Christian. He just thinks that his friend is being a bad teacher and a hypocrite.

[LauraJMixon]

Wow, that is a great letter, Lindsay, on several levels. This is a moral dilemma I struggle with often, with regard to fundamentalist/ far rightwing members of my extended family.

Lots of good food for thought.

[shrimplate]

Why do people, who already know what they have to do, seek advice?

[Jesse M.]

CfR might also suggest that his friend read some good books written from a mainstream science perspective, like Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald Prothero (excellent book on fossil evidence), or Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy by Arthur Strahler (good all-purpose book on evidence for an old Earth with deals with many creationist arguments case-by-case).

[greensmile]

Lindsay, I think you have captured in one sentence the nature of the "heart disease" that has sickened most Christian religious institutions throughout history:

If he teaches lies in the service of authority, is he really following the example of Jesus?

The messages of tolerance and compassion that the churches could dwell on are innately appealing...they are used like loss-leaders in a marketing campaign. Then in come the dogma and the identity-via-professed-belief crap. The messages of love are life and death to a saintly few but the bread and butter of church operation are identity, control, insecurity and power. The tolerance gets lip service or outright tossed, the dogma fronts massive political and even military operations.

From the outside, some of us look at this debacle and wonder where it all went wrong. Individual choices like the one highlighted in this story are very illustrative of the corruption of the messages.

[opit]

That is a very thoughtful analysis.
Many "Christians" do not seem to understand Emmanuel was considered a dangerous freethinker whose life history is a cautionary tale about the dangers of state dictation of "acceptable belief". "Getting" that makes the question 'was he a real historical figure ? ' moot. He is a warning of legend who paid the 'ultimate sacrifice' to expose hypocisy.
Making his 'teachings' the basis of any suppression of Free Speech is a significant exercise of The Big Lie. Ditto deliberate misrepresentation.
http://my.opera.com/oldepharte/blog/

[LauraJMixon]

Shrimplate, I see nothing wrong with asking for advice, particularly in a painful situation. Just the act of articulating the problem is useful, and putting the problem out for intelligent and trusted peers to troubleshoot with you can give you new insights. Even if you end up doing what you thought needed to be done, working it through with thoughtful allies ahead of time helps you handle difficult emotional situations more calmly and thoughtfully. All imo.

[mudkitty]

I like to read the questions in that Salon column, but I gave up reading the insipid answers years ago.

As for books, I recommend Shurmer's "Why People Believe Weird Things."

[Michael Schmidt]

Great, except one thing. "Intellectual (dis)honesty" is one of my pet peeves.
Either it's honest or it's dishonest. Whether it's "intellectual" or not is irrelevant. There aren't different standards for honesty in an "intellectual" context, are there? It always seemed to me a padded phrase that has a danger of misuse--often I hear it leveled at the more educated of two people who disagree about something, almost as if the dishonesty naturally follows from the "intellectual" content.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I have reservations about that term as well. I think there's a difference between straight up dishonesty and the fault that the Christian is exhibiting. I don't know if "intellectual dishonesty" captures the difference or not.

If I say someone is dishonest, I'm accusing them of out-and-out lying or other clear cut deception. If I were to teach creationism, that would be dishonest. I would know that I was spouting falsehoods to fool others. It would be no better than selling any other kind of snake oil, probably much worse because science is very important and a teacher is in a position of trust.

The defects that I'd call intellectual dishonesty are a little different. Intellectual dishonesty involves more self-deception than other-deception. It's about not being willing or able to take your own ideas seriously or follow uncomfortable thoughts through to their conclusions.

The guy's Christian friend hasn't crossed the line into straight up fraud, because he still confused about his own beliefs. Still, he knows he's passing on some very flawed information to the kids.

[PhoenixRising]

Why do people, who already know what they have to do, seek advice?

Because they want support from their friends.

I'd go further, and suggest that this particular friend is the one who the teacher knows will advise him to do what's right, not what's easy.

[Julian Elson]

Wow. That was a great response, Lindsay. When I first read it, I was actually so moved that I felt like couldn't respond rationally, and I wanted to send you an e-mail asking how to solve all of the problems in my life!

I hope that CfR sees this, somehow.

[Mike]

Ah, that's a useful distinction--self-deception vs. other deception.

[monkeytime]

Well said, Lindsey. I had similar revulsion to Cary's response. Don't get me wrong, I like his writing, but he's only about 75% for me. When he's good, he's great, but when he gets weak in the I'm-OK-You-and-Your-Bullshit-Are-OK knees, he's really really bad. ;-)

[shrimplate]

I see now that maybe my question sounded like snark, and I didn't mean it that way. I just like to ask fundamental questions.

And snake oil is snake oil, whether you believe it or not. Instructing children to believe outrageous delusions is clearly abuse, even if it is of a lesser kind.

[Dr. Bonzo]

If he teaches lies in the service of authority, is he really following the example of Jesus?

That's the most beautifully nasty, below-the-belt -- and theologically accurate -- counter-strike to this kind of hooey that I've seen in years. Or at least since the last time I watched Jesus of Montreal.

Lindsay, you absolutely hit the nail on the head with that one. Thank you.

[DBR]

If he teaches lies in the service of authority, is he really following the example of Jesus?

Well, some Christians would argue that lying is the lessor sin, particularly in regards to intelligent design.

All in all, a much better response than Mr. Tennis. I used to read him regularly, now he seems to blather on and on about irrelevant things.

[SusanJ]

Thank you for an excellent post.

Sometimes I wonder if Cary Tennis is more than one person. Sometimes he hits the nail on the head with a very creative take on a question and other times, including this, he totally flubs his answer.

I would advise the writer of the letter to read Richard Dawkins latest book, "The God Delusion," to help him sort out why he feels the way he feels. This is an excellent book that I can recommend to anyone plus it is unusually well-written and easy-to-read.

[Matt McIrvin]

While I may be reading too much into this short description, it sounds to me as if the friend is really asking for the letter-writer to convince him not to teach the class.

[a]

why are you reading salon.