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May 16, 2006
Shame on the Hunter Who is Fooled by His Own Decoy
Chip Hardy at Daily Hebrew has responded to my rant about his four Propositions and in so doing invited a further rant. There are two opposing temptations in any effort to navigate issues in the neighborhood of the definition of "religion" and the various questions concerning who may and who may not be religious. One is to attempt a rigorous philosophical analysis; the other is to be flippant. I will try to stay to a middle course. But I will probably error on the side of flippant.
Chip recommends two of the four definitions of "religion" in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary's,
(2) “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices” and (4) “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.”
Immediately I see a potential problem with definition (2). On its surface, it is a tautology. From it we learn nothing more than that religion involves religious kinds of stuff. When we seek help in the referenced (and linked) definition of "religious," we see that the fear of this being a tautology is justified in the case of the first two and perhaps the first part of the third referenced definition. But "religious" is defined as "fervent, zealous" in (3b). And that appears to provide a point of contact with the word "ardor" in definition (4) of "religion." I am still concerned that we may also be dealing with a tautology in definition (4). The reason for this concern is the conjunctive expression "ardor and faith." If the author of this lexical entry understood "faith" here as religious faith then we are back to a tautology. For the sake of continuing the discussion, I will assume that the author meant "faith" in some more general way. Evidence is lacking.
Considering definition (4) of "religion" and definition (3b) of "religious" together, we arrive at a rather weak definition of the lexical range for the word "religion." It is in the general range of a mindset or view that is "ardent, fervent, zealous." Aside from the tautologies, I see little else that can be made of definitions Chip recommends. I will point out that this is also a quite good definition of the mindset of Jack Nicholson as he watches a Lakers game. Many sports fans are ardent, fervent and zealous. Yet, various well-known wisecracks aside, few would think them religious on that basis alone. What we have here is, to my mind, an almost useless definition of "religion." It is so broad that it is inclusive of almost any activity of intense interest including the actions of our cat when his food bowl is empty.
For my money, Merriam-Webster's first definition of "religion" is just fine,
1 a: the state of a religious <a nun in her 20th year of religion> b (1): the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
Except for 1b(1), some of this verges on tautology also. However, I worry that Chip went shopping for third party confirmation for what he already believed.
In the second example that Chip brings up, he raises another approach to the problem. Please read what I am about to quote in context on his blog post.
I have never met a person who does not have an opinion about god, whether one believes in a certain faith’s manifestation of god or in one of her own making. Such an opinion would be considered a “religious belief.” Now would not a claim that there was not a god also amount to a “religious” belief albeit a negative one?
Here I think beliefs about religion and god are being confused with "religious beliefs." If, for example, I were to say, "Ba'al was an important god at Ugarit." I am making what is likely a true statement. At one level, I am even making a theological statement. If, on the other hand, I were to say, "Huitzilopochtli did not exist at Ugarit." I am still making a true statement and a theological statement. But in neither case am I endorsing the existence or nonexistence of Ba'al or Huitzilopochtli or any god in the Ugaritic or Aztrec pantheons. I am simply stating what I take to be the reasonable interpretation of the evidence. Please don't tell me that in some manifestations Ba'al and Huitzilopochtli are alike. That would miss the point. And if I say "Neither Ba'al or Huitzilopochtli exist in a metaphysical sense," I don't see how this is necessarily a religious statement although it is a statement concerning religion. So I can't understand why if I say, "The God of the Christians does not exist," I am necessarily making a religious statement. In my case, I am making what I take to be an empirical statement; no different from saying, "A purple common domestic cat with green stripes does not naturally exist." I don't see how such a statement can be construed as a religious statement any more than saying "Huitzilopochtli did not exist at Ugarit" is a religious statement (as opposed to a statement about religion). I will point out that monotheists are atheists when it comes to all gods excepting the one they believe in, although, with a few rather strange exceptions, they are quite able to make statements about these other gods without the slightest thought that they are expressing religious beliefs. Like me, they are only making statements about religious beliefs.
The real crux of this "god and religion" issue is how each of us comes to our decision about the existence of a god or gods. There are, without making too fine a point of it, three common approaches. First, Deists, Whiteheadians and some others come to believe certain things about the existence of a god because of some logical requirement of their metaphysical (philosophical) system. Some of these people also come to identify this god with one or more of the gods of an established cult, the Christian god, for example. Thus they combine one of the logical necessities of an essentially areligious philosophical metaphysics with the second way one might come to make statements of belief about god or gods.
This second way is to adopt a set of religious doctrines from an established religion or, in some interesting cases, to make up a new set of such doctrines. Some few may hold these doctrines firmly, completely and unquestioningly in every detail. But more will accept the various doctrines with various levels of commitment. Third, some people come to beliefs about god or gods, by examining the evidence for those beliefs. Those who count the contents of sacred books or traditions as evidence really fall into the second group rather than this third group.
