No, no. The "New Atheists" might be slightly boring, but at least they're reasonable. "Secular fundamentalist"? What does that even mean?
"Some people are worthy of moral consideration, some are not"? Gimme a break. Nothing of the kind is said by any of the "New Atheists", and this fraud knows it.
(And I thoroughly disagree with Hitchens as far as the Iraq war goes, for what it's worth.)
But when you present Harris as someone who wants to throw nuclear bombs on the Arab world, you are taking him so out of context that it boggles the mind.
Yes, Harris made a sort of ticking-bomb argument for possibly allowing torture in a situation so unlikely as to be negligible, or attacking a destructive regime first if it posed a real danger to our society. I thought he was wrong to do so, at least in the first case. But if this qualifies as some kind og ideological/religious fundamentalism, I can't imagine what wouldn't.
What it boils down to for me is: What is probably true and what is probably not true.
Posted by: frodo | Feb 29, 2008 6:04:44 PM
Thank you, Frodo. The mischaracterization of the New Atheists in this video is absolutely ridiculous. From what I've read, they make a very clear distinction between Islam as practiced by the majority of adherents and the perversion of Islam practiced by some terrorists. That they use it as an example of the horrible extremes of religion is no worse than Chris saying that the religious right could push for the persecution of Muslims. I have never heard the New Atheists endorse violence as a "cleansing agent",and they don't believe in a technological utopia- those are the transhumanists. Also, since when is promoting "collective moral progress" a bad thing? History has shown a pretty clear pattern of human progress- unless Chris would prefer to go back to feudalism. This video is a nonsensical collection of slander, lies and pablum, with a few good and reasonable points hidden in the otherwise moronic rhetoric.
Posted by: Jack | Feb 29, 2008 6:13:44 PM
I get the sense that he hasn't really read any of the works he's reviewing.
Posted by: Nathaniel Frentz | Feb 29, 2008 7:47:22 PM
I agree that people like Hitchens and Dawkins represent extreme point of views, but I think Chris Hedges is making a mistake by comparing them to the religious right. The "New Atheists" make their judgments based on reason and fact, whereas the religious right do so on irrational dogma. Would it be fair to compare a judge sentencing a man to death for mass murder to a judge sentencing a man to death for heresy (arguments about the death penalty aside)?
And Secular Fundamentalism? I'm gonna have to go with Mr. Baggins on this one.
Posted by: Davy Crockett | Feb 29, 2008 8:09:55 PM
Hedges is a very smart, nay brilliant, person who has taken very valuable positions on the Iraq war and war in general, and other questions. He also seems to have a very deep religious faith that seems vitally important to him. It is apparently so important to his inner self that he uncharacteristically seems driven to say very stupid things about atheists. I have not seen anything he has said that explains why his great intelligence deserts him on this one particular subject; if he has not explained it publicly, I hope he does one day.
What a wishy-washy load of trollop. The least Chris could do is honour the code of any decent critic/commentator and READ the books he is criticizing. It is abundantly clear from this post that he has not the slightest inclination to seriously engage with what these reasoned writers are getting at. If he did, he would be embarrassed to see that they neatly deal with such accusations as are raised in this short piece. Labelling someone as "atheistic fundementalist" or "secular fundementalist", besides being essentially meaningless, is just a version of saying, "look, your lot are just as silly as ours" so is hardly a strong stance.
"secular fundamentalist"!! WTF! As Sam says, I can't ever envisage a civilization or empire whose downfall was a direct consequence of its citizenry becoming too clear-thinking and dangerously rational.
If Hedges bothered to read these authors properly or mentally engage with what they are saying instead of having his knee-jerk reaction ready, he might actually see they are quite gentle, well-reasoned individuals who, instead of advocating violence against those with whom they disagree are actually able to give you explanations of where these tendencies come from, why they are best subverted and how this might start to be done on a wider scale. Knowledge is power Chris and you don't move smoothly into the future by employing agonizing contortions of outdated and plainly false representations from the past.
Pop quiz Chris - "Is it true?" No. Then don't teach it to children.
Posted by: MattInOz | Feb 29, 2008 9:51:25 PM
The claims of Hedges and others like him are nothing more than knee-jerk reactions against rationalism. They complain that their faith is being misunderstood when it seems that they themselves are the ones who are misrepresenting what they actually believe. How the Hedges, a man who by his own admission believes in all the core teachings of the Christian faith, can claim that atheist critiques avoid the so-called 'real arguments' is beyond me. The fact is, there are no 'real arguments'. Theology is at bottom a matter of faith, not genuine intellectual argument. Theologians can continue to write endless books and articles using dense and 'learned' tones, but there really is no need for atheists to read them as they all boil down to the same ultimate beliefs, beliefs that atheists, quite rightly in my view, reject on the basis that they do not have intellectual or moral credibility.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Feb 29, 2008 10:14:16 PM
Let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:
There is an indescribably powerful and intelligent being called God who is in existence prior to the dawn of time. For whatever reason, he decides to create the universe and pays particular attention to planet Earth. Having created the universe, Earth and all the species on it (through 'creating' the Big Bang and 'guiding' evolution in the Hedges style of interpretation), he decides to focus all his attention on a collection of tribal groupings in the Middle East, in particular the Israelites who are his 'chosen people' and who he obsesses over, while apparently ignoring the rest of the world's population. He lays down numerous often primitive and arbitrary moral and ceremonial laws, then gets involved in inner tribal politics and land disputes, inciting acts of brutality, war crimes, genocide, and rape along the way. Fast forward to the Middle East under Roman occupation and God decides it's time to put in an appearance. By mystical means he comes to earth in human form, being born of a virgin. He becomes incarnate as a Jewish male and wanders around what is today Israel-Palestine, imparting pithy social commentary (but never giving any systematic explanation of how such ideas might be made politically useful), engaging in faith healing (removing 'demons' from people), magic tricks (such as walking on water and raising a dead man), and ranting on and on about sin, eternal punishment for the majority of the world's population, and the impending end of the world. He gets himself crucified, in order that he can sacrifice himself to himself for our good. A few days later he walks out of his tomb and wanders round with some of his followers (noticeably not bothering to make himself known to anyone but those who already believed in him), before 'ascending' into 'Heaven', to wait for the time when he will return to raise every human who has ever lived in bodily form for judgement, then cast most of us into a pit of fire and take a select few into his 'kingdom' for eternity where they will live happily ever after.
These are the basic building blocks upon which all Christian theology is constructed. Hedges and others can protest that of course they don't really see things in such a simplistic and manifestly implausible way, but this narrative underpins the Bible, the Church creeds, liturgies, and centuries of theological speculation.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Feb 29, 2008 10:19:42 PM
Well said Dave.
It is beyond me how certain people like this can even fool themselves into thinking they have given any sort of "response" to the arguments that have been put to them, or at least one that has any thread of intellectual rigour. I have a strong feeling they will look back one day and cringe at what they have said - although maybe that might be a bit much to expect.
I did not realise Hedges even bought into Christianity that strongly (I'm out of the loop over here ;-), which makes it all the more astounding to me that one can so readily disqualify others' religions as piffle, and with a straight face make special pleas for their own brand of nonsense. Truly astounding.
Posted by: MattInOz | Feb 29, 2008 10:30:33 PM
MattinOz--
I work with peace an justice groups, and Hedges, being against the Iraq occupation, has credibility with the "Left".
I was astounded at his religious, superstition based view of reality.
It is quite scary.
Ar regular "Cabbage For Christ"
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Feb 29, 2008 10:39:46 PM
Dave
What IS it with this Jesus crap? I cannot for the life of me see how anyone who does even a hint of research into history cannot see how "the Golden Rule" and other such pronouncements are not the special province of Christianity. For goodness sake, such rules are CLEARLY demonstrable in ape communities and certainly don't need a divine explanation. Just because JC successfully hijacked it as his propoganda vehicle doesn't mean it's a bad idea though, I just wish they did some reading about its epistemiology.
I have abundant knowledge (having been sold the Catholic crap as a child and done my hard time as an altar boy for Christ) of what's needed to break away from this thinking and it's not that difficult. It only requires the mildest infection with a curiosity for truth to bring it tumbling into dust.
Good luck to Hedges in that regard I say. I won't hold my breath.
Posted by: MattInOz | Feb 29, 2008 11:16:05 PM
It seems useful to note that Hedges debated Hitchens recently, and that according to this account, at least, lost.
Posted by: D | Mar 1, 2008 12:35:26 AM
Besides all the comments above, Hedges makes the same mistake that Christians complain about every time I bring up some extreme religious fundamentalist behavior: "We're not all like that!"
"New Atheists" is a term I despise, while I am a life-long atheist, because it does the same thing - lump all atheists into Hedge's narrow and misinformed reading/debating of Harris, Hitchens, et al.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones ...Hedges is throwing stones. I'm not impressed by his arguments because he clearly did not read Hitchens's book, at the very least.
Posted by: Anon | Mar 1, 2008 1:19:23 AM
Religion is the justification of morality. Atheism as well is being used to justify moral positions. It's not the actual source of morality. That's why you often find that the same religion (or athiesm) is used to justify totally opposing views.
Morality is the result of biological programming, and enviornment. A balance between our two opposing instincts: the group mentality and the competion between individuals in that group. This is what leads to hiarchy, which you find in all social animals. Colonies of monkeys have royalty as well.
Extreme idiologies usually pick one of these two instincts, and completely ignore the other. They try to eliminate hiarchy by either extreme individualism, or extreme group mentality.
The mistake that the new atheists (and their religieus counterparts) make is that they think their morality is a universal truth. It's not. It's just a set of rules that work for them, in their situation.
Marriage, for instance, is an ancient feminist institution that pretents to ensure the females' sexual loyalty, in return for the mans' life long dedication. If the man believes the children of his wife are actually his own, then he is more likely to stick around. Feminism is all about increasing the cost of sex, which is also a big part of most religions.
Gay marriage might be logical in our western society, were a mans' contribution is forced by law (in some countries, even if he is not the biological father), and were a woman can make her own living in the service economy. But in an African tribe for instance, the loyalty of a man is essential to the lifelyhood of the woman, especially when handicapped by pregnancy. Gay marriage would undermine the value of sex in that society, and thus undermine the society itself.
So when a religious group opposes same sex marriage, it has nothing to do with what the bible says, but everything with the value of sex. You will also see a lot of other sexual restrictions in those groups. They are acting on an instinct that has worn off in the liberal mind.
Liberals think that their acceptance of homosexuality is a universal morality. In all their "rational thinking", they fail to think about why most of the world, for most of the earths' history, has opposed homosexuality. In their experience, homosexuality is harmless. But in the ancient mind, it is not.
The instinct to increase the value of sex is part of the group mentality. Expensive sex is not benificial to the male, but it is to the spieces as a whole.
As a conclusion, trying to come up with a universal morality is futile, if you ignore the enviornment of said morality. And the rational athiests are dead wrong in thinking that there even is a universal morality.
And in the same vain, Chris Hedges is wrong in his conclusion that the position of the new athiests is wrong.
New athiesm is reaction to certain events that threatened their position in society. The individualists were attacked as group, by another group, so they called upon their group mentalitiy as a defense mechanism. They use atheism to justify it, but it might as well have been any other -ism.
The real problem is the megalomania of countries trying to create societies of millions. You can't have a natural balance between individualism and group mentality, when you have so many individuals.
Posted by: PeterJohn | Mar 1, 2008 9:39:01 AM
It really IS a great point. Read the material before you reject it. Understand your opponent's argument in his own context before you presume to pass judgement on it. Is that about it?
I can give you a reading list which may give you a richer perspective of the debate from the opposing point of view (if you have any sense that you may wish to be informed about it beyond the level of Ranning's dust-jacket synopsis from a Child's Garden of Atheism): The Cloud of Unknowing, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Aquinas' Summa Theologica, Augustine's Apology, and finally Eusibius' History of the Church. Once you are done with those, you can probably be confidant that you grasp the salient issues enough to re-read the Bible with a new perspective and then evaluate it on its own merits rather than its more commonly addressed Straw Man.
Start the whole thing off, though, by working through Lebniz' Primordial Existential Question to its logical conclusion of not just why, which is perhaps too glibly dismissed by some, but how? It's a reasonable question and allows no dodge into higher math or alternate universes, since without causation, complete nothingness must once have been, and nothing can only beget nothing. At the very least, the exercise might soften a rigid certainty that mechanistics holds all the answers.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents of a Saturday when I should be groking Eigenfaces and working on my project proposal. Have fun reading, I have more when you have finished those.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 10:12:09 AM
Carlos--
It comes dow to this, and it really is not thay complicated:
What is the core of Dawkins' and my "radical" message?
Well, it goes something like this: If you claim that something is true, I will examine the evidence which supports your claim; if you have no evidence, I will not accept that what you say is true and I will think you a foolish and gullible person for believing it so.
That's it. That's the whole, crazy, fanatical package.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 1, 2008 11:08:00 AM
Knee-jerk reactions to knee-jerk reactions to knee-jerk reactions.
I have to wonder how many of us have read the best the "opposing" material has to offer, or if we've just read Other People who may have...
I know I haven't read them all, myself. Not all of the best, anyway, or even a large portion of it.
Have you made up your mind that the other side is completely wrong, and that approval only by your methods will do? Because that seems rather short-sighted. Narrow-minded.
Be those methods scientific or belief-based, something isn't going to fit in your model. Something that someone finds vitally important to the continuance of life and the pursuit of its goods and greats is going to be left out.
And someone is always, ALWAYS going to think that your methods and beliefs are absolutely, 100% fucking evil. Or, shall we say, "socially harmful."
If we cannot recognise this, if we cannot learn to approach things from their perspective, openly, rationally, believingly, or by whatever adverb for which the thing calls, then we get the same thing we Always get, here on 3QD, when religion comes into the field.
Snide, arrogant, "Why-You're-Just-An-Ignorant-And-Ill-Informed-Dirt-Farmer" remarks, from Both sides.
I've come to hope for a certain level of discernment and honest discussion, from this page's comment section. Instead, there's that wall, where everyone froths and foams and prickles, but they do it in the high-handed pseudo-intellectualism;l a back and forth of what basically boils down to "S/He Started it!"
In truth, you are no more interested in examining the evidence presented in the book list above than I am in challenging you to demonstrate your evidence that there is no mystery and no God. Since the one gauntlet you have to throw down is evidentiary, your thesis fails by its own standard, but you'd be a fool to both hold onto your supposition and at the same time entertain the possibility that my side may actually be holding some cards to your empty hand. No. Better just wave any such notion away.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 12:42:48 PM
You're right, Damien, teach the controversy!
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 1, 2008 12:51:15 PM
Carlos, there's no need to keep your cards hidden. If you, or any religious person, has some killer argument up their sleeve, put it on the table.
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 1, 2008 12:53:11 PM
Ah yes---
Playing tennis with no net---
It's fun, and easy, but when the net goes up and the real game starts, it is time to leave.
Carlos, show me the cards, I call you.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 1, 2008 12:54:53 PM
Damien, how can one have an honest discussion when Hedges (the point of this article) is not willing to be honest. Mischaracterizing an atheist's position from the get-go does not engender respect nor honest discussion.
Much of the literature that Carlos speaks of has been read throughout our atheist lives, and yet those like Hedges embrace inflammatory language and have knee-jerk reactions to the new atheist literature (not the lowercase). One such notable knee-jerk reaction is cherry-picking at Richard Dawkins's mention of religion as child abuse, despite his being clear about what that means.
I have found that no matter what aspects of religion I accept, understand and have experienced, those like Hedges rush out to battle strawmen.
"If we cannot recognise this, if we cannot learn to approach things from their perspective, openly, rationally, believingly,..."
Atheists have been understanding those like Hedges for years. It is time for them to be open-minded.
Posted by: Anon | Mar 1, 2008 12:56:06 PM
I don't know that atheists understand "those like Hedges," any better than they would say that he understands them. And that's precisely the point.
The investiture of time, belief, "rationality," or whatever else into a position means that when something comes along to challenge it, or "attack" it, then that something is not going to be gently approached. It's a perceived attack, and if that attack is on rationality, then the retaliation is going to be all the more vicious.
Rationality is that sacrosanct principle by which we make sense of and operate in the world, so when it comes under attack, the accusation of "harmful irrationality" is leveled like a self-referential gun. But that's not the point.
The point is that if someone mischaracterizes your position, then correct them, put it into words they can understand. And that's not Dumbing Down, that's being willing to know a system of thought and/or belief well enough to approach it from within its own boundaries. Regardless of how those within it approach you.
Come to the table willing to learn and be wrong, or don't come to the table.
There is nothing new in this attack. It is as empty and foolish as any that have come before.
