I adore Scientific American magazine. I try to read it from cover to cover, even if I don't always understand what I'm reading; when it comes to certain arcane, formula-heavy articles on string theory or particle physics, I keep hoping exposure will work a miracle in my brain. So far, nothing on that score, but it's been a SciAm-rich day and I just had to share it with you...big questions, and all.This morning, as I hacked away at the biomass in our yard in the fast-rising heat and humidity, I listened to a SciAm podcast of the July 28th Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism's panel discussion entitled, "Arguing With Non-Skeptics." While it probably doesn't sound it, this two-part podcast is funny. Smart and funny. A distinguished panel of skeptics (a.k.a. atheists), including James Randi, D.J. Grothe, George Hrab, Steve Mirsky (my SciAm back-page fave), is moderated by Julia Galef. They discuss whether they ever enter into arguments, discussions, or debates with non-skeptics and how they handle it. Back to this in a moment.
A shower later, I finished Curtis Marean's SciAm piece, "When The Sea Saved Humanity." Armed with the knowledge that our global human DNA points back to common ancestry that is traced to Africa a little over 195,000 years ago, Marean went looking for an area on the continent where a small group of the first humans might be able to survive the long glacial age, which began at about 195,000 years ago and lasted until roughly 123,000 years ago. Where could a few hundred Homo Sapiens have stayed alive and continued to reproduce successfully when most of the continent of Africa had turned too dry and cold to support them? A new species already endangered; what were they like?
"For years, the earliest examples of these behaviors were all found in Europe and dated to after 40,000 years ago. Based on that record, researchers concluded that there was a long lag between the origin of our species and the emergence of our peerless creativity.
But over the past 10 years archaeologists working at a number of sites in South Africa have found examples of sophisticated behaviors that predate by a long shot their counterparts in Europe....These sites, along with those at Pinnacle Point, belie the claim that modern cognition evolved late in our lineage and suggest instead that our species had this faculty at its inception. " (SciAm 08/2010)We could say that H. Sapeins was born sapient and used that cognitive potential to survive the long ice ages, rear children successfully, and eventually thrive once the glaciers began to retreat. Returning to the DNA evidence, it now makes more sense that the entire global species could have arisen from a small genetic base in Africa. And it is conceivable that they eventually encountered their own differently-evolved number amongst the Neanderthals in Europe--who may not have been of a different species at all, but that's another article in this issue of SciAm, and another blog post.
Now, back to those funny skeptics at the Science and Skepticism conference.
As I read these SciAm articles about the Pinnacle Point people, I had that rising bubble of excitement we get when a eureka moment makes us want to tell everyone what we've learned. And then I remembered how I handle it--or rather don't handle it--when I encounter folks who believe humans were created around 6000 years ago. Or, for that matter, when I encounter folks who believe all kinds of unscientific fantasmagoria.
I'm a Backer-Off-er. Especially now that age has tarnished my silver tongue and concepts flee as fast as the names of celebrities, I consistently fear that I won't represent my own knowledge or the scientific perspective well. I'll dummy up just when I want to sound my most rational, logical, and knowledgeable. I'm also afraid that my Southern upbringing, which taught us girls to button our lips in order to survive, will kick in just at the moment when I need it least...or won't kick in when I need it most.
So, how do you handle it when you find yourself in real conversation with creationists? Or with folks who believe in woo-woo stuff? Do you ever try to convince that person to question their certainty? Do you shut up and go all polite and distant, visions dancing in your head of Thanksgivings yet to be spent in the company of this idiot?
And how, if we've been cognitively sophisticated for 164,000 years, can some folks still be so unintelligent?
Check out that podcast for tips, comebacks, and the very best in great nerd humor. Makes me think I might be able to help someone see things differently.
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| The view from Pinnacle Point Cave 13B |
"And how, if we've been cognitively sophisticated for 164,000 years, can some folks still be so unintelligent?"