This third group tries to find evidence for god or god(s) in the same way that they may seek to find evidence for how a bumble bee flies, why masses are attracted to each other in such a relatively weak manner, or why Homo sapiens share so many features in gross and in detail with the great African apes and yet are different in a variety of interesting ways. They look at the physical evidence. Many such people, myself included, come to see no direct or indirect physical evidence for god or gods. And parsimony requires that we say there is no god, not religious belief or disbelief but parsimony. This is no more a religious statement than the statement "Ba'al was an important god at Ugarit" is.
[Note: It has been a very long time since I read any Whitehead but I think he and his philosophical descendants drew heavily on physical evidence in constructing their metaphysics but, as far as I can remember, they never saw any direct evidence for god. Also the metaphysically necessary god of the Deists who established the laws of nature and then let it play out is a different god than the metaphysically necessary god of Whitehead who is subject to the laws of nature].
And this brings me to my final point. Could those of us who have looked at the physical evidence for god and found none be wrong? Of course, we may have overlooked something significant. And at the end of the day, that is the difference between many of those who are religious and those who are not. Every position I hold is subject to change if relevant new evidence presents itself or if a new way of causing that evidence to converge is suggested and proves beneficial to understanding the world.
You may think that you detect, between this post and the first one on this subject, two base beliefs that have the character of dogma: 1) convergence of evidence and 2) parsimony. In addition, you might even think that the physical evidence falls into this general area of unquestioned dogma. Perhaps they are my gods.
So is convergence of relevant evidence to a relatively stable proposition a dogma? I am open to the convergence of relevant evidence failing. Truthfully, it happens every time there is conflicting evidence for any proposition. I walk into a large salon in a Florentine palace. At the far end of the salon, I see what looks like a door. But I am aware from being in other rooms of this palace that it has many extremely realistic looking wall paintings of elaborate architectural features, including doors. Unless I get quite close to that door or painting I may never know which it is. But if there were a large-scale pervasive failure of the convergence of evidence, we would all know it. The evidence that there was a failure of convergence of evidence would be such that we could no longer predict what was good to eat, whom we could trust or with whom we could mate or even where shelter could found and neither could any animal (or plant) that actively seeks out such things. Could convergence of evidence fail? Sure, but everyone would know it. Could it be that convergence of the evidence never existed and is only some kind of a construct? Sure, but our species and most animals and plants would not exist in the form they now have without convergence of relevant evidence. Again, during the evolutionary process, living things that needed to seek out the stuff of life would have failed to prosper.
So how about parsimony? Parsimony is a far more abstract idea. A proposition is not parsimonious if it carries extra baggage. For example, if you were to ask me for evidence that I typed this post. I might answer, "First, you are reading the post in a alphabetic font, second, the only way I have to get these font symbols onto a page in Abnormal Interests is to type them and third, there is a copy of the latest issue of Scientific American, as yet unread, on my desk." You might ask me what the third point has to do with it. I don't think you would be very satisfied if I answered, "Well, I always like to have three points of evidence but on this occasion I could only think of two, so I threw in the last bit gratuitously." A statement is only parsimonious if it doesn't have any unnecessary stuff with it. The list of evidence that I typed this post might be more parsimonious if you knew that a foot on my keyboard was broken and I needed the Scientific American under one corner to keep it from wobbling. But you should still wonder why I mentioned that it was a specific magazine and that it was unread. How would we know if parsimony failed? Well, for one thing, many true propositions would have elements that didn't seem to belong. Second, we would never know when we had finished accounting for anything. We might have failed to mention the alignment of two specific stars and three planets and a particular school of sardines swimming off the coast of Brazil or the broken snout of a gargoyle on Milan's Cathedral. Anything might turn out to be relevant.
Why would I take a lack of evidence for a god as an argument for there not being a god? In other words, why would I cite parsimony as my reason for saying there is no god or gods? Simply put, without parsimony, no evidence could be understood as evidence for anything. With parsimony, a lack of evidence is evidence for nothing.
Okay Duane, its beginning to look like the "physical evidence" is at the heart of your religion. Well, if you want to hang your hat on that, be my guest. But please make sure that when you say Duane has a religion you immediately say, "His god is the physical evidence." And if that is not enough for you, you might throw in that his other god is logic.
Now, if you are a Christian theist, it is your turn. If you are some other kind of theist, please adapt the following questions as appropriate. Please tell me clearly what evidence (or lack of same) would convince you that the Bible is no more authoritive than, say, the Iliad? What evidence would convince you that Jesus was only a man? What evidence would convince you that there is no god? And by evidence, I mean evidence to which anyone can have access. If you can answer those questions in an analogous manner to the way I tried to address with regard to my most basic beliefs, I might be able to agree that we both have religion. Or perhaps you will come to think that neither of us has religion.
As I reread this, I am aware of many pitfalls that I have glossed over and many short cuts in argument I have taken. I have made a few giant jumps in logic but I don't think I have set any records. The fact is, these issues are difficult for many people. But as I said before, one will be hard pressed to find a pure secularist who is not turned off by the idea that he or she is religious or has a religion. And that fact alone should provide pragmatic grounds for not using this idea in any discussion that seeks to engage secularists.
