Category: religion, atheism, polyamory, culture

Happy Carl Sagan Day


Just a friendly reminder of the wonderful personality of Carl Sagan.  This wonderful communicator of science and  lover of knowledge is still missed by many of us.

I have always loved the sound of his voice, his gentle smile, and I wish I had had a chance to meet him while he was still around.

So, today, let’s try and remember Carl Sagan, what he represented, and what he may still have to teach us.

 

Here’s the beginning of the Cosmos series, which still gives me a lovely chill when those notes come in.

I urge anyone who has not seen it, or has not seen it in many years, to watch the entire series.

Also, in case you one of those deluded souls who were told, as a child, that anything Sagan was Satanic, Carl Sagan is not Satanic.

Of elections and accommodationists


So, the Democratic party has lost a few seats in the House of Representatives.  And so they maintained a majority in the Senate.  That was about what many expected, including myself.

And so many pundits were calling this election a referendum on Barack Obama.  That’s not really unexpected either.

But has Obama failed in his goals for change? Well, he has accomplished some.  Perhaps not enough for many of the more liberal-minded supporters who ushered him into office two years ago.  Why was his administration not able to do more? Well, some say that it is because of the attempts by Republicans to block legislative attempts, appointments, etc with those oh-so-spooky rules of Congress.  And some have pointed to some other causes; say Barack Obama’s desire to be bi-partisan.  It is a noble goal, perhaps, but one that may have been naive.  And I agree with some who say that it has only been two years, and those two years were mired with immense financial problems and wars over-seas.

Barack Obama seems to really believe, or at least wants to appear to believe (I know, I’m cynical…) that working with his political opponents is a means to healing the split that has grown in our culture and politics.  He does not want to simply use the steamroller of his political power to roll over them, because he wants a world, perhaps, where we work together.

And Jon Stewart’s recent Rally to Restore Sanity had a similar message of working together, to stop demonizing the extremes, and to find a way to work together as Americans.

That is, the message of Hope in Barack Obama’s campaign, as well as Jon Stewart’s rally, is to find a way for people on all sides of these debates to find a way to accommodate their opponents, to treat them like, human beings, to….

Wait a minute.

That sounds really familiar.

Where have I heard that argument before?

Oh, right.  That’s the same argument that people such as Chris Mooney and Karl Giberson have been using in relation for how we should relate to the extremes of the religious world.  We need to build bridges, work with them on projects with which we agree, and we need to stop criticizing them so much.

And critics of their perspective, such as PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne, have been pointing out that we need to look at the long-term and recognize that while communication is important with the extremes, there is a point where working with them will be useless.  There is a point where criticism simply is the only way, because the crazies are just crazy, and we need to work towards a world where their views are not automatically respected and allowed to hold sway without a fight.

And given the fact that the Republican party has been strongly influenced by the same ideas that are behind the religious extremes, perhaps this point should have been more obvious to all of us.  There are too many Republican candidates who reject the science of evolution, don’t seem to know what is in the constitution, and pander to a political movement that is not much more than an attempt to re-frame the old conservative points with a new wrapper.

It seems that the issue of accommodationism is larger than that of how atheists should deal with religious people.  Perhaps it is also relevant to how Democrats should have related to the Republican minority during the last two years.  The Democratic party tried to work with the Republicans, and look how well that worked.  They were called socialists even though Obama is a centrist, blocked at most attempts to do just about anything, and just sat and took it.  They have had no spine, no ferocity, and no recognizable rallying message.  Just like those atheist accommodationists who argue that we need to not be so, well, honest with religious conservatives.

Perhaps this should be a learning moment for the many accommodationists out there.  because while we cannot exactly be voted out of office in two years, we certainly can keep sitting back and allowing religious conservatives continue to push against science education and dominate the conversation until we start to notice that we don’t have a populace intelligent enough to think critically.

Oh crap, we are pretty much already there.

We have work to do, both politically and it terms of critical thinking, skepticism, and fighting against religious fundamentalism.

Muslim humanity prevents Islamic violence


I just finished watching this discussion between Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ramadan about whether Islam is a religion of peace:

Now, there is nothing particularly new about this discussion, or the points made therein.  In fact, to follow this post, you really don’t need to watch it.  But, do watch it if you are interested in the issues involved.

One of the themes in this discussion is one which I see come up often.  When we talk about whether a religion–Islam or otherwise–is one of peace or not, this point is raised that the majority of the faithful are NOT terrorists, militants, or remotely violent themselves.  The violence comes from the extremes, the fringe, who are not representative of the vast majority of the religious community.

I will leave aside Sam Harris’ point that even if they are not doing the violence themselves, the moderates/mainstream believers lend shelter for those who do.  While I agree with this idea essentially, I am not interested in this point at the moment.

Instead, I want to talk about a related point.  Throughout the discussion, Tariq Ramadan pointed out that people can take the text (the Koran, in this case), and read it in ways that will compel them to violence.  And at the same time, most Muslims do not read it this way, nor do they live their lives around violence or terrorism. That is, even if there are parts of the texts that can be read as a motivation for violence, the fact is that most people don’t live that way as Muslims.

