Would the United States of America be better off without all that tacky religion stuff?

THE QUESTION:

“Would America Be Better Off Without Religion?”

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

That provocative big-picture question is the title of an article by grad student Casey Chalk, which we’ll turn to after some ground-clearing. Atheism (or its cousin, agnosticism) isn’t what it used to be. Folks who didn’t believe in God used to mostly downplay it while polite public debate engaged certain thinkers like Bertrand Russell (“Why I Am Not a Christian,” 1927) or J. L. Mackie (“The Miracle of Theism,” 1982).

In recent times, faith has been thrown more on the defensive, not just by skepticism from without but damaging developments from within — Horrid scandals of sexual predators among Christian clergy. Angry Protestant splits over whether to shed traditional sexual morals. Terrorism by Muslim sects and certain Buddhists and Hindus.

Well-publicized “new atheists” have emerged more aggressively to attack believers as not merely mistaken but downright stupid, even evil.

Take James Haught, who wrote for the Freedom From Religion Foundation that because people are getting smarter they “perceive that magical dogmas are a bunch of hooey — just fairy tales with no factual reality…. Right before our eyes, supernatural faith is dying in America.” (Actually, there’s a slide, not death.) Notably, Haught was West Virginia’s most important journalist, as longtime editor of the Charleston Gazette.

Such bludgeoning can have limited persuasive power except among those already convinced. But Max Boot offered an interesting new anti-faith line this year in a Washington Post column (behind a pay wall). This Soviet immigrant is a public intellectual to reckon with, as a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and acclaimed author (also conservative Never-Trumper on cable newscasts).

“Too much religion is bad for a country,” Boot contended. He made that case by compiling nation-by-nation statistics on e.g. per capita gross domestic product, unemployment, poverty, homicide, life expectancy, infant mortality, education and political liberties.

This is not rocket science. (Or maybe it is? See update at the end of this piece.)

For a week or so, I have been watching to see if editors at the Associated Press were going to run a correction about a story about some fine print in the Republican tax bill. The headline on that story stated: "Senate votes to block special break for conservative college."

Note that the word "college" is singular.

That "fact" was at the heart of the debate, as shown in the overture for this hard-news story:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Democrats ... successfully blocked a provision in the Republicans’ sweeping tax bill designed to give a special tax break to a conservative college in Michigan.

Democrats said the tax break was designed to help just one politically-connected school: Hillsdale College in southern Michigan.

“I can’t find anybody else in America who benefits from this particular provision. That doesn’t strike me as right,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said, “It feels like this is a very limited provision written for a very special person.”

The key fact here is that Hillsdale College does not accept federal funds, including funds linked to scholarships and student aid. The basic idea is that government money will inevitably have strings attached. Thus:

The tax package would impose a new tax on investment income earned by some private universities and colleges. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., added a provision exempting certain colleges that don’t receive federal funds. Democrats said Hillsdale was the only college that would benefit.