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edenfallingWe are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
---Richard Dawkins
I resent some man who doesn't know me from Adam coming down from on high and telling me what my religious beliefs are, as if he knows them better than I do!
I am not atheistic about any god. I am agnostic about all of them. In fact, I have been known to swear thusly: "By all the gods that anyone ever held holy..." which tells you something about my attitude toward all views of the divine.
This is not to say that I believe in such gods in the way Dawkins means (and may I say he has a horrifically reductive view of religion? he's as bad as fundamentalists, just in the other direction!), but I am open to the possibility that they might exist -- it is, after all, impossible to prove a negative -- and I do believe that they were real to their adherents, in the same way that I believe all currently worshipped deities are real to their adherents.
(We can debate subjective vs. objective reality some other day.)
Anyway, I do try to respect everyone's religion or lack thereof, but holy fuck, sometimes people get my back up!
*spits in Dawkins's general direction*
---Richard Dawkins
I resent some man who doesn't know me from Adam coming down from on high and telling me what my religious beliefs are, as if he knows them better than I do!
I am not atheistic about any god. I am agnostic about all of them. In fact, I have been known to swear thusly: "By all the gods that anyone ever held holy..." which tells you something about my attitude toward all views of the divine.
This is not to say that I believe in such gods in the way Dawkins means (and may I say he has a horrifically reductive view of religion? he's as bad as fundamentalists, just in the other direction!), but I am open to the possibility that they might exist -- it is, after all, impossible to prove a negative -- and I do believe that they were real to their adherents, in the same way that I believe all currently worshipped deities are real to their adherents.
(We can debate subjective vs. objective reality some other day.)
Anyway, I do try to respect everyone's religion or lack thereof, but holy fuck, sometimes people get my back up!
*spits in Dawkins's general direction*
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 03:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 04:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 04:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 01:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 05:57 pm (UTC)What I meant was that -- and I don't know if this is what Dawkins is trying to say, but it is how he has come off to me, so it is not what he means, he has also failed at clarity -- if you deny the possibility of other ways of experiencing and making sense of the world, you are limiting yourself. And while science can show us all sorts of connections and the scope of the universe, science cannot tell us how to react to that knowledge. Science is not a moral system. So what you are doing when you react to the amazingness of the universe is having a religious response. Granted, it's not a deistic response -- I would call it pantheist or animist, actually; a reverence and respect for all things around you, as if they are all important and all connected, whether you couch that connection in terms of spirits or atoms -- but it is still a religious response.
Dawkins seems (to me) to miss that completely. He talks about religion in terms of God-or-no-God and religion-as-authority, which is, to my mind, utterly missing the point.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 04:35 pm (UTC)This. That whole black vs white, authoritarian structure to religion is why I'm not a Christian. I cannot believe a Power great enough to create the universe in all its complexity is also small-minded enough to give a shit whether we eat fish or beef on Fridays, who we choose to love, or how (or if) we get dressed to go to church on the Sabbath.
But I pray, I worship my Goddesses, I have a religion (which, btw, teaches respect for all religions and acknowledges that there is a core of truth to just about every serious religion). This does not make me anti-science, anti-evolution or anti-logic. And for Dawkins to dismiss all religion because the one that he's most familiar with dislikes the field of science that he studies is rather irritating.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 03:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 04:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 04:31 pm (UTC)Stop trusting them. They're lying to you.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 06:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 06:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 07:37 pm (UTC)According to its summary, The Blind Watchmaker is an argument for evolution and against intelligent design. I do not need to be convinced that evolution is science or that 'intelligent design/creation science' is non-scientific (and also false). My father is a historian of science and technology and used to teach college courses on the history of evolution vs. non-science in America. I have known that stuff since I was a little kid.
I do not object to Dawkins's science. I object to his denunciation of religion in general on the basis of certain highly specific views of certain members of highly specific religious traditions, and on the basis of an apparent reduction of the vastness and variety of religious experience to the two issues of belief-in-god and disbelief-in-evolution. Therefore, I am going to read The God Delusion, since it is the book I am upset about, to see if he is, in fact, more nuanced and sane in his views than I am given to understand on the basis of what people have told me about him and the short excerpts of his writing that I have read.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 07:35 am (UTC)FWIW, I personally really do think that everything in the Universe can be explained by science (not that I think we'll ever figure it all out; there's just to damn much of it), but that the realm of the spirit (if it exists -- agnostic, here, yo) is something *entirely separate* which, by definition, cannot be described by science. The physical Universe may or may not be connected to some form of the divine; I don't think we'll know for sure as long as we exist in the flesh and are part of the machinery. *shrugs* And, FWIW, I don't find that a "miserable way to experience the world," either, thanks. ;) There's plenty of room there for joy and wonder and all that jazz.