And at one point, he compared it to the fact that while the United States has a secular founding document, George W. Bush was still able to use religious rhetoric as President, including rhetoric used towards initiating war with Iraq.  And, in fact, presidents continually use religious rhetoric, even if the Constitution is a secular document.  Supposedly, the point is that even if the text says one thing (whether it is secularism or violence), the practical fact is that people can be representatives of that document and not necessarily reflect that secularism or call for violence.   There is a disconnection between the text and behavior.

An interesting point, but it compels me to wonder how we are to define a religious believer (or representative of the Constitution of the United States), in light of this.  Is it enough to believe in Allah, Muhammad as his Prophet, etc in order to be a Muslim?  Is it enough just to live in an Islamic culture and follow the daily rituals and where the right clothes? Is it enough just to have Muslim parents?

Similarly, is it enough to be elected president? That is, is just being in the position, holding the title, sufficient to actually be a representative of the Constitution which they claim to represent?

In a practical sense, it probably is enough.  And I don’t want to get too mired in the minutia involved in this question now.   But is there a line which, upon crossing it, one can no longer be considered a representative? Is a person who was raised Catholic, attends Mass on rare Sundays, is for a woman’s choice to abort, doesn’t really believe in the Trinity, does not care much for the Pope (the one in Rome), and who has not confessed his “sins” to a priest in years a Roman Catholic?

And if the Koran really does ask you to kill apostates, convert the world to Islam, etc and you don’t do so, then are you really a Muslim?

Where is the line? A point worthy of consideration, but I shall leave it aside for now.

But back to Tariq Ramadan.  His point that there is a distinction between the text and the behavior of adherents is important, if not new, and I do think it gives us pause in such discussion to consider its ramifications.   Ultimately, however, I don’t think it makes the point that Ramadan may intend, which seems to be that the text is not enough; that we need to look at the practical truth of how those who claim to represent those texts actually live.  The people are the body of the religion, and how they behave is, in many important respects, the definition of the religion.  But this is not the whole story.

I think Ramadan’s point does not prove that Islam is not violent any more than George W. Bush’s religious rhetoric proves that the United States is a Christian nation.  Muslims not acting violently, despite the violence called for in the Koran, is comparable to the fact that politicians in the U.S. may be crossing a line in endorsing their religious perspectives as representatives of a secular document.  What this seems to indicate is that people are capable of finding themselves in positions where they are supposed to represent a constitution or sacred text and do so imperfectly.  That is, they veer away from the text in such ways that displays their humanity (and other influence on them from their culture), and how such things can influence how religions and political climates change in practice from their sources.

The practice of one’s religion is a combination of their sacred text (interpreted by theologians and other intellectuals) and the secular and/or alternative religious influences that permeate their culture.  And where they are not acting upon the text and its commands (whether violence or something else), this demonstrates not that the religion is not in fact violent, but that their behavior is informed by other things.  Their humanity prevents them from acting on the violent parts of the text (whether for distaste for it or, perhaps more likely, their ignorance of it), and since most people do this, the religion itself begins to look non-violent based upon this behavior.

Further, those intellectuals and more liberal theologians who read the Koran differently are, perhaps, not being honest with the history and source of Islam, whose history is rife with violence.  It was Mohammad himself who led an invasion of Mecca, which led to subsequent invasions in the name of spreading Islam (both as a religion and political force).  The Koran is pretty clear that the goal of the faith is to convert the world.  One has to explain this or reinterpret it to mean something else to not see the inherent violence contained within.

So where are these intellectuals within the Islamic world finding this lack of essential violence in Islam?  How are they finding the peaceful, intellectual, and modern view of Islam?  Well, the same way that most (liberal) Christian intellectuals find the roots of peace, social justice, and acceptance of homosexuality within the Bible and the Christian tradition. They ignore the atrocities, reinterpret many others, and focus of the parts that are helpful to their worldview.

(and the conservatives do the same, but with a focus on different parts).

It is as I (and many others) have argued before; liberal theologians accomplish their liberal views by being inconsistent with the entire text.   By making decisions with their educated perspective, which is often the result of interaction with ideas outside of their sacred text, they reveal the secular source of their peaceful and open attitude towards alternative ideas and beliefs.  They are not being peaceful and sophisticated because of the religious texts themselves, but because of their humanity which they project onto their interpretations of those texts.  And because there are a few occasions where the text does inspire more modern and liberal values, they highlight these verses and put to the side the ones which display the violence which is part of that tradition and faith.

—

So, why are the vast majority of religious people generally tolerant, non-violent, and moderate? Well, because they either don’t know what the text says, don’t agree with a lot of it, or because as human beings they don’t literally take the whole text (and only that text) as the inspiration for how to live their lives.  And those that do try to live their lives based upon that text become fundamentalists.  They become the fringe, because this behavior pattern of taking one source very seriously is rare in human behavior.

But the more seriously they take the text, the more radical and insane they seem to the mainstream.  And since the text is the source of the religious beliefs of both fundamentalists and moderates, without which those crazy notions of violence, evangelism, etc would not as easily exist, would it not be better to just view the text as something to not revere?

Where the text says things we agree with, we merely acknowledge that we agree with the text there.  Where we find it out-dated and crazy, we admit that.  But this would imply that the text is imperfect, and the theological notions which derive only from those texts (whether it be Muhammad as being the last prophet or Jesus being God who dies for our sins) should be discarded.

