I've been reading up on the books from the God debate recently. All of the responses I've read to the New Atheists which I've read so far have, in my humble opinion, fallen pretty flat.
But there is one thing I'm not so sure about. Sam Harris is of course correct that a person need not see it as incumbent upon himself to accept anything on insufficient evidence in order to be a good person. But that being said, as my right-wing friends are wont to note, people who don't accept religion often turn some cause or another into religion. So I wonder if most of us all have our own woo anyways and if moderate religion just serves that role for some. Of course, there is a line. Blowing yourself up or (the much less egregious, but still evil, offense of) saying why Katrina happened, for example, obviously cross the line. But while a benevolent God may make no sense (and the smartest gedolim were smart enough to realize that they didn't have good theodicies), is believing in him while simultaneously declaring religious extremism outside the pale so bad? I will fight against those who tell their children that some gadol has it all figured out, but are Reform Jews -- for example -- so off-kilter?
Fellow skeptics, would appreciate your thoughts.
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As I have shared with you previously, I still do believe in God despite my current position turning from traditional Judaism. This belief is not one with any empirical evidence behind it, though thanks to events in my life, it is one which makes sense to me. I think that in a Hobbsian world generally replete with kindness, believing that something somewhere is above it all and that "it gets better" is not necessarily a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteAs for your question at the end, moderate religion (even intellectual and moderate versions of more conservative religion) have a place in this world and are not necessarily off base. Objectivists, most often atheist Randian thinkers, believe in a sense of morality, as does anyone of faith, and so as long as ones final moral understanding fits within a general framework of "do no harm," then it doesn't matter whether he finds his moral center in the Torah or the body and blood of Christ or the Flying Spaghetti Monster (shlita). If it is off kilter to pick up a book, read it, try and learn something from it, and then read the same story to your kids to teach them something, the entire American educational system is screwed. If you do not believe in the divinity of the bible, it is a book like any other, open to examination and interpretation, its messages can be accepted or rejected, and the previous uses of its text can be considered or ignored when trying determine your feelings about it. So you consider the God character to be based on a real entity; if your end result is nearly identical to that of others, go for it.
> Sam Harris is of course correct that a person need not see it as incumbent upon himself to accept anything on insufficient evidence in order to be a good person
ReplyDeleteI think that the morality argument is a red herring, and a best an argument for the usefulness of religion. (I wrote a post on this theme a while back: http://2nd-son.blogspot.com/2009/07/objective-morality-or-gods-classroom.html) Suppose it were true that without religion people would be killing and raping in the streets. That would just mean that religion is effective as a means to keep order. It says nothing about the existence of God, etc.
Personally, I don’t really care what other people believe, as long as they acknowledge that they don’t have a monopoly on Truth. In my experience, this has more to do with the individual than the denomination he belongs to.
one issue, G*3.
ReplyDeleteWhat if religions all promoted rape and murder? Then we'd all be doing that.
> What if religions all promoted rape and murder? Then we'd all be doing that.
ReplyDeleteSome do. I don't understand the point you're trying to make. The argument can be made that religion is a useful tool for social control, and I'm pointing out that this is only an argument for its usefulness, not for its validity.
Yeah, Arthur lost me there.
ReplyDelete(Btw, I put up a new video at the bottom of the sidebar)
G*3, I see what you're saying and I've read the post you noted. I would disagree on the argument that there is no objective morality, though my objection is only a partial one. Morality is only objective when the choices are simple. One should not rape, murder, steal, etc., and to make such a choice would be objectively wrong. Though in the face of difficult circumstances, difficult choices must be made, and it is within ones personal heuristic that a decision comes to light. Faith, for some, helps to form that heuristic, but it cannot possibly come to guide ones decisions in every case, and it is then that one must make his own decision.
