God is a walnut, a mouse, a sunny day, a gleam in your eye
So if God, in Humpty Dumpty fashion, just means whatever any word-spinner says it means, then – why are we expected to heed it or obey it or respect it or not do stem-cell research because of it?
There is a ‘childish notion of an anthropomorphic God that is characteristic of the tribe, of the closed society’ and then there is the non-childish notion of a non-anthropomorphic God.
God exists in the word and through the word…God is a human concept. God is the name we give to our belief that life has meaning, one that transcends the world’s chaos, randomness and cruelty…God is that mysterious force—and you can give it many names as other religions do—which works upon us and through us to seek and achieve truth, beauty and goodness. God is perhaps best understood as our ultimate concern, that in which we should place our highest hopes, confidence and trust…God is better understood as verb rather than a noun. God is not an asserted existence but a process accomplishing itself. And God is inescapable. It is the life force that sustains, transforms and defines all existence.
Well that’s all quite pretty, but it is not what everyone means by the word ‘God’ – to say the least. It’s very odd to say that God is not this childish notion of a person, then matter-of-factly say that God is the name we give to our belief that life has meaning, as if that were common knowledge and universally accepted. I would go so far as to say that’s dirty pool.
It is by the seriousness of our commitments to compassion, indeed our ability to sacrifice for the other, especially for the outcast and the stranger, our commitment to justice—the very core of the message of the prophets and the teachings of Jesus—that we alone can measure the quality of faith. This is the meaning of true faith…Professed faith—what we say we believe—is not faith. It is an expression of loyalty to a community, to our tribe. Faith is what we do. This is real faith. Faith is the sister of justice.
Same thing. Very pretty, but idiosyncratic; does not reflect common usage or common knowledge; therefore, no basis on which to contest someone else’s account of the matter which more closely reflects common usage and knowledge (whatever other faults it may have).
Faith is not in conflict with reason. Faith does not conflict with scientific truth, unless faith claims to express a scientific truth. Faith can neither be affirmed nor denied by scientific, historical or philosophical truth…There is a reality that is not a product of rational deduction. It is not accounted for by strict rational discourse. There is a spiritual dimension to human existence and the universe, but this is not irrational—it is non-rational.
More Humpty Dumptyism with ‘faith’ along with some unnecessary decoration. There is an emotional dimension to human existence that it is fair to call non-rational, but as for a spiritual dimension to the universe – 1) I don’t know what that means and 2) I think it’s decorative windbaggery.
The danger of Sam’s simplistic worldview is that it does what fundamentalists do: It creates the illusion of a binary world of us and them, of reason versus irrationality, of the forces of light battling the forces of darkness. And once you set up this world you are permitted to view as justified military intervention, brutal occupation and even torture, anything, in short, that will subdue what is defined as irrational and dangerous.
That, on the other hand, I think is a defensible view, and it also doesn’t bother with idiosyncratic definitions or with decorative windbaggery. Argumentative writing is never improved by idiosyncratic definitions or decorative windbaggery; never.
What Hedges, the author, is doing is a trick I observe often. First, define “God” in a way much more sophisticated and rarefied than the conventional way (which is, arguably, legitimate), and then assume that this is what common believers really mean by “God” (which is bullshit).
It’s not just that sophisticated and conventional theists have different beliefs about one single entity, God. Rather, they simply believe in utterly different entities, but call both by the name “God”.
If classical Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are “theist”, then Hedges (if he really means what he says) is an “atheist”. If Hedges’ is a “theist”, then Muhammad, Augustine, Rabbi Hillel, and the lot are “atheists”.
Yeah. It’s okay (if a bit otiose) to say ‘the God I believe in is [meaning,a process, whatever].’ But Hedges keeps declaring that’s what ‘God’ is – which is ludicrous. And obstructive, and tricksy, and irritating.
Re-defining “God” to mean something other than it means to most people is certainly ludicrous, obstructive, tricksy and irritating. But it’s much more than that.
