Why I strongly dislike religion

The Progressive Believer often claims that their religion is not harmful but in fact beneficial, especially on a small scale, and that The Atheist’s hostility towards it is unjustified, dogmatic, and cruel. After all, if I, The Atheist, hate the believer so much just for believing, have I not reduced myself to the same level as the militant Islamic leaders, who hate everyone else just for not believing? When The Progressive Believer harms no one, rejects dogma and perhaps even the more organized forms of religion altogether, and has informed, thoughtful ideas about spirituality, what rationale could there possibly be for this hatred?

It is to this question that I wish to respond. First, however, I must remedy several common misconceptions regarding my views as a somewhat representative Atheist. Firstly, I do not hate The Progressive Believer. Nor, in fact, do I hate The Non-Progressive Believer, nor even The Televangelist; in fact, my Atheistic viewpoint in itself does not lead me into any sort of hatred. If I hate anything, it is behavior and belief: behavior that causes harm to one’s fellow man, and belief in propositions which are not true.

Secondly, by no means do I advocate ending religion by force. As an Atheist, I place a higher value upon freedom – to believe and think what one will, not what one is told. Indeed, to forcibly secularize anyone is no better than forcible conversion. As such, I have no problem with The Progressive Believer’s (or anyone else’s) freedom to believe Progressive Beliefs, or Non-Progressive Beliefs, or any other beliefs, so long as they don’t lead to harmful behavior.

With these two things in mind, then, I wish to move to the Progressive Believer. Our representative Progressive does not believe every word of the Bible; she does not believe that her spiritual path is the only correct path; she may not even be entirely convinced of the existence of God. She merely wishes to suggest that perhaps there is something out there, beyond our mundane condition of physical humanity, beyond the confines of human reason and scientific inquiry.

Why is this problematic?

Allow me a brief detour in my response to this question, in the distinction between “true” and “useful.”* There are some beliefs that we hold for which we also hold supporting rationales. The belief that I exist, for instance, is supported by the rationale that there is no other conceivable way for me to have this belief. Other beliefs are less watertight. That I am typing this sentence, for example, may be true – it is supported a posteriori, by my experience, though I might just as easily be dreaming. However, this belief still has numerous means of support.

Other beliefs, while not strictly speaking true, are still useful. Newtonian physics, for example, has long been replaced by the more accurate and more descriptive advances of general relativity and quantum physics. Although the way in which Newtonian physics accounts for the behavior of physical objects is not correct, it is still useful. If I throw a baseball, Newtonian physics can describe its behavior perfectly, even though on the atomic level the system is wrong.

The average belief system of the Progressive Believer, I wish to argue, is neither true, supported by reason, or useful.

1. Why Progressive Beliefs are not true

To briefly summarize, in the famous words of Bertrand Russell, “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence!” However, for more in-depth examinations of my reasons for rejecting any kind of theism, including Progressive versions, see the rest of this blog.

2. Why Progressive Beliefs are not useful.

This (at least in the context of this blog) is a more novel claim. The Progressive Believer, even if we have managed to convince her of the highly probable falsity of her beliefs (which sadly, I doubt we ever will), may go further and make the claim that although it cannot be shown that her beliefs are true, that they are still useful – they perhaps provide tranquility, serenity, peace, a sense of hopefulness and common ground with others. The Progressive Believer might also cite the benefits of prayer and meditation, the wisdom of the various holy texts, a sense of oneness with the world – insert your own vague allusions here. Either way, the claim is clear – Progressive Beliefs, even if they are not true,  are still beneficial to their Believer.

Let me outline a few ways that these benefits might be outweighed by the costs of Progressive Belief. First up:

Trust in science

Having lived with a representative Progressive Believer myself for quite some time now, and being acquainted with many more, I am consistently dismayed at the lack of trust in scientific inquiry. Science, they claim, is not infallible; science has been wrong; science lacks human warmth, empathy. Science cannot explain _______, says the progressive believer (pick your favorite: the cosmos, beauty, love, etc). Perhaps the Progressive Believer does trust science; perhaps the Progressive Believer even considers science as important an inquiry as spirituality, but believes that the two should work together, to complement each other. But compare this to me, The Atheist: I, too, trust science, but believe that this addition of religion is a detriment.