ReplyDeleteOne needn't believe in the existence of a deity to accept some form of objective morality. For the sake of self preservation, it is necessary to behave in a manner which does not cause others to take up arms against you. Human beings have, since prehistoric times, formed societies, and these societies have created rules of law meant to keep them as safe from danger as possible. While many of those laws have changed, some seem to find their way through the vast majority, and they are generally those which, should one offend, cause him to be perceived as a threat to that society. The specifics of moral code are very much subject to an individual culture and its sensibilities. Even atheistic communities establish moral (read: legal) codes with little or no "godly" influence.
I don't care either what any individual believes, and I would also not argue that, even accepting the claim that "without religion people would be killing and raping in the streets," that any claim can therefore be made for the existence of God. All I claim is that there are certain things which are generally wrong, that outside those instances it falls upon the individual to make a "moral" decision, and that for some, faith can help to guide that decision, or else help the one forced to make that decision feel comforted with a notion that theirs was a valid choice. So long as one behaves in a way which is tolerant of the existence and health of others and accepts the notion that others have a right to make their own choices of what to believe and how to live, I believe there is nothing "off-kilter" about having faith in something greater than the senses. I think we're generally in agreement on the issue, but do tell if I am mistaken.
(Please forgive the book. I'm quite long winded, especially when it is a subject about which I have thought deeply. As some quick background to my above opinions in case you're interested, I am a former black hatter who grew up in a Reform congregation, raised by a father from a conservative Christian background. I focused my political science studies primarily on international relations theory, have deep respect for the school of Realism, and have dabbled in the study of Objectivism. I have taught Judaics on various levels to students of all Jewish backgrounds, from a merely cultural approach to Modern Orthodox.)
I'm not a fellow skeptic, and am not answering your main question. But I thought I'd question your confidence in Harris:
ReplyDelete"Sam Harris is of course correct that a person need not see it as incumbent upon himself to accept anything on insufficient evidence in order to be a good person"
What about moral principles? What evidence is there for moral principles? But could a person be a good if he does not accept any moral principles?
You could most plausibly answer that there is sufficient evidence for moral principles in moral intuition or such like, but if that counts as sufficient evidence, then surely there's sufficient evidence for God in e.g. religious experience?
There are other things that a person must believe on insufficient evidence, e.g. that his cognitive faculties are reliable, and that induction is reliable. But I suspect a person couldn't be good unless he believed these things; otherwise, he'd soon perish and be of no use to anyone.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteWhat about moral principles...experience?
Thank you for your challenge and framing it respectfully. Sam Harris talks about that. A lot. I would highly recommend you read End of Faith and his new volume, The Moral Landscape.
There are other things...anyone.
John Haught makes arguments along these lines in his response to the New Atheists and I think they are very much unconvincing. He develops it a bit further than you did, maintaining that the very fact that we use our minds itself implies "infinite Being, Meaning, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty" [i.e. God]. As I wrote in my mini-review of his book, we use our minds quite simply because they're all we got. We don't have a choice. I recommend you look around at some critiques of Haught's book as well. I'm particularly thinking of these:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bart_klink/new-atheism.html
http://www.naturalism.org/projecting_god.htm
Thank you for the prompt reply, and for the tips about the books.
ReplyDeleteI have not read the Haught book, but have now read the review. The argument is not precisely what I have in mind, but the criticism of the argument in the review is not convincing. The review answers that there are two good reasons for thinking our cognitive faculties reliable:
“First, we would not be here if our intellectual faculties did not give a reliable picture of the world. Had their picture of reality been terribly different, our ancestors would have been eaten by all kinds of predators, starved to death, or died before reaching reproduction…”
We can reply that our ancestors would have survived had their picture been badly wrong. Survival depends on fighting, feeding, fleeing and reproducing, and these can be had with false beliefs, or even with no beliefs at all; e.g. our ancestors would not have been eaten by tigers if they believed that tigers are huggable, and the best way to hug them is to run in the opposite direction. Given the many possible crazy but workable combinations of beliefs our cognitive faculties could have delivered, why suppose they would probably have turned out reliable?
