"The Church of the Non-Believers"
18 November 2006 by Gil
A friend, having seen the subject of my last post, gave me a copy of the latest edition of Wired, a magazine devoted to developments in science, technology and culture. The cover boldly proclaims the advent of “The New Atheism” a feature article entitled “The Church of the Nonbelievers.”
Again Richard Dawkins, atheistic evangelist extraordinaire, features prominently. His interest, at least according to this article, is targeting and converting wavering non-believers and extending the political influence of atheism. He seems to present his views with a bit less scientific caution in this article. How’s this for rational ’scientific observation’: “Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists. Not a single member of either house of Congress admits to being an atheist. It just doesn’t add up. Either they’re stupid, or they’re lying.”
It becomes obvious throughout the article that Dawkins is interested in nothing less than the eradication of religion. Atheistic evangelism is a moral imperative. It’s not just religious fundamentalism that must be overcome, it is religion period. Religion is not, for Dawkins, something that can be tolerated. In his defense, Dawkins does present a solid case against the argument that because God’s existence cannot be disproved there is logical grounds for belief. But on the whole his reasoning seems inconsistent; he often lapses into statements of faith that are not justified but merely assumed.
He even goes so far as to speculate about whether or not parents should be permitted to pass on their religious faith to their children. “It’s one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in?” By some contortion of logic, Dawkins is able to convince himself that it’s ‘morally wrong’ to pass our bad ideas (i.e. faith) on to our children. Where this idea of morality comes from, we are not told.
Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason is also featured in this article. His perspective is more pragmatic. We need to abandon religion because if we don’t we will end up annihilating ourselves over our religious differences. Religion is responsible for most of the conflict in the world; get rid of religion, get rid of conflict. It is true; religion has been responsible for conflict, yet I think our view of history can become quite narrow on this point. We tend to emphasize only the conflict produced by religion and ignore the many positive contributions that have been made by sincere believers attempting to express their faith in God through service to others.
Again I come to the conclusion that we are dealing with rival systems of belief. Harris makes this point himself when asked what a world without God would look like. “There would be a religion of reason. We would have realized a rational means to maximize human happiness… We would be able to invoke the power of poetry and ritual and silent contemplation and all the variables of happiness so that we could exploit them.” Contemplation as a ‘variable of happiness’? I confess I have no idea what that means.
Finally Daniel Dennett, author of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, presents a case that rests heavily on certain ‘default settings’ that he believes we have as human beings. This is why we can trust our judgment on things like morality. We don’t ask the question of where we got our ideas of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, essentially we just trust that they are reliable. Wolf challenges him on this point, arguing that these ‘defaults’ are objects of faith just like the Bible or some other religious source of knowledge.
At the end of the article, Wolf admits that he is not convinced. There is, apparently, a bit too much ‘religion’ in the attack against religion.
“The irony of the New Atheism - this prophetic attack on prophecy, this extremism in opposition to extremism - is too much for me… no matter how confident we are in our beliefs, there’s always a chance we could turn out to be wrong.”
I think you’re right to point out that religion is responsible for much of the good that is in the world, without minimizing the tragic fact that it is, and has been responsible for a good deal of evil.
The point must also be made that atheism has a fairly violent past as well - we shouldn’t have to look too far back in history to see some fairly ruthless attempts to forcibly eliminate religion that were explicitly predicated on atheism. If you’re going to argue against the validity of a belief system based on the horrors that it makes possible, then it would seem that atheism has to be rejected as well.
i have never heard of any violence perpetrated by scientologists. and they have the word science in their name. do they believe in God or just aliens?
It’s difficult to compare the violence of major world religions to sects that have never achieved much in terms of public influence (Tom and Katie’s wedding aside). There are enough allegations of suspicion around scientology to make me suspect that they have their share of skeletons in the closet as well.
I’m looking forward to Wired’s take on evangelicals, next. I’m just glad that a magazine devoted to science and technology is dedicating time to cover ideologies. I’m sure they’ll be as dead-on in their analysis of Christian culture as they were in their coverage of non-believers.
ryan, i agree with you that the violence that has resulted from religion is not relevant to the validity of belief. but i think dawkins stronger point is about religious claims being more arbitrary than rational. i think he rightly points this out but unfortunately weakens his argument by postulated equally irrational truth claims about multiple universes and such. i think this is mainly because he is not a philosopher, he is a scientist with cause. he gets lots of print and airtime for the controversial beliefs he holds. but i do think he points to a major weakness in religious belief that i have not seen addressed to the satisfaction of objective thinkers. of course, kierkegaard addressed this with his existentialism. unfortunately it opened the door to universalism which makes people who think christianity has an exclusive hold on the truth feel uncomfortable. so is there a case out there for rational christianity or is it a belief that can be held after a leap of faith?
jc,
First of all, I don’t think that ‘religious claims’ represent a monolithic category - some are certainly less rational than others. Dawkins is surely guilty of caricature when he says that religious beliefs, by definition, are simply irrational. The status of the rationality of different religious beliefs seems to be a question of degree rather than kind.
“i do think he points to a major weakness in religious belief that i have not seen addressed to the satisfaction of objective thinkers”
I’m curious, what exactly is an “objective thinker?” I don’t think that there is such a thing. Nobody thinks objectively - we all bring our own preconceptions, prejudices, assumptions (stated or unstated) and control beliefs to thinking.
I would agree (as an ‘un-objective’ thinker) that religious claims are certainly not falsifiable, but that does not make them arbitrary. I don’t even think it’s possible for human beings to believe anything arbitrarily - literally for no reason at all. Aside from that, what grounds do we have for believing that only that which is falsifiable counts as knowledge?
There are things about atheist claims that I have not seen addressed satisfactorily either. Dennett asks us to trust (like “have faith?”
that our moral intuitions are reliable, but what grounds would I have for doing so? Dawkins is an aggressive advocate for stem-cell research - presumably because he thinks that it is morally appropriate to use any and all measures at our disposal to try to save lives. What grounds does he give for thinking this is worthwhile? What’s wrong with social Darwinism? Why?
“so is there a case out there for rational christianity or is it a belief that can be held after a leap of faith?”
