| John | So you believe in God? |
| Mary | Yes. Of course. Can't you see him all around, in the birds and trees. Isn't it wonderful? |
| John | Quite wonderful. So God is in all the natural things around, even the ground. How do I tell him apart from the natural world? Sounds like you mean God is the wonder you feel when you observe that natural world. |
| Mary | No, no silly. God isn't the trees and bees. He's in them but isn't them. |
| John | Rather confusing really. So if I keep investigating the universe by looking further and further inside, I will come to God. We haven't got there yet. So, in the mean time, how can you be certain he is there? |
| Mary | Of course, he's not in there in a sense that science can find. He's in there sustaining the universe, beyond the reach of science. |
| John | Ah, a kind of force behind everything. Still, we've found them before. Must be a matter of time before we find him. Meanwhile, how can you be certain? |
| Mary | No. You've missed the point. You won't find him, because he's outside the natural universe. We can't find him with science. |
| John | Oh, I see. An unknowable God outside what we know and can know. Makes it rather hard for you to know he's there. If he's unknowable, he might be anything, like a large bird or a fart from a monkey. |
| Mary | Now you're just being silly. He's not either. He's God - unknowable and beyond the universe. |
| John | Still, you speak so confidently. As if you do know. Rather a contradiction, don't you think? |
| Mary | Not at all. God has revealed himself to me. |
| John | How? |
| Mary | Well, he wrote a book called the Bible. It tells me all about God. |
| John | Not bad for an unknowable God. How did you know it was God writing? |
| Mary | Of course it was. It says so in the book. |
| John | But it might have been a clever person masquerading as God. |
| Mary | It wasn't. It is inspired writing. No person could write that. |
| John | How was it inspired? |
| Mary | Well. It talks all about where the world comes from, who were the first people and their descendants and the wars and the travels. |
| John | That's inspired? Sounds like most history books and myths written by people throughout the ages. |
| Mary | No, God wrote it. In it he claims he is God. |
| John | Are you sure? Don't humans claim he is God, like you are doing. |
| Mary | But I know its God. |
| John | How? |
| Mary | God revealed himself to me. |
| John | OK. What was that like? |
| Mary | I had a moment of great inspiration. God said to me "I am here" |
| John | Wow. That must have been exciting. How did you know it was God? |
| Mary | He spoke to me. |
| John | But what if it wasn't God? What if were a trick or something in your head? |
| Mary | Of course I wasn't. It was God. |
| John | What did he sound like? |
| Mary | He didn't sound like anything. I just knew it was him. |
| John | So you just recognised him? |
| Mary | Yes |
| John | So, you must have seen him before. |
| Mary | Yes, all around me in creation. In the birds and the trees. |
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Gapfilla God
A conversation about a moving God
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Burning witches
Recently, my brother-in-law 'gleefully' posted this apparent rationale for believing in God.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism by Austin Hughes.
I was less than impressed and, in my Facebook response, a little immoderate in my language. This is my simplified reply:
Reason has no regard for categories such as scientism. It rejects anything unreasonable. Reason requires no falsifiability. It is reasonable to accept as fact that I am the father of my children, given all available evidence.
Maths does not require falsifiability, as it is propositional by nature. It does not poll real circles to arrive at a relationship of radius to circumference (Tau) - it simply proposes an ideal circle, then applies a proof to that. This is then overlaid onto the material universe and found to be profoundly useful. Is Maths wicked 'scientism' because it has explanatory power and utility?
Forensic science begins with an outcome and verifies the likelihood of a set of beginning states and events producing this outcome. Historical discovery does the same. 'Fact' in these studies is necessarily provisional and makes claims only in a limited way. I don't think we ought to load sets of people in aeroplanes and crash them in order to establish the cause of the crash. That would be unethical, without even having to ask a scientist or a sciencismist.
That sort of science IS unethical and also stupid, precisely because we already know the outcome and therefore prediction is unnecessary. But you have to be bold to tell those folk doing the investigation that they are just products of that rampant fad 'scientism'.
Ethics should not be bridled by scientific experimentation but it would be stupid to ignore its contribution. Ethics without science can simply tell me an alcoholic is a bad person. Ethics with religion can tell me an alcoholic is a bad person because he sins. Ethics with science can tell me an alcoholic has a mechanism that I share and thence I can boldly claim "there, but for the grace of god, go I" (ie. true grounds for forgiveness). Woops, guess the professor didn't want his shallow evaluation of Harris busted.
Name-calling is boring. Hughes should stick to science, which, on the evidence, he is brilliant at. He should leave reason, ethics and discourse to the rest of us, because he is bad at it. Did he not talk about the "typical scientist seemed to be a person who knew one small corner of the natural world and knew it very well, better than most other human beings living and better even than most who had ever lived. But outside of their circumscribed areas of expertise, scientists would hesitate to express an authoritative opinion." but somehow manages to critique the work of Hawking, the physicist? Mmm, that seems a little inconsistent.
Facts help as well. No falsifiability required, but 'memes' were a tiny element of Dawkins' work, mainly referring to work others had done. Meanwhile, he devoted several books and a three part series to debunking superstition via reason. Forgot to notice that part of Dawkins' work? Woops, do we see spin in the good professors critique? He's not very good at it if a quick Google search can prove otherwise (and expose his naked arse); maybe he should stick to science.
Oh, and he is oft quoted by the ID people. Where did he mention them as the peddlers of superstition that they are? I guess he couldn't bring himself to a balanced assessment of scientism. Still a good atheist bashing has the same delightful smell as a witch-burning.
Dear, dear. Rather a large member exposed when his pants are so low! Now, there's a bit of hard science that could be done, Austy. Do we really go blind with too much masturbation? How would you do that science?
The folly of (stupid) scientists.
How stupid of him to trust the plumber when he said the toilet was fixed. No, Austin. Get down and dirty and lets find out if it is fixed using hard science. Don't go believing that 'cold reading' plumber who just said something to please your superstition that the toilet worked. No, no. Don't apply reason or experience or probability or even pragmatism. Only 'hard science' will do!
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism by Austin Hughes.
I was less than impressed and, in my Facebook response, a little immoderate in my language. This is my simplified reply:
Reason has no regard for categories such as scientism. It rejects anything unreasonable. Reason requires no falsifiability. It is reasonable to accept as fact that I am the father of my children, given all available evidence.
Maths does not require falsifiability, as it is propositional by nature. It does not poll real circles to arrive at a relationship of radius to circumference (Tau) - it simply proposes an ideal circle, then applies a proof to that. This is then overlaid onto the material universe and found to be profoundly useful. Is Maths wicked 'scientism' because it has explanatory power and utility?
Forensic science begins with an outcome and verifies the likelihood of a set of beginning states and events producing this outcome. Historical discovery does the same. 'Fact' in these studies is necessarily provisional and makes claims only in a limited way. I don't think we ought to load sets of people in aeroplanes and crash them in order to establish the cause of the crash. That would be unethical, without even having to ask a scientist or a sciencismist.
That sort of science IS unethical and also stupid, precisely because we already know the outcome and therefore prediction is unnecessary. But you have to be bold to tell those folk doing the investigation that they are just products of that rampant fad 'scientism'.
Ethics should not be bridled by scientific experimentation but it would be stupid to ignore its contribution. Ethics without science can simply tell me an alcoholic is a bad person. Ethics with religion can tell me an alcoholic is a bad person because he sins. Ethics with science can tell me an alcoholic has a mechanism that I share and thence I can boldly claim "there, but for the grace of god, go I" (ie. true grounds for forgiveness). Woops, guess the professor didn't want his shallow evaluation of Harris busted.
Name-calling is boring. Hughes should stick to science, which, on the evidence, he is brilliant at. He should leave reason, ethics and discourse to the rest of us, because he is bad at it. Did he not talk about the "typical scientist seemed to be a person who knew one small corner of the natural world and knew it very well, better than most other human beings living and better even than most who had ever lived. But outside of their circumscribed areas of expertise, scientists would hesitate to express an authoritative opinion." but somehow manages to critique the work of Hawking, the physicist? Mmm, that seems a little inconsistent.
Facts help as well. No falsifiability required, but 'memes' were a tiny element of Dawkins' work, mainly referring to work others had done. Meanwhile, he devoted several books and a three part series to debunking superstition via reason. Forgot to notice that part of Dawkins' work? Woops, do we see spin in the good professors critique? He's not very good at it if a quick Google search can prove otherwise (and expose his naked arse); maybe he should stick to science.
Oh, and he is oft quoted by the ID people. Where did he mention them as the peddlers of superstition that they are? I guess he couldn't bring himself to a balanced assessment of scientism. Still a good atheist bashing has the same delightful smell as a witch-burning.
Dear, dear. Rather a large member exposed when his pants are so low! Now, there's a bit of hard science that could be done, Austy. Do we really go blind with too much masturbation? How would you do that science?
The folly of (stupid) scientists.
How stupid of him to trust the plumber when he said the toilet was fixed. No, Austin. Get down and dirty and lets find out if it is fixed using hard science. Don't go believing that 'cold reading' plumber who just said something to please your superstition that the toilet worked. No, no. Don't apply reason or experience or probability or even pragmatism. Only 'hard science' will do!
Sunday, December 23, 2012
When you have nothing else, go for the straw man
John Dickson might just be proof that, even if you have a blog on the ABC, you can still be a twat. His latest Christmas special, A fight they can't win: The irreligious assault on the historicity of Jesus, which is already too verbose just in its title alone, manages to compose an elaborate straw man which is fastidiously dismantled. Too bad its totally irrelevant to the irreligious or the religious.
Talking about the 'historicity' of Jesus to the religious is a perfect waste of time. No matter who Jesus was as a Jew from Nazaret, he has been progressively buried in layers of doctrinal sediment. Each new Biblical scholar 'discovers' Jesus 'anew', with all the awe of a kiddy opening presents from under a Christmas tree. A new revelation is entirely par for the course - it certainly guarantees a following amongst the gullible.
Talking to the irreligious about Jesus is likewise futile. Since Jesus is quite likely to have been the unremarkable son of a craftsman who 'fell into' fame, as many second rate performers do and certainly not a god, prophet or miracle worker, this line of conversation will probably elicit "Uh-huh".
Where Dickson shows his capacity for spin is in his denigration of Dawkins. If in doubt, a glorious ad hominem may cover the singular lack of argument. Supposedly, "Richard Dawkins says 'a serious historical case' can be made that 'Jesus never lived at all,'" and from this "no doubt receives applause from his followers". Of course, few of Dawkins followers are so woefully ignorant of his words as Dickson. In fact, on page 122, Dawkins does say
The substance of the God Delusion is that belief in God is delusional - that is, it demonstrates the same characteristics as a belief as any other beliefs considered to be delusional beliefs. Dickson probably laughs at spiritualism; a seance is a magic trick. Yet up until Houdini comprehensively exposed spiritualism it was accepted as within the realms of possibility by many of the educated and scholarly. These days we might section someone who consistently insisted on the delusional belief that granny was following him around.
Some of Dawkins arguments are weak on evidence or generalise religion when a more specific analysis is necessary. However, Dawkins has shifted his posture in this regard, as is evidenced in his 'concillitory tone' in
Sex, Death And The Meaning Of Life
Dawkins has moved on, but Dickson prefers the 'straw man' of the person he presumed Dawkins once was.
