June 25, 2008
Religion Naturalized?
Barbara Herrnstein Smith follows up her review of Boyer's Religion Explained with a review of Walter Burkert's Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions, over at the Immanent Frame:
The intellectual interest of the general program [of“cognitive” and/or “evolutionary” explanations of religion] and the promise of its cognitive-evolutionary approaches for affording better understandings of important features of human behavior and culture should, I think, be recognized. But I also think that critical attention should be given to the intellectual confinements represented by some of the program’s characteristic theoretical assumptions and methodological commitments, especially when viewed in relation to existing methods in the naturalistic study of religion and alternative theories of human behavior, culture, and cognition. Indeed, in spite of the disdain New Naturalists commonly exhibit for prior achievements and alternative methods (as illustrated by Boyer’s wholesale brush-offs), their characteristic cognitive-evolutionary accounts of religion are likely to become more substantial, persuasive, and illuminating when joined to studies by researchers and scholars working with other naturalistic approaches to religion, both social-scientific and humanistic.
A good example of such cross-disciplinary achievement is the study, Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions, by the distinguished German classicist Walter Burkert. Burkert’s account of the origins of archaic beliefs and practices, though thoroughly naturalistic, is not an example of the New Naturalism. Rather, in offering a series of perspectives on religion without pretensions to natural-scientific status itself, it underscores the promise of a biologically and otherwise scientifically informed approach to religion that is also instructed by and connectable to broader understandings of human behavior, culture, and history. A few passages from the book must suffice to illustrate these points here, but I hope they are suggestive enough.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 12:15 PM | Permalink
Comments
With apologies to the keepers of the Mulla Nas-rud'in corpus.
Two dogs happen upon a huge fossilized dinosaur bone fused to the bedrock. Unimpressed with its digestibility, one of them thinks it can be improved by burying it in sand and tries to drag it to the stream bank. The other thinks it can be softened up by burying it in the field and latches on to pull it the other direction. Each thinks the other is impeding their own progress and much yapping ensues.
The bone, however, is going nowhere. If anyone thought to ask it, it would probably say "I was here long before these dogs found me, and I will be here long after they exhaust themselves and move on to yap about other things, neither of them being capable in the least of understanding my true nature."
Posted by: Carlos | Jun 25, 2008 1:05:03 PM
Carlos--
At least you are consistent: You believe in a Psychopathic Space Daddy, extraterrestrial morality, and now you have added talking bones.
Lucky none of this has to be open to testing or peer review.
It is good narrative and story, and consistent with the other Bronze and Iron age creation myths.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jun 25, 2008 11:28:20 PM
Carlos,
If I understand you correctly, the great mystery that surrounds the all-loving "bone" in the sky is to be labelled as one that we will never understand. (neatly enshrouding itself from unwanted scrutiny as usual)
My question to you: why doesn't this cognitive impasse apply to you? You seem to be a great deal better informed of it's nature, needs and no-nos than Dave or I, despite our probably having looked more critically for evidence. Why you?
?
Posted by: MattInOz | Jun 26, 2008 2:02:12 AM
Why don't we just ask the Talking Snake?
I'll fly over on Mohammed's horse and see if he is available.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jun 26, 2008 10:02:01 AM
Why don't we just ask the Talking Snake?
I'll fly over on Mohammed's horse and see if he is available.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jun 26, 2008 10:03:40 AM
Why don't we just ask the Talking Snake?
I'll fly over on Mohammed's horse and see if he is available.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jun 26, 2008 10:04:37 AM
You may not understand me as well as you believe.
My point was trying to extract what religion is, from the point of view that it might be anything but the contemplative human relationship with an variably-eneffable supernatural reality, whether that relationship is multi or uni-lateral, is starting out with a rather limited premise. I suppose you have to have some sort of premise in order to get funding for studies like these, but the result: that religion is false because of this rather than false because of that, leaves no room for what many people feel is the real alternative.
I won't claim to be immune from any cognitive impasses. All of us now "see through a glass darkly. But soon we shall see face to face" (If I can borrow a translation from the proddies:-).
It may also not be true that you have looked more critically for evidence than I. My journey back from a severe and protracted case of juvenile atheism was a long and carefully reasoned one.
Posted by: Carlos | Jun 26, 2008 11:15:22 AM
god is ineffable which means he can never be effed.
Posted by: Jared | Jun 26, 2008 11:19:49 AM
From Meyers:
"I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.
Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.
Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.
Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics."
Carlos---
It is still imaginary, no matter what the conditions of your psyche are whispering to you.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jun 26, 2008 11:21:55 AM
Ah yes, the lout's complaint.
It is still imaginary, no matter what the conditions of your psyche are whispering to you.
Maybe you're my huckleberry? Please provide a scientifically coherent reply to Liebniz' P.E.Q.. Does Materialism meet your standard of plausibility? How so?
Posted by: Carlos | Jun 26, 2008 1:04:57 PM
"My journey back from a severe and protracted case of juvenile atheism was a long and carefully reasoned one."
Did your journey begin or end with the nicene creed?
Posted by: Doyle | Jun 26, 2008 2:32:23 PM
Neither. Although I do now subscribe to that creed. I became a disbeliever in rational materialism long before I became a Catholic.
Posted by: Carlos | Jun 26, 2008 6:09:39 PM
Carlos-
You are the one who woke up in the morning believing in the Psychopathic Space Daddy, who supplies you with extraterrestrial morality to guide your life. You added this to your world- I haven't.
