In his latest book, William Egginton laments the current debate over
religion in America, in which religious fundamentalists have set the
tone of political discourse--no one can get elected without advertising
a personal relation to God, for example--and prominent atheists treat
religious belief as the root of all evil. Neither of these positions,
Egginton argues, adequately represents the attitudes of a majority of
Americans who, while identifying as Christians, Jews, and Muslims, do
not find fault with those who support different faiths and philosophies.
In fact, Egginton goes so far as to question whether fundamentalists and
atheists truly oppose each other, united as they are in their commitment
to a "code of codes." In his view, being a religious fundamentalist does
not require adhering to a particular religious creed.
Fundamentalists--and stringent atheists--unconsciously believe that the
methods we use to understand the world are all versions of an underlying
master code. This code of codes represents an ultimate truth, explaining
everything. Surprisingly, perhaps the most effective weapon against such
thinking is religious moderation, a way of believing that questions the
very possibility of a code of codes as the source of all human
knowledge. The moderately religious, with their inherent skepticism
toward a master code, are best suited to protect science, politics, and
other diverse strains of knowledge from fundamentalist attack, and to
promote a worldview based on the compatibility between religious faith
and scientific method.