But, even as an historian, Dickson manages an epic fail. Few people in history have had quite as much opinion and pure speculation written about them as Jesus. Jesus has been both an agent of a vengeful God and the Prince of Peace. He has been both a social radical and affirmation of a long tradition of law. He has been both the humble human and the miracle working superman. If you seriously think you are going to do novel or significant historical work, forget Jesus.
If amongst the 'noise' of 2 millenia of propaganda you can still get any sense of an historical person with some authenticity, then you are either a liar or magician. But the historicity of Jesus is entirely a red herring. Literary criticism is much more useful inn trying to understand Jesus than the historical process of confirming secondary sources with primary sources.
All claims about Jesus and all Jesus' claims can only be seen through a lens of interpretation. In regard to Jesus' claims about himself, letting a character in literature make a case for their own existence or character is absurd. Nobody expects to verify that Julius Caesar was a historical figure by reading in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that he makes claims to be Julius Caesar. Such claims must be externally verified. Thus, as historians, we cannot accept Jesus' claims about himself, under any circumstances.
We can, however, construct a profile premised in his words and actions as they are recorded. All literature that speaks about an historical figure positions the audience to believe a particular set of precepts. This is a fundamental aspect of all literature. Thus, even if we have witnesses to Jesus' life, we must take into consideration that they will have an agenda in speaking about Jesus.
There is little virtue in even addressing Cathcart's stumble or Nobbs and Judge's correction or an inflated sense of the importance of your own tweets, nor the religious affiliation of an historical author, as Dickson does. They might help you sound 'terribly scholarly' but add precisely nothing to the real debate - which version of Jesus can actually be authenticated? To this debate Dickson adds precisely nothing. This is because he has precisely nothing to say.
There is even less virtue in lame anecdotes about boxers. For Christ's sake, Dickson, can't you even make it slightly funny!
Talking about the 'historicity' of Jesus to the religious is a perfect waste of time. No matter who Jesus was as a Jew from Nazaret, he has been progressively buried in layers of doctrinal sediment. Each new Biblical scholar 'discovers' Jesus 'anew', with all the awe of a kiddy opening presents from under a Christmas tree. A new revelation is entirely par for the course - it certainly guarantees a following amongst the gullible.
Talking to the irreligious about Jesus is likewise futile. Since Jesus is quite likely to have been the unremarkable son of a craftsman who 'fell into' fame, as many second rate performers do and certainly not a god, prophet or miracle worker, this line of conversation will probably elicit "Uh-huh".
Where Dickson shows his capacity for spin is in his denigration of Dawkins. If in doubt, a glorious ad hominem may cover the singular lack of argument. Supposedly, "Richard Dawkins says 'a serious historical case' can be made that 'Jesus never lived at all,'" and from this "no doubt receives applause from his followers". Of course, few of Dawkins followers are so woefully ignorant of his words as Dickson. In fact, on page 122, Dawkins does say
"IT IS EVEN POSSIBLE to mount a serious, THOUGH NOT WIDELY SUPPORTED, historical case that Jesus never lived at all, as has been done by, among others Professor G. A. Wells of the University of London in a number of books, including Did Jesus Exist? Although Jesus PROBABLY existed." (My capitalisation, for the selectively blind)What is even more pathetic is that Dickson cherry picks this book as many Christian commentators are want to do to the Bible. If lacking an argument of substance, simply ignore the thesis of the book in preference to a selective quote that can be easily refuted (if you even quote it accurately).
The substance of the God Delusion is that belief in God is delusional - that is, it demonstrates the same characteristics as a belief as any other beliefs considered to be delusional beliefs. Dickson probably laughs at spiritualism; a seance is a magic trick. Yet up until Houdini comprehensively exposed spiritualism it was accepted as within the realms of possibility by many of the educated and scholarly. These days we might section someone who consistently insisted on the delusional belief that granny was following him around.
Some of Dawkins arguments are weak on evidence or generalise religion when a more specific analysis is necessary. However, Dawkins has shifted his posture in this regard, as is evidenced in his 'concillitory tone' in
Sex, Death And The Meaning Of Life
Dawkins has moved on, but Dickson prefers the 'straw man' of the person he presumed Dawkins once was.
But, even as an historian, Dickson manages an epic fail. Few people in history have had quite as much opinion and pure speculation written about them as Jesus. Jesus has been both an agent of a vengeful God and the Prince of Peace. He has been both a social radical and affirmation of a long tradition of law. He has been both the humble human and the miracle working superman. If you seriously think you are going to do novel or significant historical work, forget Jesus.
If amongst the 'noise' of 2 millenia of propaganda you can still get any sense of an historical person with some authenticity, then you are either a liar or magician. But the historicity of Jesus is entirely a red herring. Literary criticism is much more useful inn trying to understand Jesus than the historical process of confirming secondary sources with primary sources.
All claims about Jesus and all Jesus' claims can only be seen through a lens of interpretation. In regard to Jesus' claims about himself, letting a character in literature make a case for their own existence or character is absurd. Nobody expects to verify that Julius Caesar was a historical figure by reading in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that he makes claims to be Julius Caesar. Such claims must be externally verified. Thus, as historians, we cannot accept Jesus' claims about himself, under any circumstances.
We can, however, construct a profile premised in his words and actions as they are recorded. All literature that speaks about an historical figure positions the audience to believe a particular set of precepts. This is a fundamental aspect of all literature. Thus, even if we have witnesses to Jesus' life, we must take into consideration that they will have an agenda in speaking about Jesus.
There is little virtue in even addressing Cathcart's stumble or Nobbs and Judge's correction or an inflated sense of the importance of your own tweets, nor the religious affiliation of an historical author, as Dickson does. They might help you sound 'terribly scholarly' but add precisely nothing to the real debate - which version of Jesus can actually be authenticated? To this debate Dickson adds precisely nothing. This is because he has precisely nothing to say.
There is even less virtue in lame anecdotes about boxers. For Christ's sake, Dickson, can't you even make it slightly funny!
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Fantasy, Myth, Religion and Spin
I was fascinated to watch as the world's leading and probably most wealthy fantasy writer, Jo (JK) Rowling investigated her family heritage in the documentary series "Who do you think you are?" What separated JK Rowling from others I have watched is the juxtaposition of three traditions - the making of fantasy (I use that word 'making' deliberately, rather than 'creation', to indicate a kind of 'making' akin to 'making a sandwich'), the evolution of myth and the forensic investigation of myth.
First, I disclose that I despise Harry Potter and I have not been able to stomach more than a couple of pages of reading Harry Potter and the movies are only as interesting as the special effects. I find the characterisation thin, the plot formulaic and the settings overly romantic (in a kind of English way also found in those other famous fantasy writers, Lewis and Tolkein).
Don't get me wrong or cast me too thinly. If Harry Potter had emerged from somewhere 30 years early when I was a child, I would have gobbled it up, as I did the Narnia series and the Lord of the Rings tome. To live in a fantasy world is blessed; a childish indulgence that switches time off and takes you away from the pressing concerns of the world. We must, I fear, have fantasy to keep us sane. It is the refuge that we can no longer find in many quarters.
A fantasy character must not be too real. They must not be sordid. No addiction, no homelessness, no hopelessness. How delightfully ironic is it that Kirsten Stewart, star of Twilight, was recently sacked from a film because her 'real' life (or the life that the media spun) become too 'sordid' because she (gasp!) become someone's mistress? Heavens! How could wowser Stephanie Meyer ever approve of a character that, well, was sexually flawed?
No, authors that nuance characters to resemble real life just don't sell. They just aren't fulfilling our lust for escapist serenity; of our timeless moment with a two-dimensional world. And here I disclose again, in the interests of fairness. I spend far too much time in a two-dimensional world of Age of Empires.
But, back to someone genuinely interesting - JK Rowling. According to the documentary, she inherited a family myth of a war hero amongst her ancestors, a young man who came to England in the 19th century and made his way in world of hospitality, working his way through the ranks at the Savoy Hotel. Later, in the war, he performs acts of bravery for which he is awarded France's equivalent of the Victoria Cross.
The story of her ancestry twists and turns, but her attention is caught by a young girl from Alsace who loses her father at a young age and struggles in poverty in a large family to make her way in the world, eventually falling pregnant while working as a maid (as many maids did, too often to their masters). The characters are large, alive and compelling. At times, despite editing, JK Rowling is visibly overwhelmed and at other times exuberant. These people provide a satisfaction incomparable to Harry Potter.
Even more compelling, however, is Rowling's journey through myth. In crude terms, all myth is the embellishment of the truth of events with details that make the narrative flow, thus making it accessible and transferable. We add fantasy to experience. But myth does not suffer the 2-dimensionality of fantasy. Myth must have concrete referents, objective evidence that can be verified. No-one inherits a family myth about ancestors who lived on the moon, nor one where Texas has ceded from the US, despite both of these being credible elements of fantasy.
Rowling is surprisingly relentless and forensic in uncovering that the Louis that she has down as a war hero is actually, incredibly, a man of the same name but a different person to her forefather. This 'imposter' to her myth is certainly a war hero, but certificates prove conclusively he is not related to Rowling. Laughably, the 'war medal' that the family has carefully harboured turns out to a badge that identifies his membership of a trade union. You can see that this revelation has a kind of crushing effect on Rowling. Her spontaneous reaction (laughing) is then matched by a resolve to pursue the family myth deeper; to validate her family's memories.
Myth does this. When we discover that a cherished element of myth is quite plainly 'bullshit', our reaction is not to set it aside and move on. It gets under our skin. We are determined to separate truth and fantasy for the sake of our identity. It drives us to scientific endeavour - to uncovering, systematically, those primary historical sources which either add to or deny the narrative we have inherited.
In an unimaginable coincidence (one no novelist could conceive), Rowling's Louis, after being raised first as the illegitimate son of that maid, and leaving the family to find his way in England, living for years in England and raising a family from which he is alienated by sad circumstances, but returning in his thirties to serve in the French army in WWI, turns out to be a reluctant hero when the war came unexpectedly to a part of France defended only by 'old men', poorly trained and reserved to defend bridges. Rowling's delight at finding that her Louis is, in fact, a hero of greater standing than the 'imposter', is palpable. The family myth is validated beyond expectations.
But some curious elements of Rowling's investigation of her family myth are just as telling as this evidentiary support for the myth. Rowling is determined not to be German. Rowling is clearly fluent in French, reading it and translating from historical documents with surprising ease and fluency. Her blunt reaction when encountering an offcial document written in German is, "Oh. What's this language!", betraying a deep animosity towards anything German.
Despite the maid's surname being Schuch, there being a real possibility that she spoke German and the national identity of people of Alsace being somewhat blurry, Rowling seeks to 'ethnically cleanse' her heritage of Germans. Shades of "don't mention the war". A Prussian army marching through the village of Schuch's youth is considered sinister. Fantasy, it seems, continues to be layered upon that forensic evidence to bolster a sense of deep seated tribalism.
I confess to be entirely taken with Rowling. She is intelligent, engaging and not at all arrogant, despite her fabulous success. Her polished English accent occasionally lapses and we hear some the accent of her youth, especially in her emotional reactions. Most certainly, she is English, through and through, yet identifies so determinedly as French.
Myth can never really be 'untangled' nor properly analysed to determine what might be claimed as historical and what as gratuitous embellishment. Rowling's quest was never really going to myth-busting. Instead, the already rich mythology of the family narrative was further enriched and expanded and new, more provocative and endearing characters were added.