Theses are extraordinary claims. In my world they need extraordinary evidence.
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.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jun 26, 2008 7:34:58 PM
Juvenile atheism indeed...
Carlos,
I will certainly grant you that I don't understand you too well - that was the reason for my post.
You failed spectacularly to answer my question as to the source of your special insight. How is it that you supposedly know more about the nature of gods than Dave and I when the same amount of evidence is available to all? It's a fair and powerful question, your obfuscation-free answer please...
Posted by: MattInOz | Jun 26, 2008 8:39:02 PM
Carlos, so far as I can tell the Leibniz/Swineburne P.E.Q. rests on an important presupposition: the ontological spontaneity of nothingness. This is the idea that being "sits over" nothingness, that it is something "added" to nothingness. Assuming that this is true requires us to postulate a transcendent, creative force which can create ex nihilo. But I cannot see any reason to believe that it is true.
Do you know of a way to support this presupposition a priori?
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jun 26, 2008 9:32:12 PM
"I became a disbeliever in rational materialism long before I became a Catholic."
Bull. My guess is that you were raised in a catholic family or community and that you had a rebellious crisis of faith (did sky daddy not talk back?). How many religious traditions did you study before settling on Catholicism? What ultimate truth does catholicism hold that the others don't?
For the others here, why waste your time?
Carlos is someone who has given himself to the belief that Jesus "was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary.... was buried, and the third day he rose again." This proudly-held dogmatic belief is anathema to any logic. There is no journey here (e.g. the implications of rejection of materialism) other than surrender of reason. If Carlos really followed his own B.S. he would merely be agnostic.
Posted by: Doyle | Jun 26, 2008 11:19:11 PM
This is a fun thread, and I'm dropping in on it tonight in a sort of a Hillary spirit, because Philosophy is the glass ceiling on this blog. No one ever even quotes Mary Midgely.
Has it occurred to anyone here that they are talking about belief? And not about knowledge? Yes, all of you, and not just the solitary Catholic, who realizes he's talking about faith, and has it anyway. They're imperturbable like that -- I went to a Catholic school, so I should know. But what about the rest of you, who are operating inside a belief system too?
How truly smart Richard Dawkins is cannot be told by noting he refrains from studying up on "Imaginary Fabrics." He is very smart because he has admitted in so many words that you cannot prove the non-existence of God if only because you cannot prove a negative, so that all anyone can actually be is an agnostic. That said, the idea of a Supreme Being is an absurdity to him, one to which serious consideration should not be given, as he sees it. He is awfully impassioned about his point of view -- and why should he not cleave unto it? It's the result of deep conviction and long-established habits of mind. Moreover, he thinks you should agree with him, that your personal intellectual liberty would thus be best guaranteed, not to mention your freedom from persecution by het-up fundies, who, themselves, would do better to have the Atheist epiphany and join the Brights. Yes, he thinks all this, without possessing or offering proof that God does not exist, without needing it.
This should tell you something. It should tell you at the very least that disdain and rationalism do not a proof make. Any more than mighty intellectual labor coupled with faith another kind of proof do make. Knowledge of the things we think we know is itself very full of tricks. Consider the famous essay of Thomas Nagel about the impossibility of knowing what it is to be a bat. If we can't know that, how much else can we not know? But we get through the world, anyhow, in the way we think is best -- this is belief.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jun 26, 2008 11:41:58 PM
While I appreciate the attempt to unmask the pretense to knowledge in arguments like this, the problem, Elatia, is that if we were to sit, content with the fact that everyone had their own set of beliefs which could not be held to certain interpersonal standards, then it's not clear what the point of discussion or even reason itself would be. We need not obsess about 'proving' each other wrong to merely ask each other for reasons that might justify belief.
Indeed, this is what is so troubling about God... that such a being is (by definition so difficult to talk or reason about, yet, if God is real, the implications for each of us are staggering. This is what sets most atheists' blood ablaze, I think... that people are willing to affirm a hypothesis that is at once so incredibly profound and incredibly empty.
I'd never heard of Midgley before (for shame!). I'm reading her papers now... thanks for the reference!
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jun 27, 2008 1:51:03 AM
Déjà vu, mes amis. Some interesting cut and paste Mr. Ranning.
http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2008/02/chris-hedges-co.html
Posted by: Jesse | Jun 27, 2008 6:14:21 AM
Man created god in an attempt to hide from the fact that the existence of the universe is a mystery. God was created so people could substitute the words "I believe" for the words "I don't know". Science has been spectacularly successful in explaining the mechanisms of the universe. It has not, and may never be able to explain its "coming" into existence (assuming there was a time before it existed) or whether it has a "purpose" in any sense that humans can understand. Neither religion nor science can explain the fundamental mystery of why we, or indeed anything, is here. Science, however, admits its limitations; religion does not. I am quite comfortable with the fact that our lives our founded on mystery. It makes life all the more interesting.
Posted by: Jared | Jun 27, 2008 9:46:44 AM
Thanks for the link, Carlos.
I have a half-written comment on this thread at home, that I thought, incorrectly, I'd emailed to myself at work.
But, not to show up to the party empty-handed, let me reply to Jared by saying that not all scientists, or religionists, would agree with you. What is "consilience" but the doctrine that all attempts at understanding should fall under one scientific umbrella? (To chime in on the Mary Midgley references, the critique of scientific omnicompetence is one her best themes).