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'll sound like Ayn Rand, but it seems to me that most of the innovation and creativity of our species has been the product of terribly few individuals. Life hasn't always been easy for those individuals. Ask Galileo.
Certain people have work very hard for others to stay ignorant thats common sense though so I see what you mean
DeleteI am no longer politely silent when people start spouting off. Why should I be? Are not my views as important? Do I not have information that refutes their inaccurate statements? Time to speak up!
ReplyDeleteI have a paper taped to my mirror I read every morning, "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" I consider it a daily challenge.
I love scientific stuff! Genetics has been a particular favorite of mine.
When people in my presence start in about the origins of man, I usually shut them down by pointing out that the very respectable National Geographic Society has a 5 year study going on proving that we come from a common African ancestry. Africa is truly the Cradle of Civilization. It is an exciting project and I can't wait to see some of the papers that will be written by the researchers involved.
One of my favorite quotes is from Demond Tutu: "One day we are going to wake up and discover we are family."
Comment Part 1 of 2
ReplyDeleteAh yes, PP13B…. Being over 100,000,000 years old, I think I may have stumbled across that particular cave in my travels along the dino game trail. Things tend to run together these days, so I can’t be sure. Anyway, enjoyed this excellent post, Nance. I suppose T. H. Huxley (Darwin’s Bulldog, as the Victorians called him) was right in pointing to the social nature of humans as a key to their evolution – it takes intelligence for people to work together, rather like “pack hunters” who require skill and brains to carry out their deadly tasks.
But more to the point regarding religion, if there’s one thing that defines humans, it’s excess and artifice, a rejection of their own limitations as natural beings. Human history offers proof of Baudelaire’s thesis about humanity’s relationship to “nature” as a concept: they are an unnatural species in all but a few basic things (bodily functions like breathing and taking bathroom breaks, I mean). An excess of gray matter, that is, gives people all sorts of capacities that go well beyond what’s necessary for survival needs such as eating, drinking, defending, sheltering, mating, and knowing better than to depend on FAUX News for one’s information stream.
At base, religiosity may be an extension of an excess capacity for mystical experience – as a William Blake persona wrote, “all Deity resides in the human breast.” The lore and conjecture surrounding the Delphic Oracle is a fine example: recent scholarship suggests that the priestesses of Apollo became intoxicated from the vapors somewhere around the famous cave where they dispensed their prognostications and wisdom. Apparently, they experienced this intoxication as a visitation from the divine himself, and most everybody else thought the same and acted accordingly. Have there not also been reports of people in modern times having epileptic seizures that they experienced as direct contact with god? And of course it’s long been understood that the Dionysian Greek revelers were partial to certain psychedelic mushrooms that put them in touch, they must have thought, with the recent arrival to the Olympians. (If I weren’t possessed of Newmanesque certitude about the existence of the Dinosaur Gods, I would opt for an altar to the Olympians – what a delightful gathering of supernatural rascals!)
Continued in Part 2 ....
Comment Part 2 of 2
ReplyDeleteWell! – I believe the problem is not so much this capacity for mystical excess (seeking transcendence and/or oblivion seems fundamental to human beings) as it is the codification of the results into theological-legal codes and systems of authority. I have long been something of a Blakean antinomian in that regard: the minute you see people donning imposing garb, gathering wealth, and torturing others for failing to live up (or down) to the appropriate codes, you’ve encountered the same old tyranny that we often find in political arrangements: do what we, the keepers, say, or suffer the consequences. As you move down the belief-ladder, you encounter people who can’t get in touch with their “excess capacity” for mystical experience but who nonetheless adopt all the behavioral codes and insist on enforcing them universally: religious bigots. I am dismissive of this latter tendency, but not of the original itself since that capacity seems part of what defines human beings.
