Uncertainty
Religious believers can be weird. Very, very weird. I know it’s not considered polite to say that – and that’s why I tend to avoid them rather than engage them in dialogue. Precisely because there is so much that it is not considered polite to say about religious believers, that yet becomes so glaringly obvious when one does try to engage them in dialogue. It’s kind of a You can’t win situation. You simply can’t say certain things, and yet the things you can’t say are at the center of the whole discussion – so the discussion is lamed and hobbled and disabled before it ever starts. It’s a stalemate. So the familiar and much-repeated idea that discussion on this subject is possible and desirable (and even useful and productive) seems to me to be absurd. And every time the subject comes up, fresh confirmation is offered. Religious believers like to say ‘You can say anything you like! Of course you can! Do you think we’ve never heard anyone say “There is no God” before? How naive! Go on, say whatever you like!’ So you do (if you’re very stupid and credulous, at least) – and you are immediately greeted with yells of rage, with blatant misinterpretations of what you say, and with aspersions on your capacity for moral reflection. Oh. So when you say ‘You can say anything you like!’ you mean I can say anything I like provided I don’t mind having what I say translated into something else and being called immoral. Oh, okay, that sounds good.
I suppose ‘You can say’ in that context means ‘You are physically able to say’ as opposed to ‘You can without risk of having to deal with frothing intemperate dishonest reactions say.’ Okay. But that’s not what I mean by ‘You can say.’ However, I have learned through years of irritating experience that that is often what other people mean by it, so I don’t always take it at face value. Thus I choose to avoid discussions of religion with religious believers – when I can. It’s not always possible, because sometimes they pursue me back to my secular lair, and insist on having their productive dialogue anyway. This can be a trifle dispiriting. One wants to ask them to go away, but one doesn’t like to be quite that rude – so one sighs heavily and attempts to answer – and is immediately greeted with yells of rage and blatant misinterpretations of what one says. One really can’t win. One can make firm resolutions not to get drawn into such discussions to begin with, of course, but that doesn’t always work either – because one doesn’t always know in advance that they are going to happen. It’s not as if every time an invitation arrives in the mail, there is a notice at the bottom – ‘Warning: There will be one or more religious believers present who will insist on talking about God and prayer and higher authority, whether you like it or not.’ If invitations were always so equipped, one would know what to do, but they’re not.
It’s unfortunate that they’re not, though, because one result is that once such a discussion does start, and the skeptics remember an urgent appointment elsewhere and try to sidle away – what do you suppose happens? They are accused of censorship, that’s what. They are accused of not knowing how to tolerate freedom of speech and thought, of wanting to ban religion. That’s quite a leap – a leap of faith, one might say. A similar leap, and one even more popular with religious believers, is to equate non-adherence to their belief in a deity with absolute, unequivocal, irrevocable, undiluted, without doubt certitude, and then to marvel at such a degree of certitude. One religious believer I’ve encountered here and there accused me of exactly that just today. But of course that’s stark nonsense – I don’t have that kind of certitude about anything – I don’t even have one of those adjective’s worth of certitude. It doesn’t require certitude simply to decline to believe in something. And, of course, believers often display a fair amount of certitude themselves, which is exactly what makes discussions with them so unproductive – the secularists and atheists tend to hedge their assertions while the believers say what they know. As with this remark, which came from the very same believer who attributed all that certitude to me – ‘It’s about understanding that divine authority stands in judgment on all human agency.’
So. That’s what I said – religious believers can be very weird.
The real key to overcoming such frustrations is to get to know religious texts and ideas more deeply than the believers themselves — to openly admit where the secular concepts are transformations of previous theological concepts and to point out that such borrowing of concepts is allowable and justifiable, if those concepts seem to be attractive for building a civilization (such as a Pauline universalism — “there is no Jew or Greek, etc.”), and that you don’t have to swallow some theological system whole in order to gain access to those attractive ideas, because no theological system was ever whole or integral or self-consistent to begin with.
That, it seems to me, is a more productive position than trying to avoid religious people or religious ideas because they might get you dirty — you’ve got ideas in your head that come from Sts. Paul and Augustine whether you like the source or not or whether you’re “a Christian” or not, and we’d all be better off if we could just admit it and reclaim the whole of our civilization’s heritage, which includes these awful religious elements, so that we can understand maybe a little better where we’re coming from and where we might be going and so that we all, religious and secular alike, could master the art of not-being-an-asshole.
Because, as you know, a lot of religious people would write the same stuff about you, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong — just as you are certainly not entirely justified in saying what you said. We’re all playing the same game here. We have to live together. We don’t have to agree with one another, but it might help to understand why exactly we’re forced to have the kinds of conversations we have.
So now you “own” a whole lot of words by me. Have a nice day.