I acknowledge that scientific inquiry is far from infallible. I acknowledge that science has made innumerable errors and taken innumerable wrong turns. I might even go so far as to acknowledge that considerable harm has been done to humankind in the name of science. Despite these problems, however, science is the best we’ve got. Keep in mind - science put a man on the moon; science got you from home to work in the morning; science got you the hot shower and the cup of coffee; science developed everything from the polio vaccine to the artificial heart.  The rigor, discourse, and thoroughness of science as a discipline account for why we live the absurdly comfortable lifestyles we’ve grown accustomed to. Religion certainly can’t say the same; for much of history, in fact, religion did nothing but slow down or interfere with these developments.

(For a more in-depth look at the harms of discounting science, see Michael Specter’s recent book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives – [New York Times review] [Amazon])

Appreciation of Life

Even besides useful gadgetry (if hospitals and the like can be demoted to mere “usefulness”), science is the best means we possess to investigate and explore the world around us. The Progressive Believer looks at the world, and feels the need to reach for something else, almost as though the physical world is not good enough. It seems to me, anyway, that the beauty of the world is better appreciated if one isn’t constantly reaching for something beyond it. I feel that we must recognize the brevity of our time on Earth, and make as much of it as we can, rather than continually putting it to one side in favor of all manner of afterlives and higher powers. Appreciation and wonderment at the world just beyond comes from learning about it, from investigating its workings, from marveling at its complexity. Progressive Beliefs limit our scientific inquiry – at least in some cases they propose pessimistically that the true nature of the universe can never be explained by science, that science has limitations, that there are gaps that only spirituality can fill. But of course, this view is absurdly narrow and ill-informed! Two thousand years ago, all the same things were said about seemingly fundamental things – the orbits of the planets, for instance, or the nature of distant stars. Two thousand years from now, I can only hope that science will have pushed through most of this fog of spiritual conjecture, and further reduced these knowledge gaps that Believers everywhere cling to.

What I am saying is, I have yet to hear a compelling argument as to what benefits, if any, Progressive Beliefs provide. It seems to me that they function only as a psychological security blanket. In severe cases, this blanket has the tendency to obscure one’s immediate view of the outside world.

To conclude, then, I have tried to convey three points:

1. Replacing “God” with “Higher Power” lends no additional legitimacy or weight to any theistic view.

2. Such views, “Progressive Beliefs,” are accordingly erroneous.

3. In addition to being erroneous, these beliefs are also harmful in that they slow the journey of scientific progress and in some cases can interfere with the individual’s appreciation of the world around them. Even if this is not the case, they have as far as I can tell no legitimate benefits – they are both false and useless.

Responses are encouraged – comment below or send me a rebuttal at beyondtheflock [at] gmail.com

*Credit for this idea and example goes to Dr. Rulison.

Stop forcing faith on children – petition

From the petition:

Children have the right to their own thoughts, including their thoughts on religion. Because of religious hegemony around the world, children are herded into temples, churches, and synagogues without their consent and forced to endure dogma and superstition. The decision to take up a religion or remain free of religion belongs to an adult mind fully aware of the consequences such a decision will have. Usurping the right of a child to remain free of religion until they are adults is unethical, no matter the motivation of a parent.

Here’s the link: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop_forcing_faith/?e

Philosophy as Science and Art

Philosophy as a discipline is often criticized for being purely speculative, totally abstract and without practical application. The philosopher is one who simply thinks, while contributing nothing of any practical value to society.

This is obviously a misconception, and herein, I wish to explore why, by looking at philosophy both as science and art.

Philosophy as Art

Art is a broad subject. It spans eons, cultures, and formats and has few defined boundaries. Admittedly, I know very little about art. I would argue, however, that one of the central tenants of the discipline is meaning.