I have great regard for scientific intelligence (“reason”) and I like to hear about its accomplishments at the purest level (I mean discovery in fields such as astronomy, physics, and medicine), but I don’t see it as a cure-all for what ails humanity – people are nearly as apt to abuse reason by reducing it to predatory cleverness as they are to abuse and degrade religiosity, so caution is in order either way.
As a simple dino and therefore a mere observer, I’d say that due honor is due to both capacities: it may well be that Apollo and Dionysus, as Nietzsche taught you to gather from the Greeks, are inseparable and “always already” inextricably part of who you are. Γνῶθι σεαυτόν. Gnothi seauton, know thyself, as was written on the Temple of Apollo.
bloggingdino: "Have there not also been reports of people in modern times having epileptic seizures that they experienced as direct contact with god?"
ReplyDeleteJoseph Smith comes to mind. Read the second paragraph of this text.
Atheists call themselves "skeptics"? I didn't know that. I thought religious skeptics called themselves agnostic, and that atheists weren't skeptical but certain there was no God.
ReplyDeleteAn atheist is one without gods. Of course if you ask me we're all without them since they're imaginary. Certainty is not the point, since being of scientific mind something that fails all tests of existence might have a chance of existing, albeit vanishingly small. That's enough to make one an atheist, I think.
ReplyDeleteAt the horizon I came to the edge and looked over and saw the stars. Saw semi plausibility, verifiable candlelight, and pseudo individuality.
ReplyDeleteDervish,
ReplyDeletePushed to it, some of the skeptics whose work I've read call themselves atheists and some of the atheists call themselves skeptics (but not ALL, and these are the ones bloggingdino warns us of) ...meaning they aggressively approach all things with an attitude of inquiry. Other skeptics prefer the term Skeptical Agnostic, since that seems pure enough to the inquiring mind. And then there has been a movement (was it Daniel Dennett's?) for atheists to call themselves Brights..."predatory cleverness," indeed. And so much fun to read or listen to.
Gee, for some reason these folks have a little trouble coalescing into a coherent group ;~)
"Gee, for some reason these folks have a little trouble coalescing into a coherent group ;~)"--Nance
ReplyDeleteSort of like herding cats.
I've been told that the term "atheist" is not rational, since the existence or nonexsistence of a supernatural being cannot be proved.
Still, if someone like James Randi is comfortable with the term, then why not?
I'd rather be hiking.
"I've been told that the term "atheist" is not rational, since the existence or nonexsistence of a supernatural being cannot be proved."
ReplyDeleteThat really makes no sense. If the term itself were not a rational term it can only be because "theist" is also not rational and therefore you can't distinguish between the two which is is absurd because the terms are by definition in opposition. Reason, said Martin Luther, is the greatest enemy faith has and he was right. You can and do, in fact, get to atheism by reason and science.
The word "proved" is in itself an attempt at selling fallacy by distraction. Theists certainly have tried proof and have failed and "well, you can't disprove it" is hardly an adequate riposte. The rational mind usually has to deal with probabilities, not mathematical proofs and I prefer the calculus in saying that the limit of the God probability function is zero. It's like plotting the value of the function 1/X as X tends to zero. Although you can't get all the way there,you can get arbitrarily close and the closer you get, the closer you are to zero with every increment.
I love it, Capt! This comment called up some lovely angels whirling like dervishes on a pinhead.
ReplyDeleteThe whole "you can't disprove the existence of god" thing comes up time and time again. Simply....one is under no obligation to disprove the existence of anything because it is an impossible task from the start. You are incapable of disproving that the world is run by incorporeal elves. You are incapable of disproving that the universe and all our memories were created five minutes ago. The weight of evidence for the existence of god is exactly the same as that for incorporeal elves...zero. Therefore, rationally, the level of belief we grant to the two possibilites (and the infinite range of possibilites which can present no evidence) should be equal...zero.
ReplyDeleteFor this reason, the burden of proof in philosophy always falls on the one making the positive assertion.