I think that there is a case for rational Christianity, but I don’t think that reason is the ultimate arbiter of truth. Reason is the used by flawed human beings who can, and do horribly abuse it toward evil ends (I’m thinking here of, for example, Nietzsche - there’s nothing illogical about his philosophy, but we shudder at the way it was put to use). If there’s anything we ought to learn from history, it’s that even if ‘reason’ is neutral (and that’s a big ‘if’), the human beings who use it most certainly are not.
Having said that, I think that reason is one of the faculties God has given us to seek and know him through. Personally, I think that one of the most compelling ways that reason directs me toward Christianity has to do with the problem of evil. An ideology must, from my perspective, be able to account both for the existence of evil AND the human capacity to recognize it, understand that it should not be, and desire its absence. This is what I do not find in philosophers like Dennett, Dawkins, Thompson, Harman etc. It is typically assumed (kind of like faith?) that somewhere along the line moral consciousness simply evolved in human beings, usually as some kind of mechanism for self or group preservation. There are no good explanations given as to how a purely naturalistic process could ever produce something like human consciousness, never mind morality. The issue of whether or not there is a moral ‘purpose’ inherent in the cosmos itself is simply ruled out a priori and all human experience has to be explained through a previously accepted naturalistic grid.
From my perspective, this is patently inadequate, and so contrary to my understanding and experience of evil, that I am driven in the opposite direction. For me the biblical story of a good creation, tragically scarred by the entrance of sin, and the attendant promise that one day things will be redeemed and renewed makes the most sense out of evil AND the way that evil is experienced as such by human beings. That’s only one example - maybe it’s compelling, maybe not. But from my perspective, a profound sense that this world is not as it ought to be demands an explanation. I am a Christian not because I have made a blind leap of faith but because I think that it makes the most sense of the most data.
(yikes! Just realized how long this is - sorry about the length!)
“…all human experience has to be explained through a previously accepted naturalistic grid.
From my perspective, this is patently inadequate, and so contrary to my understanding and experience of evil, that I am driven in the opposite direction. For me the biblical story of a good creation, tragically scarred by the entrance of sin, and the attendant promise that one day things will be redeemed and renewed makes the most sense out of evil AND the way that evil is experienced as such by human beings.”
Ryan, if you could clarify for me by elaborating what exactly is the entrance of sin, how would your description differ from morality being “explained through a previously accepted naturalistic grid”?
“…all human experience has to be explained through a previously accepted naturalistic grid.
From my perspective, this is patently inadequate, and so contrary to my understanding and experience of evil, that I am driven in the opposite direction. For me the biblical story of a good creation, tragically scarred by the entrance of sin, and the attendant promise that one day things will be redeemed and renewed makes the most sense out of evil AND the way that evil is experienced as such by human beings.”
Ryan, if you could clarify for me by elaborating what exactly is the entrance of sin, how would your description differ from morality being “explained through a previously accepted naturalistic grid”?
Jerry,
I didn’t mean anything particularly mysterious by ‘entrance of sin’ - only the reality that things are not as they should be, from a human perspective. In the biblical story, this is due to human rebellion. If ’sin’ is a term you would prefer avoiding, substitute ‘propensity toward self-interest’ if you like.
As far as how or why this occurred, I have no more insight to offer than the next person. I don’t know why it was possible for things to get screwed up, nor do I understand how this human propensity is transmitted. Maybe it’s Dawkins’ ’selfish gene’ - who knows. I simply look around, and the pervasiveness of evil, no matter how ‘enlightened’ human beings become, seems very difficult to deny.
“how would your description differ from morality being “explained through a previously accepted naturalistic grid”?”
The only difference is that I feel that explaining morality through the biblical grid makes more sense of the data. As I said in my previous response, from my perspective the biblical view of evil does a better job of accounting for the gap between what we, as human beings, think ought to be the case and what is in fact the case. A naturalistic account of human origins can certainly explain why people behave selfishly (although even naturalism has problems explaining genuine evil that goes well beyond self-interest) - it’s in our best interest, and those behaviours which give an organism the best chance of passing on it’s genes will be replicated etc.
What a naturalistic account does not explain is why it should ever occur to us that a globe full of creatures doing nothing more than pursuing their own self-interest is not how it ought to be. It doesn’t give us any basis for the existence of a category like ‘evil’ which seems necessary to us. Explaining Auschwitz as an “attempt to enhance fitness at the expense of the short or long-term perpetuation of the population” (evolutionary ethicist Paul Thompson) seems grossly inadequate.
Naturalism doesn’t give us any good reason for not accepting the way things are, and when it tries to, it smuggles in assumptions of moral absolutes (i.e., Dawkins and Dennet) In my view, the twin notions of humanity being created in God’s image and some kind of a ‘fall’ (however this is conceived) can account BOTH for the existence of our moral intuitions, AND why we long for things to be better.
that’s a good response ryan. 710 words long or there about. makes it hard for me to respond because, as you know i have a little girl that is requiring most of my attention these days.
so to briefly describe an objective thinker as how i have come to understand it… an objective thinker would hold to the correspondence theory of truth. that is for an idea to be true it must correspond to reality. reason is based on some self evident axioms such as existence exists, consciousness exists, and existence is identity. one gains knowledge through the senses and using the faculties of logic and reason. objectivism holds to an epistemology that prescribes a process of which man can gain knowledge.
if you hold that no one can be an objective thinker than i suppose you think we are all subjective thinkers. you did not specifically say that so it may be that you have a different category in mind. if we are all to approach truth subjectively then we are probably wasting are time here discussing these topics. to believe that we approach truth subjectively implies that humans cannot know reality through their senses. truth is whatever you feel is right and is guided by your emotions rather than reason and logic. which is by the way how nietzsche thought about it as well. he was a subjectivist, an existentialist. he was not guided by reason and logic. but leaving aside neitzsche, reason or at least faulty reasoning can be used to justify some pretty horrific things. on a side note, one of my favourite podcasts is lsat logic in everyday life which documents the use of illogical arguments in politics and media. just because some perpetrate some awful things and try and justify them does not mean that reason and logic in and of themselves are flawed.
if religious beliefs are not falsifiable then are they not arbitrary? what would you classify religious claims as if they have no basis in reason, logic or science? how are we to have a discussion about their validity if they are not falsifiable? these leaves the door open for any religious kook to make any claim they would like and we would have no real way to expose their error. i think people can hold arbitrary beliefs that they are motivated to hold because how the belief makes them feel rather how well it corresponds to reality. wikipedia notes that “something is arbitrary if its value is not determined by anything but choice” and that beliefs are determined by impulse rather than reason.
