12 posts tagged “faith”

Remarkable story, if you are unfamiliar with Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her story please watch this speech given at AAI 07. The Q&A is well worth your time as well.

I went and picked up Christopher Hitchens' latest book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I am already through the first chapter and this book is quite exciting. Hitchens' prose alone is worth the price of admission. Rest assured I'll be posting some excerpts as I plow through this one.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Christopher Hitchens

Long time readers of my blog (are there any "long time readers" of this blog?) know that I've been following the Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan debate over on beliefnet for quite some time now. You may also know that I've been fairly disappointed in Andrew Sullivan's arguments, but then again I'm not exactly going to be easily won over. I have to give him credit, though, he put up a fairly good fight.

Sam didn't bother to go into a detailed refutation of Sullivan's last response (unlike me), but he did have this to say:

Finally, let me say that there is something tragically unnecessary about all of this. I do not doubt the consolations you get from your faith. But faith is like a pickpocket who loans you your own money on generous terms. Your resultant feelings of gratitude are perfectly understandable, but misplaced. You are the source of the love that you attribute to Jesus (how else can you feel it?). Realizing this, what need is there to feel certain about ancient miracles?

But seriously, I really hope it's over now. I'm done with it.

Sam Harris

Andrew Sullivan has posted his response to Sam Harris' latest essay in their debate on Religion on Beliefnet. It appears to be the last that he will write as Sullivan says, "Perhaps, then, Sam, we have talked as much as we fruitfully can." For risk that Sam may not offer another rebuttal, I will address Sullivan's essay, at length, here. I hope Sam does, ultimately, offer a final rebuttal and it will be interesting to me to see where we differ.

I'm going to skip the first paragraph and address it a little further down. I'm going to jump ahead to Sullivan's reason for thinking that he could never not exist:

The reason I cannot conceive of my non-existence is because I have accepted, freely and sanely, the love of Jesus, and I have felt it, heard it, known it. He would never let me go. And by never, I mean eternally. And so I could never not exist and neither could any of the people I have known and loved.

The main problem with this is that this is not a reason, but more a quasi-emotion. Under what justification has he "accepted" this to be true? How has he "felt it, heard it" and "known it"? Our own senses are notoriously unreliable for us to accept that he as "felt" anything resembling divinity. From whom has he "heard" this? Has he spoken personally to god? The last verb is that he "heard" it. From whom? His family and friends? A pastor? God himself? These assertions demonstrate nothing but an incomplete analysis of the situation.

Then Sullivan states that he really doesn't think god "exists" per se, but that he is something entirely different:

For me, the radical truth of my faith is therefore not that God exists, but that God is love (a far, far less likely proposition). On its face, this is a preposterous claim, and in my defense, I have never really argued in this dialogue that you should not find it preposterous. It can be reasoned about, but its truth itself is not reasonable or reachable through reason alone. But I believe it to be true - not as a fable or as a comfort or as a culture. As truth. And one reason I am grateful for this discussion is that you take this truth claim seriously on its own terms.

If god is "love" then why not call this phenomena "love" instead of "god?" Is god a being in and of itself or simply a feeling? If so, what are we arguing about? Love? I believe love exists, so in this sense I, myself, am a theist. Then again, what is Sullivan's definition of "love"? Things become incredibly fuzzy when we start substituting "god" for basic human emotions and I don't think that this sort of vocabulary gets us any further in understanding the "truth" of "love" (or, as Sullivan wants it, "god").

The feeling of love can be scientifically measured and there is plenty of data that supports belief in love. At this point, if I was Harris, I would ask Sullivan to define exactly what he means by "god" before moving forward. Such unclear language gets nobody closer to anything resembling a resolution of the issue.

But lets move on, in this next part Sullivan brings up how Jesus fits into this "god as love" hypothesis. He asks the question, "What did Jesus do?" Good question, let us examine what Sullivan says he did.

Sullivan says that "the first and immense thing [that Jesus did] is that he existed at all."

That is certainly debatable. I personally don't think there is any well demonstrated evidence that even suggests that Jesus existed. But for the sake of argument, lets just assume that he did. How is Jesus existing important?