This particular bit of tricksy rhetoric – which is also, not incidentally, a blatant logical fallacy when used in the context of arguments and counter-arguments – serves two insidious purposes. It not only gives the false appearance of refuting whatever atheist arguments it is used to respond to, it also lends a completely unwarranted aura of reasonableness and plausibility to a bunch of ideas – the ones most religious adherents actually believe – which are patently not reasonable, not plausible, and not rationally defensible.
It’s more than ludircous, obstructive, tricksy or irritating. It’s outright intellectual fraud, and no amount of windbagging will make me believe that it is not intentional fraud.
I just love the way that he, as NB said, removes the concept of “god” from any version you’ll find taught in a church/mosque/temple/whatever practically anywhere in the world…
It must be the voice in his head that makes him so sure he’s right…
:-)
Maybe he needs to be introduced to the fanboy who went to Falwell’s funeral with a van full of bombs – which were intended for use on those protesting against the late bigotry-spewing charlatan…?
religious terrorism, anyone?
Yikes. I just got out-liberalized by a cleric, I see. I’m orthodox (not to speak of tribal and antropomorphic) compared to that. And I’m not even a Christian.
I agree with NB and OB that Hedges’ move is potentially legitimate if it were preceded by “The God that I believe exists is…”. Now, he is placing himself in a certain tradition here (a lot of the phraseology is Tillich’s). That said, I don’t think Hedges explicates his concept clearly.
Rev Al Sharpton does just this in his recent debate Hitchens. I was just left thinking “What is the point of Al Sharpton?” has I banged on, again and again, that Hitchens had called his book “God Is Not Great” and not “Religion Is Not Great”.
Hedges writes, “These believers were being asked to embrace an abstract, universal deity. This deity could not be captured in pictures, statues or any concrete, iconographic form. God exists in the word and through the word, an unprecedented conception in the ancient world that required the highest order of abstract thinking.”
Hmmm… Makes me really wonder why all three of these monotheistic religions for which he seems to have such abiding respect insist on referring to their particular deities as “he” — capitalized, even. Abstract penis, I guess.
BTW, the guy used the word “faith” with apparently ever-shifting definitions.
My version was ‘The God I believe in is’ – not ‘The God I believe exists is.’ The second claims a little more, and is somewhat bizarre if used of Hedges-type abstractions.
I realize he’s placing himself in a tradition, of course, but that hardly makes his claims as straightforward as he seems to think they are – correction, as he pretends they are. That hardly makes the familiar churchy god irrelevant. (Not that you’re saying otherwise, Merlijn!)
(I’ve been wondering what is the point of Al Sharpton for decades. Decades!)
Heh heh heh. Merlijn does that! Refers to the abstract God as ‘he’ – I ragged him about it just the other day.
How can anyone really read the Books of Moses and say that the petty, anthropomorphic, blustering, sadistic Jehovah is a universal, abstract deity, just because he won’t let anyone paint his portrait?
I guess I am just too ‘literal-minded’ to figure out the groovy, spiritual, metaphorical meaning in things like the massacre of the Amelakites, and the taking of their young women as sex slaves.
“God is the name we give to our belief that life has meaning, one that transcends the world’s chaos, randomness and cruelty…”
So anyone who thinks that life has meaning believes in God?
That’s a better trick than water into wine!
God is the cuddly bunny that hops onto my pillow every night and gently licks my forehead until I fall asleep. Oh wait. That happens *after* I’m asleep.
Hedges: “Reason allows us to worship at the idol of our intrinsic moral superiority. It is a dangerous form of idolatry, a form of faith, certainly, but one the biblical writers knew led to evil and eventually self-immolation.”
WTF is this guy saying? Is he serious?
Try this: “[Religion] allows us to worship at the idol of our intrinsic moral superiority. It is a dangerous form of idolatry, a form of faith, certainly, but one the [enlightenment] writers knew led to evil…”
Your version is a lot more plausible, Doug. And it parses better, too.
