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May 14, 2006

There Are Some Things You Just Can't Let Pass

H. H. Hardy at Daily Hebrew is taking on the discussion and thought process of Michael V. Fox on the Society of Biblical Literature Forum. I haven't commented on this discussion or the one that proceeded it for several reasons. Among them is that I don't have a dog in this race. But yesterday, as part of that discussion Hardy listed four propositions that he says "should serve as a beginning point for scholarly as well as pedagogical advancement and conversation." Two of these propositions are, in my opinion, false and the other two are deeply flawed. As a group, they represent the major contributing error anytime people of faith try to address secularism.

I will take up the proposition one at a time but before I do, let me say this. I offer this critique without malice of any kind. In the case of the Daily Hebrew, I have found most of the posts that I have read instructive. Even the post that contained these "propositions" had some interesting food for thought.

With that said, here is my take on these four "Propositions." (I will use the word "Proposition(s)" when I mean one or all of the four propositions under discussion and will use the letter P when I am referring to any generalized proposition.)

Proposition 1
Truth exists. If it does not, there is no reason to argue this point—such an argument would be self-refuting.

Since I am a metaphysical and ethical realist, I take the proposition that "truth exists" to be true. However, I am not so sure that a modern antirealist would agree with the corollary points. After all, in philosophy, the antirealists, even in the analytic tradition, have not exactly packed up their tents and gone home. I will make the point that in most cases we can only approach the truth of any P as a limit. For this reason, by my understanding, Baysian like analyses of the evidence for any P, most often informal in everyday life, but in science often very formal, is required. Without dragging too much philosophy into all this and by also skipping a lot of steps in the logic, it is exactly because the evidence for many Ps converge under Bayesian analyses that I am a realist. This is not an article of faith in the same way that a statements like "Jesus is Lord" or "God exists" are articles of faith. It is rather the synthesis of empirical evidence. You will please note that I am not claiming to be an old fashioned empiricist. Most of them were (and are) antirealists of one stripe or another.

Proposition 2
Everyone is religious. Each chooses a system of beliefs be it Christianity or atheism, Jewish or Muslim, Buddhism or Hinduism, religious or secularist.

This proposition is false. Indeed not everyone is religious unless one broadens the definition of religion to the point where doctrines or rituals are marginalized and the types of belief structures that I roughly outlined in my discussion of Proposition 1 are accommodated. If one does made the definition that broad it would render the word "religious" meaningless. Every opinion would count as a religious opinion. Certainly, believing that I am typing on a keyboard while looking at a monitor are a very different class of beliefs than believing that the world was created in some set time by a god or gods. Likewise believing that there is not a herd of elephants grazing in my study is in no way a religious belief. Since not all beliefs are religious beliefs and, if it turns out that for even a single individual that none of his or her beliefs are religious beliefs, then the Proposition is false. To claim otherwise belittles both those with religious beliefs and those without them. The truth is that many people have no religious beliefs.

Many religious people appear to have the mistaken opinion that religion is a natural state. It may have seemed so over a long period of time among Homo sapiens. I am more or less convinced that the idea that everyone has religious beliefs is a religious belief itself. Other beliefs that were once thought to be part of the natural state of humans are now not so believed. The right to own slaves is an example that readily comes to mind.

The view that all atheists and secularists are adherents to some "religious" belief or other, is a death knell to communications between people of faith and those who have no faith and cannot understand why anyone would. On a more pragmatic level, some people of faith believe Proposition 2 but almost no atheist or non-theistic secularist does. And I can't image what would change that state of affairs. I do know religious people who, to their credit, do not think everyone is religious.

Proposition 3
Everyone has presuppositions. The humanist sees the world through the lenses of mankind; the theist through that of God. These colored glasses tint everything one way or another.

The first point in this proposition is true. The corollaries are not so clearly true. For example, I would claim that even the theist in most of his or her daily activity sees the world without any reference to God or gods. With the exception of a small minority, most theists take their sick children to a trained medical doctor or a properly equipped hospital. (If the child is very sick, they had better hope that doctor knows and understands the intricacies of modern evolutionary theory.) They may pray for God's help but they go to the doctor. The only difference between a theist and a secularist is that the secularist doesn't think the prayer is effective. And they think this because they have seen no controlled evidence that intercessory prayer is effective. Plus there is growing but still limited evidence that it isn't. If I may use another example, a very trivial one this time, I do not know a single religious person that draws on presuppositions concerning any god or gods in finding the front door of his house or office. An atheist or a secularist expands this everyday fact to all of life's experiences and challenges. The failure on the part of religious people to understand this is a second insurmountable obstacle to meaningful communications.

Proposition 4 (more of a corollary)
No one is exempt from presuppositions or religious belief.

Hardy (I am using a last name because I can't find a first name) recognizes that this is something different than the first three propositions. And of course, the portion of this Proposition regarding religion is false because Proposition 2 is false and, in important ways, because of limitations in Propositions 1. The portion regarding presuppositions is true but trivially so.

Perhaps, the worst problem with these four Propositions is that they tend to conflate presupposition and religious belief. They are not the same. I readily admit to many presuppositions. They get me through the day. I usually find doors, my car, my bed, my food and my computer and the toilet without out the aid of any logic or analysis. And for this reason, in new situations or when distracted I sometimes fail to find them. At the risk of being accused of taking her for granted, I have ongoing love for my wife of over 40 years based on presuppositions that have matured over the course of our lives together. Our individual lives would be impossible to live without a very large set of unreflected presuppositions. And out community lives would be every bit as difficult. Much of my moral direction rests on the set presuppositions that I have acquired from my relationship with Shirley. But these are not in anyway religious beliefs even if some of them have interesting analogies with religious beliefs. Its how we deal with new evidence that may call for modification of a presupposition or with a growing realization that there is no evidence for a given presupposition that is important.

For the record, if you need to call me by some name other than Duane, I prefer secular humanist. I have a problem with atheist but it probably isn't what you think. Also, after reading Michael V. Fox's posts in the SBL forum, I find myself more in disagreement with him than in agreement but for quite different reasons than those outlined on the Daily Hebrew.

Posted by Duane Smith at May 14, 2006 9:13 AM | Read more on Religion |

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Posted by: Chip Hardy at May 14, 2006 8:30 PM

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