And while it may be true that many or even most religions don't get too caught up in what they don't address, the fact that they all center on human limitation has to count for something. There are things that by our very nature we can never know, do, experience, or even inquire into. Religion is very explicit about this, usually conserving the type of knowledge or experience we wish we could have into a symbol of everythingness (and/or nothingness!) that is sometimes called God. This has everything to do with limitation, and perspective. It is a powerful foil against a Faustian hubris that we find in the earliest stories humanity thought to write down. By contrast, the best science can say about limitation is "we don't know--yet."
I've seen you a number of times blithely trotting out the folk anthropology that "I believe" is a cover for "I don't know." Is this a theory that you have some support for, or something you've baked up on your own. Either way, would you like to elaborate?
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Jun 27, 2008 12:18:25 PM
Nick, I couldn't agree more:
"[I]f we were to sit, content with the fact that everyone had their own set of beliefs which could not be held to certain interpersonal standards, then it's not clear what the point of discussion or even reason itself would be."
It would be a Rashomon old world when we disagreed, and when we agreed to disagree, one in which we were all blind men opining and palpating that elephant with so many confoundingly shaped parts. I'd rather watch America's Junior Miss get crowned every night, I'm sure, than go about my life like that.
Even so, if each one of us is, inside our epidermis, actually as permeable as Orion, the boundary delimiting our behind and the couch we sit upon an unstable thing as well, then what, pray, can be the shape of our thoughts? Kind of shaggy, maybe?
If someone says he is aware of the presence of God in his life, he has made an observation about his awareness. If he says more simply that God is in his life, he has also made an observation about his awareness, although he has done so in terms you can't agree with, incapable of proving otherwise to him as you are. To say, "I am not aware of God in my life" is likewise the same as saying "God is not in my life," although the latter declaration would give you less to quibble with than the former, if only because God is (probably!) not anywhere. I can't pin the reference down, but didn't Wittgenstein, writing on color among other things, write words to the effect that if a person said he saw a pink that was also green (an impossibility), we would have to believe him? Because color is an illusion begotten by light, and lacks for the kind of realness it would have if it didn't go away in the dark? Truly go away -- the red phone only looks red when a certain light is on. So that however a person experiences color, his account of that experience is not arguable with. Gee, and if that's only color...
I don't think this means the rest of the world, outside the God or No-God conversation, is just a whole lot of whatever, depending on whom you ask. I mean, what an appalling idea, not to say a false conclusion. We have a mission to find first causes, to ponder our condition, to improve our lives. If we do this we will keep meeting our limitations, as Chris points out. They are not frustrating to our condition but essential to it; they are literally how we know ourselves. If there is no spirit of inquiry, and no discussion, then we will not know ourselves.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jun 27, 2008 10:35:29 PM
That's a very insightful comment, Elatia, but I was confused about a small technical detail. By "God" did you mean Odin or Zeus or Vishnu or Seti or Tezcatlipoca or Minerva or Farbauti or Bixia Yuanjin or Poseidon or Hoori or Juturna or Yam or Inti or Tyche or Kukulcan?
Posted by: Thor | Jun 28, 2008 7:58:22 AM
Frankly, I'd settle for a Dish Fairy (sob!).
Posted by: aguy109 | Jun 28, 2008 1:01:53 PM
Hi again Elatia,
The point is well taken, and I do agree that certain internal experiences just don't submit to public examination (though Wittgenstien argued precisely the opposite, actually). An a welcome respite.analogue is easy to construct: I have a pleasant sensation when eating eggplant, you don't. There is no real disagreement here about eggplants.
I'll only repeat that the difficulty lies with the concept of God itself. The fact that internal experiences of God seem to (by all reports) point to something transcendent or external means that the eggplant analogy fails. Just about any religious person is committed to the idea that athiests are wrong, and not just wrong about some matter of taste, but about a supreme Prime-Moving force in the universe. If I am actually wrong about this, I am wrong about just about everything else I know. This is an awfully large suppository to take.
Anyway, keep on smashing that ceiling!
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jun 28, 2008 7:40:00 PM
Nick, I haven't got _On Colour_ here, so I can't paw around in it for areas my orange highlighter found a while back...at least I think it was orange. But wasn't one of Wittgenstein's points in that work to make an examination of something well accepted by epistemologists as context-independent, showing we couldn't be so certain of it?
Anytime you use the word "transcendent" to describe experience, aren't you already in trouble? Somewhere, there will be people who don't feel it and can't assent to it.
Let's stick with color. At the time of the Conquest, most Europeans, including the conquistadores, would have had about a five-word vocabulary for color. There were more words for how shiny or bright or dark something was than for how it was pigmented. Contrastingly, the Aztecs knew about 12 color words. In one of their myths about the Golden Age of Tula, cotton grew already dyed in these colors. In the absence of a color vocabulary up to new inputs, did the conquistadores report seeing many more new colors than they could name? No, they couldn't take it in, needing tools they did not have for processing what was before their eyes. Why isn't the big stuff in life like that?
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jun 28, 2008 9:36:10 PM
Guess I need to catch up with this thread. I've been busy getting my eldest (son) married off, but last things first, and completly off topic...on color. Can what you say possibly be true, Elatia? Do you include artists in your pre-conquest most? How many handmixed yet available colors are in Campin's Altarpiece? We still don't know how medieval glass artists achieved the colors they did. It's not a subject I have currebt expertise in, although part of my schooling involved working with pigments. Here is a document about color from that era with a longer list of colors than most people I know today would even imagine exist. The art of limming
I'll try to respond to some of the questions posed to me personally in the next day or so. Nick's most of all, since he is the only one who has bothered to address mine in a substantial way.