But the moderates hold onto those notions anyway.  While they only accept some of the text (again, out of ignorance or distaste), they still accept some of it despite their being no other source for supporting the ideas and the utter insanity of them.

Again, how are these people really representatives of the text, and why should we respect their beliefs just because they are only partially nutty?  Just because most Muslims, Christians, and Jews are not acting on the calls for violence that their texts clearly ask of them, how does that not make the religion itself non-violent?  Following directions poorly does not change the nature of the directions.

Honestly…what is with your truth?


I have been spending some time recently thinking about truth.

No, that’s not quite right.  I haven’t necessarily been thinking about truth, but I have been thinking about the subject of truth.

That’s not quite right either.  I guess I’ve been thinking about thinking about truth.  Meta-truth, if you will.  And as I did so, I started to get that semi-relativistic head-throbbing that comes when trying to work out the paradoxes of epistemology.  So I took a step back, took a deep breath, and eventually I realized something.  It’s nothing hugely profound, or even novel.  But I think it’s important, nonetheless.

Perhaps we are putting too much emphasis on ‘truth.’  Perhaps this is the wrong primary approach.  This word ‘truth’ is, after all, deceptive.  Because we are not often very certain of it’s parameters or its contents, we are often left with jumbles pieces and we know not how to assemble them.  We end up being circus clowns of truthiness, juggling and dancing to keep up while endeavoring to keep a straight, serious, face.  Truth is serious stuff, after all, and not for clowns.

This reminded me of something that good old Soren Kierkegaard said:

One must not let oneself be deceived by the word ‘deception.’  One can deceive a person for the truth’s sake, and (to recall old Socrates) one can deceive a person into the truth.  Indeed, it is only by this means, i.e. by deceiving him, that it is possible to bring into the truth one who is in error.

Yeah! Take that all you people in error.  I’m gonna kick the truth into you…or something….  You’re gonna wish you ain’t done been wrong in all that error-having you have had….  Sorry, lost it there for a second.  Kierkegaard has that kind of affect on me, it seems.

(BTW, this is not license for people to keep lying for Jesus)

I will not comment on the quote itself, but will prefer to allow it to speak for itself.  I have always liked it though, and am glad to pass it on.

What is the truth? Is there (or is there not) a god? I don’t know.  How to evaluate something that is often so nebulous and slippery as the concept ‘god’ which makes belief in often impossible for the mere fact that we don’t know what the term is supposed to indicate. How can I say it does not exist when I don’t know what it is?  How can I believe in it for the same reason?

(And how do so many people keep claiming that atheism is the claim that there is no god in light of this impossibility?)

But at least we can ask people to be truthful, to tell the truth as best they can, in order to have an honest discussion. But something is not quite right about that phrase.  For some time I could not quite put my finger on what it was, but then it occurred to me; I’m not so much advocating truth as I am advocating honesty.

The simple, brute, fact is that we can’t always know that we have the “truth” in order to give it to others.  If someone asks me to give them the truth, I often have little choice but to cock my head and follow-up with some question.  I need clarification.  And even if I receive the ideal level of clarification, I won’t necessarily be able to give the TruthTM.

But I can be honest.  I can even give good reasons that support the opinion I am being honest about.  But do I dare call it truth?

It seems that such a step is often considered arrogant.  How do I know it’s true? What if I’m wrong?

What I think is going on here is that the term ‘honesty’ has a flavor to it which is often soft and bland.  It has no zing to merely be honest.  People want the truth, right?  Being honest is merely stating an opinion.  But giving the truth…well that’s just sexy!

There is a responsibility behind claiming to give the truth which may not seem as naturally wedded to being honest; and perhaps for good reason.  But I feel that in presenting our beliefs, we have a responsibility to make sure that those belief have gone through some thought, fact-checking, and other considerations.  They, perhaps, have not gone through peer-review, but that is what saying them is for.

And to think those ideas to be true? Well, at some point the ideas we hold, especially if they survive our vetting and the conversational battle-field, we will believe with the force of ‘truth’ (whatever that is) whether it is objectively true (whatever THAT is…) or not.

But recently I’m preferring the concept of honesty, responsible honesty, to truth.

And honesty, in light of politics (both governmental and interpersonal), is an idea perhaps more fundamental and important.  The simple fact is that I don’t often believe that many people are truly…honestly…being honest with themselves or with other people.

I think that would be a good place to start for many people I’ve known in my life.

But they might not even know I’m talking about them.  While they may see the truth in what I say, they may not see the dishonesty in which they live.

Why “these beliefs work for me” is not enough


I get into a lot of arguments with people.  Sometimes, the argument gets ugly, and sometimes it is not.  I’m just one of those people that cares about what is true, and so when someone says something I find to be unjustified or that I  have reasons to disagree with, I often say something.

This often leads to me being called “closed minded,” arrogant, etc.

Just in the last couple of days I have had an email correspondence which started on a polyamory discussion list with someone who seems to consider himself spiritual, and who commented that he has become more serene since he stopped arguing with religious people (it was this and some other things I’ve been annoyed by that led to yesterdays blog about spiritual but not religious people).