Chip uses a famous proverb in his most recent post, "If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it is a duck." Well, I've seen some extremely realistic looking decoys and, while I've never heard of it, I'm sure that someone could add a battery powered electronic system to them that played prerecorded duck quacks. It just might fool a duck, but shame on the hunter who is fooled.
Posted by Duane Smith at May 16, 2006 2:36 PM | Read more on Religion |
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Comments
If something is the “simplest” solution (parsimony), it does not make it the correct solution. An excellent example of this is general relativity. On a subatomic level one finds that this theory is bunk (hence the need for quantum mechanics); however it is the simplest solution on the macro level and still used by physicists to predict macroscopic phenomenon (keep working on TOE guys!).
What is the undeniable evidence for theism? There is none. What is the undeniable evidence for atheism? There is none. What then causes one individual to fall on one side and not the other? It cannot be based purely upon evidence, because evidence can be falsified and observation can be mistaken. What is expected can be seen even if it is not there, and evidence can be biased by belief. In other words, evidence has to be interpreted which is done on the basis of presuppositions.
My supposition (call it a presupposition if you like) is that each makes a conscious choice for one side or the other. It is not based in any absolute observable data; therefore it must come from within the individual. This decision for or against theism is in my estimation a religious belief. Now we can define our terms differently, if you like, and call it a special class of presupposition about theistic existence. Nonetheless, I have termed it a religious belief meaning it is base not on evidence, but on faith. In the end, this necessary duality was what I was referring to in my original post. I understand the uneasiness of certain “nonreligious” individuals to such a notion; yet I think it is an accurate estimation that everyone makes theological decisions about their own existence. Semantics aside I hope that we can agree upon this understanding.
ASIDE 1: Saying that monotheists are atheist with regard to other gods is very misleading as to what an atheist believes. An atheist affirms a universal negative—No god exists anywhere or anytime. On the other hand, a monotheist affirms the existence of one god instead of all the others. In essence he makes a choice of one god as valid over against the usurpers (and that there are not coexistent gods). This is a far cry from denying the existence of the divine absolutely (which in my opinion takes more faith than at least leaving open the possibility of a god).
If I deny the metaphysical existence of a god other than the one in whom I believe, I have made a theological assessment (i.e. this one is truly God and this one is not). I have argued already that this is based in my religious presuppositions. On the other hand, if I said that the Hebrew Bible declares the worship of Ba’al or Marduk as unacceptable, I would be making an empirically correct statement and not a theological one (assuming the MT is relatively accurate). Yes, these two are in different realms. However, unless you, Duane, can point to absolute demonstrable evidence that no god exists or point to an authoritative text from which to make such an assertion then declaring atheism to be valid would have to be based in theological realities and thus your religious presuppositions.
ASIDE 2: I think that you were speaking rhetorically when asking about why Christians (and others) think that the biblical texts are authoritative and not the Iliad, but let me provide the simplest answer. The Iliad never claims to be such an authority; whereas the Scriptures do (of course, I know that other documents make such a claim, but the Iliad does not).
Posted by: Chip Hardy at May 16, 2006 8:49 PM
Chip,
I'm not sure where to go with this. At this point, I only want to address four of your comments and those only briefly.
First, you are half-correct about general relativity. The problem here however is not one of parsimony. It is rather one of failure of all the evidence to converge. As I'm sure you know, there are several competing efforts to find a "unified theory." At this time it is hard to know how it will all work out or even if a consensus unified theory will every be achieved. Required energy levels for testing competing many of these ideas have reached such heights that it may not be possible to achieve them even in theory. It not that there isn't a fact of the manner about this; its just that we don't know what it is.
Second, I hope that you are not claiming that any collection of literature that makes a claim of authority is somehow equivalent to the Bible. I don't even think that. In addition, while it is undeniable that certain books and passages of the Bible make such a claim, it is not so clear that the Bible makes such a claim for itself as a whole.
Third, while there was a rhetorical element in my three questions, I put them there to illustrate the real difference between religious and nonreligious approaches to all these issues. In general, many religious approaches avoid these kinds of "evidence for deniability" questions like the plaque while nonreligious approaches often, not always to be sure, reflect on them and have some kinds of answers. Again, in general, religious people have trouble explaining the circumstances under which they might be wrong and nonreligious people often can.
Fourth, it appears that only in religion is there an attempt to put the burden of proof for an idea for which there is no evidence on those who think that there being no physical evidence is a very strong indication of there being nothing there in the first place.
This has been an interesting exercise. Thanks
Posted by: Duane at May 16, 2006 9:30 PM
Thank you also for the congenial dialogue on the issues without the normal pedantic side comments and poor assumptions. I appreciate the chance to discuss this topic with you.
Posted by: Chip Hardy at May 17, 2006 6:40 AM
I made a remark about monotheists being atheists with regard to all gods but their own and Chip took exception. At the risk of being accused of prooftexting, I will quote Justin Martyr (First Apology, Chapter 6)
Hence are we called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity.
Posted by: Duane at May 20, 2006 9:30 PM
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