Richard Dawkins calls himself a “cultural Christian,” which for him is an unusually frank acknowledgment of the fact that the “viral infection” of religion may be comforting. Indeed, as the BBC reported in December 2007:
Prof. Dawkins, who has frequently spoken out against creationism and religious fundamentalism, [said], “I’m not one of those who wants to stop Christian traditions. This is historically a Christian country. I’m a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims. So, yes, I like singing carols along with everybody else. I’m not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.”
Few atheists are willing to admit that they’re borrowing ethical and aesthetic cultural traditions from religion while others, like atheist philosopher Richard Rorty and ethicist Peter Singer, have tried to avoid all assumptions of religious moral norms in their writing. Most atheists cop out, as did Sam Harris in his 2004 bestseller The End of Faith, topping his slam on religion with a helping of sophomoric, religious-sounding whine. To paraphrase: I know we all need meaning. So hey, how about we embrace a sort of secularized Eastern mysticism to help get us through the night, you know, being that hard-edged secular Truth is, well, absolutely true and all, but it hurts our feelings, being as it’s sort of like, you know, depressing.
What Harris doesn’t do is reexamine his atheistic ideas based on the fact that if he’s right (and in a raw, pure and absolutist form atheism is unpalatable to most people), then that might be an indication that there is something to all this “religion stuff” besides the temporary emotional analgesic he describes. Maybe, if wanting meaning is the way people are, and we are part of nature, then those feelings—however they express themselves—might indicate something true about the reality of nature and the way it actually is, rather than just signaling an emotional need for religious therapy.
Or, as author and brilliant writer on evolutionary psychology Robert Wright puts it in his new book The Evolution of God, “If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer, then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe—conceivably—the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity.”
The Problem with an “Invented Vocabulary” of Morality
As I said, one atheist who tried to bite the bullet in a way that Harris lacked the testicular fortitude to do was Richard Rorty. Rorty argued that we make up morality. He believed that bright people are “ironists” who understand that we know nothing except our own “vocabularies.” He said that morality is merely “the language games of one’s time.”
Rorty was the grandson of Walter Rauschenbusch, a theologian, Baptist minister, and leader in what was called the Social Gospel movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. So Rorty’s nihilism is nihilism with a twist of religious awareness. Rorty is clear about his legacy from the Social Gospel/theological liberalism of his grandfather. Maybe that’s why he brings a bare-knuckle honesty to his work that, by comparison, makes Harris seem positively wimpy. In Rorty and his Critics, Rorty writes:
The fundamentalist parents of our fundamentalist students think that the entire “American liberal establishment” is engaged in a conspiracy. The parents have a point... [W]e do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization. We assign first-person accounts of growing up homosexual to our homophobic students for the same reasons that German schoolteachers in the postwar period assigned The Diary of Anne Frank… So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. I am just as provincial as the Nazi teachers who made their students read Der Stürmer; the only difference is that I serve a better cause.
Rorty was honest enough to admit that he had problems with selling his idea of an individually invented moral vocabulary because no society raises children “to make them continually dubious,” as he said. So he wrote that “ironists” like himself should keep their views secret or at least separate their “public and private vocabularies.” In other words, Rorty admitted that his ideas had to be lied about in order to succeed, because the way people actually are does not correspond to his stark atheist philosophy.
Then there is Princeton professor, atheist, and bioethicist Peter Singer. Singer also tried to invent an ethic with no nostalgic nod to religion, especially not toward Judaism or Christianity’s sanctity-of-life beliefs. He has said that some defective children should be destroyed during a trial period after their births. Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues in his Practical Ethics, (2nd edition, 1993) that newborns lack the characteristics of personhood (“rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness”) and that therefore “killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living.” In Germany, his positions have been compared to the Nazis, and his lectures have been disrupted all over the world by groups representing the handicapped.
According to my friend Angela Creager (one of Singer’s colleagues and a professor of the history of science at Princeton), Singer is a kind man moved by compassion. Nevertheless, he seems not to understand how his ideas strike others; for instance, as evidenced by his protesters, people with disabilities. Singer gets upset when commentators compare his proposals to Nazism, because his family lost people in the Holocaust. Singer’s objections don’t seem reasonable to me.
As Michael Burleigh, a leading historian of the Third Reich, has pointed out in a commentary on Singer’s work, eliminating defectives in pre-Nazi Germany was exactly what opened the door to the Holocaust. In his book Confronting the Nazi Past, Burleigh writes, “Singer omits to mention that one of the essential elements of [Nazi] propaganda was the denial of personality to their victims.” He adds that Singer is “displaying remarkable naiveté” when he suggests that the choices that would have to be made in evaluating a prospective defective for elimination would be in trustworthy hands if doctors were in charge. Burleigh notes that the Nazi euthanasia program was led by scientists and psychiatrists, people drawn from the best-educated and most “civilized” ranks of a sophisticated secular medical class not too different from the academic class Singer himself belongs to.
Atheists say that morality isn’t derived only from religion. I think they’re right. But they seem to have problems when deciding the limits of what is permissible under the rules of their “invented vocabulary” of morality à la Rorty and Singer. Maybe the point is that religion is derived from morality. (I explore this in my forthcoming book Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don’t Like Religion—Or Atheism.)
