It’s only when you read Leviticus that you realise just how into food, drink, clothes, haircuts and beards God is. He comes across as some kind of allegedly divine, yet utterly materialistic hipster.
– ‘Deschain’ commenting over on the Guardian
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Samizdata quote of the dayFebruary 20th, 2018 |
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Thanks for reading the Guardian, so we don’t have to.
Shows religion can be fun. God is clearly a thorough Chap! (Whether male or female)
Muhammed and his followers called out to the Jews of Arabia “raise your hand” – this did not mean surrender (surrender was not good idea – he would kill you anyway), it meant take your hand of certain passages of scripture. Rabbinical Judaism has long REJECTED a literal interpretation of the Torah – which is why the Talmud (the words of various scholars applying reason and tradition to scripture) is so long. To prevent reading out aloud nasty bit of scripture a Talmudic Jew would put his hand over it.
Muhammed was outraged by this – whatever scripture said should be read publicly (although it is said he could not read himself) and carried out, hence “raise your hand”.
The Bible is the work of various men over centuries – it is not the Koran which claims to be the literal word of God spoken to Muhammed. It is long puzzled me that some people say that all of the Bible is the literal word of God – it does not claim to be that, it is quite open about being different books written by different people at different times. People who most certainly were NOT always in agreement with each other – so if one follows one passage of scripture one is very likely to be going against another passage of scripture (hence the need for both reason and tradition in Christianity – as Richard Hooker, essentially the intellectual founder of Anglicanism, and the Catholic Scholastics before him, pointed out).
Not to mention that much of the Bible comprises aural history transcribed, at some remove in time and space, in ancient languages the translations of which are the subject of rancorous debate.
To be honest, this comment was sent to me by someone who actually reads the Guardian as they know the sort of things that make me laugh, so I will pass your thanks on to the brave soul who really does 😆
Surely if you are looking for a work by many writers who are convinced it sets out the immutable truth, that would be the Guardian?
Could be, Watchman. But sometimes I think they’re just taking the piss & they know it is all utter bollocks.
I have only ever encountered this claim in columns written by Guardian readers and their US lookalikes. I think they have heard about the koran being the dictated word of God according to muslims and so, after performing their daily spiritual exercise of ridding their minds of all islamophobia, and knowing sweet fresh air about Christianity themselves, they assume without thinking that must be the Christian take on the bible.*
Leviticus is well described as “the handbook of the priests”: lots of detailed stuff about hairstyles, what heave offerings and wave offerings are required in given circumstances, etc. One of my favourite bits in the pentateuch is the bit on how to build an ark of the covenant, which starts out like a Blue Peter programme** from my childhood and then becomes comic as the priests move from “O good people, please bring us shittim wood to build an ark of the covenant”, through “Thank you good people for this shittim wood” to “OK, that’s enough shittim wood”, and on to “Will you please stop bringing us shittim wood”, “We have enough shittim wood!”, “We have too much shittim wood!!”. The third commandment is no doubt the reason why the obvious final line “Will you people for God sake stop dumping shittim wood on us – we’re drowning in the stuff”, is not in the authorised version. (Maybe it was bleeped out by the redactor. 🙂 )
Notes
——
* I suppose in fairness one should grant that there is probably a silly Christian sect or speaker somewhere who says this or at least speaks in such a way as could make you wonder if that’s what they thought. But Paul is correct that it’s a million miles from normal Christian thought.
** (For non-UK readers) Blue Peter was a children’s programme that included a lot of stuff on how to make things – usually out of sticky-backed plastic, egg cartons and cardboard boxes rather than shittim wood.
According to Gallup in 2007, “one-third of the American adult population believes the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word.”
(I wish they would take our Constitution as seriously.)
bobby b (February 20, 2018 at 8:01 pm), I’m not surprised that a third of Americans, approached by a pollster, say whatever they hope will cause the most despair to “godless liberals”, but if you ask them whether the words of St Peter, for example, are always the literal words of God, given how often his son immediately tells Peter he’s talking rubbish and corrects him, then the difference between the koran (seen by muslims as in its entirety the literal word of God, dictated to perfect and uncorrupting medium Mohammed) and the bible (seen by Christians as the writings of many men, sometimes chronicling the state visits of Solomon’s court, sometimes describing some pretty amazing stuff those men witnessed) would, I think, emerge.
It would indeed be nice if an originalist interpretation of the constitution were to become commoner, but whether ‘originalist’ always and everywhere means exactly ‘literalist’ or can sometimes signify something just as constraining but slightly better at getting the original meaning is maybe something those who love the constitution best will allow.
Bobby B, the poll you linked to seems to have constrained people to choose between “actual word of God, to be taken literally” and the next-strongest choice “inspired by word of god”. Anyone who, e.g., believes the most important distinction between those two choices is that the Bible is to be taken literally (or even mostly literally, or even that e.g. some prominent part such as the New Testament is to be taken literally) is pretty likely to choose that answer. When that happens, I think Gallup’s counting that choice to support its talking point about how “one-third of the American adult population believes the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word” says more about motivated reasoning in policy-driven evidence making than it does about the opinions of that American adult.
Plato (in _Phaedrus_) wrote about “dividing things again by classes, where the natural joints are, and not trying to break any part, after the manner of a bad carver.” He had to use that analogy because in that era “bad pollster” might not have been instantly understandable the way it is in our era.:-|
Oh hell yeah. Bad pollsters are the norm, not the exception. And I cannot keep track of how many political questionnaires I have seen in which I found it impossible to even vaguely approximate my positions. These are usually drawn up within a paradigm in which people are either Tory/Labour or Dem/GOP or Left/Right (whatever the fuck that even means now) or (more honestly what the pollster probably thinks) Smart Urban Lib/Thick-as-pigshit Flyover Hick.
St. Luke, author of the Gospel of Luke, talks about how he compiled the gospel from various sources- never once does he claim that he heard a voice telling him what to write. The original five books of Moses were credited to Moses, but who knows?
If you ask them that, I suspect you’ll get blank stares, as you’ve already outstripped most people’s knowledge of what the Bible says. 😀
(Poor response choices aside, one-third did choose that one and not the more watered down “inspired by God” choice, so, yeah, I wouldn’t bet the farm that 33% believe it’s “the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word”, but I think it does indicate something far more prevalent than “hardly any.”)
Perry de Havilland (London)
Oh hell yeah. Bad pollsters are the norm, not the exception.
Consider Sir Humphrey Appleby’s take on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=884qXhIqsKU&feature=youtu.be&t=28
@bobby b
> I wouldn’t bet the farm that 33% believe it’s “the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word”
But let me be philosophical for a moment. What does “believe” mean? The truth is what we believe is pretty circumstantial. Many of the most passionate believers will not believe that the wafer turns into the actual body of Christ. Moreover, many will not believe that should a new husband find his with to be not “virgo intacta” he can take her back to her parents and stone her to death. There are plenty of biologists who “believe” the Genesis account of creation, but still use evolution to their advantage in the lab. One of the most amazing capabilities of the human mind is its ability to compartmentalize; to keep apart thoughts that, should they get too close together would cause great mental dissoance, harm and other problems.
It is easy to believe some of the silly beliefs people have insofar as they don’t actually affect your life. For example, whether Noah really put all those animals on the boat really only impacts the work and life of a very small number of people. And believing that he does confers a substantial benefit — namely membership in a peer group who provide for your social needs.
It is unfortunate though that when people get in the habit of believing things that are really silly but don’t much impact them, sometimes a day comes when it does impact them, and then it can be quite dangerous. For example, if you take a homeopathic remedy for your hay fever and it offers some placebo benefit (even though you are only drinking a tiny amount of water), that doesn’t do you much harm, and you can enjoy all your granola eating, hemp bag carrying, crystal wielding friends as you all sit around and breathing in the “ions” from your new Himalayan salt light.
However, if that convinces you that a little bottle of water can cure your of your metastatic cancer and you consequently eschew modern medicine then you had better save up a bunch of essential oil candles so that you can burn their soothing aroma to calm your friends when they are sitting around your coffin.