Quick note to Jesse. Your 667 line had already gotten me a few laughs. Thanks for the line and the link.
Posted by: Carlos | Jun 30, 2008 12:09:32 AM
Dave: Not my Huckleberry
Doyle: False
Thor: It's you baby
Elatia: Thanks for Midgley
"But I cannot see any reason to believe that it is true."
Where are you coming from with this Nick?
I may accept a transcendent creator as an explanation, but nobody is required to accept that. That is not what I'm asking of Dave el al who insist my house is built on sand.
They are only required to posit a coherent alternative. A means beyond materialism that is consistent with materialism; a way to break all their rules while keeping them intact.
My personal observation is that is something nobody is willing to seriously discuss, but to my mind it betrays the materialist view as a hollow sham, particularly as it is leveled as an enlightened counter to any theistic view.
Our recently deceased genius Carlin used to tell a story of a woman who claimed that the world rested on the back of a turtle, when challenged to say what that turtle stood upon she said another turtle. "and that one?" Another turtle, and on and on until she blurted out "It's no use, buddy, it's turtles all the way down." This is the foundation of rational materialism, which posits either no beginning or an infinite regression of steps amounting to no beginning. Something from nothing is illegal, so they claim nothing is the impossibility, and something always being here is a normal rational state of affairs. It's preposterous, and nearly as amusing as George's jab at religious faith but for the earnestness with which they will dodge the question.
Show you the evidence? Show me! At least I'll admit to the miracle, and isn't that the first step to healing? We can discuss the next steps later :-)
Posted by: Carlos | Jun 30, 2008 11:12:10 PM
Carlos:
1. You specifically mentioned an argument (P.E.Q.). I'd heard of it, I investigated, and found a possible flaw. If the argument is as important as you say, might you be moved to attempt a defense of it?
2. You're building an awful lot off the foundation of "materialism is false". Many philosophers accept the falsity of materialism, but few are theists as a consequence. If you've seen me posting on here, you know that I hate dogmatic anti-religious materialism as much as anyone else. But materialism is really irrelevant, here... what people are looking for is a justification of the beliefs contained in your first comment.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jul 1, 2008 4:03:17 AM
Nick:
If I can, but it seems so self evident to me that nothing must be the natural state of affairs that I'd prefer someone explain that problem away first.
But I'd like to know the flaw you are thinking of.
My first comment on this thread was simply along the lines of: people trying to discover what manner of fish a cow is are unlikely to discover the truth. It just put me in mind of a Sufi story I read decades ago, and so I shared my version of it. There is a bit of history on this site. Dave is an anti-theistic Buddhist whose main hobbies seem to be cultivating inner perfection and mocking religion as an unsupportable premise. Which is fine as a lifestyle choice, but, lacking his inner peace, his knee jerk responses sometimes generate one of mine.
Ultimately, however I got here, the only justification I offer for my beliefs is that I believe, in a Christian sense, in a god that has reached into the frame. Clearly therefore, I think that deconstructing faith from a materialist pov is fruitless.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 1, 2008 7:25:42 AM
Carlos,
What myself and both Dave and Nick are getting at is that it may be fine to believe that materialistic views of the world are false (I don't personally believe this, besides there is no support one way or the other that tells us whether 'something' or 'nothing' is the more natural state of affairs) but it's a long way from there to "therefore the Christian worldview imagined into existence by some woefully ignorant bronze age herders contains deep truths of the universe". (Remembering that ignorance is no crime, just a description of their knowledge state relative to ours today - as ours today will be to those of 3226AD)
You have still failed to enlighten us as to the source of your special understanding..
Posted by: MattInOz | Jul 1, 2008 9:03:20 PM
You have still failed to enlighten us as to the source of your special understanding..
Well I keep answering your questions. You keep waffling mine at the expense of scientific credulity.
why doesn't this cognitive impasse apply to you?
what people are looking for is a justification of the beliefs contained in your first comment.
If you believe in a rational, materialist, reductionist universe excluding the supernatural, and I believe you are claiming that you do, then refusing to address my question beyond the profoundly anti-reductionist, anti-materialist, irrational, and purely academic position that there is "no support one way or the other that tells us whether 'something' or 'nothing' is the more natural state of affairs" is not very satisfying.
Nick, you said you had something you wanted to discuss about the PEQ? What was it?
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 3, 2008 7:21:03 AM
Carlos,
It's not a case of me 'believing' in anything. I don't 'believe' in a rationalist, reductionalist... universe'. What I have been trying to say is that when I look at the world and see how it operates I (along with countless others) note that it behaves in certain predictable ways on scales that I'm familiar with (and with the right tools can be studied on scales I'm not). Therefore, I can for the time being operate under the assumption that the world is understandable without resorting to the supernatural. Quite clearly, if the supernatural did operate in our universe, we should immediately cease all efforts to understand it and suspend all claims to knowledge about it because there would forever be two possible answers to each possible question and no way to elucidate which is true. Not a very useful state of affairs.