I’m guessing that morality predates religion. We all act as if that’s the case. We don’t have long theological debates about, say, incest or wife abuse as though the jury is still out on what is wrong or that our sense of the matter depends on Bible verses. We evolved ideas that make life easier and less chaotic, as in: I don’t want to be clubbed in my sleep so let’s all agree that clubbing people in their sleep is wrong! Those ideas, including parents not taking kindly to “experts” telling them what they should do about their “defective” child, might be a reflection of the character of God. If there is no God, or if He doesn’t care about us, then our common morality is still the result of practical, reality-based needs, which also “teach” that a good life depends on the “Do unto others…” ethic. Either way, morality is a lot more than an individual’s invented vocabulary, and Singer’s ethic seems monstrous to many people for the same reason that George W. Bush’s torturing prisoners in the name of national security was a threat to us all.
I Want My Attorney and My Wife to Believe in God
How individuals are treated affects everyone. Ideas such as Singer’s and George W. Bush’s have consequences. There may indeed be babies born who’d be “better off” killed, or prisoners who “deserve” to be waterboarded or punched and exposed to hunger, cold, and snarling dogs. But the rest of us aren’t better off when morality becomes a function of expediency, be that in the name of national security or of “sensibly” getting rid of the need for all those expensive ramps for the disabled by getting rid of the disabled themselves at birth.
Who decides who’s next? Do you trust an academic ethicist like Singer to make life-and-death judgments when he’s so far removed from reality that he gets hurt feelings when his seminars are picketed by people in wheelchairs (the very sorts of human beings that Singer says might have been better off being killed at birth)? Should a Darth Vader figure like former Vice President Dick Cheney be kept handy to decide when torture is “okay”? Is national security worth preserving if it entails turning our country into a police state?
Do atheists really believe that morality doesn’t exist just because it can’t be put under a microscope? Do any atheists claim that (and, far more tellingly, live as though) moral propositions have no objective value? If Singer finds himself on a planet where disabled people are the norm and he is a minority of one, will he gladly entrust himself to a panel of experts to decide his fate as, in that context, an “abnormal” person? If Rorty had not been paid the royalties generated by the sale of his books, would he have failed to take his publishers to court had his editor argued that in the “invented moral vocabulary” of publishing, they’d just changed the rules of accounting? For that matter, when Singer gets his feelings hurt by outraged disabled people who compare him to the Nazis, isn’t that a tacit admission that there is a right way and a wrong way to treat people, including Australian ethicist/Princeton professors who feel that their benign intentions are being misrepresented?
And what if the New Atheist agenda succeeded beyond Dawkins and his followers’ wildest dreams? Would everything work out perfectly? For instance, what would happen to the environmentalist movement? The appeal of the environmentalist movement is handily compatible with the idea of stewardship. Maybe that appeal works because a sense of stewardship and a sense of the sacred in Nature are intrinsic to our natures, a part of the divine revelation we are gradually developing a capacity to experience. Watch any TV program on the wonders of life on Earth. Even if there is no religious content, the tone is reverential and a sense of the sacred permeates the hushed narration. Why?
A lot more motivation can be inspired by maintaining that one may do God’s will by conserving the earth than by telling people that their lives mean nothing in an ultimate sense, that they are slaves to their genes, conditioning, and evolutionary quirks—but, oh, by the way, they should sacrifice their comforts to save the planet for equally meaningless and deluded future gene rations that they’ll never meet. Or, as atheist apologist, Princeton University professor, and molecular biologist Lee M. Silver writes (in Challenging Nature: The Clash of Science and Spirituality at the New Frontier of Life) about the question of life having meaning and therefore a point: “I have yet to hear a good answer, other than there is no point.”
Now that will really fire people up to make sacrifices!
It seems to me the New Atheists have it wrong. If you deprive people of the solace of faith in a moral system of meaningful connection with something bigger than themselves, and bigger than mere connection to many other “meaningless” people, you aren’t just stripping away window dressing, but demolishing the supporting structure of a happy life. As I said, I think that Harris tacitly admits this by appending his squishy ending to his otherwise hard-nosed book. Atheists, too, depend on some form of spirituality for happiness. Why else do you think that Dawkins’ zeal can only be described as religious, and his followers as disciples? Maybe it’s because the need for meaning won’t be denied, even by people who gather to do just that.
Even one of the most church-hating fathers of the Enlightenment, Voltaire, to whom Christianity was an “infamy,” found the influence of faith, and of Christianity in particular, useful: “I want my attorney, my tailor, my servants, even my wife to believe in God,” he wrote, because “then I shall be robbed and cuckolded less often.”
My beef with the New Atheists and with religious fundamentalists is that their ideas just don’t seem aesthetically pleasing or imbued with the poetry that I experience in real life. Ideas about life are too small. Life trumps description, just as what some severely disabled people actually grow up to do and be trumps sage theories on whose life is “worthy to be lived.”
Is Dawkins correct when he says religious people appeal to mystery as a cop-out? Are unnamed things meaningless? Do we have to understand something in order to experience it? I don’t think so.
Tags: atheism, duke ellington, ethics, morality, nazis, new atheists, peter singer, picasso, richard dawkins, richard rorty, sam harris, ts eliot, vivaldi, wh auden
I can't believe how you hand picked Sam Harris! And what examples you bring to the table!
I am an atheist and I would not replace the music and art in my life with anything else. I would not replace the books I've read and travels I've made.
Of course you can enjoy something that you don't fully understand and have experiences that feel unique and surreal! Atheist don't pretend to understand it all. Its a rational behaviour to regect a claim unsupported by evidence.
No fairytale thank you! But mystery and quests? yes please!