As humans have journeyed through space as a curious species on a lonely island in our galaxy, the trillions of narratives have been woven into the fabric of myth. No surprise, then, that religion, with its formidable arsenal of cultural mechanisms, was able to distil myth into a coherent world view by which humans could contextualise their personal narrative. As surely as the Internet and social media, this curious social animal was going to create the myth of 'the universe and everything' and this myth was going to be carried along through generations of telling and further creative embellishment.
Of course, embellishment had to serve tribal prejudice. It was not sensible to add aliens from the cosmos who came to earth to erect communication beacons. Embellishment must reinforce that others are 'baddies' and we are good. Embellishment must establish our eating practices as clean and others as dirty. Religion as systematic mythology settled into codes of conduct and became a handy mechanism for opportunistic despots to rule. In Constantine's quest to become the one emperor, the pervasive theology of One God was fortunate 'grist'.
But to dismiss myth as a kind of plague on culture or historical memory is to neglect the baby kicking and screaming in the bath water. Myth, and its aggregating mechanism, religion, creates in us a most compelling drive for verification. As Montgomery discovered in debunking creationism in The Rocks Don't Lie, the very engagement with myth drives humans to search for objective verification. We are never properly satisfied with myth without some 'hard evidence'. Rowling's quest is an entirely human quest.
Of course, such engagement leads inevitably to scientific method as the means of verification. Science grows directly from myth. Ptolemy's precursor to the heliocentric model of the solar system, buried so comprehensively by Christendom, is most certainly resurrected by someone driven to claim an objective truth behind the story they have inherited, whether it be about stars or conquerors. As surely as myth breeds fantastic embellishment, so myth drives our deep seated desire to 'know the truth'; a truth, that Colonel Jessop reminds us in A Few Good Men, we are deeply uncomfortable with.
In the twilight years of the tradition of myth-making, people today are clinging to religion to quench their thirst for that narrative. Unfortunately, most religions carry huge embarrassing baggage of codified savagery and cruelty and breath-taking bigotry. Despite the sanitising of this baggage (keep "Thous shalt not kill" but omit "God hates fags"), it is increasingly an unwanted side-effect of maintaining a yearning for myth. In nail-clinging desperation, religions are spinning these myths into a myriad of directions.
Thus, we witness the rise and rise of clumsy paradigms driven by spin. Science and religion, cultural cohabitants, are driven into conflict by increasingly shrill voices. You must choose a side. Either you are for the war in Iraq or against. You cannot complicate nor nuance your position. The army of the Lord or the army of the secular horde. Choose now, pilgrim!
Ironically, notable atheists like Sam Harris have enlisted on the side of rank tribalism. Islam is a religion of violence, unmistakably. We should, he posits, profile people for security checks, premised on their religion. Of course, the logical extension is that every Islamic person is suspect and we have good reason, as sensible Americans, to maintain a vigilance that could well justify vigilantism and perhaps even the horror of 84 shot dead on Utoya Island.
The spin that virally infects the WWW is that the average Islamic person actually subscribes to violent jihad. Simply ignore the hundreds of millions of Muslims who daily go about their life with not much more malice than one might reserve for a mother-in-law. Spin, unlike myth, cannot afford to admit either objective investigation nor doubt about the narrative. You are either with us, or against us. You either believe or you don't. It has no positive off-shoot in driving people to science, as myth has so long provided. It plays only on the guilt of betraying one's tribe; it throws the 'traitor' starkly into relief.
We may be in awe of Julia Gillard's recent Canute-like stance against the sea of spin, but, in the end, this bravery may go unrewarded. Rowling's Louis may have stood against an overwhelming enemy and triumphed, despite personal injury, but Julia has no hope. The very viral nature of social media and the WWW has put myth, science and religion firmly into their death-throes. We may be the last of the human myth makers. We may be the last real humans.
First, I disclose that I despise Harry Potter and I have not been able to stomach more than a couple of pages of reading Harry Potter and the movies are only as interesting as the special effects. I find the characterisation thin, the plot formulaic and the settings overly romantic (in a kind of English way also found in those other famous fantasy writers, Lewis and Tolkein).
Don't get me wrong or cast me too thinly. If Harry Potter had emerged from somewhere 30 years early when I was a child, I would have gobbled it up, as I did the Narnia series and the Lord of the Rings tome. To live in a fantasy world is blessed; a childish indulgence that switches time off and takes you away from the pressing concerns of the world. We must, I fear, have fantasy to keep us sane. It is the refuge that we can no longer find in many quarters.
A fantasy character must not be too real. They must not be sordid. No addiction, no homelessness, no hopelessness. How delightfully ironic is it that Kirsten Stewart, star of Twilight, was recently sacked from a film because her 'real' life (or the life that the media spun) become too 'sordid' because she (gasp!) become someone's mistress? Heavens! How could wowser Stephanie Meyer ever approve of a character that, well, was sexually flawed?
No, authors that nuance characters to resemble real life just don't sell. They just aren't fulfilling our lust for escapist serenity; of our timeless moment with a two-dimensional world. And here I disclose again, in the interests of fairness. I spend far too much time in a two-dimensional world of Age of Empires.
But, back to someone genuinely interesting - JK Rowling. According to the documentary, she inherited a family myth of a war hero amongst her ancestors, a young man who came to England in the 19th century and made his way in world of hospitality, working his way through the ranks at the Savoy Hotel. Later, in the war, he performs acts of bravery for which he is awarded France's equivalent of the Victoria Cross.
The story of her ancestry twists and turns, but her attention is caught by a young girl from Alsace who loses her father at a young age and struggles in poverty in a large family to make her way in the world, eventually falling pregnant while working as a maid (as many maids did, too often to their masters). The characters are large, alive and compelling. At times, despite editing, JK Rowling is visibly overwhelmed and at other times exuberant. These people provide a satisfaction incomparable to Harry Potter.
Even more compelling, however, is Rowling's journey through myth. In crude terms, all myth is the embellishment of the truth of events with details that make the narrative flow, thus making it accessible and transferable. We add fantasy to experience. But myth does not suffer the 2-dimensionality of fantasy. Myth must have concrete referents, objective evidence that can be verified. No-one inherits a family myth about ancestors who lived on the moon, nor one where Texas has ceded from the US, despite both of these being credible elements of fantasy.
Rowling is surprisingly relentless and forensic in uncovering that the Louis that she has down as a war hero is actually, incredibly, a man of the same name but a different person to her forefather. This 'imposter' to her myth is certainly a war hero, but certificates prove conclusively he is not related to Rowling. Laughably, the 'war medal' that the family has carefully harboured turns out to a badge that identifies his membership of a trade union. You can see that this revelation has a kind of crushing effect on Rowling. Her spontaneous reaction (laughing) is then matched by a resolve to pursue the family myth deeper; to validate her family's memories.
Myth does this. When we discover that a cherished element of myth is quite plainly 'bullshit', our reaction is not to set it aside and move on. It gets under our skin. We are determined to separate truth and fantasy for the sake of our identity. It drives us to scientific endeavour - to uncovering, systematically, those primary historical sources which either add to or deny the narrative we have inherited.
In an unimaginable coincidence (one no novelist could conceive), Rowling's Louis, after being raised first as the illegitimate son of that maid, and leaving the family to find his way in England, living for years in England and raising a family from which he is alienated by sad circumstances, but returning in his thirties to serve in the French army in WWI, turns out to be a reluctant hero when the war came unexpectedly to a part of France defended only by 'old men', poorly trained and reserved to defend bridges. Rowling's delight at finding that her Louis is, in fact, a hero of greater standing than the 'imposter', is palpable. The family myth is validated beyond expectations.
But some curious elements of Rowling's investigation of her family myth are just as telling as this evidentiary support for the myth. Rowling is determined not to be German. Rowling is clearly fluent in French, reading it and translating from historical documents with surprising ease and fluency. Her blunt reaction when encountering an offcial document written in German is, "Oh. What's this language!", betraying a deep animosity towards anything German.
Despite the maid's surname being Schuch, there being a real possibility that she spoke German and the national identity of people of Alsace being somewhat blurry, Rowling seeks to 'ethnically cleanse' her heritage of Germans. Shades of "don't mention the war". A Prussian army marching through the village of Schuch's youth is considered sinister. Fantasy, it seems, continues to be layered upon that forensic evidence to bolster a sense of deep seated tribalism.
I confess to be entirely taken with Rowling. She is intelligent, engaging and not at all arrogant, despite her fabulous success. Her polished English accent occasionally lapses and we hear some the accent of her youth, especially in her emotional reactions. Most certainly, she is English, through and through, yet identifies so determinedly as French.
Myth can never really be 'untangled' nor properly analysed to determine what might be claimed as historical and what as gratuitous embellishment. Rowling's quest was never really going to myth-busting. Instead, the already rich mythology of the family narrative was further enriched and expanded and new, more provocative and endearing characters were added.
As humans have journeyed through space as a curious species on a lonely island in our galaxy, the trillions of narratives have been woven into the fabric of myth. No surprise, then, that religion, with its formidable arsenal of cultural mechanisms, was able to distil myth into a coherent world view by which humans could contextualise their personal narrative. As surely as the Internet and social media, this curious social animal was going to create the myth of 'the universe and everything' and this myth was going to be carried along through generations of telling and further creative embellishment.
Of course, embellishment had to serve tribal prejudice. It was not sensible to add aliens from the cosmos who came to earth to erect communication beacons. Embellishment must reinforce that others are 'baddies' and we are good. Embellishment must establish our eating practices as clean and others as dirty. Religion as systematic mythology settled into codes of conduct and became a handy mechanism for opportunistic despots to rule. In Constantine's quest to become the one emperor, the pervasive theology of One God was fortunate 'grist'.
But to dismiss myth as a kind of plague on culture or historical memory is to neglect the baby kicking and screaming in the bath water. Myth, and its aggregating mechanism, religion, creates in us a most compelling drive for verification. As Montgomery discovered in debunking creationism in The Rocks Don't Lie, the very engagement with myth drives humans to search for objective verification. We are never properly satisfied with myth without some 'hard evidence'. Rowling's quest is an entirely human quest.
Of course, such engagement leads inevitably to scientific method as the means of verification. Science grows directly from myth. Ptolemy's precursor to the heliocentric model of the solar system, buried so comprehensively by Christendom, is most certainly resurrected by someone driven to claim an objective truth behind the story they have inherited, whether it be about stars or conquerors. As surely as myth breeds fantastic embellishment, so myth drives our deep seated desire to 'know the truth'; a truth, that Colonel Jessop reminds us in A Few Good Men, we are deeply uncomfortable with.
In the twilight years of the tradition of myth-making, people today are clinging to religion to quench their thirst for that narrative. Unfortunately, most religions carry huge embarrassing baggage of codified savagery and cruelty and breath-taking bigotry. Despite the sanitising of this baggage (keep "Thous shalt not kill" but omit "God hates fags"), it is increasingly an unwanted side-effect of maintaining a yearning for myth. In nail-clinging desperation, religions are spinning these myths into a myriad of directions.
Thus, we witness the rise and rise of clumsy paradigms driven by spin. Science and religion, cultural cohabitants, are driven into conflict by increasingly shrill voices. You must choose a side. Either you are for the war in Iraq or against. You cannot complicate nor nuance your position. The army of the Lord or the army of the secular horde. Choose now, pilgrim!