Now as has been stated time and again, if people wish to point the finger and say 'you evil reductionist, atomist, materialist... how could you ever think that there is not a mystical side to the universe' then it is absolutely encumbent upon those people to clearly show where in our universe the supernatural has been or is being operative. If they cannot, then of course it is quite a reasonable assumtion to continue operating as if the natural laws are all there is, until proven otherwise. 'Belief' doesn't come into it. It is disingenuous and semantic (despite being a favourite ploy of the faithful) to equate their unfounded belief with a rationalist's reason for arriving at their conclusions - which, incidently are ALWAYS ready to be altered according to updated information. The track reocrd of science over such a short span of centuries speaks volumes about this. Given that religions have had their chance, in fact countless chances over thousands of years to prove their validity and haven't, I hold the scientific or 'rationalist' position most deserved of the title 'reasonable'.
It's not like I don't understand the position you are in either Carlos, I grew up reciting that nonsensical Creed. I have lived within those spheres of utter contradiction and know them well. It just beats me how adults continue to fawn over these faulty fables.
Posted by: MattInOz | Jul 3, 2008 10:13:34 PM
MattinOz:
Well said. But I do urge you to give up. If you swim on the side of reason, you will invariably be derided for failing to walk on water.
Posted by: Ruchira | Jul 3, 2008 10:44:48 PM
Ruchira,
Maybe you are right. Truly, I should be glad to keep my head above water.
Who's your pick for the men's/women's titles on turf...?
Posted by: MattInOz | Jul 3, 2008 10:58:04 PM
MattinOz:
Women: Venus
Men: Not really sure. But I am still leaning towards Nadal.
Posted by: Ruchira | Jul 3, 2008 11:29:43 PM
Carlos, see a few pages up for my critique of PEQ. I'm four gin and tonics into the evening, and I honestly don't feel like copying and pasting it.
Matt... interesting analysis, but I'm left wondering how you can claim that "It's not a case of me 'believing' in anything." when you clearly hold loads of beliefs that aren't just logical truths. You're a fairly strong naturalist... nothing wrong with that, but it's a position that turns out to be somewhat difficult to defend.
One problem, for example, is that strong naturalists seem to give primary importance to empirical data. Well, on what grounds are we justified in accepting empirical or sense-data? All the usual justifications seem to be based on further empirical data ("because it works", where "works" turns out to mean "we observe it working"). Circularity bites hard, here.
My point is not to slander your ideas, but to suggest that of the two strategies:
1. Carlos, you're wrong about the universe because I'm right about the universe, or
2. Carlos, you're wrong because you can't seem to provide any good arguments for your claims,
The latter is clearly more effective, because it precludes any counter-attacks on your own position, which may not be as obviously defensible as it seems.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jul 4, 2008 12:05:31 AM
This thread and other similar ones on the theology topic all seem so 'goyisher' to me. When Jews discuss religion, we hardly ever argue about the existence or non existence of a deity, instead we talk about who eats shellfish , who doesn't, should shops be closed on a sabbath etc. Christians and ex-Chritians, I've always noticed, put all the emphasis on BELIEF - if you don't believe such and such you're out. It really is a different mind set. Religion should be about what values and actions you try to pass on to children and horizontally accross a community. Prayer is about praying together and recognizing some sense of equality and common purpose and direction. Secularism and science should be used to deflate religious institutions from pompose claims to mastery over physics and biology and let them concentrate on the social and moral issues.
Posted by: aguy109 | Jul 4, 2008 2:24:54 AM
Nick,
Point taken and I can absolutely see where you are coming from. But I must admit (of course you will expect this) that on a deeper level I think what you say is technically misleading if not mistaken. I will attempt to explain why I think that is.
Sorry Ruchira (sheepishly grins) I took the bait again...
I don't know the true extent of 'the meeting of the minds' (so will not pigeon-hole you too much) but your thought processes on this seem to share a number of commonalities with our good friend Mr Schoen over at Underverse. Correct me if I'm wrong. While realizing that there are as many different viewpoints on this as there are minds to hold them, I will try to summerize the two opposing ones being argued here thus:
(i)Myself, Dave Ranning etc - As far as we can tell, there is no need to invoke the supernatural or gods to explain the workings of the universe. Using history as our guide we can see that, once, there were woeful gaps in our knowledge that could only be filled by appeal to the supernatural. We can also see that as our instrumentation and our minds have evolved alongside each other, these gaps have been filled with satisfying rational explanations. New questions arise and we attack these with the same methods to see where objective examination will take us. Ours is a position arrived at, to some extent, by extrapolation. If the gods didn't do what we thought they did in the past, why should they be considered to reside in the shrunken realms they are currently granted. We can keep on working away at answering our questions even in the knowledge that the job is likely to be infinite and still be satisfied that by better coming to know our place in the universe we can lift the people around us. Both literally and figuratively. We can literally use these rational tools to lift their standard of living while at the same time, lift their 'spirit' by giving them an inkling of what they are a part of. To hold this position is not a 'belief' any more than that which says I 'believe' the sun will rise tomorrow.
ii)youself, Chris - yes, yes we know that organised religion is bad and that gods don't really exist and we are, in fact, atheists for all intents and purposes. But the human spirit is such a wonderful thing, thriving as it does on art, myth and metaphor. Consciousness, wow, now there's a big mystery! Can't explain it right now, looks awfully complicated to me, I find it incredible that that mass of communicating neural tissue could ever become aware of itself, therefore all the people dedicating their lives to answering just this question are not to be lauded for their contribution, oh no, they are to be denigrated as horrible reductionists who dare to think that we may uncover the foundations of love and learning or that genes shape mental characteristics. How dare they, is nothing sacred? Yes, yes I know I am an atheist just like you but surely those others, we can grant them their little indulgent mental comforts so as not to upset the applecart too much, can't we? After all, it FEELS like it's true sometimes, doesn't it?