Many cultures the world over, ages before the nomadic tribes of the Jews existed, lived by certain morality that allowed their cultures to succeed and those that didn't follow certain morality failed. The idea that theft and murder for example are "wrong" stem from natural cultural and individual human desire not to robbed or killed. The Golden Rule is older than Judaism or Christianity so those religions do not have the market cornered on morality. Religions have co-opted moral teachings that work from the cultures that created them and understood their efficacy. This explains why Judaism and Christianity were entirely okay with slavery and why their moral teachings never expressly forbid rape. As morality has evolved with the culture rape and slavery have been deemed immoral.
By the way, when Voltaire said, “I want my attorney, my tailor, my servants, even my wife to believe in God, then I shall be robbed and cuckolded less often.”
He said that because he noticed that it seems that Christians are not really moral they just follow orders and their belief in an eye in the sky watching their every move keeps them in line. Being an atheist myself, I have no such failing. There is no God, yet I know not to kill or steal. My question is, why don't Christians still own slaves? Their god was completely okay with it. I know Christians are sick of that argument but only because it exposes their "Christian morality" argument for what it really is; Flawed.
From the essay:
>If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement,
There is no historical evidence that people have morally improved, only that we are more sanitary in our evil.
You may not chose to steal but if there is no God then the person who dies with the most toys (power) wins.
You're just pushing back the problem one farther. If your god exists, it has the most toys and power and therefore wins. You know what they say about power, it corrupts, and if an all powerful god exists it must be the most corrupt being ever. So you may just want to hope that there is no god after all.
What's with this "wins" thing anyway? What is there to "win" about life? Life is to be lived, not won.
I know why there is no historical evidence that people in general have morally improved. Religion holds them back keeping them tethered to primitive moralities. It's hardly an improvement when 21st Century people live by a 1st century morality which is based on a 1st century understanding of the world around them.
BUT there are those of us who HAVE improved and have a 21 Century morality based on a 21 Century understanding of the world around us. Come join us.
only if their goal is to have the most toys.
For people who do not value power in that way, it's a meaningless accomplishment, and if you're attempting to ascribe universal values to what makes a winner or a loser, you're looking at it the wrong way.
Thanks for bringing up the Nazis. It is well worth remembering that the most famous devout Roman Catholic in the history of humanity was Adolf Hitler. Hitler was a confirmed Catholic, he never renounced his faith, and the Roman Catholic Church, in its infinite and divine wisdom, NEVER excommunicated him.
As an atheist, I have to disagree with some of your claim.
Hitler was a charismatic opportunist who only believed in himself
If it served him to use the church, he would use it
Hitler IS an example, however, of an evil man doing his work with the blessing of the church
Man is fallible, the church is fallible, and so is religion
This is really quite good, thanks.
So because you have a beef with the morality of two individual atheists, that means that atheists in general lack moral grounding? The specific reasons that Singer's or Rorty's morality do not appeal to you is irrelevant to "atheist morality," as there are any number of theists (yes, including Nazis) whose morality has been just as "bad" or far worse, and plenty of atheists who disagree with them just as vehemently as you do. If you agree that morality preceded religion, then you must agree with two facts that derive from that: 1) morality can exist independently of religion (that is, atheists are entirely capable of being moral), and 2) religion is not necessarily moral. Ironic to suggest that Singer's morality is off because he is an atheist, and then support that by claiming that it leads to abhorrent practices that were originated by a load of theists.
Human morality arises from empathy, an evolved trait. Human immorality arises when people are not able to or manage to resist feeling empathy. The Golden Rule derives from from empathy-- it says to think about how you want to be treated when deciding how to treat others. It's a rule found in religions all over the world, and also in the philosophy of Socrates and Plato (and doubtless many more). But its very ubiquity points out something very important-- a rule that widespread apparently doesn't need to be a "rule" at all, because it already exists within most of us. No religion required.
Atheism is the belief that there are no such things as gods, not Zeus, not Odin, not Jesus, not Allah. Not your god(s) not their god(s).
No gods playing dramatic silly buggers with their creation.
Atheism makes no comment on good, evil, evolution, politics or anything else you theists try to pile on to try and muddle the message.
No such things as gods.
The End
Atheism is not the belief that there are no such things as gods, but rather not having a belief in god(s).
An atheist can believe there are no gods, but that is not a prerequisite to being atheist. It's a subtle distinction, but one worthy of mention.
I don't think Schaeffer has a problem with atheism itself or being an atheist. He just has a problem with the universal pretensions of the so-called "new atheists." Because it is possible be a moral person without being religious or a believer in a particular faith tradition (though atheist philosophy/thought is indeed part of an intellectual tradition called enlightenment liberalism, or at least owes a lot to it) doesn't mean that atheism speaks in that way to everyone, nor does it mean that faith traditions have no say in creating moral or ethical character in their adherents.
For example, I would personally have a hard time giving my life for "inherent human rights," though some may be able to. Perhaps however, I could find reason to give up my life for the sake of a unified body of Christ (or to prevent the fracturing thereof). Though I wouldn't expect someone that the Christian tradition meant nothing to do the same.
Look, he's not saying that atheism or atheists are bad. In fact he compliments Rorty on his honesty when it comes to Rorty's candor about the intellectual roots of his own way of thinking--that nothing comes out of thin air and that despite the best attempts of the biological essentialists and religious fundamentalists, there is indeed, no universal truth that rises above the rest.
And to the idiot that suggests Hitler committed mass genocide thanks to Catholicism commits a sin akin to holding atheism responsible for Chairman Mao. Hitler once said "We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany." 'Nuff said.
The stunning lack of logic on the part of the atheists who commented above goes to demonstrate the need for such discussions.