From Sullivan's book, which he quotes in the article:

This, it seems to me, is the true mystery of the incarnation, the notion that in Jesus, God became man. I believe this in the only way I can: that one man represents, for all time, God's decision to truly be with us....

In this nonfundamentalist understanding of faith, practice is more important then theory, love more important than law, and mystery is seen as an insight into truth rather than an obstacle.

The most important part of this quotation is not the conclusions that Sullivan draws from his assertion, but in the assertion itself. How do we know that in Jesus "God became man"? If so, how did this happen? What he draws from this significance can be debated, and I don't think his conclusions are intirely invalid, but the at the heart of these conclusions is the claim that in Jesus we have god as a man. How is it possible to know this is true?

Sullivan continues:

This is what Jesus told people: to treat God as an intimate father, to pray simply, to believe against so much evidence that good does indeed prevail against evil, to know that God is not indifferent to us, and to re-enact his last meal for ever as a way to remind ourselves of his love and experience his real presence. And this is what Jesus lived: a life full of love and friendship and self-giving, even to the point of non-violent submission to violence, as proof of God's love.

Sullivan seems to be confusing the argument, he is wrapped up in the conclusions he has drawn from the assertion of God and Jesus' divinity. I partially blame this on Harris, as he has a tendency to show his distrust of religion through examples of religion's bad things. Sullivan seems intent on showing Harris that his religion isn't the religion of fundamentalism. But that's not the issue. The issue is do we have good reason to think that these conclusions come from a solid foundation? Circularly, Sullivan's justification for believe in Jesus is ... believing in Jesus. The idea that Jesus was allegedly a good guy somehow equates to proof of "God's love".

And that phrase, "God's love" is entirely inconsistent with what Sullivan has previously said. So god is love, but yet we are supposed to revere his love? Love's love? What?! Are we now again talking about God as some sort of entity, or is this some abstraction of language I do not understand? Perhaps the "god is love" thing was more an analogy. Or maybe he just forgot what he wrote only a few paragraphs before this one.

He continues, kind of saying why he can believe these things:

I do not need the proof of miracles to believe this. The universe itself is a miracle to me. If there are aspects of it that science has not yet grasped but that believers have somehow glimpsed, then I am content to allow for the possibility of miracles. But I have not witnessed any but the normal ones: the miracle of the blossoms out of my widow at this time of year or the miracle that someone else actually loves me unconditionally, or the miracle of a newborn child. This is miracle enough for me.

Under what definition does Sullivan attribute a miracle? Is this a joke of some kind? How is normal, everday occurrences that happen billions of times a day in billions of different locations a miraculous proof of god's existence? Silliness aside, these "miracles" certainly don't point to any creator. This argument is on par with the argument from design. Science can certainly discover why these miracles occur. Evolution explains the blossoms outside of his window, evolution explains why we love each other. Evolution explains the miracle of a newborn child. Sullivan's use of "miracle" in this example is closer to poetry than justification for theism.

The universe is certainly a "miracle" to me as well, but it does not point to any sort of god at all. In fact, as Richard Dawkins likes to put it, if there is a god behind the slow evolution of the cosmos and nature he somehow saw fit to create life in such a way that a god would appear to be unnecessary.

Ah, but what of the resurrection. Does he now suggest that the resurrection is merely symbolic language made up by someone in the late first or early second century? Not on your life:

The resurrection? Yes. But I see it as no more and no less remarkable than the incarnation - and it is, in many ways, the only possible consequence of the incarnation. The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles provide contradictory accounts of what the resurrection actually was. Jesus appeared in the guise of others, as a vision, as a fully physical entity, and in other ways that defy science and logic. I don't know how to understand it except as a mystery. But I do believe in the empty tomb as much as I believe in the cramped manger. They go together - marks of an appearance in human history as mysterious as the divine must always be to human minds.

Pure unadulterated frustration is the only way to express my response to this excerpt. Sullivan doesn't claim to know even what the resurrection was, and instead of coming to the conclusion that contradictory accounts of this event should discredit it he concludes the exact opposite: that it's all the more reason to believe in it's "mystery". Why do you believe in the "empty tomb" and the "cramped manger", Andrew? How do you come to believe these things? Because they were told to you by an authority?