I apologize PROFUSELY in advance if your thinking on these matters does not overlap at all closely with Chris, as I have assumed. I will state right now that a good part of that paragraph was aimed at what I perceive to be HIS line of thinking, if only because it was triggered by something YOU said.
I don't take sides in this because of any combative fetish I have, nor to hone my skills in defending a position. I do it purely for the fact that one side is open, honest, understanding, humble and above all, has the power to get things done. The alternative view, (or at least the one put forward by Chris) while not treading on anyone's toes, is a little like pissing in the hot tub - it won't perceptibly change the colour or temperature of your surrounds, is unlikely to offend anyone and sure makes youself feel better, but is it right...
In truth, to me it seems more about 'feeling' your way through life (don't get me wrong, I love surrendering myself to senses and emotions as much as the next fellow) without 'thinking' sometimes about what the consequences of more insidious forms of this thought process may be for those who don't live under the protections or conditions we are lucky enough to enjoy.
I just think it's a wishy washy position to hold, one that lacks power to predict anything or do anything positive for people apart from re-inforce their false comforts, if that can even be considered positive.
Have at it.
Matt
Posted by: MattInOz | Jul 4, 2008 3:25:47 AM
MattinOz,
No need to grin sheepishly - you did well. Circular arguments like the snake swallowing its own tail is all you'll get when you argue on the premises laid out by the spiritualists. Empirical evidence leading to more empirical evidence. Indeed! What other kind is there?
May be you and I are too dense and will never see the "light." Here is what I once said on my blog when caught in a similar backing and forthing.
"For societal dialogue, we need to rely on our earthly understanding of doing good while making good as the basis of our ethics. Spirituality needs to be an individual quest - for those who seek it. And perhaps that's all there is to it - an infinite quest and not a definite answer in the realm of spirituality.
We can perhaps some day all agree on what defines "common good," here on earth, but may never agree on the meaning of the universe or our existence. It is precisely when one or more humans claim to have the last word on that question that conflicts begin and blood is shed. We need to keep the two pursuits separate.
Posted by: Ruchira | Jul 4, 2008 12:38:59 PM
Thanks Ruchira, I'm not sure I understand that quote entirely, but hey, like you say, we're probably just too dense.
Have a great weekend, all of you.
Matt
Posted by: MattInOz | Jul 4, 2008 10:31:12 PM
Ruchira, the problem of justifying empirical evidence is a serious issue in epistemology and has received heavy treatment from, among others, David Hume, immanuel Kant, Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, WVO Quine and Hilary Putnam.
FYI, there is almost certainly such a thing as "a priori" or non-empirical evidence: the notion that "a proposition cannot both be both true and false" is a non-empirical truth. Before rushing headlong into philosophical naturalism or empiricism, you may want to look this stuff up.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jul 4, 2008 11:10:35 PM
Nick:
I'm sorry, I read your previous comment to me: ...I investigated, and found a possible flaw... as an indication that you had something further to reveal, rather than a simple re-affirmation of what you had previously written.
Ruchira:
Spiritualist’s circular reasoning? I must conclude you are referring to mine, but the reasoning being discussed here is the materialist view, not the “spiritualist.” After all, the only reason I even brought up the PEQ was that I was challenged to provide evidence that my point of view was logically supportable. My suggestion that a logically supportable pov is certainly not in evidence among the materialists has not been even weakly rebutted, but why not? Are you really OK with the circular reasoning of the reductionist’s infinite stack of turtles?
Why side with those who require logic from me and mine, but not, while watching them suggest throwing the whole lot of us over the side, request the least bit of support for the position you feel obviates ours?
You have brought up something which goes to the crux of the matter, and which was also referenced by MattlinOz. You state that spiritual quests and and earthly understanding of doing good are unrelated; Mattlin rejoices that at least we can all agree that organized religion is a bad thing. I think those two claims cry out for substantiation. Considering how many billions of people there are on earth that constrain themselves to a humanitarian code of behavior based upon their understanding of what their God(s) demand of them (as communicated by organized religion), has anyone really done the math and imagined how much differently they might behave if they had no standard to follow? Has anyone honestly considered how even those who believe there are no gods might be affected by examplars who do?
Whatever you feel the the answers to those questions are, they can't possibly be sufficiently informed. You can’t do that math; can’t subtract the contributions of the faithful from the course of human events and conclude that your recalculation would result in a better history or a brighter tomorrow.
In simplest terms, if you could erase everything that people who love God have ever done, and will ever do. What does your gut tell you? Would you do it?
But back to the PEQ
I’m still looking for scientifically coherent explanations of why something rather than nothing. “Why not?” Seems to be as good as it gets here and elsewhere. http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/55/4/561”>Adolf Grünbaum will go a bit further and suggest (while dodging) that even asking the question is “ill-conceived,” but I don’t think it is. I think it goes to the heart of the first principle of Atheism, that God can be rejected because he is unnecessary. As MattlinOz suggests, all the rest of Atheism can be extrapolated from that initial claim, therefore, some measure of initial proof seems called for. As an antidote to Grünbaum’s academic dismissal of the claim, another academic <http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/do_science_and_rationality_support_atheism/>Dr. Edward Relmer, a nuclear physicist from William & Mary College takes a slightly different direction with what he calls the FQP Fundamental Question of Philosophy in a blog post with several pages of comments of varying quality.
