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A Plea for Religion
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View this Thread in Original format
| Lira |
1. The claim (CORe Version)
2. The Problem (and 3 misconceptions)
3. A Probable Way Out
1. The claim
Religion poisons everything. See?
She's obviously evil and out to get us!
2. The Problem
This is not my first (and it’s unlikely to be the last) effort against the recent backlash against religion that has been become fashionable in these quarters, apparently inspired by leading figures such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. Until now, I had only shared my concerns but offered no solution - at least, not one that could be acceptable both to religious TA’s and atheists alike. Given how anti-religious threads are quite common and recurrent around here, I thought I could at least help making TA a more tolerant place (since it’s apparently become a stronghold of intolerant atheism, much like the rest of the internet). Now that the reason behind my attempt is stated, and I hope it’s valid, there’s no need for you to troll this thread, Meat. Also, I offer this as a tribute to Hitchens death: I believe the best we could do is turn his ideas into a constructive debate, no matter how restricted its range is.
Now, before we go on, let’s get rid of the 3 worst misconceptions the debate against religion has to offer:- The Bodycount Argument: Christianity killed millions, communism killed thousands, and this argument kills any possibility of an intelligent debate. Although atheists often turn this argument on its head so that nothing counts as atheism (going so far as to claim Communism is yet another religion), this argument against (ir)religion is, at best, wrong-headed. We could dub it “The lazy man’s argument” because proponents stick to crunching numbers while they neglect the fact that even non-theistic scientific research, such as the one done in Guatemala that led to the death of quite a few innocents and the contamination of many others, had absolutely no relationship whatsoever with any system of (dis)belief, just the will to understand a phenomenon better. People are wont to up whenever they get too excited about something, religion is as guilty of making people excessively passionate as nationalism and football. Just because the individuals killed in a religious war outnumber those killed by scientists and hooligans, that doesn’t mean non-religious science and sport are somehow superior to religion here... all it says is that people can be bastards no matter what their motives are. It’s an argument against human nature, not against anything else.
- The Science Works Argument: This one has got to be the oddest non sequitur ever in the history of (ir)religious debate. What does science have to do with anything? Whether or not science works, it says absolutely nothing about religion - the Bible contains 10 commandments, not a periodic table with the primordial 10 elements. Likewise, religion shouldn’t have a say in scientific matters unless a scientist happens to be religious and he knows enough about science to offer an insight (and the other way around, of course). More often than not, the partisan attacks come from people who don’t know enough about the other party in order to have an opinion, let alone offer anything remotely similar to criticism.
Also, even if you want to compare religion with science, there’s a bit of a problem here. “Thanks to science, we can send people to the moon. Yay!” Well, this is as relevant to religion as saying that science doesn’t give you a meaningful life. Religion is not supposed to “work” any more than literature. As I recall it, no scientist ever tried to find out how a mechanism works because it would make life meaningful - all scientists do is try to explain is how/why something exists and how we can manipulate the related variables. When the facts of science conflict with the things religions preach, and some religious sects condemn what scientists say, it’s not religion that is at fault, otherwise no religious person (scientists included) would believe in science. The difference lies beyond (ir)religion: if Darwin was an atheist, remember Mendel was a monk. Buddhists are, to my knowledge, all about giving in where science proves Buddhism wrong. So there.
Also, some atheists may say that science is enough to give life meaning, even though science is, at best, indifferent to these questions. If you found meaning in life because of something science teaches, that’s because you extrapolated the data. And this is no argument against it.
- The Religious People are Stupid Argument: It takes one to know one. If you can really say with a straight face that a vast number of people you’ve never met are intellectually challenged without knowing their reasons first, then you’re probably not the sharpest tool in the shed either. Way to overcome dogma, bro!
Great, now that we can hopefully leave this nonsense behind, let’s argue about what matters: The problem is not “what” you believe, but “why”.
Ask any pious individual and they’ll tell you they have empirical confirmation of the existence of God: most of it seems to stem from bad theology (God saved my life in an accident where dozens of other people equally religious died / God helped me win the lottery while millions starve to death around the world even though Jesus was all about poverty and they’re Christians as well), but blaming religion for this is as problematic as blaming science for hoaxes that involve a poor understanding of science itself. Even when religion is apparently behind these hoaxes (such as a fatwa against vaccination Hitchens mentions in his “God is not Great” (p. 45)), there could well be a reason behind it. Even if no one was harmed in this case, it sure tarnishes the good image such programmes could have. It’s definitely not the best time for people like Hitchens to oversimplify these matters.
By now, I hope I could depict good religious people under a favourable light and show that, if there’s any reason why they’re prone to a few mistakes, it can’t be just due to religion, otherwise all religious people would hold similar opinions.
3. The Hippie Way Out :p
Proof the Bible leads to war: Open the "Good
Book" and see what follows! That's right...