“Second, we can test the reliability of our intellectual faculties. If our me[n]tal representations of reality did not largely coincide with reality itself, we would not be able to send spacecraft on very precise missions…”
But how can we test the reliability of our cognitive faculties without already assuming that they are reliable? Otherwise, why should we trust their deliverances, our observations and reasoning, that supposedly support their reliability?
Even if we could show that our cognitive faculties have been and are reliable, this would not show that they will continue to be reliable. For this we would have to show that induction is reliable, and that the future will resemble the past. But Hume proved just how difficult that is.
I also have not read the Harris book, but I wonder whether the question about moral knowledge is addressed, rather than related questions. The book promises to explain how science can show us how best to live. Science can perhaps show us how to better help others, better teach children not to burn cats for fun, etc. But how can science show that helping others is morally obligatory? How can science show that we ought not to burn cats for fun? Moral rightness and wrongness are not the sort of observable or explanatory, physical features that science deals in. This is related, once again, to Hume, and his point about the is-ought gap.
The argument is not precisely what I have in mind...
ReplyDeleteI noted that.
You seem to be under the impression that I recommended one review ("have now read the review"). Again, I also recommended another review and highly recommended two volumes by Harris. I didn't endorse everything in the reviews and actually in the one you're quoting, I had quite a different paragraph in mind which I thought you might hopefully find edifying. I also made my own argument against the proof for God from religious experience, that we "use our minds quite simply because they're all we got." I've made an argument against the religious experience bit for Judaism specifically elsewhere: http://bpelta.blogspot.com/2010/08/really.html
You wrote that you "thought [you]'d question [my] confidence in Harris." I don't agree with Harris on everything (as I noted in my mini-review of his volume) and I would appreciate it if you were to read through his books first before questioning as such.
(as I noted in my mini-review of his volume)
ReplyDeleteExcuse me, I'm referring to The End of Faith
Thank you for pointing me to your post on religious experience.
ReplyDeleteAs to the objections there, I do not think many people describe such particular and inconsistent religious experiences. The particularity and inconsistency there is can often be explained by their interpreting their experience in terms of their religious traditions. But even if we explain all such experiences as delusional for their particularity and inconsistency, there will remain millions of religious experiences not discounted. We wouldn’t discount all ordinary perceptual experiences because of the many weird and inconsistent reports about perceptual experience.
Thank you also for pointing out the second review. That review also has criticism of religious experience, based on a requirement for publicly available, independent evidence:
“it doesn’t matter how many people report powerful, transforming experiences of being grasped by god, since they could all be mistaken, just as all those experiencing alien abduction could be mistaken. If there’s no possibility of proving such experiences don’t get reality right, by checking them against publicly available evidence, then we shouldn’t trust that they do get reality right.”
But how do we acquire publicly available evidence, and how do we know that it is publicly available, without trusting our perceptual experience to begin with? And, to bring things back to the topic, if publicly available evidence is required for sufficient evidence, then how do we have sufficient evidence for unobservable moral properties such as rightness and wrongness?
This is not to say that this is a problem for Harris; perhaps he has no such requirement. I do still wonder how he thinks unobservable moral properties could be known scientifically, but I have not read his book, and can't present the question as a criticism.
The particularity and inconsistency there is can often be explained by their interpreting their experience in terms of their religious traditions. But even if we explain all such experiences as delusional for their particularity and inconsistency, there will remain millions of religious experiences not discounted.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to non-specific "religious" experiences, neuroscientist Harris himself is famous for promoting meditation. The question is proof for the personal God.
But anywho, like I put it in the last comment, you wrote that you "thought [you]'d question [my] confidence in Harris." I don't agree with Harris on everything (as I noted in my mini-review of his volume) and I would appreciate it if you were to read through his books first before questioning as such. I think most of what you wrote here is addressed therein.
This was an excellent discussion, but I don't want to get into a back-and-forth so I'm closing it. You can of course email me with your thoughts.
So it was nice hearing from you but I think we've had a good discussion and I'm going to close the thread.