His use of the phrase “self-immolation” is especially… interesting. When taken literally, the most common historical (and ongoing) cause of the deliberate immolation of persons (self-immolation or otherwise) throughout all of human history has been religion – as punishment for witchcraft, for heresy, or simply for outliving your husband.
Really. Christians (and Hindus) ought to avoid any rhetorical devices that mention burning people when they’re out to DEFEND religion. There are far too many charred skeletons in religion’s closet for that rhetoric not to… wait for it… backfire.
So Hedges would presumably disown the builders of the Creation Museum? But I’d wager that their view of religion is much wider held than his.
Anyway, I was taught that the discovery of the individual was a phenomenon of the Renaissance and its secular leanings.
“It’s more than ludircous, obstructive, tricksy or irritating. It’s outright intellectual fraud”
It is a bait and switch. It is a shell game. It is mountebankery.
It is one of those market stalls that wrap what you are actually buying in black bags so you can’t tell you’ve been conned until it’s too late.
Not only is it bait and switch, it is such an oft refuted piece of slickery that presenting it again can only make one doubt either Hedges honesty or his familiarity with the whole debate.
I look forward to Harris’s response.
The whole piece is riddled with false dichotomies. In fact it would make a useful paradigm for people studying (in order to avoid) false dichotomies.
The false dichotomy–>bait and switch is classic theist two-step. Classic.
Hedges’ attack on reason echoes that of Luther and other theologizers, the gist of which is, stated plainly, “Reason is idolatrous because if we actually applied it to our absurd and reprehensible religious doctrines, they would disappear like ice cubes in the hot sun.”
If reason is objectionable, why does Hedges use reasoned argument (albeit badly reasoned argument) to make his point? Why not just emote?
Not to argue from authority (much), but for the edification of you lot, Hedges is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. He wrote “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (from his long experience as a war correspondent) and “American Fascists” (about US Christian fundamentalism). He’s no arbitrary “word-spinner”, he carries more weight than Harris or Hitchens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges
Dix Hill: there’s no need to worry about arguing from authority — Harvard Divinity School doesn’t have any.
What does “carries more weight mean”? That his understanding is better? But that’s precisely the issue, isn’t it?
JonJ: Hedges’ point about setting up a binary world of reason vs. irrationality is a bit more subtle: not so much that people who regard themselves as rationalists have committed atrocities but rather that dehumanizing the other creates a framework in which these are possible. He’s also not so much referring to Stalin here as to Sam Harris’ views on torture (which I cannot comment on here as I only know them third-hand).
Likewise, far from calling reason itself a dangerous form of idolatry, he seems (to me) to be stating that it allows one to worship one’s own moral superiority and that that is a dangerous form of idolatry.
In both cases, Hedges seems to be calling for some self-reflection and self-criticism on the part of the “Enlightened West” in the “Islam vs. Enlightened West” conflict.
Dix Hill, thanks for the edification, but I already knew that; I’ve heard Hedges say sensible things on (for instance) fundamentalism. But what of it? I was criticizing this particular article, because I think it says a lot of arbitrary things. What, indeed, do you mean he ‘carries more weight’? (And by the way Hitchens has considerable experience as a journalist and writer of books too, and he too graduated from a high-status university, having read a more, er, grounded subject than ‘divinity’.)
Merlijn: Can’t religious people dehumanize the Other? I would say that “honor-killing” of women, enslaving people, and executing “heretics” are pretty dehumanizing, and religious people have done all of these things, as we secularists repeat ad nauseam. (I know, I’m tired of saying it too, but nobody on the religion side ever seems to hear. They keep repeating, sing-song-fashion, “Faith good, reason evil.”)
No, not all religious people do such things, by a long shot, but religion is supposed to be the way to prevent them. Religion and faith, we hear, keep people from “dehumanizing the Other.”
Similarly, can one really say that non-reason is an effective way of keeping oneself from worshipping one’s own moral superiority? I could mention a lot of people who are as full of faith as the day is long and certainly seem to be worshipping their own moral superiority. Oh — except that they modestly call it “God’s superiority.” All glory to God, not to themselves — but from where I sit, it’s hard to tell the difference.