Which is to say most of the time people believe silly things from the Bible because it isn’t damaging to do so, and it offers them membership into a society (and perhaps other benefits too.) Just as long as you don’t let it get so far down into your soul that it actually affects your substantial decision making processes.
“believe it’s ‘the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word’ […] far more prevalent than ‘hardly any'”
“[re. St. Peter and his son] outstripped most people’s knowledge of what the Bible says”
A significant fraction of USAians do seem to believe that the Bible is something like directly inspired instruction from God, or even pure-in-some-sense communication from God (who if omnipotent and working in mysterious ways probably could have arranged such an outcome if he chose). But to put it as “the actual word of God”? It seems to me as though that belief is rare enough that it’s obscured by difficulties like the Lizardman constant.
Have you ever heard of a believer being taken aback to realize that stuff like the Psalms and epistles (and, I guess, Luke as per Nicholas above) are obviously framed as communications from humans? There is various theology and fanon about how intensely divinely inspired those humans were, but still, from humans. I haven’t heard of a believer having a serious problem with this, and I don’t expect to. The textual construction as communication from humans is so pervasive and obvious that it comes through even in famous short passages from those parts of the Bible: “the Lord is my shepherd” makes zero sense if spoken by the biblical God, and “when I was a child, I spake as a child” spoken by God doesn’t make sense either unless you introduce some surprising theology of God as a youngster able to speak only in a limited way. And I would guess that those passages do not outstrip most adult US believers’ knowledge of what the Bible says.
Similarly Revelations seems clearly framed as the words of a human — words which are about visions and other stuff, where those visions and stuff are taken to be from God, but that doesn’t make the text “the word of God” in the ordinary sense. (And, even more, not “the actual word of God” — when I see rhetorical emphasis misused like that, I literally explode, donchaknow?)
As I travel around in (mostly) rural middle America, I find myself surrounded by various Evangelical Protestant sects – Lutherans, et al – all of whom center their faith on the root word “evangel” – which means “gospel.”
These groups all follow a central core belief – sola scriptura – that holds that “the Christian Scriptures – the Bible – are the sole infallible rule of faith and practice.” (I’m quoting Wikipedia here, from the sola scriptura entry.) Remember that “Protestantism” arose through the Protestant Reformation, which was the “protest” movement against the RC church’s intrusion between God and Scripture and man.
“Lutheranism teaches that the Bible does not merely contain the Word of God, but every word of it is, because of verbal inspiration, the word of God.” (Wikipedia.) Again, for emphasis: “every word of it . . . is the Word of God.”
“Holy Scripture, the Word of God, carries the full authority of God in Lutheranism: every single statement of the Bible calls for instant, unqualified and unrestricted acceptance. Every doctrine of the Bible is the teaching of God and therefore requires full agreement. Every promise of the Bible calls for unshakable trust in its fulfillment; every command of the Bible is the directive of God himself and therefore demands willing observance.”
This differs from the Anglicans and the Methodists, who hold to the central belief in “prima scriptura“, which allows Scripture to be read “in the light of” other relevant principles, such as “the general revelation in creation, traditions, charismatic gifts, mystical insight, angelic visitations, conscience, common sense, the views of experts, the spirit of the times or something else.” In other words, Methodists and Anglicans believe that the Bible is one of many sources of God’s Word, and may be read in light of those other sources.
If you’re in England, or just generally Europe, or maybe even in some of the USA Eastern enclaves, you probably don’t know many Lutherans or Evangelicals. Religious Reformationists near you are likely Anglicans or Methodists. They’ll chuckle along with you as you ponder the silliness of some of the more fanciful Bible passages. Evangelicals and Lutherans, though, won’t be so nice about it.
(Fraser Orr, I agree with you. Being an agnostic, though, and being in the presence of so many evangelicals who just LIVE for being able to convert the heathen (e.g. me), I’ve listened to this litany for years and years. And they do know that some parts of the Bible are meant to be allegory, or poetry, or something other than a straightforward history – but at the same time, no matter the scribe, they consider every single word in the Bible to have been chosen for inclusion by God.)
To be more specific than I was above – sola scriptura doesn’t require that such stories be taken completely literally.
What it does require is to consider that each such story was included because God included it, and it’s left to us to ponder the reason He included it. Presumably, if God chose to include it in Scripture, it has meaning and import, and we must consider what that meaning and import is.
But at the end of the day, according to solas scriptura, adherents cannot fail to consider each and every word of the Bible as anything except God’s specifically-chosen word.
Frasier Orr at 12:48am
“One of the most amazing capabilities of the human mind is its ability to compartmentalize; to keep apart thoughts that, should they get too close together would cause great mental dissonance, harm and other problems.” –Maybe this is why some minds “compartmentalize”, but these things getting “close to one another” is not a concern for me. To me, these contradictions tell me about our nature and the reality of the world. There are aspects of life accessible to reason and there’s the rest. The spirit of a human being is a flighty thing.
I’m a scientist and when I confront contradictory observations, I don’t blame the observations, I try to reconcile them. Try to understand why they appear to be contradictory (first check the experiment and make sure I can trust the data!). Insight begins with “that doesn’t make sense”. Full disclosure: my science is pretty boring in the big scheme of things. More often I run into contradictions in dealing with people (he said, she said). But everything every (honest) person is telling you is the truth…from their perspective. Tough part is reconciling it to learn something useful.
“Just as long as you don’t let it get so far down into your soul that it actually affects your substantial decision making processes.” –Please give at least some believers a little more credit than that! Are you really discounting belief by all people, everywhere and at every time, so comprehensively?
Sorry if I’m getting “irrational”
@Greg
To me, these contradictions tell me about our nature and the reality of the world. There are aspects of life accessible to reason and there’s the rest. The spirit of a human being is a flighty thing.
If there are contradictions then, as a scientist, you should want to find the missing piece of information that explains the contradiction, no? Not go off on some flighty idea about the human spirit or the nature of reality. We all compartmentalize to some degree, and none of us are so wise as to understand it all. And there is a good reason for this, that would be rational ignorance. Sometimes the cost of reconciling the compartments is greater than the benefit of doing so.
Please give at least some believers a little more credit than that! Are you really discounting belief by all people, everywhere and at every time, so comprehensively?
I don’t think I said anything even vaguely like that. What I did say above is that sometimes the cost of reconciling the compartments seems to be greater than the benefit of doing so, but sometimes that bites us in the ass, because the compartments trick us. They leak. For example, in the name of being one of the Himalayan salt, pyramid, essential oils brigade we chose a little bottle of expensive water from a smooth talking quack, rather than using real medicine to cure us of our ills.
I’m not suggesting that religious people do that specifically. What I would say is that some religious people hold their beliefs so strongly that they strap dynamite and nails around their kids’ waist and detonate them in crowds of infidels.
Of course western Christians don’t do that. But they do occasionally do things like prevent rape victims from getting abortions, or preventing homosexuals from getting married, or preventing cancer patients from smoking marijuana (which, unlike the aforementioned expensive water, actually has considerably therapeutic value.)
Of course not all Christians do that stuff. Some are pretty inoffensive, and some actually do some pretty great charitable work. But in my experience their likelihood of, shall I call it ‘moral exernalities’, is proportional to their belief in sola scriptura.
Yeah, but let’s be fair.
They also purposefully carry on and serve a specific and open moral code that has served civilization very well over two thousand years, and which has arguably enabled much of what is now good in our societies.
As well, for little or no personal benefit, they carry out good works which have made countless lives better.
They have provided a sense of purpose, and an avoidance of nihilism, for billions over the centuries through building a common point of order and merit.
(And I’ve not heard of any religious basis for marijuana prohibition. Honestly, if you look at those tall pointy hats and gaudy vestments worn in the Vatican, do you really think those guys don’t get high?)
The best part of the Bible is Deuteronomy. Whoever composed it hid things in plain sight. Read the first 4 chapters, taking careful note of all the times where God makes sure that the bodies of the adults who were at Mount Sinai are dead. Then read the first five verses of Deuteronomy, chapter five- and ask yourself, “What is Moses talking about?” Moses seems to believe that the same people are here, 40 years later! They, not their fathers, saw the miracles and agreed to the covenant! Same souls in new bodies, with their memories suppressed so they could learn anew?