Ironically, notable atheists like Sam Harris have enlisted on the side of rank tribalism. Islam is a religion of violence, unmistakably. We should, he posits, profile people for security checks, premised on their religion. Of course, the logical extension is that every Islamic person is suspect and we have good reason, as sensible Americans, to maintain a vigilance that could well justify vigilantism and perhaps even the horror of 84 shot dead on Utoya Island.
The spin that virally infects the WWW is that the average Islamic person actually subscribes to violent jihad. Simply ignore the hundreds of millions of Muslims who daily go about their life with not much more malice than one might reserve for a mother-in-law. Spin, unlike myth, cannot afford to admit either objective investigation nor doubt about the narrative. You are either with us, or against us. You either believe or you don't. It has no positive off-shoot in driving people to science, as myth has so long provided. It plays only on the guilt of betraying one's tribe; it throws the 'traitor' starkly into relief.
We may be in awe of Julia Gillard's recent Canute-like stance against the sea of spin, but, in the end, this bravery may go unrewarded. Rowling's Louis may have stood against an overwhelming enemy and triumphed, despite personal injury, but Julia has no hope. The very viral nature of social media and the WWW has put myth, science and religion firmly into their death-throes. We may be the last of the human myth makers. We may be the last real humans.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Speaking the Language of Evangelical Christians and Scientists, in one book
A year ago or so, I read a scathing review by Sam Harris of Francis Collins's The Language of God. Because Sam Harris writes with immense intellectual weight, I was convinced that Collins might just be another Christian crackpot, probably in the Lennox, Polkinghorne mold. Having seen Lennox deliver a broadside against Richard Dawkins and atheists that was completely unwarranted and been repulsed by his arrogant manner, not to mention his presumption that everybody shared his definitions of familiar concepts simply because he could spout them, (reviewed in this blog) and finding Polkinghorne so often completely baffling because he speaks academese, not English, I expected Collins to have little that an atheist could respect.
How wrong I was.
While most of Collin's arguments for belief have gaps large enough for a small truck, there is no doubt he is both an accomplished scientist and a pleasant person. He writes in that languid, comfortable prose so typical of Americans, especially Southerners - inviting and lucid. On matters scientific, he honours science by first stating the accepted orthodoxy, then explaining in depth where the topic is within his expertise and then refers the reader on when the going gets too deep for the layman or his area of expertise. On matters theological, he defers to Lewis, Augustine, Bonhoeffer and Polkinghorne; possibly a path that will earn him no friends amongst Christians in US.
This is a book for believers. If Collins is right and nearly half of the US has such contempt for science that it mindlessly adopts YEC (Young Earth Creationism), then the urgency of expounding a view where science and religion can share a space at the table cannot be understated. From my atheist point of view, better a believer with an unremarkable delusion but a deep respect for science, than a zealot for Christ who rejects science as a matter of course.
Unlike Richard Dawkins, Collin's style remains accessible, requiring little 'unpacking'. This makes it easier to read and understand, but ultimately unsatisfying as an apology for evolution. Dawkins' methodical exposition of evolution in Greatest Show on Earth is perhaps the limit that a non-scientist can go in delving into evolution and is brilliantly explained; both books have a key role in assigning YEC to the side-show, Collin's for believers and Dawkins for all of us.
I am tempted to consider Collin's faith as about as superficial as his atheism probably was; not a particularly well considered position. He finds spiritual satisfaction in Christian faith and dogma mostly because this happens to be the first stop in his spiritual journey. It is a kind of lazy faith; so long as I regurgitate the gurus, I'm fine. In an America so deeply polarised by religion and secularity, his search for spiritual fulfilment and subsequent discovery of evangelical Christianity are almost inevitable, but unforgivable.
Some elements of Collin's science are a little disappointing. The first is in his manipulation of probability to suggest a premise in the case for theism. Probability is a funny animal - like the law it can be a complete ass or incredibly useful. It can tell us quite plainly what the outcome of a set of events is likely to be - on this grounds, none of us would, rationally, gamble on anything. Gambling is, quite simply, the abandonment of the rational logic of probability.
Yet, I can deal you 52 cards and they fall out in an order, the probability of which occurring again is so ridiculously small that you could effectively call it 'never' without exaggeration. But there you saw it, in front of you. The fact is that a large enough series of historical events makes probability an ass and of no use whatsoever in determining whether the past is how we thought it to be. Only forensic evidence and possibility, expressed in the degree of 'reasonable doubt', can be deployed in our search for a truth now lost forever to us.
Thence, although the critical parameters of the universe may seem so unimaginably well tuned, this is qualitatively no different to noticing that all the Aces came out of the pack in the first 4 cards, an event, in rough terms, equally as likely as them appearing anywhere else in the sequence; but incredulous to us. The fine tuning of the universal parameters draws a conclusion that any card sharp could articulate and suggests a divine presence no more than irreducible complexity suggests a designer.
It is these chasms of contradiction into which Collins seems happy to fall that diminish both this book and his stature. You can't confidently rail against ID as God-of-Gaps-ism while propping up your faith on an identical premise. In The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins quotes Shakespeare's Hamlet:
Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.
Noticing a pattern does not suggest an author of that pattern any more than clouds create weasels. The private explanation of that pattern must be objectively tested by discussion with others to see if they see the same and then, if authorship is proposed, evidence must be brought to support this proposition. If Shakespeare's authorship of his works is controversial with texts less than 500 years old, how much more uncertain will we be of authorship at the beginning of time?
This and many similar gaffs convince me that Collins is an able and methodical scientist, a lousy theologian and a mediocre debater. Amongst the flawed arguments are:
Argument from incredulity. "I can't believe that altruism could arise out of natural selection, therefore it must be an indicator of God." (contradicting his own objections to ID that irreducible complexity does not infer a designer). At best, his scientific arguments suggest more work to be done on explaining altruism, work that is well underway, not a potted hypothesis involving God.
Argument from private experience. "I had an amazing experience which I attribute to God." Not only is there a wide range of alternative supernatural 'explanations' but science has already established quite clearly the psychological mechanisms of awe and pleasure. Private experience may be genuinely awesome for Francis Collins, but quite pedestrian to someone living that experience daily or unremarkable to a researcher. Context is everything. Such is life.
Argument from authority. "Lewis says this and it sounds amazing, therefore it must be right." Lewis is unable to conceive of a cultural or social genesis for the 'words of Christ'. He rather stubbornly insists on a culturally skewed explanation based on the notion that Jesus Christ had private thoughts, unrelated to his context, and these must fall into the empircal category of insane or divine.
No matter that Jesus was a Jew, no matter that people speak the expectations of others, no matter the vast chasm of history uncertainty across which we examine Jesus's words, no matter the attribution of modern prejudice. No, Lewis insists on that wonderful propaganda tool of simple binaries typical of the "you are with us or against us" brigade. Because it is simply a stupid argument, it does not lend any credence to Collin's proposition that the historical Christ is a signpost to God. Of all Lewis's arguments, this is the weakest and Collin's falls into a deep hole by repeating it.
Argument from definition. "I label this human tendency Moral Law; therefore it exists." Following, again, the unfortunate logic of Lewis, Collins names human behaviour that he has judged moral as the Moral Law, oblivious to the fact that he himself has learned morality at the feet of his fellow Americans, his (atheist) parents and his (predominantly atheist) peers and it is this that he brings to the definition of what he considers favourable behaviour. 'Moral Law' is, at best, a loose category. Its efficacy in either guiding daily life or pointing to a being with an absolute version of morality is entirely questionable.
Argument from extrapolation. "If I observe cause and effect, it indicates that a universe requires an ultimate cause." One wonders why a scientist would fall into this hole. Collins is well aware that cause and effect are intrinsically bound up with concepts of time and space - entropy, gravity and the single direction of the universe towards a singularity are the bread and butter of physics. How then do we get to argue for their existence outside of time and space, the natural sphere in which they are fundamental, when the very import of this proposition is to show that the natural sphere is largely irrelevant to that 'outside'?
Illogical argument. At times, Collins simply lapses into illogicality. The belief in the supernatural is supposed to be simply accepted; but we later build a probability argument premised in that acceptance. More, the supernatural is meant to interact with the natural in a way that, by Collin's reckoning, cannot be natural (infrequent miracles, extraordinary idealised love), yet is perceptible via natural means.
I tried hard to make Collins argument work. In the end, I think he falls into a trap I call the Internet 2.0 trap. At one stage, when the Internet was truly a rubbish tip and was as slow as granny's progress up the stairs, half-smart corporations tried to invent an independent Internet - a parallel network. Of course, the moment that their Internet 2.0 was joined to the Internet via a portal, it immediately became the Internet, with no sensible identity of its own. Internet 2.0 was simply a set of nodes of the Internet.
The supernatural (whatever that is) is clearly a fantastic concept until such time as it clashes with the brutal hand of the natural. Supernatural events, such as resurrections, only become accessible within natural parameters and then, of course, become subject to the same exposure as natural events, where, in 100% of the cases, they are exposed as fraudulent. James Randi's money is safe.
As the practising atheist that I am, Francis Collins is my friend. In contrast to Sam Harris's objections, I can find nothing about Collins that would preclude him from holding a high office in science. The fact that his faith is delusional and inconsistent is of no greater import than any other common delusion such as the hope that my property will grow in value or that, despite aging, I am attractive to young women.
A man's particular version of a particular delusional mindscape may never participate in his scientific endeavour and for me to factor it in is simple prejudice dressed up intellectually. It leads to a dangerous conclusion that perhaps a man's skin colour might equally stymie his judgement in such a position. This is neo-conservative claptrap and Sam Harris should walk a mile to dissociate himself from it if he wants credibility amongst liberal America and liberals across the world.
Should Collins uncharacteristically declare that he supported a motion to make the human genome patented to the Vatican because it was God's intellectual property and they were the stewards of his IP, then I would be alarmed not by his faith, but by his singular rejection of the social role of science.
What was most dangerous about George Bush's faith was not that he allegedly followed the advice of an imaginary friend who spoke to him in answer to prayer, but that he followed the advice of dangerous ideologues who used his religion to gain access to his attention. Time to expose neo-conservatism and its relationship to the kind of fascism that World War 2 attempted to suppress, rather than become fixated on any particular person's version of a common delusion.
In my mind, the war on oppression is much more important than the war on terror. Science and scientists are pivotal in the battle to end disadvantage. We atheists must rejoice that we at least have someone "on the inside" who is prepared to defend so passionately the very science upon which we premise our disbelief. Francis Collins is an affable, if somewhat dillish, ally and it behoves us to recognise this book as at least something that might bring half of the population of the world's most powerful country to again embrace science and support funding for those much needed research and science based practical programs, as that most celebrated of agnostic Americans, Bill Gates, is doing.
How wrong I was.
While most of Collin's arguments for belief have gaps large enough for a small truck, there is no doubt he is both an accomplished scientist and a pleasant person. He writes in that languid, comfortable prose so typical of Americans, especially Southerners - inviting and lucid. On matters scientific, he honours science by first stating the accepted orthodoxy, then explaining in depth where the topic is within his expertise and then refers the reader on when the going gets too deep for the layman or his area of expertise. On matters theological, he defers to Lewis, Augustine, Bonhoeffer and Polkinghorne; possibly a path that will earn him no friends amongst Christians in US.
