The Anti-Christ: Richard Dawkins, St. Paul, and Alain Badiou

A friend, who has newly "converted" to atheism, is very excited about the new book by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. I think that arguments about the existence of God are ultimately only useful for convincing those of already open minds, but are doomed to fail both as philosophy and as tactics. These arguments admit defeat before they get started, because if you're trying to disprove God's existence, you're on the other guy's terrain.

Much more interesting to me, both as philosophy and as secularist tactics, are examples like Alain Badiou's recent book Saint Paul:The Foundation of Universalism. It's a typically difficult French philosophical read, but it both stands on its own and has an interesting underlying argument: Badiou is an atheist, and within the first two pages of the book reminds the reader that he regards the resurrection as "mythology." But he then proceeds to approach Paul's thought with deadly seriousness as a possible solution to the quandaries of multiculturalism and postmodernity.

This, I think, is the way to undermine institutionalized religion - embrace it, but on our own terms. By rejecting it outright and scoffing at its adherents as idiots, we're only constructing for them a safe and uncontested space. But by entering into religious discourse in a sincere and thoughtful way, treating its mythological status as a relatively minor caveat, we suddenly have religious people debating us on our terms - that is, debating the moral and social value of the pronouncements of religious figures on rational grounds, rather than allowing them to remain grounded only as "the word of God."

God's nonexistence has been rehashed a million times over the past two centuries. While the arguments may be important for grounding our own non-belief, especially if we were raised in a religious setting, they're clearly not convincing anyone who doesn't come to them with an open mind. If we truly want to work to reverse America's status as the least secular nation in the developed world, we need to try some new strategies, and Badiou offers one possibility - keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Columbia Student Protests

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfnn7wTgoE8&eurl=

Fucking idiots.

More than that, though, it's a shame that this debate has been framed as "right-wing protectionist racism" vs. "Left wing inclusive love-in." People from the left who don't oppose illegal immigration are the ultimate fashion victims of political correctness, using it as a staging ground for cultural diversity issues when what's really at stake is wage stability and corporate exploitation. We've let this become about "invasion America" and "recolonization," but what illegal immigration really does is undercut wages by providing unregulated black-market labor on American soil - you don't even have to outsource to Thailand.

This puts the lie to the "What's the Matter With Kansas" argument that the working classes vote Republican on cultural issues. It shows that, when the chips are down, New Left identity politics trump Democrats' commitment to worker equity. Ironically, it's racist, to boot - the steady supply of illegals keeps corporations from ever having to tap the apparently enduringly distasteful black workforce. There was a good NYTimes article this week about a town in south Texas where black unemployment is twice that of latinos (many of whom are inevitably illegal in that setting).

Byron crawford has a lot to say about the impact of illegal immigration on blacks, though of course he's inflammatory and irresponsible, as usual.

www.byroncrawford.com