@bobby b
They also purposefully carry on and serve a specific and open moral code that has served civilization very well over two thousand years, and which has arguably enabled much of what is now good in our societies.
Really? Through most of history the regular folks have been absolutely crushed and abused by these “moral” codes that imposed on them dreadful things like the divine right of kings. What has allowed them to prosper is the mostly secularly originated common law codes that side stepped the religious codes. As an example, out of the ten commandments only two, perhaps two and a half are actually illegal today, in fact several of them we have an explicit right to violate.
No, what has enabled much of what is good in society is the enlightenment. The liberation from these moral codes. The departure from the nonsense to allow science and technology to build civilizations. The openness to debate (the very opposite of the word “faith”) to think new ideas, criticize old ideas, and change. When religion ruled the world slavery and the oppression of women was widespread. When religion ruled the world the stratification of society was the order of the day. When religion ruled the world serfdom and suzerainty to the king was the order of the day. When religion ruled the world, poverty, death and disease was the lot of the people from the beggar to the king.
So, no, I don’t agree. Modern civilization is build on the enlightenment ideas of critical discourse, rational argument, reasoned conclusion, not faith and authority. Modern civilization is built on the ideas of science and technology, many of which the church resisted vehemently, often torturing and punishing those who were uppity enough to challenge the status quo.
As well, for little or no personal benefit, they carry out good works which have made countless lives better.
I think that is true to some extent, though you mustn’t discount the massive harm they have done too. But compared to the good brought about by the industrial revolution? Religion is gnats bite compared to that.
Honestly, if you look at those tall pointy hats and gaudy vestments worn in the Vatican, do you really think those guys don’t get high?
LOL.
“The original five books of Moses were credited to Moses, but who knows?”
Since they contain an account of the death and funeral of Moses followed by a statement that no one knows where he is buried to this day, I think that I can make an educated guess.
And one of the things I love about the Bible is that it is written in God’s own language: English 😀 😎
bobby b (February 21, 2018 at 2:29 am), a philosophy lecturer (for example) can tell their class, “Read Plato and Aristotle”. Alternatively, another philosophy lecturer can tell their class, “I agree with everything Plato and Aristotle say: theirs is the one true philosophy and you must assent to every statement and obey every direction.” In either case, the material in the lecturer’s reading could much outweigh the amount of text in their own lecture notes for their course.
With this analogy in mind, I understand your description of “sola scriptura” in your comment as follows.
– Muslims believe the koran is all of it the direct word of God, dictated to Mohammed who recorded it flawlessly.
– Christians believe the bible is God’s reading list for his course on “living a virtuous life”. Sola scriptura Christians believe (if I understand your description of them correctly) that there is no actual necessity to supplement it with additional reading in order to form basic moral principles, nor are any of the books on that reading list wholly superfluous. As the lecturer’s own notes may be small compared to the writings of e.g. the Greek philosophers, so the bible’s direct attributed quotations of God or of Jesus are small compared to the bible’s total content.
So we may be agreeing.
(In today’s PC world, I could imagine some US Christians wanting to feel sure they were not talking to a “godless liberal” before they would feel comfortable discussing how far they agreed with an ‘irreverent’ way of putting it like the above. 🙂 So I’m unsurprised by the opinion polls like the one you mentioned earlier.)
“There are no atheists in a slit trench”
In the Catholic mass, any bible reading ends with the line “This is the word of the Lord” to which we say “Thanks be to God”.
Obviously, like most other parts of the mass, it’s just a ritual, but certainly plenty of people view it as sacred and divinely inspired, if not literally written by God.
There are lots of really interesting analyses of who literally wrote bits of the bible, including a surprisingly open-minded one by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI about John’s gospel. I went to Synagogue once and got into a conversation about the book “Who wrote the Bible?” by Richard Friedman, which is apparently a very good analysis. Certainly when you read the whole old testament it’s quite obvious that it’s the work of multiple overlapping and sometimes contradictory authors.
For insomniacs, Leviticus is the best way of getting to sleep, apart from perhaps the movie “Memoirs of a Geisha”.
Like you, I’m a nonbeliever. But where I’m an agnostic – literally, “without knowledge” – you appear to be an atheist. You know. I envy you your certainty.
I’d guess that many more brilliant-mind-minutes have been expended over all time exploring the existence or nonexistence of God than any other ponderable questions you might name. Look at the time and effort you could have saved them! 😛
So long as you include in your “Christians believe . . .” paragraph the acknowledgment that “every single word in the Bible was placed there by God”, in a very immediate way that precludes most of the ideas that form in my mind concerning how “was placed there” can be satisfied in roundabout and allegorical ways and leaving only the most direct definitions of that phrase, then I suspect we are.
That’s a tough condition. But that’s what the sola scriptura Christians believe.
bobby b (February 21, 2018 at 3:15 pm), I suspect Perry (February 21, 2018 at 11:27 am) was making a joke based on the alleged quote (attributed to some right-wing bible-punching US congressman IIRC) that “If English was good enough for Jesus…” (I forget the precise foreign-language-use circumstance the congressman was supposedly rebutting with this argument). While Perry doubtless feels great certainty in his opinions about many things, I think he may be quite agnostic about the reality of this quote. Like many a gaffe attributed to Reagan and other right wingers, it might turn out to have been improved or invented by those left-wing commentators to whom we owe our knowledge of it. 🙂
Of course, the King James bible, written as Shakespeare was writing his last plays, does show an amazing flowering of the English language – and greatly influenced its later growth: God’s own language indeed, in a colloquial sense, albeit a translation in a more mundane sense.
I don’t*. Life as an agnostic seems much more interesting than the alternatives on offer.
*Though I’m agnostic on whether Perry shares this or that certainty or not.
Shouldn’t all good quotes be automatically attributed to either Churchill or Twain?
@bobby b
I envy you your certainty.
But you mostly share my certainty, I imagine. For example, aren’t you certain that Zeus does not reside on Mount Olympus, or that Odin does not answer the prayers of the Scandinavians? Aren’t you certain that the Blue Elephant Goddess Ganesh is not real?
I imagine you are atheist on all of these gods, but for cultural reasons you state your agnosticism of the one god that your culture surrounds you with. Really, and honestly, do you have any more reason to believe in that god than Baal or Ashterah, Venus or Huitzilopochtli.
Perhaps we should all worship Odin, just in case. After all, we might be wrong about him, and wouldn’t want to miss our chance at Valhalla. To me the whole Valhalla thing, drinking and eating and singing and having a good time, sounds a considerably better outcome that sitting around playing a harp singing “Guide me oh thou great Jehovah” all day long. If I’m playing the long odds I might as well bet on the one with the best outcome.
Yeah so it is said, but my first hand observation during the Balkan festivities in the 1990’s indicate it is a bit more complex than that.
I know as many who found God under fire as I do who did the exact opposite. I was not in any slit trenches myself (although I was shot at several times) but my observations in Croatia, Herzegovina and Bosnia certainly cured me of my previous religious sentiments.
Add Mencken to that list and yes, that’s 90% of the world’s really good quotes taken care off 😀
Are you certain that all of these gods weren’t merely man’s misunderstanding of the true god brought about in pre-Bible times because god hadn’t yet enlightened man through scripture? (Again, not what I believe – what many Lutherans I know tell me they believe.)
More to your point, yes, I am just as certain that “Zeus does not reside on Mount Olympus . . . “, etc., as I am that there is no god of the Christian conception. Not more certain – just as certain. Meaning, I have no clue. I have had no personal revelation that would make an otherwise unprovable hypothesis real to me. Many many others claim to have had that revelation – people I believe and trust when they say other things, whom I cannot simply write off as deluded. So, when I say that I envy certainty, I merely mean that it would be nice to be sure one way or the other. But I think that much of the certainty on both sides isn’t an intellectual knowing, but rather, as you say, a cultural belief.
Mankind has been overwhelmingly believing in gods since australopithecine times, but now that we have smartphones and M&M’s, all of the billions that came before us were simply ignorant? We can’t even get climate right.
“Don’t tear down a fence until you know why it was built.” (JFK, probably channeling Twain or Churchill.)
