In God Is Watching You, the evolutionary biologist Dominic Johnson contends that religion has its roots in the evolution of the human mind and human societies, and is thus unlikely ever to disappear, contrary to the fantasies of the “New Atheists”; instead, it resurfaces as New Age spirituality, superstitions, or political ideology. Johnson focuses specifically on the selective advantages of fear of divine retribution, whether in the form of hellfire, karma, or whatever else. Accepting Johnson’s basic thesis, Lawrence Klepp argues that it might be something else about religion that is most ingrained in the human psyche:

In Johnson’s view, . . . [the] old or new atheist vision of modernity—a scientifically guided, religion-free world—is a mirage. Science can study religion, accommodate it, explain things without it, but not replace it: “The human mind,” in the words of Edward O. Wilson, “evolved to believe in gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.”

So far, so good. But I suspect that what fundamentalism has in common with modern utopian and ultra-nationalist political movements and with New Age mystiques and quasi-religious practices like meditation and vegetarianism is a quest for purity, not a yen for supernatural punishment. Modernity is complex, confused, urban, erotic, anxious: in its neon-lit light, ancient pieties can look pure. The same goes for peasants, primeval nature, primitive tribes, Tibetan Buddhists, and ethereal diets. Or radiant, rational, religion-free futures.

So I think Johnson oversells his wrathful gods. Even in terms of social utility, as enforcers of human cooperation, they may not be indispensable and they can be counterproductive. He admits that the pagan Greek and Roman gods, who were capricious and of doubtful moral character themselves, had virtually no bearing on the virtue of their worshippers. A sense of tradition, civic duty, honor, and shame sufficed to keep most people in line. The same can be said of many other societies, ancient and modern. . . .

In any case, even as a backhanded, evolutionary endorsement of religion, this book, with its stress on supernatural surveillance and retribution, won’t please most believers, who are moved by other things that faith offers: a sense of transcendence, a feeling of reconciliation with nature and God and others, communion, and compassion. And, at least, a strong hint of cosmic truth.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.