Hedges may be right about one thing, though. It all basically comes down to the actual people who do good and evil. And they can be religious or non-religious.
I’d say that one of the key features of hierarchal religions is not only dehumanizing the Other – making a clear distinction between the True Believers and Those Evil Heretics, i.e. Us and Them – but also dehumanizing the self. After all, a religious view of humanity often very profoundly undermines and devalues some of what is essential to human life: Demonizing sexuality and pleasure in favor of repression and denial is profoundly anti-human, a move that seeks to make the believer ALWAYS guilty by turning features at the very center of human nature into something to feel shame about. Every hierarchal religion seems to have some element of attaching shame to fundamental features of human existence, whether it’s the Jewish tradition that considers menstruating women “unclean” or Christianity’s broad anti-sexuality (thanks, Paul) or everything Islam has to say about gender.
Dehumanization isn’t always aimed at the other.
“Merlijn: Can’t religious people dehumanize the Other?”
Yes, of course – but I think Hedges would agree they can.
Then what’s the good of religion? If it’s not efficacious, why buy it? I think it’s about time for some safety and effectiveness studies of Christianity, like the drug studies pharmaceutical companies have to do.
What maddens us about Christians (and other religionists) is that they want it both ways: when their religion motivates people to behave well, they are triumphant; when it doesn’t, they say, “Of course, people have free will, Satan always tries to tempt us, etc.”
Why not just drop the religion part, and admit that people do good things and bad things, for reasons that need to be investigated empirically, so we can find out what’s is actually happening? It’s like the algebraic expression ab/ac: you can just cancel out the a’s — b/c is all you need.
I would dispute the value of any idea, philosophical stance, social activity, etc. can be judged purely on the basis of whether they motivate people to do good things or bad things. So I tend to agree with you when you stated that “It all basically comes down to the actual people who do good and evil. And they can be religious or non-religious.” and similar words in your last post.
You’re kinda missing JonJ’s point, Merlijn. One of the main selling points of religion, constantly harped on by those who promote religion and criticize secularism, is that religion is a source of solid moral values. If that claim is patently false – and let’s face it, the evidence says it is – then what value is left for religion to claim? It fosters a sense of identity for believers, yes, but almost always in a particularly divisive Us vs. Them way. The factual claims religion makes are either highly dubious or provably false. What is left? Perhaps there are very personal values and meanings in religion for adherents, but those are not something that can or ought to be treated as a selling point.
I’m not missing JonJ’s point, G. I’m aware that religion is claimed to be a source for morality, and as should be clear from my reply to JonJ (and my points in the other thread), I disagree with that claim. I am, however, equally unimpressed with those dismissing religion because of a perceived lack of positive effects.
‘It’s not just that sophisticated and conventional theists have different beliefs about one single entity, God. Rather, they simply believe in utterly different entities, but call both by the name “God”.’
That’s from the first comment; NB’s. It’s a good one. And the kicker is that everybody (well, nearly) seems to agree that it’s the first when it really is the second. It apparently doesn’t matter what you say about God as long as you say something nice.
Merlijn, I still think you’re missing the point, or rather misunderstanding it. Let me try again.
Those “dismissing religion” are not doing so – at least not in the context of the arguments currently under discussion – because of a perceived lack of any and all positive effects associated with religious belief. That’s a straw man. Instead, what is on offer here is a counter-argument to the very common pro-religion argument based on its supposed salutary moral benefits. When it is shown (as is easily done, you acknowledge) that religion does not have anything like purely or primarily positive influence on the moral behavior of its adherents – that religious morality is very much a mix of good and bad – then one of the most common arguments offered for the social benefits and crucial place of religion in human life is kaput.