I’m a Popperian radical (i.e. a Pancritical Rationalist). If someone gives me a compelling theory that explains things better than other theories, and it included ‘God’, I can’t say with certainty that I would not form a critical preference for said theory. Based on past experience I have my doubts, but I am really only ‘certain’ about uncertainty. I seem to lack the craving I observe in others to embrace some Irreducible Truth.
“We will build the wall!” (Trump, most likely channeling Hitler).
@bobby b
Are you certain that all of these gods weren’t merely man’s misunderstanding of the true god
Because I find the idea that one’s cultural heritage being almost perfectly correlated with one’s religious preference to be extremely unlikely to be a coincidence. And there is a point at which serious people understand that extremely unlikely is effectively the same as “not true”. Of course we all keep an open mind, there may indeed by gods on Mount Olympus, but one should not let that affect your behavioral choices, and to call that “agnosticism” is to split the minutest of hairs. I believe that the moon is made of rock and not green cheese. I also believe that NASA did land men on that rocky, not cheesy, moon. Is it possible I am wrong? I suppose there is a tiny chance, but I am not agnostic about lunar composition, I am not an agnostic about the moon hoax conspiracy and to call myself such would be pedantry of the most tedious kind.
More to your point, yes, I am just as certain that “Zeus does not reside on Mount Olympus . . . “, etc., as I am that there is no god of the Christian conception. Not more certain – just as certain.
You might be in earnest here, but were you at a party and someone told you “Jesus answered my prayer” you’d probably not bat an eyelash, but if someone else said “I communed with Zeus last night” you’d think they were nuts. As Sam Harris has often described, if you got up this morning, said a few magic Latin words “Ego sum omnium agitate” and then believed that your pancakes had turned into the body of Elvis, then you would rightly be carted off to the looney bin. But if a man in a pointy hat does essentially the same thing in church, you aren’t crazy, you are a Catholic.
Many many others claim to have had that revelation – people I believe and trust when they say other things, whom I cannot simply write off as deluded.
But people, as discussed before, have a remarkable ability to compartmentalize. Our current HUD secretary Ben Carson is a brain surgeon who does not believe in evolution. How can these two things reside in the same brain? I don’t think that religious people are entirely nuts, on the contrary they manage to confine the nuttiness to a small part of their brain, and not let it overlap too much so that they can actually function in the real world where magic, demons and intercessory prayer have been replaced by technology, understanding of disease and Amazon.com.
To be crazy in one small part of your brain does not make you on net crazy. Hey, I think Neil Diamond is the best performer in modern music, and if that makes me crazy then crazy I be.
Mankind has been overwhelmingly believing in gods since australopithecine times, but now that we have smartphones and M&M’s, all of the billions that came before us were simply ignorant? We can’t even get climate right.
Of course historic man was ignorant. That isn’t the same as stupid. Ignorant is a lack of knowledge, and the plain fact is that today, assuming a decent school district, an straight A middle school graduate knows more about science and the world than the best scholars of four hundred years ago.
“Don’t tear down a fence until you know why it was built.” (JFK, probably channeling Twain or Churchill.)
Two things — evidently add JFK to the list (much though I think he may be the most overrated person in history), and secondly we do know why the wall of religion was built. Studies in the evolution of morality and religion are replete. In essence religion has been evolved to protect society and to control the masses. “This life might be shite, but behave yourself, and do what your betters tell you and great will be your reward.” It really is genius, in an evil genius kind of a way.
There might be a good reason to allow this evolved system to remain, but that doesn’t mean it is true.
Agnostic vs. atheist distinctions get trickier as we get closer to the technology level required for bored grad students to implement a brain in a vat situation as a prank. (What evidence would suffice to convince you that the Easter Bunny is the all-powerful creator of the universe? It is coming to depend in part on your mental model of the state of the art in neuroscience…) Fortunately we’ve been getting much better recently at formal reasoning about inductive reasoning (necessarily, because Popper is mostly well and good[*], but not good enough to implement AI inference about e.g. what real-world objects are likely to be creating the pattern of sensor inputs seen by a self-driving vehicle). Even more fortunately we don’t even really need the fancy super-modern formal analyses (i.e., stuff like minimum description length in one approach, or VC dimension in another) to express the ag.-vs.-ath.-vs.-whatever difficulty, just the weary informal habit that one naturally picks up in twentieth century natural philosophy (esp. when studying quantum mechanics, which historically had particular problems with people worrying about distinctions which turned out not to correspond to different outcomes in the real world) of losing interest in arguments that don’t correspond to achievable experiments that differ in observable outcomes.
So it would be nice to know whether we’re in a world ruled by a vindictive God or not, especially because a lot of the rival theories tend to be constructed to have enormous Pascal’s-Wager-level impacts if true. But because the theories also tend to be constructed to not correspond to achievable experiments that differ in observable outcomes, weary habits learned in study of less-confusing subjects such as QM usually keep me on the straight and narrow path of only worrying about choices that I have a chance to understand (such as what I post on the web:-).
[*] And amusingly, as I have observed before, practical technical work on inference seems to cite back to Popper but not to the fashionable (Marxist or whatever) philosophers that credentialed philosophers like to represent as his successors. As the men said, “two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by officially credentialed specialists in postmodernist grant-funded institutions, and that has made all the difference, for now I can travel at 30,000 feet.”
Which is pretty much where I come down on the whole question, btw. That’s my best guess. But a religious person is likely to answer that with “yeah, that’s why we’ve been allowed to see just enough to realize that there is a higher power, so that we could structure our society in its image of order and peace. Wasn’t that smart of God?” (They have an answer for everything.)
As an agnostic in 2018, I’m sure that I’m more inclined to disbelieve than was an agnostic in 1618, simply because, as you say, we know and understand much more. I’m willing to say that I’m pretty darned sure there’s no god. I’m not so arrogant to think that I know this to a certainty when billions of people, several of them smarter than me, have thought otherwise throughout history. But I am willing to run my life, Pascal’s Wager or no, as if there is no god. I’m probably, as you say, splitting hairs, but I think the hair is still there to be split.
Yep. I would be chastened to learn that there is a god, and her name is Allah, and she’s a vindictive b*tch who isn’t all that fond of us. But that would explain much of human history.
(Doesn’t Popper really just beg the question? Didn’t he argue that we should examine religion on the basis of how good or bad that religion is for us, and discount all arguments and theories concerning the truth of religion as beyond our knowing? Surely the universe isn’t governed by what’s good for us.)
Thank you Roy and Niall.
Indeed even that TINY part of the Bible which claims to be direct word of God is a matter for hot debate – for example does the 6th Commandment say “Thou Shall Not Kill” or does it say “Thou Shall Not Murder” or “Thou Shall Do No Murder”?
Bobby B.
I wish they would actually read the Bible – for if they do they clearly do not understand what they are reading if they think it claims to all be the direct word of God (it does not) or that the text does not contain disagreements – oppositions (which it must certainly does).
Perhaps the problem is that the translation most people read – the King James version is wonderful poetry but (to modern people at least) it is as clear as mud. So what should people be reading?
I would suggest the “Jerusalem Bible” – the 1960s version (the one in the blue cover), it was designed to actually (horror of horrors) be read and UNDERSTOOD. For example reading the text it becomes obvious why Joseph (he of the special coat) became unpopular in Egypt – and not just because a new King came along who did not know him. The ruler that Joseph was close to took the people’s grain by force, and when the famine came he did not give it back to the people, he first demanded their livestock and then the land itself (making them serfs) before he gave them their own grain back.
Now Joseph did not advice him to do that – he just told the ruler crop failures were coming, but Joseph was associated with an (alien) ruler who had behaved very badly – and thus the people of Joseph were hated.
Martin Luther….
In some ways this man (Dr Luther) is a sort of cartoon villain – proclaiming that there should be no resistance to the invading Islamic Turks (as they were a punishment sent by God), screaming that all women were “wives or whores” (as if a women could not be anything else), supporting the peasants being reduced to serfdom and slaughtered when they resisted, and ranting on insanely about the Jews (in words that Karl Marx later turned to denouncing the capitalists – hat tip to Paul Johnson for noting this) and on and on…… of course I most detest his DETERMINISM (the Bondage of he Will stuff), but there is this other stuff to.