I was offended by a comment he made, and tried to explain why I was offended, but it didn’t stick for him.

In any case, I wrote him back late last night, and thought some of the points I made would be relevant to people that might run into this blog.

With no further yapping on my part, here is the entire email:

I am quite aware that your email was not about me.  I was replying to the content that I disagreed with.  My offense at your comment needs some unpacking for you to understand why I was offended.  I’ll get to that at the end of this email.

First I want to say that I notice among many people, in fact this seems to be common wisdom, an unspoken assumption about beliefs.  There seems to be a notion that there is an automatic validity to a belief simply because it works for people, or simply because they have it.  Yes, people rely on things, but I don’t believe it is enough to say that they rely on it and therefore it’s not my place to judge it or even to comment on it.  After all, people have a right to their beliefs, right?

I believe this idea is wrong-headed.  And, more importantly, I don’t think it’s true just because I believe it.  This speaks to the unspoken assumption above.  I have this belief for reasons, not just because it works for me.  This is the crux of the issue for me; I think that people’s beliefs should be justified rationally, or they are not worthy of respect by anyone else.  Of course people have a right to their beliefs, but they don’t have the right to not have their ideas criticized.

An acquaintance and personal favorite leader in the atheist community has become known for asking “What do you believe, and why do you believe it?”  I think this is an important question, and I think that in the attempt to be tolerant, diverse, and respectful this question often gets left behind in the cultural maelstrom (especially in liberal circles).

You said:

Just because you “vehemently view spirituality as meaningless” doesn’t mean that it is. In fact its one of the biggest driving forces in the human experience for many. The fact that you got so offended may suggest that its not quite as meaningless to you as you say.

This, I believe, is a symptom of the problem.  It’s not merely that I believe this, I believe this for reasons.  I am not merely asserting it and saying that it’s true.  It’s not that this idea works for me, it’s that I think it can be defended rationally.  But you didn’t address the content of the claim at all.  I find that to be fascinating, because I would hope that a claim I make would not merely be swept aside with the broom of ad populum, but rather challenged.  Why wasn’t it challenged?

Your comment was not a challenge as to the merit of the proposition or to content therein, but rather to whether it was an idea that worked for people.  The fact that it is a driving force for people has absolutely nothing to do with its validity.  Truth is not determined by what ideas people like, and it is truth that I am interested in.  I am offended by the apparent shrugging off of pursuits of truth in the name of mere pragmatism.  These issues are questionable, investigatable, and conclusions can be drawn with good evidence.  The fact that people use these ideas in their lives does not make them immune to the criticism that can be provided.

I believe that they are physical events in the brain too but who’s to say that our brains weren’t wired like that in order to produce that spiritual experience by a creator? I believe that science and spirituality should be joined at the hip instead of being in opposition and I think fortunately things are headed in that direction.

I cannot [dis]prove that such a creator exists who created our brains such.  But I see no cause to believe it.  What if the world were created by an invisible pink unicorn, a flying spaghetti monster, or blue dwarfs that currently live in my closet?  I can’t disprove those ideas either, but why should I believe any of them?  The issue is not whether I can disprove the idea of such a creator, the question is what evidence is there for belief in such a thing?  What would compel me to believe it? My whims and what works for my life are not relevant here.

Until there is some reason to believe so, it is rational to not believe.  It’s called the null hypothesis.  Do you believe in the dwarfs in my closet?  if not, why not?  Who is to say they don’t exist? I’m betting you don’t believe in them, and I don’t consider it respectful to say “hey, whatever works for you.”  I find this condescending and disrespectful of my ability to think critically and take criticism.   If I believe something you find unjustified, why would you pretend otherwise and merely shrug it off? That’s how we treat children, not adults.  Our beliefs affect the decisions we make, and unjustified beliefs often lead to decisions that affect the world around us.

As for science and spirituality, they are not necessarily at odds.  The simple fact is that they are at odds through investigation, that is by accident of the beliefs of spiritual people not standing up to scrutiny.  And when they are not at odds with science, the thing stops being called spiritual but is then called part of the confirmations of science.  It is like the difference between medical science and alternative medicine; when it works, it’s simply called science and no longer is alternative.  The claims of spiritualism have been tested and have failed repeatedly.  There is no counter-example I have ever seen to this claim.  Look into James Randi’s million dollar challenge.  The fact that nobody has won it is telling.

And no, things are not headed in the direction of science and spirituality being reconcilable.  Despite what morons like Deepak Chopra and the other goons at HuffPo say, there is most definitely a distance between them.  Some, like the Templeton foundation, will seem to say otherwise, but the arguments are spurious.  If you are curious about ths issue, I suggest the JREF (linked above), the Paryngula blog, or the general skeptics community (say the skepchicks blog).

I’m not a religious scholar by a long shot. All I know is my own personal experience. And I know that I became a much more serene person when I stopped vehemently opposing religious people (still struggle with Fox news types). They aren’t all the same.

I am a student of the philosophy of religion.  In fact, that is what I have my MA in.  This does not make me right, but it implies I have spent considerable time thinking about these things. But that does not matter….  I have experiences too.  I used to wonder if they were spiritual in nature, but then I seriously investigated this question, and found that such an explanation is not rationally warranted.  It is not enough to say that you have a different conclusion, you need to demonstrate why or I have no reason to respect your ideas.

