Guilt by Statistical Association
The Case of the Blue Pickup
Imagine that you are at home, in your back yard, enjoying a summer barbeque with friends, when the police show up. Without warning, they pull their guns and order you to the ground. Then they handcuff you and read you your rights.
You ask them what’s going on.
“Somebody who owns a blue pickup just robbed a convenience store down the street and killed the cashier.”
“It wasn’t me,” you protest. “I was here all afternoon. I have witnesses.” Your yard is, indeed, filled with the friends that you had been visiting with all afternoon.
“That’s not relevant,” says the arresting officer. “You drive a blue pickup.”
“Yes, but it’s been in the garage all day.”
“That’s not relevant,” the arresting officer answers. “A guy who owns a blue pickup just robbed a convenience store down the street.”
“It wasn’t me!” you shout in frustration.
“We know it wasn’t you,” says the officer. “We’ve got the guy who did it. However, the guy who did it was somebody who owned a blue pickup. You also own a blue pickup. Obviously, people who own blue pickups are dangerous, so we’re arresting all people who own blue pickups. That includes you.”
“That’s not right,” you protest. “I never did anything.”
Your protests would have merit. The system that said that you were dangerous because you have a blue pickup would be treating you unjustly.
This much seems obvious. No person should be held accountable for a crime he did not commit. Typically, when we see one person condemning others, not because of what those other have done, but because they are like somebody who has done something wrong, we instantly recognize this is an example of bigotry and prejudice at work.
Yet, there seems to be a blind spot in this recognition.
Prejudice and Historic Wrongs
In the area of religion, there are some atheists and theists engaged in an endless debate to determine which group has been responsible for the greatest atrocities in history. Their argument seems to be that members of the opposite group can and should be held responsible for crimes committed by others who are like them in some respect. These are people who condemn others, not for doing something wrong, but for owning a blue pickup.
For the atheist, this argument takes the form of blaming theists in particular, and Christians in general - at least in the United States -- for the crusades and inquisitions of the past. They bring up religious violence in all parts of the world -- India and Pakistan, Nigeria, Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, and much of the Middle East. All of this is used to support the conclusion that theists, in general, are bad people, and that we would be better off without them.
Theists point to Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao Tse Tung’s China. Karl Marx linked Communism with atheism, and the Communist revolutions of the early part of the 1900s had a strong anti-religious component. Theists can also go back to the French Revolution -- the ‘Terror’ — in which the guillotines ran non-stop in Paris. This was not the worst of the atrocities committed in France at this time. This was a revolution of the ‘third estate’ (the people) against the first two estates (the aristocracy, and the church), and it had a very strong anti-theist component.
These two camps — the anti-theist and the anti-atheist — fight over where to put Hitler and the NAZI regime. Hitler clearly was not overly religious, and made some comments to the effect that Germany would be better off without the Church (though it is questionable whether he thought they would be better off without belief in God). The anti-theist counters Hitler’s comment that he saw himself doing God’s work. The anti-theist adds to this that Hitler’s personal beliefs are not that important because the people gave Hitler his power, and the people were almost exclusively theists. Also, they argue that hatred of and willingness to kill Jews that Hitler learned was something he picked up from a largely theist culture.
The anti-atheist was to blame atheism for Hitler and the Nazi regime; the anti-theists want to blame religion. Each seeks to put Hitler and his followers in the opposing camp so that they san say to all who are neutral, “Look at the company that my enemy keeps, so that you may come to hate them as I do.”
What do these atrocities in history say about the moral character of the theist or atheist next door having his barbeque?
Absolutely nothing.
He simply happens to own a blue pickup.
Legitimate Criticisms
The fact is, both theism and atheism express a broad range of beliefs. There are atheists who view the taking of a life as the greatest of all evils. To take a life is to take everything that a person has. The atheist cannot console himself that the dead are enjoying themselves in some afterlife (if they were good people) — that God will take care of them. Death is the end of everything. Recognizing the total tragedy of death, they refuse to kill, or even to cause others to suffer in this world.