to state what i am trying to say plainly: man can only validate what he can perceive, identify, and demonstrate by reason. what evidence does the christian faith have that man can perceive and identify. we do not perceive God through our senses. we cannot observe the virgin birth, the resurrection, or the afterlife. these are arbitrary statements of faith.
in my opinion, christianity needs to develop an epistemology that acknowledges an deals with these problems. alvin plantinga has tried to do this with his reformed epistemology by claiming that a belief in God is properly basic. it has been widely criticized as opening the door to universalism. this is a problem since christianity traditionally claims to have an exclusive grasp on the truth.
thanks for the discussion so far.
regarding your post on sin being the “propensity toward self-interest” and naturalism doesn’t offer a morality that goes beyond self interest:
while i am not going to to defend naturalism i will defend self interest. i don’t understand your equivocation of self interest to sin. the opposite of self interest is self denial. do you propose self denial as a virtue? i understand forcing others to do your will is immoral but surely having a rational self interest that does not harm others is not sin. altruism on the other hand claims that man’s moral virtue is obtained by sacrificing himself to others. altruism, i believe, is inherently evil but i do not believe self interest to be.
i agree with that dawkins and co. can be classified as naturalists. naturalism seems to imply determinism which eliminates the need for to develop a moral philosophy at all. atheistic romanticism i think has more to offer in moral philosophy.
jc,
re: your last comment
I do not think ’self-interest’ is synonymous with ’sin’ in and of itself, although I certainly was not clear about that. However, sin is typically understood (at least in the biblical narrative) as arising from unduly exalting the self, and forgetting one’s place as a contingent being. So much of the evil that this world has witnessed and continues to witness seems to be due to the forceful imposition of individual or corporate self-interest, that I am inclined to trust the biblical view that self-interest is certainly a powerful component of sin. I wonder if the most fundamental problems facing our world would be better solved by encouraging human beings to more vigorously pursue self-interest, or to restrain it?
“do you propose self denial as a virtue?”
As a matter of fact, I do. Not in an unqualified sense of course - as if we all need to be Olympian ascetics - but I do think that part of what it means to learn how to be human in the way that we were intended to be is to discipline and deny ourselves.
“altruism, i believe, is inherently evil but i do not believe self interest to be.”
Here you’re going to have to explain yourself, because quite frankly I don’t know what to make of a statement like that. I suppose a lot would hang on how you define ‘altruism,’ but it sounds very strange to claim that devotion to the welfare of others is ‘inherently evil.’ I’d venture to say that you would be willing to sacrifice your own self-interest for your new baby girl, would you not?
“naturalism seems to imply determinism which eliminates the need for to develop a moral philosophy at all. atheistic romanticism i think has more to offer in moral philosophy.”
As I see it the main problem with naturalism is not that it implies determinism - although it certainly does that. My problem is that it fails to account for all the data. At the risk of repetition, it cannot account for the phenomenology of evil, and the profound human sense that this world is not as it ought to be without appealing to moral absolutes that cannot be established on naturalistic grounds. As far as ‘atheistic romanticism’ offering more in terms of moral philosophy, I’d be curious to hear more.
jc,
re: your second to last post (I’m going to try to be briefer)
In claiming that there is no such thing as an ‘objective thinker, I do not mean to imply that all we have is a fog of subjectivity. I also do not mean to imply that we ought not to trust our senses. I am merely pointing out that we are all finite and imperfect knowers. This doesn’t seem to be a terribly controversial statement to me - postmodern epistemologists have helpfully pointed out that all of our knowing is done from a specific context. There is no such thing as context-free thinking that is not profoundly conditioned by socialization, history, and human limitation. So if ‘objective’ refers to freedom from bias, I just don’t think that’s possible.
You claim that “an objective thinker would hold to the correspondence theory of truth’ But there are many philosophers who do not hold to the correspondence theory of truth. The simple fact that it’s a theory means that there is a lack of unanimity on the matter. Who’s doing the objective thinking, those who hold to this theory or those who do do not?
“just because some perpetrate some awful things and try and justify them does not mean that reason and logic in and of themselves are flawed.”
What are reason and logic “in and of themselves?” I can’t think of them apart from the human beings that use and abuse them.
“man can only validate what he can perceive, identify, and demonstrate by reason. what evidence does the christian faith have that man can perceive and identify?”
What grounds do we have for believing that only that which can be ‘validated’ is of value for human existence? This is an assumption that cannot be proven. It may be the case that only that which can be validated by means of logic is worth human consideration. But it may not be the case as well. I am inclined to think that it is not the case, in large measure due to my thinking about the problem of evil which I have already discussed, probably in too long-winded a fashion…
Re: a good Christian epistemology - Nicholas Wolterstorff has done some good work on the issue, and John Stackhouse is in the process of writing a book on it now. I’ve only read a bit of Plantinga, so I’m not familiar with how his view leads to universalism. I should also say that there are many Christian thinkers who certainly do not claim that Christianity has “an exclusive grasp on the truth” only that they are committed to following the one in whom they see truth embodied. I realize that that statement requires substantial unpacking, but it’s late and I’m tired…
First, some quotes from Ryan on “why we long for things to be better”:
“What a naturalistic account does not explain is why it should ever occur to us that a globe full of creatures doing nothing more than pursuing their own self-interest is not how it ought to be.”
“I’d venture to say that you would be willing to sacrifice your own self-interest for your new baby girl, would you not?”
“My problem is that [naturalism] fails to account for all the data. At the risk of repetition, it cannot account for the phenomenology of evil, and the profound human sense that this world is not as it ought to be without appealing to moral absolutes that cannot be established on naturalistic grounds.”
Ryan, I get the impression that you assume “self-interest” is stagnant/immutable. Are you saying self-interest does not change or evolve by any priority adjustments we all make throughout the span of our lives? I think it’s very NATURAL to adapt MY interests as a single guy to MY interests as a married guy and/or My interests as a guy who has become a father.
