Video - Richard Dawkins clowns the arch-bishop of Canterbury.
Guardian | In the last 10 years or so, the rise of American evangelicalism and the menace of Islamist fundamentalism, along with developments in physics and in theories of evolution and cosmogony, have encouraged a certain style of aggressive, often strident atheistic critique. Books such as Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens's God Is Not Great have sold in the millions. Beyond the unlikely success of these books, there has also been the spread of atheist and secularist websites and blogs, some of them intellectually respectable, others more dogmatic and limited (ie, pretty atrocious). The events of 11 September 2001 were the obvious spur. In The End of Faith, the American writer Sam Harris argued that as long as America remains swamped in Christian thinking, it will never defeat militant Islamism, since one backward religious system cannot prevail over another backward religious system. Atheism would be the key to unlock this uneasy stalemate. Academics such as Dawkins and Daniel Dennett have broader projects, perhaps – for them, the removal of our religious blinkers will result in a proper appreciation of the natural world, and of science's ability to describe and decode it.
I can't be the only reader who finds himself in broad agreement with the conclusions of the New Atheists, while disliking some of the ways they reach them. For these writers, and many others, "religion" always seems to mean either fundamentalist Islam or American evangelical Christianity. Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and the more relaxed or progressive versions of Christianity are not in their argumentative sights. Along with this curious parochialism about the varieties of religious belief comes a simplistic reading of how people actually hold those beliefs. Terry Eagleton and others have rightly argued that, for millions of people, religious "belief" is not a matter of just totting up stable, creedal propositions ("I believe that Jesus is the son of God", "I believe that I will go to heaven when I die", and so on), but a matter of more unconscious, daily practice ("Now it is time to kneel down, face Mecca and pray"). This kind of defence of the deep embeddedness of religious practice has been influenced by Wittgenstein – for whom, say, kissing an icon was a bit like loving one's mother; something that cannot be subjected to an outsider's rational critique. Wittgenstein was obviously right, though this appeal to practice over proposition can also become a rather lazy way, for people like the Catholic Eagleton, of defending orthodox beliefs via the back door – as if a bishop encouraged his flock by saying, in effect: "It doesn't matter what you believe. Religion is not about propositions, but about practices. So stick at those practices: just keep on doing the church flowers and turning up every Sunday."
We know that plenty of people hold religious beliefs that are also propositions – they stand up and recite creeds on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays; they can tell you who will be punished in hell, and how; they believe that Allah is the one God, and so on. Prayer itself is a proposition: it proposes that God exists, and can be communicated with. Rather than simply declaring all religious belief to be non-propositional, which is manifestly untrue, it would be more interesting to examine what might be called the practice of propositional beliefs. We know that people believe all kinds of things, as propositions. But how do they believe them? In this area, the New Atheism has nothing very interesting to say, except to wish away all such beliefs.
But people's beliefs are often fluctuating and changing – it is why people lose their faith, or convert to faith in God. If you spend any time asking people what they believe, how they believe, and why they believe the propositions they espouse in church or temple or mosque, you find that there is nothing very straightforward about propositional belief. Recently, I spent some time with two Christian believers, both ordained. One is an academic theologian and university chaplain, the other a religious affairs journalist. The academic theologian was walking with me in a university town, and began a sentence, "I believe." And then he caught himself, and added: "I don't know what I believe, at the moment." A few weeks later, I met the religious affairs journalist, who had for several years been a parish priest. During the course of our conversation, he asserted: "It is impossible to be a serious Christian and believe in heaven and hell." When I, who was raised in a strongly and conventionally religious home, expressed surprise and suggested that once one stops believing in heaven one might as well stop believing in God, he said, more vehemently: "It's exactly the opposite: not believing in heaven and hell is a prerequisite for serious Christian belief." Trapped in the childhood literalism of my background, I had not entertained the possibility of Christian belief separated from the great lure and threat of heaven and hell.
I can't be the only reader who finds himself in broad agreement with the conclusions of the New Atheists, while disliking some of the ways they reach them. For these writers, and many others, "religion" always seems to mean either fundamentalist Islam or American evangelical Christianity. Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and the more relaxed or progressive versions of Christianity are not in their argumentative sights. Along with this curious parochialism about the varieties of religious belief comes a simplistic reading of how people actually hold those beliefs. Terry Eagleton and others have rightly argued that, for millions of people, religious "belief" is not a matter of just totting up stable, creedal propositions ("I believe that Jesus is the son of God", "I believe that I will go to heaven when I die", and so on), but a matter of more unconscious, daily practice ("Now it is time to kneel down, face Mecca and pray"). This kind of defence of the deep embeddedness of religious practice has been influenced by Wittgenstein – for whom, say, kissing an icon was a bit like loving one's mother; something that cannot be subjected to an outsider's rational critique. Wittgenstein was obviously right, though this appeal to practice over proposition can also become a rather lazy way, for people like the Catholic Eagleton, of defending orthodox beliefs via the back door – as if a bishop encouraged his flock by saying, in effect: "It doesn't matter what you believe. Religion is not about propositions, but about practices. So stick at those practices: just keep on doing the church flowers and turning up every Sunday."
We know that plenty of people hold religious beliefs that are also propositions – they stand up and recite creeds on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays; they can tell you who will be punished in hell, and how; they believe that Allah is the one God, and so on. Prayer itself is a proposition: it proposes that God exists, and can be communicated with. Rather than simply declaring all religious belief to be non-propositional, which is manifestly untrue, it would be more interesting to examine what might be called the practice of propositional beliefs. We know that people believe all kinds of things, as propositions. But how do they believe them? In this area, the New Atheism has nothing very interesting to say, except to wish away all such beliefs.