I meant to say “you’re not entirely unjustified in what you’ve said.” Sorry.
Obviously I know that a whole lot of religious people would write the same stuff about me, because that’s my point – they not only would, they do. But I maintain that they tell falsehoods in the process, and I also maintain that I don’t do that.
Your comment is in fact a case in point.
“That, it seems to me, is a more productive position than trying to avoid religious people or religious ideas because they might get you dirty”
That is not why I avoid religious discussions (not ideas) and religious people. I said very clearly and explicitly why I avoid them – and you promptly translate that into “because they might get you dirty”. And you wonder why I avoid these discussions? It’s got nothing to do with dirt, it’s because one side so often refuses to carry them on honestly, that’s why. So often that I, in turn often, begin to wonder if they are really unable to.
“you’ve got ideas in your head that come from Sts. Paul and Augustine whether you like the source or not or whether you’re “a Christian” or not, and we’d all be better off if we could just admit it”
You don’t know what I’ve got in my head. You have no way of knowing. Ideas aren’t viruses or genes, they don’t just trickle in, they’re not oxygen. I dislike that whole Freudian approach of claiming to know what ideas people have whether they know it or not – claiming to know what’s in people’s heads better than they know themselves. For all you know I was suckled by wolves and have never even heard of Paul and Augustine.
“to openly admit where the secular concepts are transformations of previous theological concepts”
But you don’t know that either. You don’t know that, for instance, many of those ideas are not derived from an older source that both theological and secular concepts drew on. You can’t know. In fact, I have to say I think you’re displaying a little too much certitude about what you can know.
And I don’t think we are all playing the same game here. It depends on how you define that game, of course – if you mean just doing whatever we do in the years between birth and death, then yes, we are. But in other, more interesting senses of that game, I don’t think I am playing the same game, I think I’m playing a different one. And as for having to live together – well, sure we do, but I don’t take that to mean that secularists have to abdicate to believers, nor even that we have to agree with believers’ opinions of us.
In its basic outlines, Freudianism has been hugely convincing and successful. The unconscious, the drives, all that — it’s just common knowledge now. You don’t have to agree that I want to kill my dad and get with my mom, but the fact remains: Freud is here to stay. The fact that Freudian ideas no longer even go under the name Freudian just proves the overwhelming impact he’s had. This self-transparency, whereby you have some kind of special insight into what you can and cannot “know for certain” and into where all your ideas came from, and don’t need anyone else to tell you about it — it’s a fantasy. Freud proved that, decisively. In a post-Freud world, your brand of rationalism simply isn’t convincing — heck, in a post-Kantian world I don’t find your position convincing either. Of course, I guess you don’t really have to abide by any part of the intellectual tradition, since I “can’t know” that a man named Immanuel Kant really lived in Prussia so long ago, can I? I mean, I don’t have a time machine.
And yes, ideas do float into our heads without us realizing it or realizing the source. Sometimes other people do need to tell us things or clarify our own thought processes. We’re not monads.
You are fortunate to have just been granted ownership of even more of my words! Enjoy!
Adam
Where exactly does it say we *own* your words?
And, speaking for myself, I can guarantee that I’m never going to want to do anything with what you’ve said, so you can rest easy.
Yeah well, apparently precision in quotation and citation is just too much to ask.
As for Freudianism – as I have said several times before, I don’t dispute how influential Freud has been, which in a sense entails agreeing that ‘Freudianism has been hugely convincing and successful’. Depending on how you define ‘succesful,’ of course. And as for common knowledge – well, lots of things are ‘common knowledge’ that aren’t in fact true. As for whether Freud is here to stay or not – we don’t know, but I think in the long run that’s doubtful.
“Freud proved that, decisively.”
No he didn’t. He didn’t prove anything, much less decisively.
And in any case, I didn’t say I did know for certain where my ideas came from – I said that you don’t and can’t know. I still say that. I would point out, for instance, that I have absolutely no idea where your ideas came from, and wouldn’t dream of saying I did. I’m not talking about “self-transparency” or “some kind of special insight” or any such nonsense – I’m simply saying that you don’t know. Because you don’t.
You manifest bizarre certainty in every sentence of your post, and yet you accuse me of certainty! Thus, I suppose, making my point for me, for which I should thank you.
Wow, Ophelia. There I was thinking that that you were a well educated English speaker with an interest in amongst other things philosophy, truth, and Freud.
Now you tell me I really should consider the possibility that you’re just a chatbot computer program – after all, how can I know what’s in your head?
You also suggest that secular and theological concepts may have a common prior source. Like what? Visitors from outer space?
Isn’t some form of Occam’s razor, or just a concession to pragmatism, in order here?
Sure, we can never know we have the Absolute truth. But you seem to have thrown out knowledge altogether.