Still Dr Luther on the Bible…..
Well he mistranslates it (pushing his justification by faith ALONE – where ever that it is put into the German Bible it is Luther NOT the original text) – is that on purpose or accidental? If accidental that was bad scholarship, if it was deliberate that is worse.
Then he also cuts whole books out of the Bible – true the Church had originally decided what should go into the Bible (the Church is older than the Bible), but Martin Luther gets rid of whole books on his own authority (no general Council), and does he even respect what he left in?
No he does not. For example, when it was pointed out that the Epistle (letter) of James contradicted his doctrine of justification by faith alone, Dr Luther replied that it was an “Epistle of Straw”.
Come again?
Scripture is the only source of authority – not “that whore” reason, or tradition. Unless Dr Luther does not like the scripture – in which case it is “straw”.
I am reminded of a story about the death of a famous atheist (don’t remember who, but let’s assume it was Churchill or Twain.) On his deathbed he was brought a priest who said “Renounce the devil!!” to which the atheist replied:, “Certainly not, this is no time to be making enemies.”
Like I say, if you are going with Pascal’s wager, I suggest you choose carefully. Don’t go with Islam: seventy two virgins means seventy two mothers in law, yikes!!. Don’t go with Christianity: sitting around singing praises all day doesn’t sound like much fun — I bet the pew benches are just as uncomfortable as they are in my old church. Definitely don’t go with Buddhism. You might come back as a dung beetle. Like I say, Odin seems a good choice. Valhalla sounds cool — all that partying and eating and drinking and wenching… All praise to Odin!!
“Paul – Martin Luther only really ranted insanely when he got old and ill, and you are not exactly nice a lot of the time”.
O.K. – I accept this correction.
I believe in free speech; this aligns very well with my cultural heritage (though, sadly, not so well with the current ruling class in my country).
bobby b believes in the U.S. constitution; this aligns very well with his cultural heritage.
Statistically, these alignments are not coincidences. As a US citizen, bobby is more likely to value the U.S. constitution, though others (myself, for example) can also respect it. Being born in the anglosphere increases the likelihood that I will value free speech, though respecting free speech is far from confined to people from the anglosphere. These (non-coincidental) alignments are not arguments against these choices.
I don’t. When we try to impose an image onto our conceptions of the numinous, it’s always going to be affected by the overlay of our morality and our ideas about merit.
The Norsemen saw as their highest value the warrior king. Thus, Odin becomes a warrior king. Same with the Aztecs and Huitzilopochtli. The early Christians saw merit in equality of plain lowborn folk who obeyed the Golden Rule and helped the needy. Thus, one of the faces of their god becomes the poor carpenter’s son. I suspect we all hope our gods resemble us, because that implies that we carry some of their merit.
When trying to construct an image of a non-corporeal force that exists outside of our measurable realm, we’re always going to culturally anthropomorphize to some extent.
I have. I choose Rastafari. “Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” – Bob Marley. 😉
Both Hebrew and Greek have the ability to distinguish ‘kill’ and ‘murder’, just as English does. On all occasions in the Gospels where Jesus states the commandment, he is quoted as using the ‘murder’ word. For Christians, that would seem to be decisive as regards how to understand the commandment.
FYI, I have this information from C.S.Lewis – my own ancient language skills are not up to verifying it. Likewise, they are not up to telling whether this is similarly true for old testament and later Jewish texts, so also true for Jews, but I would guess it is.
I note that in fact Jesus never killed anyone (let alone murdered them) and seems to have avoided the possibility even in the garden, when self-defence would appear to have been legitimate and possible.
By contrast, Mohammed killed and ordered the killing of many, including dancing girls who made fun of him. This seems to me an important difference.
@Niall Kilmartin
These (non-coincidental) alignments are not arguments against these choices.
Yes of course you are right. But that isn’t the argument that I was addressing. Rather the argument was that other people’s gods (including historical people) were but a foreshadow of my god. The fact that the anglosphere embraces these values does not, in itself, make them good or better, that would be judged on an entirely different set of criteria.
But free speech and the Constitution are both human constructions. What was being discussed was views on a putatively existing, objectively observable object. For example, some cultures believed that the moon affected a woman’s fertility, whereas others believed that it affected the tides, and other cultures believed it induced madness. Now, if you are grow up in the first culture you cannot argue that, since everyone else in my culture believes this it must be true, and these other cultures’ views are just misinterpretations of the true lunar purpose. Whether the moon affects a woman’s fertility, the tidal heights or one’s propensity to lunacy is judged by entirely different criteria than that.
Paul, do you honestly believe that Martin Luther and his following ilk, who developed the sola scriptura doctrines, were unfamiliar with the Bible? That they failed to understand the many voices in which the words were presented, and the contradictions between words?
Is your background Anglican? That branch of the Reformation did indeed turn from sola scriptura (and hold what I think is a more intellectually defensible view of what scripture is), but I’m not here arguing correctness – just that many people do strongly hold these views.
I’m with Fraser in this discussion. Valhalla does sound better than any of the mainstream alternatives. Although it is entirely possible that dung beetles lead happy, fulfilling lives on their own terms. Perhaps one day I’ll find out.
That said, I’d like to examine two of his sentences: First, “You might be in earnest here, but were you at a party and someone told you “Jesus answered my prayer” you’d probably not bat an eyelash, but if someone else said “I communed with Zeus last night” you’d think they were nuts.” Well, maybe, although “answering a prayer” is rather subjective. But if someone said to me “Jesus spoke to me last night” (and trust me, there are lots of people who think that in my region of the Bible Belt) I would most assuredly place him in the same category as the one who communes with Zeus.
Second, “In essence religion has been evolved to protect society and to control the masses.” Clearly, far more the latter than the former. Not without reason did Nietzsche call Christianity a “slave morality”. It makes control so much easier.
bobby b says “I’m willing to say that I’m pretty darned sure there’s no god” and yet calls himself an agnostic. That’s entirely his choice, of course, but it sounds to me like an atheist without the courage of his convictions. Personally, I see no evidence of an omnipotent, universe-creating god*, so I call myself an atheist and am satisfied with that. I’m with LaPlace: I have no need of that hypothesis. If some contrary evidence presented itself I would of course reexamine my premises and conclusions, but unless and until that happens I’m sufficiently confident in my own powers of ratiocination that I don’t need an escape clause.
* And absolutely no evidence of the anthropomorphic god of the Abrahamic religions; those are merely projections.
@Niall Kilmartin
Both Hebrew and Greek have the ability to distinguish ‘kill’ and ‘murder’, just as English does.
I did study both Hebrew and Greek in college and I’m not really sure that such a distinction is readily evident linguistically, but I am rusty, so I’ll concede such a point. However, it is plain, from the broader context that the writers of the Bible didn’t think that “kill” and “murder” meant the same, evidently they did believe that killing was justified in some cases. Examples being: killing a woman for not being a virgin on her wedding day; killing a person for engaging in homosexual relationships; killing someone for being a witch; stoning an adulterer; killing someone for working on the Sabbath; slaughtering the Amalekites and their children and their babies because they worshiped the wrong god; or killing the 500 priests of Baal because they also worshiped the wrong god. (the Old Testament was not very ecumenical.)
So presumably the “do not kill/murder” command did have some exceptions, or made such a distinction as you indicate.
I would accept that as an axiom! 😎
What hot debate? It says ‘You shall not murder’ in Hebrew, everything else is a mistranslation.
It is readily evident in Hebrew (which was the source for the Greek translation), just as it is in English.
Maybe it’s an almost-atheist unwilling to claim better and deeper insight than Einstein, Darwin, Bach, Planck, Michelangelo, Mendel, Faraday, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Boyle, Genghis Khan or Newton.
I’m trying to think of things that we know today – facts, I mean – that would have caused them to rethink their beliefs, and I’m not coming up with anything. So, if having “the courage of my convictions” means that I’m willing to say that I have greater and better insight than these men, call me coward.