Apparently, if all of us poor, ignorant atheists become sincere students of theology, spend our lives honestly pondering moldy old tomes, and crusty old thoughts, of the most sincere (often deluded) primitive minds, we too will finally understand that we are being awfully mean to the fairy tales of others. And opinions, if they are critical of religion, should be suspended. It is not fair. Because there is always some point, somewhere, that we have not scrupulously considered. Until all this is completed we should not think, we should not discuss, we should not argue, we must not say aloud what we think is true. It is pure arrogance. Sarcasm is right out! So is contempt for beliefs that are truly awful and violent. All is relative. Everything may be right for someone. We should respect that.
Well, I'm off. There is a pillar in the desert that I plan to sit on for a while, until I have fully absorbed the wisdom of the ages.
Posted by: Christopher | Mar 1, 2008 2:07:47 PM
And Christopher goes a long way toward exemplifying my point. Consideration is not the same as relativism, and the relativism of beliefs should only be excluded when you've explored the options and understood the motivations.
Yes, taking a position is important, and the only way to operate a world of non-wishy-washy hand-wringers, but there is a difference between holding a belief and a position-- considered, carefully crafted, and researched-- and simply lashing out at that which threatens or upsets you.
Yes, certain acts are deplorable, disgusting things. But recognise that there is a reason for their existing, there is a story that leads to the instantiation of these acts as morally accepted or required. When you seek to truly understand what brought a people to this place, your efforts at change will be more effective, because they will be more respectful.
'If your god is a living god, a loving god, and a caring god, then wouldn't it have foreseen a time when these laws would have to change, when the "old ways" would have to make way for the new?'
Take a position, yes. Realise that's all anyone does. Discuss, yes, but discuss from a position of knowledge, rather than vitriol.Otherwise you perpetuate your problem, because no one wants to listen to someone who thinks their an idiot.
Unless all you're looking to do is hear the sound of your own voice (something I often enjoy), and keep yourself in business.
Excellent. You may proceed to present your evidence for no God and a purely mechanistic universe starting with a complete and coherent answer to Lebniz' P.E.Q.. My cards? Already laid down. Those books I already listed, in that order.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 6:32:36 PM
"The Cloud of Unknowing, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Aquinas' Summa Theologica, Augustine's Apology, and finally Eusibius' History of the Church."
I vaguely remember reading those when I was studying philosophy for three years at my local university.
Should they have convinced me of God's existence?
Posted by: frodo | Mar 1, 2008 7:20:37 PM
I am so sick and tired of this debate. Reading comments whenever the "religion v. atheism" topic comes up, makes me ashamed to be human. Lets just bomb each other and be done with it.
Posted by: Anon | Mar 1, 2008 7:23:44 PM
"I am so sick and tired of this debate. Reading comments whenever the "religion v. atheism" topic comes up, makes me ashamed to be human."
Sure. Nevertheless you actually bother to read the comments, and then go on to post a comment about how reading the comments and posting comments about the comments makes you ashamed of being human.
Well, I kind of agree with you, actually. Cheers!
Posted by: frodo | Mar 1, 2008 7:42:03 PM
So we got one guy who thinks the burden of evidence rests on unbelievers to disprove god, and another who makes the sweeping generalization that no one on either side understands the other well enough to say anything (or he simply wants to condescendingly remind us and chastise us on an obvious point), and a few people (myself included) who are exasperated by the whole spectacle and yet somehow drawn in to see how it develops.
I personally think that no one is ever going to convince the other side of anything here, but I nonetheless don't think that makes it futile. Much is gained by the exercise, not the least of which is a better understanding of the other side which facilitates better coexistence.
Though I by no means believe that progress is inevitable (only change is), I do think old-time religions like the Bible characterization above and perhaps all of Christianity, are on their way out. If you feel the need to help this process along, I think the best thing, the most effective thing to do, is not to attack religion, but to be a kind, generous and flawlessly reasonable and rational example of the alternative, of the possibility of life outside the cult. Disprove their characterizations of atheists. Show the possibility of life without god to be admirable and beautiful and full of meaning. Be more Carl Sagan or Richard Feynman than Richard Dawkins.
The Carloses can continue to challenge us to prove that the invisible dragons in their garages don't exist, we can hope their happiness isn't disturbed by the (conveniently) inaudible din of these dragons and get on with trying to make the world a better place already.
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 1, 2008 8:23:03 PM
Did you now? My compliments to your curriculum. What local university did you attend?
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 9:10:41 PM
A pretty crappy one by international standards. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology. (No, it's not that crappy, actually, but it's no Harvard or MIT.)
So if my comments seemed a bit incoherent and weird, well... English is not my language.
Posted by: frodo | Mar 1, 2008 9:19:06 PM
Has this thread petered out yet? Because, if it has -- good. Without wanting to juice the corpse, I want to observe that it looks like nobody's mind got changed here, and worse: nobody's mind even got expanded. Perhaps Chris Hedges, making his point cogently but unexcitingly that there are atheist fundies, too, would not be surprised.
Richard Dawkins himself has said that it's not logically tenable to be more than an agnostic, so all of our atheists need to recognize an element of unreason in their logic, just that tiny element that compels them to attempt proving a negative when such proof is absolutely unnecessary to a coherent world view that posits no supreme being. Heaping scorn on people who claim only to believe differently, who are out to exact no social price from you for your non-belief, hardly defeats them, or even messes with their minds. If you somehow lost interest in criticizing them so derisively, it would not be a sign that you respected their beliefs and hewed to the hypocrisy of tip-toeing around them, only that you respected their right to a point of view greatly different from your own, even opposed to your own. Tolerating clap-trap in others without attacking them for it, without attempting to undercut their rights to believe as they choose, is good for you. It keeps you liberal-minded, and it serves the seldom-discussed function of keeping you open to the possibility, ever present, that you too believe things that are not true, and have the right to believe such things. If all this took more sensitivity than living in society demanded of averagely intelligent people, then we'd all be on Ruby Ridge.
While I am aware there is no compromise position, that the question whether God exists cannot have two answers, I always feel a bit of a minority following and sometimes participating in threads about the subject, because I don't agree with anyone on either side of the question as it has been framed. The terms of the debate seem on the one hand utterly to trivialize and reduce human endeavor, on the other to exalt and even mandate superstition. It's kind of sickening to make fun of someone's holy book, it's also kind of sickening to suppose you accomplish much by dumping holy books on someone's derision. And it's about as much fun as watching orthodocts and heretics tilting at one another -- they only think they're on opposite sides in this quaint medieval tournament, but they're not, because they are, alike, fighting with outdated weapons over settled questions.
Next time it comes up -- and it will -- take it to a different level, okay?
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 1, 2008 9:29:03 PM
The Carloses can continue to challenge us to prove that the invisible dragons in their garages don't exist
You are missing my point. The standards of evidence amateur Atheists occasionally call upon Theists to provide are equally unavailable to them. The challenge came from Dave, not me. I don't think he is capable of meeting the standard he himself set, but it's not my requirement, it's his.
All you should be willing to do, even if just for yourself, is be satisfied with a material world which cannot rationally exist, rationally explain how it could have ever sprung from pure nothingness, or confess that your position is no more rational than mine.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 9:37:00 PM
it's also kind of sickening to suppose you accomplish much by dumping holy books on someone's derision
Is that directed at me? My suggestion was merely a response to a complaint against people who criticize other's positions without properly informing themselves. If you were sickened, you missed the lighthearted irony. I think these are valuable additions to anyone's personal library, but I don't for a second imagine that any derisive person would read them or benefit from them anymore than I imagine any dissenter from the atheist orthodoxy is likely to find any value in the New Atheist Canon (or even the non-dissenters for that matter).
On a lighthearted note. I was back in California last week and on the tailgate of a pickup truck was the following bumper-sticker: "Party on, Sinners."
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 10:30:14 PM
Thanks, Elatia. I needed that. ;)
As for bumper stickers, here's my favorite:
"Jesus would signal.'
Posted by: JanieM | Mar 1, 2008 10:46:54 PM
Carlos,
Please forgive my lack of direct familiarity with the texts you’ve mentioned, other than the Bible, but isn’t your Leibnizian defense breached with the good old “if something can’t come out of nothing then who created God" argument? I assume you must be familiar with that response, so if there is a deeper subtlety to your defense of theism from this angle, do share it.
bumpersticker:
667 neighbor of the beast
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 1, 2008 11:25:22 PM
Elatia: Heaping scorn on people who claim only to believe differently, who are out to exact no social price from you for your non-belief, hardly defeats them, or even messes with their minds...Tolerating clap-trap in others without attacking them for it, without attempting to undercut their rights to believe as they choose, is good for you
I'm sorry, Elatia, but there are many believers who are trying to "exact" a social price from atheists and society. Saying otherwise is simply dishonest. The academic arguments are of cursory value; the day-to-day society arguments are very much a part of what and why the "New Atheists'" argue at all.
If the religious were to stop pushing their beliefs on others, tolerance would work just fine. That's the simple nature of the beast. Everything else is academic. That (some) religious feel it is necessary to attack these "New Atheists" is born out of fear - I have heard theologians say so themselves in so many words. They are not really interested in atheists' worldviews.Prove me otherwise.
It has become a tiresome debate in the public arena, however, we soldier on....because we have to.
*There's a third Anon comment that's not mine.
Posted by: Anon1&2 | Mar 1, 2008 11:37:59 PM
For what it's worth, Elatia, I don't personally see the main point of these arguments as being to change the other person's mind - that will only come in THEIR own time and certainly not through being exposed to the vitriol of a directly counter viewpoint.
The real value of these arguments, as I see it (and why I think it's important to address these issues at each instance they arise) is that far, far more people read these pages than post on them. Those who are honestly open to exploring such an important question as whether a goddess exists will get to see the weak arguments from the likes of Carlos repeatedly and systematically demolished before their eyes. For it is only the closed mind that doesn't see that that is exactly what is happening. Someone who is really open to the question, a truly inquisitive fence-sitter, will be able to source, on these pages, important reinforcement of their doubts. So if even one person a week is able to have that Aha! moment where the shackles of indoctrination give way to those first heady days of independent thought, I think we can consider the posting of these arguments to be meritorious.
I find it singularly instructive that a good portion of Carlos' defence readings, his supposed best ammo, was written prior to the publication of a pesky fellow by the name of Charles Darwin. Says something, doesn't it?
Posted by: MattInOz | Mar 2, 2008 12:21:44 AM
Carlos---
I'm not the one who woke up believing in a Psychopathic Space Daddy--
That is something you added to your world, a cultural replicator that has colonized your poor addled brain.
That is a extraordinary statement of fact. As Carl Sagen said "Extraordinary propositions need extraordinary evidence"--
When evidence is dismissed from the discourse, ignorance and superstition rules, like the impoverished intellectual position of our poor friend Carlos.
He things imaginary works of fiction are real arguments and a basis for reality.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 2, 2008 1:00:25 AM
Anon 1 & 2, Matt and Carlos,
Way back in dynastic Egypt, before the time of the Bible, the afterlife was given the most complete consideration imaginable, and, as is well known, even material goods were stored up to supply it. Less well known is that the Egyptians had a care as to whether their souls might suffer death in the afterlife; that they should die of this earthly life was natural and right to them, that once in The Silent Land their souls should die was intolerably frightening. The most intelligent thing that was ever said -- that has ever been said in the 4500 years since -- in the face of the massive cult of the dead mounted by the Egyptians (and by subsequent civilizations) was written into The Harper's Song, an extremely short and seldom quoted verse that asks: What befalls us beyond the grave? And answers: No one knows, no one knows.
Those words are going to be true for all time, unless you think the subject will simply lose the interest of humans. If it ever does, then that will be the day, to quote Franz Wright, that "the stars once again have no name." The rest is about how to live a better life that includes a sense of purpose and a consciousness of meaning. And people find different answers to this dilemma. I would be very sorry if anyone laid aside their religion because of something they read here, and I wouldn't like to think we're minting believers, either. If reason overcomes you, and you start to think about God as if, "Nah, it couldn't be," then that's a trashy epiphany along the lines of looking out the window one Christmas Eve and realizing Santa has too much to do, too fast, to even remotely exist. It's as bad as winning the lottery and therefore being convinced of God's goodness. A sense of the sacred, and a recognition of God's presence -- however one might like to define that -- go deeper than a superstition acquired or inbred, and people who have it are not really up for reclamation by reason.
We like to talk about these things here not because we might convince someone on the thread or someone lurking, but because -- demonstrably -- whether we believe in God or not, we believe in the question. If we did not...we would not be here. It would be a matter of Zero Interest.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 2, 2008 1:28:15 AM
Elatia
Try as I might (and I AM making an honest attempt to see what you are getting at), I am having difficulty differentiating statements such as "we believe in the question" from wishy washy proclamations of the cultural relativists. Surely if everybody recognizes that there cannot be multiple correct answers to the question of "what does two plus two equal?", then they must also realise that there is a correct answer to the VERY simple question "does god exist or not?" It's really not too hard a question to understand UNLESS, under the resolute pressure of an ever-widening explanatory base provided by science, the believer is forced to constantly revise their definition of god (ie move the goal posts) It really is a straight forward question. Wallowing in protestations of "each person can find their own answer to this question" with the implication that they can all be correct is in fact insidiously harmful. We no longer have too many people arguing for the literal truth of the Egytian's sun gods and thus it should EXACTLY be with the Abrahamic varieties. The purely accidental fortune of their recency should not confer on them any extra claim to credulity.
To address the way you put it above, I don't think the subject will lose the interest of humans, I think the bulk of humans will one day come to see the fallacious nature of the question.
Though I agree with so much of what you post on here, I for one would, in direct contrast to you, would feel not the slightest bit sorry if someone laid aside their religion because of something they read on here. In fact, with each person that achieved that little step of emancipation from the medieval, I would feel a little flutter of hope inside for humanity's continuence, hopefully in a manner more in balance with it's cradle planet.
Posted by: MattInOz | Mar 2, 2008 3:35:08 AM
Carlos,
You said:
"All you should be willing to do, even if just for yourself, is be satisfied with a material world which cannot rationally exist, rationally explain how it could have ever sprung from pure nothingness, or confess that your position is no more rational than mine."
No one knows that there was once nothingness, and I'm fairly sure the "rational world" only exists in our heads, a series of models that predict with usually adequate accuracy what happens at levels high enough that quantum randomness averages out, at speeds slow enough to avoid the weirdness of relativity, in the three dimensions we find useful, etc.
We can't know the answer, and we have to be OK with that. The difference between agnostics (often called atheists here for convenience, I think), is not that they have taken unprovable position B, but that they reject A. Hypocritical as it may sound, I need postulate no alternative to disprove god. That adds an asymmetry to the situation I don't think everyone recognizes. Admitting that you don't know is not just as irrational as putting forth an answer that must be wrong.
I agree with Elatia on many counts, and perhaps the "next level" could be reached by differentiating religion from spirituality. It's beliefs like "the world is 6000 years old" that I think (hope) will disappear. Searches for meaning will persist (and should persist because I think we have to come up with meaning ourselves as I don't think they exist outside our heads, much less in a god's).
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 4:59:10 AM
Elatia,
I too share an admiration for the writing I’ve seen you exhibit here, but “trashy epiphany”? I think one is left at a rather profound beginning in the abandonment of religion and often included in that beginning is the opening of admiration for many of the other mythological systems that our fellow human ancestors have devised. Yes it has been our parents and not Santa, in the sense of a received cosmic fiction, but this doesn’t shut down mystery, it opens it up. They have brought the poetry, but not the presents, so for now things have branched. We can accept this or fall back in reaction, or perhaps all hold our breath for eventual reunification- the "coming God" of that Black Forest Mandarin.
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 2, 2008 5:46:39 AM
I find it singularly instructive that a good portion of Carlos' defence readings, his supposed best ammo, was written prior to the publication of a pesky fellow by the name of Charles Darwin
All of them, really (the Catechism having merely been contemporized), although I find Darwin to be more visionary genius than pesky. Darwin's thesis, by the way, is fully embraced by more Christians than the total population of Atheists (some number of which may well reject Darwin). Liebniz' little challenge to rational materialism also predates Darwin, still unanswered, or uncomprehended, after all this time. Somehow it never gets any takers.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 10:09:49 AM
This is cultural relativism---
When embarrassing Bronze and Iron Age creation myths are given precedent over observation and evidence, human failure is assured.
This is total madness.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 2, 2008 10:11:15 AM
Well leaving work now, but your sigh of a response gets a big yawn from me Carlos. Give us a summary of this silver bullet, or give it a rest.
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 2, 2008 10:47:15 AM
No one knows that there was once nothingness,
Have you really thought this through?
A. Hypocritical as it may sound, I need postulate no alternative to disprove god. That adds an asymmetry to the situation I don't think everyone recognizes. Admitting that you don't know is not just as irrational as putting forth an answer that must be wrong.
