Sunsara Taylor's "debate*" with Scott Bartchy brought up an important theme in epistemology, ethics and politics: "picking and choosing".
*It wasn't a true debate; Sunsara didn't have the opportunity to address Bartchy's commentary at all.
Atheists often charge that religious people pick and choose from their scripture. Bartchy's rebuttal is that picking and choosing is routine; since everyone picks and chooses, the activity cannot be used to differentiate religion from other epistemic, ethical and political activities. In a sense, Bartchy is correct. Scientists have chosen Einstein's theory of gravitation over Newtons; Darwin's theory of evolution over Lamarck's. Ethical humanism is rife with paternalism and condescension: the road to hell is indeed often paved with good humanist intentions. Modern communists — even those who call themselves Marxist-Leninist-Maoist — typically do not want to replicate Lenin's Red Terror, Stalin's permanent bureaucracy, or Mao's hyper-collectivization of agriculture.
Yes, picking and choosing is routine. What is important, however, is the basis on which one picks and chooses.
Scientists pick and choose theories, but they do not — even a little bit — get to pick and choose experimental results; scientists pick and choose theories based on the experimental results. Experimental results are thus authoritative and foundational.
Two philosophical notions are often employed to rebut the idea that experimental results are authoritative and foundational to scientific epistemology: experimental error and theory-laden observations. If experimental results are authoritative, in what sense can they be found to be in error? If experimental results rest on a theoretical structure, in what sense are they foundational? These notions, however, challenge only our equivocal understandings of authority and foundationalism.
Scientists must account for the literal meaning of all experimental results. To deem a result an "error" does not entail that it is simply ignored; an experimental "error" is simply a result that is explained in a particular way. The theory-ladeness of any observation determines the observations meaning, but it never determines the actual result. A volt-meter is a rather complicated, theory-laden device, but the definition of a volt-meter does not tell me anything about the actual, specific result I will see when I hook it up to some arbitrary battery.
The question we should ask of the religious is not whether they pick and choose, but what do they not pick and choose? What stays constant? What cannot be ignored? What stands as true, literally true?
Christians "pick and choose" about the literal meaning of their scripture. Fair enough, but if you pick and choose from your scripture, then your scripture is not authoritative. Christians "pick and choose" about intuitive notions about God; they do not seem to accept my own atheistic intuitions as veridical. So intuitions about God are not authoritative.
Even the supposedly "axiomatic" assumption that God is omnibenevolent is not authoritative, unless we are to believe that "war, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades" are examples of benevolence. To assign "benevolence" to a God is to rob the term of any meaning: whatever happens, no matter how we might feel about it, must be the highest good, and we should all walk around saying, "It's a good life."
So fine, everyone picks and chooses, at least sometimes. But if you're not going to descend into pure bullshit postmodernism, you have to draw some line in the sand: you have to say, "When it comes to X, I'm not going to pick and choose."
With regard to religion, where is this line?
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
A peek into the mind
... of a deeply deluded but articulate conservative. I don't endorse P.J.'s opinions; I mention the article because I find his schizophrenia absolutely fascinating.
On the one hand, he seems to grasp, at least dimly, that conservatism failed not just on an effective level, but on a deeply moral level. And yet he still insists that the fundamental message of conservatism is moral.
Just as schizophrenic Christians justify human value by an appeal to the absolute, inherent human depravity, schizophrenic conservatives try to justify social cooperation by an appeal to every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. The doublethink really is spectacular.
A true conservative, I think, should be proud of the Bush regime: It's allowed the best of us (i.e. the richest) to accumulate their due, and left the liberals to herd the hoi polloi into compliance.
On the one hand, he seems to grasp, at least dimly, that conservatism failed not just on an effective level, but on a deeply moral level. And yet he still insists that the fundamental message of conservatism is moral.
Just as schizophrenic Christians justify human value by an appeal to the absolute, inherent human depravity, schizophrenic conservatives try to justify social cooperation by an appeal to every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. The doublethink really is spectacular.
A true conservative, I think, should be proud of the Bush regime: It's allowed the best of us (i.e. the richest) to accumulate their due, and left the liberals to herd the hoi polloi into compliance.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Is atheism foolish or wise
In 2004, I participated in a debate with Rev. Timothy G. Muse: Is atheism foolish or wise?. Reading it over four years later, it's not half bad.
I'll be reposting here my contributions to the debate over the next month or so. The Internet Infidels and Rev. Muse own the copyright to his contribution, so I can't reprint it directly.
Rev. Muse's opening.
My response follows.
What are Theism's Answers?
I'll be reposting here my contributions to the debate over the next month or so. The Internet Infidels and Rev. Muse own the copyright to his contribution, so I can't reprint it directly.
Rev. Muse's opening.
My response follows.
What are Theism's Answers?
Introduction
Thank you all, the administration and staff of the Internet Infidels Discussion Board who make this debate possible and the readers who make it relevant. Thanks also to the members of the Peanut Gallery for their support and encouragement. Special thanks to Rev. Timothy G. Muse for devoting his time, energy, and considerable wit and intelligence to the education, edification and "sharpening" of my own mind and, hopefully, the minds of our readers. Thanks also to my spouse for support, advice, editing, and most importantly, forbearance for the time I have and will continue devote to this debate.
The question is whether atheism is foolish. Rev. Muse presents the case that atheism is foolish because it fails to answer many deep philosophical questions. But implicit in Rev. Muse's charges is the implied assertion that theism does reasonably, substantively and satisfactorily answer and explain the questions that atheism supposedly fails to answer. Atheism is thus foolish only if theism gives better answers. So the reasonableness, substance and satisfaction of theistic answers to these questions are equally at issue. Given that many of these questions are important, it would be folly indeed to abandon a position that gives reasonable, substantive and satisfying answers for one that does not. But Rev. Muse has not yet made the case that theism does indeed offer such answers.
Rev. Muse's charges go far beyond the mere position of atheism. Even so, Rev. Muse is correct in one sense: When one chooses atheism, one must necessarily abandon the epistemology of divine revelation, the teleology and eschatology of divine purpose, and the ethics of divine command. And indeed, one cannot merely leave a vacuum where theistic philosophy at least attempted answers. Although ancillary naturalistic philosophies such as scientific materialism, psychology, methodological naturalism and political secular humanism are compatible with some forms of theism, the atheist must turn to them, or something similar, and their reasonableness thus becomes directly at issue.
A full explanation of these philosophies would require more space than our debate allows; indeed, one would need to recapitulate at least five centuries of philosophy. Fortunately, the proposition at issue, "Atheism Is Foolish", can be rebutted by showing that the naturalistic philosophical alternatives have at least reasonable promise for answering the legitimate questions that Rev. Muse raises. For some questions, I will endeavor to show that naturalistic philosophy that atheism must turn to actually improves upon its theistic equivalent.
Therefore I will devote Part I primarily to asking the same questions of theism that Rev. Muse asks of atheism, and critiquing his answers. I will devote Part II to the answers from the atheistic, naturalistic, secular position.
I also wish to point out to our readers that Rev. Muse in his opening statement has added some rhetorical flourishes to the definitions of "atheism" and "foolishness". I will refer our readers to the definitions given in the parameters of this debate; I assume that we both are still adhering to the stipulated definitions.
Epistemological Issues
Rev. Muse states that there is no positive or unquestionable proof that there is no God. This is correct in some senses and incorrect in others. When one is talking about a god who is perfectly- or at least well-hidden by nature or by design, no, one cannot absolutely prove the non-existence of such a god. But these are precisely the gods towards whom, by definition, disbelief is justified by the very existence of such a deity and thus not foolish.
We can draw a similar conclusion regarding "a God (transcendent, omniscient, omnipotent, etc.) who either chose not to reveal himself to man, or chose to reveal himself to some but not to others, or chose to reveal himself progressively." Even under a epistemology of revelation, I cannot have knowledge of a god who does not reveal itself to me, and thus my disbelief is not only justified but compelled. Likewise, "inabilities or restrictions inherent to the present condition of man (such as his blindness, lack of understanding, powerlessness...)" (I'm sure that Rev. Muse includes "moral resistance" and "intentional rejection of the truth" only from pedantic completeness) would justify the belief in the nonexistence of god. To use his own metaphor, if a man keeps "his existence and supremacy known from an ant," one cannot justly call the ant a fool for disbelieving in the man. And what about a god who, like the author of a play or novel, wishes or requires the positive suspension of belief in itself? If we can posit a god who requires belief without proof, we can just as easily posit a god who requires disbelief without or even with proof.