This is a book for believers. If Collins is right and nearly half of the US has such contempt for science that it mindlessly adopts YEC (Young Earth Creationism), then the urgency of expounding a view where science and religion can share a space at the table cannot be understated. From my atheist point of view, better a believer with an unremarkable delusion but a deep respect for science, than a zealot for Christ who rejects science as a matter of course.
Unlike Richard Dawkins, Collin's style remains accessible, requiring little 'unpacking'. This makes it easier to read and understand, but ultimately unsatisfying as an apology for evolution. Dawkins' methodical exposition of evolution in Greatest Show on Earth is perhaps the limit that a non-scientist can go in delving into evolution and is brilliantly explained; both books have a key role in assigning YEC to the side-show, Collin's for believers and Dawkins for all of us.
I am tempted to consider Collin's faith as about as superficial as his atheism probably was; not a particularly well considered position. He finds spiritual satisfaction in Christian faith and dogma mostly because this happens to be the first stop in his spiritual journey. It is a kind of lazy faith; so long as I regurgitate the gurus, I'm fine. In an America so deeply polarised by religion and secularity, his search for spiritual fulfilment and subsequent discovery of evangelical Christianity are almost inevitable, but unforgivable.
Some elements of Collin's science are a little disappointing. The first is in his manipulation of probability to suggest a premise in the case for theism. Probability is a funny animal - like the law it can be a complete ass or incredibly useful. It can tell us quite plainly what the outcome of a set of events is likely to be - on this grounds, none of us would, rationally, gamble on anything. Gambling is, quite simply, the abandonment of the rational logic of probability.
Yet, I can deal you 52 cards and they fall out in an order, the probability of which occurring again is so ridiculously small that you could effectively call it 'never' without exaggeration. But there you saw it, in front of you. The fact is that a large enough series of historical events makes probability an ass and of no use whatsoever in determining whether the past is how we thought it to be. Only forensic evidence and possibility, expressed in the degree of 'reasonable doubt', can be deployed in our search for a truth now lost forever to us.
Thence, although the critical parameters of the universe may seem so unimaginably well tuned, this is qualitatively no different to noticing that all the Aces came out of the pack in the first 4 cards, an event, in rough terms, equally as likely as them appearing anywhere else in the sequence; but incredulous to us. The fine tuning of the universal parameters draws a conclusion that any card sharp could articulate and suggests a divine presence no more than irreducible complexity suggests a designer.
It is these chasms of contradiction into which Collins seems happy to fall that diminish both this book and his stature. You can't confidently rail against ID as God-of-Gaps-ism while propping up your faith on an identical premise. In The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins quotes Shakespeare's Hamlet:
Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.
Noticing a pattern does not suggest an author of that pattern any more than clouds create weasels. The private explanation of that pattern must be objectively tested by discussion with others to see if they see the same and then, if authorship is proposed, evidence must be brought to support this proposition. If Shakespeare's authorship of his works is controversial with texts less than 500 years old, how much more uncertain will we be of authorship at the beginning of time?
This and many similar gaffs convince me that Collins is an able and methodical scientist, a lousy theologian and a mediocre debater. Amongst the flawed arguments are:
Argument from incredulity. "I can't believe that altruism could arise out of natural selection, therefore it must be an indicator of God." (contradicting his own objections to ID that irreducible complexity does not infer a designer). At best, his scientific arguments suggest more work to be done on explaining altruism, work that is well underway, not a potted hypothesis involving God.
Argument from private experience. "I had an amazing experience which I attribute to God." Not only is there a wide range of alternative supernatural 'explanations' but science has already established quite clearly the psychological mechanisms of awe and pleasure. Private experience may be genuinely awesome for Francis Collins, but quite pedestrian to someone living that experience daily or unremarkable to a researcher. Context is everything. Such is life.
Argument from authority. "Lewis says this and it sounds amazing, therefore it must be right." Lewis is unable to conceive of a cultural or social genesis for the 'words of Christ'. He rather stubbornly insists on a culturally skewed explanation based on the notion that Jesus Christ had private thoughts, unrelated to his context, and these must fall into the empircal category of insane or divine.
No matter that Jesus was a Jew, no matter that people speak the expectations of others, no matter the vast chasm of history uncertainty across which we examine Jesus's words, no matter the attribution of modern prejudice. No, Lewis insists on that wonderful propaganda tool of simple binaries typical of the "you are with us or against us" brigade. Because it is simply a stupid argument, it does not lend any credence to Collin's proposition that the historical Christ is a signpost to God. Of all Lewis's arguments, this is the weakest and Collin's falls into a deep hole by repeating it.
Argument from definition. "I label this human tendency Moral Law; therefore it exists." Following, again, the unfortunate logic of Lewis, Collins names human behaviour that he has judged moral as the Moral Law, oblivious to the fact that he himself has learned morality at the feet of his fellow Americans, his (atheist) parents and his (predominantly atheist) peers and it is this that he brings to the definition of what he considers favourable behaviour. 'Moral Law' is, at best, a loose category. Its efficacy in either guiding daily life or pointing to a being with an absolute version of morality is entirely questionable.
Argument from extrapolation. "If I observe cause and effect, it indicates that a universe requires an ultimate cause." One wonders why a scientist would fall into this hole. Collins is well aware that cause and effect are intrinsically bound up with concepts of time and space - entropy, gravity and the single direction of the universe towards a singularity are the bread and butter of physics. How then do we get to argue for their existence outside of time and space, the natural sphere in which they are fundamental, when the very import of this proposition is to show that the natural sphere is largely irrelevant to that 'outside'?
Illogical argument. At times, Collins simply lapses into illogicality. The belief in the supernatural is supposed to be simply accepted; but we later build a probability argument premised in that acceptance. More, the supernatural is meant to interact with the natural in a way that, by Collin's reckoning, cannot be natural (infrequent miracles, extraordinary idealised love), yet is perceptible via natural means.
I tried hard to make Collins argument work. In the end, I think he falls into a trap I call the Internet 2.0 trap. At one stage, when the Internet was truly a rubbish tip and was as slow as granny's progress up the stairs, half-smart corporations tried to invent an independent Internet - a parallel network. Of course, the moment that their Internet 2.0 was joined to the Internet via a portal, it immediately became the Internet, with no sensible identity of its own. Internet 2.0 was simply a set of nodes of the Internet.
The supernatural (whatever that is) is clearly a fantastic concept until such time as it clashes with the brutal hand of the natural. Supernatural events, such as resurrections, only become accessible within natural parameters and then, of course, become subject to the same exposure as natural events, where, in 100% of the cases, they are exposed as fraudulent. James Randi's money is safe.
As the practising atheist that I am, Francis Collins is my friend. In contrast to Sam Harris's objections, I can find nothing about Collins that would preclude him from holding a high office in science. The fact that his faith is delusional and inconsistent is of no greater import than any other common delusion such as the hope that my property will grow in value or that, despite aging, I am attractive to young women.
A man's particular version of a particular delusional mindscape may never participate in his scientific endeavour and for me to factor it in is simple prejudice dressed up intellectually. It leads to a dangerous conclusion that perhaps a man's skin colour might equally stymie his judgement in such a position. This is neo-conservative claptrap and Sam Harris should walk a mile to dissociate himself from it if he wants credibility amongst liberal America and liberals across the world.
Should Collins uncharacteristically declare that he supported a motion to make the human genome patented to the Vatican because it was God's intellectual property and they were the stewards of his IP, then I would be alarmed not by his faith, but by his singular rejection of the social role of science.
What was most dangerous about George Bush's faith was not that he allegedly followed the advice of an imaginary friend who spoke to him in answer to prayer, but that he followed the advice of dangerous ideologues who used his religion to gain access to his attention. Time to expose neo-conservatism and its relationship to the kind of fascism that World War 2 attempted to suppress, rather than become fixated on any particular person's version of a common delusion.
In my mind, the war on oppression is much more important than the war on terror. Science and scientists are pivotal in the battle to end disadvantage. We atheists must rejoice that we at least have someone "on the inside" who is prepared to defend so passionately the very science upon which we premise our disbelief. Francis Collins is an affable, if somewhat dillish, ally and it behoves us to recognise this book as at least something that might bring half of the population of the world's most powerful country to again embrace science and support funding for those much needed research and science based practical programs, as that most celebrated of agnostic Americans, Bill Gates, is doing.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Why random acts of kindness aren't random
My friend, supposedly part time lover and much more prolific blogger, Ted, over at Painting Fakes, threw me bait that I could not resist. In accounting for the kindness shown to me in a moment of trauma, according to Ted, I displayed confirmation bias (the tendency to explain things according to a belief already held, thereby confirming it) by attributing the assistance I was given to human qualities of altruism, contradicting, as I quite provocativingly challenged my relatives to consider, their belief that all humans are 'fallen', inherently sinful and thus prone to sin requiring both redemption and a redeemer, thus lending credence to their belief that's Jesus's mission on earth was messianic, not simply, like all the rest of us, quite pedestrian.
Of course, the only way around confirmation bias is objective testing. If more and more people can see that something is true, then the probability of it just being confirmation bias by all those people is less. Additionally, some objective measures can be agreed upon to, at the very minimum, highlight the bias, or, at best, remove the bias.
Let's establish a few things which probably won't be that controversial. First, in the midst of trauma, where your anxiety levels are high, any kind of help seems almost 'god given' - improbably fortuitous. Everybody who provides assistance seems like an angel. Second, trauma narrows your focus. The world seems to rotate around you and your injury, as do the actions of emergency services, and the opportunities for broader reflection, over a cup of tea, are limited.
These are both interesting in where they might lead. I guess, in retrospect, the fortune of the location of my injury on my body and the ready assistance at hand should have led me to believe that the 'hand of god' was present. 'He' manipulated circumstances to, perhaps, bring me to some glorious revelation. But, as Tim Minchin so ably satirises in Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mum, such a conclusion is so massively illogical. It means that the women who suffered a massive heart attack the week before in the same park and was unable to be resuscitated must likewise have been denied the hand of god - the unsurprising conclusion is that all good outcomes are the hand of god and all adverse are the work of nature (or god's eternal plan, whichever version of god you subscribe to).
If ever there was confirmation bias, that is it. As plausibility goes, there is another thesis.
I had been riding well - feeling fit and healthy. I had just completed my favourite track and was moving onto a track that was very familiar, mainly so my son could go a little further and I would get some more fitness out of him. My confidence was high, which probably means I took more risks than I normally would. The track was familiar, which probably means I took less notice, explicitly, of features and rode it more automatically.
Recent storms had deposited loose sand at various places, especially corners, which tend to be in gullies where water flows. Since they were a 'new' feature in the familiar track, I would not be expecting them. Only minutes before, I had been shocked that a large tree had fallen on my favourite track, just around a blind corner, and its roots protruded dangerously into track space. I had narrowly averted a collision and had made a mental note to inform SEQ Water. But this new feature was 'in my face' - it came to my notice readily where excess sand might not.
I had also stopped just previous to the track where I had the accident and adjusted my son's brakes. In stopping, I got talking to a guy I saw frequently at the park and we discovered we were both teachers and had common experiences. My conversation with him had lasted almost 20 minutes and by the time I resumed riding, my muscles were cold.
On the corner that I had the accident, sand had accumulated on the side of the track that was the natural line for the corner. Sand has a significant braking effect when riding. My front wheel simply stopped and the force of cornering flicked it around so that one end of the handle bar faced my groin and, as my bike and I rotated around the stationary front wheel, the other end of the bar pierced the ground. The ground and handlebar did not give way, so my groin absorbed the impact of 90kg of weight travelling at 20km/h.