If all of those men had believed strongly that the moon was made of green cheese, and we had no new facts in our possession concerning the moon since they lived, then I would be foolish to declare that I had no doubt whatsoever that the moon was not made of green cheese. Once we learned about new facts, of course, I would be foolish to discount those facts. But I think what has changed in relation to religious belief isn’t facts, but attitudes.
This is a criticism coming from a christian idea of what “religion” is – i.e. “divine” equates with “spiritual” as opposed to “material” and the less one deals with the material the more divine one is.
The old testament is jewish and in judaism this is simply not the case.
The second point is that people’s idea of God is different from the jewish God. The jewish God is literally infinite, so both the “spiritual” and the “material” are both absolutely, equally, insignificant. The only thing that makes something significant is what God decides is significant.
That’s because you are making presumptions about someone else’s convictions.
No, Alisa, I’m drawing an inference based on his comments. No “presumptions” necessary.
And how many of these Commandments are meant to be literal? Thou shalt not murder- well, there goes a career in the army! No wonder the Jews got beaten so often! And murderers would have field excursion days, since their pious victims wouldn’t defend themselves!
To be honest, it is actually quite refreshing to see The Guardian openly mock religion as a return to the traditional leftist agenda – unfortunately it is still mainly christianophobic.
Whilst I am willing to engage leftist loons about their fantasy social engineering projects and nonsensical economic plans, the fact they currently kowtow to selected ultra-conservative religious practices in the name of diversity actually makes me quite sick and is a blot on their intellect as well as a glaring hypocrisy when they degrade other selected ultra-conservative religious practices in the same breath, some with almost illiberal regard. Once they are actually brave enough to denounce all such bizarre fairy tales with their tyrannical authoritarian leanings, and assuming their heads are still attached to their shoulders afterwards, can I consider them intellectual equals (I am reminded of the time Richard Dawkins refused to debate a New Statesman journalist when he confirmed he believed in “flying horses”).
You are, Laird – not about the actual existence of the convictions themselves, but about their extent. And what does courage have to do with it? When you come to a fork in a road, take it*, but only if it is necessary. I see no such necessity, plus there is a lot to be said for keeping one’s epistemic options open as long as it is morally and practically possible.
*I suspect Yogi stole it from either Churchill or Twain, although I’m agnostic as to existence of any proof.
Alisa, “courage of one’s convictions” is a figure of speech. But you know that.
As to “keeping one’s epistemic options open”, while superficially attractive that seems a pretty shallow philosophy. We’re back to Pascal’s Wager, are we? In addition to being rank cowardice, I very much doubt that such a calculating approach would carry much weight with an omniscient god who, by definition, would know your true motivations.
Laird, when did it become rank cowardice to refrain from making specific declarations which by definition cannot be proved or disproved?
There’s a difference between saying “I don’t believe there are gods” and “there are no gods.” To say “there are no gods” is every bit as arrogant and unsupported as saying “there are gods.” The definition of “god” is so slippery that no one could ever know the truth of the matter, which precludes the assertion.
You missed the ‘but only if it is necessary’ part, Laird. Pascal’s wager does not come into it at all as far as I’m concerned, because I happen to not care much whether god or gods exist or not. My agnosticism is generally about anything and everything, with various deities included just because so many people do believe in their existence.
And no, I did not take ‘the courage of one’s convictions’ as a mere figure of speech, and neither did you – as your consequent comments show.
@bobby b
To say “there are no gods” is every bit as arrogant and unsupported as saying “there are gods.”
I don’t agree with that at all. I say with complete confidence that there is not Easter bunny and no Santa Claus. There is no arrogance in such a claim, it is simply a statement of fact. Now, is it possible we are all living in the matrix and just to prove me wrong the Matrix architect might send the Easter bunny to my house tomorrow? We I guess so. But there is a point at which “very unlikely to be true” is to all intents and purposes “false”. Quantitative differences eventually become qualitative.
Like I say, to say you are agnostic about the Easter bunny or Zeus, or that the hoaxed moon landings is to be pedantic to the point of tedium. And if we are to take that position then we must take the position that we don’t really know anything about anything.
It is like the religious who tell me that my confidence in science is a faith. But there is a simple answer to this: if you were choking on a pretzel which would you rather? That I prayed for you or that I gave you the Heimlich maneuver? The answer is obvious, and the reason is plain, science predicts things reliably, and religion does not. And ultimately the purpose of “truth” is to be a reliable description of and predictor of reality. Any other truth is, IMHO, just idle navel gazing. There is no reason to believe that god or belief in god, or any other such religious paraphernalia does either of those two things.
And in fairness to Laird, I don’t think he meant to besmirch bobby. Perhaps slightly adjusted wording would have been helpful, but I think he was just going for “take it the next step bobby.”
The definition of “god” is so slippery that no one could ever know the truth of the matter, which precludes the assertion.
Well that is true, and it is indeed a great tactic to make a statement true by changing the meaning of the words it uses. It is a common argument tactic, especially in this field, and it is pretty dishonest. It is a method of being proven “right” rather than a means to discover what it true.
And to be clear, I am not by any means suggesting you are doing that. I think in our discussion we have worked pretty much from a shared meaning of “god”, and have been an honest discussion of what is actually true rather than any point scoring. It is why I like this place.
Here’s the difference, in my mind:
None of the brilliant and religious people I named in an earlier comment – Einstein, Darwin, Bach, Planck, Michelangelo, Mendel, Faraday, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Boyle, Genghis Khan and Newton – believed strongly, to the point of public testimony, that the Easter Bunny exists.
Accordingly, I can take my own knowledge and reasoning and, without doubt, state that there is no Easter Bunny. I’m not placing my own deductive mind over theirs by saying that.
But the fact that these brilliant guys – operating on all of the same facts that are available to me – believed strongly in a god is enough, not to make me believe in one, but to stop me from categorically declaring that there is no such thing.
I cannot think of a single fact that is now known but that wasn’t known to them that would allow me to think “well, if they had only known THIS, they would know there is no god.”
Many of these guys claimed to have had some revelatory experience that convinced them. I have had no such experience, but that doesn’t count as a fact that supersedes their belief. Many would argue that that actually makes them one up on me in knowledge. But the point is, it seems arrogant to me to claim that I understand what they did not, based on the same available facts.
So, there’s no Easter Bunny. There’s no Santa Claus. I don’t think there’s a god, but I don’t know for certain.
I’m with you as regards the Easter Bunny, but the original St Nicholas certainly existed, and IIUC it would be positively orthodox for catholic christians to think of him as offering some benign oversight of Christmas gift-giving, albeit from heaven, not from some base at the north pole. (Also I’m not quite sure where the reindeer fit in – maybe they hang out with the easter bunny.)
I’m guessing you can tell I loved the film “Miracle on 34th Street” as a kid. 🙂
I don’t think there’s a god, but I don’t know for certain.
Or god(s).
I don’t think god(s) exist, for certain, because there is no evidence, and that is not a statement of arrogance. There might be the “possibility” of one or more god(s), which I fully accept, but the onus is on the claimant to prove such a thing, to defy that something exists on no evidence is not arrogance, it is arrogant to state otherwise.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
Wow.
As a Hebrew-speaking American Jew, I am really shocked at the low level of knowledge in this conversation – that is, actual knowledge of the text of the Bible, its context and repeating themes – knowledge beyond flippant sophomoric zingers.
I thought that the Bible was still read in British schools up to pretty recently, and that only the American obsession with separation of church and state resulted in widespread ignorance. I guess I was wrong. It seems the (post)modern fashion of sneering at the Bible has overtaken even many liberal-minded conservatives.
Equally distressing is the inability/unwillingness of the commenters on this thread to even acknowledge the connection between the Judeo-Christian concept of humanity and the free, democratic societies of the West. This at a time when the postmodern – or is it neo-pagan? – attempt to erode and coarsen Western civilization is in full bore, yielding results that are not unexpected to students of history.
Last time I checked, the worshipers of Odin and Wotan created societies based on plunder and slavery. Last century saw a cultural/technological European powerhouse – the cradle of the Protestant revolution, a major step forward for personal conscience – throw over its Judeo-Christian connection and start the pagan-racial Wotan bit again… didn’t work out so well, did it?
