They talk a lot, and loudly, and all at the same time. If they were your family during Thanksgiving, they’d be talking with their mouths full. It would be almost amusing if it weren’t, on some important level, rather tragic.
I’m referring, of course, to the nonstop talking heads who can be found at almost any hour of the day, talking nonstop, all over television and radio. They talk about everything and nothing, so much so that they actually blur the distinction between talking about something and talking about nothing. They are, alas, the face – or perhaps I should say the food-stuffed mouth – of public discourse.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Not even when it comes to the more controversial topics of public discourse, in particular the cluster of issues relating to religion, faith, and God. As I was researching my latest book, in fact, I discovered a very appealing alternative.
There are basically four sorts of people, it seems to me, who participate in debates about God: the reasonable theist, the reasonable atheist, and unreasonable versions of each.
By a “reasonable theist” I mean someone who believes in God but who is open to exploring (and critiquing) that belief with all the normal tools of knowledge acquisition, including perception, experience more broadly construed, and most importantly reason. The reasonable theist desires not merely to believe in God, but to believe in God in the strongest and most coherent way he or she can – which requires investigating, in a genuinely open-minded and frequently critical way, the strongest and most coherent versions of theism available.
By a “reasonable atheist” I mean someone who believes that God does not exist but who is open to exploring that belief with all the normal tools of knowledge acquisition, including again, most importantly, reason. Such a person recognizes, in particular, that to reject belief in God in a reasonable way is to reject the strongest and most coherent versions of theism – which in turn also requires first investigating those theisms in a genuinely open-minded (if frequently critical) way.
“Unreasonable” people of either persuasion, meanwhile, are roughly everybody else (including, unfortunately, myself much of the time).
When you look at what the great thinkers have said about God you are, generally, in the presence of very reasonable persons, both of the theist and atheist variety. But when you turn on your TV or listen to your radio or read most of today’s periodicals and even best-selling books, you are generally in the presence of not very reasonable persons, of both varieties. What you witness is often about as appealing as your uncle Fred’s making a point with his half-chewed turkey bulging from each cheek. There are the loud voices and the raving rants. There is the invoking of labels and the calling of names: theists are foolish, irrational, close-minded and crazy, while atheists are hedonistic heathens, selfish and soulless sinners. Mostly there are people talking – shouting – right past each other, there is lots of noise and very little significance, and there is definitely, most definitely, no listening.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Public discourse cannot generally be on the same level as scholarly discourse; of course not. But discourse can be reasonable even when it is widely accessible, even when it dispenses with jargon, Latin phrases, and little logical symbols. Public discourse in fact could learn a lot from the great thinkers, not specifically about their therefores and reductios and if p then q’s, but about something more general. For when you enter the presence of the great thinkers you are in a room dominated first and foremost by respect – not merely for the other occupants of the room, but for something more fundamental: respect above all for the norms of reason, of reasonable debate, and for the very act of inquiry itself.
This is a room where the conversation is at non-rock-concert decibels. This is room without rants, where points are made and defended and – here is the amazing part – there are actual pauses in speech where other people can get not just a word in but whole paragraphs, and respond, actually respond, in a relevant way, to the points the speaker is actually making. There is no name calling here. Or maybe there is some, for we may call what goes on, in this rant-less room, a name which has become increasingly irrelevant in public discourse in recent years: namely, a conversation.
This need not be imagined as a warm and mushy love-fest, of course, replete with herbal tea and frequent group hugs.(Not that there’s anything wrong with those …) The word “conversation” here characterizes only the genuinely participatory nature of the discourse. “Conversation” can, and in this case does, include many diverse kinds of content, even the kind more regularly associated with caffeinated beverages: argument, disagreement, and debate.
For to those people committed to the norms of reason, reasonable debate, and ultimately to the act of inquiry itself, one thing quickly becomes clear above all else: reasonable people may (and generally do) disagree about almost every topic. What that means is as simple and obvious as it is important and profound: namely, the sheer fact that someone reaches a different conclusion from yours doesn’t itself mean that they are unreasonable.
And once you realize that you realize something else.
This: that you can learn a tremendous amount from people with whom you disagree, as long as they are as committed to the act of inquiry as are you. For if they disagree with you it is because they have reasons they find persuasive: arguments they find compelling, objections which seem to them to undermine your own positions, and so on. Well, if you really want to believe whatever it is you believe on the basis of genuinely good reasons, then who, we might ask, do you want to talk to: the person who already agrees with everything you believe, or the person who has discovered problems and objections and counter-arguments to your beliefs?
When you look at what the great thinkers have said about God, the most startling thing you discover is precisely that: the widespread recognition that they can learn from those with whom they disagree even the most profoundly. Historically the great thinkers from Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions have read each other’s works, debated each other’s positions, and learned from each other, even as they diverged in their conclusions about as radically as one can. The same goes for thinkers from competing denominations within any one of these traditions.
And the same goes too, most of all, for theistically-inclined thinkers and the atheistically-inclined.