And though Christianity may offer an account (highly mythological) of a first HUMAN act of evil, it does not make an account for pre-human acts of evil or the existence of an ideology of evil. For instance - did God create the idea of evil? If yes, why? Or has evil existed as long as God has, with no better an explanation for its existence than naturalism? Naturalism may not justify the phenomenology of evil, and maybe we shouldn’t expect it to, who knows? I just don’t see how a belief in a non-sensory origin of evil is better or equal to a naturalist one.
You also said, “What grounds do we have for believing that only that which can be ‘validated’ is of value for human existence? This is an assumption that cannot be proven.”
I think Christianity can be validated in the context of myth, which is psychologically valuable for the human existence of SOME people. But if Christianity cannot, objectively, be validated for ALL people, what other “value for human existence” does it have?
Jerry,
You said
“Are you saying self-interest does not change or evolve by any priority adjustments we all make throughout the span of our lives? I think it’s very NATURAL to adapt MY interests as a single guy to MY interests as a married guy and/or My interests as a guy who has become a father.”
My comment about jc sacrificing for his daughter was in response to an assertion that altruism was ‘inherently evil’ and self-interest was (presumably) ‘inherently’ not. I don’t see what the human ability to adjust their priorities has to do with this. To claim that something is ‘inherently’ anything is to claim that it is always the case.
“I just don’t see how a belief in a non-sensory origin of evil is better or equal to a naturalist one.”
By all means, I’d love to hear how your worldview specifically deals with the problem of evil.
“But if Christianity cannot, objectively, be validated for ALL people, what other “value for human existence” does it have?”
Again this presupposes that ‘objective validity’ is the point of it all, and the only criteria which matters. This certainly may be the case, but it’s also POSSIBLE that there is personal force behind the cosmos that seeks a personal response of commitment. If it is possible that this could be the case, then I would think that it has value for human existence. It also presupposes a confidence in the human capacity to use reason that I just think is unwarranted - for historical, as well as religious reasons.
Jerry, jc,
How do you explain evil - not just its existence, but our ability to recognize it and to seek its absence? Do absolute categories of good and evil even exist? What is their source?
I gather that you both are disaffected by Christianity in some way or another, so I’d like to hear which worldview you have found that answers some of life’s difficult questions in a more satisfactory manner. How about some reconstruction instead of deconstruction for a while?
I’m curious about the idea of the Christian faith as a psychologically valuable myth. The idea here, I suppose, is that religion serves some kind of therapeutic purpose for those who find it useful. More to the point, I wonder if secular rationalism could be categorized as a ‘psychologically valuable myth’.
1. on altruism and self interest. yes you are right that a lot depends on how these terms are defined. rational self interest can be defined as living according to one’s values or moral code. altruism[or self-denial] involves the idea that action that benefits others is good while action taken to benefit your self is wrong. i am not sure what you had in mind when you asked if i would sacrifice my self interest for my daughter. of course i value you my daughter highly so to think of her well being is in my self interest. i do not consider it a sacrifice to buy her the things she needs or perhaps in the future to buy her the things she wants. true sacrifice for me would for be for me to give money to the ndp. it is possible my money would benefit the ndp[this is debatable because they do not manage money very well]. but the ndp party and i do not share the same values and therefore it is not in my self interest to donate to them. it would be altruistic of me to give to them. i would sacrificing my values to benefit the ndp. taken to its logical extreme altruism will result in communism. it enslaves the individual to working for the “common good.” an irrational self-interest will also enslave others. a rational self interest does not intend physical harm on others and respects others freedom. so to answer your question, i think the world needs more individual’s who have a rational self interest. this is an interesting discussion but this topic is sort of taking away from the other discussion we were having here.
2. you are right that people do have certain beliefs because they have grown up in a specific context. but this is why there are shows on tv like myth busters to show us how certain myths carried by society are actually false. you yourself seem to also follow the correspondence theory of truth by making the statement “
As I see it the main problem with naturalism is not that it implies determinism - although it certainly does that. My problem is that it fails to account for all the data.” it seems that you are unhappy with naturalism’s theory because it doesn’t correspond to the data you see in reality.
3. “What grounds do we have for believing that only that which can be ‘validated’ is of value for human existence? This is an assumption that cannot be proven. It may be the case that only that which can be validated by means of logic is worth human consideration. But it may not be the case as well. I am inclined to think that it is not the case, in large measure due to my thinking about the problem of evil which I have already discussed, probably in too long-winded a fashion…”
my point that “man can only validate what can be perceived, identified and demonstrated by reason” was to point that this for the human experience is the realm of knowledge and rational discussion about reality. outside of this one can claim anything to be true and there is no standard for understanding what corresponds to reality and what does not. what can be validated is of value because it expands our knowledge of reality. these things are helpful in preserving one’s own existence. man lives by knowledge of reality not by instinct as other animals do.
4. postmodern thinking[or it should be called anti-thought] has claimed that there is no objective truth because no person or perceiver of reality is a neutral entity. a perceiver of reality is does not have valid perceptions simply because they are perceivers. this is an outrageous claim. one must perceive reality from somewhere there is no possibility of being a neutral perceiver. besides the argument is self-defeating. you cannot claim that there is no objective truth except for the objective truth that there is no objective truth.
5. evil. i do think it exists. i think it has absolute categories. i think evil is anti-life, anti-reason, and anti-logic. it is the denial that man’s life has value in and of itself. not everyone has the same idea of evil. like anything else philosophy is very important to come to understanding of what evil is. as you said some try to justify horrific acts, so it is not intuitive to know what it is. but that is a bit off of the topic of epistemic problems of religious claims.
6. my worldview right now. well i am trying to construct one and these discussions help in that i can try an argue a certain viewpoint and see how well i can explain it and how you respond to it. right now i like the worldview of ayn rand’s objectivism. i think it accurately corresponds with reality more than other philosophies. i have read a couple of her books and am still trying to understand them. then i will try and read what critics have said about her. she is quite popular among university students and hated by university professors. that’s not really much of a surprise because something like 80-90 percent of university professors are left wing. if you want to read some of her stuff i can loan you some of her books if you like.
jc,
You said that I
“seem to also follow the correspondence theory of truth by making the statement “
As I see it the main problem with naturalism is not that it implies determinism - although it certainly does that. My problem is that it fails to account for all the data.” it seems that you are unhappy with naturalism’s theory because it doesn’t correspond to the data you see in reality.”
