I struggle to see through the rampant commercialism, the over-consumption and the glazed-eyed happiness of the holiday season. But maybe I’ve had a break-through. It keeps recurring to me this month that kind and thoughtful atheists/agnostics have an immense amount in common with millions of kind and thoughtful people who believe in God.
Too many of us have too much in common, in fact, for me to stand by silently while the “new atheists” (led by Richard Dawkins) repeatedly belittle Believers. Most of these new atheists claim that religious moderates, by their silence, are enabling the social destruction wrought by fundamentalists. I think that is often true. By the same token, moderate atheists/agnostics are adding unnecessary fuel to the belief/non-belief wars when they fail to speak up during the new atheist hyper-scoldings of believers.
I suspect that many of the new atheist criticisms of religion underestimate the function served by the type of religion practiced by most religious moderates (I think that David Sloan Wilson has it right on this point) and that they over-estimate the ability of science to provide substitutes for whatever it is that religious moderates get out of their practice of religion (on this point, see this Salon.com interview of theologian John Haught).
In fact, many of the new atheist scoldings smell of schadenfreude and vengeance. I agree that much of criticism is warranted on an intellectual level, but it seems like we really need to sit down and figure out how to get along with each other, for the common good. Is that possible? Absolutely. We’ve got a country to turn around and we need the help of the many smart and good-hearted believers who line up with us well on so many issues. It always has been possible for us to work with each other and it always will be, as long as we limit membership in our “club” to people who are kind and thoughtful.
Before I continue, I need to define who I’m not including by use of the phrase “kind and thoughtful.” I’m leaving out fundamentalists. Yes, the fundies often show common courtesies—they hold doors open for others and they say “please and thank you.” The social, political and intellectual damage that they have brought, however, means that they don’t qualify as either kind or thoughtful. Who are these people I’m scolding? I’ll refer to Jimmy Carter’s definition of “fundamentalist”:
A fundamentalist believes, say, in religious circles, that I am close to God. Everything that I believe is absolutely right. Anyone who disagrees with me, in any case, is inherently wrong and therefore, inferior. And it violates my basic principles if I negotiate with anyone else or listen to their point of view or modify my own positions at all. So that is what has permeated this administration.
One more explanatory note before moving on: There are religious organizations that are entirely fundamentalist and there are other organizations that are not, but that include sub-groups of fundamentalists. To really get it right, each person should be judged individually. My quick test is whether a person is strongly motivated to impose his or her own image and likeness upon the rest of us. If so, we’ve got ourselves a fundamentalist (of one flavor or another).
Setting aside those fundamentalists, then, what do the rest of us have in common? What do kind and thoughtful believers have in common with kind and thoughtful atheists and agnostics? The list is almost endless. Every day is a good day for all kind and thoughtful people to remember this.
We recognize a rampant dysfunctional sense of community.
We notice moral incontinence abounding—too many people who are all-too-willing to unquestioningly submit to their immediate materialist and biological urges.
We recognize conspicuous consumption that is so dramatic that it keeps many of us from participating in the community building we desperately need.
We recognize the critical importance of raising thoughtful and sensitive children in safe neighborhoods.
We all believe in redemption; We know that lending desperate people a helping hand is something we should
We believe strongly in the value of cultural institutions such as libraries, museums, and universities, especially when they challenge us.
We believe in elementary schools that teach our children to think critically and to continuously reevaluate who they are and who they should be as individuals and as a society.
We support strong science guided by a wide-open sense of wonder.
For every agnostic or atheist I know who ascribes to these sorts of principles, I can name a person who is “spiritual but not religious” who agrees and two additional supporters who regularly attend some sort of church.
If the above principles aren’t enough, consider the hundreds of important and basic things that all atheists/agnostics have in common with all Believers. Reading this list compiled by Donald Brown, should dampen the enthusiasm of anyone who claims that the odd religious assertions of moderates should always be front and center when we atheists/agnostics are trying to figure out who these folks are.
I’ve certainly heard objections to getting too cozy with believers. I am well aware of the strange things that kind and thoughtful Believers say, especially on Sunday. Yes, these things are unsubstantiated and often creepy. But guess what? Kindhearted and thoughtful religious moderates don’t usually say such things outside of their Sunday services and they really (really) do see eye to eye with many of us skeptics on many of the things that really count.
If saying strange things disqualifies us from respecting other people, also consider the many bone-headed things that other atheists/agnostics say and do. There are many atheist/agnostic Neocons out there, for example. Also consider the atheists/agnostics who believe in astrology, nihilism, the free market as an all-purpose Savior to human ineptitude, or that science somehow provides all the answers to those who ponder the human condition (I’m not suggesting that anyone has all the answers).
Let’s make sure that we atheists/agnostics are not making it too much of a priority to bond and work mainly with those who happen to be atheists/agnostics when we might have a whole lot more in common with those people who like to give a weekly nod to Jesus-the-hippie-philosopher.
Civility and basic respect toward those with opposing views is necessary in advancing atheism or even basic decency.
But speaking the truth plainly in appropriate context (and a book on issues of atheism is appropriate context) is not only appropriate but required. It shows disrespect to present a softened version of our views or omit consequences to the belief of moderate Christianity. It implies that they (moderate Christians) are too fragile to handle a reasonable challenge to their beliefs. Do you take offense when a challenge is made to the things you believe? Should you?
I can't claim to have read even a small fraction of the things the "new atheist" have written but so far I have read nothing I consider ill considered.
If you have specific examples you care to share, please do.