The fact that you became more serene person when you stopped opposing religious people says nothing for the validity of whatever spiritual ideas you took on since then.  When a person changes through experience with a new religion, spiritual tradition, etc it does not imply that the ideas they adopted did the changing or that those ideas are true.  That’s simply a tremendously bad argument.  And of course they are not all the same, although there are often common characteristics among them.

There are plenty of good, strong, intelligent people who believe in a higher power on this planet. To paint them all with the same broad stroke is as close minded as a fundamentalist is about non-fundamentalists.

I have never done this.  I am very aware that people who believe such things vary greatly, and I try as much as possible to try and address what they specifically claim and address those claims.  What I am saying is that insofar as a person accepts faith as a strength, I think that it points to a problem.  People use faith in many ways, for many beliefs, and with different temperaments.  But we have to step back and ask what faith is.  It is belief in something despite a lack of evidence or in the face of contradictory evidence.  If there were evidence, there would be no need for faith, because there would be reasons to believe.  personal, internal experiences are not enough for other people, and they do not provide evidence that you have not misinterpreted your experience and attributed it to something imaginary rather than a more mundane and material explanation.  Until someone gives reasons to believe in spiritual ideas, people have to rely on faith and problematic personal experiences.

This is incontrovertibly a weak position to be in intellectually and rationally.  If it isn’t, please explain why it isn’t.

My view is not closed minded, it is considered and measured.  I think that believing in things for which their is no, or at least poor, evidence is not an intellectual, personal, or social strength.  How is that closed minded?

Finally, why was I offended.  I was offended because we atheists are tired of hearing that things like morality, personal strength, and wisdom come from divine or spiritual sources.  It implies that those who don’t believe in such things cannot be moral, strong, or wise.  By associating spirituality with good attributes, you imply that people like me are not capable of it.  If I were to say that all the people I know who are strong, wise, and good were atheists and that atheism is the key to being like those people, would you not take offense at the implication inherent to this?

This is simple discrimination of people who don’t believe in the kinds of things you believe.  It is based on faulty assumptions and poor logical thinking, and it leads to real discrimination, demonization, and distrust of atheists.  Recent studies have shown atheists to be the least trusted group in America (even below Muslims).  I’m offended because you essentially claimed that an atheist cannot be a good person.  I doubt this was your intent, but it is the result nonetheless.  I’m just trying to give you a touch of consciousness-raising about discrimination against atheists and its unseen sources in common wisdom, as evidenced by your comment.  You are doing actual harm to real people, probably unintentionally, by promoting a meme that is simply false.

Please understand that I’m trying to communicate in good…faith.  I’m not attacking you, I’m trying to get you to understand where I’m coming from.

—

His reply was to say “You’re right” and then to sign off.  I can’t help but feel patronized with an intent to discontinue conversation.

Meh….

I prefer religion to spirituality


You know how when you are talking to someone about religion and they make some comment about how they agree that religion has been a problem, then they follow-up with saying that’s why they aren’t religious.  Then you smile, and when they continue to say something like “I just have a personal relationship with Jesus” or “I’m just spiritual” you throw up in your mouth, right?

A lot?

Why are you looking at me like that?  That has never happened to you?

Well, nevermind then…

Here’s the thing; religious institutions are not inherently good or bad.  The scandal about the cover-up of child molestation, rape, etc by the Catholic Church is one example of bad, and the civil rights activity of many churches is an example of good.  But inherently, religions are not the problem (nor are they a solution, but I’ll let that go for now).

Now, religion includes many things, and not always belief in gods or spiritual things.  The community, rituals, traditions, architecture, etc that comes with religions are often good things on a social scale, and I freely recognize this and rarely have an issue with the whole religious institution itself.  Hell, even the Catholic Church has some nice things going for it.

But spiritual?  That’s another thing altogether.  First, what the hell does it mean? I have heard all sorts of rationalizations, fumbling definitions about experiences through meditation, prayer, etc.  I know.  I’ve had those experiences myself (some of them, anyway).  It is supposed to be about direct relationships with gods, spirits, powers, or perhaps magick.  But there is no good reason to believe any of it.  None of it survives scrutiny.  It’s all personal experience and anecdote, just like all paranormal woo-woo out there.

Why, if there is anything to spirituality, hasn’t anyone won James Randi’s million dollars?

So when someone says to me that they are not religious, but they are spiritual, I wince because they are admitting that they are trying to disassociate themselves from religious institutions and claim belief in these silly, nebulous, and vague ideas of spirituality.  They are clinging to the part of religion that often is the problem; faith, credulity, and the belief that they are in connection with the powers of the universe.  It’s worse when they claim that they have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ but are not religious.  I just want to slap the old forehead when I hear that one.

(Yes, I mean my forehead)

The idea seems to be that our personal “spiritual” paths are somehow superior to religious tradition.  But spirituality is part of the many religious traditions, people! Those who started new religions, sects, etc were doing similar activities as those who claim they are not religious today.  And, of course, only a few of them did so in any significant way.  Many others were probably often killed or otherwise socially ostracized due to their heresy.