I do not subscribe whole-heartedly to the correspondence theory of truth, just as I think a lot of the ‘insights’ of postmodernism are garbage. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t learn SOME things from both. The ‘data’ I was referring to was the phenomenology of evil. From my perspective, if a worldview cannot give an adequate explanation of this, and what might account for its presence in human beings, it’s not worth considering. It’s simply too huge a piece of the human experience of the world to not have a response for, and in my opinion falls squarely into the category of “rational discussion about reality” despite the fact that it may not be capable of the kind of validation we might like.
I still am perplexed by your understanding of altruism. If I was to sacrifice my life for one of my children, or for a friend, I would consider that to be an act of altruism, not self-interest. I don’t think that if I sacrificed myself to save one of my children that this would just be an extension of my own self-interest. Calling it that seems to denigrate it in my opinion - it seems to reduce others to extensions of my will.
“evil. i do think it exists. i think it has absolute categories. i think evil is anti-life, anti-reason, and anti-logic. it is the denial that man’s life has value in and of itself.
Where do the absolute categories of good and evil come from? What is objectivism’s response to the problem of evil? I’ve read one of Ayn Rand’s books (”We the Living”
and I quite enjoyed it, but I found myself frequently wondering where she obtained such an exalted conception of the inherent worth of human life and such a strong sense of the evils of the political system of her day (I agree with her in both cases, just for different reasons).
”I still am perplexed by your understanding of altruism. If I was to sacrifice my life for one of my children, or for a friend, I would consider that to be an act of altruism, not self-interest. I don’t think that if I sacrificed myself to save one of my children that this would just be an extension of my own self-interest.”
a rationally self interested person uses reason to determine what is in their self interest. as to whether your willingness to die for one of your children is primarily an act of self interest or altruism will be discovered by what standard you made that decision. your self interest is determined by what your values, goals, and principles are. you obviously place a high value on your child’s life. it is possible then that to not die for one of them would be such a high price to pay that you would consider life not worth living. in this instance you have acted primarily on your values. of course, your child also benefits from the values you hold. altruism involves making decisions by placing others values above your own. you choose or are forced into actions based on others principles, whims, and values. your are sacrificing your values to someone else.
if you think acting in your own rational self-interest would denigrate action taken on its behalf then[from my understanding] it is like saying that acting on one’s values, principles, and goals is immoral.
in ayn rand’s view morality is a means to an end. the end being life. she writes “Without and ultimate goal or end, there can be no lesser goals or means…. metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms[it would be a stolen concept].” “It is only life that makes value possible.” rand considers life as the ultimate value and happiness as the purpose of life. reason is the standard from which man is to achieve happiness. she writes “Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy-a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction… Happiness is possible only to rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.” note that she does not propose that man’s life has intrinsic value but that man must choose to value existence over non-existence. this choice is informed by reason. okay i hope i was able to summarise some of the her ideas well enough that you can understand them. “we the living” is a good book. probably one her most accessible books. i’ve always like “the fountainhead” the best but “atlas shrugged” was supposed to contain summation of her philosophy and its basic premises can be found in the chapter entitled “john galt speaks.” you can read it here.
jc,
“altruism involves making decisions by placing others values above your own. you choose or are forced into actions based on others principles, whims, and values. your are sacrificing your values to someone else”
I suspected that this discussion would boil down to the definition of terms. Of course, if the term “altruism” is defined as acting against one’s values, then it would be impossible - even undesirable or immoral - to act altruistically. I suspect that most people don’t have that that kind of a definition in mind when they use the term, and a brief sampling of the dictionaries in the house did not yield anything to the effect of “altruism = acting contrary to one’s values.” Altruism clearly IS a value that one would be acting in accordance with - in this case, the value that one’s own life is not the supreme end (contra Rand) of the cosmos.
“metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action”
“note that she does not propose that man’s life has intrinsic value but that man must choose to value existence over non-existence”
How do these two statements go together? In the first, it seems that ‘life’ has a real metaphysical status (objective value?) apart from the human decision to ‘gain’ and ‘keep’ it, while in the second human beings have to choose to value existence over non-existence. Is the value already present in life independent of human activity, or do human beings give it value? How can life be an end ‘in and of itself’ without any ‘intrinsic value?’ If life doesn’t have intrinsic value, what is to prevent the charge that choosing it as the supreme end is arbitrary?
I’m still curious to hear how objectivism deals with the problem of evil.
Auguste Comte was the one who coined the term altruism. Wikipedia states “He coined the word ‘altruism’ to refer to what he believed to be a moral obligations to serve others and place their interests above one’s own. He opposed the idea of individual rights, maintaining that they were not consistent with this supposed ethical obligation.” My ‘Little Oxford Dictionary” defines altruism as “unselfishness as a principle of action.” You are right that many do not use the term in the way that Comte originally defined it. The common usage is very loose and means something along the lines of kindness, decency, and generosity. But Comte used it to mean that the ultimate good was action that benefited other rather than oneself. You must live for the sake of others. The difference between self interest and altruism is who’s happiness is primary. If you act out of your own self-interest as primary than it can be considered egoism and if you act holding the happiness of others as primary than you can consider it primary. altruistic acts can be brought about by force, duty, and guilt. Basically it is knowingly acting against your long range self-interest/happiness.
Rand believes that man must choose to live. By choosing to live man gives his life value. By choosing to live he will act to sustain that life. Values are what man needs to sustain life. Man must use reason and knowledge in order to sustain it. The value of existence can be known objectively through experience. If were to say that man’s life had intrinsic value that would imply that man would have this knowledge a priori and thus without using reason to deduce this fact. It would have as much value as a religious truth claim that just had to be accepted.
It is hard for me to condense her entire epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics into a couple of blog posts. It is really worth your time to actually read a few of her books or listen to them. I believe she her philosophy has a few shortcomings but on the whole I think she was on track in giving us a philosophy that reflects how people actually live there lives. If you don’t buy it, I think it is worth reading just for her criticisms on other philosophers. I think that a lot of Christians[I know this from my own experience] are continually buying the latest books which support their own beliefs in a search to help themselves feel validated in their beliefs. What they know of so called secular philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle is only understood through other author’s eyes.