Okay, we're done with that horrible justification of faith. Lets move on, shall we? Sullivan addresses Harris specific points that he laid out in his essay. Instead of asking you jump back and forth between mine and Harris' article I'll just post Harris' point before Sullivan's and then add my own analysis (I think I just realized this will be quite a long essay. Sorry)

Harris (emphasis mine):

Moderation v. fundamentalism: There appears to be no principled separation between religious moderation and religious fundamentalism other than a facility for (and an inclination to) doubt. But how much doubt is too much? Why not doubt the whole shebang, as I do? The pope seems to believe many things which you doubt. Do you have reason to believe that the pope is mistaken about the true doctrine of Christianity, or do you just not like the social consequences of some of his beliefs? Can you justify the intermediate position you've taken with respect to Catholicism in terms of truth and falsity (rather than consolation and its lack)? And if you disagree that the truth of an idea can be neatly separated from its consolations, what does the phrase "wishful thinking" mean to you?

Sullivan says he addressed it at the beginning of his essay, so lets go there:

I argued that because we may be programmed by evolution for faith, faith may be intrinsic to being human and therefore something we should engage rather than deny. You make the solid point that we are also programmed by evolution for rape. Does that make rape defensible? Of course not, even though, as you point out, rape is a very effective and very natural way to disseminate DNA. But my response would not be to say that the evolutionary impulse to inseminate should be resisted entirely. I'd argue that the sex rive should be channeled respectfully toward others, i.e. moderated. So rape cedes to consensual DNA dissemination. Similarly, the drive for faith needs to be channeled respectfully toward others, i.e. moderated. Fundamentalism cedes to toleration. Hence my insistence on maintaining the humility apropriate (sic) for such immense claims about the meaning of everything; and hence my support for a faith that is live-and-let-believe in its social manifestation. I think my project in this respect is far more feasible than yours. By attempting to abolish rather than moderate faith, I fear you deliver an intrinsic human impulse into the hands of those who most abuse it - the fundamentalists of all stripes.

What I take from this is not that if extremism is bad so must be the moderate form of that expression. Harris' question is not wether moderation is nicer than extremism, but under what justification do these things fall. This is the key point that I've brought up before in discussing why I feel that my refuse to be "moderate" in my atheism is justified.

The problem is not whether or not these things are extreme or moderate but if they are true. Sam asks Sullivan to demonstrate his moderate position as "true" rather than merely socially acceptable. Sullivan has completely ignored the point of the question and gone off to show that moderation is itself a good thing. I don't disagree but I don't agree at the same time. The more important question to ask is if these things are themselves true.

Taking the discussion outside of the umbrella of religion can illuminate better what I mean. Imagine that a person is standing in the middle of the street and sees a car approaching them. If they do not move, they car will hit this person. Further, lets assume that the driver is not really paying attention to the road and will not move out of the way.

Now, for a person to believe that they will not be hurt by the car hitting them is clearly a false and foolish idea, no matter if this belief is held extremely or moderately. The problem isn't how moderately or extremely this belief is held, but that it is a false belief.

If a person believes the truth in this matter, that the car will hurt them if it strikes them, that belief is clearly true and not harmful no matter how moderately or extremely. However you feel about the extremity of the situation doesn't matter, as long as you get out of the way of the car.

To continue on, Harris second point:

The inadequacies of the Bible: What is the intellectual justification for considering the Bible to be the inspired word of God, given how much bad stuff (like slavery) is in there, and how much good stuff (like all of science) isn't? Do you really think that no mere mortals could have written Mark, Matthew, John and Luke? Not even the combined talent of a first-century Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy? It seems to me that this textual claim really lies at the core of the matter: either the Bible is a book like any other great work of literature, or it's a magic book. Once one accepts it to be a magic book, I agree that a wide range of religious implications follow; but if one doesn't accept this claim, it seems to me that the basis for being a Christian (as a opposed to anything else) evaporates. Would it really surprise you if God told you that the Bible was a product of fallible, human minds? And if this wouldn't truly astound you (in the way that finding out that George Washington never existed presumably would), how can you claim to be so certain of the doctrine of Christianity?