Example: The Buddha was not following the religion of his time and place, he was seeking his own path and created a new one.  His meditation and subsequent ‘enlightenment’ was a personal spiritual exercise outside of the dominant religious tradition, even though it was influenced by it.  He might have said, if he were as unaware as many I’m talking about in this piece, that he was spiritual but not religious.

And that’s why Buddhism is not considered to be a religion today.

(My forehead us really starting to hurt)

It just seems that every schmuck out there who is “spiritual but not religious” is thinking of himself (or herself) as some unique person not going with the mainstream.

Just like everyone else.

(ouch! Why is my palm so hard?)

If you are doing spirituality, you are doing religion.  If you are doing religion, you are probably doing spirituality, of some sort.  Spirituality without religion makes no sense.

I’ll make that simpler.

Spirituality makes no sense.  At least religion gives you community.  And I’ll bet many of you spiritual-but-not-religious people have your own community somewhere, don’t you?

(Seriously, my forehead is red and sore)

Some quick thoughts on liberal Christianity and polyamory


Here are some thoughts I just sent to someone I’m corresponding with via email.  The conversation originated from an argument on a polyamory email list about religion and polyamory.  I will not quote any of what anyone else said, as this email group is intended to be private, but I feel comfortable sharing my own thoughts, especially since they are relevant to this blog.

My interlocutor had asked my to clarify a position of mine concerning internal logical consistency and justification when it comes to churches and the acceptance of polyamory.

The issue I was discussing, concerning consistency, has to do with a religious group being consistent to the ideas in the sources of their beliefs.  For Christians, that is the Bible.  The reason is that without that source, they cannot have any basis for knowing (not to mention justifying) the story of Jesus.  If the Bible is not authoritative, then they cannot have any basis for believing that Jesus said anything, resurrected, or even existed in the first place.  There is little to no historical justification for the historical Jesus’ existence outside of scripture, whether canonical or not.

A church that does not accept some of the Bible must admit, in order to be logically respectable, that they must then justify why they accept some of what the scripture says but not all.  And if they say they are just reading it differently, then they need to justify how the institution that is responsible for the very existence of those books to be included in the Bible interpreted them wrongly for so long.  When a group shapes a message and their descendants say that their ancestors got it wrong, my skeptical dander goes up.

A modern church, accepting polyamory, has to justify how they do so while still accepting the Bible which, along with the tradition in which it grew, rejects such ideas and practices.

I’m not expecting a religion to justify itself to my point of view, I’m expecting it to justify itself to it’s own sources, tradition, etc.

I understand that churches promote messages that will bring people in.  It’s called pandering.  The way I see it, liberal churches orient their messages such that they can attract parishioners, so that it can keep pastors employed.  Church growing is a business, in many ways.

The other aspect of this, as I said before, is that the liberal churches have people that really believe they are being truly Christian.  They don’t like the fundamentalist conservative doctrines, but they still are emotionally attached to their relationship with God and like some of the Biblical messages.  So they ignore the rest, explain them away, or claim they are no longer relevant.  AKA cherry-picking

I, personally, respect the consistency of fundamentalists over liberal theology any day of the week (and twice on Sunday–HA!).  While I disagree with both, I at least respect the fundamentalists’ consistency.  In other words, I am more annoyed by liberal and moderate religious people than the conservatives.

I’m glad that churches are willing to accept such things as polyamory and homosexuality, despite what christian tradition and scripture says.  I just think it’s fair to point out that such churches do so despite these things, not because of them.

Gary Gutting on atheism and agnosticism (part 2)


A few weeks ago I posted a correspondence between Dr. Gutting, from the University of Notre Dame, concerning an article he wrote for the New York Times.

The post is here.

In it we exchanged thoughts about the meaning of atheism, the superiority or redundency of agnosticism, etc.

Well, he wrote back.  Unfortunately he wrote back just before DragonCon started, and I was unable to get back to him until after it was over.  When I did write him back I tried to handle his criticisms fairly and respectfully, so that the conversation would not devolve into something unfriendly.  Despite this, he has not written back again (since my reply) for more than two weeks now.  I’m guessing he will not write back.  Iam not sure why, but my guess is that school obligations are keeping him busy.

In any case, here is the beginning of Dr. Gutting’s response to me:

Here’s the situation:  you are presented with the statements “God exists” and “God does not exist”.  With regard to each, you say: there is not sufficient evidence to say that the statement is true.  This means that you hold a view of God that is between the two extremes of  those who say “There is sufficient evidence to say that God exists” and those who say “There is sufficient evidence to say that God does not exist”.  It seems that you, like everyone else, agree that those holding  the first extreme are theists. The question is about the other two positions.  Most people would say that those holding the second extreme are atheists.  You define an atheist as someone who holds that there is not sufficient evidence to say that God exists.  On this definition, those who hold the extreme position are atheists but only because they would agree that there is not sufficient evidence to say that God exists.  But they go further, saying also that there is sufficient evidence to say that God exists.  You could call this “extreme atheism”.  So it seems that instead of the common triad: theism/agnosticism/atheism, you have the triad: theism/atheism/extreme atheism.  But the two triads refer to exactly the same set of views, so there’s no reason to prefer your terminology.