It is hard to picture an object of art being considered art if it were not endowed with some meaning or significance. Le Penseur, or “The Thinker,” for instance, can be seen as depicting man’s mental struggle in the search for truth; it has the capacity to produce certain ideas to which the observer can relate. This is both the artist’s skill in crafting a work with this capacity, as well as the observer’s ability to find meaning in what would otherwise be a chiseled slab.

What makes art great, perhaps, is its level of significance to observers. If I take a snapshot of my front yard, it has a small amount of significance for me: it is my yard, after all. To anyone else, though, it’s merely a picture of an unkempt lawn, which carries little meaning. The observer also finds it difficult to find his own meaning in such a snapshot. What gives rise to this capacity for significance, I’m not sure, but it’s clear that it relates in some way to what makes art important.

Philosophy, in the broadest sense, is the search for truth. While philosophical works lack the capacity for interpretation that is inherent in works of art, the discipline is the epitome of the search for meaning. Philosophy is the organized search for meaning and truth, and the expression and distillation of that meaning in the purest form possible. Perhaps philosophy then stands at the pinnacle of artistic pursuits; philosophy is the crystallization of artistic expression.

Philosophy as Science

Science, on the other hand, is concerned with the material world, and with the systematic discovery of certainty within that world. This might seem to be the complete opposite of philosophy, which tends towards the abstract, reasoned evaluation of things, rather than empirical data.

However, philosophy seems to me to be science taken to new levels. All branches of science take it as self-evident that our senses don’t deceive us in their representation of an outside world. Given this premise, science seeks to explain phenomena that the senses present. We see, for example, that things fall to the ground when we drop them. Science asks, why? Philosophy, then, is the next level of inquiry; it asks, for instance, how do we know that things fall to the ground when dropped? Can we be sure of the existence of objects, or of the ground? What sort of thing is a physical object?

The same rigor that’s present in science, of testing and retesting hypotheses, is also present in philosophy. Various theories are debated. The unsatisfactory ones are discarded, and the more secure ones are retained. Over time, we can indeed see that progress has been made.

Philosophy’s not simply abstract theoretical speculation. It’s just as rigorous as science, just as meaningful as art, and a decidedly important discipline.

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God and Freedom

[This paper was presented at Oglethorpe University's Liberal Arts Symposium on April 14, 2009 by me, its author. Don't steal it, under penalty of death.]

 

God and Freedom

            God and free will are frequently placed side by side as compatible ideals. I want to argue that god’s existence is incompatible with free will. I will do this by looking at the notion of divine foreknowledge, and how this affects our freedom.

            To begin with, we must define god. As Anselm said, “God is that of which nothing greater can be thought:” an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being. For our purposes, we are primarily interested in the reaches of god’s knowledge. Such knowledge must be infinite, unrestrained by any boundary. If we limit god’s knowledge, then the entity of which we speak ceases to be called god.  Before we even reach the subject of freedom, though, problems arise. This model suggests that god knows for certain what he will do in the future. This is problematic, because god then lacks the power to change his future mind. God’s power becomes limited by his infinite knowledge. In a sense, god loses his own freedom. This conflict between omniscience and omnipotence might suggest that we need to refine our definition of god.

            I would argue, however, that god’s internal inconsistencies are unimportant. Having been defined as an infinite being, the precise details of his workings can lie beyond our grasp. It makes sense that as finite beings, we will perceive some contradictions. In other words, god is all-powerful and all-knowledgeable; he’s free to be paradoxical when he likes.

            The application of divine foreknowledge to human freedom is more interesting. Suppose I am presented with two choices, A and B. If I have free will, it’s anyone’s guess as to which one I will choose. However, god already knows, before I decide, which option I will select. This isn’t a matter of belief on god’s part; it’s necessarily a matter of absolute certainty. If god knows for certain that I will choose B, then A was never really a genuine option. Because of my very limited knowledge, A appeared to be a possible choice when in fact it was not. If my future “choices” are laid at god’s feet in crystal-clear certainty, it’s impossible that my “choices” are freely made.