Doyle suggested earlier that anyone who rejected Materialism would be an Agnostic. This is clearly false, as one side of the either/or uncertainty of Agnosticism has already been rejected. The question of what the nature of that supernatural agency might be still remains, but its non-existence has been ruled out.
MattlinOz also suggested that there is a very wide gap between the irrationality of Materialism and accepting Christianity. That is so, although once rejection of the supernatural is no longer possible, the Anthropic principle can be seen with a different perspective. Still a long way? Perhaps, but the whole nature of man, given a sense of potential purpose by a possibly purposeful universe, is given relevance only through religious thought. If there was a god; and he desired both faith and the cultivation of a certain set of behaviors as a precursor to a richer set of experiences; and if I could enjoy an immensely satisfying and joyous life while Hopefully preparing, in Faith, through Charity, for continued life in that undiscovered country from whose bourn no man returns; what would I, like Pascal, have to lose. Much unless, in fact. And how illogical is the possibility that prophesy makes this course clear when the supernatural task of creating existence has already been established, and when the Anthropic principle becomes, potentially, so richly meaningful as a result. Not very. In fact, the biggest hurdle was crossed long ago by each of us, when we all accepted creation or spontaneous existence. The second hurdle (the anthropic principle) can certainly be rejected, but without the primary compelling reason of an asupernatural universe.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 4, 2008 11:37:30 PM
Good thread.
Matt,
Nick and I are not acquainted and have never corresponded outside the comments section of 3QD. But I am always happy to see his comments here.
Nick is absolutely right to point out that this is going to be a difficult conversation to have if you continue to bootstrap your naturalism on its own self-evidence. This is a move that does not get much support from the last several centuries of logical thought. If you're going to characterize your view as representative of light and reason, and the critical view as ignorance and obscurantism, you're going to have to account for the actual intellectual challenges to your position, and not be content to continually point out that some worldviews are stupider than yours. Everyone frequenting this site knows that already.
In your summary of my position above, you recapitulate Dawkins' and Dennett's characterization of so called "Chamberlainian atheists," which is something I've argued against several times. I do *not* believe that religion should be tolerated as an indulgence for those who can't handle cold hard reality. To the contrary, I think that few worldviews are more "comforting" than scientific materialism, which is precisely why it has had to plug up its ears against the critiques by the writers Nick mentions, and many more.
You can't have conclusions without premises--these are the turtles all the way down. Take them away and we're all just hurtling in space.
Carlos,
I think people here are interested in how you get, logically, from a "possibly purposeful universe" to the specific purpose circumscribed by Roman Catholic doctrine. Put another way, what is the logical error of the Buddhist, Hindu, Protestant, or Muslim, that deprives her or him of "continued life"?
I agree with you that why there is something rather than nothing is an important question to ask. It's too easy to take for granted that the world just is, and we are helped to better appreciate it by imagining that it might have been different, or never been at all. However, I think Nick's point is a good one. Why assume that nothingness precedes somethingness?
Yes, rationalism implies there must either be a first cause or an infinite regress. But if we are making allowances for an eternal, omnipresent god, then suddenly infinite regresses become possible. Certainly an omnipotent god is not restrained by mere logic.
You write that you'd like someone to explain away the problem of nothingness being "the natural state of affairs," but this is simply a new a priori proposition, requiring its own argument. God might not have to "start somewhere," but we do. It seems to me that any logical argument for theism must run up against this problem: how to demonstrate the infinite in terms of the finite?
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Jul 5, 2008 12:50:15 PM
Adolf Grünbaum will go a bit further and suggest (while dodging) that even asking the question is “ill-conceived,” but I don’t think it is.
Truly, a stunning and decisive refutation of Grünbaum's argument.
Dr. Edward Relmer
You do realize that without telling us what this guy's argument says, this is actually an argument by footnote, hey?
However, I don't think I need any more proof, dear Carlos, that you're not interested in engaging with the substance of the arguments in this matter, the terms of which you had the luxury of defining, so that's me out of this thread. Cheerio!
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jul 5, 2008 1:02:03 PM
Nick (or the cloud of dust you left):
You kinda truncated my comment about Adolf's dismissal there, boyo, so your critique of it is unfair, don't you think? His claim is that the question should not be asked? Really? I can't make sense of his argument, so I posted a link to it. Likewise, Relmer argument deserves to be read in its entirety.
I thought I was doing my best to seem very interested in any comments you might have to make, and again I'm sorry for inferring you had anything further to add, but thanks for putting up with me as long as you did.
Chris:
Per PEQ.
Why assume that nothingness precedes somethingness?
Yes, rationalism implies there must either be a first cause or an infinite regress. But if we are making allowances for an eternal, omnipresent god, then suddenly infinite regresses become possible. Certainly an omnipotent god is not restrained by mere logic.
I'm left holding this discussion with the least materialist person on here, so I probably need not point out (again) that I am not posing a defense of theism here. I am requesting a defense of materialism or that posture of atheism that contends god is to be rejected because he is unnecessary. All that is necessary for the contentment of these atheists is to suggest that if something always was, no further examination is required. Tell me, how is this not magical thinking? If something, how and why? Or at least how? It also seems to me that one thing would not be enough. A match can't light itself, and anything being acted upon must needs have something else acting upon it, or at least have some agency causing it to act upon it self. So even something vs nothing is not enough, we require a whole pantheon of something. Forgive me, but it just seems absurd to claim allegiance to rationalism and be willing to ever allow the process to start halfway down the road. It's positively supernatural. I've been trying to come up with an apt analogy but they all seem a bit too obvious for this august assembly. Maybe I'll just leave you with a reference to Steve Martin's formula for becoming a Millionaire: "OK! First, get a million dollars…". Well maybe one more: Imagine a group of people who didn't believe in Architects and got around the problem by positing the spontaneous existence of houses. Then they ask you to defend the contrary position and get all huffy when you don't.