Pat: Good comment. What I'm suggesting is a matter of emphasis more than a matter of whether or not to speak the truth. Are the things claimed by many Believers ill-considered, superstitious, nonsensical and unsupported by evidence? I think so. And those believers might need to be reminded, occasionally, that I differ with them on those issues.
Let's assume, though, that we meet a good-hearted and thoughtful religious moderate who makes it clear that she believes that Jesus saved us from our sins. I am at a fork in the road. Do I give her a lecture that what she believes is "silly," citing all of the precise and well-considered reasons cited by Dawkins et al? Or do I do some extra work to recognize many of the commonalities I have with this woman? After all, this hypothetical starts with the assumption that she is a good-heated and thoughtful religious moderate, implying that she and I can collaborate on unnumerable projects to improve the community. Truly, there is a lot of work to do out there and good-hearted and thoughtful humans of all religious stripes need each other, especially in the age where fundamentalism has taken such deep root in so many people.
Bill Clinton gave a terrific speech where he emphasized that we should focus on commonalities. http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1369 The other way of looking at this is the "danger of focusing on human differences." As I have struggled to figure out how to emerge a bit from my writing and to get involved in my community, Clinton's advice appears all the more valuable.
I've struggled with these issues a lot. On the one hand, many believers carry their beliefs around like a rather innocuous good luck charm. They don't REALLY believe these things they utter. In those cases, drawing the line in the sand can destroy a valuable opportunity to work together to improve education, government, media, etc. MOST of the good-hearted and thoughtful people I meet utter these things that I consider to be unsubstantiated and, like I wrote earlier, "silly."
It seems like, sometimes, saying nothing in response to these sorts of claims can sometimes further the many potential collaborative efforts in which we can work together. Think of the racial progress made over the past 100 years, for example. What if the skeptics supporting that movement put the religious differences front and center during that movement? It would impede or destroy that collaboration.
Should skeptics always remain silent. Absolutely not. When Believers step over the line, we should speak up, keeping in mind that we are speaking to people we value/love/respect. I suggested an approach in an earlier post, somewhat in jest but sincere in spirit. http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1220
When good-hearted and thoughtful Believers blurt out the religious claims they sometimes blurt out, should skeptics totally ignore those things, treating those people as thought they were inflicted with a highly compartmentalized mental illness? I hate to admit this, but this is about where I am. And it's fair game. They are free to look at my skeptical utterings as though I am inflicted with a highly compartmentalized mental illness. When there is important work to get done and we desperately need each other to get it done, perhaps that's one of the least bad ways to keep the momentum.
Will there occasionally be moments of sincere straight talk where we can rigorously and deeply explore each others' positions? For all of my true friends, the answer is yes, absolutely, on a regular basis. I've found that good friendships with religious moderates flourish, despite seemingly insurmountable religious differences, when we focus on our commonalities. As I've suggested in this post, there are so many commonalities that bear on solving practical social challenges that they usually dwarf religious differences.
Erich, I think it's great that you want to get involved in your community. I've cycled in and out of some very intense periods of activism and am currently starting to get a little bored of being an armchair (or computer chair) activist.
I don't think you have to be too worried about how to deal with religious moderates in whatever cause you get involved in. The topic usually doesn't come up out of the blue with folks that are not interested in converting everyone around them. Then again, I am not really bothered by phraseology that some might consider too religious (blessing, miracle, keeping faith, etc.)
By definition, the non-fundamentalist recognizes truth and value in other worldviews besides his or her own.. Also, remember that they may have considered some of your objections already and come to different conclusions. And is there some pressing need to present your conclusions about religion to the other person in the form of judgments or pronouncements? Wouldn't the tried and true technique of using "I" statements work just as well? As in "I don't understand [some aspect of religion] or "[some aspect of religion] does not appeal to me/sounds scary to me."
Where I work there is a multitude of religions represented. Or more accurately the ethnicity of the people I work with suggest a multitude of religions. There are only a small percentage for whom I know their actual religious beliefs. In the world I inhabit it is considered impolite to be invoking religious doctrine.
As a group we all work well together and make a lot happen. In context other than this blog, say where the discussion is health care I wouldn't be challenging a poster on their religion unless it was germane to their argument.
In a recent casual discussion at work the question came up about dealing with grief. My position was that impersonal forces and maybe some human failings leading to the misfortune was easier to accept than that some all powerful being made it so for some mysterious reason. While I don't think I converted anyone I also don't think I lost the respect or the ability to work with those present either.
When you think about it we atheists are probably the least offensive to any given religious belief. Even Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens is only saying that the theist is wrong. Theists of other religions or other sects are often saying much more. Consider the "debate" arround Mitt Romney's Mormonism.
A wonderful and thought provoking post, I am going to send it to an atheist friend of mine. Very good.
The thing is, in my opinion, criticizing religion and working together with believers are not mutually exclusive. We can cooperate with liberal and moderate theists to achieve goals which we agree on, but I don't think that should prevent us from speaking our minds on other occasions.
The only way this would cause a problem is with thin-skinned people who insist that, for them to work together with us, we can never criticize them or disagree with them on any issue. Frankly, if there are people like that out there, I'm probably not interested in working with them anyway, and such an alliance wouldn't succeed in any case. People of good will can and do disagree quite often. If we express our disagreement with proper civility, this shouldn't prevent the formation of alliances on other issues where it's appropriate.
Jonathan Haidt on the New Atheists:
It is now clear to me that we all agree on these major points as well:
1) The New Atheists take as a primary goal the debunking of the historical and cosmological claims of the major religions.
2) The historical and cosmological claims of the major religions are in fact almost all false (as far as we can tell from historical and scientific research).