The post-modernists promoting the neo-pagan agenda have already dragged us halfway back to the muck. Maybe this isn’t the time to follow their lead by sneering at the Bible to show how sophisticated you are… Maybe it’s not so smart to snigger at the Bible’s sexual mores if your own generation injects “trans-gendered” children with hormones.
Just saying…
To say “there are no gods” is every bit as arrogant and unsupported as saying “there are gods.”
Actually, I agree with that, which is why I never make such a statement. I’m not that arrogant. (I am arrogant, just not that arrogant!) I merely channel LePlace and say “I have no need of that hypothesis.” The existence (or not) of a god or gods is a binary proposition: either there is or there isn’t. There is no middle ground. And absent sufficient evidence to push me to the “is” side I fall back to the default “isn’t”.
Incidentally, your appeal to authority (listing all those “brilliant and religious people”) doesn’t do anything for me. Most of them lived during a time when religion was dominant and science was in its infancy. The handful of moderns grew up in such times; they were products of their environment. And their admitted expertise in some field (physics, music, whatever) confers upon them no more knowledge or competence to opine on matters theological than have I. I do not bow to their “brilliance” in this area.
By the way, when I used the phrase “rank cowardice”, I was specifically referring to Pascal’s Wager (for which I have absolutely no respect), not to anything you or anyone else here said. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Might be because I know the difference between correlation and causation.
Sort of how I see it. Sort of. My (abbreviated) view is that ‘God’ is not really an answer that explains the nature of reality, in fact it gets in the way of enquiry, it is the recursive answer to itself that just extends away into infinity. As I have said before, I am a ‘shoulder-shrugging atheist’ rather than allergic to the ‘God-hypothesis’ as such. ‘God’ does not actually seem like a serious answer to anything, but more of an intellectual plug that gets jammed into the holes in our leaking and imperfect understanding of things. I understand others see it differently, and that’s fine by me.
No worries. I understood the point you were making. I still disagree – I think that speaking about courage in the context of determining truth skews the argument to what one considers a desirable outcome. Those arguing strongly that AGW is a huge danger are, to me, exhibiting lots of courage, and very little scientific judgment.
But that goes directly to my point that science has not produced any knowledge relevant to the question of the existence of gods since maybe Darwin – who remained religious – and even that knowledge only serves to call into question some parts of the Christian Bible. We can’t claim to be operating with greater knowledge – factual knowledge – about the existence of gods, and so, all else being equal, you’re simply placing the quality of your own mind above all of those in my list. To me, that treads closer to being “that arrogant.”
@bobby b
None of the brilliant and religious people I named in an earlier comment – Einstein, Darwin, Bach, Planck, Michelangelo, Mendel, Faraday, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Boyle, Genghis Khan and Newton – believed strongly, to the point of public testimony, that the Easter Bunny exists.
Your comment reminded me of a certain Mary Toft. She was a lady who lived in the early 1700s who during one of her pregnancies saw a rabbit, and couldn’t get it out of her mind. When it came time for her to bring forth her child she instead brought forth a rabbit. And then another, and another, and so she continued. It was quite a spectacle. The king believed it as did his physician, the Prince of Wales, and physicians from all over Europe came to examine this remarkable example of cross species delivery. Scientific papers were published documenting this glory of God’s creation.
Which is to say even really smart people believe really dumb stuff.
I don’t suppose any of those bunnies were born on Easter Day? Might explain a lot.
@Ben David
The post-modernists promoting the neo-pagan agenda have already dragged us halfway back to the muck.
We post modernists (whatever that means) have brought about a world where medicine is run by science, technology has transformed the world, poverty is the exception rather than the rule and child mortality is less than 1% rather than 50% as it was in the world you apparently long for.
We have also brought about a world where #metoo is possible. Men can’t beat their wives, women can enjoy their own sexuality, women can vote and participate fully in society, children are universally educated, and the horrifying concept of “spare the rod spoil the child” has disappeared from our child raising manuals. People can believe what they want. They can say what they want. They have vastly greater social mobility than they have ever had. Hell they can even eat bacon, and that is reason enough in itself.
Crime, murder, war, poverty, disenfranchisement, slavery, ignorance and superstition have been abolished or sidelined, and are at an all time low.
Sorry, I like my “post modernist” world a lot better than the backward world from when the Bible ruled the earth.
Obviously ‘god’ means different things to different people. When I was little, my grandmother told me two things: when I asked her if there’s god, she said ‘I haven’t been up there to check, so I don’t know’; while on other occasions she used to say that ‘god’ is just another word for ‘nature’. I think that those two different answers to two different questions broadly represent the two most common understandings of the term ‘god’.
The first one strikes me as extremely simplistic for the current stage of human development and knowledge, and so to me anyone who engages in a discussion on that basis is either very primitive in his thinking or is not serious.
The second one raises very many difficult epistemic questions, which makes it a real subject for very serious (and probably endless) discussions. But given its very definition, using it to explain the nature of reality is to engage in self reference.
I have an old friend who is a fundamentalist evangelic. When we are having one of those talks where two people solve the problems of the world in one evening at the kitchen table, we disagree on very little, either practically or philosophically – that, despite the fact that she uses the word ‘god’ at least in every other sentence, and I use it very rarely, being an entirely secular Jewish agnostic.
There is a third possibility, where a person subscribes to a mixture of both views on the concept of ‘god’, and my impression is that this is the most common form among the religious masses (or what has been left of them in the West), and is most often held without clear awareness of the contradiction. But I doubt that it has any bearing on their behavior, either day-to-day, or in extreme circumstances.
As to arguments from authority (whether any were actually made here or not), never underestimate the number and extent of contradictions that can be simultaneously held by the minds of even the most intelligent, wise and knowledgeable people.
But that goes directly to my point that science has not produced any knowledge relevant to the question of the existence of gods
I disagree; in fact, it goes to support my point. The scientific revolution has repeatedly and systematically demonstrated the logical and understandable basis for any number of things which were once attributed to divine intervention. In the 17th century is would have made perfect sense to attribute disease (for example) to God’s displeasure; what alternative explanation was there? Today, only the ignorant (I would argue, willfully ignorant) cling to such a theory. The more science progresses, the less there is even the hint of evidence for the existence of a god. Michaelangelo was a genius, but he was also a man of his time; I wouldn’t expect him to be anything else, and I don’t consider that a criticism of him. But just because he subscribed to the theological fashion of his day doesn’t give me the slightest reason to accept his belief as relevant to me.
@bobby b
all else being equal, you’re simply placing the quality of your own mind above all of those in my list. To me, that treads closer to being “that arrogant.”
I would not place my mind if the same league as Washington or Jefferson, but I don’t own any slaves and think they were wrong to do so. I am certainly not of the caliber of Einstein, but he was wrong when he described capitalism as “the predatory phase of human development”.
Smart people are, in my experience, usually primarily smart in one particular area of expertise (sometimes more than one), but are often quite ordinary in other areas. And Alisa is absolutely right when she says: “never underestimate the number and extent of contradictions that can be simultaneously held by the minds of even the most intelligent, wise and knowledgeable people.”.
And FWIW, neither Darwin nor Einstein were believers in God in the sense of a personal god, or were not toward the end of their lives anyway.
Final point, regarding Mary Toft and the Easter bunny deserves an LOL.
Laird, we know Michaelangelo was a deeply religious man, but we don’t know to what exactly he attributed some specific phenomenon such as disease, and how his views on that particular phenomenon differed from the majority of his contemporaries. He may have had very advanced views on some subjects, while at the same time holding some other views that we today consider primitive – just as many very smart people do today. See my point about contradictions above. IOW, while thinking that god punishes you for not going to church on Sunday by giving you a disease is primitive by my standards, the mere belief in the existence of god is much less so, if at all.
True for me as well, but it does give me reason to pause and consider why he and other similarly brilliant people of the past held such beliefs, and whether it was mere fashion of the time, or some deeper insight on their part.
