Andrew Fiala, Ph.D.

Announcing my new co-authored book, Can War Be Justified? , a debate with Jennifer Kling, professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

In this book, we debate this question, drawing on contemporary scholarship and new developments in thinking about pacifism and just war theory. Fiala defends the pacifist position, while Kling defends just war traditions. Fiala argues that pacifism follows from the awful reality of war and the nonviolent goal of building a more just and peaceful world. Kling argues that war is sometimes justified when it is a last-ditch, necessary effort to defend people and their communities from utter destruction and death. Pulling from global traditions and histories, their debate will captivate anyone who has wondered or worried about the morality of political violence and military force. Topics discussed include ethical questions of self-defense and other-defense, the great analogy between individuals and states, evolving technologies and methods of warfighting, moral injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, broader political and communal issues, and the problem of regional security in a globalizing world. The authors consider cultural and religious issues as well as the fundamental question of moral obligation in a world saturated in military conflict. The book was written in the aftermath of the war on terrorism and includes reflection on lessons learned from the past decades of war, as well as hopes for the future in light of emerging threats in Europe and elsewhere.

The book is organized in a user-friendly fashion. Each author presents a self-contained argument, which is followed by a series of responses, replies, and counter-arguments. Throughout, the authors model civil discourse by emphasizing points of agreement and remaining areas of disagreement. The book includes reader-friendly summaries, a glossary of key concepts, and suggestions for further study. All of this will help students and scholars follow the authors’ dialogue so they may develop their own answer to the question of whether war can be justified.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

A recent article in the Guardian suggested several reasons for the general decline in religion. It may have something to do with the hypocritical moralizing of religious patriarchs and the changing values of a younger generation. The mandatory church closures of the Covid pandemic seem to have accelerated church attrition. But non-religion is not a passing fad. Non-religion is both sticky and contagious. As a critical mass of people come out of the nonreligious closet, others will follow, and will likely stay out. Social scientists suggest that people who become nonreligious tend to stay that way and pass their nonreligion on to the next generation.

If this is true, then our way of understanding religion as a natural function of human experience needs to be revised. Religious belief was once taken for granted as fulfilling a kind of natural human instinct. But as nonbelief is normalized, the assumption that human beings have a natural religious instinct no longer makes sense.

The sociology of non-religion

Sociologists have been studying the rise of the nones for a couple of decades. Studies of “nonversion” (conversion away from religion) remind us that there are lots of individual stories and no single cause for the decline of religion. And yet, non-religion seems to be both contagious and sticky.

To say it is contagious means that it catches on. When people are exposed to non-religion and realize it is an option, they may choose it. To say it is sticky means that once people become nonreligious, they tend to stay that way. Linda Woodhead, professor of sociology of religion, explains the generational stickiness of religion as follows: “For people who say they were raised Christian, there is a 45 percent chance they will end up identifying as nones, but for those raised with ‘no religion’ there is a 95 percent probability that they will stay that way. Thus, ‘no religion’ is currently ‘sticky’ in a way Christianity is not.”

As non-religion grows, it comes to seem normal and unexceptional. Phil Zuckerman concludes his study of why people reject religion as follows. “Obviously many people, from various walks of life, can live without religion—in fact, prefer as much. This bald fact strongly counters the notion that all people—as people—are somehow intrinsically religious or that religion is some sort of necessary, universal, or inextricable component of the human condition.”

People who say they were raised Christian have a 45% chance of ending up identifying as nones. But those raised with ‘no religion’ have a 95% probability of staying that way. Thus, ‘no religion’ is currently ‘sticky’ in a way Christianity is not.

DR. LINDA WOODHEAD, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
LANCASTER UNIVERSITY

How natural is the religious instinct?

This runs counter to a theory that sees religion as a “natural” feature of human thought and culture. Scholars used to take it for granted that religion was a central and universal aspect of human experience. That assumption was sometimes supplemented by a neuro-physiological and evolutionary approach that claimed that religion is hard-wired in the brain.

Nicholas Wade called this “the faith instinct.” He claimed that even though non-belief is spreading “the religious instinct, the inherited propensity for ritual and belief, is still wired into the human mind as much as ever before.” Pascal Boyer is another important defender of this idea. He suggests that processes in the brain make religious belief “natural.” Boyer concluded, “Disbelief is generally the result of deliberate, effortful work against our natural cognitive dispositions — hardly the easiest ideology to propagate.”

But Wade and Boyer seem to ignore the contagious and sticky nature of disbelief. It only really takes “deliberate, effortful work” to break away from religion when religion is taken for granted. Once religion is off the table, disbelief and nonreligion may in fact seem more “natural.” Perhaps some very general disposition toward ritual activity and transcendent experience exists. But these social and cognitive functions need not manifest themselves in “religious” ways.

Behind this claim is the insight that social conditions matter with regard to what we take for granted as normal, natural, or plausible. In a world with increased non-religion—and in a world in which political power is not used to prop up religion—it may turn out that religion is not so natural after all.

The history of non-belief

Non-belief has a long but easily-overlooked history. Indeed, the history of religion includes the effort to convince non-believers to believe. The famous Psalm (14:1) about “the fool [who] says in his heart ‘there is no God’” provides a clue. This text only makes sense in a world where such non-believing “fools” exist.

Nonbelief is clearer among the ancient Greeks. Socrates is not exactly an atheist but he was killed for his lack of traditional belief. The Cynics were more explicit in their disdain for religious practice and belief. And there were famous atheists such as “Theodorus The Atheist” who had an influence on the Epicurean school.