To criticize someone else’s positive argument isn’t the same as offering a negative argument, but in this case it does seem to lead rather naturally to another set of arguments. As I elaborated above, when there are no other persuasive positive arguments for the benefits of religion on offer, dismissing the most often repeated positive argument (the morality claim) doesn’t seem to leave a whole lot left. The argument under discussion concludes that religion’s moral contributions are, on balance, not overwhelmingly positive. So what else is there? Religion’s epistemological contributions are, in my judgment (widely shared hereabouts) entirely negative. And, to anticipate a likely objection, I agree that epistemology is hardly the point of religion. But that leads naturally to the question: What is the point? Religion does not, on the whole, contribute to human welfare or improve human moral behavior. It certainly doesn’t contribute to human knowledge. So exactly does religion contribute to human existence that we wouldn’t be better off without?
That question is not rhetorical, and it does not presume that religion can have no benefits at all. I’ll even agree that religious foundations can be and have been used to support some of the perfectly fine basic moral principles you discussed higher in this thread. But if those moral principles can be supported by other means which do not carry with them the various bad things associated with religious beliefs and institutions – tribalism, a decided tendency to reject reason and critical thinking, a general overabundance of certainty and self-righteousness, believing implausible things for epistemically questionable reasons – then the question about whether and how religion contributes to the overall human good is not merely rhetorical. In fact, it seems very, very difficult to answer.
That’s the point I take JonJ to be making – or at any rate, that’s the point I want to make – that you have not addressed or acknowledged.
I think in making the point clearly, I’ve drawn it more starkly than I did the first time – which is not quite my intent. As I said above, I can see the value of religious belief and practice for individual adherents – identity, meaning, emotional satisfaction, social alliances, etc. But if those individual benefits come at high social costs, then religion still comes out as a negative on the whole. Obviously the costs are high for some religions and low or none for others – which is why I keep bringing up Unitarians and Buddhists and Pagans and such in these conversations. But too few religious adherents are of these “non-toxic” varieties, unfortunately.
G: While I do acknowledge that a religious stance in general does not seem to have a clearly positive benefit on the morality of its holders (as compared to the non-religious, at least), I dismiss the logic of either buying or not-buying religion on that basis. As JonJ said: “Then what’s the good of religion? If it’s not efficacious, why buy it?”.
In your first reply, you mentioned a number of reasons which lead you to dismiss religion: divisive identity claims, dubious factual basis, etc. I’m not in agreement with the premises of your argument, but I don’t challenge the internal logic of it.
However, suppose a counterfactual scenario in which the personal and social benefits of religion were obvious. Religious people, without exception, are paragons of virtue, tolerance, open-mindedness, general saint-like behaviour, etc. But the central truth-claims of religion are hokey – I mean, too hokey even for a Hedges-style liberal, poetic interpretation. Surely, in this (admittedly unlikely) scenario you would still be an atheist. You would look for a scenario in which you can combine good moral behaviour with holding to what you believe to be the truth. And you’d be right.
There’s two intertwined arguments going on here: supposed social benefits of a religious stance itself, and supposed social benefits of a central religious stance in society (without necessarily embracing it oneself). I think the latter cannot be answered without taking into account the specifics of religion. Essentially, I believe there is great inherent value in the presence of conflicting philosophical, political, ethical opinions. This value evaporates if these are exchanged for fertilizer bombs.
Merlijn, I don’t quite see your point. In your (very) counter-factual scenario, you are correct that I would still be an atheist. I would also no longer have reasons to be dubious about and critical of religion on moral/social grounds in general – although I would still have reasons to be dubious about the epistemological side effects, which I also consider rather important (for obvious reasons). So? If I concede that, I don’t see that I’m conceding anything.
Granted, I am an atheist for epistemological reasons: I have concluded that every claim about the existence and nature of gods that I have ever encountered is either false or not even false (that is, so incoherent or vague that truth and falsity cannot be at issue). But I am critical of religions and religious institutions and the role of religions in societies for all sorts of reasons besides the falsity of religious truth claims: I even outlined some of those reasons above. So what’s the point of looking at a counter-factual situation in which the truth claims are just as ludicrous as ever, but some of the other reasons for my rejection of religion are absent or mitigated? I live in this world, not the one you hypothesize. I think I understand your counter-example, but the purpose of offering it completely eludes me.