Was there morality before the Jews? Of course, no one claims otherwise since God does not leave anyone unguided and the historical context of the Jewish law was the establishing of the Jewish nation from the ground up after 400 years of slavery.
“No such things as gods”? Prove it.
Was Hitler a Roman Catholic? If you mean a member of a particular “religious” group—maybe. But was he a Christian—no. See here:
From Zeitgeist to Poltergeist, part 3
And part 13
Claiming that morality is natural is a way of saying the only thing that atheists can say about any of humanities deepest questions: it just is - it just so happened to have happened.
In a strictly materialistic universe morality amounts to bio-chemical reactions within the haphazardly put together gray matter of bio-organism’s—period.
Atheism makes evil even worse by guaranteeing that it is for nothing, has no greater meaning or purpose, and cannot be redeemed.
Atheism guarantees that evil is for the benefit of the evil doer who gets to enjoy their evil and if they escape capture by the temporal judicious systems of this world they simply got away with it.
The fact of suffering and evil in the world is one of the very best reasons for rejecting atheism.
1. There is no archaeological evidence to suggest that any Jewish people were slaves in Egypt ever. So we have nothing but Jewish tradition to say otherwise, yet due to the obvious hyperbole about the masses of people depicted in the so called "Exodus" it rather clearly a fictional narrative and not historical in the least; just as none of the preceding book of Genesis is historical.
2. There is no such thing as the "soul". Mind/brain unity is very well established leaving absolutely nothing for a "soul" to do, and since that is the case there is nothing "beyond" this life; thereby making all theological propositions null and void.
A Ghost in the Machine
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/ghost.html
3. Yes, atheism makes evil even worse by guaranteeing that it is for nothing. Don't like that idea? DO SOMETHING about Evil and stop waiting for some deity to step in upon some "second coming" to eliminate for you like some lazy person who has been made to feel so dis-empowered by their religion that they pass off their own personal responsibility to non-existent deities. Theists being the majority have done that so long, little ever changes without people such as myself dragging theists kicking and screaming into the future and forcing advancement upon them. Like was done with the rejection of slavery, and the acceptance of homosexuality (that's still in progress), and all the benefits that DOUBT in theological scripture has brought to theists who appreciate scientific advancement and typically aren't against science in general unless it steps upon their theological and metaphorical toes.
3. The fact of suffering and evil in the world is one of the very best reasons to make questions as Epicurus did of the proposed deity.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Love the Epicurus...
As a fellow atheist, let me supply the theist response:
*Turns off brain* "Welp, God works in mysterious ways!"
I keep on saying here, in defense of atheism, that there is some kind of "inherent" sensibility about life, morality, our purpose here, our own personal "manifesto" about living and the overall effect we would all like to have and to leave, even if there is no life after death, we all want to feel important: with or without god!
So, yes, I believe in life itself, else I would have hastened my "inevitable end" long ago in some sort of rationalistic sophistry and "self deliverance." Yes, I believe that we can do some good in the world as I certainly don't want to be remembered as evil or somehow uncaring about the people whom I love or about whom I care. I want to be known as "kind" rather than insensitive or calloused. I want to be known as a consistent seeker of truth rather than perpetually satisfied with what I know now. I want others to know that life is more a journey that we, ourselves, can strive to direct and that, along the way, it is better that we bring about the "good" in others and in their lives rather than something other than that. I want to be able to be kind rather than harsh. I want to be able to be loving rather than hateful. I want to be able to accept others on their own terms (allowing myself to learn from them as well) rather than seeking to place others in some rather constrictive box that will only suit me.
Call what I want and how I view the world around me whatever you please. Ultimately, I, myself, am responsible for my own behavior in, as well as my own views about, the world around me. I don't rely on others for this and, hopefully (a rather strong word but metaphorically sound and understandable), I will resonate with the truth that I find along the way.
Yes, a lot of my own "morality" may be culturally derived. However, independently as a 13-year-old, I went against the flow of my own family's horrible view of minorities (with all of the negative epithets), against their indefensible views of war (I was/still am a pacifist and was even "threatened" with expulsion from the family circle for believing so), and their childish belief that the government can never harm its own citizens or abrogate their human or constitutional rights (about which, of course, much more in the news of late more than ever with Abu Graib and various CIA policies and activities over the past 50 years). I am not sure how much my overall morality is derived from our own "cultural/moral/ethical" values or from what I saw as what was absent from our own "cultural/moral/ethical" values.
I claim neither superiority nor more intellectual astuteness. I only claim that, being responsible for my own views and my own self-defined morality and ethics, I am the ultimate judge of my own ability to rise up to or to fall below my own expectations each day, much the same as with the introspection that Paul described in his own words when he says, "I die daily." Yes, I use religious metaphor freely as I know that this is a wonderful way to communicate with those who are not atheists on a very personal as well as understandable level.
I hope that more atheist would do much the same as I do. I don't expect all of them to come to the same particular conclusions as I have, yet the level of responsibility would be nice, for both atheists and those of "faith."
Anyse
anyse1@mac.com
I suppose that I am a non-theist Christian, whatever that might mean. I have never made sense of atheism. It seems to be a kind of non-category--meaning it seems (to me at least) to be a meaningless term.
So in one breath you call yourself a non-theist, and in the next you say you don't know what "atheist" means? Hint: it means "non-theist."
No, it does not mean that--not at all. The matter at hand is whether “atheism” is a coherent notion. I hold with Hartshorne that it is not. “Agnosticism” is a coherent notion as is the notion “theism”. What I ought to have said in this thread is that I am agnostic, though that is not entirely honest of me.