Almost true. You need postulate no alternative to reject my thesis, even though perhaps you should want to. You would need to provide the same level of scientific evidence you require of the believers in order to disprove God or to be able to affirmatively state that my answer "must be wrong."
I think you and I may agree that the things we discuss are beyond such scientific evidence (other than, in my case, the unmistakable presence of the impossible universe and the laughable impossibility of its random development of mechanisms capable of loving its wonderousness, each other, and even non-physical ideas and ideals). There is even, due to God's desire for us to take a leap of faith, an explicit understanding in Christian thought that no clear physical evidence could or should exist.
There is the other kind of evidence, of course. The Scriptures contain some interesting prophesies. Specifically in Isaiah and Jeremiah. Against all likelyhood, they seem to have come to pass.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as Sagan's* spokesperson here has stated. Well the fulfillment of those predictions is pretty extraordinary (though not quite so extraordinary, I agree, as the whole impossibility of existence thing). If you wish, you could demonstrate that they did not come true, or explain why they are not significant enough to be considered admissible evidence, say, before a jury, even if not in the lab.
*Not to namedrop, but I went to college with his wife Linda-she drew the plaque on the Pioneer spacecraft, perhaps humanity's most immortal work of art, and kind of a performance piece, really.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 11:38:40 AM
Well leaving work now,
Unitarian minister?
but your sigh of a response gets a big yawn from me Carlos. Give us a summary of this silver bullet, or give it a rest.
Jesus loves you. There is no silver bullet, by design. "You have to see it for yourself."
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 11:45:35 AM
Without causation, complete nothingness must once have been, and nothing can only beget nothing. At the very least, the exercise might soften a rigid certainty that mechanistics holds all the answers.
Carlos,
Didn't you get the memo? The origin of the cosmos can be explained by natural selection. The universes that failed to come into being could not compete with the universe that did. Poof, QED.
Dave, Anon, Jesse, Matt:
Carlos is making a serious point. Go sufficiently far into the past and the chain of causation stops. Perhaps at the big bang, perhaps earlier. Since the entire mechanistic model of the world is based on forces obeying laws over time, it clearly cannot have explanatory power beyond the first cause, and thus is an incomplete model.
To say there was "always" something is not a meaningful statement in terms of time and causality (though it may be true). Again, mechanistic models fail, given a broad enough context.
This is not the beginning of a proof of god, which is neither possible, nor, for most religious people, desirable. However, you should find that it chafes against the glibness of your dismissal of religion as not being reality-based. If you will be intellectually honest enough, and morally courageous enough to see it, you will admit that the rules of evidence are only logically valid within a given scale; that is, within the history of time and space.
Surely if everybody recognizes that there cannot be multiple correct answers to the question of "what does two plus two equal?", then they must also realise that there is a correct answer to the VERY simple question "does god exist or not?"
Matt,
Just because 2+2 is a "simple" (actually tautological) problem, it doesn't follow that all serious questions are just as simple. What is light? What is matter? What is time? All of these are concepts whose definition has changed over time. Is that because science has "moved the goal posts"?
Does matter exist? Yes and no. In the Newtonian description, and in everyday folk understanding, matter is that which has dimension, and mass, and "occupies" space. In a particle physics sense, what we call matter is just a macroscopic expression of forces and probabilities. It's not made of any "thing" at all. It's an illusion.
Do you exist? In several important senses you don't. In genocentric biology of the Dawkins stripe, organisms are illusory constellations of cells whose only unifying identity is their shared genome. And of course the stuff that makes up the cells is constantly being shed and replaced as food and waste. More goalpost-moving? Some philosophers believe that consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon of neural activity. So which part of you is the "real " part, the one that we could find evidence for?
Sometimes the goal posts appear to be moving because what one thought their correspondent was arguing was not accurate. Are you sure that you and Carlos, or anyone else, mean the same thing by "god"?
Is the idea that there was never nothingness any less comprehensible than the idea that there was? I don't think so (and yes, Carlos, I have really thought this through, thanks for asking). My point is that we don't know and thus can't resort to any therefore-God-must-exist arguments.
Do you really think the universe is impossible? Compared to what? What would a possible universe look like? I don't agree with that point. Likewise, as to your “laughable impossibility of its random development of mechanisms capable of loving its wonderousness” argument, I just saw a license plate outside reading RXT 2381-- what are the odds of that happening? 1/115,316,136. Yup, must be a god.
Existence is impossible? I’d be very careful talking with such certainty about that sort of thing.
Chris,
“Carlos is making a serious point. Go sufficiently far into the past and the chain of causation stops. Perhaps at the big bang, perhaps earlier. Since the entire mechanistic model of the world is based on forces obeying laws over time, it clearly cannot have explanatory power beyond the first cause, and thus is an incomplete model.”
I suspect that our understanding of time is far too simplistic and one-dimensional to draw these conclusions. I also do not find the idea of the universe having always existed at all difficult to imagine. Likewise, postulating God doesn't get you out of that problem, of course, because either you must explain what caused God or you must accept the idea that God always existed, and why is that any easier than excepting the universe always existed?
“However, you should find that it chafes against the glibness of your dismissal of religion as not being reality-based.”
Sorry, it doesn't.
“If you will be intellectually honest enough, and morally courageous enough to see it, you will admit that the rules of evidence are only logically valid within a given scale; that is, within the history of time and space.”
Right, so really I'm being narrowminded by not expanding my thinking beyond time and space… silly me.
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 1:03:07 PM
I think my main problem with the idea of a god/gods is this: it's far too anthropomorphic. If Frans de Waal's chimpanzees believed in a creator, it would be an omnipresent chimp, existing outside of space and time. Geckos would believe THEY were created in the image of god. It seems conceited to me, or at the very least unimaginative, that an organism with agency and cognitive awareness, such as ourselves, should believe that the universe was created by another organism with agency and cognitive awareness (and without those things would it count as a "god" to us?). We think so much in terms of purpose and meaning, is it really so hard to believe that the universe simply is and that we are neither the center of it, nor even of the same kind as a thing that created it? (i.e., if we can't be the center of the universe then at least it was made by something like us, something with our basic psychological attributes?).
Furthermore, the horrendously ill-defined concept of god doesn't actually answer any of the big questions; it just raises more. But nevermind...
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 1:48:21 PM
Barkley,
I'm not a theist. and have no interest in postulating god. Carlos, who is a theist, has also said multiple times that he is not interested in evidence for god. So there's no need to refute an argument no one is making.
The point is not, "rationalism fails, therefore god." The point is that rationalism fails, therefore demanding evidence for all beliefs is illogical.
It may be true that the universe has "always" existed, but it is not rational to say so. Time is a matter of sequence, by definition. To say we don't fully understand time is a copout. The word becomes a placeholder; it may as well be god.
Causality is necessarily linear. It is not consistent with infinity. This doesn't mean I object to your suggesting there has always been a universe, but such a statement is outside our current scientific mechanistic metaphysics, no less so than god is.
1. I maintain that it is not irrational to say that the universe has always existed.
2. We may understand time as a matter of sequence, but that may simply be due to our perspective of it. There are theoretical physicists currently coming up with models that work without the concept of time, so I'd keep an open mind on this. I wasn't using a copout; I was simply saying that we don't know these things well enough to draw conclusions based on them.
3. Causality is not inconsistent with infinity, or it's no less consistent with infinity then infinity is with itself. It's just a chain that keeps going, or a chain that loops back onto itself. Or whatever. All of this is pure speculation, of course, but the point is that we should not be so quick to conclude what is possible.
I also know a few theoretical physicists who are very comfortable with the idea of infinity, so I wouldn't be so quick to presume to say what is and what is not within "our current scientific mechanistic metaphysics."
But beyond all that is the pointlessness of using a concept (god) with no meaningful definition or explanatory power that cannot even be disproven.
(By the way, if "rationalism has failed," why are you worried about arguments being illogical? I admire the open-mindedness you have always shown for alternative explanations, Chris, but sometimes I wonder if you're a bit of a closet relativist--or perhaps I misunderstand)
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 2:18:17 PM
This topic gets the juices flowing here, doesn't it. Just so I am taken seriously by all and sundry, let me start by saying that I have been an atheist since 13. I see no reason to believe in god and the question for me is settled. In the West, this has been an unremarkable philosophical conclusion at least since Nietzsche. India has had a much older tradition of atheism.
As we mature, we realize that we, the people, believe in all kinds of things without evidence, or with conveniently selective evidence. What evidence do we consider to feel patriotic or nationalistic? What evidence do we examine to embrace capitalism, when it may be leading us to a mass extinction? How much evidence do we examine before letting fear grip us? What evidence do we seek for a "human dignity" that separates us from other animals, upon which we build human rights? Do we need evidence or vanity to think we are worthy of the girl next door? You get my point.
In a progressive, tolerant society, you learn to live with—even when you do not respect—the different views of others, as long as they do not cause you moral harm. Secular fundamentalism is defined by its intolerance towards those who believe in god. It is increasingly common; I see it in some views on this thread. They seem to assume (without clear evidence) that a society of atheists will be a better society.
So folks, unless you think that a belief in god is an automatic moral infraction on non-believers, it's time to move on to worthier debates. Accept that god will exist for some people because god fills a need for some in a unique way. Likewise for patriotism, etc. (hey, them patriots even subsidize the real cost of defending my way of life!). Our collective challenge is not to turn more people into self-righteous zealots like Sam Harris, but to figure out how we can minimize the moral excesses of both believers and non-believers, and to advance the cause of justice and liberal governance.
Well, nothing has changed---
Still no cards on the table.
This mental masturbation can only go on for so long---
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 2, 2008 5:00:25 PM
But beyond all that is the pointlessness of using a concept (god) with no meaningful definition or explanatory power that cannot even be disproven.
Well there may be the crux of it. For in fact the concept of God is anything but pointless, meaningless or ill-defined, whether it can be disproved or not. Adherents of the world's religions have had a profound impact on civilization and culture precisely because of the clarity of the explanation and the perceived usefulness of the concept as an organizing principle, answer to life's conflicts, and man's search for meaning and relevance. Much of the world's great art would never have been created but for worship of the Divine, and most of the rest would have been impoverished by lack of example. And it seems to have some small humanitarian benefit as well, as was most clearly revealed just during the last century, when the great social experiments in Godlessness: Nazism and Communism played out on the world stage to such grim effect. Nor, in reality, does love of God impede the love of knowledge. The world's great universities have roots in religion, many of the luminaries of science, including Leibniz, above and also his competitor/collaborator Newton as well as countless others were and are not at all diminished by their comprehension of God as Master of the Universe and the sense of responsibility and stewardship that engenders.
I suppose one could claim that, in the absence of allegiance to God's higher good, and in the absence of people setting that standard for goodness around us, universal atheism would engender an equal measure of self-sacrifice, temperance, and charity. I'm not sure how you would go about defending the position though. Were it not for my knowledge of a history filled with so many scientifically assured examples of equal folly, I wouldn't imagine there could be much interest in performing the experiment without some form of proof — Evidence — before proceeding.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 5:16:15 PM
Carlos--
Just show us your imaginary friend, and the problem is solved.
Is there a problem?
Inquiring mind want to know.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 2, 2008 6:12:52 PM
Carlos,
You really think it's only religion that differentiates the US from Nazi Germany, which, by the way was Christian and had ties with the Catholic Church of the time, if I'm not misinformed?
And communist states? You don't think maybe the fact that they had a terrible economic system had something to do with that?
Sigh. I don't have time for this.
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 6:35:47 PM
My last contribution:
"I suppose one could claim that, in the absence of allegiance to God's higher good, and in the absence of people setting that standard for goodness around us, universal atheism would engender an equal measure of self-sacrifice, temperance, and charity"
See Buddhist philosophy for a start. The Dali Lama is hardly a commi Nazi...
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 6:49:31 PM
Charity was praised by Buddha as the stairway to celestial realms. That's hardly a non-religious statement.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 8:16:07 PM
Carlos-
Your knowledge of Buddhism is only dwarfed by your knowledge of science.
Trust me-- stay in the shallow end of the pool on this one.
I'm off to meditation, so no more mental masturbation.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 2, 2008 8:32:46 PM
Yeah, that's working for ya.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 8:50:56 PM
I too will make this my last post for the thread.
Chris, great to see you're still around :-) It's yourself and Elatia that I most wish to address these final thoughts to.
While one cannot help but be impressed by the way you two manage to navigate the minefield of differing ideologies one encounters here and not tread on a single set of toes, I am left wondering.... Although it serves to very effectively keep the peace (no small achievement on our crowded planet) in the end, what power does such a position give for acheiving a shared progression for your fellow conversationalists? I have time and again been left thinking, after reading one of your comments "well, that was an insightful and quite eloquent expression of mutual understanding, but...."
Where does its usefulness lie with respect to achieving progress for each other? Indeed, in your minds, is human progress desirable? To put it another way, look at what has been achieved DESPITE the constant haranguing of the righteous and religious, by a mere 500 years of science. Only 500 years against a backdrop of billions! A tripling of life expectancy (with more to come no doubt - perhaps not an advantage to some, but I'll take it), an understanding of where we sit in the scheme of things that is orders of magnitude greater than where we were in the middle ages, a freedom from much of the drudgery of day to day toil such that time is freed up for thoughts such as those expressed here, etc etc. The list, you'd no doubt agree, is long. You'd rightly point out that perhaps a majority of the world doesn't yet enjoy these privileges. I'd posit that they'll get there, with our help, IN SPITE of religion, not through it. But my question remains, what use is it to just say, "everybody's right in their own way" when plainly, this is not true. I'd be the last to want to IMPOSE my views on anyone and would only violently defend them against a like violence from the superstitious, but I do feel it necessary to air the opposing point of view. I actually believe there is more than sufficient evidence (I'm sure Dave et al would agree) to put forward the theory that a rational world view would collectively serve us all a lot better. I don't see how you could argue against that proposition. It is very difficult to let go of some ideas precious to each of us (and I am speaking from experience) but that doesn't confer upon them equal validity.
Could you or Elatia mention one or two books that effectively outline your thinking so that I may perhaps better understand what you are getting at? Cheers.
Matt
Posted by: MattInOz | Mar 2, 2008 9:31:35 PM
Both religion and scientific rationalism have, in their turn, served to further the cause of civilization.
But consider also Walter Benjamin:
"There is no document of civilization that is not simultaneously a document of barbarism."
Dave R. - you must know that Buddhism is extremely syncretic, and it seems a bit questionable to claim that your agnostic california flavor is superior to those of other cultures. In the 80's I met many many Cambodians whose simple Buddhist faith you would no doubt have sneered at. Yet I can't think of a better definition of Buddhism than the one given by Semdech Preah Maha Ghosananda, "the Gandhi of Cambodia":
"[What is Buddhism?] Knowing how to eat. Why to eat and where to eat and what to eat. And with whom to eat. And for whom. Life is a process of eating. We try to eat other people but do not let them eat us. And the Buddha cries when he sees this suffering."
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Mar 2, 2008 10:45:14 PM
Matt,
(I enjoy reading your comments, too -- very much.) I haven't a thing in the world against scientific progress except that in its absence we would have neither human-caused global warming nor a nuclear arsenal. But that's the very old argument that the search for knowledge is a fall from grace, dressed up in 21st century clothing -- and an impressive wardrobe it is, too. To pursue it is to invite observations that while religion has been good for poetry, music and art, it has been murderous to whole populations and hazardous in the extreme to the spirit of inquiry. Anything we humans can come up with is a double-edged sword -- even Buddhism, which Joseph Campbell classified among "disciplines of retreat." Maybe he thought too much disregard of samsara created its own kind of wretchedness.
You are not alone in wondering what my actual point of view is -- I wonder that too. When I was in college, the BBC did one of those marvelous middlebrow mini-series -- about world religions. The material was so baffling even to the cozy Oxford Don who spearheaded the series that he ended by saying he drew no conclusions and wanted only to make himself a pot of tea -- which he then did, on camera, a backdrop to the credit roll. To feel good about myself, of course, I need to take a position more coherent than that; I'd certainly like to be more "out there" than the BBC a quarter of a century ago. But one doesn't always get to feel that good about oneself, especially if one wants the shred of integrity that comes from recognizing how the craven, the irrational, the glorious and the adventurous are all combined in the contemplation of First Causes. My deepest sense tells me human beings are meant to think about these things, to change their minds, and to think again -- without necessarily knowing progress from a detour, knowing only that such confusion can and will take place, hence the certainty of having to think again. Richard Feynman famously said he thought we might well be reaching the end of the Age of Discovery, when all the great things that needed knowing would be known, were just about to be known. I have often wished he might have lived longer -- had he done, he would have gladly taken back those words, I think.