My impression is that what you’re really concerned about is putting the burden of proof on the theist rather than on yourself.  I entirely agree that the theist has the stronger burden (assuming the theist is interesting in proving his claims).  But the atheist has at least the burden of showing that there are no good arguments for theism, which is much less easy to do than many atheists think.  In any case, I think you’d do much better to frame what you want to say in terms of the burden-of-proof issue and forget about your confusing efforts to change standard terminology.  I also think it would help if you acknowledged that you’re arguing for a change in terminology rather than saying that other people don’t understand that terminology.

I’ve inserted below a few comments about specific points.

Gary

My response was as follows:

I thank you for your thoughts.  I have been away for several days and have not been able to write back until today.

Your analysis makes it clear that you understand my position, at least mostly, even though you keep shifting the question.  This is the source of our conflict.  I, however, think that the question between “God exists” and “God does not exist” is not the question that I am asking, nor do I find it a pertinent one when talking about atheism, because that question has little to do with the definition of atheism.  That’s what I’m trying to get across here.  Your dichotomy is not interesting at all because it does not address any actual sophisticated positions at all, but rather acts as a lightning rod for straw men.

As I said, this “God exists”/”God does not exist” dichotomy is not an issue that can be answered because nobody knows.  Anyone coming at the question from this point of view will come out an agnostic, if they are honest and fair, but it does not address what they believe per se.  The question is about belief.  The question is “Do you believe a god exists?” And while someone who answers that question by saying “God does not exist” is implying that they don’t believe, they are attempting to say more than they can, and doing it while not technically answering the question at all.

So, do you believe in a god? You can either answer by saying yes (theist), no (atheist), or not answer.  But whether you answer or not, one either actually holds a belief in god currently, or one does not.  There is no possible middle ground on this.  You cannot answer “I don’t know, for how would you not know what you believe.  Perhaps you are currently wavering back and forth due to complex and/or confusing thoughts, but one either holds the belief or they do not at any given time.  Agnosticism is not a middle position here because it should be admitted before the question is proposed that “of course you don’t know for sure, but what do you believe?”

This distinction I draw does not line up with the “God exists”/”God does not exist” dichotomy for what should be obvious reasons; the issue of belief does not seek to make opposed propositions so much as ask what one accepts as true.

You talk of conflicting triads, but there are no triads.  Belief is digital; one either holds a belief or they do not.  If someone believes their are no gods, that is a different belief to have or not have, not the opposite of belief in.

As Dr. Gutting said in his response above, he responded directly to some of the comments I made in my previous email (and thus my previous post).  Below are those comments, with my responses.  For the sake of simplicity, I have blockquoted his comments and left my responses normally formatted.

Here is the rest of our latest correspondence:

You said:

This means that you hold a view of God that is between the two extremes of  those who say “There is sufficient evidence to say that God exists” and those who say “There is sufficient evidence to say that God does not exist”.

No, I I would prefer not even to address this in this way.  Why? because there is NO evidence that god does not exist.  One cannot prove a negative, although the absence of evidence for a god’s existence is telling, and gives justification to withholding belief.  The proper two “extremes” (I don’t like that word in this context) are between the statement “There is sufficient evidence to say that God exists” and those whom respond with “I don’t believe you.” Again, to have them respond that “There is sufficient evidence to say that God does not exist” is absurd, and an atheist (qua atheism) does not say this.

And yes, I do have the burden of proof in mind.  The simple fact is that the atheist (qua atheism) NEVER EVER EVER has the burden of proof.  An atheist CANNOT logically have the burden of proof because an atheist is not claiming anything at all.  An atheist is simply saying that they do not accept the claim.  And it is true that to show that the claims of theists are not sufficient is hard.  Actually, the act itself is relatively easy, but getting the theist to see that is the hard part.

About changing terminology:

For centuries the use of ‘atheist’ has not been determined by atheists but by religious institutions and people for the most part, and thus many uses exist.  Thus, the term has often been used for centuries in a way that makes no sense and which describes nobody who is fair and educated on the question of belief and gods.  So when people who don’t believe in gods start talking publicly, the first thing they are going to do is raise their hand and say “Oh, by the way, this definition of atheism you guys have been using does not seem to cohere with any actual people, and we would like you to be aware that it does not address what we actually think.”

I’m saying that people don’t understand the terminology that actual atheists use, (including some atheists who refuse to use the term because they have not thought about the implications of some traditional uses of it), and that we are trying to shift use of the term towards what coheres with what atheists actually think.  The theist/agnostic/atheist “triad” you mention simply does not cohere with a logically sensible state of positions, nor does it cohere to actual people.  Being aware of that, atheists seek to point this out so that we don’t keep hearing that we are making the same level of absurd claim as the theist by making a claim when we are not.

So yes, this is an attempt to change terminology, but to change it towards a sensible system rather than one that has no actual citizens within its gates. Your triad does not address anything real, but rather some idealized system that falls apart upon closer investigation.  Your point in the original article was right in pointing out that agnosticism is the sensible position, but only when book-ended with two positions which are nonsense, and which no sophisticated thinker actually holds to.

