There are many roads to truth, but cultish intolerance is not one of them

From The God wars by Bryan Appleyard

Religion is not going to go away. It is a natural and legitimate response to the human condition, to human consciousness and to human ignorance. One of the most striking things revealed by the progress of science has been the revelation of how little we know and how easily what we do know can be overthrown. Furthermore, as Hitchens in effect acknowledged and as the neo-atheists demonstrate by their ideological rigidity and savagery, absence of religion does not guarantee that the demonic side of our natures will be eliminated. People should have learned this from the catastrophic failed atheist project of communism, but too many didn't.

Happily, the backlash against neo-atheism has begun, inspired by the cult's own intolerance. In the Christmas issue of this magazine, Dawkins interviewed Hitchens. Halfway through, Dawkins asked: "Do you ever worry that if we win and, so to speak, destroy Christianity, that vacuum would be filled by Islam?" At dinner at the restaurant in Bayswater we all laughed at this, but our laughter was uneasy. The history of attempts to destroy religion is littered with the corpses of believers and unbelievers alike. There are many roads to truth, but cultish intolerance is not one of them.

I especially like "One of the most striking things revealed by the progress of science has been the revelation of how little we know and how easily what we do know can be overthrown." From sociology to climatology to psychology, there are fields of science and interest where the intellectual landscape is littered with crashed theories and ashen propositions once hotly argued. All is contingent and uncertain and we inch slowly to comprehension, misstepping and backsliding at each step. A measure of generosity of spirit and tolerance for others in this perilously uncertain pursuit might make the journey easier. But often it feels as William Butler Yeats said, that there is a surfeit of passionate intensity:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.