Pew pew pew!!! :mad:
Charles Sanders Peirce, in his “Fixation of Belief” mentions 4 methods of settling opinion: the method of tenacity, or being stubborn despite the sharp teeth of reality; the method of authority, or believing something because someone says so; the method of congruity, or doing as is agreeable to reason; and the method of science, or examining beliefs and checking whether they can go wrong. I can’t imagine a single TA who wouldn’t go for the 4th method, which is by far the most appropriate way of (dis)confirming ideas humanity has ever crafted, but it’s not unproblematic.
As the Feyerabendian account of science would show, the problem with science that passionate advocates seem to overlook is that experience alone can’t tell you how to interpret experience itself (not unlike the Jesuits would point out that, despite the will of protestants to base their beliefs solely on the scriptures, the scriptures unfortunately don’t contain an introductory chapter saying how the scriptures should be read). And, as William James pointed out in his “Will to Believe”, sometimes we do adopt a belief prior to its confirmation, and this could well be a valid excuse: without the prior belief, we just wouldn’t eagerly look forward to the confirmation (or refutation) of its consequences. But, doesn’t this mean we’re giving people carte blanche to believe everything, no matter how dangerous it can be? Not at all.
We need prior beliefs, and contrary experiences that may challenge them, rather than a generalised (and dishonest) scepticism with no unfounded belief. The latter method is just unattainable. No rocket scientist in their right mind wondered if there was a moon before sending astronauts there, after all. What is pernicious to a constructive debate, is not religion, but the protective dome believers sometimes put around it. Atheists should strive, therefore, not for a world against religion, in which we’d lose plenty of possibly useful ideas (if you doubt it, go read Mill, but in a world where debate is open and unchecked (remember Leibniz found the flaws of Newtonian astronomy, yet another religiously inspired scientist, because of his religious beliefs, not in spite of them). We need to infuse in religious zealots the fallibillist attitude and the a posteriori scepticism I believe moderates usually have, instead of alienating moderates an becoming cocksure ourselves.
Their ideas can indeed be wrong. I’d go as far as saying that they probably are. But ours are also probably equally wrong in the long run. Just as most of the beliefs we currently hold may be mistaken, they have the right not to be omniscient... And failing to do so will only get us further away from the possibility of reaching any possible agreement. |
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| dj_alfi |
| No. Sorry, you're so far off here I don't even know where to start. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by dj_alfi
No. Sorry, you're so far off here I don't even know where to start. |
That's a very compelling argument. You've obviously proven me wrong. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
1. The claim (CORe Version)
2. The Problem (and 3 misconceptions)
3. A Probable Way Out
1. The claim
Religion poisons everything. See?
She's obviously evil and out to get us! Religion is not the problem: human nature is, and humans are prone to spoil everything we take too seriously. An irreligious world cannot be much different from a religious world, insofar as our beliefs are unchecked.
2. The Problem
This is not my first (and it’s unlikely to be the last) effort against the recent backlash against religion that has been become fashionable in these quarters, apparently inspired by leading figures such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. Until now, I had only shared my concerns but offered no solution - at least, not one that could be acceptable both to religious TA’s and atheists alike. Given how anti-religious threads are quite common and recurrent around here, I thought I could at least help making TA a more tolerant place (since it’s apparently become a stronghold of intolerant atheism, much like the rest of the internet). Now that the reason behind my attempt is stated, and I hope it’s valid, there’s no need for you to troll this thread, Meat. Also, I offer this as a tribute to Hitchens death: I believe the best we could do is turn his ideas into a constructive debate, no matter how restricted its range is.
Now, before we go on, let’s get rid of the 3 worst misconceptions the debate against religion has to offer:- The Bodycount Argument: Christianity killed millions, communism killed thousands, and this argument kills any possibility of an intelligent debate. Although atheists often turn this argument on its head so that nothing counts as atheism (going so far as to claim Communism is yet another religion), this argument against (ir)religion is, at best, wrong-headed. We could dub it “The lazy man’s argument” because proponents stick to crunching numbers while they neglect the fact that even non-theistic scientific research, such as the one done in Guatemala that led to the death of quite a few innocents and the contamination of many others, had absolutely no relationship whatsoever with any system of (dis)belief, just the will to understand a phenomenon better. People are wont to up whenever they get too excited about something, religion is as guilty of making people excessively passionate as nationalism and football. Just because the individuals killed in a religious war outnumber those killed by scientists and hooligans, that doesn’t mean non-religious science and sport are somehow superior to religion here... all it says is that people can be bastards no matter what their motives are. It’s an argument against human nature, not against anything else.