But Dawkins goes out of his way to be a gadfly for atheism, and that's as effing irritating to me as the folks who get out there and thump their fave holy text. He also tends to uphold the popular notion that all scientists are atheists, which they aren't.
Eh, I just try to ignore him, anymore.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 07:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 01:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 02:20 pm (UTC)*shrugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 03:15 pm (UTC)Me, I figure the sheer universality of a belief in Something Bigger indicates at least a possibility that there is something more than the physical. It could just be the human love of making up stories and our dislike of things we can't explain, but that's a chance I choose to take. Worst that happens if I'm wrong is that I live my life in accordance with principles I choose, and when I'm dead nothing happens. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 11:31 pm (UTC)My friend
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 12:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 12:33 am (UTC)*experiments with embedding*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 02:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 03:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 09:15 pm (UTC)Or, to quote Dawkins quoting Steven Weinburg, "Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that 'God is the ultimate' or 'God is our better nature' or 'God is the universe.' Of course, like any other word, the word 'God' can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump of coal."
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-30 02:03 am (UTC)Also, please note the extreme Western Christian-centric POV of that quote: God is 'him,' God is singular, God is, above all, specific. Those are assumptions that not everyone shares! And if you are defining religion on the basis of those assumptions, you are naturally going to annoy and offend people whose beliefs, practices, ideas, values, etcetera, you are lumping in with that modern Western Christian-centric outlook.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-30 04:59 pm (UTC)And a non specific god is less ridiculous? "What is god?" 'I dunno, I worship a non specific deity that cannot be specifically described or defined.' Certainly, it doesn't fit every definition of everything that has ever been worshiped, but that doesn't make it an invalid argument for why we shouldn't be careful with our definitions.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-30 05:06 am (UTC)Second, you are falling into the same fallacy that Dawkins does, in assuming that all religions are monotheistic, "God as Other" dogmas. I am not a Christian. I am a Pagan. As such, I believe that we are all connected, and that God/Goddess/the Creator is in everything. Including things that most people don't think of as sacred, such as your lump of coal.
Third - do you have any idea how incredibly rude you sounded just now? If you don't believe in anything beyond the physical that's fine. I respect your belief, even if I don't share it. Please do the same for mine.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-30 04:39 pm (UTC)Secondly, the specifics of your particular deity do not interest me except perhaps as ways to show how ridiculous an idea they truly are. Everything being sacred for instance, is little different than there being no sacredness at all. After all, if everything is sacred, then nothing is special in that sense and more worthy of consideration than any other thing. The logical net effect is not to worship anything, because all things are equally deserving and you could never in the lifetime of the universe give them due consideration. Do you see what I am saying? If everything is sacred, why would sacredness matter at all?
Thirdly, I intend the rudeness. Your ideas are laughable, and I find them about as worthy of respect as the concept of a flat earth or a geocentric universe. I expect you to show similar disrespect for my ideas if you find them similarly ridiculous. I do not expect you to show my ideas any respect they have not earned and I will do the same to yours. Ideas and people are only worth respecting if there are good reasons to respect them. If you do not share my ideas and you don't have any reason to respect them, the only reason you can have for respecting them is an attempt to take a non-existent moral high ground on this issue.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-30 11:30 pm (UTC)Second, I think part of the problem here is that you are looking at religion as if it is a pseudo-science, which must have specific tenets that must be logical and provable (or disprovable). This is a faulty assumption. Yes, some religions have some aspects that are psuedo-scientific, but that is far from the only element of religion, and disproving those specific claims does not invalidate religion in general.
Third, if everything is sacred, then everything is sacred. This is not a difficult idea. It means that everything matters. Everything is worthy of consideration and respect. That is not at all the same as saying that nothing is important or worthy of respect. Yes, of course it is impossible to give specific attention to every aspect of the universe within the finite boundaries of a human life and human mind. That doesn't mean the effort is not worthwhile, or that we can't give consideration in general.
