Re: a new path for atheism, let me recommend this post by ddjango, where I am generously linked to and quoted.
On this same front-- it seems to me that there are a lot of people who operate with a kind of casual, unstudied relationship to questions of the spiritual and the divine, a knowing and chosen refusal to make their thoughts about the existence (or lack thereof) of god explicit. Instead, they live their day to day lives with little thought of god or theology, and don't allow those concerns to influence their actions in any which way at all. But they are also not atheists, have some intuition of the divine, and don't like to be pressed into declaring one set of beliefs or another. These are the people who an evangelizing atheist would have the most opportunity to convert, I suppose--certainly more than the average regular church-going believer. Yet I think that these people are also some of the hardest to convert to uncompromising atheism, because they embody the core American principle of leaving people alone.
I don't have any data on this, but I think that there are many, many Americans who operate this way, with a kind of critical distance from the question of god, who neither actively believe or disbelieve. I put it to you that, although this is a stance that is bound to be unsatisfying for soldiers for either side, it is also quintessentially American, and an attitude that is the most amenable to a free, secular government for a religious people. This is the attitude that I find most likely to promote tolerance.
Now, in a sense, I'm giving the game away here, because my first source of admiration for people who operate like this is that they are refreshingly free of any theocratic nonsense. And they are bound to disappoint both sides, atheists for their refusal to stand against religion and theism, and the religious because, well, if you believe in a supreme being, that thought should probably motivate you to some sort of action. A real believer, I mean someone who truly believes in a capital-G God who is the maker of everything, and omnipotent, would have to adjust their behavior accordingly. Indeed, I have a hard time understanding how someone can really believe and not make the concerns of god issues of profound personal importance. Most people who are believers don't operate that way. I imagine that this is what Richard Dawkins means when he says that most people who claim to be religious act like atheists.
This is perhaps true. But I've also been struck by how theistically many atheists think and operate, and in that too there is a challenge. The refusal to abandon the idea of absolute morality or values in the face of the death of god, for example, strikes me as wrong-headed. I believe that when you eliminate the idea of god, you have abandoned absolute principles, or the hope of perfect understanding of the truth. This is a controversial point, though, and one that is debated endlessly by people far smarter than I am. I guess it's enough to say that, for many, this "squishy agnosticism" is the best way to lead lives both free from theocratic trappings and accepting of the religious beliefs of those around them.
It's true, if the specific question is asked "Is it empirically true that god exists", this kind of attitude becomes insufficient. But as I've said before, as soon as you've made the question an empirical question-- as soon as you've decided to interrogate the idea of god with the language of science and fact-- you've rigged the game, in atheism's favor. God can't win if the only authority is empirical science, just like science can't win if the only authority is what's contained within the Bible. And that I think is why I have an intuition that this squishiness is an attractive attitude that makes it easier to live. Perhaps the correct way to consider the question of god is to let go of requiring a concrete answer.
This attitude is sometimes called, pejoratively, "the god of the gaps". It's not, to be honest with you, how I happen to think. It's a remarkably incomplete attitude. But I tend to enjoy the company of those who feel this way more than I do the company of those who have a concrete answer.
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3 comments:
Considerably thoughtful, sir.
Is there any chance that respectful discourse will negate the damage of Dawkins' and Myers' arrogance?
Naaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. But it's fun to try.
Be at peace.
Hey Freddie, I only recently found your blog and am enjoying it so here's my first comment.
While your post is meant to be squishy, I think it's too much so. You draw a parallel between people who claim to be religious, but act like atheists, and those who claim to be atheists, but act religiously (under which you subsume actions motivated by a sense of "absolute morality," that misleading bogeyman of postmodernists and evangelicals everywhere).
But let's be a little clearer. Harris, Hitchens, et al. like to claim that religion cause much of, if not most of, the great evils of the human race. When it is pointed out that the U.S.S.R., Maoist China, the Khmer Rouge, and other mass murderers claimed to be atheists, the response is that these governments were functionally religions.
This shows the emptiness of this claim--these atheists have defined religion so as that it can't help but be evil (so much for empiricism). However, it would be equally misleading to make the same error in the opposite direction. Atheists and agnostics have been arguing about morality (it isn't really relevant whether it is "absolute") from well before the existence of Christianity. And whether or not they are correct, or it is just empty talk doesn't matter. It is quite clear that for many of these atheists they thought it was true that morality existed even in a non-supernatural world.
Here's a relatively simple way of parsing this issue. If someone's actions are motivated, however rarely, by that person's belief in the existence of God, then that person is acting as if that person is someone who believes in God. If someone never acts on the basis of a belief in the existence of God, then that person is acting as an atheist.
But notice, this is not a matter of charicterizing a particular kind of action as religious. The exact same action done by one person might be caused by either religious or secular motivations. So why should we confuse the issue by classifying an action as religious by the action rather than the intentions underlying it? And if it is the motivations that are relevant, then why not just accept what people say are their motivations rather than positing some kind of crypto-(a)theist
ones?
Also, the "god of the gaps" is more specific than in your characterization. In an effort to provide support for their belief in god, some theists use god's supernatural power as a way of explaining what science has not yet explained. For instance--not sure how consciousness works? Through God's power creating immaterial "souls." Or, not sure how the universe was created? It was created by God. Or how did the different species arise, or how does the eye work, etc.
This move is viewed pejoratively primarily for two reasons a) it gives us no real understanding of the cause as god's power is supernatural and hence unexplainable b) the history of science giving us explanations for what were formerly presumed unanswerable and hence explained by God's power.
The attitude you are referring to seems more akin to fideism--the view that reason is not the only proper basis for belief.
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