We live with tremendous uncertainty, with mind-bending paradoxes, and we live in the face of the very great dangers, of all kinds, that we have created for ourselves and our children. To live in a world where half the people are -- by any historical standard -- pretty much okay, and the other half are in a daily survival drama is to live with a very great moral danger that we divert insufficient mental and material resources to confront. If One Hundred Percent Rationality were overtaking us, would we see this in sharper focus? Or just continue to exalt scientific progress as, luxuriously, we shed our personal and cultural superstitions? My point of view, although it is not so philosophically coherent as could be wished, is that we should think about these things and not run from them, and then ask ourselves how best to act. That we need not obsess over deciding in Whom to believe or disbelieve, that we should not spend time and energy requiring that others drop their metaphysics. I'm not sure the dizzying vistas of atheism are quite the ticket or quite the point. If you ask me -- and you did -- there is an intersection of intellectual might and moral life that we have not reached, that some of the best minds among us do not even struggle to reach. For me, that's a problem that implies we should not be so eager to write off 5000 years of human yearning and imagination as less-than and rear-guard. We are still stumbling and wondering as they did, knees bent at our own hill-top shrines marked with saffron-daubed rocks. Man's inhumanity to man might be better tempered by an appreciation of this long and common struggle than by an arid attempt to live at a distance from it.
Admittedly, that's not a philosophical position, nor are these thoughts exclusive or original to me. But, I didn't get them from a book, I got them from thinking and feeling for myself -- which is all I would ask of anyone else before they decided what to do. What to DO. Because that's how the difference can be told between one person and another, one world view and the next.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 3, 2008 12:19:31 AM
(this doesn't count as a contribution--I said I wouldn't make another to this conversation--but it's such an entertaining and thoughtful piece, I thought it would do a nice job of showing a more profound way in which "atheists" and "believers" share common ground. You might have read it before, I think it's always worth reading again. I wish I were as lucid as God is in this piece.)
I maintain that it is not irrational to say that the universe has always existed.
We may understand time as a matter of sequence, but that may simply be due to our perspective of it.
It’s possible that there’s no such thing at all as time, that it’s just a function of how we organize events in understanding them. That’s all fine; but causality and logic rely upon our current understanding of time as a sequence. If we change our perspective, we may not be able to take causality with us. Or we might say that time is a way to look at history, but cannot be applied beyond known or imagined events, past or future.
The point is that consequentiality almost certainly has limits, just as Newtonian mechanics does. Just as all explanations do.
I also know a few theoretical physicists who are very comfortable with the idea of infinity, so I wouldn't be so quick to presume to say what is and what is not within "our current scientific mechanistic metaphysics."
I would suggest these physicists are not mechanists, then, or that they allow that mechanical models have limited explanatory power. Physicists as a rule are far ahead the other sciences on these things, since determinism as an absolute has been untenable since the 1920s. Most of the major figures of particle physics during the first half of the 20th century explicitly rejected classical materialism and mechanicalism not just in their experiments but in their metaphysics. Unfortunately the Hawkings and Weinbergs that succeeded them seem bound to return to more comfortable old-fashioned narratives.
By the way, if "rationalism has failed," why are you worried about arguments being illogical?
What I wrote was that rationalism fails at the point where there are no premises on which to evaluate conclusions, such as an infinite regress. Rationalism works just fine if the rules are of logic observed. We have a lot of arguments on this thread that insist that God-belief is silly because it’s not evidence-based. The implication is that these arguers only believe things which are evidence-based, and are therefore not silly. This is not a defensible position.
I’ve never meant to propose that "everybody's right in their own way." I think that some world views are better than others, and I’ve tried to argue that here and elsewhere.
This is a very big topic and perhaps we can bring it back around on another thread. In the meanwhile, some notes toward that possibility:
1) The scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, and the religious traditions they grew out of are not separate things. Our contemporary scientific picture owes a great deal to Christian philosophy. For example:
The idea that nature is passive and inert until acted upon by external forces
The supremacy of the masculine over the feminine, as seen in the modern desire to “control” nature; likewise as seen in the (false) conception of the “active” sperm potentiating the "passive" ovum.
The idea that human beings are separate from nature; that good things come from our own ingenuity and cleverness, and bad things come from outside of us.
These are all—at best—partial truths, and not universally shared by historical human cultures.
2) Science and capitalism have a very profound relationship that is rarely examined. Because of this we tend to exalt our own technological prowess, and devalue that which exists outside our involvement. It has harrowing implications for our environment, as Namit has written, and blinds us to moral concerns we would take more seriously if we considered the human race as more intimately connected with nature.
3) We shouldn’t over-value lifespan extension. For one thing, confusing life expectancy with lifespan creates a false impression that people life longer now than in times past. In fact the upper limits are more or less the same, though today more of us get there. Secondly, what kind of life are we extending? An honest comparison of quality of life between the present day and the 15th century could be made to show that the average European of that time worked less for more wealth, and had greater social autonomy (there’s a lot of misinformation about the medieval quality of life—and if you think modern industry is free from drudgery, you need to get out more). I’m not making a Luddite argument here, just saying that science and technology present us with choices, and that quantity can never be its own goal.
Also, if you do the math there is simply no way to spread the Western Lifestyle to all the continents which don’t yet enjoy it, so the sort of “progress” you feel we are due is not tenable for humanity as a whole, without a major reduction in population, and probably not even then.
4) The modern scientific ideal that we can get closer and closer to objective reality has been a disaster for us, by distracting us from the question of what we want, what we need, and what we value. This has to be the first step of any “rational” world view with the obvious criteria that it work for us. The modern scientific worldview has not worked for us very well at all, leaving us overpopulated, unfulfilled, and on the brink of ecological meltdown on a global scale. One half of the world colonizes the other half and tells them (and itself) it’s for the best, though this best has not come to pass, and the disparity between the worlds grows ever worse.
There’s no single book or author I would point to as elucidating my worldview (which I hope will continue to evolve as long as I remain alive). Rather I would suggest you read everything that interests you, and do it in a spirit of openness and questioning. Think about what you truly want for yourself and the world, and be ever on the guard for moral precepts which just happen to echo and perpetuate the culture as we know it. To what goal do you wish for civilization to progress, and why?
Chris--
Modern science grew out of Greek thought, not Christianity.
Capitalism, I agree, grew out of Christianity, and arouse no where else.
It was the combination of Christianity, and it's ability to compartmentalize and separate itself from (and fear of) life, sensuality, and nature, and Greek mastery of science and reason that brought capitalism into being in the 15th century, in the Italian city states.
Just a observation, but capitalism only arose under christian thought.
Vicki-- I admired Ghosananda also, and Jack Kornfield, who I regularly sit with, worked with him in the refugee camps in the 1970's.
We lost him last year----
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 4, 2008 2:48:12 AM
Dave Ranning,
Jack Kornfield, eh? It's all starting to make sense. Now I see where you get your deep insight, your generous heart, and your compassion for those less fortunate than you.
Also: Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Boyle and Harvey were Greek? Who knew. There's got to be a history book around here somewhere...
Ah, the sputtering fizzle and halt. Back at work now and just wanted to say thanks to Carlos for going into more detail (I’m not a Unitarian Minister by the way, but Huehuecoyotl and Ahura Mazda send, not quite love, but a warm hello).
Chris I find much to agree with in the various thoughts you’ve shared. Given that I was lumped in the group that you took to task for a glib dismissal of “religion as not being reality-based”, allow me to quickly clarify before leaving this thread’s dead landscape. Within the scale of space and time the positive claims of religion do not pass muster. That said, I think much of religious teaching contains intuitive truths about the world and an unquestionable beauty of imaginative power. Science has sublated some aspects of Christianity as you allude to and is hardly a pure endeavor of objective discovery. I have no patience for those who take an insipid line of materialist deflation and think that religion has been replaced by science.
I wonder if people are really upset at the futility of conversations like these, or just uncomfortable with what they find to be a violation of manners. Religion is still a political force in the world and to address it, to engage in critique, is to give it the deserved honor of being taken seriously. I much prefer that to the waspish polite silence, the patronizing “well of course we don’t believe in that, but how nice for them, don’t you agree darling?’
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 4, 2008 4:33:28 PM
Caffeine delay - waspish should have been WASPY
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 4, 2008 5:27:39 PM
Chris-
The all came during or after the Renaissance--
The re discovery of Greek thought, after the dark period after the collapse of Hellenism ,and the dark period of Christianity (read Gibbons).
Freedom at last from small, suppressed empoverished minds!
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 4, 2008 11:33:43 PM
Dave, there are people who hear the word "Buddhism" and think "idol worship" - and they're not totally wrong about really-existing Buddhism. How can you be sure that your knee-jerk "talking snake" response isn't a similar prejudice?
Also, I think you're distorting history quite a bit trying to tease out a single untainted thread that will lead us to the promised land of "progress." Next I expect we'll hear about "medieval" witch burnings.
Anyway, it's fun needling you. Maybe some metta practice is in order for both of us?
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Mar 5, 2008 12:20:25 AM
Dave-
As a fellow atheist, I find your ranting to be quite possibly the best argument in this thread. Sadly, it's a slanderous one, slanderous against your fellow atheists. Let this be a plea for you to desist in your name calling and childish bickering, and to come back when you've matured enough to hold a conversation and present cogent points. Enough with Bill Maherisms, talking snakes, and magically underpants. They're funning as jokes, but they make truly atrocious arguments.
In general, it seems like the back and forth in this thread is it's downfall. Posters seem to stop typing before fully exposing their arguments, leading to endless bickering over what the other actually believes. A Lincoln-Douglas style debate is in order between the three sides. Maybe 3QD would be willing to host such on the front page so that the authors would take it seriously?
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Mar 5, 2008 4:55:31 AM
Viki--
Yes, metta practice for all beings (especially yourself!) is always skillful. As far as Talking Snakes, at least the ones in Bronze Age texts that are the basis for 2 billion people creation myths, one has to practice examination and equanimity on the subject, then make a skillful decision and act on it. My action stand up after long examination.
Talking Snakes are delusional. Christians are delusional.
I'll leave out the possibility that christians could be right, as I leave open the possibility that a drunken dwarf riding a unicorn will fall through my ceiling 30 seconds from now. I think the odds are better with the dwarf and unicorn.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 5, 2008 10:03:19 AM
Cyris-
When one takes out the talking snakes, the virgin births, the walking zombies, then subtracts a few thees and thos, what is left?
Other than a history of violence and intolerance?
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 5, 2008 10:11:13 AM
Dave-
Your last statement exemplifies my problem with your argumentative style.
What's left? Much art and music. Large portions of modern Western Philosophy. Could much of it have been derived in a world without religion? Sure, but it wasn't, and to act like religion hasn't given us much that is, indeed, positive is like trying to ignore the positive influence of drugs on culture. Both have deleterious effects, but both have inspired some of the most respected works in the world.
I'd also like to mention abolition and suffrage, two movements which have given western secularism much, yet have deeply religious roots.
So, like I said, feel free to stop making such ridiculous rhetorical sweeps of the pen and start making real arguments. Calling people stupid/delusional/crazy/suppressed because they currently believe something you don't is about as likely to change someone's mind as leaving a burning bag of shit on their front stoop.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Mar 5, 2008 10:55:46 AM
Cyris---
Yes, the feedback loops from religion did produce some great music, and some less so art.
Just what am I ignoring? I'm not out to change anyone's mind, as religious meme's would not that happen in a infected host. I know it is uncomfortable to look at essence of these camp fire stories from ignorant bronze age herders, but that is exactly what they are.
Please enlighten my thinking. I see religion a a natural phenomena , a product of evolution that was not penalized for heuristic jumps in logic. Unfortunately, this strategy that has kept humans alive, is a liability in the current world.
Humans are cognitively irrational, and this is not a good survival strategy.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 5, 2008 11:19:51 AM
Jesse,
Apologies for the improper lumping.
Certainly some people are uncomfortable with manners violations. I think they are right to be, not because we should all be Victorians, but because certain rhetorical tacks are destined to have no power of persuasion, and once that is gone all that is left is war, and there is already too much war.
I think this is what Cyrus is saying, above.
The only person that takes Dave Ranning seriously is Dave Ranning, bless his heart. But the Dawkinses and Weinbergs of the world have great intellectual influence. They don't make the case that their way of looking at things is valuable, they just declare the conversation has ended.
Many writers and academics--e.g. Scott Atran, Timothy Garton Ash, Mary Midgley, Karen Armstrong, Bruno Latour--make the convincing case that this type of intellectual imperialism has the predictable effect of actually increasing religious fundamentalism; and indeed, fundamentalism has exploded since the metaphysical shocks introduced by Nietzsche and Darwin.
It may be depressing, but it's also instructive that The Purpose Driven Life and the new Eckhart Tolle book are such hot sellers. People want purpose and meaning. If the modern scientific worldview makes no room for these things people will find them where they can. (I know the argument that science doesn't preclude meaning and purpose; but not everyone wants to be a Benthamite utilitarian.)
Chris---
"Intellectual Imperialism"-- I like that! As far a s Tolle, I agree it is depressing to think that peoples lives are that desperate to cling to these simple outlooks and solutions.
But it is better than talking Snakes, and examination is encouraged.
Science makes room for these people, they just need the curiosity and education to liberate them selves.
With a little work, the awe and wonder of evolution will make embarrassing creation myth pale as a impoverished view of their origins.
Posted by: dave Ranning | Mar 5, 2008 12:06:17 PM
Dave-
If you have no interest, or believe it impossible, to change minds, why choose to say anything at all? I fail to see the point, unless you wish to do nothing but antagonize others. And if there is one thing the world needs less of (besides religion), it's antagonism.
Basta.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Mar 5, 2008 2:44:42 PM
Cyrus --
Not being a mind-reader, I can't say why Dave says the things he does. But certainly people spend plenty of times saying things for other purposes than to change minds.
Some of us (the general "us") do, as you say, want nothing more than to roil the pot and antagonize other people. Sometimes we just want to perform for our favorite and most appreciative audience (ourselves). Sometimes we are reinforcing our own self-image or prejudices. Sometimes we think we are trying to change minds, but since we haven't done the hard work of self- and other-awareness that might lead our communications to actually be effective in that way, what we write actually pushes people further away.
And on and on.
Mostly I do no more than skim threads like this now -- slowing down for certain commenters, ignoring others completely since they never seem to say anything different from one time to the next -- just happy to run across a new thought or perspective or approach now and then. To modify an old saying... "So many blogs, so little time...."
Posted by: JanieM | Mar 5, 2008 7:09:48 PM
Cyris---
It is very simple-----
We have now come around on this thread that Talking Snakes. Virgin Births, and Resurrected Zombies are metaphors for, well good music and art?
The jury is still out on Psychopathic Sky Daddy's, and everyone must "have a belief in the belief in religion" (that it is essentially good).
And of course, we can't practice "Intellectual Imperialism" because someone one may need to defend female genital mutilation in a cultural debate.
What have I missed?
Oh- buddhism-- One must have pity on the christians, as because most buddhist are superstition based, like all religion, and some christians may also be.
What have i left out?
I sure there is something--
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 5, 2008 7:35:48 PM
JanieM, you are so right. I used to be invited to dinner parties in San Francisco given by Ji-ing Sun, one of the legendary daughters of Sun Yat-Sen. Her English comprehension was second to none, but she never achieved fluency, so she would announce a topic at table, and guests -- under extremely polite pressure to contribute an original thought or three -- would take turns. Er, I don't think we are like that here. I think lots of people write not because they have a well known point of view and figure it's time to trot it out again, but because they find out what they're thinking in the act of writing -- always interesting to one person, at least. And often to many more.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 5, 2008 7:36:35 PM
Elatia -- yes, great point, I forgot to include in my by no means exhaustive list the process of writing to find out what I think. I do that a lot, but being a very private person I tend to do it in early "shitty first drafts" (to borrow Ann Lamott's lovely phrase) that I keep to myself. Not that I don't learn still more about what I think by bouncing things around with other people...
Posted by: JanieM | Mar 5, 2008 8:26:50 PM
As far a the cultural contributions of religion, I can't help wondering what the great artists might have created if not restricted in subject matter by the Church?
Posted by: Christopher | Mar 6, 2008 11:52:46 AM
We have now before us the smoking gun evidence of the collapse of religious apologetics. Hedges' criticism of the New Atheists is entirely about their style.
He does not argue about substance because religious apologetics has nothing to say about the substance of atheist criticism : that religion is a historical lie; its teachings, when they are not positively despicable, are useless, the rattlings of old bones; and it's madness.
Hedges thinks he hears threats of violence and intolerance in the New Atheists. What he hears is drowned out by the drums of a religious establishment that is em>all about power and violence.
What the New Atheists really threaten is the edifice of privilege that provides Hedges and thousands like him with a comfortable living -- an edifice that has has been built from the bricks and mortar of religious oppresssion.
And what does he place in the balance aginst that? He doesn't like their tone?
"I couldn't tear myself
away from 3 Quarks Daily, to the point of neglecting my work. Congratulations on
this superb site."—Steven
Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University.