Atheism therefore is not a belief "in" anything. It is the default perspective that flows naturally from an absence of evidence.
Sure, everyone knows you can't prove a negative and most have figured out that you can't even prove there aren't little actors inside your TV if those actors are invisible and inscrutable and not subject to any kind of detection.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't have said it better.
I'd suggest that even if you can't disprove God in an abstract sense, you can indeed disprove all the characteristics that adhere to any specific one -- and a God without characteristics can't be a God. Even if I'm wrong, proving God means proving an infinite number of Gods and my standard answer to the smug accusation that I'm close minded or arrogant by not believing in YHWH or his illegitimate son is to ask why the accuser doesn't believe in Zeus and his offspring or Brahma, or Refafu or Ammun or Isis or Zool, until they get tired.
"Oh, but we have the Biiiiible"
Which one? What about the Popol Vuh, the Zend Avesta, Bardo Thodol, Shayt en Duad. . . . ad infinitum.
An afterthought to this thread:
ReplyDeleteMost of the arguments pitting religion against atheism revolve around the notion of proof, and neither side has anything of further interest to say about this notion because, of course, it’s been pretty thoroughly played out by now.
The atheist side is easy to state: “there’s no proof, so there’s no compulsion to believe and in fact believers are rather silly”; the religious defense is often childish: “okay, so there’s no material proof, but [insert bumper-sticker-level appeals to textual authority and contemptible believe-or-be-damned threats here].
What I tried to address in my two-part comment to Nance’s post is that both sides’ most vocal advocates tend to leave aside the more worthwhile issue of why religious experience has for so long been part of human life (the question of truth aside). Today’s brassiest “new atheists” tend not to enjoy talking about that because it makes them seem shallow in their dismissiveness (which they often are, though there are notable exceptions); religionists are sometimes spooked from such discussions because the minute you start talking about faith in sociological/anthropological terms, it sounds like you’ve dismissed the very possibility of belief – religion is another human practice to be studied alongside many others of great age and significance. (See David Strauss’ Das Leben Jesu for an early example.) The latter is my approach, but still, I have a certain tenderness where faith is concerned and don’t like to trample on it when I find it in others, unless it manifests as vicious intolerance. There’s moral eloquence in portions of the world’s great “holy books” that’s worth preserving, even if one rejects the metaphysics that underpin it. Sublimity in language has its privileges, in the Bible, the Bhagavad, or anywhere we come across it. I also think aspirations towards self-transcendence deserve respect, even when we may not much care for the modality of their expression.
I think the discussions of proof are a deliberate distraction from the need to discuss evidence. Mathematics has a way to deal with the calculations that can't be made and so does rhetoric, but it's harder. Is it shallow to suggest that the origins of religious sentiment are entirely internal although fed by legend?
ReplyDeletePut a strong magnetic field over a certain area of the brain and you'll have a religious experience; an external presence, timelessness and all the other ineffable refuse. Without a doubt such feelings are spontaneous and without a doubt inspire great passions, both creative and destructive.
I'm not a new atheist. I'm not new in anything at my age, but I don't mind talking about it and I'm not immune to the passion behind it or the things that come from it. Indeed I think the term "new Atheist" is a defense against the fact that objectivity has left hardly a pinhead left for gods to dance on.
To me, the real discussion has to be about evidence, not proof and not how good, or bad or terrified or glorified it feels to believe.
Indeed, if one hears the voice calling, one hears it in terms of his own culture. Without taking up too much space - and I could - I'm suggesting that there is nothing divine anywhere outside our minds and never was and that there is no evidence for the divine and nothing to suggest it that does not proceed from the fallacy: "I don't know, therefore. . ."
ReplyDeleteEloquence, yes, but it's our eloquence; whether prompted from falling off a donkey or a stroke or the random fluctuations in a sensitive brain, but our creation and our interpretation and nothing that lives and nothing that does not other than ourselves can apprehend it.