Of course, this is just conjecture - but it is at least scientific, plausible and based on objective facts that we could test. I can match my wound with the end of the handlebar, I can revisit the site and find sand, I can match the track surface with that still in my handlebar, I can interview my new friend Don and so on. All of this is verifiable.
Of course, if you must, you can still insist on the hand of god and I leave you to that if you can't live without it. Needless to say, whether the hand of god is there or not, it matters not a jot - the hand of god is eminently disposable without changing the facts.
Of course, we could then turn to the human aspect of the event and find something that might deny or affirm our beliefs. On a previous ride in the same park, I was furious when my chain broke within 20 minutes of the start of the ride and I had no means of fixing it. As a rider, I am no less determined to get a fix to satisfy my addiction than the next rider. All riders want their fix.
At least half a dozen riders that day truncated their rides to provide assistance. One pushed my bike (and his) 1 kilometre to a clearing and then rode it back to the car park and then returned on foot to get his own bike. One stayed as his partner returned to the car park so they could be in contact to give the ambulance updates on how to find me. Another encouraged me to relax and lie back - important to slow my racing heart rate (driven mostly by anxiety - my rest heart rate after rides is much lower) and stayed for a good while to makes sure I was OK.
At one time, I was rather embarrassed that Peter from Kalbar was bringing my bike and his rather awkwardly along the track as I hobbled out to a clearing that an ambulance could access. I apologised for upsetting his day. "I hope you got a good ride in." I said.
His reply is so salient to this discussion. Peter doesn't have to confirm my bias. Regardless of what I read into his actions, he is not obliged to affirm these in his words. He could have said, "I'm happy to help." He could have said, "Jesus said that we should love one another and that's what I am doing." He could even have said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
What he actually said might surprise.
He said, "I'd expect someone to help me if I was injured." He did what he did because of an unwritten code amongst riders that, regardless of your intentions for gratifying your addiction to riding, you stop to help those who are in need.
But such a code is not exclusive to riders. It permeates so many circumstances to the point that we are shocked when someone is so callous as to pass by someone in trauma and first-aid classes counsel participants to examine, as the first point in coming upon trauma, whether they can really be useful in assisting the person; such is the tendency of people to stop and help. Helping others is natural. We have an in-built tendency to altruism, especially when someone else is in dire straits. This is played out over and over again.
Without getting too deeply into religious argumentation, attempting to align this tendency with the concept of 'fallen' humanity, driven to sin by an inherited propensity to hate, steal, deceive and lust, just doesn't work. If Peter had stolen my bike, if Stu had asked me for a retainer for his services, if the lady giving first aid had rifled through my things, if the ambulance personnel had been casual about interrupting their New Year's Eve, if the doctor's had been aloof and uncaring instead of attentive and apologetic that I was not attended to when they rightly attended to others with higher needs, if my friends had scorned my recklessness instead of joking about it in an attempt to make me feel better, if my family had simply continued their day as intended and left me to my own devices - this might have made me convinced of a fallen world and humanity on the road to hell.
But, instead, the actions of each human I encountered affirmed, yes affirmed, my belief that humans are essentially good and that they display altruism at every possible opportunity because it feels good - it triggers a dopamine rush just as surely as flinging your body and bike around a tight hairpin. To nominate those who assisted me in the time of need as being in need of redemption is arrogance and presumption on a breath-taking scale. Likewise, to simply consider these non-random acts of kindness as just a delusion, as a perception through rose coloured glasses, is to ignore real events and real actions and devalue the efforts of others.
'Random' acts of kindness are not random at all - they are natural and expected, inherent in us all. We do not need the hand of god to explain them, nor do we need to be created in the image of a kind God. Like Peter, the next time I encounter a trauma, I will act as a human would, fullfilling an expectation of humans.
Of course, the only way around confirmation bias is objective testing. If more and more people can see that something is true, then the probability of it just being confirmation bias by all those people is less. Additionally, some objective measures can be agreed upon to, at the very minimum, highlight the bias, or, at best, remove the bias.
Let's establish a few things which probably won't be that controversial. First, in the midst of trauma, where your anxiety levels are high, any kind of help seems almost 'god given' - improbably fortuitous. Everybody who provides assistance seems like an angel. Second, trauma narrows your focus. The world seems to rotate around you and your injury, as do the actions of emergency services, and the opportunities for broader reflection, over a cup of tea, are limited.
These are both interesting in where they might lead. I guess, in retrospect, the fortune of the location of my injury on my body and the ready assistance at hand should have led me to believe that the 'hand of god' was present. 'He' manipulated circumstances to, perhaps, bring me to some glorious revelation. But, as Tim Minchin so ably satirises in Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mum, such a conclusion is so massively illogical. It means that the women who suffered a massive heart attack the week before in the same park and was unable to be resuscitated must likewise have been denied the hand of god - the unsurprising conclusion is that all good outcomes are the hand of god and all adverse are the work of nature (or god's eternal plan, whichever version of god you subscribe to).
If ever there was confirmation bias, that is it. As plausibility goes, there is another thesis.
I had been riding well - feeling fit and healthy. I had just completed my favourite track and was moving onto a track that was very familiar, mainly so my son could go a little further and I would get some more fitness out of him. My confidence was high, which probably means I took more risks than I normally would. The track was familiar, which probably means I took less notice, explicitly, of features and rode it more automatically.
Recent storms had deposited loose sand at various places, especially corners, which tend to be in gullies where water flows. Since they were a 'new' feature in the familiar track, I would not be expecting them. Only minutes before, I had been shocked that a large tree had fallen on my favourite track, just around a blind corner, and its roots protruded dangerously into track space. I had narrowly averted a collision and had made a mental note to inform SEQ Water. But this new feature was 'in my face' - it came to my notice readily where excess sand might not.
I had also stopped just previous to the track where I had the accident and adjusted my son's brakes. In stopping, I got talking to a guy I saw frequently at the park and we discovered we were both teachers and had common experiences. My conversation with him had lasted almost 20 minutes and by the time I resumed riding, my muscles were cold.
On the corner that I had the accident, sand had accumulated on the side of the track that was the natural line for the corner. Sand has a significant braking effect when riding. My front wheel simply stopped and the force of cornering flicked it around so that one end of the handle bar faced my groin and, as my bike and I rotated around the stationary front wheel, the other end of the bar pierced the ground. The ground and handlebar did not give way, so my groin absorbed the impact of 90kg of weight travelling at 20km/h.
Of course, this is just conjecture - but it is at least scientific, plausible and based on objective facts that we could test. I can match my wound with the end of the handlebar, I can revisit the site and find sand, I can match the track surface with that still in my handlebar, I can interview my new friend Don and so on. All of this is verifiable.
Of course, if you must, you can still insist on the hand of god and I leave you to that if you can't live without it. Needless to say, whether the hand of god is there or not, it matters not a jot - the hand of god is eminently disposable without changing the facts.
Of course, we could then turn to the human aspect of the event and find something that might deny or affirm our beliefs. On a previous ride in the same park, I was furious when my chain broke within 20 minutes of the start of the ride and I had no means of fixing it. As a rider, I am no less determined to get a fix to satisfy my addiction than the next rider. All riders want their fix.
At least half a dozen riders that day truncated their rides to provide assistance. One pushed my bike (and his) 1 kilometre to a clearing and then rode it back to the car park and then returned on foot to get his own bike. One stayed as his partner returned to the car park so they could be in contact to give the ambulance updates on how to find me. Another encouraged me to relax and lie back - important to slow my racing heart rate (driven mostly by anxiety - my rest heart rate after rides is much lower) and stayed for a good while to makes sure I was OK.
At one time, I was rather embarrassed that Peter from Kalbar was bringing my bike and his rather awkwardly along the track as I hobbled out to a clearing that an ambulance could access. I apologised for upsetting his day. "I hope you got a good ride in." I said.
His reply is so salient to this discussion. Peter doesn't have to confirm my bias. Regardless of what I read into his actions, he is not obliged to affirm these in his words. He could have said, "I'm happy to help." He could have said, "Jesus said that we should love one another and that's what I am doing." He could even have said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
What he actually said might surprise.
He said, "I'd expect someone to help me if I was injured." He did what he did because of an unwritten code amongst riders that, regardless of your intentions for gratifying your addiction to riding, you stop to help those who are in need.
But such a code is not exclusive to riders. It permeates so many circumstances to the point that we are shocked when someone is so callous as to pass by someone in trauma and first-aid classes counsel participants to examine, as the first point in coming upon trauma, whether they can really be useful in assisting the person; such is the tendency of people to stop and help. Helping others is natural. We have an in-built tendency to altruism, especially when someone else is in dire straits. This is played out over and over again.
Without getting too deeply into religious argumentation, attempting to align this tendency with the concept of 'fallen' humanity, driven to sin by an inherited propensity to hate, steal, deceive and lust, just doesn't work. If Peter had stolen my bike, if Stu had asked me for a retainer for his services, if the lady giving first aid had rifled through my things, if the ambulance personnel had been casual about interrupting their New Year's Eve, if the doctor's had been aloof and uncaring instead of attentive and apologetic that I was not attended to when they rightly attended to others with higher needs, if my friends had scorned my recklessness instead of joking about it in an attempt to make me feel better, if my family had simply continued their day as intended and left me to my own devices - this might have made me convinced of a fallen world and humanity on the road to hell.
But, instead, the actions of each human I encountered affirmed, yes affirmed, my belief that humans are essentially good and that they display altruism at every possible opportunity because it feels good - it triggers a dopamine rush just as surely as flinging your body and bike around a tight hairpin. To nominate those who assisted me in the time of need as being in need of redemption is arrogance and presumption on a breath-taking scale. Likewise, to simply consider these non-random acts of kindness as just a delusion, as a perception through rose coloured glasses, is to ignore real events and real actions and devalue the efforts of others.
'Random' acts of kindness are not random at all - they are natural and expected, inherent in us all. We do not need the hand of god to explain them, nor do we need to be created in the image of a kind God. Like Peter, the next time I encounter a trauma, I will act as a human would, fullfilling an expectation of humans.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Why Islam isn't a religion of peace
I have viewed recently the debate, Islam is a religion of peace at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGvMo47pw7Q
The late great Christopher Hitchens and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, two men I admire greatly, shared more than a massive intellect. They both believed that it was moral and right, by whatever means, to rid the world of dictators. It is a motherhood concept with which few would disagree. We all like to see the downtrodden get revenge on the bullies. Hitchens probably got his mindset from days at boarding school - Bonhoeffer was immersed in a sea of power plays in both his theological and day-to-day life.
But the rather disappointing element of the Hitchens and Bonhoeffer thesis, shared with that most articulate and compelling Islamic critic, Ayaan Hirsi Ali , is the disregard for the history that underpins the rise of dictators to power. There is something almost deliberately delusional about ascribing evil to a dictator, conveniently ignoring the mass of factors that sweep a dictator to power.
If you choose to see the Holocaust as the end game of a demented mind, then the answer obviously is to rid the world of demented minds. Much more difficult and complex, however, is deep analysis of what conditions prevailed that made that demented mind so attractive to a nation so noted for its depth of culture and thought. Did the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire by Protestantism create such disunity amongst Germans that any unifying force, no matter how sinister, was welcomed? Did the oppression of a newly unified German by wounded superpowers create such resentment by the 'underdogs' that the invasion by extreme ideology was only a matter of time, not personality?