Per my faith:
Long and winding road. One point that sticks out is a Sufi story about a man that was courting a beautiful woman but one day caught a glimpse of her beautiful sister and was smitten anew, with the requisite meltdown and moral. I took this as a bit of a slap at people who think they have to run far to find the truth when it is right there in front of them. Catholicism was not right in front of me but Christianity was, and I eventually found all roads performed as advertised.
I certainly don't believe that any seekers after truth are necessarily damned by their own error or even by the error they were handed or beguiled by. Neither this Catholic nor the one currently sitting in the chair of Peter thinks that a Muslim goes to hell because of being Muslim, or even that a Catholic goes to heaven because they call themselves Catholic. The "official" Catholic position is that all believers have a portion of the truth, Just not all of it. Christ will judge us all, but he is presumed to be fairly forgiving.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 5, 2008 5:37:57 PM
Chris S:
It's contributors like you who make this blog so valuable. Thank you.
General notes:
Commitment to reason is one thing—which most of us here seem to passionately share—but a whole lot has always passed under that banner, including unreason and self-deception. To point this out vigorously is not to be apologists for religion (read this again). I debate religious folks among my family and friends. I also debate the self-avowed rationalists, among whose ranks I often spot the following:
a) A very shaky understanding of the relationship between science and metaphysics; a simplistic equating of science with reason and reason with science.
b) Culling evidence based on personal politics and fears (which is how anyone does it), but which then fuels a self-righteous pomposity best matched by evangelical religion.
c) A caricatured, extremist view of the religious, which is more self-serving than having strong links to reality (the gap between the moderate masses and the extremist few is collapsed).
d) The unfounded assumption that the world will move in a more "desirable" direction if religion/theism somehow disappeared, or that the exercise of reason will produce compatible, harmonious ends among humans.
e) Lack of a sophisticated political sensibility that understands the links between claims to knowledge and power/domination (if, to seek clarification for this point, all you can think of is the age-of-the-earth argument or resurrection, my point is made).
It's true that I do not seek out religious blogs for debate. I also do not rail against religious extremists on my blog (I did it a couple of times, then it struck me they aren't reading it, why waste time). But this does not mean I harbor respect for religion (tolerance often, respect no), or tolerance for the moral excesses that can be traced to religious motivations. Instead, I draw inspiration from Adorno's words (paraphrase) that one moves closer to the truth when one's intellectual work examines/hurts one's own interests and of one's own class.
If the only choice given me is between the "Jesus camp" and the "Reason camp", the latter advertised as "open, honest, understanding, humble" (quoting MattlinOz), I'll first have to puke, then exhort Scotty to beam me up!
Posted by: Namit | Jul 5, 2008 5:41:31 PM
Whoa, Matt, I thought your reply to me was to someone else. I suppose I should respond, even after making a huffy exit... sorry for the delay. Namit beat me to most of these punches, soo...
To hold this position is not a 'belief' any more than that which says I 'believe' the sun will rise tomorrow.
This is an excellent example, and it's worth noting that to this day David Hume's word on sunrises is taken to be pretty much final: reason alone cannot bring us this belief (in the causal regularity of the universe). Something more is required... this is why the atheist-fadder's constant references to "reason" rub me the wrong way, because what they really mean by "a reasonable person" is "a person who shares the metaphysical beliefs that I do." (see Namit's A.)
I think, however, that your caricature of where folks like Chris and I are coming from is bang-on... we do have an intuitive distrust of reductionism, we do feel emotionally disturbed at the idea of a universe reduced to facts. We are deeply concerned with "scientism" because we find it both indefensible and abhorrent. But something I've come to realize is that just because you start arguing from a certain emotional position, that doesn't by itself invalidate the arguments you eventually put forward.
The connection between the two paragraphs I've just written is crucial: I believe that your so-called "rational" metaphysical beliefs are actually bolstered by what we might call "normative" judgment or intuition. Your worldview is, in fact, not just one of "facts", there is a belief in the value and purpose of science for example, one which is no less emotional and a-rational than the emotions Chris and I start with. Our main accusation, then, is one of self-contradiction: reason is championed and violated in the same argument.
And if reason is anything, it's the pursuit of non-contradiction.
So, if people are in an uncharitable mood, yes, I think they could call us "mysterians" or something like that, because we have a certain set of emotional tendencies. However, a more charitable label is definitely "skeptic". In the grand tradition of Hume himself (perhaps the greatest philosopher of science who ever lived), I cannot watch a group of people criticize the religious for being "irrational" when they themselves rest their claims on beliefs that reason cannot validate.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jul 7, 2008 12:32:15 AM
Nick, Chris, Carlos et al,
Thanks for your patient elucidations. Will pick it up on another thread no doubt. You've tended to neatly side-step one major aspect of what I've been trying to say, but with some mental digestion and further reflection, I might be able to come at it from a different angle.
Posted by: MattInOz | Jul 7, 2008 6:41:39 AM
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