We have a passion for passion. Genesis in its original is a sad pastiche sounding more like Uncle Remus or Aesop than what was put together by James' committee -- the crowning achievement of our language, I might be tempted to argue, but neither God nor Moses or the prophet Jeremiah were such artists and that I will argue.
But Atheist, new or old, I still have to argue that we believe because it feels good, it thrills us, pacifies us and terrifies us. It flatters our need to be important. It makes us feel like gods both in our compassion and our small minded bigotry.
And it all comes from within.
It remains that there is no evidence whatever for an invisible sentient presence that created or rules or has anything to do with the existence of existence.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteI think we agree on the idea that religious experience is generated from within and that there’s no evidence for the existence of an external deity (except, of course, for the Dino-Gods Who Dwell Forever at Their Ease upon Mount Gondwana, Indifferent to Mankind). For me, that question isn’t even interesting – the more worthwhile one has to do with whether or not aligning ourselves with scientific process, with scientific truth, is always necessary or sufficient for getting through the time we have. It’s possible to concur entirely with (and much admire) the evidence we’ve gathered by means of the scientific method – I certainly do – while ultimately asking, “to what extent do I, or should I, align my habits and thoughts with the truths provided by that method? I believe the end of life brings personal annihilation – I suppose the universe will end for me the moment I die, and in that specific sense the truths of physics are of no more value to me than, say, mystical experience or some other species of reflection, ecstasis, etc. The question is at base a Nietzschean one – what is of value for life? Provided, that is, that we avoid becoming the dupes of our own desires, the fools not only of time but of our own aspirations to tranquility, clarity and transcendence. That’s easier said than done, to be sure.
Should we discredit anything that comes from within as unreal and therefore worth little in light of scientific evidence and process? You may or may not mean to argue in that direction, but I’ve certainly heard the case made by others. I don’t understand why we are obligated to discredit what we might call the processes and products of our inner life (as inflected by culture, to be sure) as baseless and bound always to lead to delusion. That those products are often preyed upon by those who seek power and wealth is not in doubt – the current question is about the intrinsic value of them as we move through a life reasonably well lived, not what the most ignorant and uncivil people make of them, because they will always find a way to ruin anything they get their hands and minds on. Let’s face it, they couldn’t make a decent cup of coffee…. Just as a personal inclination, I honestly care more about the Greeks and the Romans, the Italian Renaissance and the French Enlightenment, than anything given us by science proper. Being a simple dino who is “easily caught by sound,” I’ve always felt out of my league when it comes to the sciences, so they’re not the focus of my time or thoughts.
"The atheist side is easy to state: “there’s no proof, so there’s no compulsion to believe and in fact believers are rather silly”"
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that there's no atheist side. People don't believe in gods for various reasons, valid and otherwise; scientific and otherwise. If we don't want to abandon our comfort in mythology, we choose atheists we feel we can humiliate or we simply invent them for purposes of argument. Dan Dennet and Hitchens and a couple of others are simply so difficult to brush off, we can only burn them in effigy.
There's nothing new in not believing in any or all gods, just a lot more contradictory evidence.
As I've so often said, I don't talk about proof but about epistemology. To me, religious epistemology fails because nothing based on it can be used to verify anything else. It can't be extrapolated from or built upon. Faith is always circular, like a string of beads you count forever.
Is "if it feels good, believe it" really an adequate epistemology? Is "ancient goatherds thought the world was flat so it is" really a way to learn anything? Is something on an urn true because it's beautiful? Is beauty even universal and can it even exist without an observer? Does it help us determine the composition of things, the nature of things? Does believing we're just clay inspired by divine genius, but we can exist forever without the clay if the invisible spirits like us really serve us better than what we know because of logic and observation and measurement and experiment? I just don't think so.
