Responding to "An Open Letter to Atheists"

Paul Wallace's essay, "Believing in Johnny Cash: An Open Letter to Atheists", talks about the human need for stories, and questions how atheists get along without them -- that is, without the stories that reveal "the truth" to us.

If you cannot accept that stories may have something to do with what’s really real, you end up with a single-ingredient offering of solid irony. That is, you end up with the story based on the premise that all stories are false. That galling story, the necessary and logical result of seriously not taking stories seriously, just isn’t good enough.

More importantly, this doesn’t match life as I know it and live it every day. Nor, I dare say, does it match the lives of anyone who has ever lived. Is this not a piece of evidence worthy of consideration?

At first I had a hard time even discerning what Wallace was talking about, because "irony" in my mind is inextricably linked to humor and there's nothing funny about Wallace's essay. Only after checking a dictionary did I realize that he meant "the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect", except without the "humorous" part.

Okay, so, where is this all going in Wallace's mind?

I have long suspected that some atheists may be ill at ease with stories.

Um, okay. How about defining "stories"?

In my use of the word, stories are interpretations of the facts. (Therefore scientific theories, being interpretations, are themselves stories of a kind. But I am thinking of interpretation in the less radical, more colloquial sense of the word).

Those "clarifications" leave me more confused than before. I could stand for him to define "interpretation", and to explain what the "less radical" and "more colloquial" senses of that word are. Unfortunately, he doesn't, and I'm left to grope for his meaning.

What I propose is that no one lives, or can live, or has ever lived, within the circle of empirical science. I propose that no matter who we are or what our beliefs might be, we have always had to deal with the question of interpretation. And that question is not whether to interpret, but how. No one fails to interpret. Interpreting is what human beings do.

Put another way, we cannot avoid believing in stories. We can only hope to choose the best ones. How to do this? I propose that good stories are stories that tell the truth, and bad ones are ones that do not.

I find myself wanting to yell at Wallace: "Interpret what? What is it about scientific theories (and, provisionally, hypotheses) as interpretations that is insufficient for human needs? Please, stop dancing around the issue and make yourself clear!"

I must reluctantly conclude that I can't follow his reasoning. At least, I can't claim I have a firm grasp of it. I'll hazard a guess as to his train of thought, though.

Stories are interpretations of facts, but in Wallace's mind they aren't limited to scientific theories (or hypotheses, presumably). Leaping beyond facts, though, doesn't mean stories, good ones anyway, can't pass along (or, if you will, "reveal") truth. Apparently these truths, to Wallace, can't always be traced back to scientific facts.

I think that the crux of whatever it is he's saying is to be found in his discussion of how one might interpret the message of Johnny Cash's song, "A Boy Named Sue".

The humor here is delivered atop a dark urgency—there’s more here than laughs.

Or is there? When you find yourself captivated by a song like “A Boy Named Sue,” is it because it points you toward the truth about real fathers and sons? If so, perhaps one small truth contained in Cash’s song may be expressed: Fathers always come to fear their sons.

Freud may nod approvingly, but does this small truth (if it is indeed true) stand on its own, cut off, independent of all else? Or might it, if we dwell on it and ask some questions about it, take us to other truths—perhaps bigger, perhaps smaller—about the world? Or is it related only to mere neurons and chemical reactions and so makes us laugh for a time but is ultimately about nothing at all?

And if you think this is the case (and here I’m addressing myself to my confirmed atheist readers)—that the only true truth is energy and matter in motion—how did you come to believe that? I’m betting that you came to believe it because you believed in the truth of another story.

So, one small truth is, "Fathers always come to fear their sons". I don't know if science has proven that, but I think the statement at least is scientifically testable. Ergo, the statement would not be unacceptable to someone who only accepted facts (if it could be proven).

"Does this small truth ... stand on its own, cut off, independent of all else?" I confess I don't see the point of this question. What does it have to do with his argument?

"Or might it ... take us to other truths ... about the world?" Again, I feel like screaming: "Like what? Give me a hint about these possible 'other truths'! What in the hell are you talking about?"

"Or is it related only to mere neurons and chemical reactions and so makes us laugh for a time but is ultimately about nothing at all?"

Louder this time: "What in the hell are you talking about???"

How did we get from "other truths" to neurons and chemical reactions? What in the hell is the connection in Wallace's mind between these things?

Is Wallace trying to imply (since he certainly isn't saying anything straightforwardly) that our emotional reactions to art are a form of truth that is beyond scientific inquiry, and therefore cannot be investigated by watching neurons and neurochemical reactions?

That's the most complimentary interpretation (there's that word again) I can find of his frustratingly muddy and vague prose. And assuming that's what he's really saying, I must conclude that we're on ships heading to different ports, metaphorically speaking.

What Wallace seems to be asking is, "How can you atheists, who deny stories altogether, see these truths that can only be borne by stories?"

My response: "Who's denying stories? Atheists deny certain kinds of stories, ones that attempt to assert as real supernatural beings and events for which there is no scientific evidence."

Wallace is trying to link seeing and believing in a small (purported) truth about human nature conveyed in a song with seeing and believing in a larger (purported) truth about all of existence, conveyed in religious texts. In Wallace's mind, it is apparently impossible to understand or to accept the smaller "truth" if you deny the bigger one. To be true to their school, so to speak, atheists must deny both. Or perhaps they just can't help denying both, being apparently professional naysayers.

Wallace's is an exceptionally stupid argument, so stupid that I have a hard time believing he believes it. The essay, I think, is trollbait. Nobody could be as confused and as misinformed as Wallace appears and still have enough brain cells to breathe.

You wasted my time, Paul, but I'll give you this: I thought for a while you were sincere.