This is somewhat in conflict with common sense, as we experience ourselves as being free. This is because it is for all practical purposes impossible to know, as an omniscient god must, what the future holds. We may follow a predetermined course, but we are unaware that we do so.

            It might be argued that this conflict between free will and god can be solved by invoking god’s incomprehensibility, as we did to reconcile infinite knowledge with infinite power. This tactic doesn’t seem to me to be applicable in this case. Previously we had an internal inconsistency, in which pieces of our incomprehensibly great being, god, were in conflict with each other. Here, the inconsistency is not internal. Free will is not a given as were infinite knowledge and power. In other words, god can appear to contradict himself, because we have limited understanding of him, but other simpler things like free will cannot contradict god, particularly when such things aren’t made logically necessary.

            There is one problem with this: Free will is necessary to solve the problem of evil. In this model, god can in essence see the future, complete with all its evil acts. This raises the question of why, as an omnibenevolent entity, he doesn’t interfere. I would argue, however, that this problem is also present if we have free will. God would be responsible for our having free will, and by extension what we do with it; god is still ultimately responsible for evil acts wrought by mankind. The problem of evil is present both in the free will and deterministic models.

            Here, we can either revise our definition of god, or our definition of free will. We could argue, for instance, that god does not in fact know what the future holds. This argument might involve the impossibility of certainty regarding future events. Perhaps future events are truly ambiguous right up until they happen, and have no inherent truth value beforehand. Omniscience, then, would have to be redefined as the possession of all possible knowledge.

            This does not appear to me to be a promising tack. By modifying god’s omniscience to exclude future events, we are turning god into a limited entity. As we have already established, limitation of god is incoherent. Perhaps we could argue that future events appear to be necessarily ambiguous to us, but to apply the same restriction to an infinite being seems an improper move.

Another possible reconciliation of god and freedom, titled “middle knowledge,” was proposed by Molina in the 16^th century. Laing offers this summery:

The theory of middle knowledge presents a picture of divine omniscience which includes not only knowledge of the past, present and future, but also knowledge of conditional future contingents (propositions which refer to how free creatures will choose in various circumstances), counterfactuals (propositions which refer to how things would actually be if circumstances were different than they are or will be), and counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (propositions which refer to what a free creature would have chosen (freely) to do if things had been different).

However, it seems to me that middle knowledge merely pushes the issue back a step. God still knows what I’ll do in any given situation. We are still left with a scenario in which the outcomes of what we call choices are already known by an omniscient god. Perhaps god freely chooses which scenarios to actualize, but the outcome of my own choices remains fixed in god’s omniscience.

            Another line of reasoning might suggest that divine foreknowledge does not in fact force future events, but merely coincides with them. Rudavsky sums up a response:

[It has been] suggested that the analysis of God’s foreknowledge follows that of human knowledge in that both involve belief states. Divine knowledge, however, unlike its human counterpart, is infallible. Hence the phrase “God foreknows p” can be unpacked as

2.1 God believes p in advance of the occurrence of p

2.2 p is true

2.3 God is incapable of error

The crucial part of this analysis is 2.3, that is, the emphasis upon God’s infallibility. It is God’s infallibility, coupled with his prior knowledge, rather than the causal force of his knowledge, which carries with it the suggestion of the necessity of the objects of his knowledge.

This analysis seems to me to be correct. In other words, it is the fact that god is incapable of error that brings with it the future as he has foreknown it.

         To conclude, it appears that the reconciliation of god and freedom is a difficult project indeed: Divine foreknowledge seems to prevent human freedom. I’ve argued that various tactics of joining the two, including Molina’s concept of middle knowledge and curtailing god’s omniscience, are ultimately unpersuasive.

 

Works Cited

Laing, John D. “Middle Knowledge.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/, 2005

Rudavsky, Tamar. “Divine Omniscience and Future Contingents in Gersonides.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 21(4), 1983: 513-516.