3) The New Atheists have primary goals beyond debunking; they also want to show that religion is pernicious and that its net effects on human welfare are overwhelmingly negative. (As Hitchen's subtitle puts it, "religion poisons everything").
4) Religions do in fact have many pernicious effects on human welfare, particularly when they foster cross-group conflict and a willingness to kill (as in Harris's examples of human sacrifice).
5) The explanation for widespread human religiosity lies partly in the biological evolution of mental and emotional mechanisms that get activated by culturally evolved religious practices and institutions.
[The above excerpts are from Edge.org: http://www.edge.org/discourse/moral_religion.html…
Hi Eric,
I really want to applaud your post here. I am one of those religious moderates (I think) that you are speaking of. I find it to be very refreshing and I think that you are on the right track with this post. Frankly, I have much more in common with thoughtful people of all perspectives than I do with persons in entenched positons within an enclosed belief system, or those who take a strictly dogmatic approach to their interactions with others. Basically, anyone who can never say "I don't know, or I am not sure" in a conversation even when that is really the case.
Any thinking person who is truly interested in rational truth, progress or meaningful association with their fellow man should be open to possibility. The possibility that there is no God and the possibility that there is one (in some form). The possibilty that science is the way forward for the human family, that spirituality is, or that through some association of the two we can accelerate/enhance our march forward as a species.
Religion and science are at the root both quests for truth. Like all sibling relationships they can contain elements of the "love-hate" scenario. Religious thought begat philosophy and natural philosophy which then begat modern science. Many of the theories and experiments that we hold as essential to our modern scientific canon were proposed or performed by either religious clergy or deeply religious people. We should not forget that. Nor, should religious people forget that the Catholic Church threatened both Copernicus and Galileo with death for their contributions to our knowledge when they felt threatened themselves by their insights.
As a Christian my issues with fundamentalism are both many and severe. The very idea that anyone would think that they or their group have an "inside track" to God is amazing to me. That simply becoming a member of a certain group makes you superior on some way to any non-member. That you or your pastor have all of the answers to life's questions seems nonsensical to me. Obviously, almost all reason and independent thought must be left at the door of that gathering. And if that is truly the case then how can you communicate with a closed mind? Apparently, you can't.
Too often we Christians are told by our various organizations that simply entertaining thoughts such as the possibility that there is no God, or any ideas put forth by atheists/agnostics is a form of treason (heresy). I simply do not believe that this is true. I was taught by my parents that there is no such thing as an idea that is "too hot to handle". If my ideas are valid then they must stand up to scrutiny both from my own intellect and to the intellects of those who may disagree with me to any degree. I don't remember any passage of the bible stating that the brain is to be a vestigial organ in relation to faith.
I have had the pleasure of knowing several atheists who I would trust with my life and the life of my child, and I have had the misfortune to know some avowed Christians who I would frankly be afraid to turn my back on for a moment. That is the reality. We human beings tend to be both apprehensive and lazy. We want simple tests or formulas that can tell us who we can trust and work with. Sometimes the test is religious, and variously it can be economic, educational level, profession, racial, political, place of origin or you name it. We must get beyond quick and easy answers to the question of association and make decisions based on individual qualities (or the lack thereof). We must spend the time and effort to get to know one another in order to choose our friendships based on first hand knowledge of a person and not simply a list of magazines they might read.
I have found much of value on this blog and I enjoy reading most of the posts. Much of it is insightful and informative. I don't always agree with what is said and sometimes it can border on the offensive. However, that is in the nature of real human discourse so I refuse to take offense. I intend to continue reading and posting as long as anyone feels that my words are a positive contribution to the conversation.
Monk-in-Training's comment just made me wonder if a moderate and good-hearted Christian would have ever felt compelled to write a similar request for cooperation as Erich did. Actually, right now I'm also wondering if he is what I would call a moderate Christian and how I would define one.
I already feel weirded out whenever someone tells me things like, "God bless you" or "Believe in Jesus and he will help you." It's a good thing that people don't have this habit here [admin note: projektleiterin lives in Germany] of voicing their religious belief to everybody who happens to cross their way. I don't care that much if people are Christian or not as long as it doesn't affect my personal space and freedom and these kind of wishes bother me. I know these words are usually not spoken with ill intentions, but somehow they strike me as an invasion of my privacy. I am not Christian and I have the feeling that when people tell me that Jesus will help me they assume that believing in him is a must and they take it for granted that everybody, including me, does. Outside the context of a discussion I'm not very fond of expressions of religious beliefs that people aim at me. I think the best thing to do is probably to inform them politely that you are not Christian, but that you nevertheless appreciate their well-meant wishes. If they start lecturing you about their beliefs, they're game. 😀 Moderates are for me those who consider religion a part of their life, who don't mind talking about it when necessary, but otherwise will leave other people alone with it. That's probably the type of people with whom most atheists can get along.
As for those who are not moderates, I consider those whose statements have this certain unctuous undertone. They are so nice and tolerant and I'm so hostile. 😀 Often they will try to engage atheists into having honest and challenging conversations about each others beliefs – "That sounds so interesting what you say. Let's have a cup of coffee together and talk about your beliefs!" They might even invite members of other religions to participate in an interreligious dialogue about God. As if they would be able to accept that others believe in a different God or not believe at all. I remember all this smooth talk when I was a kid and sitting in religious education class. "God is Allah is Jahwe, they are all the same." Suuure! What does the pope say? "If it isn’t Roman Catholic then it’s not a proper Church". So much about tolerance within the Christian community.
There a fellow I see often at the gym who is conspicuously religious without being obnoxious. When I ask him how he is doing he always says, "I am blessed." When he sees me leaving the gym he says, "God bless you. Have a great day."