It is as unjust and immoral to blame the atheist above for the atrocities in Stalin’s Germany or Mao’s China, as it would be to blame the Amish farmer in Pennsylvania for the Spanish Inquisition or the events of 9-11. Anybody who tries can be justifiably charged with promoting an unreasoned hatred and prejudice.
In certain circumstances, these points in history provide us with a valuable lesson. If a person were to claim, for example, that, “Those on my side of the dispute are the paradigm of virtue and morality,” it takes only a brief glance at history to show that this is not the case. The theist who argues that promoting religion is the same as promoting morality has to deal with the fact that there were times in human history where promoting religion was far different from promoting morality. Similarly, if somebody were to claim, “We would all be better off if only we could rid the world of religion,” we can look at history and answer, “Not necessarily -- no more than we can eliminate convenience store robberies by arresting everybody with a blue pickup.”
Elsewhere, I have used the examples of inquisitions, crusades, and religious wars to argue against the idea that people can reliably find the difference between right and wrong by looking in the Bible. There are a great many people who took their moral compass from the Bible who nonetheless went on to commit horrendous moral crimes. This does not justify the conclusion that, “All of those who turn to religious texts for moral guidance are evil.” It can only be used to defend the much milder conclusion that, “Those who turn to religious texts for moral guidance sometimes do not get the right answer.” There is room in this for others to turn to religious text for moral guidance and find the right answers that others have not seen.
It is also permissible to look at a Bible and say that some of its moral prescriptions are simply wrong. Where the Bible says that a person who works on the day of the Sabbath shall be put to death, it has made a mistake. Anybody who follows that prescription will be a murderer. Yet, it does not follow from this that all theists are murderers, simply because most of them - almost all of them - refuse to follow that prescription.
Similarly, we can look at what any atheist claims to be legitimate or illegitimate. An atheist Nazi is certainly a possibility, and is to be condemned as any theist Nazi is to be condemned. Religious affiliation does not matter. It is the willingness to harm others that matters.
People are only to be judged by what they do or what they try or plan to do. Nothing else is relevant.
Rhetoric versus Reason
At this point, an interesting rhetorical issue comes up. Let us say that one of these two factions -- the anti-theist or the anti-atheist — decides to adopt some measure of intellectual and moral integrity and quit trying to blame their opponents for this historic crimes. However, the less virtuous group continues to push an interpretation in which their opponents are blamed for historic wrongs.
With all of the fear and hate-mongering pushing largely only in one direction, I worry that those who begin by being neutral may learn to accept the unreasoned bigotry of those that market hate, intolerance, and injustice. Faced with the adverse effect of this bigotry, its victims might see some merit in claiming, “These wrongs were not committed by those who agree with me, but by those who share your views.”
It may be a tempting response, but it still violates the moral principle that no person shall be judged guilty of a crime he did not commit. You cannot combat immorality by implicitly accepting the immoral principle on which another person bases his unjust behavior.
The proper response continues to be, “You have no right to round up everybody who owns a blue pickup — or everybody who is a theist, or an atheist — just because somebody with a blue pickup robs a store.”
If this moral fact seems to be too week to have any effect, it would be justified to say, “What made Hitler and his followers evil was their eagerness to cast whole groups of people in a negative light by using the same types of guilt by association that you are trying to use right now. His mission was to generate an unreasoned, immoral, and unjust hatred of people because of their membership in a group, regardless of anything that the person might have done as an individual. That is the only reason I can think of why you would want to generate hatred of groups that exist today by tying them to moral crimes committed long ago, that the people you say should be hated never participated in and do not condone.”
I have actually spent a little bit of time reading up on the events that took place in Germany in the early 1900s. When I did, I came to the startling conclusion that neither atheism nor theism were responsible for these atrocities. The Nazis were responsible, and they are the only ones who deserve the blame for these crimes.