I’m completely ignorant of Rand. But I’m very interested in the answer to the question that Ryan asked. How does this worldview recognize and deal with evil? As far as I can tell you have not yet addressed this question.
jc,
I agree, expecting a comprehensive analysis of Rand’s philosophy in a blog post is unrealistic. But from my perspective, if an ideology or worldview has nothing to commend itself with respect to the really big questions (like evil, from my perspective), I will be less inclined to see what it has to say about some of the more peripheral
ones.
Therefore, if objectivism has nothing to say about evil that goes beyond naturalism, and if it claims that human existence is intrinsically valuable but offers no explanation as to how or why this could be the case (other
than, perhaps, because it feels that way to us), then I’ve heard enough. I’ve read enough philosophy to know that once you reject certain things a priori, the options become fewer and more predictable.
I’ve also ALREADY decided (non-objectively) that naturalism has nothing to say about some of life’s more important questions. This is a ccommitment that I have made. I don’t think it’s virtuous (or even possible) to remain perpetually open to any and all intellectual options.
so if anyone is still interested. i noticed there hasn’t been too much action on this blog lately… probably because of finals or soemthing… so i thought i would post. in response to the evil question i will quote a bit of John Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged. Not sure if its enough to answer your question or concerns.
“A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, his right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.”
and one’s own happiness and pleasure are to be the goals of one’s life.
“Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness—to value the failure of your values—is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altars of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man—every man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.
“But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”
ryan,
i am kind of unclear on your statement about deciding non-objectively that a theory is false. on what basis does one decide things non-objectively? i am more interested on your thoughts about the role of reason and logic than what you think of ayn rand. i do not understand how one can have discussions of truth without reason and logic. what other means are there for deciding truth?
jc,
“i do not understand how one can have discussions of truth without reason and logic. what other means are there for deciding truth?”
I am not for one second suggesting that reason and logic ought to be jettisoned - most people would accuse me of being, if anything, TOO rationalistic regarding matters of faith.
My comment about (non-objectively) deciding that naturalism is not an option for me is merely a statement about the imperfect and limited nature of human knowledge. Reason and logic are hugely important to me, but I do not use them infallibly, and neither does anyone else. Reason and logic have “proved” many things throughout history, and have been used for atrocious ends - this makes me suspicious of claiming too much for what they “prove.”
The fact that intelligent people examine the same data and use the same logic to the best of their abilities and end up with wildly different conclusions suggests to me that logic is not, in and of itself, decisive. Unless we are willing to go Dawkins’ route and say that everybody who doesn’t end up with our conclusions is “either stupid or lying” we have to acknowledge that reason does not, and cannot, yield unanimity.
All I mean when I say that I have decided something “non-objectively” is that I have reasoned to the best of my ability, examined the world of sense-experience to the best of my ability, and considered Scripture and the history of human thought to the best of my ability. It’s just an admission that I do not evaluate theories from a position of neutrality, and that the knowledge claims that I make are profoundly conditioned by my finitude and “fallenness.”
Incidentally, I think that the degree of confidence that one can have in reason is one of the areas where I would disagree with Rand. Her philosophy seems to depend quite heavily on human existence as the supreme (and, I assume, only) end. Once this is established, she just defines evil as whatever thwarts this end (at least based on the quote you cited - I’ll have to read “Atlas Shrugged” - perhaps over the holidays)
This is fine, but it is an assumption that cannot be proven by reason. One could just as easily say that the amount and variety of evil in the world, and the human aversion to it suggests that it is an unwelcome intruder in the cosmos, and that this (I think God-given) intuition will one day be validated in a renewal and redemption of the world. Both of these are plausible interpretations of reality. Reason cannot pronounce definitively which of the two is true.
ryan,
Thanks for defining ‘non-objective’ for me. I don’t agree with the premise that one has to be a neutral observer to be objective. how can one perceive anything except by existing in reality and receiving sensations from reality on to one’s being? to be neutral one would have to not exist and perceive reality from nowhere…. anyways
I also don’t agree with this idea that reason has been used for good and it has been for evil so therefore it is invalid or cannot be trusted. Instead you seem to suggest that our intuitive ideas are more reliable. Or maybe that religious truth claims contained in sacred texts are more reliable than reason. I don’t think this understanding of truth will get one far. Whenever someone’s intuitive ideas or religious truth claims go against the power of reason they fail. This is the reason why the Catholic church persecuted men of science. It is true that men have tried to give reasoned arguments for the evil they do. For example I was recently listening to a podcast about an argument a philosopher made morality of slavery. The argument however was flawed in that it was based on the premise that black people were not human which is obviously faulty premise. It can be proven otherwise through science, reason and logic. We cannot blame reason for slavery. Instead we should praise reason for giving us the means to understand why slavery is evil. I think you need to provide me an example where one could use a sound argument for promoting an evil action. But of course we would then be using reason to understand that the action was evil and we would already know the error of the argument.
As for reading Atlas Shrugged over the Christmas break… I just finished listening to it on an audio book. I’ve read it before but I am able to listen to books and podcasts while I am at work. I didn’t realize how long that book was. An article on Amazon claims it is one of the ten longest books ever published. Ayn Rand didn’t believe in editors. It is apparently 645,000 where as a book like the Lord of the Rings is about 470,000 words. Its worth the read I think. The plot is excellent but the dialogue is repetitive in some parts. It’s worth the read and I would be interested to hear your take on it. I plan to read Brothers Karamazov over the break. A little mysticism to balance out my over indulgence into rationalism.
I’m not sure where you are getting the idea that I think that reason is “invalid” or “cannot be trusted.” Just because I point out its limits does not mean I don’t think it is a powerful and useful tool. I’m also not sure I understand your equivocation on the terms “neutral” and “objective.” Non-existence is not the ideal state from which to know anything - omniscience is. I am simply pointing out that as human beings are not the latter, our claims regarding the deliverances of reason ought to be appropriately humble.
“We cannot blame reason for slavery. Instead we should praise reason for giving us the means to understand why slavery is evil.”
Was it reason that provided us the resources to abolish slavery? As I understand it, the abolition movement was overwhelmingly led by people with an explicitly (usually Christian) worldview. People like Wilberforce were opposed to slavery precisely because they believed that all human beings were created in God’s image. Reason alone did not lead them to this conclusion - often it was an examination of Scripture that provided the impetus. To claim that the faculty of reason was solely responsible for people finally recognizing that slavery was evil seems to be an exercise in revisionist history to me.