I agree that ideas are not like viruses or genes, and if we treat them as such we give up on reason. That’s an important point. But you do seem to have been a bit hasty in your response to Adam.
But, still, the point Adam was trying to make surely stands: religious texts are not “owned” by religious people. They are literary texts in their own rights and can be discussed as such. Indeed they are such a huge part of our culture (or at least of the way our culture came about) that we might have actually a duty to reclaim them from the believers.
Add to that the fact that these texts are most of the time not consistent and they are usually in any discussion more of a help to the sceptic than to the believer. Agreed, it is not of much interest for B&W which concerns itself first with scientific matters but surely it is a point worth making?
You manifest bizarre certainty in every sentence of your post, and yet you accuse me of certainty! Thus, I suppose, making my point for me, for which I should thank you.
I’m not trying to throw out “certainty” — we all tend to say things we believe. I believe what I say; I’m not just making stuff up to piss you off. I assume you believe what you say, too. And anyway, how are you so certain that we can’t know where our ideas come from? What does “know” mean in this case? What does “certainty” mean here? Maybe we need to dig out some Wittgenstein.
Also, not everything I say in response to your post is an attempt to directly characterize the content of your post. If what I say seems to be grossly incongruent with what you’re saying, then cut me some slack and assume that I’m not directly trying to summarize you. Yes, you never said religious ideas would get you dirty. Of course not. I didn’t say you said it. I was just imagining that some people don’t want to clutter their mind with ideas that are so obviously false. “Better things to do,” etc. Some charity in reading might be nice, instead of assuming that I’m trying to go on the offensive — after all, I was offering you a strategy for dealing with unreflective believers, who are also a grave annoyance for me (and with whom I, as something of a believer myself, probably have to interact a lot more often than you do). So I’m saying, if you want the conversation to be more interesting than frustrating, play a little trick on them and use their own concepts against them. Can we be friends again now?
Plus, while the little tagline doesn’t come out and say it, I saw little difference between the conditions you set for commenting and the conditions that come along with owning the copyright to something. I was probably wrong about that — though I really don’t understand why the tagline is necessary at all, since obviously people who comment in a public forum are making their comments publicly available.
Okay, sorry, Adam, I’ll try to use more charity in reading. I probably carried some exasperation at a different poster in a different place, over to yours. Sure, we can be friends again now. What’s in the fridge? Can I have it?
“And anyway, how are you so certain that we can’t know where our ideas come from?”
But I didn’t say that. I might say that – I don’t think (I’m not certain about it, but I don’t think) we can know where all our ideas come from, because I’m pretty sure we forget the source of a lot of them – which would tend to support your original point, or rather, a more hedged version of it. Because I didn’t say we can’t know where our ideas come from, I said you can’t know where my ideas come from. Which is true – how could you? You don’t know nearly enough about me – and that would take pretty exhaustive knowledge, it seems to me.
“I’m not trying to throw out “certainty” — we all tend to say things we believe.”
Yeah, but – it’s also useful to make that clear. To make it clear that we’re saying what we believe, not stating facts. The items I quoted from your posts were pretty decisive. Not that I never do that myself, but I try to avoid it at least most of the time…
“obviously people who comment in a public forum are making their comments publicly available.”
I know, I know – you’d think so. But not everyone finds that obvious. There was a big stink about it a couple of weeks ago, so that’s the reason for the tagline.
“There I was thinking that that you were a well educated English speaker with an interest in amongst other things philosophy, truth, and Freud.”
Right – there you were thinking. But not knowing! There’s a difference. More seriously, the inference above seems quite reasonable (except for the well educated part maybe!), but a claim to know that I get some of my ideas from Paul and Augustine is not, it seems to me.
“But you seem to have thrown out knowledge altogether.”
Do I? I don’t think so. I just don’t see how Adam could know what he claimed to know in that particular instance, that’s all.
“But, still, the point Adam was trying to make surely stands: religious texts are not “owned” by religious people.”
Hmm. But I’m not sure what the relevance of that is to what I was saying? The religious arguments I’m talking about aren’t about religious texts, they’re about the truth claims of religion. I have zero problem or disagreement with people who are simply interested in the bible as literature – I am too. But that’s not the issue – the issue is the truth claims, and the disagreement with the truth claims.
“I was probably wrong about that — though I really don’t understand why the tagline is necessary at all, since obviously people who comment in a public forum are making their comments publicly available.”
Yes you were wrong. There are various different kinds of rights at stake here.
If we owned Copyright, then we could determine what *you* could do with your words beyond B&W. But we don’t, so we can’t.
This would also be the case if we claimed exclusive rights over the use of your words (even if we didn’t claim that we owned copyright). This is the kind of deal people enter into with book publishers, etc.
