People can't stand atheists

I appreciate David Brooks striking out on a topic of conversation that doesn't involve politics, but here he's just embarrassing himself:

Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.

A subtle "jab" at Richard Dawkins that entirely misconstrues his "selfish gene" argument. It is not as if the metaphorical selfishness of genes in general entails that humans exhibit literal selfishness. There is nothing so far that has been discovered about the brain or anything else that argues against Dawkins' basic characterization of evolutionary biology as a marketplace where genes compete ("selfishly") for space on the genome.

Moreover, none of these empirical details have any relevance to a debate about materialism, which seems to be what Brooks is trying to rebut.

How to talk to an empiricist

An empiricist scoffs at a religious man who has spent his life contemplating the spirits of a particular waterfall and some oddly shaped rocks. "You are worshiping childish fairytales and superstitious nonsense", the empiricist says. "None of it is real--you've frittered away your life."

The religious man replies: "Yes, you are right--none of those things are real. There's no empirical support for them whatsoever. But to ridicule me on those grounds is to miss the point--like ridiculing someone on an exercise bike because, for all their effort, they are traveling nowhere. Like the exercise bicyclist, my intent with spirit worship is not to affect a change in the world but to affect a change in myself with respect to the world. The bicyclist's movement is not 'real', but his muscles are strengthened all the same; my spirits are not 'real' but my being is grounded and revealed to me all the same."

The empiricist nods. "Fair enough. But remember well this distinction you make as you carry on your business in the empirical world. Just as a person on an exercise bike should not yell at people to get out of his path, neither can you impose on others in a way that presupposes the realness of your spirits."

"Of course," says the religious man.

***

The above dialog takes place on the empiricist's "home court", so to speak--the religious man admits his deities are not real, but given the context I think it's clear that by "real" he means empirically real--i.e., it can be observed with the senses in the material world. So I don't think he's really yielding any ground to the empiricist, and yet is able to carve out a philosophically defensible position that must appear to the empiricist for all the world like a mysterious and impenetrable walled city that shuns outsiders and keeps to itself.