Gods who reasonably engender agnosticism are irrelevant; the only gods for whom disbelief is at all relevant to questions of wisdom or foolishness are the gods to which "all the evidence points," if, of course, such evidence were to actually exist. In these cases lack of evidence, if indeed it is lacking, makes positive disbelief reasonable and justifiable. Since evil exists, I know with certainty that no god exists who has both the power and will to abolish evil as we presently understand it. Since I believe that no god exists, I know with certainty that no god exists who has the power and will to engender my belief. Furthermore, since no universal belief in any particular deity exists, I know with certainty that no god exists with the power and will to engender such universal belief.
The requirement of absolute proof is consistent only with Rev. Muse's rhetorical additions to the position of atheism. If atheism were indeed the dogmatic assertion of any god's nonexistence, if the atheistic belief were "absolute" and "utter" (in the sense of being unchangeable), if the atheist showed "absolute faith", then yes, with anything less than absolute proof, atheism would be foolish indeed. But atheism does not entail such dogmatic, absolute belief. To require absolute proof for any belief entails holding no beliefs, to descend into a paralyzed solipsism. The atheist such as myself, rather, has examined the evidence, and come to the belief to which the evidence points. If new evidence or a new argument comes to my attention--if, for instance, a god were to reveal itself to me--I would change my belief.
Indeed it is the theist who dogmatically believes in god, whose belief is absolute and utter, and from whom absolute faith is expected. By Rev. Muse's own argument, we expect from the theist not merely the preponderance of evidence, not merely one or some or even many subtle arguments, but absolute, unquestionable, undeniable proof of the existence of a god to refrain from calling foolish his absolute faith.
I am curious about Rev. Muse's claim that atheism "monopolizes on a method that doesn't make sense". While the idea that the scientific method does not entirely eliminate metaphysics (as the positivists would like to have done), does Rev. Muse actually ask us to believe that appealing to science, our experience and the evidence of our senses makes no sense? No sense at all? What does theism offer as an alternative? If the answer is divine revelation, to what degree should we rely on revelation? Which revelation? And where does that put those of us, such as myself, who have had no revelation at all?
Rev. Muse does get one thing correct about atheism: "The very idea or question of the existence of a transcendent, intervening, and wonder working God by definition departs from the idea of everything always working according to the subordinate laws governing the universe." It does indeed. I fail to understand only why Rev. Muse is so amazed that atheists use this argument.
The Origin, Existence, and Nature of the Universe
I will expound more on the atheistic and scientific nature of the origin and existence of the Universe in Part II, so that Rev. Muse will have a more specific and thorough position to critique.
Rev. Muse repeats Blanchard's claim that "Matter is either 'eternal, self-creative, or created by a self-existent God.'" What support can Rev. Muse offer for this trilemma? Has Rev. Muse considered the alternatives, such as Hawking's speculation that matter and energy exist in a finite but unbounded space-time[1]? That our universe arose from a fluctuation in a non-spatial/non-temporal vacuum? That matter might be, rather than self-created, self-existent, as the theist god is purported to be? To show that atheism is foolish, Rev. Muse must show not just that these alternatives are not absolutely proven, but logically impossible or empirically disproved.
Rev. Muse asserts that the claim that the universe "just is" is an “unreasonable and insensible approach�? towards the "enormous, detailed, intricate universe which displays such great depth of wisdom, purpose, intelligence, ingenuity, beauty, and function." I would certainly agree that the universe is enormous, detailed and intricate; I would also agree that I find it beautiful. And, of course, it does function. But there is no evidence that the universe displays intelligence, wisdom, purpose or ingenuity. And how does this position differ from the theistic position that God--who Himself is purportedly an "enormous, detailed, intricate" being who "displays such great depth of wisdom, purpose, intelligence, ingenuity, beauty, and function"--that such a God Himself "just exists"?
The theistic answer to the origin of the universe, "God did it," just gives a different label to our ignorance. If the atheist does not know how or why the universe exists, the theist cannot tell us how or why god created the universe. Both the theist and atheist can speculate on why there is something (god/the universe) rather than nothing (no god/no universe), but neither can give a conclusive answer. Fundamentally something has to “just exist�?; at least we know the universe does indeed exist.
The theistic answers to the nature of the universe are even more unsatisfactory. Leaving the origin aside, why is the universe the way it is instead of somehow different? Why do we have stars, planets, galaxies, clusters, super-clusters? Why an enormous universe instead of a small one? I've seen the theist offer only the wholly unsatisfactory answer, "I guess that's how God must have wanted it."
Life and Humanity
Rev. Muse claims that "the essence of life itself cannot be explained by the tenets of atheism." What is the theistic alternative to the biological sciences? Animistic theories have been long since abandoned; however uncertain we are about the origin of terrestrial life, there is nothing mystical about its existence. Even Rev. Muse himself says that "Evidence suggests the world can simply continue, sustain, and propagate life."
Rev. Muse claims that "it is of utmost foolishness for man to put his absolute confidence and trust in a belief system or religion that cannot provide answers for its own basic existence and life." The only theistic answer that Rev. Muse offers is that, "A supernatural transcendent being who possesses life in himself and who has given and breathed life into his creation." A metaphor is not answers. Why are we mortal? Why do we so often die with such pain and indignity? Again, anyone can speculate; ideas about the "fall of man" and "original sin" are just that: speculation. Can Rev. Muse offer proof? Or even Evidence?
What are Rev. Muse's "satisfactory and sensibly pleasing arguments regarding, the purpose, and solutions or comforts of life"? What answer does theism provide for the purpose of terrestrial life other than to shamelessly flatter some deity? What is the purpose of our suffering? Why can an omnipotent god not simply create us directly in The Big Rock Candy Mountain the theist calls heaven?
Furthermore, I have lost count of the times that I've heard a theist call his god's purposes mysterious, unknown or even unknowable. Calling a purpose mysterious is the precise opposite of a "satisfactory and sensibly pleasing" argument, explanation or justification.
This lack of an answer is even more obvious when the theist moves away from the broadest generalizations. What's the purpose of a child dying painfully from cancer? What's the purpose of the millions killed in earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, famines and plagues? What is the purpose of Bubonic plague, Alzheimer's disease, cancer of the rectum? We ask not only why we so often die in pain and indignity but also what is the purpose of such apparently pointless suffering? What's the purpose of childhood diabetes, gout, arthritis, menstruation? Looking at the world, if there were a god, we might reasonably conclude that its purpose was the sadistic desire to inflict as much suffering on humanity as possible. I would rather believe in no god than the existence of such a malign thug.
What answer does theism offer (aside, that is, from the dubious promise of The Big Rock Candy Mountain) to suffering and pain other than to "deal with it or get over it"? What reasons, proofs or evidence support and justify the answers? For instance, I'm frankly astounded that even a single Christian accepts the "explanation" that Yahweh has inflicted or permitted his or her suffering for the purpose of punishing Adam's sin. Good grief, it's been 6000 years; Yahweh sure does hold a grudge!
The Future
Rev. Muse claims that atheism provides less that satisfactory and comforting answers concerning the future. Indeed, I must again ask about the theistic alternatives. The theist can speculate and spin fantasies about a Big Rock Candy Mountain, but can such speculation be more than empty promises? But neither atheism nor any materialistic science entails logically that there is no life after death. Life itself is an ordinary, naturalistic phenomenon; if there were indeed some "evidence [that] provides some hope of life after death," then ordinary naturalistic science could investigate it. Atheists who believe the finality of death do so because the evidence points to only that conclusion.
So where is the evidence that not only justifies the belief in some form of afterlife, but also justifies the idea of a god being necessarily responsible? Rev. Muse offers his analogy of the seed. But this analogy is inapt. What does it mean that a "seed must die that new life might come"? And even if this is true in some unusual sense, it seems obvious that people are not plants, our "seeds" never die, and the metaphor speaks to reproduction, not to any personal resurrection--not even of the plant itself. This is a slender reed indeed upon which to lay any hope of human resurrection.
I must agree with Rev. Muse: "All reasonable men desire life and more of it, while at the same time death is clearly an enemy, bringing separation and destruction." But where does theism claim death came from? Given an omnipotent god, it could come only from that god. And what has theism done to defeat and ameliorate death? When will god's revelation provide us with a cure for cancer or for aging?
What about the future of terrestrial life? What does religion have to say about this? Buddhism offers nothing; Judaism offers nothing; Islam and Christianity offer only Armageddon; Hinduism offers an endless cycle of suffering at the hands of their gods. If we wish answers to the future of Earth and humanity, what advice does theism offers us besides the vague reassurance that, "Daddy will make it all right in the end"?