Silly? I reserve that word for people who extrapolate from mythology, from belief, from cultural norms and try to build unecessary entities, constructs of certainty on the divinity of Mithras or Mazda or Jesus or Yahweh or the Elohim or whomever. Faith is a foundation for nothing, and so is useless for any purpose but to feel good, or bad if feeling bad is god's will, which it so often is.
So do I demand that there is no god, by any definition? No I don't, but I don't believe that your chosen belief obligates me in any way: to believe in a 6000 year old universe or a rock dome to which stars are attached or a god who hates anyone at all. That's silly.
There is however a great deal of worry about people like Dennet and Hitchens, inter alia, who can successfully argue that the planet isn't flat and the universe is old and huge and that things are more likely to have originated in other ways than by divine fiat, and consequently a need to dismiss them. It's usually an inept dismissal by false characterizations, like "new" Atheism. There's nothing new. ages before we knew how big the galaxy was or how many other galaxies there were or how old the universe and and our planet were, astronomers were concluding that we're far to small and insignificant to have had it built for our benefit in a week. We simply know so much more than the average person is aware of, that I can't find a place for spirits and ghosts and people with no bodies much less some ineffable sentience behind existence itself, whether it's concerned with our sex lives or not.
As I've said elsewhere, I don't find much divine love in the Tanach, only severely limited tolerance for certain kinds of love in the official gospels and a great deal of it in Buddhism which still, in it's turn, doesn't do such a good job of making people love each other.
Sorry, from my standpoint, love, which I prefer to call compassion, may be godlike, but God isn't love and beauty isn't truth and I need to know more about whether a Higgs field is real than how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDelete"Is 'if it feels good, believe it' really an adequate epistemology?"
No, it's a bumper sticker. It bears no relation to the nuanced points that I made, which aren't a standard defense of religion or religious "belief." I'm not much interested in belief. Experience, sure, but not codified belief systems and institutions. I won't defend a bumper sticker that isn't even on my own car.
I agree that Hitchens is an educated man and that he writes very well on the subject of religion -- he's many cuts above the usual run as a thinker and as a writer. He's not someone who should be dismissed lightly, or indeed at all.
Please know that that question was rhetorical and not a challenge to anything you've written. I wouldn't presume and I'm not up to it if I wanted to.
ReplyDeleteMost peoples' reason for adhering to a religion is pretty much that though. It's a painkiller or so I think, having nothing of nuance and much to do with absolute and peremptory ideas about truth or the metaphorical content of myth -- Most people's religion really is an opiate, but that doesn't mean I want to take that way. Hell, I'd even legalize opium if I could.
No, I've been talking to and about the godbothers who have hijacked that inner life and used it for power and money by flattering the ignorant, intimidating the intelligent and destroying the protesters. The oldest profession is the priest as far as I'm concerned - without him, prostitution would be nothing.
Seriously, I actually agree with you on all your points -- at least I think I do. I just don't know how to talk about what you're talking about and have to do the Schopenhauer thing and pass it over in silence -- preferably with a silence broken only by Bach.
"I don’t understand why we are obligated to discredit what we might call the processes and products of our inner life"
Nor do I, and I don't think Dennet or Hitchens are saying that but only opposing the kind of faith that denies the undeniable for its own sake. There's much more to them and even a small bit more to me than not believing in a literal deity.
I think I'm quoting Browne correctly: "How dangerous it is in sensible things to use metaphorical expressions unto the people and what absurd conceits they will swallow in their literals."
That's as close as I can come and I'm using someone else's words. It's the absurd conceit that repels me and it's the religion of small minds.
That's enough from me!
Non c'è problema, capitano mio.
ReplyDeleteI've never tried to prove the existence of God or Gods to anyone. I have no need to persuade others as to what to believe. I do find it frustrating that there is a hubris among many who profess to be atheists that somehow those of us who believe in something beyond this physical plane are just down right stupid.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find stupid is the ridiculous back and forth as to whether God exists. If you don't believe that She does, then so be it. I don't have any certainty in a God as portrayed in the Bible. I find that God too judgmental and petty for my tastes, always smiting something or destroying some city. But I do feel a sense of wonder at the universe that extends beyond what science provides, a sense of oneness and unity at times that is quite overpowering. I've often wondered if this is God?
