The Insidious “Cute Eyes” Defense of Religion

Apologists prey on our instinct to protect childish naivety and playfulness

Cropped photo by Vika Glitter, on Pexels

New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens used to say that theistic religions have a handy rhetorical trick of playing the faith card.

When you say your religious beliefs are based partly on faith rather than logic and evidence, you’re ending the conversation and treating theism as being immune from criticism. You’re saying you don’t want to change those beliefs, so you’ll hang on to them no matter what, even when potentially faced with overwhelming contrary evidence or common sense.

But that’s not the spirit of adult, intellectually responsible inquiry. For instance, this evasion is far from WK Clifford’s point about the “ethics of belief,” the principle of which is that “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence.”

But religious evasiveness goes much further. I realized this when I read certain comments on my articles over the years. My articles would harshly criticize religion and pose an unsettling naturalistic worldview as an alternative to the archaic mythos. Then a commenter would come along and say something like, “That’s well and good for those gods or those religions. But my religion is all…