History
Rev. Muse claims that, "Atheism offers no real answer for the historical evidence concerning the religious nature of man." I will address the position of atheism and natural science on this point in Part II, but for now I wish to examine the position of theism. What answer does theism offer for the variety and lack of agreement among mankind’s religions? If a god were truly to exist, we would instead expect to see widespread agreement. All people, regardless of culture, agree on what is blue, what is one foot long, what weighs ten pounds--all of these are objectively true. Why do they then disagree so completely, violently and passionately about their religion? Sure, the theist might speculate and fantasize about an all-good, all-just, all-powerful god who completely misleads and fools its creation about such an important issue, but such speculation seems entirely implausible.
Ethics, Justice and Morality
Rev. Muse makes one good point: As Stalinism and Maoism show, atheism is no panacea when tyrannically imposed. I will explore this point more thoroughly in Part II of this debate when I discuss political secularism. In this part, though, I will ask Rev. Muse to address explicitly religious governments. Rev. Muse claims that, "When God is removed from government and society, it opens the door in varying degrees according to the situation to abuse of power, to oppression of the beliefs of others, and in some cases to brutality." But when God is explicitly part of government, the record is no better; oppression, intolerance and brutality appear, sadly, to be part of the human condition.
What does Rev. Muse have to say about the European Middle Ages, a thousand years of tyranny, ignorance, death and disease, ruled and directed by Christianity? What does Rev. Muse have to say about present-day Islam in the Middle East? If democracy is so theistic, why did it require a group of naturalistic deists, atheists and Unitarians to establish the first modern democracy in 18th Century America? Rev. Muse quotes Bourne's charges: "'Modern Atheism' is a mass phenomenon, and its stern tolerance means to rule over the whole future of mankind." Has not this been true of many, if not most, religions?
There are other issues with theistic politics. Why is revelation disallowed as testimony in court? Why does no body of religious writing give us in whole our modern legal system? What happened to the divine right of kings? Why must we bother with legislatures, elections, courts and trials? All of which we've had to work out for ourselves using natural reason with no consistent, explicit guidance from any deity.
I will discuss naturalistic morality in more depth in Part II. My question for this part is, where is this "transcendent authority"? Where is the "absolute truth"? Where are the laws that transcend time and experience"? Every sect of every religion seems to have a different idea about what constitutes the absolute truth from the transcendent deity. Slavery was condoned by good, sincere Christians up to the Civil War[2] and has extensive support in the Christian bible[3]. How can a transcendent authority providing the absolute truth about laws that transcend time and space get such a big issue as slavery so wrong for so long? And slavery is not the only issue; Theodore Drange offers a list of Christian laws that supposedly transcend time and experience.[4]:
Rev. Muse claims that, “Atheism provides no acceptable answer to the victim of one [who] suffers at the hands of an evil perpetrator who for all practical purposes seems 'to get away' with their crimes here on earth." But what comfort does theism give? Perhaps it might comfort the victims to fantasize that the perpetrators suffer eternal punishment, but even an atheist can fantasize. Such abstract comfort does nothing to restore their loved ones nor prevent a future disaster. And the comforting theist would of course not be so tasteless as to mention that, according to many theologies, the victims will be right there in hell next to the perpetrators, having adhered to the wrong religion, died in a state of sin, or just because God's grace had been arbitrarily withheld. And what about those who die of natural disasters? The victims are just as dead, the families are just as bereft, but who precisely is getting away with what?
Rev. Muse charges that "The atheist does not deal thoroughly either with the acknowledged experience and evidence of guilt." But Rev. Muse offers a perfectly reasonable naturalistic response: "It is enough to apologize and ask forgiveness from the person you have done wrong." It is indeed "simply on the basis that you determined (or both of you agreed) that it was wrong." One might speculate further, but why, and on what basis?
Rev. Muse asks if atheism has "an acceptable answer for why man acts against what his conscience tells him is wrong, or why man fails 'to do what he wants to do' but 'does what he hates.'" What evidence is there that people typically or usually act this way? It's been my experience that most people act in concert with their conscience, they do what they want, and they refrain from doing what they hate. It seems that it is, in the main, it is only theists who have such a struggle; and what more explanation is required than that the conflicted theist has needlessly adopted a moral code in conflict with his nature and reason?
Other Issues
I don't understand Etienne Borne's comment that atheism "cannot escape another most serious and most significant ambiguity." Bourne seems to confuse worship with desire. This comment is entirely opaque to me.
I also don't understand what Rev. Muse means when he claims that atheism "does not substantively and reasonably provide answers to the paradoxes in life." What paradoxes? In life, we usually find that the lowly are born lowly, live lowly and die lowly; the weak are exploited by the strong; when we give something away we don't have it any more; when we die, we die; we live by satisfying our self and our desires, and a person who possesses nothing has nothing.
Rev. Muse charges that atheism "chooses to deny the implications that... point to a future judgment." What implications are these?
Conclusion: Reasons for Adopting a Philosophy
Rev. Muse argues that, "Atheism as a belief system fails historically and socially to provide an incentive for embracing it." It must be admitted that historically and socially, theism has indeed found many adherents. Some incentives no doubt exist, but we are justified in considering the nature of these incentives. What does theism appeal to (when it has not been imposed by naked oppression and threat), if not only our fear and ignorance? Why does theism place its inducements, its promises and threats, beyond rational or sensible inquiry?
Before science, it is arguable that theism's supernatural promises had some value as comfort. But now that we have the means to alleviate suffering here and now, theism's anachronistic supernatural fairy tales only retard our progress. What are the reasons for embracing theism today? Today, we have science, technology, philosophies and political systems that seem to be improving the lot of mankind in this world. And these philosophies ignore, deny, marginalize, or give only lip service to revelation and supernaturalism; all of them are entirely compatible with atheism.
I charge that, although theism does attempt to answer the questions posed by Rev. Muse, Rev. Muse has not shown that these answers are reasonable, substantive or satisfactory. Absent such answers it is wise to turn to atheism and naturalistic philosophy if only from desperation.
----------------------
References:
[1] Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time"
[2] Edward T. Babinski, "The Uniqueness of the Christian Experience"
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...xperience.html
[3] Skeptic’s Annotated Dictionary, "Slavery and the Bible"
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.co...s/slavery.html
[4] Theodore Drange, "Why Be Moral?"
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode.../whymoral.html
Thank you all, the administration and staff of the Internet Infidels Discussion Board who make this debate possible and the readers who make it relevant. Thanks also to the members of the Peanut Gallery for their support and encouragement. Special thanks to Rev. Timothy G. Muse for devoting his time, energy, and considerable wit and intelligence to the education, edification and "sharpening" of my own mind and, hopefully, the minds of our readers. Thanks also to my spouse for support, advice, editing, and most importantly, forbearance for the time I have and will continue devote to this debate.
The question is whether atheism is foolish. Rev. Muse presents the case that atheism is foolish because it fails to answer many deep philosophical questions. But implicit in Rev. Muse's charges is the implied assertion that theism does reasonably, substantively and satisfactorily answer and explain the questions that atheism supposedly fails to answer. Atheism is thus foolish only if theism gives better answers. So the reasonableness, substance and satisfaction of theistic answers to these questions are equally at issue. Given that many of these questions are important, it would be folly indeed to abandon a position that gives reasonable, substantive and satisfying answers for one that does not. But Rev. Muse has not yet made the case that theism does indeed offer such answers.
Rev. Muse's charges go far beyond the mere position of atheism. Even so, Rev. Muse is correct in one sense: When one chooses atheism, one must necessarily abandon the epistemology of divine revelation, the teleology and eschatology of divine purpose, and the ethics of divine command. And indeed, one cannot merely leave a vacuum where theistic philosophy at least attempted answers. Although ancillary naturalistic philosophies such as scientific materialism, psychology, methodological naturalism and political secular humanism are compatible with some forms of theism, the atheist must turn to them, or something similar, and their reasonableness thus becomes directly at issue.
A full explanation of these philosophies would require more space than our debate allows; indeed, one would need to recapitulate at least five centuries of philosophy. Fortunately, the proposition at issue, "Atheism Is Foolish", can be rebutted by showing that the naturalistic philosophical alternatives have at least reasonable promise for answering the legitimate questions that Rev. Muse raises. For some questions, I will endeavor to show that naturalistic philosophy that atheism must turn to actually improves upon its theistic equivalent.
Therefore I will devote Part I primarily to asking the same questions of theism that Rev. Muse asks of atheism, and critiquing his answers. I will devote Part II to the answers from the atheistic, naturalistic, secular position.
I also wish to point out to our readers that Rev. Muse in his opening statement has added some rhetorical flourishes to the definitions of "atheism" and "foolishness". I will refer our readers to the definitions given in the parameters of this debate; I assume that we both are still adhering to the stipulated definitions.