In my spiritual self, God is female although I don't really have a visual for her. I read a poem once that read, "I found God in myself and I loved Her fiercely." I've held on to that line because it spoke to me. I don't think that it much matters whether you believe or don't believe in a God of some sort. I find it to be a matter of choice. Right now, my sister-in-law is battling cancer for the second time after a seeming cure (10 years in remission). My adult nephew, age 23, prays a lot for his mother. I think that it gives him comfort and I would destroy anyone who tried to take that comfort away from him because of some need to prove that his belief has no basis in science.
I've never had any problem reconciling science with faith. I even have my own subscription to Scientific American; I don't believe in creationism; and I don't regard the Bible as a history book. However, I am constantly seeking the meaniong of existence and my place in the world. I'm an avid reader of philosophy and that includes the religious writings of many faiths. I've been struck over and over by the commonalities of certain core beliefs that transverse a variety of faiths. I don't know that there is a God but neither do I know that there is not. I truly believe that there are more things in the universe than we could ever dream of. Faith is belief; it doesn't require proof. Faith is also full of doubts because it's not based on provable evidence. I think that faith is simply about looking beyond the knowable and pondering the unknowable.
I don't generally discuss religion in any forum because I find that most people aren't interested in a discussion of the philosophy of faith or the infinite possibilities in a vast universe in any serious fashion but simply wish to make it clear that anyone who seriously considers the possibility of a supreme being in this universe is a fool who believes in fairytales.
"but simply wish to make it clear that anyone who seriously considers the possibility of a supreme being in this universe is a fool who believes in fairytales."
ReplyDeleteYes, I know I said I was done, but I have to answer that, because I care about the people here. As a person of scientific bent and with a bit of knowledge about physics, I wouldn't be inclined to say there's no possibility. I would talk of probabilities.
Is there a Higgs particle? I don't know. Is that arrogant? We do experiments to find out and we don't talk of certainty.
For my part, I find so much defensiveness and projection amongst religious people that it's impossible to have an objective conversation about those probabilities however hard I try or however sincere I am. That's why I sometimes feel that religion stands between me and the world.
The feeling that doubt equals hubris and conviction does not, puzzles me in the extreme. It's completely beyond my comprehension -- which doesn't mean much, of course. I'm surely not the smartest person in this room. Many things are beyond me though, including the nature of existence in which I see only randomness and uncertainty albeit grand and awesome in that meaninglessness. Where does existence come from? I can't answer and I think it's not modest to say one can. How is that arrogant?
I would be lying, however if I said I thought the possibility of a supreme being was beyond vanishingly small and getting smaller by the day. Since the universe is nearly infinite and since it may be one of an infinite number of them, that supreme being would have to be so incomprehensible in nature that it's a thing of hubris to call it a being in the first place. Maybe 'being' without the article comes closer. If you wanted to say God is being: God is what is, then I might agree in a metaphorical sense, but then we'd all be part of that being, wouldn't we?
But I know how it feels to believe in one. I listen to the Laudamus te in Bach's St Matthew passion and I know.
But I don't know how it can be arrogant to say something can't be known, can't be detected, can't be observed to do anything, can't be characterized, defined or located, and how it can be otherwise but hubris to say, "it feels like it to me so it must be true."
There I am and I cannot be otherwise. I'm very sad if I've offended anyone other than Sarah Palin.
"I do find it frustrating that there is a hubris among many who profess to be atheists that somehow those of us who believe in something beyond this physical plane are just down right stupid."
ReplyDeleteDear Captain, you misunderstood. It's not a matter of doubt or conviction being superior to one another. The hubris is declaring that having faith is an indicator of the believer's inability to think or reason as compared to the doubter or nonbeliever. Faith is a foundation for nothing, and so is useless for any purpose but to feel good, or bad if feeling bad is god's will, which it so often is.