Tim Whitmarsh has argued that atheism was not uncommon in the ancient world. One problem in documenting this, however, is that nonbelievers don’t build temples or erect statues commemorating their gods. Ancient religious and political powers built the pyramids and the Parthenon, which can make it look as if religion is pervasive and all-powerful. The same is true of Medieval European art and architecture.

But this may be changing with the democratization of art, architecture, and thought. Today, every atheist with a blog leaves a trace. Artists don’t need church patronage. And cities are no longer organized around a central cathedral.

New forms of nonreligious meaning are easily created and disseminated in our world. Nonreligious people can easily avoid religion. And nonbelievers are not persecuted or killed, as they were in the time of Socrates.

SEE ALSO: Phil Zuckerman, “Is atheism unnatural?“

Hope for the future of non-religion

Things are better today for nonbelievers. But it was not always easy to be a nonbeliever. In the U.S., Schools used to teach Bible lessons and lead prayers. The prevailing view until recently was that religion was natural and that nonreligion was aberrant. Things are different now, thanks to the growth of secularism.

Challenges remain. The Supreme Court seems more sympathetic to religion. But nonreligious people need not fear being burned at the stake as they once were. The fact that non-religion is both sticky and contagious explains why. As more people leave religion, it is likely that this change will persist and spread. The current critical mass of nonreligious people makes it easier for other nonbelievers to come out of the closet. Hopefully, this will also make it more difficult to stuff us all back into that pigeonhole.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The anti-woke education wars are a symptom of a broken community. We don’t agree about schools because we don’t agree about the value of education or about what it means to be American. This is a fraught time to be a teacher, as polarization and distrust reach into school board meetings, libraries, and classrooms. It’s also a difficult time to be a parent and a student, in a world where schools are a focal point of political divisiveness.

The anti-woke school movement

The Trump era was a time of polarization, and Donald Trump’s divisive message has not abated. The former President recently warned that American schools have been “taken over by radical Left maniacs.” He announced that if he were re-elected, he would ban federal funding for any “school or program pushing critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto our children.” Trump’s anti-woke alarmism seems to echo and amplify what we are hearing from Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis, has been waging a war against woke.

Trump took this to another level, however, when he suggested in his recent speech that what was being taught in the schools was antithetical to “Judeo-Christian values.” He said that woke ideology resembled, “an established new religion.” Trump concluded, “If we have pink-haired communists teaching our kids we have a major problem.”

I doubt that many pink-haired maniac teachers are trying to establish a new religion, or subvert Judeo-Christian values. The teachers I know, and have worked with, are acutely aware that we live in a diverse world. They often avoid discussing race, religion, and gender because they know that these things are divisive in a world that is increasingly polarized.

The shifting First Amendment

Most teachers are aware that the First Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits them from imposing a religion at school. The Establishment Clause of that amendment means that Judeo-Christian values cannot be pushed in schools. Nor can any other religious ideology.

Yet recent Supreme Court rulings make it easier for educators to bring religion into school. A recent case (Kennedy v. Bremerton) involving a Christian coach leading a prayer at a football game was decided in favor of the coach, who claimed that the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause gave him the right to pray with students. In an essay about this for OnlySky, I suggested that this opens the door to a contest of religious views in the schools.

That’s not an optimal outcome. It would be better if the Establishment Clause were interpreted more firmly to keep religion out of schools. But in the present legal environment, the result appears to be that conflicts of religion will creep into the educational space.

Are Trump’s warnings about “woke-ism” as a religion a case of the chickens coming home to roost? Hardly. I doubt many teachers are actively pushing any religion, woke or un-woke. But our legal system is shifting and the world is becoming more polarized, making conflict more likely.

What are schools for in a democracy?

None of this will be resolved easily or soon. The Court has shifted its understanding of the First Amendment, and polarization makes it harder to find common ground. This is especially true with regard to questions about the purpose of education in a democracy.

This politicized debate includes the fundamental question of whether schools exist to teach what parents want them to teach or serve some other social purpose. A school board member in Iowa got lots of pushback when they said, “The purpose of a public ed is to not teach kids what the parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community.”

Despite the pushback, this idea is not absurd. It can be traced back to Plato, who thought that education was about the well-being of the whole community. Plato went so far as to suggest taking kids away from their parents in order to give them a proper education. This proposal should be read in light of the fact that Plato’s ideal republic is more dictatorship than democracy.

But defenders of democratic education have made a similar point. John Dewey, America’s most important philosopher of democracy, put it this way:

Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife. Moreover, it is only education which can guarantee widespread community of interest and aim. In a complex society, ability to understand and sympathize with the operations and lot of others is a condition of common purpose which only education can procure.

John Dewey, “The Need of an Industrial Education in an Industrial Democracy”

Dewey’s point is that in modern democracies, education brings diverse people together, helps them to understand each other, and encourages them to discover a sense of common purpose and identity. Parents may want their children to be protected from this. But it is good for society for kids to become citizens of a broader community made up of diverse others.

Our broken community

Of course, the problem is that the American community has been corroded by polarization, identity politics, disinformation, and distrust. What after all, is the American community? We don’t seem to know anymore. And if we don’t know what the community is and what it stands for, then we will not be able to agree about the value of education.

There is a paradox lurking here. The solution to our broken community is an education that can help us understand our shared values. But that solution will only work if there are shared values to be understood. And it is becoming apparent that we don’t agree: about who we are, what we value, and what we want our kids to learn. The next generation will pay the price of more polarization and fragmentation unless the adults can agree about what it means to be an American, and why American schools exist.