Epistemological Issues
Rev. Muse states that there is no positive or unquestionable proof that there is no God. This is correct in some senses and incorrect in others. When one is talking about a god who is perfectly- or at least well-hidden by nature or by design, no, one cannot absolutely prove the non-existence of such a god. But these are precisely the gods towards whom, by definition, disbelief is justified by the very existence of such a deity and thus not foolish.
We can draw a similar conclusion regarding "a God (transcendent, omniscient, omnipotent, etc.) who either chose not to reveal himself to man, or chose to reveal himself to some but not to others, or chose to reveal himself progressively." Even under a epistemology of revelation, I cannot have knowledge of a god who does not reveal itself to me, and thus my disbelief is not only justified but compelled. Likewise, "inabilities or restrictions inherent to the present condition of man (such as his blindness, lack of understanding, powerlessness...)" (I'm sure that Rev. Muse includes "moral resistance" and "intentional rejection of the truth" only from pedantic completeness) would justify the belief in the nonexistence of god. To use his own metaphor, if a man keeps "his existence and supremacy known from an ant," one cannot justly call the ant a fool for disbelieving in the man. And what about a god who, like the author of a play or novel, wishes or requires the positive suspension of belief in itself? If we can posit a god who requires belief without proof, we can just as easily posit a god who requires disbelief without or even with proof.
Gods who reasonably engender agnosticism are irrelevant; the only gods for whom disbelief is at all relevant to questions of wisdom or foolishness are the gods to which "all the evidence points," if, of course, such evidence were to actually exist. In these cases lack of evidence, if indeed it is lacking, makes positive disbelief reasonable and justifiable. Since evil exists, I know with certainty that no god exists who has both the power and will to abolish evil as we presently understand it. Since I believe that no god exists, I know with certainty that no god exists who has the power and will to engender my belief. Furthermore, since no universal belief in any particular deity exists, I know with certainty that no god exists with the power and will to engender such universal belief.
The requirement of absolute proof is consistent only with Rev. Muse's rhetorical additions to the position of atheism. If atheism were indeed the dogmatic assertion of any god's nonexistence, if the atheistic belief were "absolute" and "utter" (in the sense of being unchangeable), if the atheist showed "absolute faith", then yes, with anything less than absolute proof, atheism would be foolish indeed. But atheism does not entail such dogmatic, absolute belief. To require absolute proof for any belief entails holding no beliefs, to descend into a paralyzed solipsism. The atheist such as myself, rather, has examined the evidence, and come to the belief to which the evidence points. If new evidence or a new argument comes to my attention--if, for instance, a god were to reveal itself to me--I would change my belief.
Indeed it is the theist who dogmatically believes in god, whose belief is absolute and utter, and from whom absolute faith is expected. By Rev. Muse's own argument, we expect from the theist not merely the preponderance of evidence, not merely one or some or even many subtle arguments, but absolute, unquestionable, undeniable proof of the existence of a god to refrain from calling foolish his absolute faith.
I am curious about Rev. Muse's claim that atheism "monopolizes on a method that doesn't make sense". While the idea that the scientific method does not entirely eliminate metaphysics (as the positivists would like to have done), does Rev. Muse actually ask us to believe that appealing to science, our experience and the evidence of our senses makes no sense? No sense at all? What does theism offer as an alternative? If the answer is divine revelation, to what degree should we rely on revelation? Which revelation? And where does that put those of us, such as myself, who have had no revelation at all?
Rev. Muse does get one thing correct about atheism: "The very idea or question of the existence of a transcendent, intervening, and wonder working God by definition departs from the idea of everything always working according to the subordinate laws governing the universe." It does indeed. I fail to understand only why Rev. Muse is so amazed that atheists use this argument.
The Origin, Existence, and Nature of the Universe
I will expound more on the atheistic and scientific nature of the origin and existence of the Universe in Part II, so that Rev. Muse will have a more specific and thorough position to critique.
Rev. Muse repeats Blanchard's claim that "Matter is either 'eternal, self-creative, or created by a self-existent God.'" What support can Rev. Muse offer for this trilemma? Has Rev. Muse considered the alternatives, such as Hawking's speculation that matter and energy exist in a finite but unbounded space-time[1]? That our universe arose from a fluctuation in a non-spatial/non-temporal vacuum? That matter might be, rather than self-created, self-existent, as the theist god is purported to be? To show that atheism is foolish, Rev. Muse must show not just that these alternatives are not absolutely proven, but logically impossible or empirically disproved.
Rev. Muse asserts that the claim that the universe "just is" is an “unreasonable and insensible approach�? towards the "enormous, detailed, intricate universe which displays such great depth of wisdom, purpose, intelligence, ingenuity, beauty, and function." I would certainly agree that the universe is enormous, detailed and intricate; I would also agree that I find it beautiful. And, of course, it does function. But there is no evidence that the universe displays intelligence, wisdom, purpose or ingenuity. And how does this position differ from the theistic position that God--who Himself is purportedly an "enormous, detailed, intricate" being who "displays such great depth of wisdom, purpose, intelligence, ingenuity, beauty, and function"--that such a God Himself "just exists"?
The theistic answer to the origin of the universe, "God did it," just gives a different label to our ignorance. If the atheist does not know how or why the universe exists, the theist cannot tell us how or why god created the universe. Both the theist and atheist can speculate on why there is something (god/the universe) rather than nothing (no god/no universe), but neither can give a conclusive answer. Fundamentally something has to “just exist�?; at least we know the universe does indeed exist.
The theistic answers to the nature of the universe are even more unsatisfactory. Leaving the origin aside, why is the universe the way it is instead of somehow different? Why do we have stars, planets, galaxies, clusters, super-clusters? Why an enormous universe instead of a small one? I've seen the theist offer only the wholly unsatisfactory answer, "I guess that's how God must have wanted it."
Life and Humanity
Rev. Muse claims that "the essence of life itself cannot be explained by the tenets of atheism." What is the theistic alternative to the biological sciences? Animistic theories have been long since abandoned; however uncertain we are about the origin of terrestrial life, there is nothing mystical about its existence. Even Rev. Muse himself says that "Evidence suggests the world can simply continue, sustain, and propagate life."
Rev. Muse claims that "it is of utmost foolishness for man to put his absolute confidence and trust in a belief system or religion that cannot provide answers for its own basic existence and life." The only theistic answer that Rev. Muse offers is that, "A supernatural transcendent being who possesses life in himself and who has given and breathed life into his creation." A metaphor is not answers. Why are we mortal? Why do we so often die with such pain and indignity? Again, anyone can speculate; ideas about the "fall of man" and "original sin" are just that: speculation. Can Rev. Muse offer proof? Or even Evidence?
What are Rev. Muse's "satisfactory and sensibly pleasing arguments regarding, the purpose, and solutions or comforts of life"? What answer does theism provide for the purpose of terrestrial life other than to shamelessly flatter some deity? What is the purpose of our suffering? Why can an omnipotent god not simply create us directly in The Big Rock Candy Mountain the theist calls heaven?
Furthermore, I have lost count of the times that I've heard a theist call his god's purposes mysterious, unknown or even unknowable. Calling a purpose mysterious is the precise opposite of a "satisfactory and sensibly pleasing" argument, explanation or justification.
This lack of an answer is even more obvious when the theist moves away from the broadest generalizations. What's the purpose of a child dying painfully from cancer? What's the purpose of the millions killed in earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, famines and plagues? What is the purpose of Bubonic plague, Alzheimer's disease, cancer of the rectum? We ask not only why we so often die in pain and indignity but also what is the purpose of such apparently pointless suffering? What's the purpose of childhood diabetes, gout, arthritis, menstruation? Looking at the world, if there were a god, we might reasonably conclude that its purpose was the sadistic desire to inflict as much suffering on humanity as possible. I would rather believe in no god than the existence of such a malign thug.
What answer does theism offer (aside, that is, from the dubious promise of The Big Rock Candy Mountain) to suffering and pain other than to "deal with it or get over it"? What reasons, proofs or evidence support and justify the answers? For instance, I'm frankly astounded that even a single Christian accepts the "explanation" that Yahweh has inflicted or permitted his or her suffering for the purpose of punishing Adam's sin. Good grief, it's been 6000 years; Yahweh sure does hold a grudge!
The Future
Rev. Muse claims that atheism provides less that satisfactory and comforting answers concerning the future. Indeed, I must again ask about the theistic alternatives. The theist can speculate and spin fantasies about a Big Rock Candy Mountain, but can such speculation be more than empty promises? But neither atheism nor any materialistic science entails logically that there is no life after death. Life itself is an ordinary, naturalistic phenomenon; if there were indeed some "evidence [that] provides some hope of life after death," then ordinary naturalistic science could investigate it. Atheists who believe the finality of death do so because the evidence points to only that conclusion.