Sullivan's response:

Is the Bible uniquely the word of God? Yes - but it was also first spoken and then written by human beings. I don't believe in its inerrancy or its literal truth. But I believe in the deepest truths of the Gospels, and the truth of the life and death of the man they describe. Has God spoken to us in other ways? Of course. But for me, the words of Jesus speak of God's love more truly than anything else I have ever come across. I'm still looking.

So ... yes but no? Sullivan apprently takes the bible as "divinely inspired" route. If we messed up the translation even a little bit, how does that impact our use of the knowledge currently contained in the bible? If things like slavery are contained in the bible but we reject them today, why can't the "good" things be equally rejected? Of what use is a mistranslated word of god?

Sullivan completely ignores Harris' point about "Ontological fancy footwork." Maybe he didn't understand it. On with Sam's next point:

The contingency of your own faith: As you said, if you'd been raised a Buddhist, you'd probably be a Buddhist. And yet, you also believe that Christianity is really true. This seems to entail that, by sheer accident of birth, you were raised and culturally conditioned to believe the one true faith. Do you really believe this? Doesn't it seem more likely that you just happen to subscribe to the religion into which you were born (as most people do) because of social pressure, emotional consolation, attachment to tradition, etc.?

Sullivan's response:

Contingency? An eternal truth has to enter human discourse at one time or another. It will become necessarily contingent as soon as it touches the human and becomes part of history. There is no other way. So faith's contingency is neither an argument for or against it."

So ... there is some truth to this religion stuff but we humans fuck it up? Well then, certainly Christianity is screwed up the message somewhere along the way. Why not reject it? This is not an argument against god existence, but it certainly poses problems for any one specific faith.

The next point Sam brings up:

The troublesome example of other religions: Don't you think Mormons and Muslims have similar stories to tell about feeling consoled in the presence of death, hearing voices, etc.? Can't both Mormons and Muslims use the same argument you have used about the cultural success of their faiths to vindicate their own truth claims? How is it that you reject their claims, and how is it that in rejecting them you don't find your own religious beliefs coming under pressure?"

Sullivan's response:

Other religions. I'm curious. And I find in many of them many of the themes of Jesus: the unimportance of wordliness, the oneness of God, the equal dignity of human beings, the impulse to charity. But I do find Christ's witness the final truth, which must mean that others fall short. But I do not see this as a reason to hate or condemn or even deny the alternatives, where they also see this deeper truth. Everything is true as long as it isn't taken to be anything more than it is. And I am in no position to judge the sincere choices of others in matters inherently beyond our knowledge.

So ... Sullivan's explination is that "everything is true." You have got to be kidding me. Mr. Sullivan, we are evaluating truth or falsity. Everything is not true. You must justify the differences that you say are true that aren't found in other religions and vice versa. This isn't a matter of taste, Mr. Sullivan.

Harris' next point:

The argument from cultural success: Apart from the fact that the argument from cultural success would vindicate any religion that has millions of subscribers, it's also just plain false. The success of Christianity (or any faith) is not an argument for its truth. While dialogue and consensus (and, therefore, cultural success) play a role in our knowledge gathering, we don't do epistemology by plebiscite. The majority of people really can be wrong-as are the majority of American Christians about the age of the universe and about the evolution of life on this planet."

Sullivan's response:

Cultural success? I agree that such success doesn't actually prove anything about a faith. But it is a sign that a truth has endured the test of time and is more than a sudden spasm of fashion. That the life of Jesus has altered human history in ways rarely equaled is indisputable. That's not dispositive, but it is something."

He's right, it is something. But it doesn't answer any of our questions. The success of an idea doesn't determine its truth or falsity. It must be evaluated and supported by evidence. There is no evidence that points to the god of Christianity existing.

Well ... that was fun, right? 

Sam Harris

The latest from Sam Harris in his debate with Andrew Sullivan on beliefnet. I'm hard pressed to find much to disagree with Harris on.

Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is likely to be more durable than one that conforms, at every turn, to our powers of wishful thinking? Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has good reason to believe. The methodology isn't perfect, and the history of science is riddled with abject failures of scientific objectivity. But that is just the point-these have been failures of science, discovered and corrected by-what, religion? No, by good science.

I do not deny that there is something at the core of the religious experience that is worth understanding. I do not even deny that there is something there worthy of our devotion. But devotion to it does not entail false claims to knowledge, nor does it require that we indulge our cultural/familial/emotional biases in an unscientific way. The glass can get very clean-not sterile perhaps, not entirely without structure, not contingency-free, but cleaner than many people are ready to allow. One need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to experience the "ecstasies of Teresa" (or those of Rumi, for that matter). And those of us with the benefit of a 21st century education can be more parsimonious in drawing conclusions about the cosmos on the basis of such ecstasy. Indeed, I think we must be, lest our attachment to the language of our ancestors keep their ignorance alive in our own time.

Read the full thing at beliefnet.

From Wellington Grey. Tip of the hat to Boing Boing. Notice the lack of an end for science.

Science vs. Faith

4 comments

Andrew Sullivan posted a response to Sam Harris' latest essay. I don't have time to deconstruct it fully and I eagerly await Sam Harris' response, but here is an overview and some thoughts to go along with it.

Throughout runs a confusing and muddled metaphor that he extends from Sam Harris' plea to "drink from a clean glass." Sullivan obviously misunderstood Harris' own metaphor and choose to extend that misunderstanding. He touches on a appeal to tradition and alludes to skeptical philosophy (which is self-refuting) and then slides in faith as a reconciliation. The problem with Sullivan's position (in this and across his other responses) is that it is far too elastic to pin down, sliding all over the scale with no respect for any sort of continuity.

Sullivan writes:

Consider the evidence. I do not believe in a flying spaghetti monster. I believe in Jesus of Nazareth as God Incarnate. We have no evidence of a flying spaghetti monster. But we have solid evidence of Jesus' existence. We have a handful of independent historical artifacts that attest that a minor Jewish rabbi in first century Israel was executed by the Roman authorities. We have many Gospels that date from the period after his death testifying to the power of his message. Purported messiahs and crucifixions were not uncommon at the time. But only one of the thousands of Rome's victims is remembered in this way - and not just remembered but worshiped over two millennia later in the most advanced civilization the world has ever known. Does this not intrigue you? Have you never asked in the spirit of "truly honest, fearless inquiry": How on earth did this happen?

Firstly, we don't have good evidence for the existence of Jesus and the only reason to think he existed at all is the appeal to tradition. Secondly, tradition, while interesting culturally and worthy of study does not give us any clue to how the world works, but instead applies more to the human mind and the human animal's interaction within society. These are not reasons to believe, and to use them to justify belief is doing oneself a severe injustice.

Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments but please remember that I'm no longer engaging in debate over these matters simply because I don't have enough free time.

While this whole debate thing has been going on I occasionally check up on Andrew Sullivan's blog. Readers comment on their take on the debate. As you may well know, if you've been following, Sullivan stated that he doesn't doubt his belief in god:

When people ask me how I came to choose this faith, I can only say it chose me. I have no ability to stop believing.

In my opinion this is flagrant intellectual dishonesty and I would discourage it. The idea that some things are beyond questioning is not acceptable in any other aspect of our discourse, but for religion it's apparently perfectly reasonable.  This is just escapism and avoiding the issue. It makes Harris' arguments fail simply because, according to Sullivan, it's impossible for any argument to succeed. Now I point you in the direction of one of Sullivan's readers who came up with analogy to explain this:

Your latest email to Sam reminded of an event in Cambridge years ago, at the Episcopal Theological School. One of the dowager supporters of the school was parked by a potted palm, holding a china cup of tea. She had on an amazing hat. I asked her where she got it - and imperiously she answered, "We ladies in Boston do not "get" our hats. We "have" our hats."