Or rather, to return to my own labeling and name-calling above, it goes for the reasonable theist and the reasonable atheist. They may reach quite opposite conclusions in the end, but you can see, as you look at my description of each above, that they both will spend much of their time engaged in precisely the same activity: investigating, in a genuinely open-minded (and frequently critical) way, the strongest and most coherent versions of theism available. It is no accident that they each might well make each other’s best, most productive, study partners.
The lessons for today’s world are obvious. Much goodness ensues when there is discourse amongst disagreeing parties – or not just discourse but genuine conversation, that is, conversation governed by the norms of rational inquiry and all that that entails. Much goodness ensues, in other words, when the conversers are reasonable non-ranters who, as a bonus, often swallow before speaking.
Don’t just take my word for it: ask such thinkers as the Jewish Maimonides, the Christian Aquinas, and the Muslim Averroes. (Though taking my word affords you the benefit of dealing with fewer therefores and reductios, not to mention a whole lot less Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic respectively.)
Or don’t take anyone’s word for it. Think it through for yourself.
Though, of course, it is only in a room without rants, in the end, that you can even hear yourself think.
"There is the invoking of labels and the calling of names: theists are foolish, irrational, close-minded and crazy, while atheists are hedonistic heathens, selfish and soulless sinners."
You may be seeing things from your own point of view. For centuries, the rules of engagement on public discourse in the western world have been respect for Christianity must be upheld. That might now be changing a bit. What happens if you say something, reasonable, without rant, open-minded, and in its own way even respectful, but something Christendom doesn't want to hear? Things haven't changed quite that much yet, so it is still a problem, and if you follow it up with something else reasonable people can become enraged.
Great points, Jim -- though I like to think that those who tend to suppress the "reasonable" voices for disagreeing with them tend not to be themselves amongst the "reasonable"! Which is another way of saying that the authorities doing the suppressing tend not to be the 'great thinkers' doing the thinking ....
35 years ago I was discussing the discussion of religion with an intelligent member of my family, and she suggested I write this stuff down. I was trying to say you can't have a religion of God that wants belief without question. I didn't write anything down, and for decades I couldn't explain it to anyone, but now I think I understand why. If religion takes a wrong turn, and multiplies its error, and sinks into deeper hate toward any questioning, and turns toward vanity and allies with greed, and becomes the cause of the bad things it is preaching against, the faith of the believers is unfazed. That is the nature of faith. It doesn't matter what the people believe or why or what they do or cause others to do, faith remains just as strong, and can never be moved by any explanation. I have to thank President Bush because without his efforts, this might never have been known.
Your own labels used here - reasonable theists/atheists v unreasonable - reflect how I feel when discussing religion. As an atheist I tend to find more pleasure talking to other reasonable theists than 'unreasonable atheists', despite sharing similar worldviews. The shared interest in studying and discussing religion seem more important than the differing/shared viewpoints of either side.
So very well put! And Jim also makes a great point, as many other atheists/non-theists I know tend to shy away from certain topics or discussing their own views for fear it will be taken as rude and ranting, despite the most humble honesty and respect of the speaker towards the listener.
There is a lot here to agree with! Not least that we can learn a lot from people we disagree with, especially if we engage them substantively.
What I'm not persuaded by is who gets called unreasonable in the 4-part taxonomy.
I suggest that as a relevant aspect of reasonableness is epistemic responsibility -- being responsible about our knowledge claims -- epistemic responsibility does not require investigating theisms. (At least, it does not require investigating theisms whose knowledge claims are opaque to science, and most of the myriad forms of theism I have encountered fall into this camp.) Why? Two reasons:
1. I suggest that epistemic responsibility requires investigating evidence, but where evidence we can scientifically investigate is not offered, we reach the limit of our responsibility to investigate claims.
2. But suppose some evidence IS offered, on the model perhaps of the "Intelligent Design" advocacy or natural theology. Here, I suggest it is epistemically responsible to fall back on current science -- not because we are sure that it is correct, by any means, but because it reflects humans' epistemically best account of the universe at present. Why should epistemic responsibility stop there? Because we want an account of epistemic responsibility that is consistent with social responsibility, which would have us spend our time on things other than investigating the whole range of claims people make which are not (yet) admitted to science. "Sorry, Honey, I'll feed the dog as soon as I finish looking into these original sources on the Sumerian calf god, and then Jedi midi-chlorians, and then ..."
In short, a reasonable atheist position is, "Sorry, no, I don't believe in any version of God I know of, and I am not interested in further investigating theism."
"Aha," you might respond, "but I was referring only to those 'who participate in debates about God,' and surely there are extra epistemic obligations in that context." Well, right: those seeking out conversations about whether gods exist ought to be willing to engage with others' positions.
But -- in line with Jim's comment, above -- often irreligious people find themselves offered premises about the existence of gods in discussions about secular political matters, and in that sort of discussion, I suggest, it is epistemically responsible to both deny that god exists and decline to investigate theisms of any sort.