As an historian, I cannot respect the two-dimensional views of events as simply driven by personality. It is both too glib and too convenient. But far more dangerously, it forgives the masses of their crimes of collusion. In the fervour to rid Libya of Gaddafi, we lost the clarity of perspective that would lead us to conclude that Gaddafi was a rather loose cannon in the armoury of European and US foreign policy, courted when convenient, vilified at leisure. We also ignore the decades of collusion by the population of Libya in accepting him. Why didn't this Arab spring emerge two decades earlier? What kept people quiet?
And, in the West, we still tolerate the fascism of Saudi Arabia - or rather we turn that blind eye, that eye so very useful in absolving our guilt.
A close look at Islam and Mohammed tells a story that is neither extraordinary nor exceptional. Rejected amongst his own, Mohammed finds a ready audience for his religious fervour in a place where religious turmoil was hardly foreign. His personal quest to revenge the rejection he suffered in Mecca almost certainly complemented the political imperative of Medina to challenge the dominance of Mecca.
A sour zealot gets much too much traction for his ideas and rides the back of an unlikely military victory to notoriety. Such is the accidental nature of history. An almost failed assassination attempt by an obscure Serbian, accidentally successful, on an insignificant European aristocrat lights a fire in Europe which burns beyond any of the intentions of the assassin. In what sense can we attribute the cause of the fire to the match when the heat-wave and the mountain of fuel are so obvious?
If the unifying effect of Islam first on the Caliphate and later on arguably the most successful Empire of Europe - the Ottoman Empire - is down to one man, one book and one God, then its time for historians to close down their university faculties and go work at MacDonalds. If religion does more than simply post-rationalise ideologies that rise out of the ashes of failed power, then we really are doomed, because an American president, when things get really bad in the US, really will press the button to annihilate those whom God rejects.
It really is time we stepped out from behind the mantel of personality and religion based schemes of guilt and recognised the inherent propensity of us all to follow blindly the dictators, whatever they may be. There is no less compulsion in profligate capitalism, where a bank or country can be too big to fail, to serve a master than in the dark streets of Islamic Iran.
There is no religion of peace. Peace is that period when hawkish forces do not dominate. No religion creates this, just as no religion drives people to hostilities or atrocities. Only the human inclinations towards contentment or domination drive peace or violence, via the complex machinations of power structures. The whole "religion is the author of ..." thesis is fundamentally flawed and we should, frankly, "get over it".
You can quote as many Qu'ran verses as you like, make as many claims on Mohammed as you like and give as many facts about the actions of Islamist as you like, but in the end you are colluding with those who build elaborate smoke screens for human nature. No God, Bible or dogma makes you act either peacefully or violently - these are choices made from complex social and neural impulse and imperatives which we are still struggling to understand.
The late great Christopher Hitchens and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, two men I admire greatly, shared more than a massive intellect. They both believed that it was moral and right, by whatever means, to rid the world of dictators. It is a motherhood concept with which few would disagree. We all like to see the downtrodden get revenge on the bullies. Hitchens probably got his mindset from days at boarding school - Bonhoeffer was immersed in a sea of power plays in both his theological and day-to-day life.
But the rather disappointing element of the Hitchens and Bonhoeffer thesis, shared with that most articulate and compelling Islamic critic, Ayaan Hirsi Ali , is the disregard for the history that underpins the rise of dictators to power. There is something almost deliberately delusional about ascribing evil to a dictator, conveniently ignoring the mass of factors that sweep a dictator to power.
If you choose to see the Holocaust as the end game of a demented mind, then the answer obviously is to rid the world of demented minds. Much more difficult and complex, however, is deep analysis of what conditions prevailed that made that demented mind so attractive to a nation so noted for its depth of culture and thought. Did the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire by Protestantism create such disunity amongst Germans that any unifying force, no matter how sinister, was welcomed? Did the oppression of a newly unified German by wounded superpowers create such resentment by the 'underdogs' that the invasion by extreme ideology was only a matter of time, not personality?
As an historian, I cannot respect the two-dimensional views of events as simply driven by personality. It is both too glib and too convenient. But far more dangerously, it forgives the masses of their crimes of collusion. In the fervour to rid Libya of Gaddafi, we lost the clarity of perspective that would lead us to conclude that Gaddafi was a rather loose cannon in the armoury of European and US foreign policy, courted when convenient, vilified at leisure. We also ignore the decades of collusion by the population of Libya in accepting him. Why didn't this Arab spring emerge two decades earlier? What kept people quiet?
And, in the West, we still tolerate the fascism of Saudi Arabia - or rather we turn that blind eye, that eye so very useful in absolving our guilt.
A close look at Islam and Mohammed tells a story that is neither extraordinary nor exceptional. Rejected amongst his own, Mohammed finds a ready audience for his religious fervour in a place where religious turmoil was hardly foreign. His personal quest to revenge the rejection he suffered in Mecca almost certainly complemented the political imperative of Medina to challenge the dominance of Mecca.
A sour zealot gets much too much traction for his ideas and rides the back of an unlikely military victory to notoriety. Such is the accidental nature of history. An almost failed assassination attempt by an obscure Serbian, accidentally successful, on an insignificant European aristocrat lights a fire in Europe which burns beyond any of the intentions of the assassin. In what sense can we attribute the cause of the fire to the match when the heat-wave and the mountain of fuel are so obvious?
If the unifying effect of Islam first on the Caliphate and later on arguably the most successful Empire of Europe - the Ottoman Empire - is down to one man, one book and one God, then its time for historians to close down their university faculties and go work at MacDonalds. If religion does more than simply post-rationalise ideologies that rise out of the ashes of failed power, then we really are doomed, because an American president, when things get really bad in the US, really will press the button to annihilate those whom God rejects.
It really is time we stepped out from behind the mantel of personality and religion based schemes of guilt and recognised the inherent propensity of us all to follow blindly the dictators, whatever they may be. There is no less compulsion in profligate capitalism, where a bank or country can be too big to fail, to serve a master than in the dark streets of Islamic Iran.
There is no religion of peace. Peace is that period when hawkish forces do not dominate. No religion creates this, just as no religion drives people to hostilities or atrocities. Only the human inclinations towards contentment or domination drive peace or violence, via the complex machinations of power structures. The whole "religion is the author of ..." thesis is fundamentally flawed and we should, frankly, "get over it".
You can quote as many Qu'ran verses as you like, make as many claims on Mohammed as you like and give as many facts about the actions of Islamist as you like, but in the end you are colluding with those who build elaborate smoke screens for human nature. No God, Bible or dogma makes you act either peacefully or violently - these are choices made from complex social and neural impulse and imperatives which we are still struggling to understand.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Unforgivable forgiveness
On Q&A on ABC TV, in the forum dubbed A Spiritual Special, John Lennox, Oxford Mathematician and Christian apologist, declared, in a somewhat triumphal tone, that forgiveness was the core of the Gospel. It is an oft repeated proclamation of Christians, apparently requiring little or no qualification and argument and seemingly places Christianity in an unconquerable position in relation to all moral codes. "Christians," it appears to assert, "are those that conduct themselves in the most righteous of manners - forgiveness - forgiving as they themselves have been forgiven."
I find forgiveness a useful concept. When I built a house in my younger days, I chose a material, mud brick, that was intrinsically forgiving. Its rough and irregular texture hid my lack of precision as a bricklayer. It disguised a lack of competence that I share with the majority of the human race. It was also forgiving on the budget, as any major errors could be cheaply fixed for very little - a stuff-up had little practical impact on the overall mission because it did not blow the budget.
I also use the phrase regularly to prefix comments that might cause offense. "One might be forgiven ...". This signals that I realise that making the mistake that I am about to articulate in detail is an almost inevitable consequence of being human. Thus, I say this to address the mistake and to mollify the embarrassment and sense of responsibility and culpability felt by the person in making it. In these ways, forgiveness plays its proper roles - one, to disguise the foibles of being human and the other to reduce the negative tone of discussions about those foibles.
Oh, that this were the case in Christian forgiveness. Before all the apologists run to defend their Christian forgiveness as really just what I have articulated above, let me sound a warning. Making the Gospel into whatever you want it to be is intellectually dishonest. You should and will be called on that. You can't simply take "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone at her." as some kind of absolution as described above - it is an admonition not to be judgemental, but does not negate the implication of sin on the woman's part.
Let us first address the absolutism inherent in Christian forgiveness. In the first instance, God, of doubtful existence and moral integrity, extends forgiveness to all humans. As Christians often use the tactic of evasion to argue their case, let's cover all bases.
If your God is an ultimate cause, separate from the universe, then the notion of forgiveness is entirely absurd, since God is ultimately culpable for all actions universally. He/it forgives his own illogicality in allowing humans to act contrary to his universe-creating and sustaining commands.
If your God is an unknowable being, with a logic entirely of his own that needs no human explanation nor absolution, creating humans in his own image to likewise exercise their own will, then for him to forgive his 'creation' for being similarly willful is the ultimate act of hypocrisy.
If your God is the God of Abraham, a knowable entity creating a perfect world and laying down the law about how we must live in it and punishing any violation of this law, then there is a no case for granting any kind of absolution, for his wickedness is breath-taking beyond human comprehension; literally - we cannot come to grips with the massacre in Norway, which he allows to occur, and the mass slaughter of people in Aceh in a Tsunami, which he enacts.
If your God is the meek and mild Jesus, then there is precisely nothing in his teachings that can masquerade as forgiveness in the sense I have described above. Jesus was a Jew, in world dominated by Jewish law overlaid by Roman law. His antidote to legalistic thinking was to live on the basis of loving your neighbour, regardless of the their breaches of the law.
Nothing about Christ's life and teachings supported or negated the notion of "fallen" humans, a concept first articulated in the 5th century. It is the most fundamental and malicious of Christian teachings. The idea that immoral deeds are a cancer that affects everybody, is genetically programmed into us and that it has universal negative characteristics and outcomes is mischievous and malicious on all counts.
First, the 'all pervasive sin' theory sets all human behaviour as fundamentally wrong or evil - without context or consideration of motive or outcome. Just as cancer consumes its host until death, sin takes hold of humans and drives them to evil deeds to the point of moral death.
Apart from the breathtaking lack of scientific rigour, such a theory ignores most evidence. People act differently in different contexts. A 'nice bloke' and 'good mate' may turn out to be a wife-beater. It is simply impossible to say that one natural inclination drives all misdeeds.
Next, to ascribe culpability to an innocent child that has no developed will, no history of misdeeds and who will learn behaviour from its family context is gross injustice. On these grounds, I must be able to convict you of just about any crime you would like to name, since your involvement and proximity to the crime count for nil in counting you guilty - simply, you have a propensity (you have human DNA) and that is enough said.
A sinful nature logically demands a negative outcome - otherwise it is either not sinful or not nature. The outcome must be a part of determining the morality of an action - otherwise the actions of accidentally bumping you and mass murder of are morally equivalent. A balance of greed, which some count as sin, may keep competition of two vendors favourable to a consumer. We should ask, in all moral situations, what the outcome is for all concerned. This is radically different from "all have fallen short". In the Christian moral framework, bumping you and mass murder are equivalent in that both are indicators of a natural inclination that must be, at worst eternally punished (hell), and at best, whitewashed (washed in the blood of Jesus).