It's kind of like that with a faith in God that transcends all we do, all that happens to us, and anywhere we are - We can't say quite where it came from - we simply "have" it. If one "gets" it from being taught it from a book, I fear it is a faith residing in the brain.  When it is "caught" almost like a virus, by seeing someone else's total trust in God enable them to surmount any ill, it resides in the innards, bones, and moves like blood through one's being.  But it can only be "caught" by the willing, with humility.

Ignoring the pompousness of the "lady," this seems very poetic and does not show much. I was going to ignore it all together. I have been making a point of ignoring the reader submitted comments that Sullivan posts, but I'm making an exception. Thankfully, reacting to reader-objections, Sullivan has posted an atheists take, which I quite like:

Yes, your faith is a lot like the church lady and her hat. Both of you are being very disingenuous when you claim to your questioners that you have no idea where they come from. The providence of that hat is no deep mystery. It was bought in a shop. It was acquired for reasons of vanity and adornment and to make the owner feel better than others. Also similar is the smug regional and tribal pride you both take from your divinely anointed blessings.

It's not pretty, Andrew. Step away from the potted palm and put the tea cup down and answer Sam's questions.

Yes, Andrew. Please, answer Sam's questions. We've all been waiting.

Note: I have, indeed, been growing tired of this debate. I find Sullivan's responses to be completely inadequate and disappointing. I continue to follow it for two reasons: a) Sam Harris' take on Sullivan's perspective, which is completely baffling to me and b) For the sake of continuity on this blog I don't want to drop it until it is over.

If you recall from a few posts ago, Sam Harris felt it necessary to ask Andrew Sullivan what, if anything, would cause him to doubt his faith. Andrew Sullivan has responded and the answer is a resounding "nothing."

This is exactly the problem with religious people and moderates in particular. Nothing can convince you, no evidence, no appeals to science, probability, or just plain reasonableness. No matter what, ultimately the answer comes down to, "I feel it" or an appeal to some religious experience that is likely a naturally altered state of consciousness or perception.

None of these things even slightly suggest the presence of a divine being. The only reason they are interpreted as such is because of the cultural context in which these experiences occur. Sullivan himself knows this, but somehow it does not concern him:

Could it not be that it was a force beyond one, specific Jewish rabbi who lived two millennia ago and was executed by the Roman authorities? Yes, and no. I have lived with the voice of Jesus read to me, read by me, and spoken all around me my entire life - and I heard it that day. If I had been born before Jesus' birth, would I have realized this? Of course not. If I had been born in Thailand and raised a Buddhist, would I have interpreted this experience as a function of my Buddhist faith rather than Jesus? If I were a pilgrim right now in Iraq, would I attribute this epiphany to Allah? An honest answer has to be: almost certainly.

This sort of willful ignorance to evidence and reason is exactly what Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and myself are concerned about.

Sam Harris

As you may know, I am following the debate between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan on Beliefnet and the debate is over religion. Sam Harris has responded to Andrew Sullivan's stumbling attempt at argument. I won't go into depth (as Sam writes at some length here, please, please, go read it), but I will leave you with the following quotation:

It is not my intention to go on at tiresome length, but your last post has opened so many doors to the winds of unreason that I can't resist running from room to room trying to settle things down. You seem to have taken particular offense at my imputing self-deception and/or dishonesty to the faithful. I make no apologies for this. One of the greatest problems with religion is that it is built, to a remarkable degree, upon lies. Mommy claims to know that Granny went straight to heaven after she died. But Mommy doesn't actually know this. The truth is that, while Mommy may be rigorously honest on any other subject, in this instance she doesn't want to distinguish between what she really knows (i.e. what she has good reasons to believe) and 1) what she wants to be true, or 2) what will keep her children from grieving too much in Granny's absence. She is lying--either to herself or to her children--but we've all agreed not to talk about it. Rather than teach our children to grieve, we teach them to lie to themselves.

You can call me "intolerant" all you want, but that won't make unreasonable claims to knowledge sound any more reasonable; it won't differentiate your claims to religious knowledge from the claims of others which you consider illegitimate; and it won't constitute an adequate response to anything I have written or am likely to write.