"I have placed 3 Quarks Daily at the head of my list of web bookmarks."—Richard
Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
"Just wanted you to know I’m one of many who reads and enjoys 3 Quarks....almost daily."—David Byrne, musician, former lead-singer of the Talking Heads, artist, intellectual.
Comments
Hear, hear.
Posted by: Damien | Feb 29, 2008 5:11:17 PM
They're the same because they speak equally loud?
Posted by: phish | Feb 29, 2008 5:48:29 PM
No, no. The "New Atheists" might be slightly boring, but at least they're reasonable. "Secular fundamentalist"? What does that even mean?
"Some people are worthy of moral consideration, some are not"? Gimme a break. Nothing of the kind is said by any of the "New Atheists", and this fraud knows it.
(And I thoroughly disagree with Hitchens as far as the Iraq war goes, for what it's worth.)
But when you present Harris as someone who wants to throw nuclear bombs on the Arab world, you are taking him so out of context that it boggles the mind.
Yes, Harris made a sort of ticking-bomb argument for possibly allowing torture in a situation so unlikely as to be negligible, or attacking a destructive regime first if it posed a real danger to our society. I thought he was wrong to do so, at least in the first case. But if this qualifies as some kind og ideological/religious fundamentalism, I can't imagine what wouldn't.
What it boils down to for me is: What is probably true and what is probably not true.
Posted by: frodo | Feb 29, 2008 6:04:44 PM
Thank you, Frodo. The mischaracterization of the New Atheists in this video is absolutely ridiculous. From what I've read, they make a very clear distinction between Islam as practiced by the majority of adherents and the perversion of Islam practiced by some terrorists. That they use it as an example of the horrible extremes of religion is no worse than Chris saying that the religious right could push for the persecution of Muslims. I have never heard the New Atheists endorse violence as a "cleansing agent",and they don't believe in a technological utopia- those are the transhumanists. Also, since when is promoting "collective moral progress" a bad thing? History has shown a pretty clear pattern of human progress- unless Chris would prefer to go back to feudalism. This video is a nonsensical collection of slander, lies and pablum, with a few good and reasonable points hidden in the otherwise moronic rhetoric.
Posted by: Jack | Feb 29, 2008 6:13:44 PM
I get the sense that he hasn't really read any of the works he's reviewing.
Posted by: Nathaniel Frentz | Feb 29, 2008 7:47:22 PM
I agree that people like Hitchens and Dawkins represent extreme point of views, but I think Chris Hedges is making a mistake by comparing them to the religious right. The "New Atheists" make their judgments based on reason and fact, whereas the religious right do so on irrational dogma. Would it be fair to compare a judge sentencing a man to death for mass murder to a judge sentencing a man to death for heresy (arguments about the death penalty aside)?
And Secular Fundamentalism? I'm gonna have to go with Mr. Baggins on this one.
Posted by: Davy Crockett | Feb 29, 2008 8:09:55 PM
Hedges is a very smart, nay brilliant, person who has taken very valuable positions on the Iraq war and war in general, and other questions. He also seems to have a very deep religious faith that seems vitally important to him. It is apparently so important to his inner self that he uncharacteristically seems driven to say very stupid things about atheists. I have not seen anything he has said that explains why his great intelligence deserts him on this one particular subject; if he has not explained it publicly, I hope he does one day.
Posted by: JonJ | Feb 29, 2008 9:47:13 PM
What a wishy-washy load of trollop. The least Chris could do is honour the code of any decent critic/commentator and READ the books he is criticizing. It is abundantly clear from this post that he has not the slightest inclination to seriously engage with what these reasoned writers are getting at. If he did, he would be embarrassed to see that they neatly deal with such accusations as are raised in this short piece. Labelling someone as "atheistic fundementalist" or "secular fundementalist", besides being essentially meaningless, is just a version of saying, "look, your lot are just as silly as ours" so is hardly a strong stance.
"secular fundamentalist"!! WTF! As Sam says, I can't ever envisage a civilization or empire whose downfall was a direct consequence of its citizenry becoming too clear-thinking and dangerously rational.
If Hedges bothered to read these authors properly or mentally engage with what they are saying instead of having his knee-jerk reaction ready, he might actually see they are quite gentle, well-reasoned individuals who, instead of advocating violence against those with whom they disagree are actually able to give you explanations of where these tendencies come from, why they are best subverted and how this might start to be done on a wider scale. Knowledge is power Chris and you don't move smoothly into the future by employing agonizing contortions of outdated and plainly false representations from the past.
Pop quiz Chris - "Is it true?" No. Then don't teach it to children.
Posted by: MattInOz | Feb 29, 2008 9:51:25 PM
The claims of Hedges and others like him are nothing more than knee-jerk reactions against rationalism. They complain that their faith is being misunderstood when it seems that they themselves are the ones who are misrepresenting what they actually believe. How the Hedges, a man who by his own admission believes in all the core teachings of the Christian faith, can claim that atheist critiques avoid the so-called 'real arguments' is beyond me. The fact is, there are no 'real arguments'. Theology is at bottom a matter of faith, not genuine intellectual argument. Theologians can continue to write endless books and articles using dense and 'learned' tones, but there really is no need for atheists to read them as they all boil down to the same ultimate beliefs, beliefs that atheists, quite rightly in my view, reject on the basis that they do not have intellectual or moral credibility.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Feb 29, 2008 10:14:16 PM
Let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:
There is an indescribably powerful and intelligent being called God who is in existence prior to the dawn of time. For whatever reason, he decides to create the universe and pays particular attention to planet Earth. Having created the universe, Earth and all the species on it (through 'creating' the Big Bang and 'guiding' evolution in the Hedges style of interpretation), he decides to focus all his attention on a collection of tribal groupings in the Middle East, in particular the Israelites who are his 'chosen people' and who he obsesses over, while apparently ignoring the rest of the world's population. He lays down numerous often primitive and arbitrary moral and ceremonial laws, then gets involved in inner tribal politics and land disputes, inciting acts of brutality, war crimes, genocide, and rape along the way. Fast forward to the Middle East under Roman occupation and God decides it's time to put in an appearance. By mystical means he comes to earth in human form, being born of a virgin. He becomes incarnate as a Jewish male and wanders around what is today Israel-Palestine, imparting pithy social commentary (but never giving any systematic explanation of how such ideas might be made politically useful), engaging in faith healing (removing 'demons' from people), magic tricks (such as walking on water and raising a dead man), and ranting on and on about sin, eternal punishment for the majority of the world's population, and the impending end of the world. He gets himself crucified, in order that he can sacrifice himself to himself for our good. A few days later he walks out of his tomb and wanders round with some of his followers (noticeably not bothering to make himself known to anyone but those who already believed in him), before 'ascending' into 'Heaven', to wait for the time when he will return to raise every human who has ever lived in bodily form for judgement, then cast most of us into a pit of fire and take a select few into his 'kingdom' for eternity where they will live happily ever after.
These are the basic building blocks upon which all Christian theology is constructed. Hedges and others can protest that of course they don't really see things in such a simplistic and manifestly implausible way, but this narrative underpins the Bible, the Church creeds, liturgies, and centuries of theological speculation.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Feb 29, 2008 10:19:42 PM
Well said Dave.
It is beyond me how certain people like this can even fool themselves into thinking they have given any sort of "response" to the arguments that have been put to them, or at least one that has any thread of intellectual rigour. I have a strong feeling they will look back one day and cringe at what they have said - although maybe that might be a bit much to expect.
I did not realise Hedges even bought into Christianity that strongly (I'm out of the loop over here ;-), which makes it all the more astounding to me that one can so readily disqualify others' religions as piffle, and with a straight face make special pleas for their own brand of nonsense. Truly astounding.
Posted by: MattInOz | Feb 29, 2008 10:30:33 PM
MattinOz--
I work with peace an justice groups, and Hedges, being against the Iraq occupation, has credibility with the "Left".
I was astounded at his religious, superstition based view of reality.
It is quite scary.
Ar regular "Cabbage For Christ"
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Feb 29, 2008 10:39:46 PM
Dave
What IS it with this Jesus crap? I cannot for the life of me see how anyone who does even a hint of research into history cannot see how "the Golden Rule" and other such pronouncements are not the special province of Christianity. For goodness sake, such rules are CLEARLY demonstrable in ape communities and certainly don't need a divine explanation. Just because JC successfully hijacked it as his propoganda vehicle doesn't mean it's a bad idea though, I just wish they did some reading about its epistemiology.
I have abundant knowledge (having been sold the Catholic crap as a child and done my hard time as an altar boy for Christ) of what's needed to break away from this thinking and it's not that difficult. It only requires the mildest infection with a curiosity for truth to bring it tumbling into dust.
Good luck to Hedges in that regard I say. I won't hold my breath.
Posted by: MattInOz | Feb 29, 2008 11:16:05 PM
It seems useful to note that Hedges debated Hitchens recently, and that according to this account, at least, lost.
Posted by: D | Mar 1, 2008 12:35:26 AM
Besides all the comments above, Hedges makes the same mistake that Christians complain about every time I bring up some extreme religious fundamentalist behavior: "We're not all like that!"
"New Atheists" is a term I despise, while I am a life-long atheist, because it does the same thing - lump all atheists into Hedge's narrow and misinformed reading/debating of Harris, Hitchens, et al.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones ...Hedges is throwing stones. I'm not impressed by his arguments because he clearly did not read Hitchens's book, at the very least.
Posted by: Anon | Mar 1, 2008 1:19:23 AM
Religion is the justification of morality. Atheism as well is being used to justify moral positions. It's not the actual source of morality. That's why you often find that the same religion (or athiesm) is used to justify totally opposing views.
Morality is the result of biological programming, and enviornment. A balance between our two opposing instincts: the group mentality and the competion between individuals in that group. This is what leads to hiarchy, which you find in all social animals. Colonies of monkeys have royalty as well.
Extreme idiologies usually pick one of these two instincts, and completely ignore the other. They try to eliminate hiarchy by either extreme individualism, or extreme group mentality.
The mistake that the new atheists (and their religieus counterparts) make is that they think their morality is a universal truth. It's not. It's just a set of rules that work for them, in their situation.
Marriage, for instance, is an ancient feminist institution that pretents to ensure the females' sexual loyalty, in return for the mans' life long dedication. If the man believes the children of his wife are actually his own, then he is more likely to stick around. Feminism is all about increasing the cost of sex, which is also a big part of most religions.
Gay marriage might be logical in our western society, were a mans' contribution is forced by law (in some countries, even if he is not the biological father), and were a woman can make her own living in the service economy. But in an African tribe for instance, the loyalty of a man is essential to the lifelyhood of the woman, especially when handicapped by pregnancy. Gay marriage would undermine the value of sex in that society, and thus undermine the society itself.
So when a religious group opposes same sex marriage, it has nothing to do with what the bible says, but everything with the value of sex. You will also see a lot of other sexual restrictions in those groups. They are acting on an instinct that has worn off in the liberal mind.
Liberals think that their acceptance of homosexuality is a universal morality. In all their "rational thinking", they fail to think about why most of the world, for most of the earths' history, has opposed homosexuality. In their experience, homosexuality is harmless. But in the ancient mind, it is not.
The instinct to increase the value of sex is part of the group mentality. Expensive sex is not benificial to the male, but it is to the spieces as a whole.
As a conclusion, trying to come up with a universal morality is futile, if you ignore the enviornment of said morality. And the rational athiests are dead wrong in thinking that there even is a universal morality.
And in the same vain, Chris Hedges is wrong in his conclusion that the position of the new athiests is wrong.
New athiesm is reaction to certain events that threatened their position in society. The individualists were attacked as group, by another group, so they called upon their group mentalitiy as a defense mechanism. They use atheism to justify it, but it might as well have been any other -ism.
The real problem is the megalomania of countries trying to create societies of millions. You can't have a natural balance between individualism and group mentality, when you have so many individuals.
Posted by: PeterJohn | Mar 1, 2008 9:39:01 AM
It really IS a great point. Read the material before you reject it. Understand your opponent's argument in his own context before you presume to pass judgement on it. Is that about it?
I can give you a reading list which may give you a richer perspective of the debate from the opposing point of view (if you have any sense that you may wish to be informed about it beyond the level of Ranning's dust-jacket synopsis from a Child's Garden of Atheism): The Cloud of Unknowing, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Aquinas' Summa Theologica, Augustine's Apology, and finally Eusibius' History of the Church. Once you are done with those, you can probably be confidant that you grasp the salient issues enough to re-read the Bible with a new perspective and then evaluate it on its own merits rather than its more commonly addressed Straw Man.
Start the whole thing off, though, by working through Lebniz' Primordial Existential Question to its logical conclusion of not just why, which is perhaps too glibly dismissed by some, but how? It's a reasonable question and allows no dodge into higher math or alternate universes, since without causation, complete nothingness must once have been, and nothing can only beget nothing. At the very least, the exercise might soften a rigid certainty that mechanistics holds all the answers.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents of a Saturday when I should be groking Eigenfaces and working on my project proposal. Have fun reading, I have more when you have finished those.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 10:12:09 AM
Carlos--
It comes dow to this, and it really is not thay complicated:
What is the core of Dawkins' and my "radical" message?
Well, it goes something like this: If you claim that something is true, I will examine the evidence which supports your claim; if you have no evidence, I will not accept that what you say is true and I will think you a foolish and gullible person for believing it so.
That's it. That's the whole, crazy, fanatical package.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 1, 2008 11:08:00 AM
Knee-jerk reactions to knee-jerk reactions to knee-jerk reactions.
I have to wonder how many of us have read the best the "opposing" material has to offer, or if we've just read Other People who may have...
I know I haven't read them all, myself. Not all of the best, anyway, or even a large portion of it.
Have you made up your mind that the other side is completely wrong, and that approval only by your methods will do? Because that seems rather short-sighted. Narrow-minded.
Be those methods scientific or belief-based, something isn't going to fit in your model. Something that someone finds vitally important to the continuance of life and the pursuit of its goods and greats is going to be left out.
And someone is always, ALWAYS going to think that your methods and beliefs are absolutely, 100% fucking evil. Or, shall we say, "socially harmful."
If we cannot recognise this, if we cannot learn to approach things from their perspective, openly, rationally, believingly, or by whatever adverb for which the thing calls, then we get the same thing we Always get, here on 3QD, when religion comes into the field.
Snide, arrogant, "Why-You're-Just-An-Ignorant-And-Ill-Informed-Dirt-Farmer" remarks, from Both sides.
I've come to hope for a certain level of discernment and honest discussion, from this page's comment section. Instead, there's that wall, where everyone froths and foams and prickles, but they do it in the high-handed pseudo-intellectualism;l a back and forth of what basically boils down to "S/He Started it!"
And, frankly, I'm sick of it.
Posted by: Damien | Mar 1, 2008 12:18:47 PM
It's even simpler than that, Dave.
In truth, you are no more interested in examining the evidence presented in the book list above than I am in challenging you to demonstrate your evidence that there is no mystery and no God. Since the one gauntlet you have to throw down is evidentiary, your thesis fails by its own standard, but you'd be a fool to both hold onto your supposition and at the same time entertain the possibility that my side may actually be holding some cards to your empty hand. No. Better just wave any such notion away.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 12:42:48 PM
You're right, Damien, teach the controversy!
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 1, 2008 12:51:15 PM
Carlos, there's no need to keep your cards hidden. If you, or any religious person, has some killer argument up their sleeve, put it on the table.
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 1, 2008 12:53:11 PM
Ah yes---
Playing tennis with no net---
It's fun, and easy, but when the net goes up and the real game starts, it is time to leave.
Carlos, show me the cards, I call you.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 1, 2008 12:54:53 PM
Damien, how can one have an honest discussion when Hedges (the point of this article) is not willing to be honest. Mischaracterizing an atheist's position from the get-go does not engender respect nor honest discussion.
Much of the literature that Carlos speaks of has been read throughout our atheist lives, and yet those like Hedges embrace inflammatory language and have knee-jerk reactions to the new atheist literature (not the lowercase). One such notable knee-jerk reaction is cherry-picking at Richard Dawkins's mention of religion as child abuse, despite his being clear about what that means.
I have found that no matter what aspects of religion I accept, understand and have experienced, those like Hedges rush out to battle strawmen.
"If we cannot recognise this, if we cannot learn to approach things from their perspective, openly, rationally, believingly,..."
Atheists have been understanding those like Hedges for years. It is time for them to be open-minded.
Posted by: Anon | Mar 1, 2008 12:56:06 PM
I don't know that atheists understand "those like Hedges," any better than they would say that he understands them. And that's precisely the point.
The investiture of time, belief, "rationality," or whatever else into a position means that when something comes along to challenge it, or "attack" it, then that something is not going to be gently approached. It's a perceived attack, and if that attack is on rationality, then the retaliation is going to be all the more vicious.