But we simply claim that we can do anything with your words.
And the reasons are standard. If we couldn’t, for example, then: if we wanted to change the server that this site is hosted on, we couldn’t copy over people’s comments to the new server; if somebody demanded that we take down all the comments they had made over the last two years, we would have to do so; we couldn’t have local backups of our database; etc.
ZK might introduce self to the Christian left.
Chin-ups now? Do I have to? I play with some dumbells now and then, I can detect a bicep if I look hard enough, but chin-ups, I don’t know, man…
Sorry! [slaps self] No, I’m not upset. Exasperated at times, yes, but not upset. (Twice for emphasis, indeed!) And I’m certainly not giving up – just choosing where I do my prevailing and enduring.
Thanks!
I’ve found that many otherwise sensible, rational, reasonable people are sensitive in the extreme to any criticism that touches on religion. They can be liberal and enlightened, but you say, “Boy, that Pat Robertson is one deluded dingbat,” and you get a hiss and an angry defense of his worldview.
I’ve given up trying to be gentle towards Christianity — it doesn’t help. It’s a poisoned tree, and the only way to save it is to start lopping off the bad branches. Unfortunately, the above attitude prevents the people who would benefit the most, who have the most to lose, and who would be most effective, Christians themselves, from doing much of anything.
And if you want weird believers, check out this Susan person who has been desperately spamming pharyngula.org. She’s utterly convinced of the literal truth of every word of the Bible, and to rescue some of the nonsense she is quoting bizarre apologetics that read whole novels into the spaces between the lines.
Yes, I’ve found the same thing, and given up the same thing precisely because I’ve found the same thing. I think the more gentle everyone is towards theism, the more theism assumes it has some kind of special protected status – and the more incapable it becomes of even seeing the double standard, the asymmetry. They can attack and mock atheism in any way they like, but if we criticise or disagree with (let alone attack or mock) theism – well, we get the hiss and the angry defense.
“I play with some dumbells now and then, I can detect a bicep if I look hard enough, but chin-ups, I don’t know, man…”
Chinups are good for triceps. Reasonable substitutes using dumbbells are overhead extensions, kickbacks, black-eyes, and dips. I prefer the extension, dumbbell resting on both clasped hands straight above my head, lowered behind my neck as slowly as possible, raise and repeat. A heavier weight than usual.
Ophelia, I really don’t understand why you let the religious upset you so much.
Okay, read the posting “Science and Religion” which some arguments and explanations. Maybe a militant or committed atheist. That’s cool.
I don’t believe religion has as much actual influence on public policy or private behavior as even its adherents would claim, and its main purpose is as justification before or after the fact.
And religious analysis of issues, most often done badly, seem as often to lead to positions compatible with my own as not.
I have lost jobs twice because of unbelief.
Ophelia, were you discussing religion with friends, co-workers, relatives? Were they self styled liberals, conservatives, moderates et al.?
I ask because I’m a believer and I don’t recognize myself, my debating style or my beliefs in your post. (Or in the posts on this page, for that matter. An example:
“I’ve found that many otherwise sensible, rational, reasonable people are sensitive in the extreme to any criticism that touches on religion. They can be liberal and enlightened, but you say, “Boy, that Pat Robertson is one deluded dingbat,” and you get a hiss and an angry defense of his worldview.”
I don’t know who this person has been talking to. The people described here don’t sound to me like they’re sensible, rational, or reasonable to begin with. For the record, I know evangelicals who think Pat Robertson’s a nut and a bigot.)
I’m not trying to be patronizing, but are you satisfied that you weren’t looking for a good scrap? I’m not suggesting you were, I’m just trying to figure out why you’ve consistently met with the responses you’ve described.
If you want to talk about belief in God, send me an email or reply to this post. I’ll try to explain why I believe in God and I promise, scout’s honor, not to indulge in “frothing intemperate dishonest reactions” as much as I enjoy that sort of thing.
Bob, it’s not that religion “upsets” me. That’s not the point – not the point of what I’m talking about here, I mean. It’s not personal and it’s not emotional. I’m talking about the harm it does – the harm I think it does. That’s a public, social, educational, political, cognitive issue, not one of being upset or not. It’s part of B&W’s subject matter.
I hope you’re right about religion’s lack of influence. But part of what I’m talking about is (what I take to be) the fact that it does cognitive harm that most people don’t really notice or think is a problem. That’s what I’m trying to tease out here.
“But, as your question possibly indicates, doing that is in fact often seen as hostile and aggressive – as looking for a good scrap – in a way that talking about secular subjects is not.”
No, I didn’t see it as hostile. I was just trying to establish the context in which this religious volatility occurs.
Ah. The context is of general, public discussions like this one – as opposed to personal confrontations over the dinner table. Those I definitely avoid.