“I think you need to provide me an example where one could use a sound argument for promoting an evil action.”
I think a sound argument could probably be made for promoting certain kinds of social darwinism. Let the severely handicapped die at birth - why take care of them? Why let them survive and pass on their ‘defective’ genes? I would consider this an ‘evil’ but I don’t doubt that a logical argument could be constructed to argue this.
“Whenever someone’s intuitive ideas or religious truth claims go against the power of reason they fail.”
Your reference to the Catholic church’s persecution of ‘men of science’ is frequently referred to in attempts to prove how obviously flawed religion is compared to the clear light of science. I suppose the same sort of reasoning could be applied to the twentieth century. ‘Men of science’ were quite confident that atheism’s time had come, and that it would only be a matter of time before religion was a distant memory. Of course this hasn’t exactly happened, and a century which confidently proclaimed the death of God and the rise of reason has been more violent and destructive than all of the ones before it combined. It was an unshakeable confidence in reason (not religion) that led to the most horrific century humanity has ever known - it would seem that the power of reason, not “the intuitive ideas of religious truth,” failed in this case. Looking back, I’m sure you could/would say that they were using reason incorrectly, and this is undoubtedly true. My only question is how do we know that we, finally, are the ones who reason properly?
(Enjoy “The Brothers Karamazov” - that’s another ambitious read over the holidays!)
I don’t think an argument about whether reason or religion has created the most evil in the world is productive one or useful. Richard Dawkin’s and his cronies seem to think deciding this would offer some sort of proof that reason or science is more valid than religion. I think both sides can validly say that evil done in their respective names was not a reflection of proper reason or proper faith in God. After all Christ did not say to kill your enemy he said to love your enemies. Secularists[as you have already pointed out] could also rightly say that Marx’s dialectical form of reasoning was in error. He built a social theory that has ended up creating the largest death toll in history and that humankind is still suffering from. All one can say is that religion can be used for evil and reason built on false premises can be used for evil. This calls for a deeper examination of both.
“…how do we know that we, finally, are the ones who reason properly?” Well to briefly answer this question… One must have an epistemology that defines the rules on which human consciousness can know reality. You can evaluate all of the evidence available about a certain aspect of reality and possibly come to a logical conclusion. As a result you will be certain of your conclusion in the context of the available evidence of what you know at the time. If you choose to evade an aspect of reality or ignore a contradiction than you will surely come up a with a conclusion that is false.
You said in an earlier post that
“Her[Rand’s] philosophy seems to depend quite heavily on human existence as the supreme (and, I assume, only) end. Once this is established, she just defines evil as whatever thwarts this end. This is fine, but it is an assumption that cannot be proven by reason. One could just as easily say that the amount and variety of evil in the world, and the human aversion to it suggests that it is an unwelcome intruder in the cosmos, and that this (I think God-given) intuition will one day be validated in a renewal and redemption of the world. Both of these are plausible interpretations of reality. Reason cannot pronounce definitively which of the two is true.”
I am not going to offer all of the evidence that Rand’s uses in the support of this idea here. I will only say, concerning that, is that you probably have not considered the evidence at the time of this post and therefore a judgement might be premature. The idea that reason cannot say which of these two propositions is true is something I would like to explore. Truth is accurate knowledge about what exists[reality]. On one hand Rand has developed a philosophy from empirical evidence and logic. One can falsify her philosophy if one can show a logical flaw in her argument or show that reality presents a contradiction to her philosophy. On the other hand we have an intuition that makes a truth claim. An intuition is an arbitrary emotion. It has no evidence to support it and exists apart from reality. It is neither true nor untrue because it has no place in reality. It is analogous to saying that all the evil in the world is a result of flying purple dinosaur. There is no evidence to a flying purple dinosaur existing or not existing. So we can neither prove its existence or non-existence. To say one does exist though means that the burden of proof is then on the one who makes this claim. So I don’t think the equivocation here is in order. I am just picking on your use of the word intuition. It may be that there is some evidence in reality that can be empirically known and one could infer logically from that evidence that the evil human’s come into contact with is more accurately described in Christian philosophy than Rand’s Objectivism. If so that is what we should discuss.
You wrote “I’m not sure where you are getting the idea that I think that reason is “invalid” or “cannot be trusted.” and also “The fact that intelligent people examine the same data and use the same logic to the best of their abilities and end up with wildly different conclusions suggests to me that logic is not, in and of itself, decisive.”
The reason I think you believe reason is invalid is because you don’t believe that do not seem to believe that reason can help you gain knowledge of reality. You seem to suggest that if two so-called intelligent people can look at some data and end up with different conclusions then reason must be invalid. It seems like the implication here is that one cannot know reality. No matter how smart the folks are that are looking at the information they can never have the position of omniscience so they can never have a true understanding of the subject matter. Rand would say that it is true that we are not omniscience so we will never have a complete understanding of reality. This does not mean that ‘human knowledge is limited; so we cannot trust any of our conclusions.’ One objectivist writes that taking this statement as truth implies amounts to taking the idea of an “infinite God as the epistemological standard, by reference to which man’s consciousness is condemned as impotent. Consciousness has identity, and epistemology is based on the recognition of this fact. Epistemology investigates the question: what rules must be followed by a human consciousness if it is to perceive reality correctly? Nothing inherent in human consciousness, therefore, can be used to undermine it. If a fact is inherent in human consciousness , then that fact is not an obstacle to cognition, but a precondition of it-and one which implies a corresponding epistemological obligation.”
“you do not seem to believe that reason can help you gain knowledge of reality.”
This simply is not true, and I’m having a hard time figuring out how this could be extracted from any of my comments. I absolutely believe that reason can HELP us gain knowledge of reality. I just don’t think that that this knowledge is infallible because the creatures who reason are finite and fallen. This is why I continue to refer to the actual historical consequences of ascribing too much weight to the faculty of reason. I’m not trying to offer some kind of calculus as to which of any number of worldviews has produced more evil, but to demonstrate that reason, like all human faculties, is tainted and abused by the creatures who utilize it. There is an inherent limitation in the human condition that simply calls, from my perspective, for a more humble approach to epistemology. Saying this is in no way meant to suggest that I think that reason is useless or that it provides us with no access to reality. I am simply calling for an honest assessment of the creatures doing the reasoning, and that we factor this into the claims we make about reason.