I have to admit…I like it. It makes me feel good when he does that.
We have never discussed religion and I feel no desire to "correct" him. He's a good guy. I like him and he likes me. We are friends. His "blessing" I take as the sincerest form of well-wishing between two human beings that he can give. So when he says, "I am blessed," I usually reply, "Ya know what, Rich? So am I."
And then again more quietly to myself, "So am I."
Mike, I just read your answer from another thread http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1409, maybe it's true what you said about Americans stating their convictions more prominently. And maybe my reaction is a consequence of not being used to deal with public display of religion at all. In my experience, people who tend to do so also don't mind playing missionary and depending on how they do it it can rub me the wrong way.
Actually, I just remembered that at work, there are a lot of people from Latin Amerika and they are all in the same Latin American parish and it seems to be a quite active one. I think most of them are deeply religious, we even have a theologist here who told me he plans to do mission work in England (seems like mission work has a broader meaning than only bringing God's holy words to wild pagans), but they keep it to themselves.
I think the masses of Americans are trained not to think for themselves. Fundamentalism makes it easy to be brain lazy, and it sort of creeps into everything.
Fundamentalism is not limited to religion. Fundamentalism results when thoses that believe in a certain idea, spew forth rote memorized rhetoric from someone they believe to be an authoritative source, while not truly understanding or bothering to think if that rhetoric even makes any sense.
The foundation of Fundamentalism is one of extreme simplification. The general basis of this simplification is the concept of diametric opposites.
We are all taught as children that the opposite of black is white. Under the strict definition that white is a reflection of all visible colors of light combined, and black is a reflection of no visible colors of light, this is true. Applying it to other things ia patently absurd.
Beliefs reflects the structure of the society, and fundamentalism reinforces those beliefs, by providing simplist easy answers for the masses to prevent them from questioning the social order. The ancient Greek and Roman societies as well and the cultures of the majority of southern Asia traditionally had multi tiered, caste societies, and this was reflected in their multitheistic religions.
Hunter-gatherer societies tended to emulate the social structure of sucessful social animals such as wolves or lions, and often developed religious beliefs that imitated the animals they emulated. For example, some Teutonic tribes in eastern Europe are believed by archaeoligists to have been matriarchal societies that imitated the social order of wolf packs. Wolf packs are normally lead by an alpha female, with an alpha male second in command and a pecking order determined by strenght below that.
The Judaic and its deriviates developed in a time of Empires and imitates the pyramidal structure of Imperialist societies. A supreme leader (Emperor, King, President, Grand Poobah) ruling through a hierarchy of advisors,ministries, departments to control the people. An all-powqerful god that rules over a hierarchy of ArchAngels, angels and Saints through a church that has a similar heirarchy of it own acts as immediaries between the HOly pyramid and mankind..
In all cases, fundamentalism is used to keep those people at the base of the pyramid from questioning they place. In short, to keep them from thinking about things that might change the structure of the society. Often the fundamentalism os promoted by the individualss who benefit the status quo.
Ask yourselves how many people are getting rich from the war? Who benefits the most from continuing racial strife? Who gains wealth, power, and control from the bad things?
In the old move "Conan the Barbarian" there was a scene when Conan, (played by Arnold Schartzenegger) says he believes in the strenght of his sword and as an answer, the high priest (played by James Earl Jones) commands a young follower to come to him. After he follower walks off a cliff and falls to her death, the priest then tells Conan "THAT is strength."
Dare to be curious. Question everything. and always remember…
"To serve man" might be the title of a cookbook.
Here's Jonathan Haidt's definition of a "fundamentalist":
This definition is taken from a vigorous exchange between Haidt and four thinkers (David Sloan Wilson, Michael Shermer, Sam Harris, PZ Myers, Marc D. Hauser) responding to one of Haidt's articles. These selections are highly readable, and they really get down to some important issues and distinctions regarding morality and religion. http://www.edge.org/discourse/moral_religion.html
Finding much in agreement with David Sloan Wilson, Haidt finds most religious claims to be "false," but still finds important social functions served by reliosity. Despite his own atheism, Haidt wouldn't think society would be served well were religions to disappear overnight:
Vesperiant says several things about which I'd like to comment. First, "Any thinking person who is truly interested in rational truth, progress or meaningful association with their fellow man should be open to possibility. The possibility that there is no God and the possibility that there is one (in some form)."
The question facing potential believers in Christianity is not whether there is a god or not, the question is whether the specific god described in the Bible exists or not. The first question can never be answered; the second, I believe, can — namely, by noticing the many contradictions and absurdities in the Bible, and the many tortured arguments that Believers use to try to avoid these problems. I believe the latter evidence amply demonstrates the non-existence of the god-of-the-Bible.
Second, "Religion and science are at the root both quests for truth…."
I disagree. I would argue that science is a quest for truth, while religion is a quest for comfort and reassurance.
Third, "The very idea that anyone would think that they or their group have an “inside track” to God is amazing to me. That simply becoming a member of a certain group makes you superior on some way to any non-member. That you or your pastor have all of the answers to life’s questions seems nonsensical to me."