But people's beliefs are often fluctuating and changing – it is why people lose their faith, or convert to faith in God. If you spend any time asking people what they believe, how they believe, and why they believe the propositions they espouse in church or temple or mosque, you find that there is nothing very straightforward about propositional belief. Recently, I spent some time with two Christian believers, both ordained. One is an academic theologian and university chaplain, the other a religious affairs journalist. The academic theologian was walking with me in a university town, and began a sentence, "I believe." And then he caught himself, and added: "I don't know what I believe, at the moment." A few weeks later, I met the religious affairs journalist, who had for several years been a parish priest. During the course of our conversation, he asserted: "It is impossible to be a serious Christian and believe in heaven and hell." When I, who was raised in a strongly and conventionally religious home, expressed surprise and suggested that once one stops believing in heaven one might as well stop believing in God, he said, more vehemently: "It's exactly the opposite: not believing in heaven and hell is a prerequisite for serious Christian belief." Trapped in the childhood literalism of my background, I had not entertained the possibility of Christian belief separated from the great lure and threat of heaven and hell.
14 comments:
No Theist No Atheist - Ritual is meaningless in many ways, add rationalizes and power and you have modern Christianity.
But the question remains unresolved: why was the Buddha so ambiguous and unclear with respect to what we are inclined to regard as central issues that the leading specialists arrive at opposite interpretations of his statements? A substantial part of the answer must lie in the Buddha’s lack of interest in doctrinal matters, a lack of interest he explicitly affirmed in the parable of the arrow and elsewhere. This is important in the present context because it shows that even in Buddhism, the Asian tradition that is in many respects most religion-like, doctrine plays a subordinate role and mystical experience and rites are basic.
We must conclude that the concept of religion is not a coherent concept and therefore misleading. It does not hang together like a concept should and should either be abandoned or confined to Western traditions. This conclusion is to be drawn with caution and is not without qualifications. For example ritual is more important in Judaism than in Christianity and in Catholicism than in Protestantism: and the reverse holds, accordingly, for doctrine, Much of the emphasis on doctrine in the study of non-Western traditions is, in fact, connected with rise of Protestantism (cf. Nyberg 1953).
Ritual and Mantras: Rules Without Meaning, Frits Staal; Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi; Peter Lang Inc. 1993
Fact is both Dawkins and Dennet come across as hectoring, abrasive assholes. And they both consistently fail to recognize that belief in the non-existence of God is just as faith-based and primitive and superstitious as the system they rail against.
My attitude is: humans haven't been around long enough as a species to get a good handle on what theuniverse is all about. As a result, regardless of what your belief is, you are so full of shit. So, please, everyone, give us all a break and just shut the fuck up in public about it. Thanks.
" since one backward religious system cannot prevail over another backward religious system."
Unless of course that backwards religious system is the belief in neverending growth of consumption and resource use. Then it's the TRUTH.
The anti-consumerist fundamentalists of both Abrahamic stripes are far more rational in their assumptions, even if their reasoning is more muddled than the clear thinking, wrong technocratic consumerists. Unfortunately Team Jesus will be used to smash Team Mohammed before they are ground to dust under the heels of the one TRUE religion.
John K, righty-o.
Nice theme today. Great follow up to why is all this "stuff" and psycho roots and repug doublethink et al.
Damnit CNu, why you have to go and take up my whole day^H^H^H week like that again?
dood, I got a hold of 5.25 liters of Smirnoff Pear Twist for about $20.00 - and put one of those bad boys in the freezer. 200 milliliters of triple-distilled, 10X purified for clarity, bursting with pear flavored goodness refreshment has proven itself properly inspiring....,
5.25 l? Is that a typo? Is this offer national in scope?
If it is, then... let's see. Approx 60% of adult US population drinks. Around 72% of the population is 21 or over. About 307,212,123 of US, TIMES .432 gives 132, 715, 633 people.
5.25 liters divied up is about a .25 microliter serving. Bet you could still taste it.
Lol. My understanding was it was a sort of "chicken in every pot" initiative. Can't check your math now, headed to the liquor store.
No typo mayne, that's 3 1.75 litre bottles and I'ma go back and see if there's any more they wanna give away too!!!
I don't think it was national in scope, just one them odd typa-sorta situations that I'll now become hypervigilant for because - preparedness requires and EXTENSIVE stockpile of pure and potable spirits...,
I haven't seen propositional beliefs used much for religion, I thought of a propositional belief as something that can be easily verified. If I say I believe its raining out, one can easily look out the window if and confirm my belief, I thought this would be what a propositional belief is. If I am thinking correct I wouldn't describe religious beliefs as propositional.
Think of all the energy it took to produce that 5 liters. In the interests of sustainability, a less resource intensive neuronal massage might be in order. Something that grows right out of the ground, maybe? And requiring very little preparation for consumption?
Igziabeher
Let jah be praised.
then listen to the works of Roger Keith Barrett
The environmental cost of economical (i.e. semi-industrial) production for a crop not suited to outdoor agriculture is not as low as that of the "water and sunshine" baseline that Uncle Smirny uses for his feedstock, but I'd bet he still loses in conversion/production/distribution, etc.
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