“Truth is accurate knowledge about what exists[reality]. On one hand Rand has developed a philosophy from empirical evidence and logic. One can falsify her philosophy if one can show a logical flaw in her argument or show that reality presents a contradiction to her philosophy.”
Is it possible that there are elements of reality that are not amenable to falsification? What grounds have we for supposing that all that exists is capable of being demonstrated logically by finite and fallen human minds? If one is willing to entertain the possibility that there may be more to reality than what can be circumscribed by the principle of falsifiability, then the discussion could turn toward what makes more sense of reality – flying purple dinosaurs or the God of the universe reconciling creation to himself through a crucified Jew, for example.
I think I am more clear on your position on reason. I apologize for getting it wrong so far. I would agree with you about the necessity of a humble approach to epistemology. That is why I tried to point out that we can only approach truth in the context of what we know about reality. If new information comes to light then it will expand our knowledge of reality. This is opposed to observing something about reality and then claiming it to be true no matter what the circumstances. For example if you observe an apple falling to the ground and come to the conclusion that what goes up must come down you will have discovered the truth of the law of gravity. If you decide to claim this as an absolute truth and pronounce that what goes up will always come down no matter what the circumstances then you have denied context to the truth discovered. So one day when you see a space rocket take off to space and it doesn’t come down this will require a paradigm shift in your understanding of reality. If you had at first observed the apple coming down and claimed in this context[i.e. the object having no counteracting force] an apple that goes up must come down then seeing the rocket take off would not have invalidated the initial truth you discovered. Instead it would have expanded your initial knowledge. I think one can have a more humble approach to epistemology by adopting this idea of contextual truth.
I guess the part were we are having the most disagreement is where we discuss things of the supernatural realm. Things we cannot know through reason or logic. A supernatural being is out of reach of empirical knowledge. We cannot observe one or test any hypothesis that might apply to one. Concerning this being we only have assertions. Only claims about a supernatural reality that no one can either deny or confirm. I am very uncomfortable with this because I don’t understand how one is supposed to discern between truth and falsehood. What is the epistemology that applies to faith? Are all Christians basically left with a Kierkegaardian leap of faith? I used to be a fan of his but then I couldn’t tell people why I chose to take a leap in a Christian direction versus and Islamic direction or a Buddhist direction. I don’t think that theology really makes more sense of reality. I don’t understand how it even proposes to intersect with reality in that none of the rules observed in reality apply in the supernatural realm. So my question is what sort of epistemology would you suggest for discovering truth in the supernatural realm?
No apology necessary – perhaps I need to be clearer in the way that I explain my views.
“Are all Christians basically left with a Kierkegaardian leap of faith?”
I’m certainly no expert on Kierkegaard, but as I understand it, he is associated with fideism – literally faith against, or in the teeth of reason. I certainly do not think that this is all Christians are left with. I think that there is a leap of faith, certainly, but that this leap of faith can be motivated by the rigorous application of reason. This is why I refer so frequently to the problem of evil – for me this is one of the main reasons that I consider a leap of faith (in the Christian direction, specifically) to be justified.
I have not come across any other worldview or philosophy that provides an adequate account of the phenomenological experience of evil combined with our longing that the world should be other than it is. Christianity tells me about the creation of a world that was initially good (thus accounting for my aesthetic and moral capacities to appreciate, recognize, and long for goodness, beauty, and justice) which was subsequently corrupted by human beings (thus accounting for the pervasiveness and painfulness of evil and the effects it has on human beings and creation). Whatever difficulties I have about the origins of evil and how it fits into a doctrine of providence (and I have many!), the basic Christian story of creation, fall, and redemption makes sense of my experience of the world. The idea of the God of the universe bestowing upon his creatures the freedom to impact the universe in such a dramatic way, and then becoming one of us in order to redeem and reclaim us strikes me as at least worthy of consideration. It accounts for human longing, and provides an explanation for the dissonance we experience as we await the consummation of God’s redemptive plan.
I see this as providing a better explanation for ALL the data than, for example, Buddhism or naturalism. Buddhism acknowledges that this world is characterized by suffering, but advocates detachment and the extinguishing of desire as the solution. From my perspective, while Buddhism accurately diagnoses the suffering and pain inherent in existence, it has difficult explaining the goodness of the world. Similarly, every form of naturalism or materialism that I have come across has difficult accounting for the pervasive human tendency to seek (even NEED) meaning and purpose, as well as the issues related to evil that I have probably already spent too much time discussing.
“I don’t think that theology really makes more sense of reality. I don’t understand how it even proposes to intersect with reality in that none of the rules observed in reality apply in the supernatural realm”
Here I think you’re equating “reality” with “human experience of reality.” How could we know that the causal mechanisms that we observe in the natural world are all that there is to reality? As I said in my last comment, there is no real way of proving that “reality” is circumscribed by what is falsifiable. The most we could say is that theology doesn’t make sense of that portion of reality that is capable of being experienced and explained by human beings. If theology didn’t make ANY sense of reality – at the very least with people’s experience of reality – then why would anyone even consider it? There are obviously some theologies that are better than others, and it may turn out that none of them represent reality even partially accurately; but theologies come from people trying to navigate reality just like everybody else.
Well Ryan we are off of the front page of Gil’s blog here. That’s okay. I think I do not want to continue this discussion for the time being. I had written a different response to you which I have decided not to post. You and I have very different understandings of reason and logic. I think some of the terms we have been using are causing some problems in the discussion because their definitions haven’t clearly been stated. You working with one definition and I another… semantics or whatever. That is only a minor problem. I don’t see either of us being convinced by the other at this time. Thanks for the discussion and I wish you well.
Well the idea that we could really be operating with truly different understandings of reason and logic is troubling to me. The fact that the discussion went as long as it did suggests to me that we shared at least some common ground. If we really were operating with different conceptions of such major faculties, I find that disappointing - it seems like more than a minor semantic issue to me. Nonetheless, I appreciated the discussion, and regret those areas where I was unclear.