So where is the evidence that not only justifies the belief in some form of afterlife, but also justifies the idea of a god being necessarily responsible? Rev. Muse offers his analogy of the seed. But this analogy is inapt. What does it mean that a "seed must die that new life might come"? And even if this is true in some unusual sense, it seems obvious that people are not plants, our "seeds" never die, and the metaphor speaks to reproduction, not to any personal resurrection--not even of the plant itself. This is a slender reed indeed upon which to lay any hope of human resurrection.
I must agree with Rev. Muse: "All reasonable men desire life and more of it, while at the same time death is clearly an enemy, bringing separation and destruction." But where does theism claim death came from? Given an omnipotent god, it could come only from that god. And what has theism done to defeat and ameliorate death? When will god's revelation provide us with a cure for cancer or for aging?
What about the future of terrestrial life? What does religion have to say about this? Buddhism offers nothing; Judaism offers nothing; Islam and Christianity offer only Armageddon; Hinduism offers an endless cycle of suffering at the hands of their gods. If we wish answers to the future of Earth and humanity, what advice does theism offers us besides the vague reassurance that, "Daddy will make it all right in the end"?
History
Rev. Muse claims that, "Atheism offers no real answer for the historical evidence concerning the religious nature of man." I will address the position of atheism and natural science on this point in Part II, but for now I wish to examine the position of theism. What answer does theism offer for the variety and lack of agreement among mankind’s religions? If a god were truly to exist, we would instead expect to see widespread agreement. All people, regardless of culture, agree on what is blue, what is one foot long, what weighs ten pounds--all of these are objectively true. Why do they then disagree so completely, violently and passionately about their religion? Sure, the theist might speculate and fantasize about an all-good, all-just, all-powerful god who completely misleads and fools its creation about such an important issue, but such speculation seems entirely implausible.
Ethics, Justice and Morality
Rev. Muse makes one good point: As Stalinism and Maoism show, atheism is no panacea when tyrannically imposed. I will explore this point more thoroughly in Part II of this debate when I discuss political secularism. In this part, though, I will ask Rev. Muse to address explicitly religious governments. Rev. Muse claims that, "When God is removed from government and society, it opens the door in varying degrees according to the situation to abuse of power, to oppression of the beliefs of others, and in some cases to brutality." But when God is explicitly part of government, the record is no better; oppression, intolerance and brutality appear, sadly, to be part of the human condition.
What does Rev. Muse have to say about the European Middle Ages, a thousand years of tyranny, ignorance, death and disease, ruled and directed by Christianity? What does Rev. Muse have to say about present-day Islam in the Middle East? If democracy is so theistic, why did it require a group of naturalistic deists, atheists and Unitarians to establish the first modern democracy in 18th Century America? Rev. Muse quotes Bourne's charges: "'Modern Atheism' is a mass phenomenon, and its stern tolerance means to rule over the whole future of mankind." Has not this been true of many, if not most, religions?
There are other issues with theistic politics. Why is revelation disallowed as testimony in court? Why does no body of religious writing give us in whole our modern legal system? What happened to the divine right of kings? Why must we bother with legislatures, elections, courts and trials? All of which we've had to work out for ourselves using natural reason with no consistent, explicit guidance from any deity.
I will discuss naturalistic morality in more depth in Part II. My question for this part is, where is this "transcendent authority"? Where is the "absolute truth"? Where are the laws that transcend time and experience"? Every sect of every religion seems to have a different idea about what constitutes the absolute truth from the transcendent deity. Slavery was condoned by good, sincere Christians up to the Civil War[2] and has extensive support in the Christian bible[3]. How can a transcendent authority providing the absolute truth about laws that transcend time and space get such a big issue as slavery so wrong for so long? And slavery is not the only issue; Theodore Drange offers a list of Christian laws that supposedly transcend time and experience.[4]:
Quote:
| We no longer execute people for having the wrong religion or for working on the Sabbath or for a few dozen other (at best) minor offenses. The Bible discriminates against women. We now believe in women's rights, children's rights, and animal rights, all of which are ideas totally foreign to the Bible. God is supposed to have ordered female virgins to be taken as war plunder (Num. 31:18-40) and to marry their attackers if they are seduced or raped (Exod. 22:16, Deut. 22:28-29). Such ideas are totally foreign to modern morality. Even the Sermon on the Mount presents us with impossible standards. Jesus tells us there to not resist evil, not defend ourselves against violence, and give away everything that anyone might ask of us (Matt. 5:38-42), but really if people were to follow such advice then they would not survive long in our world. Maybe among the extinct tribes of the world there are some who actually tried to live by the Sermon on the Mount. Anyway, our current conceptions of morality have very little to do with what is written in the Bible. I think that most people who advocate Biblical ethics are simply ignorant about the Bible and unaware of what that ethics amounts to. |
Rev. Muse charges that "The atheist does not deal thoroughly either with the acknowledged experience and evidence of guilt." But Rev. Muse offers a perfectly reasonable naturalistic response: "It is enough to apologize and ask forgiveness from the person you have done wrong." It is indeed "simply on the basis that you determined (or both of you agreed) that it was wrong." One might speculate further, but why, and on what basis?
Rev. Muse asks if atheism has "an acceptable answer for why man acts against what his conscience tells him is wrong, or why man fails 'to do what he wants to do' but 'does what he hates.'" What evidence is there that people typically or usually act this way? It's been my experience that most people act in concert with their conscience, they do what they want, and they refrain from doing what they hate. It seems that it is, in the main, it is only theists who have such a struggle; and what more explanation is required than that the conflicted theist has needlessly adopted a moral code in conflict with his nature and reason?
Other Issues
I don't understand Etienne Borne's comment that atheism "cannot escape another most serious and most significant ambiguity." Bourne seems to confuse worship with desire. This comment is entirely opaque to me.
I also don't understand what Rev. Muse means when he claims that atheism "does not substantively and reasonably provide answers to the paradoxes in life." What paradoxes? In life, we usually find that the lowly are born lowly, live lowly and die lowly; the weak are exploited by the strong; when we give something away we don't have it any more; when we die, we die; we live by satisfying our self and our desires, and a person who possesses nothing has nothing.
Rev. Muse charges that atheism "chooses to deny the implications that... point to a future judgment." What implications are these?
Conclusion: Reasons for Adopting a Philosophy
Rev. Muse argues that, "Atheism as a belief system fails historically and socially to provide an incentive for embracing it." It must be admitted that historically and socially, theism has indeed found many adherents. Some incentives no doubt exist, but we are justified in considering the nature of these incentives. What does theism appeal to (when it has not been imposed by naked oppression and threat), if not only our fear and ignorance? Why does theism place its inducements, its promises and threats, beyond rational or sensible inquiry?
Before science, it is arguable that theism's supernatural promises had some value as comfort. But now that we have the means to alleviate suffering here and now, theism's anachronistic supernatural fairy tales only retard our progress. What are the reasons for embracing theism today? Today, we have science, technology, philosophies and political systems that seem to be improving the lot of mankind in this world. And these philosophies ignore, deny, marginalize, or give only lip service to revelation and supernaturalism; all of them are entirely compatible with atheism.
I charge that, although theism does attempt to answer the questions posed by Rev. Muse, Rev. Muse has not shown that these answers are reasonable, substantive or satisfactory. Absent such answers it is wise to turn to atheism and naturalistic philosophy if only from desperation.
----------------------
References:
[1] Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time"
[2] Edward T. Babinski, "The Uniqueness of the Christian Experience"
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...xperience.html
[3] Skeptic’s Annotated Dictionary, "Slavery and the Bible"
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.co...s/slavery.html
[4] Theodore Drange, "Why Be Moral?"
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode.../whymoral.html
Sunday, November 09, 2008
The Great American God-Out
The Great American God-Out will be held on Saturday, November 15 at the Westfield shopping center in San Francisco. The featured speaker will be Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the The Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
Catastrophe, atrocity and ideology
To what degree do the catastrophes and atrocities of the socialist/communist governments reflect on socialism and communism? A related question: to what degree do the catastrophes and atrocities of Islamic governments reflect on Islam? Yet another related question: Why do the catastrophes* and atrocities of capitalist/imperialist governments almost never reflect on capitalism? Yet another related question: Why do the the catastrophes and atrocities of science almost never reflect on science itself?
*It seems obvious that the massive urbanization of capitalist societies had a dramatic impact on the epidemiology of the Spanish Flu.
If some ideology, program or methodology — some some mode of thought — leads to severely bad results, should not those results be sufficient justification to abandon that mode of thought? Contrawise, if we are willing to preserve science and capitalism despite its catastrophes and atrocities, saying that they were not reflective of "true" capitalism and science, why then should we not preserve Islam and accept the excuse that the catastrophes and atrocities were not reflective of "true" Islam? And how does this distinction reflect on socialism?