I whole-heartedly agree. Indeed, here's a tip for dealing with Fundies and other absolutists who declare that they "know" things which they cannot possibly know: call them out. Whenever I hear a Fundie declare that he or she "knows" there is a heaven and a hell, or that Jesus died for our sins, or that God exists, etc., I respond by pointing out that they don't "know" any more about these subjects than I do. They might *believe* various things, but their beliefs do not give them the right to declare that they *know* things that are beyond human knowledge, or that their beliefs represent the "truth." This might not stop Fundies from exhorting their flock with "the truth" in sermon situations, where no one can call them out, but it works well in private conversations. Once they are confronted with the limits of their knowledge, it usually takes the wind out of their sails and at least makes possible a more rational conversation. Their barriers to contrary spiritual views — barring what I would call deprogramming — are usually still too steep to gain any headway with them, but at least it will help to pull them off their high horse and realize that we are all on equal footing when it comes to spiritual "truth" (an oxymoron if ever there was one).
Hi grumpy,
Thanks for your post. I wanted to chew on this one for a while before I answered you.
I have to agree with you that the question of the existence of God will never be answered satisfactorily in a "court of law". Maybe the Wizard Of Oz can be located by simply moving the curtain, however if God is who I think She is, then we had better be able to go far beyond the curtain moving technique to discover Her fully.
As to whether or not the God depicted in the Bible exists I would have to ask which one? Not only do we have confusing and even contradictory testimony on the nature of God in the Bible itself, we have the plethora of "interpretations" to deal with and the non-traditional references (example: the Book Of Mormon) that could be included too. Not to mention all of the other non-(Judeo-Christian)bible related religious expressions of God. I think that God defies human description and possibly to some extent human grasp. Just as science does. Any good scientist will tell you that for every question we answer ten more good questions arise. So will any good theologian.
I would posit to you that science is also a quest for comfort and reassurance on a different level. Science often springs from a deep human desire to impose order on chaos and replace ignorance with comprehension. I think that spiritual examination often springs from that same well. We human beings desperately want to understand the whys and wherefores of existence and science and religion are our current methods of attempted understanding. Again, I am not comparing fundamentalist ideology to science any more than I would compare alchemy to chemistry. However, in their highest forms both science and religion seek the same answers by different methods. Which method is more valid depends solely on your perspective on the matter in my opinion and not on objective fact.
As to the fundamentalists:
I once had a friend of mine (who is also spiritually inclined) who was at a public transportation stop when he noticed a group of people carrying bibles standing there with him. He asked them if they were all together for some purpose. "Yes", one young lady replied, "we are studying the bible". Being curious my friend asked them if they were fluent in Aramaic and/or ancient Greek (the original languages of the written bible). These folks looked at my friend as if he were crazy and wordlessly moved away from him. Apparently, even the phrase "studying the bible" can have significantly different meanings to fundamentalists and scholars. With one simple question my friend opened these folks up to the idea that they weren't truly studying anything so much as they were being indoctrinated. I have no problem with voluntary indoctrination of any kind except when it tries to pose itself as scholarship of any kind. Memorizing the King James bible does not make you a biblical scholar any more than memorizing a "Tale of Two Cities" makes you Charles Dickens.
Scientific thought seemingly has one big advantage over religious thought (and I have mentioned this in another posting by Mike Pulcinella regarding the efficacy of prayer). Anyone supporting scientific methods is very rarely forced to defend ludicrous scientific concepts of the past. Flat earth theories, spaghetti turning into worms, medical leeching, canals on Mars and all of those errors are not charged to the accounts of modern scientific enthusiasts. However, people of faith continuously have to answer for every bible passage that gets interpreted literally by anyone at any time (past or present), any Pope who started a crusade or accepted bribes to forgive sin, every preacher who who fleeces his flock, every cult that commits suicide and every fringe political hate group that claims religious inspiration. There is some inequity in that situation I believe.
As a person of faith I am continually forced to cover debts that I never incurred personally simply because the fanatical minority often steals the microphone. Jerry Falwell and the Pope do not speak for all religious people any more than Richard Dawkins speaks for all atheists, or Stephen Hawking speaks for all scientists. I wish that my non-religious friends understood and accepted that concept more. It would lead to a better dialogue (as Erich has suggested in this blog) between people of good will who simply happen to differ on the existence of a God. No one would be asking the other to leave their beliefs in a drawer (religious or atheist) or deny them, but to seek the common ground that we all know that we can share if we can simply get past those fanatics of both sides who want to impose their prejudices and bigotry on everyone.
Motivated no doubt by a compassionate hope that he can bring the two sides in the science v religion debate together, or at least closer together, Erich invites us to read the words of the theologian John Haught. If that really is his hope then I suspect that Erich has a lot more faith than he would be prepared to admit.
I should start by declaring that I am not an unbiased reader. I am an atheist. By definition that means that as far as I am concerned theology is a non-subject that should be stricken from the curriculum of every school, college and University in the universe. How a grown man can say with a straight face that he spent his entire working life contemplating the effect the mental condition of an invisible sky fairy would have on humans after they die is a mystery that will not be solved in my lifetime.
From the opening paragraph, where the interviewer refers to the "apparently random, meaningless process of evolution" we get the sense that this is not intended to be an intellectual debate of any great merit. Evolution by natural selection is a process whereby favourable outcomes are selected and negative outcomes are not. This is by any standard anything but random.
The next paragraph, before Haught has even had a word to say, gives us another problem. The question is posed, "How can an intellectually responsible person of faith justify that faith – and even belief in a personal God – after Darwin and Einstein?"
We are told that this is the question that Haught has set out to answer in his forthcoming book – which I will not be promoting here – but neither the poser of the question nor Haught himself bother to provide a definition of the oxymoronic term "intellectually responsible person of faith".
How is someone whose core belief is that the world was created a thousand years after glue was invented suddenly qualified to comment on intellectual responsibility?
Haught: The new atheists don't want to think out the implications of a complete absence of deity. Nietzsche, as well as Sartre and Camus, all expressed it quite correctly. The implications should be nihilism.
