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August 7, 2007
Denying Little While Affirming Much
Claude Mariottini is again worrying about atheists and the Bible. This time he is responding to Chris Hallquist of The Uncredible Hallq. I don't want to reenter this discussion in all its complexity. I've said my piece and within what I take to be a coherent epistemology I haven't heard an answer that I can make any sense of. I think Doug Chaplin at Metacatholic has summed up the major issues rather clearly. However, I can't keep myself from addressing two points that Claude thinks important.
First, Claude wants us to believe that "atheism is a cause infused with a culture of denial." And while Claude doesn't claim that this "culture of denial" extends beyond the question of god or gods, the way he makes his point bothers me more than a little. Claude's "cause" is also "infused with a culture of denial." Please allow me to be a little silly before I turn serious. Claude doesn't believe in Ba'al, in Anat, in mermaids, in unicorns, in a whole raft of things that some people once or still believed in. At least I think he doesn't. I would guess that he would deny that the Quran is the word of God. In the area of god and revelation, Claude likely denies nearly everything an atheist would deny. Almost by definition, a monotheist is an atheist with regard to all the gods save the one he or she favors.
But real problem isn't the issue of affirming or denying. The problem is in maintaining a consistence epistemology. An epistemology that allows one to deny things like mermaids and unicorns, to assert that astrology makes no sense, that dowsing is at best a matter of luck combined, in some cases, with a rudimentary knowledge of geology and at the same time allows for the existence of god or gods does not appear to me to be very consistent. Or to put it more positively, an epistemology that continues to provide increasingly serviceable naturalistic explanations of the world, with sufficient flexibility to adapt to new evidence or ways of thinking about old evidence, and still requires the existence of a god or gods also seems inconsistent. I hope I am not being to crude when I say that gluing divine revelation and/or faith unto some other epistemology, no matter how sophisticated the glue, doesn't do it for me.
I think atheists and theists can study the Bible together within a structure of overlapping interests like those outlined by Doug, "a witness to human myth-making (I might prefer to say "story telling"), historical development, and literary reflection on existence." I might add a few others to this list but it's a good start. But if theists really want to talk to atheists about God, or perhaps better, if they want to talk to me about God, they had better start with epistemology. How do we know about God and why and how is that way of knowing different, if it is different, from how we come to know about anything else?
The second issue in Claude's post that I would like to address is the issue of the burden of proof. To be honest, this issue itself goes back to the basic question of epistemology. In my view, and I am not alone in this, religion has staked out a special place for itself when it comes to the burden of proof. When it comes to god or the gods many, but certainly not all, religious people claim that faith is sufficient evidence. I know of no other area of human thought or experience where a claim of faith and faith alone is even a necessary much less a sufficient reason to think or feel something. And this includes not only the stuff of science but also our very feeling: the love between two people, the bonding between offspring and parent, and our group affiliations and on and on and on. I am affirming, not denying, my emotions when I say these things. I feel love my wife of over 40 years and for our now grown children. I care deeply for my friends and associates. As hard as it is these days, I love my country. I am deeply concerned about many of the world's peoples. I love the natural world in all its glory and intrigue. And these are not theoretical feelings; they are real. Most often, they result in joy but occasionally they result in pain. But I do not have these ties and feelings on faith and faith alone. For me they are far more real than that. So when the theist offers faith when I seek evidence, he or she is offering something quite different from what I normally expect in discussion of any other subject. And because it is unique in this particular way, I see no choice in such discussions than for theist to have and accept the burden of proof. I don't even understand why many of them don't seem to want to accept it. Whenever I have a great idea, I welcome the burden of proof. Thinking that there is a very low to negligible probability that there is a god or gods seems no more an extreme a position than thinking the same thing of mermaids and unicorns.
Having re-read what I have written, I post it with considerable hesitation. It lacks nuance in important places and is far too vague in others. Among other things, I have not been clear about what I mean by religion or faith. Nor am I clear of what I mean by God, god or gods. On this point, I join many theists in this failing. A truly meaningful discussion would need to be very precise on these and other issues. I sure hope my children, both professional philosophers, don't read this. I think I can take all that any theist can dish out, but after more than a decade, I am still not adjusted to my children pointing out my many philosophical errors.
Posted by Duane Smith at August 7, 2007 9:19 PM | Read more on Religion |
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Comments
What's said is that Dr Claude teaches. I wonder if his Doctoral Thesis tried to prove something, which he seems to feel he has no need to do, or if he had to show that something did not happen. After all, it seems that, as is familiar to Coast to Coast listeners, there is no burden of proof, but a burden of disproof.
Considering his apparently complete lack of knowledge of textural analysis/higher criticism, it makes me wonder what he teaches - it seems to be apologetics as opposed to real study.
Posted by: Badger3k at August 8, 2007 12:34 PM
Very abnormally interesting post ;) Ultimately, I'm convinced that Bible-thumpers (those that believe Faith should supercede Logic) and atheists (people who insist that God doesn't exist... and thus that Faith should supercede Logic) are both sides of the same loony coin. So from my perspective, being on the outside of both, I find it as funny (and sad) as two drunks discussing hockey. Let the extremist crazies argue themselves to death.
Posted by: Glen Gordon at August 9, 2007 2:36 AM
What I find in discussions with the "faithful" is that the difficulty does not end with a different view of the burden of proof. The real problems crop up when you realize that believers are speaking a different language. In their lexicon Believe, Know, Faith, Love, Freedom, and Truth all have different meanings from the usage one would expect them have in an everyday conversation. Perhaps this is all wrapped up in epistemology as you suggest but it sure makes it difficult to hold a discussion.
Posted by: Scott Ferguson at September 5, 2007 10:18 AM
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