I think that we have to talk about “God” but that we lack good ways to do just that. From the point-of-view of many people, I probably seem to be atheist; however, I am not because that concept is simply not coherent to me.
I think that sometimes atheism seems to be more honest than theism seems. When I think about theism, I tend to mean the notion in a tenuous way. I was struggling in my post to say something to that effect. We point when we use the symbol “God”. At least, that is what I think I do.
I love some of the books that Richard Dawkings writes. His books on atheism do not impress me. However, books by Donald Dennett and Loyal Rue write about religion do impress me.
I think that atheism is a kind of confused thinking. I don't see how one can equate atheism with non-theism. That does not make any sense to me. Non-theism seems more in line with agnosticism.
Atheism isn't coherent to you because you've decided it isn't. You've decided to accept the notion that atheism isn't just a non-belief in a deity. Fine, but no one else must agree with you, and I certainly don't.
Well, I am not alone. Charles Hartshorne, a leading religious philosopher of my time, discussed this problem. Atheism is a kind of non-position. It is arguing that we can know something that we cannot know, that is the nature of a negative. Atheists seem intent on telling us what is not without just admitting that the topic is beyond telling.
@Ted Michael Morgan
Are the existence of fairies beyond telling or a proposition with no real evidence?
I suggest it is both and so is the question of deity. Atheist are simply those who have no reason to believe in a deity. A theist is someone who believes in spite of the lack of real evidence or due to indoctrination.
Do a logical analysis of the concept. It is not conherent. You cannot prove lack of coherence. The world is coherent or we cannot tell whether it is coherent. Those are the two position. You cannot give a coherent account of why you lack coherence.
I think you are the one deciding that atheism makes sense by simply saying that it is. Doesn't work that way.
@Ted Michael Morgan
For the sake of practicality the existence of a deity cannot be proved, just as fairies, gnomes, and trolls cannot be proved. Therefore it is logically practical to live as if a god did not exist. You may call this non-theist, but most of us would call it living an "atheist" life or literally (without belief in god) as opposed to others who live their lives with a belief in god or has been termed "theist". What is not coherent about that?
so, does this prove god is real?
Does this article try to prove God is real? Is that the point of the article?
I'm always irritated that every criticism of the New Atheists is met with someone saying that "it doesn't prove God exists" and some other folks taking personal offense, thinking that the criticism of the New Atheists and their evangelical fervor is an attempt to invalidate atheism as a belief system.
I don't really give a flying fig about whether or not Richard "Memes" Dawkins or Daniel "Brights" Dennett "believes" in God. Nor do I care about these silly intellectual arguments about the existence thereof. The question I care about is whether or not religious faith is or can be a viable and meaningful part of people's lives. And I think that's what this article speaks to as well. Are the "New" Atheists the single possessors of the only timeless truth revealed through biology and practiced through rational self-interest, therefore invalidating the morals, ethics and practices of religion? Nah.
I agree that religion can be meaningful. In addition, I agree that theism can be meaningful, especially a chastened and humble theism.
I live a religious life. I am not an atheist. I just seek a certain humility in what we say when we use the symbol "God."
Dawkings is as arrogant as Billy Graham and almost as annoying.
Let me modify what I said to make in closer to what I mean. I live a prayful life. In that sense and several others, I am deeply religious.
@anonymous
You say:
"The question I care about is whether or not religious faith is or can be a viable and meaningful part of people's lives"
Delusions are typically viable and meaningful which is why most people hold onto theirs even in the face of contrary evidence. So it would not matter in the least if "religious faith" is viable or meaningful. The question should be whether or not religious faith is a detriment to all those who do not hold a particular religious faith or no faith at all. Religion again and again has proved itself to be openly aggressive, passive aggressive, regressive, anti-science, anti-evidence, intrusive, and obstructive to the progress of society. The only time that hasn't been true as expressed by the occasional religious adherent is when they have looked beyond their particular religion or expressed DOUBT about their given religious texts.
And the New Atheists have shown many of the same things. You don't really know my beliefs nor do you know Schaeffer's. So please, critique a particular belief that I, or the majority of the religious folks here adhere to rather than claiming that it is a delusion.
Alright. The ubiquitous belief that people have a "soul", or a similarly conceptualized thing, that is more than just the mind. That is one of the most pervasive delusions held by humanity.
Well, I am with those who say only those who realize "the necessity for angels is a world like ours is, know how bad things really are."
I am with those who know our need for angels.
Again, what the matter at hand here is pertains to the situation that experience is either coherent or incoherent. One cannot logically use incoherence as a defense for incoherence. The best a non-theist can do is consent to agnosticisms.
Discussion about atheism tend to be rather mindless and pointless, such as this article and most responses to it (outside, of course, my own) are.
Both "Good" and "Evil" exist but only as concepts and relative judgments, not as objective entities. They have no ontological status apart from their status as a concept. So, an act is indeed just an act. It is our judgment, based on our morality, which is another relative concept, that tells us whether an act is either "good" or "evil".
I have not yet acquired a taste for Mr. Frank Schaeffer, but I think that he is probably an important writer and commentator. For many years, one of my best friends in Baton Rouge was a young man from Livingstone Parish, one of the crown counties of the Ku Klux Klan.
My friend had a conspiracy theory for every aspect of human life. Schaeffer and David Ray Griffin are like my friend. Keeping up with such theories exhausts me. I expect Mr. Schaeffer to write about his abduction by the crew of a flying saucer.