Our secular legal system holds that all persons are responsible for their actions. No legal mechanism is available for transferring this responsibility (it is diminished or dismissed in cases of juveniles or clinically insane - moves to transfer responsibility of crimes to parents have been unsuccessful). Most Christians I know not only live within this framework, but prefer it and actively campaign for it. The forgiveness as espoused in the Gospel - the transfer of guilt to Jesus - directly contradicts this framework, no matter what angle you put on it.
All of us sense the injustice of laying blame on an innocent party and let the guilty go free. Thus, the Christian concept of forgiveness is not only universally ignored by Christians - it is universally morally reprehensible.
More nauseating, however, and so apparent in Lennox and his ilk, is the over-bearing self-righteous mindset of Christian forgiveness. They have been the lucky ones, entrusted with the franchise on forgiveness. Atheists could not possibly have the quality of absolution necessary, since they have not embraced the franchise, but have opened up in direct competition, challenging the very premise of Christian forgiveness.
It is the smug assertion that only those who turn to God have a chance of salvation that grates - not because I would not seek salvation if I felt it necessary and would not buy at their "forgiveness shop", but because it supposedly their enlightenment and wise choice that should be a model to me.
I know by now that there will be Christians who will claim that their Jesus forgave in a perfectly human way - not in any way associated with the neagtive characterisations above. How can we make a case that Jesus was acting, as I articulated in the introduction, only in a human way to prove that acting human was natural (and, of course, forgivable) and should not really be considered anything that should attract anything but absolution? Not only is this contradicted by the notion that Jesus was apparently meant to fulfill the commandments of the Old Testament and steadfastly did so without fail, but it provides precisely nothing in terms of moral guidance on how forgiveness should be applied.
There are things I would not forgive. Rape requires unambiguous guilt, followed by extended incarceration until society is convinced the offender will not re-offend. No forgiveness entered into nor implied. Crimes that are beyond proof or evidence and therefore prosecution under law, such as the systematic killing of dissenters under apartheid, cannot be resolved by forgiveness - only Truth and Reconciliation remain as a less than optimal process.
Hence, we forgive 'human-ness', do not forgive 'inhuman-ness' and simply agree to disagree about those crimes that are beyond investigation.
Simple empathy can be applied to some circumstances of crime. A wife beaten for decades might find herself excused in the minds of most, but her crime is not forgiven - we would still hold that she is guilty but that her crime was inevitable. Perhaps we can see ourselves in her shoes. This makes empathy, not forgiveness, the real moral driver. Labelling this 'forgiveness' is simply an attempt to make it appear synonymous with God's supposed forgiveness or diminishes our ability to resolve the psychological issues involved in the behaviour (rather like saying that the mind, or worse, the soul, rather than the brain, does things).
The lasting legacy of "forgiveness" is surely that eternal burden of guilt that people feel, exacerbating their sense of worthlessness that characterises some sorts of depression. One must consider oneself to be guilty on multiple fronts, mostly determined against the most arbitrary of standards. If I feel sexual pleasure, I should feel guilty. If I speak out of turn, I should feel guilty. If I call someone a dickhead, I should feel guilty.
Finally, forgiveness gives no sense of recompense. Recompense is perhaps the most powerful of human drivers in creating social cohesion. If I call you a dickhead and you are not a dickhead, demonstrably so, then forgiveness may makes you feel holy, vindicated in your indignaion at being called a dickhead, but it does not set the world right. Only recompense - saying I'm sorry - can change the situation to allow us, once again, to work with each other on a mission. Forgiveness is utterly impotent in this regard.
Lennox can keep his forgiveness and his Gospel. Both are as useless as the other.
I find forgiveness a useful concept. When I built a house in my younger days, I chose a material, mud brick, that was intrinsically forgiving. Its rough and irregular texture hid my lack of precision as a bricklayer. It disguised a lack of competence that I share with the majority of the human race. It was also forgiving on the budget, as any major errors could be cheaply fixed for very little - a stuff-up had little practical impact on the overall mission because it did not blow the budget.
I also use the phrase regularly to prefix comments that might cause offense. "One might be forgiven ...". This signals that I realise that making the mistake that I am about to articulate in detail is an almost inevitable consequence of being human. Thus, I say this to address the mistake and to mollify the embarrassment and sense of responsibility and culpability felt by the person in making it. In these ways, forgiveness plays its proper roles - one, to disguise the foibles of being human and the other to reduce the negative tone of discussions about those foibles.
Oh, that this were the case in Christian forgiveness. Before all the apologists run to defend their Christian forgiveness as really just what I have articulated above, let me sound a warning. Making the Gospel into whatever you want it to be is intellectually dishonest. You should and will be called on that. You can't simply take "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone at her." as some kind of absolution as described above - it is an admonition not to be judgemental, but does not negate the implication of sin on the woman's part.
Let us first address the absolutism inherent in Christian forgiveness. In the first instance, God, of doubtful existence and moral integrity, extends forgiveness to all humans. As Christians often use the tactic of evasion to argue their case, let's cover all bases.
If your God is an ultimate cause, separate from the universe, then the notion of forgiveness is entirely absurd, since God is ultimately culpable for all actions universally. He/it forgives his own illogicality in allowing humans to act contrary to his universe-creating and sustaining commands.
If your God is an unknowable being, with a logic entirely of his own that needs no human explanation nor absolution, creating humans in his own image to likewise exercise their own will, then for him to forgive his 'creation' for being similarly willful is the ultimate act of hypocrisy.
If your God is the God of Abraham, a knowable entity creating a perfect world and laying down the law about how we must live in it and punishing any violation of this law, then there is a no case for granting any kind of absolution, for his wickedness is breath-taking beyond human comprehension; literally - we cannot come to grips with the massacre in Norway, which he allows to occur, and the mass slaughter of people in Aceh in a Tsunami, which he enacts.
If your God is the meek and mild Jesus, then there is precisely nothing in his teachings that can masquerade as forgiveness in the sense I have described above. Jesus was a Jew, in world dominated by Jewish law overlaid by Roman law. His antidote to legalistic thinking was to live on the basis of loving your neighbour, regardless of the their breaches of the law.
Nothing about Christ's life and teachings supported or negated the notion of "fallen" humans, a concept first articulated in the 5th century. It is the most fundamental and malicious of Christian teachings. The idea that immoral deeds are a cancer that affects everybody, is genetically programmed into us and that it has universal negative characteristics and outcomes is mischievous and malicious on all counts.
First, the 'all pervasive sin' theory sets all human behaviour as fundamentally wrong or evil - without context or consideration of motive or outcome. Just as cancer consumes its host until death, sin takes hold of humans and drives them to evil deeds to the point of moral death.
Apart from the breathtaking lack of scientific rigour, such a theory ignores most evidence. People act differently in different contexts. A 'nice bloke' and 'good mate' may turn out to be a wife-beater. It is simply impossible to say that one natural inclination drives all misdeeds.
Next, to ascribe culpability to an innocent child that has no developed will, no history of misdeeds and who will learn behaviour from its family context is gross injustice. On these grounds, I must be able to convict you of just about any crime you would like to name, since your involvement and proximity to the crime count for nil in counting you guilty - simply, you have a propensity (you have human DNA) and that is enough said.
A sinful nature logically demands a negative outcome - otherwise it is either not sinful or not nature. The outcome must be a part of determining the morality of an action - otherwise the actions of accidentally bumping you and mass murder of are morally equivalent. A balance of greed, which some count as sin, may keep competition of two vendors favourable to a consumer. We should ask, in all moral situations, what the outcome is for all concerned. This is radically different from "all have fallen short". In the Christian moral framework, bumping you and mass murder are equivalent in that both are indicators of a natural inclination that must be, at worst eternally punished (hell), and at best, whitewashed (washed in the blood of Jesus).
Our secular legal system holds that all persons are responsible for their actions. No legal mechanism is available for transferring this responsibility (it is diminished or dismissed in cases of juveniles or clinically insane - moves to transfer responsibility of crimes to parents have been unsuccessful). Most Christians I know not only live within this framework, but prefer it and actively campaign for it. The forgiveness as espoused in the Gospel - the transfer of guilt to Jesus - directly contradicts this framework, no matter what angle you put on it.
All of us sense the injustice of laying blame on an innocent party and let the guilty go free. Thus, the Christian concept of forgiveness is not only universally ignored by Christians - it is universally morally reprehensible.
More nauseating, however, and so apparent in Lennox and his ilk, is the over-bearing self-righteous mindset of Christian forgiveness. They have been the lucky ones, entrusted with the franchise on forgiveness. Atheists could not possibly have the quality of absolution necessary, since they have not embraced the franchise, but have opened up in direct competition, challenging the very premise of Christian forgiveness.
It is the smug assertion that only those who turn to God have a chance of salvation that grates - not because I would not seek salvation if I felt it necessary and would not buy at their "forgiveness shop", but because it supposedly their enlightenment and wise choice that should be a model to me.
I know by now that there will be Christians who will claim that their Jesus forgave in a perfectly human way - not in any way associated with the neagtive characterisations above. How can we make a case that Jesus was acting, as I articulated in the introduction, only in a human way to prove that acting human was natural (and, of course, forgivable) and should not really be considered anything that should attract anything but absolution? Not only is this contradicted by the notion that Jesus was apparently meant to fulfill the commandments of the Old Testament and steadfastly did so without fail, but it provides precisely nothing in terms of moral guidance on how forgiveness should be applied.
There are things I would not forgive. Rape requires unambiguous guilt, followed by extended incarceration until society is convinced the offender will not re-offend. No forgiveness entered into nor implied. Crimes that are beyond proof or evidence and therefore prosecution under law, such as the systematic killing of dissenters under apartheid, cannot be resolved by forgiveness - only Truth and Reconciliation remain as a less than optimal process.
Hence, we forgive 'human-ness', do not forgive 'inhuman-ness' and simply agree to disagree about those crimes that are beyond investigation.
Simple empathy can be applied to some circumstances of crime. A wife beaten for decades might find herself excused in the minds of most, but her crime is not forgiven - we would still hold that she is guilty but that her crime was inevitable. Perhaps we can see ourselves in her shoes. This makes empathy, not forgiveness, the real moral driver. Labelling this 'forgiveness' is simply an attempt to make it appear synonymous with God's supposed forgiveness or diminishes our ability to resolve the psychological issues involved in the behaviour (rather like saying that the mind, or worse, the soul, rather than the brain, does things).
The lasting legacy of "forgiveness" is surely that eternal burden of guilt that people feel, exacerbating their sense of worthlessness that characterises some sorts of depression. One must consider oneself to be guilty on multiple fronts, mostly determined against the most arbitrary of standards. If I feel sexual pleasure, I should feel guilty. If I speak out of turn, I should feel guilty. If I call someone a dickhead, I should feel guilty.
Finally, forgiveness gives no sense of recompense. Recompense is perhaps the most powerful of human drivers in creating social cohesion. If I call you a dickhead and you are not a dickhead, demonstrably so, then forgiveness may makes you feel holy, vindicated in your indignaion at being called a dickhead, but it does not set the world right. Only recompense - saying I'm sorry - can change the situation to allow us, once again, to work with each other on a mission. Forgiveness is utterly impotent in this regard.
Lennox can keep his forgiveness and his Gospel. Both are as useless as the other.
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