- The Science Works Argument: This one has got to be the oddest non sequitur ever in the history of (ir)religious debate. What does science have to do with anything? Whether or not science works, it says absolutely nothing about religion - the Bible contains 10 commandments, not a periodic table with the primordial 10 elements. Likewise, religion shouldn’t have a say in scientific matters unless a scientist happens to be religious and he knows enough about science to offer an insight (and the other way around, of course). More often than not, the partisan attacks come from people who don’t know enough about the other party in order to have an opinion, let alone offer anything remotely similar to criticism.
Also, even if you want to compare religion with science, there’s a bit of a problem here. “Thanks to science, we can send people to the moon. Yay!” Well, this is as relevant to religion as saying that science doesn’t give you a meaningful life. Religion is not supposed to “work” any more than literature. As I recall it, no scientist ever tried to find out how a mechanism works because it would make life meaningful - all scientists do is try to explain is how/why something exists and how we can manipulate the related variables. When the facts of science conflict with the things religions preach, and some religious sects condemn what scientists say, it’s not religion that is at fault, otherwise no religious person (scientists included) would believe in science. The difference lies beyond (ir)religion: if Darwin was an atheist, remember Mendel was a monk. Buddhists are, to my knowledge, all about giving in where science proves Buddhism wrong. So there.
Also, some atheists may say that science is enough to give life meaning, even though science is, at best, indifferent to these questions. If you found meaning in life because of something science teaches, that’s because you extrapolated the data. And this is no argument against it.
- The Religious People are Stupid Argument: It takes one to know one. If you can really say with a straight face that a vast number of people you’ve never met are intellectually challenged without knowing their reasons first, then you’re probably not the sharpest tool in the shed either. Way to overcome dogma, bro!
Great, now that we can hopefully leave this nonsense behind, let’s argue about what matters: The problem is not “what” you believe, but “why”.
Ask any pious individual and they’ll tell you they have empirical confirmation of the existence of God: most of it seems to stem from bad theology (God saved my life in an accident where dozens of other people equally religious died / God helped me win the lottery while millions starve to death around the world even though Jesus was all about poverty and they’re Christians as well), but blaming religion for this is as problematic as blaming science for hoaxes that involve a poor understanding of science itself. Even when religion is apparently behind these hoaxes (such as a fatwa against vaccination Hitchens mentions in his “God is not Great” (p. 45)), there could well be a reason behind it. Even if no one was harmed in this case, it sure tarnishes the good image such programmes could have. It’s definitely not the best time for people like Hitchens to oversimplify these matters.
By now, I hope I could depict good religious people under a favourable light and show that, if there’s any reason why they’re prone to a few mistakes, it can’t be just due to religion, otherwise all religious people would hold similar opinions.
3. The Hippie Way Out :p
Proof the Bible leads to war: Open the "Good
Book" and see what follows! That's right...
Pew pew pew!!! :mad:
Charles Sanders Peirce, in his “Fixation of Belief” mentions 4 methods of settling opinion: the method of tenacity, or being stubborn despite the sharp teeth of reality; the method of authority, or believing something because someone says so; the method of congruity, or doing as is agreeable to reason; and the method of science, or examining beliefs and checking whether they can go wrong. I can’t imagine a single TA who wouldn’t go for the 4th method, which is by far the most appropriate way of (dis)confirming ideas humanity has ever crafted, but it’s not unproblematic.
As the Feyerabendian account of science would show, the problem with science that passionate advocates seem to overlook is that experience alone can’t tell you how to interpret experience itself (not unlike the Jesuits would point out that, despite the will of protestants to base their beliefs solely on the scriptures, the scriptures unfortunately don’t contain an introductory chapter saying how the scriptures should be read). And, as William James pointed out in his “Will to Believe”, sometimes we do adopt a belief prior to its confirmation, and this could well be a valid excuse: without the prior belief, we just wouldn’t eagerly look forward to the confirmation (or refutation) of its consequences. But, doesn’t this mean we’re giving people carte blanche to believe everything, no matter how dangerous it can be? Not at all.
We need prior beliefs, and contrary experiences that may challenge them, rather than a generalised (and dishonest) scepticism with no unfounded belief. The latter method is just unattainable. No rocket scientist in their right mind wondered if there was a moon before sending astronauts there, after all. What is pernicious to a constructive debate, is not religion, but the protective dome believers sometimes put around it. Atheists should strive, therefore, not for a world against religion, in which we’d lose plenty of possibly useful ideas (if you doubt it, go read Mill, but in a world where debate is open and unchecked (remember Leibniz found the flaws of Newtonian astronomy, yet another religiously inspired scientist, because of his religious beliefs, not in spite of them). We need to infuse in religious zealots the fallibillist attitude and the a posteriori scepticism I believe moderates usually have, instead of alienating moderates an becoming cocksure ourselves.