Moreover, I don’t see how religion as such makes any specific and positive contributions to the sort of pluralism you claim to value. If every religious adherent were suddenly overwhelmed by epistemological doubts and gave up their beliefs tomorrow (talk about counter-factual scenarios!), there would still be plenty of conflicting philosophical, political and ethical opinions floating about. Is this pluralism so inherently valuable that more of it is somehow automatically better, such that we should want it maximized? I very much doubt that.
And I really don’t understand your implication (the “fertilizer bombs” thing) that the alternative to pluralism is terrorism: As rhetoric, it’s overblown. As reasoning, it doesn’t wash. In fact, when the plurality of conflicting opinions includes lots of rigid ideological positions that people are willing to kill for, pluralism is the cause of violence, not the alternative for it. So again, I fail to understand what you’re getting at.
(And for the record, I am always very suspicious of all claims for “inherent” value. I’ve never seen a convincing argument for any inherent value, only citation of dubious intuitions. Things are valuable to entities with needs and wants, not valuable in and of themselves. Or, in other words, value is a relational property. This is kind of off-topic, but you did claim that the presence of conflicting opinions is inherently valuable, so I thought it was worth mentioning my doubts in case you wished to elaborate on why conflicting opinion is so valuable. This might be one of those definitional issues, where I’m taking “inherent” as a technical term when you didn’t intend it to be.)
G:
I do believe in the value of pluralism. I believe a society without religious opinions would be an intellectually very, very impoverished society (I would feel rather the same about a society without atheists). One of the reasons would be that reflection over religious issues would become very difficult. More generally, it would become much more difficult to critically reflect on any position if the alternative position isn’t put forward in any manner. Which is one of the reasons I’m a firm believer in the importance of contrarianism.
You misunderstood my point about “fertilizer bombs”. I said that the value of pluralism is negated if those are resorted to. So political radicalism and political violence may be a possible, undesirable effect of pluralism.
The point of my counter-factual scenario was that it was not the perceived social value (or lack of it) of religion that compels one to accept or reject it (regardless of the fact that religion may, of course, be praised or criticized for its role in society).
Ah. That’s all much clearer. You seem to be taking a position on the plurality of contending ideas somewhat like that of J.S. Mill, which is also one of my favorites. (Note: Such a view does not attach “inherent” value to pluralism for any understanding of “inherent” that I am aware of, hence some of my confusion regarding that part of what you said.)
That said, I’m not sure I can agree with you as to how intellectually impoverishing the lack of diverse religious opinions would be. Pluralism/ diversity of opinion is all well and good, for the reasons Mill spells out in On Liberty and to which you seem to be alluding above. But pluralism is not an absolute or unqualified good, and there are many opinions among the plurality of possibilities that we’d all be better off without. We can do without some opinions precisely because those opinions actively stifle intellectual endeavor and promote intellectual poverty, by virtue of the way in which the opinions are held as much as by the content of the opinions. Religious fundamentalism and dogmatism – in fact, dogmatism in all its forms – directly contributes to intellectual impoverishment in a society inflicted with large numbers of adherents: Ken Ham’s new creationism “museum” leaps to mind as a prime example. Such opinions do not invigorate any substantial debate, they simply promote ignorance.
On balance, I suspect I see many more religious beliefs and institutions as having such odious effects than you see.
I know what we could do – we could make a lot of robots that would have dogmatic faith-based ideas, so that people could sharpen their reasoning skills by disputing with the robots but no actual thinking humans would be harmed in the making of this arrangement.
giggle giggle
Sorry, it’s been a long day!
Did this long day involve alcohol on the holiday weekend, perhaps?
Not that I’m one to criticize…
G’night!
G: I agree that my previous usage of “inherent” did not correspond to yours, and I defer to your knowledge of the technical term.
Sam the Man strikes back!
http://tinyurl.com/39ub85