Ben David (February 23, 2018 at 2:38 pm), although I would grant the abstract truth of Perry’s logical point that correlation does not in and of itself itself prove causation, I certainly notice that the free societies of the west arose from the religion whose founder never killed anyone and whose final command to his disciples was “Go and tell all nations”, not the one whose founder killed often and whose command was “Go and conquer all nations.” I do not think it was a mere coincidence that the industrial revolution took off in a nation which offered its citizens an unusually high degree of freedom at that time. Similarly, I do not think it was a mere coincidence that that nation arose from a historical background of believing one religion rather than another.
“I thought that the Bible was still read in British schools up to pretty recently, and that only the American obsession with separation of church and state resulted in widespread ignorance.”
I cannot speak for the US but I think you were indeed wrong in your imagining of the UK. Spreading ignorance of the true past is a vital part of PC myth history, and trying to fight Islamophobia while indulging Judeo-Christophobia would not be helped by comparative knowledge of the relevant scriptures.
As regards this thread, Perry’s OP was (it seemed to me) fairly lighthearted and I (and others?) have sometimes maintained this mood in our comments. As a logical point, your comment that
is correct, and the commenters who expressed their enthusiasm would indeed be twins of the “Islamophobia – terrible, Judeo-Christophobia – wonderful” PC types we despise, if serious. King Alfred (justly called ‘The Great’) knew what he was doing when he converted the Danes to Christianity. However I think they would grant that.
I daresay you are right to see a lack of
in some comments, but it would probably be more useful to take a particular sentence and constructively critique it than just note the presence of ignorance – correctly, I’m sure, but unhelpfully. (However I note this thread is getting long and will doubtless closed soon, so don’t feel pressed.)
Dang. We haven’t even touched on the critical “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” aspect of all of this.
Or maybe we have.
(I’m now about to go outside and help someone push large cows onto a truck. Grant me these few moments of somewhat higher-plane contemplation.) 🙂
And that’s all I’m saying! (But using several thousand more words in the process, unfortunately . . .)
@Niall Kilmartin
I certainly notice that the free societies of the west arose from the religion whose founder never killed anyone and whose final command to his disciples was “Go and tell all nations”, not the one whose founder killed often and whose command was “Go and conquer all nations.”
I’m no supporter of Muhammad but I think this is rather misleading. Christianity became widespread in large part because the Roman Emperor got converted and therefore decided that everyone else needed to as well. (You will no doubt remember that Constantine was converted when a supposed Cross in the sky allowed him to slaughter his enemies. So the story goes, that he saw the Greek letters Ἐν Τούτῳ Νίκα “in this, conquer”. Which is ironic, don’t you think given your choice of words about Muhammad.
And one can hardly read the Old Testament and claim that the originator of that religion didn’t do a heck of a lot of slaughtering, plundering and conquering. And irrespective of what Jesus did, a lot of people did a lot of slaughtering, plundering and conquering in his name.
If you are looking for a peaceful religion there are lots of considerably better choices than Christianity and Islam.
I do not think it was a mere coincidence that the industrial revolution took off in a nation which offered its citizens an unusually high degree of freedom at that time.
It isn’t, but to suggest that that freedom came from its Christian roots seems rather nuts to me. The Christianity of the Middle Ages was one of control and punishment to a degree rarely seem elsewhere. Heck Tyndale was burned at the stake for even daring to publish the Bible in English (where god forbid the non priests might be able to read it and see how they had been duped.) People were whipped in public for fornicating in a manner unsupported by the church, and blasphemers and atheists were in danger of their lives. I have no idea where you get the idea that Christianity somehow brought about a state of liberation. It did the opposite, it offered a pretext for some of the most oppressive tyrannies in history. (FWIW, pre Christian England was a much more liberal place.)
Similarly, I do not think it was a mere coincidence that that nation arose from a historical background of believing one religion rather than another.
The renaissance, from whence comes all our wealth today, was sparked by a rediscovery of the philosophy and science of the classical period and by a willingness to battle the Church’s supremacy (in part because it had been weakened by Luther.) The invention of the printing press was also crucial to its success. The renaissance came about despite, not because of, the church. (The one exception being the considerable contribution of the various monasteries in preserving the ancient texts.)
the worshipers of Odin and Wotan created societies based on plunder and slavery.
That is just a stereotype. Vikings certainly were invaders (hell, if I lived in the frigid north I would be too) but they largely settled down as farmers, and in fact represent much of the stock of the English people today. And it is hardly fair to highlight their plunder and slavery. That is what all people did in those times. Slavery was widespread throughout Christendom until fairly recently. (And the Bible has very little to say about this most horrific of practices, so if you are advocating the morality found in the Bible I suggest your avoid that rather embarrassing topic.)
the commenters who expressed their enthusiasm
I suggest your read what I said again. I didn’t say that the Vikings were superior, just that their version of heaven sounded better than yours. I like the idea of a place where “wench” is a verb (assuring, of course, that the ladies have a grand old time too.)
in some comments, but it would probably be more useful to take a particular sentence and constructively critique it than just note the presence of ignorance – correctly,
No doubt you are right about that. “You don’t know what you are talking about” doesn’t advance the argument at all.
😆
Well, yeah, that is kind of the point. When the anti-islamophobes are not listening too hard, it is sometimes suggested that what we need is to reform Islam, and there’s plenty of continuing eagerness, both PC and other, to reform Christianity further or reform it back from some prior reform, but while you can reform a religion back to its founder you can’t reform it past its founder.
For example, there is an old tale of a Scots woman whose extreme sabbatarianism was such a pain to her neighbours that the minister himself begged her to lighten up. “Woman”, he said, “do you no ken [not know] that Christ himsel’ bade his disciples take corn on a Sunday, and told them the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath?” “Weel,” she replied, “I wisna thinkin’ ony the better o’ him fer that.” The point of the story is that even old puritanical Scotland knew she was absurd.
You can call yourself a Christian and still think your conscience a better guide than what others who called themselves Christians in the past did – but not if it’s Jesus you are disagreeing with. And similarly, you can call yourself a Muslim and feel no obligation to respect what others who called themselves Muslims did – unless it’s Mohammed who did it. What the founders said and did is a big deal.
Minor remarks
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and as Christians. Indeed, one reason for treating remarks about their gods lightheartedly is that the norsemen were so very easily converted. It surely says something about their religion that persuading them to ditch it for Christianity was such a slam dunk. 🙂 As for the attractions of Vallhalla – endless drinking mead and eating boar with a bunch of skilled axe-wielders, while waiting to fight a battle you can’t win – well, chacun à son goût.
Constantine’s dream sign told him to win the Roman civil war Battle of the Milvian Bridge, which he was already going to fight anyway: quite a bit short of “all nations”. As for the influence of his decision, it will remain a topic of historical debate how far its becoming “the emperor’s new religion” boosted Christianity, as against Constantine’s discarding the immediately preceding period of persecution reflecting an already-existing reality (like prohibition and the drug war) of “if you can’t beat them, join them”.
The catholic church was a huge patron of renaissance art – and got flak for it from protestants who felt popes, cardinals, etc., were spending money on art instead of good works.
Ben David, my comments about Deuteronomy were serious comments. How do you interpret those Chapters, if you do not think that they allude to reincarnation?
Christianity became widespread in large part because the Roman Emperor got converted and therefore decided that everyone else needed to as well.
Christianity was widespread far beyond the borders of the Roman Empire by the time of Constantine, the Nestorian (non-Roman) Church continued to spread far to the east and reached China by 7th century, with no help from any empire, even under Muslim rule.
After Constantine I, the now Holy Roman Empire split and began what is widely recognized as the beginning of the decline, persecutions of Christians still continued for those who did not adhere the to official doctrine, under later emperors the land area generally decreased and the empire fragmented up to the Great Schism. The Holy Roman Empire would not seriously contribute to the expanse of the religion until the conquest of the Americas, which is probably the only time it was actually expanded by violent means.
As an old historian (Viscount Bryce IIRC) remarked, the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman nor much of an empire. 🙂
The brief period under Charles V when Spain and the Holy Roman Empire were a single polity ended when his son Philip took Spain and Burgundy and etc. (quite a lot of etc.) while the empire, IIRC, went to Rudolf “what do the stars stay – and why do astrologers never agree!”.
Here I am, giving away the big secret in the Bible, and no-one notices! Don’t come running to me when you want the Bible esoterically decoded! That’s all I can say!