Let me make an analogy: You cannot possibly personally understand every aspect of every science; does that therefore mean that you shouldn't try to understand any science? I think you would agree that that is a silly argument. To me, the argument sounds equally silly when you apply it to religion.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-31 04:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 01:23 pm (UTC)He's fundamentally a scientist. If new evidence (specifically falsifiable, repeatable and testable evidence) was discovered proving that a god, some gods or even all gods existed, he would accept it, as would I. Until then, I remain unconvinced.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 06:11 pm (UTC)Anyway, what is not fine is arguing that religious is inherently poisonous, or things like that. I actually agree with Dawkins on some points (such as morality not needing a deity to stand behind it), but I am a religious person -- religion is fairly central to my life -- and the tone of the excerpts of his religiously-oriented writing that I have read is as poisonous as he says religion itself is. That bothers me a lot. But I am going to take
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 07:32 pm (UTC)But I'd echo the the recommendation. Read The Blind Watchmaker and/or The Greatest Show on Earth before The God Delusion
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 07:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 11:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 10:27 pm (UTC)A word of warning: He comes off hard against the bringing up of children in religion in God Delusion and I know you teach Sunday School. I can't recall offhand what he says exactly and my copy is elsewhere, but he has fairly good reasons for it, based on the argument that kids are too young to know what they're getting into.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 11:28 pm (UTC)That right there is exactly the thing I am talking about. Where does he get off saying that something I find to be a great source of meaning, connection, comfort, ideas, challenge, etcetera, is maladaptive?
Look. Religion is the way people make sense of our inability to (personally, though perhaps not as a species as a whole) understand the whole of the universe, or control all our surroundings. Religion is how we cope with the unknown (and, perhaps, the unknowable). Religion is far more than 'god-vs.-no-god,' or any organized authoritative structure. And yes, some specific forms of that basic human impulse to come to terms with the world can become maladaptive, but to call the whole thing a waste because of some bad apples is like saying science is maladaptive because, you know, it produced the atomic bomb and there are always jerks who falsify results.
And anyway, atheism is a religion. It is a form of response to the immensity of the universe, and the question of why bad things happen, and so on and so forth. That is a religion, by definition. Also, I think atheism is amazingly preoccupied with god, in a way agnosticism is not, because atheism is focused (whether by design, or simply by accident of naming) on the question of god's existence. Agnostics can say, "I don't know," and get on with our lives and more interesting questions.
Also, Unitarian Univesalist religious education is pretty easygoing. We have, in fact, been accused of running a course in comparative world religions rather than teaching kids anything about their own (at least for the moment) religion. Basically, we say that the important thing is values, and that you find your own truth. If your truth is a traditional Western deistic faith, that's great. If it's strict atheism, that's great too. So long as it works for you, and you don't impose your views on those around you, we are glad to be in community with you and help you on your journey, as you, presumably, will help us on ours. The search and the community are the important things -- and putting values into practice by helping people in other ways as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 12:10 am (UTC)Your definition of religion is... odd to say the least. It's much too broad and can accept things that should never be religions. By your definition, the Materialist worldview is a religion. Since it rejects any notion of the spiritual at all, I can't believe that you actually mean that. It's not a response to the immensity of the universe, it has no answer to why bad things happen. But it is how I, at the very least, make sense of the world we live in. Likewise, I must disagree with your assessment of Atheism as more focused on the question of God's existence than Agnosticism. Most Atheists have for all intents and purposes answered the question and moved on, only returning to it when prompted. Agnostics on the other hand, have a big gaping unknown in their worldview and ought to be looking for some sort of definitive answer one way or the other. Both of these seem to be differences in definitions, which may be hampering out attempts to communicate significantly. Because to me, any argument that calls atheism a religion is as absurd as an argument that 1+2=4.
Yes, I know that the Unitarian church is very soft in such matters compared to others. Erasmus Darwin described it as a 'Featherbed for falling Christians' in the 18th century. I thought you deserved to know his opinions as best as I could remember and summarize them into a few sentences, since they seemed to directly impinge upon you in this particular.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 12:50 am (UTC)Most Atheists have for all intents and purposes answered the question and moved on, only returning to it when prompted. Agnostics on the other hand, have a big gaping unknown in their worldview and ought to be looking for some sort of definitive answer one way or the other. Both of these seem to be differences in definitions, which may be hampering out attempts to communicate significantly.