I wonder about all the babble about “the new atheists”. They seem to be the sort of folks that British Christian apologist McGrath handles with grace and elegance. I think we would make better use of RD were we to talk about creative thinkers such as Gordon Kaufmann who actually have something coherent to say.
Mr. Schaeffer’s father coarsened Christian intellectual life. I am happy that the son rebelled. Now I wait for him to say something interesting.
Whether because RD has an anti-"New Atheist" thing or for some other reason, it's very disappointing to see that this kind of straw man argumentation passes editorial muster at RD.
I'd hoped to believe that Frank Schaeffer was a better writer -- and a better person -- than this.
Indeed, if anyone is inventing vocabularies here, it's Schaeffer.
Not a good advertisement for his book.
Amen, well said.
Thanks for this great post! It's too bad that much of the following discussion didn't rise to the level of the post, though I appreciated Ryan's comments.
I don't even know why I try :)
The idea that empathy is the driver of morality is promulgated continually in these type of discussions. I'm sure the empathetic desire this to be so.
The full reality of this question of morals and to whom or what they can be attributed to, is fear.
A species develops a brain to contemplate and calculate probability of outcome, of the action being considered, in order to function in a constantly changing environment. Over millions of years this species developed language and society.
Fear ruled the development of this species brain and superstitions developed in societies to explain those fears. The complexities continually grow as the mind becomes more and more capable. More and more explanations are needed and story telling provides answers, some based on truths (if you treat some one nicely, probability is high that, the niceness will be returned) and some on untruths you will be cursed by a higher being if you don't sacrifice the first borne son.
As societies develop, this propensity to fear is easily preyed upon by those who are in authority. Superstitions became the foundations of religions. Writing came along and "formalized" religious text's and dogma's.
Those in authority, whether parent or schoolmaster, gang leader or sheriff, boss or preist, mugger or political figure, all use fear continually to subjugate those under there dominance.
We believe "do unto others as you'd have them to unto you", because we fear others doing something bad to us.
We abide by superstitions and laws, and cultural norms because we fear the consequences, whole heartedly heaping the derogatory phase upon those who fail to meet those standards.
These morals are and have been, purely fears.
Well said and true.
What if you would want someone to intercede if you were using a drug.
By the logic of the golden rule you should then intercede if someone else is using a drug.
This is the moral foundation of the current drug war in America.
I much prefer this rule:
"your body, your property, your choice"
It leaves me to make decisions about myself and you to make decisions about yourself.
Lastly Singer is not exactly right or wrong. I don't think doctors should be making the decision to terminate newborn babies that have disabilities, I think that should be up to the parents.
Society does not get up in arms about killing pigs and cows and yet surely in their limited way pigs and cows are more sentient, more self-aware, than newborn human babies.
I think when parents decide to have a child they have a duty and responsibility to provide the fetus with the best nutrition and best environment possible while in the womb (ie. no drinking or smoking during pregnancy). Once the baby is born that duty continues (ie. no circumcision, no fgm) up through to the age of consent, all the while protecting the child.
If the newborn has disabilities that weren't detected in the womb, then parents should have the option to euthanize the non-sentient newborn. With adoption though I just do not see the necessity of this.
Bees work hard and sacrifice their lives when they sting a perceived threat to the hive. If they had the ability to question why they do this, some might realize that they were under no obligation, but that the hive might not thrive as much or cease to exist. It's natural that bee religions would then evolve in order to keep recalcitrant bees behaving properly. However, there might be some who would see that, ultimately, their sacrifices aren't for the invented religions, but for the benefit of the hive.
By what logic would those atheist bees be wrong? Why is it that their conclusion can only be reached through religious belief? And why can't the religious bees and the atheist bees share some goals?
Values, start with the self-centered, God-based, or society-based assumptions--all unprovable. Values or ethics preceded Christianity and Judaism. The Code of Hammurabi was a society based ethic. Aristotle, in his 'Ethics', was pre-Christian, as was Plato.
The recent extra-marital affairs of several elected Christian officials were examples of self-centered values--not their professed Christian values.
In every situation that requires a value decision we start with a basic assumption (self, God or society) they we apply some type of evidence to it. This is critical. Does it come from the authority of the Pope, from empirical science, from historical records or traditions. Very complicated!
It is too extensive and convoluted to go in to here. For those who want a more complete view of the area, the best exposition of these problems comes, I believe, from Book 4 of the popular free ebook series "And Gulliver Returns"--In Search of Utopia-- it is found at http://andgulliverreturns.info and on the Kindle site.
I find Agnosticism more honest than Theism or Atheism. It acknowledges the unknown and doesn't get into the endless loop of argument. It also takes the ego out of "believing in god" that makes many Theists insufferable.
My experience with "christians" of all persuasions is that they are overly focused on rules and regulations. It takes the heart and "soul" if you will out of discussions, decisions and actions. They appear to be automatons simply trying to get to the end with the prized brass ring. I find most "christians" I observe to be amoral which frightens me more than anything. Many act wrongly, repent, ask for forgiveness and then act wrongly over and over again. They never change, they just repeat the cycle. Therefore, they get the spoils of their bad behavior and then never need to actually try to change themselves for the better, make better choices or be a better human. It strikes me as a type of spiritual "get out of jail free" card. I find no integrity in that type of "christianity." In fact, I find it insulting.
(I put "christian" in quotes because I have only met a handful of people whom I consider Christians. Many that make the claim of "christianity" really have no idea what it really means.)
Life it messy. Sometimes the right thing to do is to break the rule or law or make an exception. I believe Jesus challenged us to see the "spirit" of a law rather than the "letter" of the law. That means we must have some level of relativism to accommodate the conditions of being human.