Belief is not superior to nonbelief but neither does it make the believer a neanderthal who rejects science or a victim of delusional beliefs, held on to because of an inability to face the Truth--there is no God.
I have family members who believe the Bible is a literal depiction of facts and events. I don't discuss religion with them because it is akin to pounding my head against a brick wall. However, I also have family and friends who are thoughtful, reasonable people who find meaning in the allegorical teachings of the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran. I also have friends who are Buddhists and one who is Hindu. They are all very intelligent people and some are even scientists.
I've never declared to anyone that his or her nonbelief in God is stupid, or ridiculous, or naive, but I constantly read such admonishments from those who have decided that my belief is an indicator of a lack of intelligence. That's what's arrogant.
My comment wasn't to arguse the existence of God. I don't know if there is a God any more than I know the vastness of the universe. I have no conviction, only faith which is ephemeral. My comment was to bluntly address not the assertion of nonbelief but the conclusion that to have belief is akin to mindlessness. To assert that there is no evidence of God, is neither offensive nor arrogant. To assert that a belief in God indicates an inability to reason is arrogant. "Silly? I reserve that word for people who extrapolate from mythology, from belief, from cultural norms and try to build unecessary entities, constructs of certainty on the divinity of Mithras or Mazda or Jesus or Yahweh or the Elohim or whomever."
I am not offended. I've been around far too long to take offense at the exchange of ideas. I think that it's a healthy thing to discuss issues on which there are differences of opinion. However, I'm not shy and retiring and I refuse to let anyone slide when it appears to me that he is making broad generalizations, no matter how cute I think that someone is.
"Belief is not superior to nonbelief but neither does it make the believer a neanderthal who rejects science or a victim of delusional beliefs, held on to because of an inability to face the Truth--there is no God."
ReplyDeleteWhere did I imply that? I'm saying that belief is limited by it's lack of limitations. I have the same awe at the unknowable as anyone. I just don't give it a name or ascribe characteristics to it or talk to it or claim a personal relationship with it.
I'm saying that belief goes nowhere because you can't logically say "I believe A, therefore B" without begging the question of whether that belief is true by some standard other than how it feels.
"I believe therefore you should or must act accordingly" certainly smells of the kind of arrogance that's wishfully attributed to atheists and this is typical of the religious right I see as my personal enemy. Am I right in assuming that no one in the Zone fits that mold?
But one more time: I'M NOT ACCUSING ANY OF YOU OF ANY OF THAT nor do I think you're dumb or deluded or anything other than a nice, kind and intelligent person. It's important to me that you know that.
Yes, sure, there may be some ineffable sentience behind existence, there may be something, but it might be in here rather than out there and it may not be possible to honestly say anything about it, much less to give it a name and claim it writes books. To call the unknowable God, is to reduce it, to distort it, to misunderstand it, to make into our own image.
I'm saying that belief that will admit of no possibility of error -- or belief that's based on the need to believe, the good feelings belief conveys, the social membership that belief confers can't be trusted as a foundation for knowledge or authority.
If I'm passionate about knowing the answers, which I am, I can't trust my own beliefs and therefore can't push them on others; soI'm not telling you what to believe, I'm outlining the thought process that got me where I am.
Here's something I think I've observed: Many religious people protect their own beliefs by stereotyping people who are committed to logic and reason and will go out of their way to make things uncomfortable for non-believers. They're successful.
We've had presidents say Atheists shouldn't be citizens. We get preachers warning us that Atheists can't have morals and can't tell right from wrong. People don't want to hire you. People don't want their children to play with you, people call you stupid and yes, Atheists are subject to as much religious discrimination as those of any religion. And if we complain? Why then, we're arrogant for insisting the unknowable is unknowable.
Teminatum est!