In reply to this PZ Myers gets a little overwrought in claiming that Haught has no business as a theist claiming to know what the logical conclusion of atheism should be. PZ claims that the fact that none of the atheists he knows are nihilists decides the matter and accuses Haught of ignoring this evidence. I tend to think a little speculation never did anybody any harm, and suggesting as a starting position that the result might be nihilism seems as reasonable as suggesting that PZ Myers knows all the atheists.
So what if the result is nihilism? Why should I then necessarily have to stick little babies on long sharp sticks and rape their mothers? Surely, in a truly meaningless universe – which is what nihilism proposes – couldn't I just as easily become a volunteer lifeboatman?
The real rejoinder is that even if the result of atheism were nihilism this says nothing about the truth claims of religion. It is also, as we would expect from a theologian, logically fallacious to argue that since nihilism is undesirable atheism must therefore be false. He has shown neither that nihilism is undesirable nor that it is a consequence of atheism, but pretends that this refutes atheism. And this guy, remember, had the audacity to preach intellectual responsibility.
Haught: My chief objection to the new atheists is that they are almost completely ignorant of what's going on in the world of theology.
Is it not even possible that a theologian's time would be much better spent objecting to the religious folks who are completely ignorant of what's going on in the world of science? Science has made a discovery or two in the last two thousand years that have made positive contributions to mankind (okay, they also invented bombs and missiles and chemical weapons, I'm not claiming that science is only for the common good). Scientists are constantly exclaiming, "Ah, that was not an expected result. We will have to look at that again and see if we can figure out what it means. We might have to change some of our assumptions." Theologians, on the other hand, convinced from day one that their sole source of reference on the topic is the end of the matter have learned nothing – it isn't called dogma for nothing, you know – and in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary continue to preach their peculiar brand of literary criticism as though nothing has changed. Meanwhile, tens of millions of Americans continue to believe that the world was created in six days.
Haught: Sartre himself said atheism is an extremely cruel affair. He was implying that most people wouldn't be able to look it squarely in the face. And my own belief is they themselves didn't either.
What Haught has not learned in his many years of navel gazing is that truth is also an extremely cruel affair. And its obvious to anyone reading this drivel that Haught just is not able to look that squarely in the face either.
Haught: How do we account for the courage to go on living in the absence of hope? …What I want to show in my own work – as an alternative to the new atheists – is a universe in which hope is possible.
He is claiming that without God, there is no hope. Because a delusional fantasy gives him the hope he needs to get out of bed every morning he thinks that we all need the same medicine he's on. There are two levels at which I respond to this. I can start by saying that I have hope; I hope the sun comes up this morning, I hope the trees in my orchard have lots of fruit this summer etc. But Haught isn't really talking about this trivial kind of hope. He means he hopes that he is going to heaven when he dies; he hopes that his life will have had some purpose.
Well, since heaven does not exist, when you die they stick your body in a hole in the ground and there it stays. That is the truth. Honest. The way to deal with this Mr. Haught is to realise that this life is not a rehearsal, you are not going to get a second chance so instead of contemplating your navel I thoroughly recommend getting out there and doing some real living. Perhaps if you had spent a bit more of your time in a soup kitchen or a hostel for the homeless you might have realised that there is a tiny bit more to this "purpose of life" stuff than your selfish salvation wish.
Haught: …in the new scientific understanding of the universe, there are no sharp breaks between lifeless matter and life, between life and mind. …The traditional view was that nature emanates from on high, …when you get down to matter, … Above that there's life and mind and God. … scientists like Dawkins and Gould have said evolution has destroyed the notion of purpose.
I hope I haven't mangled his meaning too much there. Basically he is saying that the new science of evolution requires theologians to revise their old fashioned vertical, static, non-evolutionary picture of the universe because it shows that their outmoded notion of purpose is wrong. What astounds me is that Darwin's theory was first published in 1859 and yet almost 150 years later theology is talking about this discovery as being "new". He also seems to think that the reason for amending their picture is not that science has convincingly shown that they are wrong, but that they no longer have a purpose.
Quite apart from the fact that Dawkins does not promote the idea that life without God has no purpose, does it not strike you as being completely surreal that instead of responding to a whole mountain range of peer-reviewed scientific literature proving that their silly notion of the world being made in six days is nothing but fantasy they wait for Richard Dawkins to publish a book of "popular science" before deciding to do anything about it. To me that says more about the motivation for this shift in approach being more to do with public perception than with any real desire to confront the issue on an intellectual level.
And since Haught is obviously not aware of it, we might as well set the record straight. The real threat to religion posed by Darwin's theory is that eventually we will become extinct and be replaced by something else. It is therefore life itself, that we are here to experience it, that is the real wonder of the universe. Anyone who needs anything more than that isn't going to be satisfied by mumbling phrases from an ancient book to an invisible sky fairy in the hope that their wishes might come true.
For the record, Dawkins promotes the idea, which I wholeheartedly support, that the "purpose" of an organism is to promote its genes; to participate in the process of evolution. The idea that we have any higher purpose is, in my view, a piece of arrogant sophistry put about by those too deluded to accept that we are just animals.
Haught: From the beginning of the modern world, science decided quite rightly that it wasn't going to tackle such questions as purpose, … It was going to look for purely natural, causal, mechanical explanations of things. But that principle of scientific Puritanism is often violated by scientists who think that by dint of their scientific expertise, they are able to comment on such things as purpose. I consider that to be a great violation.
So, if I am a scientist I am, by dint of some unwritten principle of scientific Puritanism, not permitted to contemplate whether or not my life has any purpose. But if I am a theologian the same principle does not apply and I am allowed to contemplate scientific matters. Got it.