It's simply insufficient to say, "If X leads to bad results, then X is bad." If we believed that, we would believe nothing else: every organized mode of thought, even Buddhism, has led to bad results. We must always — even in the case of Islam and Christianity — look deeper to understand and eliminate the actual cause of bad results. We must look deeper even into Islam and Christianity before dismissing them.
The key question to ask is: what is the core of the ideology, and what is the connection between the core ideology and the bad results? These are nontrivial questions.
In the case of Christianity and Islam, we can find the core ideology — or at least part of it — in its scriptures. Without some authority given in some sense to the Bible and the Koran you simply do not have Christianity or Islam at all. You cannot simply throw the Koran in the trash and honestly call yourself a Muslim; you cannot relegate the Bible to a work of entirely human literature and honestly call yourself a Christian.
If the scripture is part of the core ideology of a religion, then its canonical exegesis — its "interpretive schema" — must form the rest of the ideology. The interpretation must be canonical, endorsed by some authoritative body, to rise even to the level of ideology. Were there no canonical interpretation at all, then I — a dedicated "militant" atheist — could "honestly" call myself a Muslim: I certainly agree that the Koran exists, and if my interpretation is just as good as anyone else's then I'm just as good a Muslim as anyone else.
There's another problem too, a big problem, with religious scriptures. The plain meaning of the text is, in too many places, simply incompatible with humanistic ethics, ethics which place at the most foundational level the emotional and material well-being of human beings. The religious believer has a trilemma: abandon the authority of scripture, abandon the authority of humanism, or somehow interpret the anti-humanistic elements of scripture in a humanistic way. The first option leads to atheism; the second to "Phelpsism"; the third is simply schizophrenic, preserving humanism at the expense of rationality. And the third way is always incomplete. If you interpreted all the scripture humanistically you would just be, for all practical purposes, an atheist; why have a scripture at all if humanism is universally dominant? But the temptation to interpret scripture to justify one's prejudices is very strong: the inherent function of scripture is to justify ethical principles that cannot be justified humanistically.
So we see that fundamentally atrocities of religion cannot be divorced from the core ideology of the religion. Therefore we must conclude that the core ideology of religion is a sufficient causal reason for its atrocities, and rationally deserves the blame.
The core ideology of science is the scientific method. The scientific method is purely epistemic; it has almost no ethical content. Regardless of ethics, it is still true that if you compress a couple of kilograms of plutonium with some high explosives, you get a hell of a big bang. The only ethical content of the scientific method relates to our ethical beliefs about truth itself. Science tells us what the choices are, not — at a fundamental level — how to choose between them.
So in this sense, the core ideology of science is fundamentally good: To make choices, it is necessary and good to rationally apprehend the nature of the choices, good and bad. The core ideology of science can be divorced in an important sense from the atrocities of some scientists.
How about capitalism? It is clear that many (but not all) of the atrocities of capitalism, including imperialist world wars and wars of aggression, recessions and depressions, systemic poverty and hyper-exploitation stem directly from the notion of private property, especially absentee ownership. You simply cannot remove the atrocities without somehow compromising the notion of private property as an essential ethical principle, and you cannot have capitalism without private property any more than you can have Christianity without Jesus or Islam without Muhammad. Say what you will about Ayn Rand, but at least she's absolutely honest about this point: no atrocity, no catastrophe — not even the fall of civilization and the death of millions — justifies the least interference with private property. She was as vocal and dedicated an opponent of Keynesian liberalism as she was of totalitarian fascism, in just the same sense that one can and should be a vocal and dedicated opponent of the murder of one person as the murder of millions. And, of course, in just the same sense that if the Bible really is the word of God, one should be a vocal and dedicated opponent of throwing away (or interpreting away) a single verse as of throwing away the whole book.
What about socialism?
The problem with socialism (and communism) is that socialism has no core ideology. There is simply no widespread agreement over even a single point among self-identified socialists... especially if one counts the government of China, which still self-identifies as socialist*. There is no authoritative body whatsoever that specifies a canon of literature or a canonical interpretation. The word "socialism" — without additional qualification — actually means nothing at all. (Or almost nothing. If I tell you I'm a socialist, I've at least told you that I'm definitely not a Randian, that I do not consider private property an absolute, essential ethical principle. But even capitalists don't hold private property as absolutely inviolate. And I can more easily tell you that I'm not a Randian by saying that I'm not an idiot and a complete asshole.)
We simply cannot address socialism or communism as a category, good, bad or indifferent. We have to address individual expressions of socialism individually. If we want to understand the Soviet Union or Maoist China, we have to look at the Soviet Union and Maoist China. When we have learned all we can from them, we find we have learned about the Soviet Union's socialism and Maoist China's socialism (and sometimes just the Soviet Union and Maoist China), not socialism in general.
One persistent habit of scientists is that any general field of study is never named after an individual. It's evolutionary biology, not Darwinism; relativity, not Einsteinianism; electromagnetism, not Maxwellianism; quantum mechanics, not Heisenbergism or Schroedingerism. To name a field of study after person is to elevate their writings, if not to scripture, then to a core ideology, tying yourself to their errors and omissions as well as their insights. (The reference to specifically Newtonian mechanics is a reference to Newton's limitations, to make clear one is using a simplification and approximation of real (relativistic) physics.)
It's notable that the most pseudoscientific of the "scientific" disciplines, Freudianism, is indeed named after its founder. And don't even get me started on fucking academic philosophy, which is lousy with personalization.
For this reason, I have never and will never self-identify as a Marxist or Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. There is no doubt that Marx, Lenin, and Mao had profound insights, learned important lessons and explicated important ideas. If one believes that a revolution is necessary to overcome the evils inherent in capitalist/imperialist ideology, then it is foolish to ignore the only two people who have led successful revolutions against imperialist capitalism and attempted to actually implement a non-capitalist society. But on the other hand, I'm unwilling to allow even the writings of Marx himself to form my "core ideology"; to do so would be to tie myself to his failures as well as his successes. For the same reason, I will never join a group that explicitly calls itself Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, even if they are actually critical of Marx's, Lenin's and Mao's thought. For the same reason, if you want me take seriously what you have to say about psychology and psychoanalysis, you can't call yourself a Freudian.
I call myself a communist and socialist for the same reason (and with the same vagueness) that I call myself an atheist. Which is to say, I'm saying nothing except that I'm not religious, and I do not consider capitalism — even Keynesian regulated/stimulus capitalism — the bee's knees. Beyond that, if you want to find out what I do believe, you'll have to read what I personally have to say.
*It seems obvious that the massive urbanization of capitalist societies had a dramatic impact on the epidemiology of the Spanish Flu.
If some ideology, program or methodology — some some mode of thought — leads to severely bad results, should not those results be sufficient justification to abandon that mode of thought? Contrawise, if we are willing to preserve science and capitalism despite its catastrophes and atrocities, saying that they were not reflective of "true" capitalism and science, why then should we not preserve Islam and accept the excuse that the catastrophes and atrocities were not reflective of "true" Islam? And how does this distinction reflect on socialism?
It's simply insufficient to say, "If X leads to bad results, then X is bad." If we believed that, we would believe nothing else: every organized mode of thought, even Buddhism, has led to bad results. We must always — even in the case of Islam and Christianity — look deeper to understand and eliminate the actual cause of bad results. We must look deeper even into Islam and Christianity before dismissing them.
The key question to ask is: what is the core of the ideology, and what is the connection between the core ideology and the bad results? These are nontrivial questions.
In the case of Christianity and Islam, we can find the core ideology — or at least part of it — in its scriptures. Without some authority given in some sense to the Bible and the Koran you simply do not have Christianity or Islam at all. You cannot simply throw the Koran in the trash and honestly call yourself a Muslim; you cannot relegate the Bible to a work of entirely human literature and honestly call yourself a Christian.
If the scripture is part of the core ideology of a religion, then its canonical exegesis — its "interpretive schema" — must form the rest of the ideology. The interpretation must be canonical, endorsed by some authoritative body, to rise even to the level of ideology. Were there no canonical interpretation at all, then I — a dedicated "militant" atheist — could "honestly" call myself a Muslim: I certainly agree that the Koran exists, and if my interpretation is just as good as anyone else's then I'm just as good a Muslim as anyone else.
There's another problem too, a big problem, with religious scriptures. The plain meaning of the text is, in too many places, simply incompatible with humanistic ethics, ethics which place at the most foundational level the emotional and material well-being of human beings. The religious believer has a trilemma: abandon the authority of scripture, abandon the authority of humanism, or somehow interpret the anti-humanistic elements of scripture in a humanistic way. The first option leads to atheism; the second to "Phelpsism"; the third is simply schizophrenic, preserving humanism at the expense of rationality. And the third way is always incomplete. If you interpreted all the scripture humanistically you would just be, for all practical purposes, an atheist; why have a scripture at all if humanism is universally dominant? But the temptation to interpret scripture to justify one's prejudices is very strong: the inherent function of scripture is to justify ethical principles that cannot be justified humanistically.