While I am now a Convinced Quaker I do not focus on religion, the Bible, G*d, rules, regulations or any other trappings of the overtly religious. I attend Silent Meeting because I find the beauty is in the listening, not the preaching or worse, the beating people over the head with your belief or non-belief. Silent Meeting is very Eastern. There is a calm about it that most Westerners are not familiar with. It fosters a "letting go" that allows one to "hear" and learn rather than "preach" and pontificate. It takes the flawed human ego out of the equation.
I have come to a specific and grounding conclusion in my life and for my life.
I find more heart, soul and integrity in a person who does the "right" thing because they should than in a person who behaves in certain ways based on the promise of reward or the threat of punishment.
One is mature and the other is infantile. I find many "christians" to be maddeningly infantile.
Life is messy. Life is difficult. We are confronted daily (perhaps hourly) with decisions that have the potential to make the world a better or worse place. I watched in horror during the 8 years of GWB. His supporters, who claimed to be "christians," acted in ways that were the furthest from what Jesus stood for. People who say they are "christian" and have no idea what the means and how they must behave based on that assertion give humans a bad name and turn religion into a horrifying game show. It is distasteful at least and insulting in general.
The Santa Claus god is man's invention. Why would one want to believe in a petty, tyrannical, punitive, jealous and tantrum throwing god? If you want to believe in god, then why not believe in a god that transcends our petty humanness. Why make a god in your image? Does it make you feel better? Does it justify your own bad behavior? It seems that type of god is about human ego and rationalization and justification. That hardly seems worthy of consideration.
That is what drives the Atheists I know crazy. The notion that people will create a god image that is so flawed and that does not aspire to more and better and then spend hours every single day justifying their ego based, strangely human god image that keeps humanity bound to bad behavior with no notion of self-improvement.
Thank you Frank. I love your essays!
Please don't confuse the issue
Agnosticism is just another term for atheism. You either believe in a god or you don't.
If you say you don't know there's a god, then guess what: you're an atheist because you don't have the "faith".
Jim, who's agnostic about purple unicorns
How can anyone take the BuyBull serious? It was written by various individuals probably using Hallucinogenic drugs over 2000 years ago! 325 years after the death of Christ, over 300 religious leaders of the time gathered at the Council of Necaea to determine which writings should be included in the buybull and which should be burned!
There is zero evidence of inspiration by a higher being at that meeting or during the writings themselves! What is a higher being? I can only guess they are members of a species that have evolved millions of years beyond us? After all we are a very young species!
If a Higher Being inspired the writing of a book certainly it would contain no contridications, and be factual instead of make believe and wouldn't come off as someones vision during a bad trip? You'd certainly think a Higher Being could have implanted the entire book in our memories to recite on demand? The whole thing stinks of man's involvment and no higher power other than the imagined!
To me religion is for the weak and ignorant! To believe in an invisible man in the sky is just plain silly! Especially when anyone with an open mind can tell all religions are based on our early superstitions and fears of the unexplainable!
I hope these comments don't anger the gods and it rains for forty days and forty nights! If it does and the world supposedly floods again and then recedes, where did all the water go?
I was raised in a spiritual community by parents that found Sunday School an effective babysitter, in that with 5 kids, it gave them the only alone time in the week. Having been taught the parables of the Bible from a very early age, I cannot with certainty, disallow my religious upbringing as having a 'moral' impact on my thinking. I do remember going to the movies (same babysitter excuse)and wanting desperately to be "Lash Larue" when I grew up. I would ride my white horse into town and rid the city of all its evils. Wave goodbye and gleefully ride on to the next great redemption.
Now, was it the movies or the Bible that gave me my morality? I will leave it to the reader to decide. I have decided for myself that it is inherent in all species, if they are to survive at all. They must cooperate for the good of all. Watch a school of fish and tell me they don't understand 'cooperation'. Not one of them will sacrifice its life for any of the others but it will stay as a group to ensure that most will survive.
People want to 'believe' that someone else (God?)gives them the need to be moral. When we learned to live in a social group, and we could communicate through speech, we soon learned that everyone had demands that had to be met and therefore a consensus had to be reached on how much freedom each individual had or could expect. Its called 'civilization'. Not having all the answers, people looked to the stars and wondered. Because a few could fathom a little more that others, they became the great 'teachers'. "God" was the name given to this great question mark in the sky. It also removed a lot of responsibilty for one's actions if the 'devil made me do it'. Is it medicine or God that has made the handicapped live lives that years ago nature would have peacefully (hopefully) rendered 'unliveable' and quietly removed by death from the equation? I have great empathy for anyone that has less than all their faculties and must adjust to a society that is made for the 'whole bodied'. It's a part of our need to keep the species going that we take care of them because they have people that love them too. We have a need to to belong and if 'God' gives you comfort where 'man' fails then so be it. Personally, I have more faith in my neighbors to see that I don't get 'removed' than a 'God' that I don't even consider as existing. There is no debate. It's premordial and goes back to the slime growing in the oceans as we speak.
I tend to think that man created god in his own image and have long subscribed to "pantheism" as an alternative way to find peace. For me nature is God. Mozart is God. The Cosmos is God. I think Jesus and many other wise souls like him were merely enlightened teachers showing us how to best live our lives and none of them were Divine or ordained by God. I see the Bible as nothing more than a collection of man made codes and rules, and history, not a directive from God.
Is there a soul? Does it live on after death? I don't know for sure but a wise, ancient Greek philosopher pointed out that there was no need to worry about it because if you have a soul you'll be aware of it upon dying and if you don't you won't be able to reflect on it. Amen.