There is an awful lot more of this sort of nonsense but what it all boils down to is the same mumbo-jumbo we've been hearing for the past two thousand years. Basically all they have to say is, Religion is true, for some value of true.
I would like to finish with a question of my own.
If God is so wonderfully all-powerful and all knowing, then why did he entrust the salvation of 6 billion souls to the mistranslated ramblings of a handful of illiterate goatherders?
Responding to Vespariant above, I'd first like to highlight this observation: "As to whether or not the God depicted in the Bible exists I would have to ask which one?"
Well said! This is an excellent way to express the self-contradictory illogic of the Bible.
Second, "I would posit to you that science is also a quest for comfort and reassurance on a different level."
I still see this issue differently. To me, science is only secondarily a quest for comfort and reassurance; primarily it is a quest for knowledge. I say this because scientific discoveries have often caused great discomfort and upheaval and, frustratingly, has often produced many new questions for each old one it answers. Just think of the upheaval to society caused by Gallileo, or Darwin, or Freud. Yet, despite this upheaval, the quest continues. Accordingly, whatever comfort and reassurance science might offer remains forever open-ended: it could be overturned tomorrow. By contrast, religion is about creating 'unshakable' truths — beliefs that are close-ended and immutable, even if they aren't true.
Another way to express this difference is to say that science seeks to answer "how" questions, whereas religion seeks to answer "why" questions. Science might tell us how humans came to exist on this planet, but it is not equipped to tell us why we're all here.
I especially appreciate Vesperiant's third point, "As a person of faith I am continually forced to cover debts that I never incurred personally simply because the fanatical minority often steals the microphone."
Indeed, people of faith have a tough row to hoe. Science does a relatively good job of weeding out the crackpots, but religion has virtually no comparable mechanism. Almost any 'religious' belief, no matter how bizarre, can be justified. Everything from suicide bombing, to torture, to genocide has been claimed to be done under direct orders from the god-of-the-Bible. That's a tough legacy to have to deal with.
Martin: I am really confused by your post. Who is the theologian John Haught? The article Erich linked to was a response by the psychologist Jon Haidt, who like Scott Atran is a non-believer who has actually studied the social impacts of religious belief.
Oops, I messed up too. I found the link in the original article to Johnathan Haught. My bad. But maybe Haidt is Haught's evil twin, or vice versa?
But I am curious where Martin found the basis in the Haught article for these statements:
Martin makes it sound like Haught is a young earth creationist, when the article clearly states that he is not:
I don't agree with Haught that absence of belief in God leads necessarily to nihilism.
However, Martin has grossly misrepresented Haught's position and that is not very intellectually responsible.
For those interested, some of this discussion seems to have wondered over to Mark Tiedeman's post, "Hope's Glimmer Dies Again." http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1972. In fact, I'm going to post my most recent comment over there here too:
Martin: I really do think that you are way off base on John Haught, for the reasons mentioned <font color="#000066">in the Salon.com article I cited here</font>, reasons on which Vicki Baker elaborated. He is not at all the person you’ve portrayed him to be.
This is not to say that I agree with everything John Haught says. For example, I disagree him (see the italicized portion) <font color="#000066">when he says this:</font>
But I do agree with him <font color="#000066">when Haught says this:</font>
Haught identifies a key question as this: “How do we account for the courage to go on living in the absence of hope?” I would phrase this question as this: “How do we account for the courage to go on living as decent and kind-hearted people in the absence of easy answers to questions like “What is the meaning of life?” or “What should I do with my life?” or “To what extent should I spend my life energies helping others as opposed to serving my own whims and wants?”
Again, I disagree with his proposed theological answer. I don’t think that “God” is any sort of answer. It is just a label. I think a better approach (I hesitate to call it an “answer”) lies in our bones, deep in our bones, in ways that have been explored by cognitive scientists who have really taken Darwin seriously, <font color="#000066">for instance, by Frans de Waal.</font>
I did cite Haught, as Martin, mentions, but I did so for a specific purpose that I spelled out in the post: “[The New Atheists] over-estimate the ability of science to provide substitutes for whatever it is that religious moderates get out of their practice of religion.”
Believers in God aren’t the only ones who make this same point. Consider, for instance, arguments made by philosopher Philip Kitcher (from the December 2007/Jan 2008 issue of <font color="#000066">Free Inquiry</font> – some of the articles are available free online, but not this one). Here’s what Kitcher has to say and finding life’s purpose through science:
You can listen to the entire interview with Philip Kitcher (“Living with Darwin”) at <font color="#000066"> <a href="http://;www.pointofinquiry.org</font>” target=”_blank”>;www.pointofinquiry.org</font>. Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.
Vicki,
If I believed that there was a pink blancmange at the bottom of my garden that listened to my prayers then I would have been locked up years ago, but for reasons that I do not understand, simply because millions of folks are similarly deluded we do nothing and pretend they are perfectly sane people whose opinions on pink blancmange are a subject worthy of a university degree. And we give them tax breaks and invites on to TV programmes to talk about pink blancmange and let them decide when our public holidays are and have artistic representations of pink blancmange in our living rooms and public spaces and even let them break the law. I can't have a meeting at work without first asking the pink blancmange for a good meeting, or walk down the high street without being asked to invite the pink blancmange into my life.
So when I point out that a believer in pink blancmange has no room to talk to anyone about intellectual honesty you cry foul because his pink blancmange has got chocolate buttons in it!?!