So we see that fundamentally atrocities of religion cannot be divorced from the core ideology of the religion. Therefore we must conclude that the core ideology of religion is a sufficient causal reason for its atrocities, and rationally deserves the blame.
The core ideology of science is the scientific method. The scientific method is purely epistemic; it has almost no ethical content. Regardless of ethics, it is still true that if you compress a couple of kilograms of plutonium with some high explosives, you get a hell of a big bang. The only ethical content of the scientific method relates to our ethical beliefs about truth itself. Science tells us what the choices are, not — at a fundamental level — how to choose between them.
So in this sense, the core ideology of science is fundamentally good: To make choices, it is necessary and good to rationally apprehend the nature of the choices, good and bad. The core ideology of science can be divorced in an important sense from the atrocities of some scientists.
How about capitalism? It is clear that many (but not all) of the atrocities of capitalism, including imperialist world wars and wars of aggression, recessions and depressions, systemic poverty and hyper-exploitation stem directly from the notion of private property, especially absentee ownership. You simply cannot remove the atrocities without somehow compromising the notion of private property as an essential ethical principle, and you cannot have capitalism without private property any more than you can have Christianity without Jesus or Islam without Muhammad. Say what you will about Ayn Rand, but at least she's absolutely honest about this point: no atrocity, no catastrophe — not even the fall of civilization and the death of millions — justifies the least interference with private property. She was as vocal and dedicated an opponent of Keynesian liberalism as she was of totalitarian fascism, in just the same sense that one can and should be a vocal and dedicated opponent of the murder of one person as the murder of millions. And, of course, in just the same sense that if the Bible really is the word of God, one should be a vocal and dedicated opponent of throwing away (or interpreting away) a single verse as of throwing away the whole book.
What about socialism?
The problem with socialism (and communism) is that socialism has no core ideology. There is simply no widespread agreement over even a single point among self-identified socialists... especially if one counts the government of China, which still self-identifies as socialist*. There is no authoritative body whatsoever that specifies a canon of literature or a canonical interpretation. The word "socialism" — without additional qualification — actually means nothing at all. (Or almost nothing. If I tell you I'm a socialist, I've at least told you that I'm definitely not a Randian, that I do not consider private property an absolute, essential ethical principle. But even capitalists don't hold private property as absolutely inviolate. And I can more easily tell you that I'm not a Randian by saying that I'm not an idiot and a complete asshole.)
We simply cannot address socialism or communism as a category, good, bad or indifferent. We have to address individual expressions of socialism individually. If we want to understand the Soviet Union or Maoist China, we have to look at the Soviet Union and Maoist China. When we have learned all we can from them, we find we have learned about the Soviet Union's socialism and Maoist China's socialism (and sometimes just the Soviet Union and Maoist China), not socialism in general.
One persistent habit of scientists is that any general field of study is never named after an individual. It's evolutionary biology, not Darwinism; relativity, not Einsteinianism; electromagnetism, not Maxwellianism; quantum mechanics, not Heisenbergism or Schroedingerism. To name a field of study after person is to elevate their writings, if not to scripture, then to a core ideology, tying yourself to their errors and omissions as well as their insights. (The reference to specifically Newtonian mechanics is a reference to Newton's limitations, to make clear one is using a simplification and approximation of real (relativistic) physics.)
It's notable that the most pseudoscientific of the "scientific" disciplines, Freudianism, is indeed named after its founder. And don't even get me started on fucking academic philosophy, which is lousy with personalization.
For this reason, I have never and will never self-identify as a Marxist or Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. There is no doubt that Marx, Lenin, and Mao had profound insights, learned important lessons and explicated important ideas. If one believes that a revolution is necessary to overcome the evils inherent in capitalist/imperialist ideology, then it is foolish to ignore the only two people who have led successful revolutions against imperialist capitalism and attempted to actually implement a non-capitalist society. But on the other hand, I'm unwilling to allow even the writings of Marx himself to form my "core ideology"; to do so would be to tie myself to his failures as well as his successes. For the same reason, I will never join a group that explicitly calls itself Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, even if they are actually critical of Marx's, Lenin's and Mao's thought. For the same reason, if you want me take seriously what you have to say about psychology and psychoanalysis, you can't call yourself a Freudian.
I call myself a communist and socialist for the same reason (and with the same vagueness) that I call myself an atheist. Which is to say, I'm saying nothing except that I'm not religious, and I do not consider capitalism — even Keynesian regulated/stimulus capitalism — the bee's knees. Beyond that, if you want to find out what I do believe, you'll have to read what I personally have to say.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Reddit & Digg
Please don't submit my posts to reddit, digg, and those sorts of sites, nor to various carnivals. I'm simply not interested in submitting my work to the judgment of intellectually lazy morons.
Adding my posts to your shared items, linking to me, or responding to my posts, even critically, is fine. I'm happy with individual judgments, good or bad.
But the search for truth is not well served by voting down ideas you disagree with... or even voting up ideas you agree with.
Update: Oh! the irony! I'm getting a ton of hits from this post from twitter and friendfeed, whatever the fuck those are.
Update 2: Yes, I'm a snob. If that's a problem for you, go read lolcats.
Update 3: Seriously, if you're coming here from the socialism reddit, I'm just not interested.
Adding my posts to your shared items, linking to me, or responding to my posts, even critically, is fine. I'm happy with individual judgments, good or bad.
But the search for truth is not well served by voting down ideas you disagree with... or even voting up ideas you agree with.
Update: Oh! the irony! I'm getting a ton of hits from this post from twitter and friendfeed, whatever the fuck those are.
Update 2: Yes, I'm a snob. If that's a problem for you, go read lolcats.
Update 3: Seriously, if you're coming here from the socialism reddit, I'm just not interested.
Corporatism and hierarchy
db0 draws a comparison between corporatism and Stalinism. I think he's mistaken on a number of points.
First of all, there's a lot of confusion, even within the socialist/communist world, between the economic foundation of a society and its political superstructure. Even Marx acknowledged that these two components of a society have a large degree of independence from each other. While some economic foundations might be incompatible with some political superstructures, it is equally the case that a particular economic foundation does not entail one particular superstructure.
People concentrate too much, I think, on the details of the formal structures of organizations. But the key question, in my opinion, is the underlying balance of power, and how well the structure is suited to and maintains that balance of power.
db0 observes that corporations, like Stalinist communism, are top-down and hierarchical. However, merely having a hierarchical organization does not necessarily mean that those at the top of the hierarchy have all the power and those at the bottom have none. (Of course, such an imbalance is, however, possible.)
In a capitalist corporation, those at the bottom have — or can have — the power to quit, the power to strike, and the power to slack. Those at the top need not only the worker's work but also their more-or-less willing cooperation: a cooperative worker produces more surplus value than one mindlessly obeying out of fear of starvation.
When you have proper unionization and the effective freedom to quit (both of which have been effectively realized in practice), the power of the workers balances the power of management to the benefit of both. The problem with capitalism is not that it employs hierarchical management, but rather that it tends to destabilize this balance of power, especially when the economy is static or contracting.
Those interested in socialist political systems must focus on restoring the balance of power between competing interests that is being systematically eroded by capitalists — and there is little evidence that President-elect Obama intends to restore that balance — and take steps to preserve that balance. Preserve the balance; the fine details of decision making will evolve on their own.
First of all, there's a lot of confusion, even within the socialist/communist world, between the economic foundation of a society and its political superstructure. Even Marx acknowledged that these two components of a society have a large degree of independence from each other. While some economic foundations might be incompatible with some political superstructures, it is equally the case that a particular economic foundation does not entail one particular superstructure.
People concentrate too much, I think, on the details of the formal structures of organizations. But the key question, in my opinion, is the underlying balance of power, and how well the structure is suited to and maintains that balance of power.
db0 observes that corporations, like Stalinist communism, are top-down and hierarchical. However, merely having a hierarchical organization does not necessarily mean that those at the top of the hierarchy have all the power and those at the bottom have none. (Of course, such an imbalance is, however, possible.)
In a capitalist corporation, those at the bottom have — or can have — the power to quit, the power to strike, and the power to slack. Those at the top need not only the worker's work but also their more-or-less willing cooperation: a cooperative worker produces more surplus value than one mindlessly obeying out of fear of starvation.