Your comments:

To reserve judgment on God’s existence is to say neither “God exists” nor “God does not exist”.  So,if you do not reserve judgment on God’s existence, you either say “God exists” or “God does not exist”.  Since you also do not say “God does not exist”, it follows logically that you say that God does exist.  So there’s some mistake in your formulation here.

This is clearly a false dichotomy.  My judgment is that the evidence for god is lacking, thus I lack belief even though this lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.  I am rejecting your dichotomy here.  Again, the issue is not “God exists”/”God does not exist” but rather whether one actually holds a belief in any gods.  The mistake is not in my formulation, it is with your insistence that the question is about “God exists”/”God does not exist” when it is not.  You are spelling out a simplistic dichotomy that cannot be answered; both choices are absurd to hold to.  This dichotomy needs to be thrown out completely, because no fair and sophisticated person can choose either.

A sophisticated theologian does not say god exists, they say that they believe god exists and enumerates reasons why.  An atheist does not say that god does not exist, they say they don’t accept such a being and enumerates why not.  In short-hand people may say the words “god exists” but when pressed they will have to admit that this is a statement of belief, which I think you are doing.  The problem, as I tried to point out before, is that this is sloppy when being precise.  The atheist’s position is not “God does not exist” (even though many will say this) but rather “I don’t believe the theist’s claim.”

As you said in your article, both sides are extremes and one should stick with the middle position of agnosticism.  I agree that one should be agnostic, but not that it is a middle position here.  Rather, agnosticism is the position one resolves to when they realize that the dichotomy you propose has no citizens, and that everyone is in a position of not being able to choose either rationally, which makes them redundantly agnostic.  They cannot be anything except agnostic, in fact.  Everyone is an agnostic.  Nobody can say “god exists” or “god does not exist” and be justified in saying so, whether a theist or an atheist.

Here you’re saying that atheists assert two things: (1)There is not sufficient proof to conclude that God exists; (2) There is not a high level of certainty for the claim that God does not exist.  This means that you are not an atheist in, say, Dawkins’ sense of saying “There almost certainly is no God”.  Since Dawkins is the most prominent popular representative of atheism, I would think you should not call yourself an atheist when your position contradicts his.

Actually, I’m a 6 on the Dawkins scale, just like he is.  Someone who said that their was a high level of certainty that god does not exist would be a 7 (or perhaps a 6.9).  My view is in line with Dawkins.  I know this because I have talked with him about it. Also, I am assuming that you refer to the London bus ads that had that phrase.  Dawkins did not write that phrase, but he does agree with it.  Further, even if Dawkins did disagree with me, there is no doctrine of atheism to create a conflict.  Many atheists disagree about terminology, and this is an argument I’ve had with other atheists as well.  My view is that those atheists have not thought this through carefully.  But in this case you are incorrect because Dawkin’s position is the same as mine, even if we may use different words now and then.

How do you justify the move from “The evidence is insufficient to believe that God exists” to “I should act as if God does not exist”?

I don’t.  I didn’t say that I SHOULD, I say that I do.  By all means, worry about things which you don’t find sufficient evidence for, if you like.  I am simply saying that because the evidence is insufficient, I will act as if the proposed being does not exist.  Similarly, the evidence for the Loch Ness monster is lacking, so I’m assuming you go about your day as if it does not exist.  Now, if you were swimming in Loch Ness, you might think about it, but I’d bet you would not be worried about being eaten by the monster.  Similarly, I don’t go around worrying about such things as sin, Hell, etc.

Again, I thank you for your thoughts.  Finally, to address what you said early on:

It seems that you, like everyone else, agree that those holding  the first extreme are theists. The question is about the other two positions.  Most people would say that those holding the second extreme are atheists.

Sure.  Those people are incorrect and unsophisticated, because this use does not stand up to logical scrutiny.  An analogy would be to say that a Communist is not a Capitalist, but a socialist or some other economist might raise their hand and say “um, actually, I’m just saying I’m not a Capitalist, I never said I was a Communist.”  It is true that the Communist agrees with them that they are both not Capitalists, but one goes a step further and makes a claim, while the other does not.

I’m not a theist.  When someone says that there is a god, I say I don’t believe them.  I might also point out that this is their belief, and not knowledge (they often still insist that they know, but this is unsophisticated thinking).  I never said I thought that there was no god, but for some reason people keep thrusting that on me because I call myself an atheist.  This is because the term has come to be used by unsophisticated people in a way that does not describe actual unbelievers, and we are trying to use it in a way that makes actual sense.

A-gnostic; without knowledge.  A-moral; without morality.  A-theist.  A-, without.  Theist, one who believes in a god.  Atheism; without theism or without belief in god.  atheist, not a theist.  Get it?  If I ever argue that a god does not exist, this does imply that I also don’t believe in a god, but it is something else.

And so I do sometimes argue thusly in order to flex my intellectual muscles.  Vic Stenger does too, in God, The Failed Hypothesis.  And while people who make such arguments have a lot of good points, many of which I agree with, I ultimately recognize that I cannot say with a high degree of certainty that no gods exist, despite the fact that the vast majority of the evidence leans towards gods being unparsimonious.

But as far as I am an atheist, I simply do not believe.  I’m open to be convinced, but so far have not been.

I’m an agnostic atheist.

—
Such was our correspondence, now left for public scrutiny.