Yes. You seem to assume I want or need answers to the question about god's (or gods') existence. I do not. I think this is why I equate athesim to fundamentalism, in some ways: both traditions claim to have the answer about god/s. I think the question about god/s is largely irrelevant and impossible to answer anyway. Also, I am coming at this from a philosophical perspective influenced by the classical skepticism of Sextus Empiricus, which says, IIRC, that definitive answers to metaphysical questions A) are probably illusory, B) are unnecessary, and C) can lead to dangerous dogmatism. So what you see as a gaping hole, I see as flexibility and an ability to prioritize and not get caught up in what I consider a side issue.
This is not to say that I do not like thinking about metaphysics and so on, just that I find that particular question really old and tired. I find that it has no relevance to my life, and since what I am thinking about in terms of metaphysics, ethics, religion, etc., is how to live what I consider a good life (and what a good life might be), I wish people would just let the god question lie and stop arguing over 'the truth.'
I am willing to define materialism as a religion. I am willing to define Marxism as a religion too, if it comes to that. I know this is not a commonly accepted definition, but I think that such belief systems do and must consider religious issues, even if the conclusions they reach are, in the traditional sense a-religious or anti-religious. The fact that they are addressing non-scientific questions at all (by which I mean ones that cannot be disproved via experiment, such as ethics) makes them religions in some sense. If materialism has no explicit answer to 'why bad things happen,' it has an implicit one, which is 'the universe is random like that; deal.' I consider that a religious and ethical viewpoint.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 02:27 pm (UTC)Yeah, this. For me, too. :)
Although, I would add that you seem to be saying in this comment sequence that spiritual = religious, which I don't consider the case. I would say that religion is an organized form of spirituality, and that it's possible to be spiritual/have spiritual feelings without being religious.
But that's a whole 'nother discussion . . . ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-30 02:06 am (UTC)Whereas I would say that spirituality is a catch-all term for various disorganized or non-standardly organized expressions of religion. *grin* Same idea, but I can see how the choice of terminology could get very confusing.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-30 05:10 pm (UTC)It doesn't do a whit to change the fact that the only material effect of religion can be described by the words 'placebo effect.' Subjective reality vs Objective is interesting, but ultimately the objective reality has primacy.
Yes. You seem to assume I want or need answers to the question about god's (or gods') existence. I do not.
Some of us consider this an almost criminal lack of curiosity.
I think this is why I equate atheism to fundamentalism, in some ways: both traditions claim to have the answer about god/s. I think the question about god/s is largely irrelevant and impossible to answer anyway.
Really? But if a lot of the god-theories were true, they would represent a fundamental alteration in the underpinnings of the world. Even the weakest deistic system represents something very different from a universe without a god. If you have any desire to understand the way the world is, this is a fundamental question.
Also, I am coming at this from a philosophical perspective influenced by the classical skepticism of Sextus Empiricus, which says, IIRC, that definitive answers to metaphysical questions A) are probably illusory, B) are unnecessary, and C) can lead to dangerous dogmatism. So what you see as a gaping hole, I see as flexibility and an ability to prioritize and not get caught up in what I consider a side issue.
Jeez lousize. I see from online biographies and summaries of his philosophy that Sextus seems to have been opposed to knowing anything through reason, inference, and possibly anything other than direct sensory evidence at this exact moment. Even for an 1800 year old Roman, that's a little extreme. Yeah, approaching things skeptically is generally good practice, but it is quite harmful to remain skeptical. He apparently recognized this, and recommended that people basically mooch off the opinions and lifestyles of others without consideration. And you consider this a worthy example of how we should lead our lives and make life shaping decisions?
I am willing to define materialism as a religion. I am willing to define Marxism as a religion too, if it comes to that. I know this is not a commonly accepted definition, but I think that such belief systems do and must consider religious issues, even if the conclusions they reach are, in the traditional sense a-religious or anti-religious.[/quote] Uhh, what? Are you denying the possibility of a non-religious worldview? Your definition in this case is not only questionable, but laughable.
[quote]The fact that they are addressing non-scientific questions at all (by which I mean ones that cannot be disproved via experiment, such as ethics) makes them religions in some sense. If materialism has no explicit answer to 'why bad things happen,' it has an implicit one, which is 'the universe is random like that; deal.' I consider that a religious and ethical viewpoint.
Religion is not anything that deals with ethics. Hell, the Divine command theory of ethics is so vastly inadequate as to completely invalidate all insistence that ethics and religion are in any way related. Religion does not equal ethics, in fact it should have no bearing on ethics at all.
Your problem isn't that you've got a faulty definition of religion. You've mislabeled philosophy as religion.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-29 08:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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