When you have proper unionization and the effective freedom to quit (both of which have been effectively realized in practice), the power of the workers balances the power of management to the benefit of both. The problem with capitalism is not that it employs hierarchical management, but rather that it tends to destabilize this balance of power, especially when the economy is static or contracting.
Those interested in socialist political systems must focus on restoring the balance of power between competing interests that is being systematically eroded by capitalists — and there is little evidence that President-elect Obama intends to restore that balance — and take steps to preserve that balance. Preserve the balance; the fine details of decision making will evolve on their own.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Proposition 8 and gay rights
The people of California have denied gay people a right we afford to convicted mass murderers. Even Charles Manson can marry. There is absolutely no reason to deny gay people the freedom to marry except to punish them.
If you support Proposition 8, but you do not support the imprisonment of gay people, you are worse than a bigot, you're a hypocrite. If you think gay people are bad and should be removed from society, then have the courage and honesty to say so publicly.
But not here. I'm just not interested. If you want to call for gay people to be imprisoned, exiled or murdered; if you want to try to weasel your way out of your contemptible hypocrisy; get your own damn blog.
If you support Proposition 8, but you do not support the imprisonment of gay people, you are worse than a bigot, you're a hypocrite. If you think gay people are bad and should be removed from society, then have the courage and honesty to say so publicly.
But not here. I'm just not interested. If you want to call for gay people to be imprisoned, exiled or murdered; if you want to try to weasel your way out of your contemptible hypocrisy; get your own damn blog.
Proposition 8 and universal human rights
Let's say that there's a controversy over whether people should be required to eat Brussels sprouts or whether they should be prohibited from eating Brussels sprouts. (I know it's a false dichotomy, but run with me here.) Obviously, we'd have a big fight on our hands. People (such as myself) who find Brussels sprouts disgusting would strongly resist any attempt to force us to eat the damn things. Likewise, those who (inexplicably) find them delicious would strongly resist any attempt to force them to go without Brussels sprouts.
Sometimes, there are issues we just have to fight about. Should, for example, husbands be permitted to rape their wives? It is only recently that the law has answered this question in the negative. There are some who disagree, and we fight them: we put them in jail if they disobey, and any philosophical argument they might raise in their defense to justify their behavior is simply irrelevant.
If we look at the Brussels sprouts issue, we realize that the same issue applied to every kind of food: spinach, broccoli, ice cream (which a lot of people find vile), and on and on. If we simply let the majority rule on each individual food item, we find that the majority of people (indeed almost everyone) will be denied one food or another, with no compensation. Majority rule leads in this case to majority dissatisfaction. We must look at this issue more deeply.
(We don't have to find that majority rule leads to majority dissatisfaction to look more deeply; just the fact of a strong, deep controversy is sufficient grounds to look. But that there are occasions where majority rule leads to majority dissatisfaction justifies looking more deeply in general in powerful way.)
One way of looking at an ethical issue more deeply is to ask a more general, abstract question: how do we feel about food in general, without naming the specific foods? Can we come to a broad, relatively non-controversial agreement on general principles, and apply them in such a way that the majority is satisfied? And of course we can: we eat what we like; we are prohibited from eating (or more precisely selling) only food that will kill us quickly.
The same analysis also applies to speech.
Let me be frank: I wish the Nazis, the racists, Fred Phelps, etc. ad nauseam would just shut the fuck up, and if they did, I would be unabashedly happy. If you asked me the question in isolation — Should we force these assholes to remain silent? — I'd probably say yes.
But of course everyone has some sort of minority opinion, so answering each question of speech in the particular would lead to most everyone forced to be silent about something. (There are, as John Stuart Mill explained, additional arguments against silencing minority opinions.) So we have to ask the general question: What in general should people be permitted or prohibited from speaking? And the answer we've come up with is to permit everything except provable libel, slander, incitement to riot, treason and conspiracy.
We can ask an even more general question: what activities should be tolerated in general for everyone. More specifically, what comprises the set of universal human rights?
What California Proposition 8 has done is remove the right to marry from the set of universal human rights. It is now acceptable for the government to arbitrarily determine, subject only to the will of the majority, who may marry and who may not. And far from "protecting" marriage, they have made marriage more vulnerable.
I am married. I'm in an interracial, atheist, intentionally childless marriage. All of those are minority positions. Now that Proposition 8 has passed, now that marriage is not a universal human right, it is legitimate for the government or the majority of people to deny me the freedom to marry on the basis of any of those factors. Traditionally people marry others of their own race: I did not. Traditionally people are married by a member of the clergy: I was not. Traditionally people are married to provide for their children: My wife and I will not have children (indeed we cannot; I've had a vasectomy). (And traditionally people marry others of approximately the same age: My wife is 20 years younger than me.)
Traditionally Americans are married in a Christian church. Those who are not Christians do not. Traditionally Americans are married in a Protestant Christian church. Those who are not Protestant Christians do not. Traditionally people marry someone from their local community. Traditionally people marry someone of the same religious faith. Traditionally people marry someone at about the same level of physical attractiveness. Traditionally people marry in their 20s.
Since we have now set a precedent of answering the question of who should marry in the particular, that the majority has a right to judge this question at the specific level, everyone whose marriage is non-traditional in any way could lose their right to marry by the arbitrary will of the majority.
Sometimes, there are issues we just have to fight about. Should, for example, husbands be permitted to rape their wives? It is only recently that the law has answered this question in the negative. There are some who disagree, and we fight them: we put them in jail if they disobey, and any philosophical argument they might raise in their defense to justify their behavior is simply irrelevant.
If we look at the Brussels sprouts issue, we realize that the same issue applied to every kind of food: spinach, broccoli, ice cream (which a lot of people find vile), and on and on. If we simply let the majority rule on each individual food item, we find that the majority of people (indeed almost everyone) will be denied one food or another, with no compensation. Majority rule leads in this case to majority dissatisfaction. We must look at this issue more deeply.
(We don't have to find that majority rule leads to majority dissatisfaction to look more deeply; just the fact of a strong, deep controversy is sufficient grounds to look. But that there are occasions where majority rule leads to majority dissatisfaction justifies looking more deeply in general in powerful way.)
One way of looking at an ethical issue more deeply is to ask a more general, abstract question: how do we feel about food in general, without naming the specific foods? Can we come to a broad, relatively non-controversial agreement on general principles, and apply them in such a way that the majority is satisfied? And of course we can: we eat what we like; we are prohibited from eating (or more precisely selling) only food that will kill us quickly.
The same analysis also applies to speech.
Let me be frank: I wish the Nazis, the racists, Fred Phelps, etc. ad nauseam would just shut the fuck up, and if they did, I would be unabashedly happy. If you asked me the question in isolation — Should we force these assholes to remain silent? — I'd probably say yes.
But of course everyone has some sort of minority opinion, so answering each question of speech in the particular would lead to most everyone forced to be silent about something. (There are, as John Stuart Mill explained, additional arguments against silencing minority opinions.) So we have to ask the general question: What in general should people be permitted or prohibited from speaking? And the answer we've come up with is to permit everything except provable libel, slander, incitement to riot, treason and conspiracy.
We can ask an even more general question: what activities should be tolerated in general for everyone. More specifically, what comprises the set of universal human rights?
What California Proposition 8 has done is remove the right to marry from the set of universal human rights. It is now acceptable for the government to arbitrarily determine, subject only to the will of the majority, who may marry and who may not. And far from "protecting" marriage, they have made marriage more vulnerable.
I am married. I'm in an interracial, atheist, intentionally childless marriage. All of those are minority positions. Now that Proposition 8 has passed, now that marriage is not a universal human right, it is legitimate for the government or the majority of people to deny me the freedom to marry on the basis of any of those factors. Traditionally people marry others of their own race: I did not. Traditionally people are married by a member of the clergy: I was not. Traditionally people are married to provide for their children: My wife and I will not have children (indeed we cannot; I've had a vasectomy). (And traditionally people marry others of approximately the same age: My wife is 20 years younger than me.)
Traditionally Americans are married in a Christian church. Those who are not Christians do not. Traditionally Americans are married in a Protestant Christian church. Those who are not Protestant Christians do not. Traditionally people marry someone from their local community. Traditionally people marry someone of the same religious faith. Traditionally people marry someone at about the same level of physical attractiveness. Traditionally people marry in their 20s.
Since we have now set a precedent of answering the question of who should marry in the particular, that the majority has a right to judge this question at the specific level, everyone whose marriage is non-traditional in any way could lose their right to marry by the arbitrary will of the majority.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Oh! the irony!
But two fundamental conservative stands [Sarah Palin] took mattered greatly to me: She vigorously defended the Second Amendment and the sanctity of life more eloquently in practice than any of the educated conservative aristocracy.
— Michelle Malkin
[h/t to Michael Bérubé]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)