Their ideas can indeed be wrong. I’d go as far as saying that they probably are. But ours are also probably equally wrong in the long run. Just as most of the beliefs we currently hold may be mistaken, they have the right not to be omniscient... And failing to do so will only get us further away from the possibility of reaching any possible agreement. |
Stopped reading right there. |
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| OrangestO |
| cool story bro. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
In all seriousness, excellent post, Lira. I could not agree with much more.
From simply a utilitarian point of view, it is going to become necessary to our survival as a species in the coming decades - more than ever - to cooperate and understand one another. The weaponry for mass extinction is going to become that much more commonplace as nations crumble (or fracture; assimilate) and resources dwindle, population rising and malcontent burgeoning. The only way we won't blow ourselves up is to understand and empathize with concepts - even if we thoroughly disagree with them - in a constructive manner that facilitates liberty and common well-being. Politics will of course be in and out with odds against this, and it will become increasingly important for individuals to safeguard their own policies and perspectives against the swaying throngs of fascism in its multifarious forms. |
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| Vector A |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
As the Feyerabendian account of science would show, the problem with science that passionate advocates seem to overlook is that experience alone can’t tell you how to interpret experience itself (not unlike the Jesuits would point out that, despite the will of protestants to base their beliefs solely on the scriptures, the scriptures unfortunately don’t contain an introductory chapter saying how the scriptures should be read). And, as William James pointed out in his “Will to Believe”, sometimes we do adopt a belief prior to its confirmation, and this could well be a valid excuse: without the prior belief, we just wouldn’t eagerly look forward to the confirmation (or refutation) of its consequences. |
Groan.
| quote: | Another point sometimes made against the claim of scientific objectivity is that experience is always “theory laden,” as if that meant that any experience which seemed to contradict a theory could be reinterpreted in terms of it, so that nothing could ever rationally require us to accept or to reject a theory. As Sokal and Bricmont point out, however, nothing of the kind follows.
Suppose I have the theory that a diet of hot fudge sundaes will enable me to lose a pound a day. If I eat only hot fudge sundaes and weigh myself every morning, my interpretation of the numbers on the scale is certainly dependent on a theory of mechanics that explains how the scale will respond when objects of different weights are placed on it. But it is not dependent on my dietary theories. If I concluded from the fact that the numbers keep getting higher that my intake of ice cream must be altering the laws of mechanics in my bathroom, it would be philosophical idiocy to defend the inference by appealing to Quine’s dictum that all our statements about the external world face experience as a corporate body, rather than one by one. Certain revisions in response to the evidence are reasonable; others are pathological.
- Thomas Nagel |
Sub "creation science" for "hot fudge sundae dietary theory."
| quote: | | We need to infuse in religious zealots the fallibillist attitude and the a posteriori scepticism I believe moderates usually have, instead of alienating moderates an becoming cocksure ourselves. |
As fallibilism, knowledge of science, and skepticism spread, so also will unbelief spread and religion decline.
Sounds good to me!
A zealot who becomes "infused" with fallibilism stops being a zealot. |
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| Lira |
I second that, Hal, great points :)
| quote: | Originally posted by Vector A
Groan.
Sub "creation science" for "hot fudge sundae dietary theory." |
I believe you misunderstood me, but I'm to blame for having posted a while ago a piece in which Feyerabend trolled scientists with one absurd claim after another :p
My stance is much more subtle than that, and I wouldn't even dream of disagreeing with Nagel about the bulk of his argument. I was referring to a sane underdetermination of data (so that we can't ever be too sure of the accuracy of our current theories) rather than the preposterous "anything goes" post-modernists often have.
(and which Feyerabend mocked, by the way)
| quote: | Originally posted by Vector A
As fallibilism, knowledge of science, and skepticism spread, so also will unbelief spread and religion decline.
Sounds good to me! |
That's a likely outcome, but it's also quite probable that some religious ideas will remain with us, in a benign manner. |
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| dj_alfi |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
That's a very compelling argument. You've obviously proven me wrong. |
If I had the luxuries of spare time to write as long posts as you, I would. But I write really slow, so you guy's would've been on page 10 already before I'd pressed 'Submit Reply' :p |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by dj_alfi
If I had the luxuries of spare time to write as long posts as you, I would. But I write really slow, so you guy's would've been on page 10 already before I'd pressed 'Submit Reply' :p |
Be concise. I don't mind if you write like you're typing an SMS if it helps :) |
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| EddieZilker |
| Great post, Lira. Will read, again. |
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| Vector A |
| Well, maybe. I am fond of Dennett's idea that many people occupying the pews "believe in belief" more than they actually believe in their particular religion. That is, they think it is a good thing to be religious, and want to have "something" to believe in, but are not particularly zealous in favor of their specific religious system, do not really know why they believe in it rather than something else, and do not bother pushing it over others. I guess things would be better if all religious believers were that way. |
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