Rationality is that sacrosanct principle by which we make sense of and operate in the world, so when it comes under attack, the accusation of "harmful irrationality" is leveled like a self-referential gun. But that's not the point.
The point is that if someone mischaracterizes your position, then correct them, put it into words they can understand. And that's not Dumbing Down, that's being willing to know a system of thought and/or belief well enough to approach it from within its own boundaries. Regardless of how those within it approach you.
Come to the table willing to learn and be wrong, or don't come to the table.
Posted by: Damien | Mar 1, 2008 1:51:52 PM
There is nothing new in this attack. It is as empty and foolish as any that have come before.
Apparently, if all of us poor, ignorant atheists become sincere students of theology, spend our lives honestly pondering moldy old tomes, and crusty old thoughts, of the most sincere (often deluded) primitive minds, we too will finally understand that we are being awfully mean to the fairy tales of others. And opinions, if they are critical of religion, should be suspended. It is not fair. Because there is always some point, somewhere, that we have not scrupulously considered. Until all this is completed we should not think, we should not discuss, we should not argue, we must not say aloud what we think is true. It is pure arrogance. Sarcasm is right out! So is contempt for beliefs that are truly awful and violent. All is relative. Everything may be right for someone. We should respect that.
Well, I'm off. There is a pillar in the desert that I plan to sit on for a while, until I have fully absorbed the wisdom of the ages.
Posted by: Christopher | Mar 1, 2008 2:07:47 PM
And Christopher goes a long way toward exemplifying my point. Consideration is not the same as relativism, and the relativism of beliefs should only be excluded when you've explored the options and understood the motivations.
Yes, taking a position is important, and the only way to operate a world of non-wishy-washy hand-wringers, but there is a difference between holding a belief and a position-- considered, carefully crafted, and researched-- and simply lashing out at that which threatens or upsets you.
Yes, certain acts are deplorable, disgusting things. But recognise that there is a reason for their existing, there is a story that leads to the instantiation of these acts as morally accepted or required. When you seek to truly understand what brought a people to this place, your efforts at change will be more effective, because they will be more respectful.
'If your god is a living god, a loving god, and a caring god, then wouldn't it have foreseen a time when these laws would have to change, when the "old ways" would have to make way for the new?'
Take a position, yes. Realise that's all anyone does. Discuss, yes, but discuss from a position of knowledge, rather than vitriol.Otherwise you perpetuate your problem, because no one wants to listen to someone who thinks their an idiot.
Unless all you're looking to do is hear the sound of your own voice (something I often enjoy), and keep yourself in business.
Posted by: Damien | Mar 1, 2008 3:31:18 PM
Damien: I think you're an idiot.
Posted by: frodo | Mar 1, 2008 4:49:33 PM
Frodo, it'll be okay.
Posted by: Damien | Mar 1, 2008 5:21:08 PM
Will it?
Posted by: frodo | Mar 1, 2008 5:27:54 PM
"I call you"
Excellent. You may proceed to present your evidence for no God and a purely mechanistic universe starting with a complete and coherent answer to Lebniz' P.E.Q.. My cards? Already laid down. Those books I already listed, in that order.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 6:32:36 PM
"The Cloud of Unknowing, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Aquinas' Summa Theologica, Augustine's Apology, and finally Eusibius' History of the Church."
I vaguely remember reading those when I was studying philosophy for three years at my local university.
Should they have convinced me of God's existence?
Posted by: frodo | Mar 1, 2008 7:20:37 PM
I am so sick and tired of this debate. Reading comments whenever the "religion v. atheism" topic comes up, makes me ashamed to be human. Lets just bomb each other and be done with it.
Posted by: Anon | Mar 1, 2008 7:23:44 PM
"I am so sick and tired of this debate. Reading comments whenever the "religion v. atheism" topic comes up, makes me ashamed to be human."
Sure. Nevertheless you actually bother to read the comments, and then go on to post a comment about how reading the comments and posting comments about the comments makes you ashamed of being human.
Well, I kind of agree with you, actually. Cheers!
Posted by: frodo | Mar 1, 2008 7:42:03 PM
So we got one guy who thinks the burden of evidence rests on unbelievers to disprove god, and another who makes the sweeping generalization that no one on either side understands the other well enough to say anything (or he simply wants to condescendingly remind us and chastise us on an obvious point), and a few people (myself included) who are exasperated by the whole spectacle and yet somehow drawn in to see how it develops.
I personally think that no one is ever going to convince the other side of anything here, but I nonetheless don't think that makes it futile. Much is gained by the exercise, not the least of which is a better understanding of the other side which facilitates better coexistence.
Though I by no means believe that progress is inevitable (only change is), I do think old-time religions like the Bible characterization above and perhaps all of Christianity, are on their way out. If you feel the need to help this process along, I think the best thing, the most effective thing to do, is not to attack religion, but to be a kind, generous and flawlessly reasonable and rational example of the alternative, of the possibility of life outside the cult. Disprove their characterizations of atheists. Show the possibility of life without god to be admirable and beautiful and full of meaning. Be more Carl Sagan or Richard Feynman than Richard Dawkins.
The Carloses can continue to challenge us to prove that the invisible dragons in their garages don't exist, we can hope their happiness isn't disturbed by the (conveniently) inaudible din of these dragons and get on with trying to make the world a better place already.
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 1, 2008 8:23:03 PM
Did you now? My compliments to your curriculum. What local university did you attend?
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 9:10:41 PM
A pretty crappy one by international standards. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology. (No, it's not that crappy, actually, but it's no Harvard or MIT.)
So if my comments seemed a bit incoherent and weird, well... English is not my language.
Posted by: frodo | Mar 1, 2008 9:19:06 PM
Has this thread petered out yet? Because, if it has -- good. Without wanting to juice the corpse, I want to observe that it looks like nobody's mind got changed here, and worse: nobody's mind even got expanded. Perhaps Chris Hedges, making his point cogently but unexcitingly that there are atheist fundies, too, would not be surprised.
Richard Dawkins himself has said that it's not logically tenable to be more than an agnostic, so all of our atheists need to recognize an element of unreason in their logic, just that tiny element that compels them to attempt proving a negative when such proof is absolutely unnecessary to a coherent world view that posits no supreme being. Heaping scorn on people who claim only to believe differently, who are out to exact no social price from you for your non-belief, hardly defeats them, or even messes with their minds. If you somehow lost interest in criticizing them so derisively, it would not be a sign that you respected their beliefs and hewed to the hypocrisy of tip-toeing around them, only that you respected their right to a point of view greatly different from your own, even opposed to your own. Tolerating clap-trap in others without attacking them for it, without attempting to undercut their rights to believe as they choose, is good for you. It keeps you liberal-minded, and it serves the seldom-discussed function of keeping you open to the possibility, ever present, that you too believe things that are not true, and have the right to believe such things. If all this took more sensitivity than living in society demanded of averagely intelligent people, then we'd all be on Ruby Ridge.
While I am aware there is no compromise position, that the question whether God exists cannot have two answers, I always feel a bit of a minority following and sometimes participating in threads about the subject, because I don't agree with anyone on either side of the question as it has been framed. The terms of the debate seem on the one hand utterly to trivialize and reduce human endeavor, on the other to exalt and even mandate superstition. It's kind of sickening to make fun of someone's holy book, it's also kind of sickening to suppose you accomplish much by dumping holy books on someone's derision. And it's about as much fun as watching orthodocts and heretics tilting at one another -- they only think they're on opposite sides in this quaint medieval tournament, but they're not, because they are, alike, fighting with outdated weapons over settled questions.
Next time it comes up -- and it will -- take it to a different level, okay?
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 1, 2008 9:29:03 PM
You are missing my point. The standards of evidence amateur Atheists occasionally call upon Theists to provide are equally unavailable to them. The challenge came from Dave, not me. I don't think he is capable of meeting the standard he himself set, but it's not my requirement, it's his.
All you should be willing to do, even if just for yourself, is be satisfied with a material world which cannot rationally exist, rationally explain how it could have ever sprung from pure nothingness, or confess that your position is no more rational than mine.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 9:37:00 PM
Is that directed at me? My suggestion was merely a response to a complaint against people who criticize other's positions without properly informing themselves. If you were sickened, you missed the lighthearted irony. I think these are valuable additions to anyone's personal library, but I don't for a second imagine that any derisive person would read them or benefit from them anymore than I imagine any dissenter from the atheist orthodoxy is likely to find any value in the New Atheist Canon (or even the non-dissenters for that matter).
On a lighthearted note. I was back in California last week and on the tailgate of a pickup truck was the following bumper-sticker: "Party on, Sinners."
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 1, 2008 10:30:14 PM
Thanks, Elatia. I needed that. ;)
As for bumper stickers, here's my favorite:
"Jesus would signal.'
Posted by: JanieM | Mar 1, 2008 10:46:54 PM
Carlos,
Please forgive my lack of direct familiarity with the texts you’ve mentioned, other than the Bible, but isn’t your Leibnizian defense breached with the good old “if something can’t come out of nothing then who created God" argument? I assume you must be familiar with that response, so if there is a deeper subtlety to your defense of theism from this angle, do share it.
bumpersticker:
667 neighbor of the beast
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 1, 2008 11:25:22 PM
Elatia: Heaping scorn on people who claim only to believe differently, who are out to exact no social price from you for your non-belief, hardly defeats them, or even messes with their minds...Tolerating clap-trap in others without attacking them for it, without attempting to undercut their rights to believe as they choose, is good for you
I'm sorry, Elatia, but there are many believers who are trying to "exact" a social price from atheists and society. Saying otherwise is simply dishonest. The academic arguments are of cursory value; the day-to-day society arguments are very much a part of what and why the "New Atheists'" argue at all.
If the religious were to stop pushing their beliefs on others, tolerance would work just fine. That's the simple nature of the beast. Everything else is academic. That (some) religious feel it is necessary to attack these "New Atheists" is born out of fear - I have heard theologians say so themselves in so many words. They are not really interested in atheists' worldviews.Prove me otherwise.
It has become a tiresome debate in the public arena, however, we soldier on....because we have to.
*There's a third Anon comment that's not mine.
Posted by: Anon1&2 | Mar 1, 2008 11:37:59 PM
For what it's worth, Elatia, I don't personally see the main point of these arguments as being to change the other person's mind - that will only come in THEIR own time and certainly not through being exposed to the vitriol of a directly counter viewpoint.
The real value of these arguments, as I see it (and why I think it's important to address these issues at each instance they arise) is that far, far more people read these pages than post on them. Those who are honestly open to exploring such an important question as whether a goddess exists will get to see the weak arguments from the likes of Carlos repeatedly and systematically demolished before their eyes. For it is only the closed mind that doesn't see that that is exactly what is happening. Someone who is really open to the question, a truly inquisitive fence-sitter, will be able to source, on these pages, important reinforcement of their doubts. So if even one person a week is able to have that Aha! moment where the shackles of indoctrination give way to those first heady days of independent thought, I think we can consider the posting of these arguments to be meritorious.
I find it singularly instructive that a good portion of Carlos' defence readings, his supposed best ammo, was written prior to the publication of a pesky fellow by the name of Charles Darwin. Says something, doesn't it?
Posted by: MattInOz | Mar 2, 2008 12:21:44 AM
Carlos---
I'm not the one who woke up believing in a Psychopathic Space Daddy--
That is something you added to your world, a cultural replicator that has colonized your poor addled brain.
That is a extraordinary statement of fact. As Carl Sagen said "Extraordinary propositions need extraordinary evidence"--
When evidence is dismissed from the discourse, ignorance and superstition rules, like the impoverished intellectual position of our poor friend Carlos.
He things imaginary works of fiction are real arguments and a basis for reality.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 2, 2008 1:00:25 AM
Anon 1 & 2, Matt and Carlos,
Way back in dynastic Egypt, before the time of the Bible, the afterlife was given the most complete consideration imaginable, and, as is well known, even material goods were stored up to supply it. Less well known is that the Egyptians had a care as to whether their souls might suffer death in the afterlife; that they should die of this earthly life was natural and right to them, that once in The Silent Land their souls should die was intolerably frightening. The most intelligent thing that was ever said -- that has ever been said in the 4500 years since -- in the face of the massive cult of the dead mounted by the Egyptians (and by subsequent civilizations) was written into The Harper's Song, an extremely short and seldom quoted verse that asks: What befalls us beyond the grave? And answers: No one knows, no one knows.
Those words are going to be true for all time, unless you think the subject will simply lose the interest of humans. If it ever does, then that will be the day, to quote Franz Wright, that "the stars once again have no name." The rest is about how to live a better life that includes a sense of purpose and a consciousness of meaning. And people find different answers to this dilemma. I would be very sorry if anyone laid aside their religion because of something they read here, and I wouldn't like to think we're minting believers, either. If reason overcomes you, and you start to think about God as if, "Nah, it couldn't be," then that's a trashy epiphany along the lines of looking out the window one Christmas Eve and realizing Santa has too much to do, too fast, to even remotely exist. It's as bad as winning the lottery and therefore being convinced of God's goodness. A sense of the sacred, and a recognition of God's presence -- however one might like to define that -- go deeper than a superstition acquired or inbred, and people who have it are not really up for reclamation by reason.
We like to talk about these things here not because we might convince someone on the thread or someone lurking, but because -- demonstrably -- whether we believe in God or not, we believe in the question. If we did not...we would not be here. It would be a matter of Zero Interest.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 2, 2008 1:28:15 AM
Elatia
Try as I might (and I AM making an honest attempt to see what you are getting at), I am having difficulty differentiating statements such as "we believe in the question" from wishy washy proclamations of the cultural relativists. Surely if everybody recognizes that there cannot be multiple correct answers to the question of "what does two plus two equal?", then they must also realise that there is a correct answer to the VERY simple question "does god exist or not?" It's really not too hard a question to understand UNLESS, under the resolute pressure of an ever-widening explanatory base provided by science, the believer is forced to constantly revise their definition of god (ie move the goal posts) It really is a straight forward question. Wallowing in protestations of "each person can find their own answer to this question" with the implication that they can all be correct is in fact insidiously harmful. We no longer have too many people arguing for the literal truth of the Egytian's sun gods and thus it should EXACTLY be with the Abrahamic varieties. The purely accidental fortune of their recency should not confer on them any extra claim to credulity.
To address the way you put it above, I don't think the subject will lose the interest of humans, I think the bulk of humans will one day come to see the fallacious nature of the question.
Though I agree with so much of what you post on here, I for one would, in direct contrast to you, would feel not the slightest bit sorry if someone laid aside their religion because of something they read on here. In fact, with each person that achieved that little step of emancipation from the medieval, I would feel a little flutter of hope inside for humanity's continuence, hopefully in a manner more in balance with it's cradle planet.
Posted by: MattInOz | Mar 2, 2008 3:35:08 AM
Carlos,
You said:
"All you should be willing to do, even if just for yourself, is be satisfied with a material world which cannot rationally exist, rationally explain how it could have ever sprung from pure nothingness, or confess that your position is no more rational than mine."
No one knows that there was once nothingness, and I'm fairly sure the "rational world" only exists in our heads, a series of models that predict with usually adequate accuracy what happens at levels high enough that quantum randomness averages out, at speeds slow enough to avoid the weirdness of relativity, in the three dimensions we find useful, etc.
We can't know the answer, and we have to be OK with that. The difference between agnostics (often called atheists here for convenience, I think), is not that they have taken unprovable position B, but that they reject A. Hypocritical as it may sound, I need postulate no alternative to disprove god. That adds an asymmetry to the situation I don't think everyone recognizes. Admitting that you don't know is not just as irrational as putting forth an answer that must be wrong.
I agree with Elatia on many counts, and perhaps the "next level" could be reached by differentiating religion from spirituality. It's beliefs like "the world is 6000 years old" that I think (hope) will disappear. Searches for meaning will persist (and should persist because I think we have to come up with meaning ourselves as I don't think they exist outside our heads, much less in a god's).
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 4:59:10 AM
Elatia,
I too share an admiration for the writing I’ve seen you exhibit here, but “trashy epiphany”? I think one is left at a rather profound beginning in the abandonment of religion and often included in that beginning is the opening of admiration for many of the other mythological systems that our fellow human ancestors have devised. Yes it has been our parents and not Santa, in the sense of a received cosmic fiction, but this doesn’t shut down mystery, it opens it up. They have brought the poetry, but not the presents, so for now things have branched. We can accept this or fall back in reaction, or perhaps all hold our breath for eventual reunification- the "coming God" of that Black Forest Mandarin.