I believe in Mystery and Magic and Nature and absolute awe in the face of the endless expanse of the Universe and that's good enough for me. When imbued with such grandeur it's difficult to summon the rage necessary to commit murder, to covet your neighbor's spouse, or to rob, lie and cheat your way through life.
I would like to thank Mr. Schaeffer, member of the religious left, and son of a favorite theologian of the religious right, for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law.
I have learned a great deal from reading this and other articles, and I will try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can.
But I need your help to instill God's word in the evil atheists and to get them to realize where morality comes from.
The fact is many 19th century Christians found in the Bible a wealth of verses which, they believed, both justified the institution of slavery and condemned the abolitionist movement. Just a few:
In Genesis 16:6-9 an escaped slave is ordered (by an angel, no less!) to return to and obey her abusive mistress.
And Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies only to Mexicans. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
In Peter 2:18 (the founder of the Catholic Church and first pope) commands slaves to obey there masters, even harsh ones. If the south ever gets slavery to be legal again, do I have to be harsh?
I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21 . In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
Also I am having a few other problems spreading the Christian morality such as:
When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1 . The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15:19- 24. The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination -Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. Does this rule include the pubs and how should they die?
I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
I have others but these are the most pressing at this time.
Thanks. I would appreciate any input you have to help me to get these atheists to better understand the origin of their morality.
I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
Here's another good example of a schmuck arguing against a straw man that no one brought up in the first place.
...or should I say the elephant in the room?
~~~Smuck
Sir, I believe you plagarized the bulk of your comment, almost verbatim from Secret Origins of the Bible by Tim Callahan. There are things called quotation marks in order to avoid this in any futher postings.
...or change the FACTS that the Babble is the MOST genocidal book in the history of man.
A book this evil, patholoical, and not to mention fictional, that is the heart and soul of religion and Christianity CANNOT be the source of morality.
And that does not take into account that there is not ONE speck of credible archaelogical or anthropolical evidence your boy Jesus ever existed, let alone an Invisible Friend in the sky.
I take exception to the idea that morality is based upon religion. I was formally a very religious person. At this time in my life, I claim no knowledge of or belief in any God, nor do I have any proof that there is not. It simply does not matter to me. I am considered to be a very moral person. Frankly, I do live by the Golden Rule of many religions, but not because of any rules or any fears of retribution if I do not. I have found in my personal life that I am happier when I treat people in the manner that I wish to be treated. . . even when it is not reciprocated! I do not consider that I am borrowing this rule from religions, although it would seem to be available to loan out as I see precious little use of it in ANY organized religious group! Rather it is behavior that I have learned best meets my needs through experience. I do not feel the need to proselytize my atheism, and am willing to fight to the end for anyone to have the right to believe whatever they wish or need to belief. Having heard many a Christian testify that it is their belief in Jesus that keeps them from stealing, raping, and pillaging....I am thankful for THEIR religion.. Just do not impose it on me in any way. I simply have never had the desire to steal, rape, or pillage so apparently do not need the threat of hell to keep me in line. It is my belief that the assessment of a person's morality is in their action, not their words. If I am wrong about there being a God to whom we will need to make an accounting of our life to upon our death, I am going to count on my actions in life getting me by instead of pointing out that I said the magic "I accept Jesus" words that give me immunity.
Well not steal or rape, but pillage, that is a hard one to fight. It helps knowing that God will get me if I do.
Genocide is unacceptable. Slavery is unacceptable. Stoning people for any reason is unacceptable. It's not just Atheists that reject these things, modern society as a whole holds itself to higher moral standards than any of the three major religions teach. Compare the commandments put forth in Deuteronomy to international law. I understand that many here are followers of Jesus, but without the father, there is no son. The two can not be separated, as there is only one.
As an Atheist, since I was 5 years old, my morals were not formed by religion, or by law, but by empathy and compassion for others, my sisters and parents as a child, my friends, including pets as I grew up, my wife and children as an adult.
I have only one life, it is all I will ever have, so I cherish every moment and would never compromise or risk a bit of it.
And if I'm wrong? And there is a god... as described in the Torah, the Bible, or Koran? I'm not on his side. Like I said, I hold myself to higher moral standards than these religions teach. Just as each and everyone of you do.
don't you all know that this is ALL very, very old language and childish debate based on the archaic past. The new language that has with it a more real and practical and functional and forthright and conscientious, intelligence is that there are simply more and more evolved beings in what we term the universe (and I'm not talking space aliens, who if they are real, by all accounts are only potentially different from humans by some degree of technology, a gap that could be closed very, very quickly). Now by evolution I am not talking stock darwinism which is also archaic and easy to see holes in just as with stock creationism as they are taught. I'm talking about beings that are as far advanced from humans mentally and physically as humans (some at least) appear to be above animals and animals above plants and plants above more and more simplistic and temporary life forms relative to our current life cycle constraints.
So now you can poo poo me as I am used to as I can genuinely embrace you all, yet aptly point out where you are most often choosing to "ignore" the facts that surround us all the time but who we become entrenched against venturing beyond.
You can see some more of the views put forth here, though you will all tend to pre-judge them in one or more categories to support your continued "ignoring" the whole no doubt so I am really talking to that one in a million person who simply has a sense about which I am speaking/infering. My youtube channel name is 3spm. My internet personality name is Sawyer or swyody and you can find me on blog: blogtalkradio.com/sawyer and nowpublic.com as swyody to read more of the extraordinary views I put forth.
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