People who like discussions like discussions where issues can be argued, and in the end the two sides can agree to disagree. That means both sides can go away thinking they won. There is an almost limitless array of discussions that can be used for this purpose. There is also the rare discussion that can be forced to a conclusion, and Creationism/Evolution is now in that category. The key is the newly developed process of DNA sequencing. As a large number of species is totally sequenced, will the differences reveal a pattern of a tree of common ancestory as described by evolution, or will it reveal other mix and match patterns that can't be put into the form of the branching tree and would require separate creation events? If there are any creationists who are scientists, they will be really excited. The Christian universities who believe in creationism can invest in the DNA sequencing equipment, and do the work and record the data and run the mathematics to prove the case one way or the other, and force the rest of the world to accept their findings because it is reproducable science. Or if they don't want to do the experiment, then they are not scientists and that discussion is concluded.
If you support liberal causes and you shout and disrupt, you are exhibiting the freedom to dissent, When you do not support the Lib/Progressive agenda and voice your opinion , you are an angry mob.Why the double standard?
Those against the progressive agenda are supporting the party of the rich, and they have brought us senseless war, torture, and society based on greed where after the parachutes were financed there was no longer money left to pay people their pensions or health insurance, and then people started losing their homes. As the president once stated, people are clinging to guns and religion. In addition to the birther movement and the evil death panel movement, these people have taken up the causes of making sure wealth is not shared and government doesn't have empathy. This is not a double standard objecting to them when they become an angry mob. It is progressively objecting to the world they are creating, and trying to change course before it is too late.
Is this a rant or a reasonable statement? I think it is reasonable.
And who are showing up at town hall meetings with loaded weapons? It has been almost exclusively those who are conservative, and the only purpose of a loaded weapon is for intimidation. That strikes at the very heart of democracy. And as Bill O'Reilly once pointed out, the tactics of shouting down and physical intimidation were the tactics of the Nazis in pre-war Germany.
Why is it that conservatives by and large can't enter into intelligent debate? I had one recently that could only revert to the mantra that a universal plan would increase bureaucracy without any proof or evidence of the statement, let alone why such an increase would be worse than covering all Americans with a health plan. There is also a big difference between protesting a war which kills and a health plan that does the opposite. Yet conservatives get up in arms about a health plan instead of war, the cost of which could easily cover the health plan. Pro life? I think not.
Theist/Atheist... Good/Bad... Reasonable/Unreasonable... Isn't there a subtler, a more complex and nuanced manner to construct an understanding of this situation? There are reasonable positions on the existence of God that you've left out (e.g. the Agnostic positions, both strong and weak varieties.) Perhaps they are minority positions, but they exist and at least some of them do NOT logically or over time devolve to either atheist or theist positions as some (i.e. unreasonable theists and atheists) would have us believe.
Of course, this observation does not touch your excellent points about civility and theological argumentation, but rather asks you to look beyond your Judeo/Christo/Islamic cloister walls if you are going to say that you are talking about the "great thinkers" and what they have to say about the divine.
Sextus Empiricus is said to report an Ontological Argument for the gods' existence by Diogenes of Babylon in the second century C.E. - that's about eight hundred years before Anselm got around to it! And then there are the great thinkers of India, China, Japan and who knows where else? These days, if you want to do real theology, you must go beyond the Abrahamic faith traditions and have inclusive, World theological discussions. Otherwise, you are arbitrarily leaving some of us out of the conversation...And that's bad faith as well as bad manners, no?
Hi Emyth,
Excellent points all -- of course you can't talk about everything at all times, so one always must pick and choose -- and since the book I just published focused on the great Western thinkers (only because those were the ones with which I'm most familiar, and because you can't talk about everything all at once), it was from there that I drew the inspiration for this piece. And you're absolutely right about other "reasonable positions," though of course I was using "(un)reasonable" to apply to the people holding the positions, not the positions themselves ... There are probably both "reasonable" and "unreasonable" agnostics as well! All this said, though, everything you say is exactly right -- and my own (limited) study of non-Western traditions has already taught me the treasure trove of ("reasonable") wisdom extends far beyond (and far before) the Western traditions ....
Public discourse has been polarized. One side has become so detached, a brawl is their best or possibly only opportunity to express their side. If some want scholarly discourse, they can be ignored while the brawlers search out others less scholarly for a fight. Scholarly discourse becomes isolated to a few not widely circulated threads. Another approach might be to focus tightly on a key issue and push it. Discussions about atheists, agnostics, religion, wisdom of other lands or times might just be distraction, arguments that are fun but which never lead to a breaking point.
I appreciated the reasonable and helpful tone of your discussion. Very helpful for those of us engaged in writing and talking about religion. I wish that my critics would write with your good natured intelligence. Then, I could learn things and would not feel frightened or wrong, or, for that matter, wronged.
I'm reminded of something Bertrand Russell said,
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
By the time the wise have sufficiently overcome their doubts and spoken up, the fools and fanatics in their certainty have captured the hearts and minds of the public at large.
Someone smart said something like this. I don't remember who. ------ It's hard to have a real disagreement. We don't listen well enough to each other to have the foundation for one.---
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