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 2, 2008 5:46:39 AM
All of them, really (the Catechism having merely been contemporized), although I find Darwin to be more visionary genius than pesky. Darwin's thesis, by the way, is fully embraced by more Christians than the total population of Atheists (some number of which may well reject Darwin). Liebniz' little challenge to rational materialism also predates Darwin, still unanswered, or uncomprehended, after all this time. Somehow it never gets any takers.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 10:09:49 AM
This is cultural relativism---
When embarrassing Bronze and Iron Age creation myths are given precedent over observation and evidence, human failure is assured.
This is total madness.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 2, 2008 10:11:15 AM
Well leaving work now, but your sigh of a response gets a big yawn from me Carlos. Give us a summary of this silver bullet, or give it a rest.
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 2, 2008 10:47:15 AM
Have you really thought this through?
Almost true. You need postulate no alternative to reject my thesis, even though perhaps you should want to. You would need to provide the same level of scientific evidence you require of the believers in order to disprove God or to be able to affirmatively state that my answer "must be wrong."
I think you and I may agree that the things we discuss are beyond such scientific evidence (other than, in my case, the unmistakable presence of the impossible universe and the laughable impossibility of its random development of mechanisms capable of loving its wonderousness, each other, and even non-physical ideas and ideals). There is even, due to God's desire for us to take a leap of faith, an explicit understanding in Christian thought that no clear physical evidence could or should exist.
There is the other kind of evidence, of course. The Scriptures contain some interesting prophesies. Specifically in Isaiah and Jeremiah. Against all likelyhood, they seem to have come to pass.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as Sagan's* spokesperson here has stated. Well the fulfillment of those predictions is pretty extraordinary (though not quite so extraordinary, I agree, as the whole impossibility of existence thing). If you wish, you could demonstrate that they did not come true, or explain why they are not significant enough to be considered admissible evidence, say, before a jury, even if not in the lab.
*Not to namedrop, but I went to college with his wife Linda-she drew the plaque on the Pioneer spacecraft, perhaps humanity's most immortal work of art, and kind of a performance piece, really.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 11:38:40 AM
Unitarian minister? Jesus loves you. There is no silver bullet, by design. "You have to see it for yourself."Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 11:45:35 AM
Carlos,
Didn't you get the memo? The origin of the cosmos can be explained by natural selection. The universes that failed to come into being could not compete with the universe that did. Poof, QED.
Dave, Anon, Jesse, Matt:
Carlos is making a serious point. Go sufficiently far into the past and the chain of causation stops. Perhaps at the big bang, perhaps earlier. Since the entire mechanistic model of the world is based on forces obeying laws over time, it clearly cannot have explanatory power beyond the first cause, and thus is an incomplete model.
To say there was "always" something is not a meaningful statement in terms of time and causality (though it may be true). Again, mechanistic models fail, given a broad enough context.
This is not the beginning of a proof of god, which is neither possible, nor, for most religious people, desirable. However, you should find that it chafes against the glibness of your dismissal of religion as not being reality-based. If you will be intellectually honest enough, and morally courageous enough to see it, you will admit that the rules of evidence are only logically valid within a given scale; that is, within the history of time and space.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Mar 2, 2008 11:46:25 AM
Matt,
Just because 2+2 is a "simple" (actually tautological) problem, it doesn't follow that all serious questions are just as simple. What is light? What is matter? What is time? All of these are concepts whose definition has changed over time. Is that because science has "moved the goal posts"?
Does matter exist? Yes and no. In the Newtonian description, and in everyday folk understanding, matter is that which has dimension, and mass, and "occupies" space. In a particle physics sense, what we call matter is just a macroscopic expression of forces and probabilities. It's not made of any "thing" at all. It's an illusion.
Do you exist? In several important senses you don't. In genocentric biology of the Dawkins stripe, organisms are illusory constellations of cells whose only unifying identity is their shared genome. And of course the stuff that makes up the cells is constantly being shed and replaced as food and waste. More goalpost-moving? Some philosophers believe that consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon of neural activity. So which part of you is the "real " part, the one that we could find evidence for?
Sometimes the goal posts appear to be moving because what one thought their correspondent was arguing was not accurate. Are you sure that you and Carlos, or anyone else, mean the same thing by "god"?
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Mar 2, 2008 12:16:14 PM
Carlos,
Is the idea that there was never nothingness any less comprehensible than the idea that there was? I don't think so (and yes, Carlos, I have really thought this through, thanks for asking). My point is that we don't know and thus can't resort to any therefore-God-must-exist arguments.
Do you really think the universe is impossible? Compared to what? What would a possible universe look like? I don't agree with that point. Likewise, as to your “laughable impossibility of its random development of mechanisms capable of loving its wonderousness” argument, I just saw a license plate outside reading RXT 2381-- what are the odds of that happening? 1/115,316,136. Yup, must be a god.
Existence is impossible? I’d be very careful talking with such certainty about that sort of thing.
Chris,
“Carlos is making a serious point. Go sufficiently far into the past and the chain of causation stops. Perhaps at the big bang, perhaps earlier. Since the entire mechanistic model of the world is based on forces obeying laws over time, it clearly cannot have explanatory power beyond the first cause, and thus is an incomplete model.”
I suspect that our understanding of time is far too simplistic and one-dimensional to draw these conclusions. I also do not find the idea of the universe having always existed at all difficult to imagine. Likewise, postulating God doesn't get you out of that problem, of course, because either you must explain what caused God or you must accept the idea that God always existed, and why is that any easier than excepting the universe always existed?
“However, you should find that it chafes against the glibness of your dismissal of religion as not being reality-based.”
Sorry, it doesn't.
“If you will be intellectually honest enough, and morally courageous enough to see it, you will admit that the rules of evidence are only logically valid within a given scale; that is, within the history of time and space.”
Right, so really I'm being narrowminded by not expanding my thinking beyond time and space… silly me.
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 1:03:07 PM
I think my main problem with the idea of a god/gods is this: it's far too anthropomorphic. If Frans de Waal's chimpanzees believed in a creator, it would be an omnipresent chimp, existing outside of space and time. Geckos would believe THEY were created in the image of god. It seems conceited to me, or at the very least unimaginative, that an organism with agency and cognitive awareness, such as ourselves, should believe that the universe was created by another organism with agency and cognitive awareness (and without those things would it count as a "god" to us?). We think so much in terms of purpose and meaning, is it really so hard to believe that the universe simply is and that we are neither the center of it, nor even of the same kind as a thing that created it? (i.e., if we can't be the center of the universe then at least it was made by something like us, something with our basic psychological attributes?).
Furthermore, the horrendously ill-defined concept of god doesn't actually answer any of the big questions; it just raises more. But nevermind...
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 1:48:21 PM
Barkley,
I'm not a theist. and have no interest in postulating god. Carlos, who is a theist, has also said multiple times that he is not interested in evidence for god. So there's no need to refute an argument no one is making.
The point is not, "rationalism fails, therefore god." The point is that rationalism fails, therefore demanding evidence for all beliefs is illogical.
It may be true that the universe has "always" existed, but it is not rational to say so. Time is a matter of sequence, by definition. To say we don't fully understand time is a copout. The word becomes a placeholder; it may as well be god.
Causality is necessarily linear. It is not consistent with infinity. This doesn't mean I object to your suggesting there has always been a universe, but such a statement is outside our current scientific mechanistic metaphysics, no less so than god is.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Mar 2, 2008 1:49:06 PM
Chris,
1. I maintain that it is not irrational to say that the universe has always existed.
2. We may understand time as a matter of sequence, but that may simply be due to our perspective of it. There are theoretical physicists currently coming up with models that work without the concept of time, so I'd keep an open mind on this. I wasn't using a copout; I was simply saying that we don't know these things well enough to draw conclusions based on them.
3. Causality is not inconsistent with infinity, or it's no less consistent with infinity then infinity is with itself. It's just a chain that keeps going, or a chain that loops back onto itself. Or whatever. All of this is pure speculation, of course, but the point is that we should not be so quick to conclude what is possible.
I also know a few theoretical physicists who are very comfortable with the idea of infinity, so I wouldn't be so quick to presume to say what is and what is not within "our current scientific mechanistic metaphysics."
But beyond all that is the pointlessness of using a concept (god) with no meaningful definition or explanatory power that cannot even be disproven.
(By the way, if "rationalism has failed," why are you worried about arguments being illogical? I admire the open-mindedness you have always shown for alternative explanations, Chris, but sometimes I wonder if you're a bit of a closet relativist--or perhaps I misunderstand)
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 2:18:17 PM
This topic gets the juices flowing here, doesn't it. Just so I am taken seriously by all and sundry, let me start by saying that I have been an atheist since 13. I see no reason to believe in god and the question for me is settled. In the West, this has been an unremarkable philosophical conclusion at least since Nietzsche. India has had a much older tradition of atheism.
As we mature, we realize that we, the people, believe in all kinds of things without evidence, or with conveniently selective evidence. What evidence do we consider to feel patriotic or nationalistic? What evidence do we examine to embrace capitalism, when it may be leading us to a mass extinction? How much evidence do we examine before letting fear grip us? What evidence do we seek for a "human dignity" that separates us from other animals, upon which we build human rights? Do we need evidence or vanity to think we are worthy of the girl next door? You get my point.
In a progressive, tolerant society, you learn to live with—even when you do not respect—the different views of others, as long as they do not cause you moral harm. Secular fundamentalism is defined by its intolerance towards those who believe in god. It is increasingly common; I see it in some views on this thread. They seem to assume (without clear evidence) that a society of atheists will be a better society.
So folks, unless you think that a belief in god is an automatic moral infraction on non-believers, it's time to move on to worthier debates. Accept that god will exist for some people because god fills a need for some in a unique way. Likewise for patriotism, etc. (hey, them patriots even subsidize the real cost of defending my way of life!). Our collective challenge is not to turn more people into self-righteous zealots like Sam Harris, but to figure out how we can minimize the moral excesses of both believers and non-believers, and to advance the cause of justice and liberal governance.
Posted by: Namit | Mar 2, 2008 3:29:13 PM
Well, nothing has changed---
Still no cards on the table.
This mental masturbation can only go on for so long---
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 2, 2008 5:00:25 PM
Well there may be the crux of it. For in fact the concept of God is anything but pointless, meaningless or ill-defined, whether it can be disproved or not. Adherents of the world's religions have had a profound impact on civilization and culture precisely because of the clarity of the explanation and the perceived usefulness of the concept as an organizing principle, answer to life's conflicts, and man's search for meaning and relevance. Much of the world's great art would never have been created but for worship of the Divine, and most of the rest would have been impoverished by lack of example. And it seems to have some small humanitarian benefit as well, as was most clearly revealed just during the last century, when the great social experiments in Godlessness: Nazism and Communism played out on the world stage to such grim effect. Nor, in reality, does love of God impede the love of knowledge. The world's great universities have roots in religion, many of the luminaries of science, including Leibniz, above and also his competitor/collaborator Newton as well as countless others were and are not at all diminished by their comprehension of God as Master of the Universe and the sense of responsibility and stewardship that engenders.
I suppose one could claim that, in the absence of allegiance to God's higher good, and in the absence of people setting that standard for goodness around us, universal atheism would engender an equal measure of self-sacrifice, temperance, and charity. I'm not sure how you would go about defending the position though. Were it not for my knowledge of a history filled with so many scientifically assured examples of equal folly, I wouldn't imagine there could be much interest in performing the experiment without some form of proof — Evidence — before proceeding.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 5:16:15 PM
Carlos--
Just show us your imaginary friend, and the problem is solved.
Is there a problem?
Inquiring mind want to know.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 2, 2008 6:12:52 PM
Carlos,
You really think it's only religion that differentiates the US from Nazi Germany, which, by the way was Christian and had ties with the Catholic Church of the time, if I'm not misinformed?
And communist states? You don't think maybe the fact that they had a terrible economic system had something to do with that?
Sigh. I don't have time for this.
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 6:35:47 PM
My last contribution:
"I suppose one could claim that, in the absence of allegiance to God's higher good, and in the absence of people setting that standard for goodness around us, universal atheism would engender an equal measure of self-sacrifice, temperance, and charity"
See Buddhist philosophy for a start. The Dali Lama is hardly a commi Nazi...
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 2, 2008 6:49:31 PM
Charity was praised by Buddha as the stairway to celestial realms. That's hardly a non-religious statement.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 8:16:07 PM
Carlos-
Your knowledge of Buddhism is only dwarfed by your knowledge of science.
Trust me-- stay in the shallow end of the pool on this one.
I'm off to meditation, so no more mental masturbation.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 2, 2008 8:32:46 PM
Yeah, that's working for ya.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 2, 2008 8:50:56 PM
I too will make this my last post for the thread.
Chris, great to see you're still around :-) It's yourself and Elatia that I most wish to address these final thoughts to.
While one cannot help but be impressed by the way you two manage to navigate the minefield of differing ideologies one encounters here and not tread on a single set of toes, I am left wondering.... Although it serves to very effectively keep the peace (no small achievement on our crowded planet) in the end, what power does such a position give for acheiving a shared progression for your fellow conversationalists? I have time and again been left thinking, after reading one of your comments "well, that was an insightful and quite eloquent expression of mutual understanding, but...."
Where does its usefulness lie with respect to achieving progress for each other? Indeed, in your minds, is human progress desirable? To put it another way, look at what has been achieved DESPITE the constant haranguing of the righteous and religious, by a mere 500 years of science. Only 500 years against a backdrop of billions! A tripling of life expectancy (with more to come no doubt - perhaps not an advantage to some, but I'll take it), an understanding of where we sit in the scheme of things that is orders of magnitude greater than where we were in the middle ages, a freedom from much of the drudgery of day to day toil such that time is freed up for thoughts such as those expressed here, etc etc. The list, you'd no doubt agree, is long. You'd rightly point out that perhaps a majority of the world doesn't yet enjoy these privileges. I'd posit that they'll get there, with our help, IN SPITE of religion, not through it. But my question remains, what use is it to just say, "everybody's right in their own way" when plainly, this is not true. I'd be the last to want to IMPOSE my views on anyone and would only violently defend them against a like violence from the superstitious, but I do feel it necessary to air the opposing point of view. I actually believe there is more than sufficient evidence (I'm sure Dave et al would agree) to put forward the theory that a rational world view would collectively serve us all a lot better. I don't see how you could argue against that proposition. It is very difficult to let go of some ideas precious to each of us (and I am speaking from experience) but that doesn't confer upon them equal validity.
Could you or Elatia mention one or two books that effectively outline your thinking so that I may perhaps better understand what you are getting at? Cheers.
Matt
Posted by: MattInOz | Mar 2, 2008 9:31:35 PM
Both religion and scientific rationalism have, in their turn, served to further the cause of civilization.
But consider also Walter Benjamin:
"There is no document of civilization that is not simultaneously a document of barbarism."
Dave R. - you must know that Buddhism is extremely syncretic, and it seems a bit questionable to claim that your agnostic california flavor is superior to those of other cultures. In the 80's I met many many Cambodians whose simple Buddhist faith you would no doubt have sneered at. Yet I can't think of a better definition of Buddhism than the one given by Semdech Preah Maha Ghosananda, "the Gandhi of Cambodia":
"[What is Buddhism?] Knowing how to eat. Why to eat and where to eat and what to eat. And with whom to eat. And for whom. Life is a process of eating. We try to eat other people but do not let them eat us. And the Buddha cries when he sees this suffering."
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Mar 2, 2008 10:45:14 PM
Matt,
(I enjoy reading your comments, too -- very much.) I haven't a thing in the world against scientific progress except that in its absence we would have neither human-caused global warming nor a nuclear arsenal. But that's the very old argument that the search for knowledge is a fall from grace, dressed up in 21st century clothing -- and an impressive wardrobe it is, too. To pursue it is to invite observations that while religion has been good for poetry, music and art, it has been murderous to whole populations and hazardous in the extreme to the spirit of inquiry. Anything we humans can come up with is a double-edged sword -- even Buddhism, which Joseph Campbell classified among "disciplines of retreat." Maybe he thought too much disregard of samsara created its own kind of wretchedness.
You are not alone in wondering what my actual point of view is -- I wonder that too. When I was in college, the BBC did one of those marvelous middlebrow mini-series -- about world religions. The material was so baffling even to the cozy Oxford Don who spearheaded the series that he ended by saying he drew no conclusions and wanted only to make himself a pot of tea -- which he then did, on camera, a backdrop to the credit roll. To feel good about myself, of course, I need to take a position more coherent than that; I'd certainly like to be more "out there" than the BBC a quarter of a century ago. But one doesn't always get to feel that good about oneself, especially if one wants the shred of integrity that comes from recognizing how the craven, the irrational, the glorious and the adventurous are all combined in the contemplation of First Causes. My deepest sense tells me human beings are meant to think about these things, to change their minds, and to think again -- without necessarily knowing progress from a detour, knowing only that such confusion can and will take place, hence the certainty of having to think again. Richard Feynman famously said he thought we might well be reaching the end of the Age of Discovery, when all the great things that needed knowing would be known, were just about to be known. I have often wished he might have lived longer -- had he done, he would have gladly taken back those words, I think.