Erich says he agrees with Haught in his comments about scientific Puritanism. Erich, it is hypocritical of Haught to claim that science cannot speak on "purpose" while he is simultaneously reserving for himself the right to talk on science. Either the two fields are distinctly different and members of either should not step over the line, or the line does not exist. Haught wants it both ways and that makes him a hypocrit.
Erich then goes on to quote Philip Kitcher, a secular humanist. Secular humanism is atheism with empathy. I have nothing against it but I don't do empathy very well so I tend to ignore it. His comments can be summarised as: People have to be given a sense that their lives matter.
To which I can only repeat that this is based on the fundamentally arrogant assumption that the lives of people have a purpose. We do not consider that a prawn has a purpose, or a zebra has a purpose, so why should we necessarily have a purpose (this is me being empathetic). You only need a purpose if you have a deity. Then you can ask yourself, "Why did God make us?" or "What did God make us for?". But without a deity the question doesn't even make sense. You are here to participate in the process of evolution, to reproduce and pass on your genes. To assume that "creation" or the cosmic pink blancmange has assigned you any higher purpose is simply another fond delusion.
In a much earlier post in this thread grumpypilgrim repeated a popular myth I have an interest in. What he said was: The question facing potential believers in Christianity is not whether there is a god or not, the question is whether the specific god described in the Bible exists or not. The first question can never be answered;
It is my contention that this question can be answered; we can know that there is no such thing as god. Although we do first have to define god.
Some people will claim that there is a god in anything, god is power, god is light etc. so that for them they can see god in a lump of coal or in a tree or a waterfall, or even inside themself. This is not the kind of god I am talking about. What I am talking about is the disembodied sky god of the hebrew bible, a supernatural ultimate supreme being that looks down on us and crucially, created the universe and everything in it.
The universe did not exist until god made it, so he must have been outside (or at least "not in") the universe when he made it. So where was he before he made the universe?
The obvious answer is that he was in some other universe first, then he made this universe.
You might decide that this "other" that he was in when he made our universe was not actually a universe, but he clearly had to be "in" something so let's call it a universe for the sake of having a name.
So who made the other universe that god was in before he made this one? If god made it, then how did he get in that universe?
This argument continues ad infinitum until at some point you claim that he didn't make some particular universe, it was made by some other god. In which case our god is not the ultimate supreme being after all.
If you never make that claim, then your argument simply goes on and on and on for ever and ever without end. There is no point in time at which the creation of anything began.
Therefore, the universe cannot have been created by a supernatural ultimate supreme being.
Martin:
I don't believe in pink blancmanges, as they are a lexical absurdity. Were I to suddenly come face to face with a pink blancmange, I would not eat it. Though I might pick out the chocolate buttons, if present.
I think we've heard the loop about pink blancmanges, sky fairies, etc. Do you have another one that is more germane?
Hi Martin,
Thanks for joining the conversation. God may very well end up being a pink blancmange or anything else you might visualize. According to many religious thinkers God is an amorphous being beyond our concepts and and possibly even our comprehension. So pick your own form. It's free.
I can't understand why some of the very intelligent folks on this blog feel so compelled to deride all people of faith as "deluded" and other such slights. I find it little different than the position that many fundamentalists take with atheists. They might call you deluded too. Sticks and stones will …Oh you get it. I think that the whole point of Eric's blog is that both sides of the debate should (or at least can) dial back the negative rhetoric in favor of concentrating on those ideals we share regardless of motivation. You want social justice as much as I do. Whether that desire springs from religious conviction, self interest or pure logic is of little consequence in the big picture. Is it right of you to withold a life preserver from a drowning man until he professes atheism? Is it right of me to refrain from turning the firehose on your burning house until you beg Jehovah for forgiveness? I think that we would both agree that the answer is no in both cases. There is no real gain in false professions of faith or of atheism for either side. However, I would argue that everyone loses when a man drowns or someone's house burns down. You can call it a pathological need to believe in pink blancmanges, or a pathological need to eradicate pink blancmanges for all I care. Just so that the man lives and the house is saved.
Believe me Martin, if I (and millions of other people of faith over the centuries) can't prove that God exists to an objective certainty, then you have an even more formidable task in trying to "prove" the negative. Semantics aside, it is a nonstarter. I could pose you many a pretty riddle (to which the answer is always God) and it would not move you I think. Nor will the riddle of who created the very first universe move me. Because a question cannot be answered positively neither indicates nor excludes anything. It simply remains a good question until the data comes in. Wouldn't it be funny if all of the praying, singing and thinking about God simply leads us to a better understanding of ourselves? Wouldn't it be just as funny if all of the mathmatics, physics, chemistry etc. leads us to an understanding of God? Life can be hilarious that way. Stay tuned my friend.
I know that some religious folks now read Jesus as saying, "Do unto others, before they do unto you". However, I still like the original better and I don't think that you have to be a believer in religion to recognize the truth and justice of it. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" still works as both good humanism and faith. Whichever approach works to get us all to that wonderful place is less important than getting there. Nespa?
Vicky,
If you are not able to figure out for yourself that a man's beliefs are germane to his right to talk about intellectual honesty, then there is no point us even having a discussion.
Haught's beliefs are not of a trivial nature and are not to be compared to an average man in the street saying, "I believe the Rams will win the play-offs." This man has by contrast spent his entire working life writing about a supernatural deity for which there not only is no evidence whatsoever, but which flies in the face of all the evidence there is. This puts it right up there on the shelf with the tooth fairy, Superman, Santa Claus and dare I say it, pink blancmange, from which it is obvious that he is not even being intellectually honest with himself, never mind with us. He therefore loses the right to speak for others on the topic of intellectual honesty. Period.