We live with tremendous uncertainty, with mind-bending paradoxes, and we live in the face of the very great dangers, of all kinds, that we have created for ourselves and our children. To live in a world where half the people are -- by any historical standard -- pretty much okay, and the other half are in a daily survival drama is to live with a very great moral danger that we divert insufficient mental and material resources to confront. If One Hundred Percent Rationality were overtaking us, would we see this in sharper focus? Or just continue to exalt scientific progress as, luxuriously, we shed our personal and cultural superstitions? My point of view, although it is not so philosophically coherent as could be wished, is that we should think about these things and not run from them, and then ask ourselves how best to act. That we need not obsess over deciding in Whom to believe or disbelieve, that we should not spend time and energy requiring that others drop their metaphysics. I'm not sure the dizzying vistas of atheism are quite the ticket or quite the point. If you ask me -- and you did -- there is an intersection of intellectual might and moral life that we have not reached, that some of the best minds among us do not even struggle to reach. For me, that's a problem that implies we should not be so eager to write off 5000 years of human yearning and imagination as less-than and rear-guard. We are still stumbling and wondering as they did, knees bent at our own hill-top shrines marked with saffron-daubed rocks. Man's inhumanity to man might be better tempered by an appreciation of this long and common struggle than by an arid attempt to live at a distance from it.
Admittedly, that's not a philosophical position, nor are these thoughts exclusive or original to me. But, I didn't get them from a book, I got them from thinking and feeling for myself -- which is all I would ask of anyone else before they decided what to do. What to DO. Because that's how the difference can be told between one person and another, one world view and the next.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 3, 2008 12:19:31 AM
(this doesn't count as a contribution--I said I wouldn't make another to this conversation--but it's such an entertaining and thoughtful piece, I thought it would do a nice job of showing a more profound way in which "atheists" and "believers" share common ground. You might have read it before, I think it's always worth reading again. I wish I were as lucid as God is in this piece.)
http://www.newbanner.com/SecHumSCM/IsGodTaoist.html
Posted by: Barkley | Mar 3, 2008 7:35:13 AM
Barkley writes:
It’s possible that there’s no such thing at all as time, that it’s just a function of how we organize events in understanding them. That’s all fine; but causality and logic rely upon our current understanding of time as a sequence. If we change our perspective, we may not be able to take causality with us. Or we might say that time is a way to look at history, but cannot be applied beyond known or imagined events, past or future.
The point is that consequentiality almost certainly has limits, just as Newtonian mechanics does. Just as all explanations do.
I would suggest these physicists are not mechanists, then, or that they allow that mechanical models have limited explanatory power. Physicists as a rule are far ahead the other sciences on these things, since determinism as an absolute has been untenable since the 1920s. Most of the major figures of particle physics during the first half of the 20th century explicitly rejected classical materialism and mechanicalism not just in their experiments but in their metaphysics. Unfortunately the Hawkings and Weinbergs that succeeded them seem bound to return to more comfortable old-fashioned narratives.
What I wrote was that rationalism fails at the point where there are no premises on which to evaluate conclusions, such as an infinite regress. Rationalism works just fine if the rules are of logic observed. We have a lot of arguments on this thread that insist that God-belief is silly because it’s not evidence-based. The implication is that these arguers only believe things which are evidence-based, and are therefore not silly. This is not a defensible position.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Mar 3, 2008 11:49:58 AM
Matt,
I’ve never meant to propose that "everybody's right in their own way." I think that some world views are better than others, and I’ve tried to argue that here and elsewhere.
This is a very big topic and perhaps we can bring it back around on another thread. In the meanwhile, some notes toward that possibility:
1) The scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, and the religious traditions they grew out of are not separate things. Our contemporary scientific picture owes a great deal to Christian philosophy. For example:
These are all—at best—partial truths, and not universally shared by historical human cultures.
2) Science and capitalism have a very profound relationship that is rarely examined. Because of this we tend to exalt our own technological prowess, and devalue that which exists outside our involvement. It has harrowing implications for our environment, as Namit has written, and blinds us to moral concerns we would take more seriously if we considered the human race as more intimately connected with nature.
3) We shouldn’t over-value lifespan extension. For one thing, confusing life expectancy with lifespan creates a false impression that people life longer now than in times past. In fact the upper limits are more or less the same, though today more of us get there. Secondly, what kind of life are we extending? An honest comparison of quality of life between the present day and the 15th century could be made to show that the average European of that time worked less for more wealth, and had greater social autonomy (there’s a lot of misinformation about the medieval quality of life—and if you think modern industry is free from drudgery, you need to get out more). I’m not making a Luddite argument here, just saying that science and technology present us with choices, and that quantity can never be its own goal.
Also, if you do the math there is simply no way to spread the Western Lifestyle to all the continents which don’t yet enjoy it, so the sort of “progress” you feel we are due is not tenable for humanity as a whole, without a major reduction in population, and probably not even then.
4) The modern scientific ideal that we can get closer and closer to objective reality has been a disaster for us, by distracting us from the question of what we want, what we need, and what we value. This has to be the first step of any “rational” world view with the obvious criteria that it work for us. The modern scientific worldview has not worked for us very well at all, leaving us overpopulated, unfulfilled, and on the brink of ecological meltdown on a global scale. One half of the world colonizes the other half and tells them (and itself) it’s for the best, though this best has not come to pass, and the disparity between the worlds grows ever worse.
There’s no single book or author I would point to as elucidating my worldview (which I hope will continue to evolve as long as I remain alive). Rather I would suggest you read everything that interests you, and do it in a spirit of openness and questioning. Think about what you truly want for yourself and the world, and be ever on the guard for moral precepts which just happen to echo and perpetuate the culture as we know it. To what goal do you wish for civilization to progress, and why?
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Mar 3, 2008 12:43:35 PM
Chris--
Modern science grew out of Greek thought, not Christianity.
Capitalism, I agree, grew out of Christianity, and arouse no where else.
It was the combination of Christianity, and it's ability to compartmentalize and separate itself from (and fear of) life, sensuality, and nature, and Greek mastery of science and reason that brought capitalism into being in the 15th century, in the Italian city states.
Just a observation, but capitalism only arose under christian thought.
Vicki-- I admired Ghosananda also, and Jack Kornfield, who I regularly sit with, worked with him in the refugee camps in the 1970's.
We lost him last year----
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 4, 2008 2:48:12 AM
Dave Ranning,
Jack Kornfield, eh? It's all starting to make sense. Now I see where you get your deep insight, your generous heart, and your compassion for those less fortunate than you.
Also: Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Boyle and Harvey were Greek? Who knew. There's got to be a history book around here somewhere...
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Mar 4, 2008 12:00:17 PM
Ah, the sputtering fizzle and halt. Back at work now and just wanted to say thanks to Carlos for going into more detail (I’m not a Unitarian Minister by the way, but Huehuecoyotl and Ahura Mazda send, not quite love, but a warm hello).
Chris I find much to agree with in the various thoughts you’ve shared. Given that I was lumped in the group that you took to task for a glib dismissal of “religion as not being reality-based”, allow me to quickly clarify before leaving this thread’s dead landscape. Within the scale of space and time the positive claims of religion do not pass muster. That said, I think much of religious teaching contains intuitive truths about the world and an unquestionable beauty of imaginative power. Science has sublated some aspects of Christianity as you allude to and is hardly a pure endeavor of objective discovery. I have no patience for those who take an insipid line of materialist deflation and think that religion has been replaced by science.
I wonder if people are really upset at the futility of conversations like these, or just uncomfortable with what they find to be a violation of manners. Religion is still a political force in the world and to address it, to engage in critique, is to give it the deserved honor of being taken seriously. I much prefer that to the waspish polite silence, the patronizing “well of course we don’t believe in that, but how nice for them, don’t you agree darling?’
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 4, 2008 4:33:28 PM
Caffeine delay - waspish should have been WASPY
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 4, 2008 5:27:39 PM
Chris-
The all came during or after the Renaissance--
The re discovery of Greek thought, after the dark period after the collapse of Hellenism ,and the dark period of Christianity (read Gibbons).
Freedom at last from small, suppressed empoverished minds!
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 4, 2008 11:33:43 PM
Dave, there are people who hear the word "Buddhism" and think "idol worship" - and they're not totally wrong about really-existing Buddhism. How can you be sure that your knee-jerk "talking snake" response isn't a similar prejudice?
Also, I think you're distorting history quite a bit trying to tease out a single untainted thread that will lead us to the promised land of "progress." Next I expect we'll hear about "medieval" witch burnings.
Anyway, it's fun needling you. Maybe some metta practice is in order for both of us?
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Mar 5, 2008 12:20:25 AM
Dave-
As a fellow atheist, I find your ranting to be quite possibly the best argument in this thread. Sadly, it's a slanderous one, slanderous against your fellow atheists. Let this be a plea for you to desist in your name calling and childish bickering, and to come back when you've matured enough to hold a conversation and present cogent points. Enough with Bill Maherisms, talking snakes, and magically underpants. They're funning as jokes, but they make truly atrocious arguments.
In general, it seems like the back and forth in this thread is it's downfall. Posters seem to stop typing before fully exposing their arguments, leading to endless bickering over what the other actually believes. A Lincoln-Douglas style debate is in order between the three sides. Maybe 3QD would be willing to host such on the front page so that the authors would take it seriously?
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Mar 5, 2008 4:55:31 AM
Viki--
Yes, metta practice for all beings (especially yourself!) is always skillful. As far as Talking Snakes, at least the ones in Bronze Age texts that are the basis for 2 billion people creation myths, one has to practice examination and equanimity on the subject, then make a skillful decision and act on it. My action stand up after long examination.
Talking Snakes are delusional. Christians are delusional.
I'll leave out the possibility that christians could be right, as I leave open the possibility that a drunken dwarf riding a unicorn will fall through my ceiling 30 seconds from now. I think the odds are better with the dwarf and unicorn.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 5, 2008 10:03:19 AM
Cyris-
When one takes out the talking snakes, the virgin births, the walking zombies, then subtracts a few thees and thos, what is left?
Other than a history of violence and intolerance?
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 5, 2008 10:11:13 AM
Dave-
Your last statement exemplifies my problem with your argumentative style.
What's left? Much art and music. Large portions of modern Western Philosophy. Could much of it have been derived in a world without religion? Sure, but it wasn't, and to act like religion hasn't given us much that is, indeed, positive is like trying to ignore the positive influence of drugs on culture. Both have deleterious effects, but both have inspired some of the most respected works in the world.
I'd also like to mention abolition and suffrage, two movements which have given western secularism much, yet have deeply religious roots.
So, like I said, feel free to stop making such ridiculous rhetorical sweeps of the pen and start making real arguments. Calling people stupid/delusional/crazy/suppressed because they currently believe something you don't is about as likely to change someone's mind as leaving a burning bag of shit on their front stoop.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Mar 5, 2008 10:55:46 AM
Cyris---
Yes, the feedback loops from religion did produce some great music, and some less so art.
Just what am I ignoring? I'm not out to change anyone's mind, as religious meme's would not that happen in a infected host. I know it is uncomfortable to look at essence of these camp fire stories from ignorant bronze age herders, but that is exactly what they are.
Please enlighten my thinking. I see religion a a natural phenomena , a product of evolution that was not penalized for heuristic jumps in logic. Unfortunately, this strategy that has kept humans alive, is a liability in the current world.
Humans are cognitively irrational, and this is not a good survival strategy.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 5, 2008 11:19:51 AM
Jesse,
Apologies for the improper lumping.
Certainly some people are uncomfortable with manners violations. I think they are right to be, not because we should all be Victorians, but because certain rhetorical tacks are destined to have no power of persuasion, and once that is gone all that is left is war, and there is already too much war.
I think this is what Cyrus is saying, above.
The only person that takes Dave Ranning seriously is Dave Ranning, bless his heart. But the Dawkinses and Weinbergs of the world have great intellectual influence. They don't make the case that their way of looking at things is valuable, they just declare the conversation has ended.
Many writers and academics--e.g. Scott Atran, Timothy Garton Ash, Mary Midgley, Karen Armstrong, Bruno Latour--make the convincing case that this type of intellectual imperialism has the predictable effect of actually increasing religious fundamentalism; and indeed, fundamentalism has exploded since the metaphysical shocks introduced by Nietzsche and Darwin.
It may be depressing, but it's also instructive that The Purpose Driven Life and the new Eckhart Tolle book are such hot sellers. People want purpose and meaning. If the modern scientific worldview makes no room for these things people will find them where they can. (I know the argument that science doesn't preclude meaning and purpose; but not everyone wants to be a Benthamite utilitarian.)
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Mar 5, 2008 11:47:19 AM
Chris---
"Intellectual Imperialism"-- I like that! As far a s Tolle, I agree it is depressing to think that peoples lives are that desperate to cling to these simple outlooks and solutions.
But it is better than talking Snakes, and examination is encouraged.
Science makes room for these people, they just need the curiosity and education to liberate them selves.
With a little work, the awe and wonder of evolution will make embarrassing creation myth pale as a impoverished view of their origins.
Posted by: dave Ranning | Mar 5, 2008 12:06:17 PM
Dave-
If you have no interest, or believe it impossible, to change minds, why choose to say anything at all? I fail to see the point, unless you wish to do nothing but antagonize others. And if there is one thing the world needs less of (besides religion), it's antagonism.
Basta.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Mar 5, 2008 2:44:42 PM
Cyrus --
Not being a mind-reader, I can't say why Dave says the things he does. But certainly people spend plenty of times saying things for other purposes than to change minds.
Some of us (the general "us") do, as you say, want nothing more than to roil the pot and antagonize other people. Sometimes we just want to perform for our favorite and most appreciative audience (ourselves). Sometimes we are reinforcing our own self-image or prejudices. Sometimes we think we are trying to change minds, but since we haven't done the hard work of self- and other-awareness that might lead our communications to actually be effective in that way, what we write actually pushes people further away.
And on and on.
Mostly I do no more than skim threads like this now -- slowing down for certain commenters, ignoring others completely since they never seem to say anything different from one time to the next -- just happy to run across a new thought or perspective or approach now and then. To modify an old saying... "So many blogs, so little time...."
Posted by: JanieM | Mar 5, 2008 7:09:48 PM
Cyris---
It is very simple-----
We have now come around on this thread that Talking Snakes. Virgin Births, and Resurrected Zombies are metaphors for, well good music and art?
The jury is still out on Psychopathic Sky Daddy's, and everyone must "have a belief in the belief in religion" (that it is essentially good).
And of course, we can't practice "Intellectual Imperialism" because someone one may need to defend female genital mutilation in a cultural debate.
What have I missed?
Oh- buddhism-- One must have pity on the christians, as because most buddhist are superstition based, like all religion, and some christians may also be.
What have i left out?
I sure there is something--
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 5, 2008 7:35:48 PM
JanieM, you are so right. I used to be invited to dinner parties in San Francisco given by Ji-ing Sun, one of the legendary daughters of Sun Yat-Sen. Her English comprehension was second to none, but she never achieved fluency, so she would announce a topic at table, and guests -- under extremely polite pressure to contribute an original thought or three -- would take turns. Er, I don't think we are like that here. I think lots of people write not because they have a well known point of view and figure it's time to trot it out again, but because they find out what they're thinking in the act of writing -- always interesting to one person, at least. And often to many more.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 5, 2008 7:36:35 PM
Elatia -- yes, great point, I forgot to include in my by no means exhaustive list the process of writing to find out what I think. I do that a lot, but being a very private person I tend to do it in early "shitty first drafts" (to borrow Ann Lamott's lovely phrase) that I keep to myself. Not that I don't learn still more about what I think by bouncing things around with other people...
Posted by: JanieM | Mar 5, 2008 8:26:50 PM
As far a the cultural contributions of religion, I can't help wondering what the great artists might have created if not restricted in subject matter by the Church?
Posted by: Christopher | Mar 6, 2008 11:52:46 AM
We have now before us the smoking gun evidence of the collapse of religious apologetics. Hedges' criticism of the New Atheists is entirely about their style.
He does not argue about substance because religious apologetics has nothing to say about the substance of atheist criticism : that religion is a historical lie; its teachings, when they are not positively despicable, are useless, the rattlings of old bones; and it's madness.
Hedges thinks he hears threats of violence and intolerance in the New Atheists. What he hears is drowned out by the drums of a religious establishment that is em>all about power and violence.
What the New Atheists really threaten is the edifice of privilege that provides Hedges and thousands like him with a comfortable living -- an edifice that has has been built from the bricks and mortar of religious oppresssion.
And what does he place in the balance aginst that? He doesn't like their tone?
Posted by: Bob Crispen | Mar 8, 2008 3:53:55 AM
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