Time to Admit
Let’s everybody say this kind of thing more and more often, okay? More and more and more and more. Because there’s so much of the other kind of thing. And the more there is of the other kind of thing, and the less there is of this kind of thing, the more the other kind thinks it’s right, it’s the mainstream, it’s common knowledge, it’s conventional wisdom, it’s obvious, it’s the default position. The only way to resist is by resisting.
It’s time that we acknowledged honestly what most people believe, that religion is at bottom nonsense…[W]hat I think we should acknowledge is that religion contains a massive falsehood, namely that there is a God who determines our actions and responds to our plight…The hypocritical respect now being accorded to Muslim “scholars”, people who believe that the Qur’an was dictated word for word by God, is just one example of the mess we have got ourselves into by pretending to take religion seriously. Disagreements about society can only be resolved in the here and now on liberal principles of discussion and compromise. You cannot have a sensible discussion with fundamentalists, be they Christian, Jewish or Muslim, because they start from a different point.
They start from a different point, and they also stay there, no matter what, no matter what the evidence or what the argument – in fact that is the different point they start from: that evidence and argument are entirely irrelevant. That is not a good point from which to start a sensible discussion.
By pandering to the credulous while cracking down on “extremists”, we are trying to maintain the fiction that we are semi-religious in a harmless, Hobbity sort of fashion…We should make it absolutely clear that there are no special political or religious crimes, and we should make it clear that we do not tacitly promote religion in government or in schools. What we have to promote above all else is the liberal society, and this is best done by observing scrupulously the principles of that society. And that demands that we acknowledge that religion is, at base, nonsense. The sooner we eliminate the idea that life has “some cosmic, all-embracing libretto”, the better.
Second.
But if Sky Daddy doesn’t exist and I don’t get to meet all my dead pets on Cloud 9 after I die, then what’s the point and why shouldn’t I just run amok now and take whatever I can get, huh? Ever think of that, Miss SmartyPants, huh? Anyway, some math guy proved that Sky Daddy does exist and that I will get to see Sparky and Mittens again someday. So there. Elitist.
Why are you so mean, Ophelia?
No sooner said –
A life with no purpose
George Monbiot
The Guardian
Darwinism implies that the only eternal life we have is in the recycling of our atoms. I find that comforting
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1549879,00.html
Study refutes faith in silent majority
Tim Radford
The Guardian
Congregations are losing their religious belief even faster than churches are losing their congregations, according to research published today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1549777,00.html
Careful with your other wishes, Ophelia!
_
Irritating and interesting piece by Monbiot. Irritating because of the nonsensical comparison between creationists and “climate change deniers”. Interesting because of his mention of Everett’s research of the Piraha language, and the stupendous importance of it. I believe there are quite a few linguists out there who would rather believe Everett was hoodwinked by his informants – but then again, he has thirty years of fieldwork experience behind him. And if he’s right, we may have to revise some very basic ideas about human cognition.
A propos last comment – Everett’s paper used to be on the web, but he removed it as it is due to be published. His homepage, though, with more stuff on Piraha, is here:
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/DE/DEHome.html
Something interesting that Monbiot does not mention: the Piraha appear to have little in the way of a creation mythology, etc. – but they do see ghosts. Meaning, bizarrely, that they _see_ them, literally, rather than imagine seeing them. (In his paper, Everett recounts how he was woken up in the night by the sound of the whole village jeering and hollering at a ghost on the other side of the river – they were apparently baffled that the linguist couldn’t see it).
…[W]hat I think we should acknowledge is that religion contains a massive falsehood, namely that there is a God who determines our actions and responds to our plight…
Precisely. This is a complete nonsense. Its like saying “I have arranged for you to die in an aircraft crash and when you call out for help I will respond – BY IGNORING YOU, BECAUSE I HAVE ARRANGED FOR YOU TO DIE IN AN AIRCRAFT CRASH.”
To labour the obvious, if ‘God’ has determined everything then no response is possible, and if he/she/it hasn’t then he/she/it is not God.
It is curious that we have moved from ideas of many human-like gods, to all-poweful gods that are capricious and vengeful and need to be appeased, through the idea of a saviour that will intervene with these gods on our behalf, to the entirely inconsistent idea of an all-powerful god that is also really nice. Bring back Zeus I say, you knew where you stood with him, if he killed you in a plane crash it wasn’t because of some ineffable plan but because he was a bastard.
PM – Zeus was not so much a bastard as an empty-headed testosterone-crazed narcissist. I prefer Odin – ugly as hell, as he gave up one eye in his quest for knowledge, but at least an intellectual, of sorts.
“I will get to see Sparky and Mittens again someday.”
But not Fufkin. She went straight to hell.
… she was a Jew
… and a no-good Darwinanist. Some Kittens are in the pay of Satan. You have all been warned.
Emm… sorry to be a party-pooper amongst the company of such brilliant and august wits, but the linked article was mediocre and meretritious. Though I should perhaps applaud B&W for dicovering the po-mo skepticism toward metanarratives, inspite of the enduring interaction between conceptual/interpretive schemas and the particularities of narratives, i.e. “experience”, still there is no “massive falsehood” when the purpose of such a declaration is to suppress the questions, whose inconveniencies, just as well as the inadequacies of its answers, are to be addressed. The “religious” problem is not the problem of evil, which is easy enough to explain,- though such explanations do not address the relevant sense,- but rather the problem of unrequited goodness. The problem boils down to the indistinguishability of horror and the good, since the good involves the endurance of horror, and, without it, horror might cease to be identifiable, whereas both horror and the good are exceptions, lurking outside the rationalizations of normality. Is it any wonder that people might wrestle with such questions or that they might cling to some last shred of “identity”, when the normalizing imperative of the powers-that-be is that people forget themselves and the darkness of their histories, in favor of their administrative imperatives and instrumentalized programs? Fallenness, transcendence, redemption, salvation, or forgiveness are so many meaningless words when compared to the pleasures of self-complacency.
We are also unlikely to get anywhere if the argument concludes with the words john c halasz.
John:
“Though I should perhaps applaud B&W for dicovering the po-mo skepticism toward metanarratives, inspite of the enduring interaction between conceptual/interpretive schemas and the particularities of narratives, i.e. “experience”, still there is no “massive falsehood” when the purpose of such a declaration is to suppress the questions, whose inconveniencies, just as well as the inadequacies of its answers, are to be addressed. The “religious” problem is not the problem of evil, which is easy enough to explain,- though such explanations do not address the relevant sense,- but rather the problem of unrequited goodness. ”
Could you explain any of this to a bus driver? If not, what does it say about you ?
Justin Cartwright’s thesis is prejudged by a perjorative and dismissive heading – ‘religion’s vain quest’.
My atheistic viewpoint notwithstanding, I do like to see an argument well made. Cartwright’s isn’t. Apposite to which is his premise “….that religion contains a massive falsehood, namely that there is a God who determines our actions”. In western religious dogma at least, it is man who determines his own actions.
Cartwright’s solution “We must eliminate any suggestion of a religious agenda” throws the baby out with the bathwater. I don’t believe it is sensible in a very broad sense, to allow our attitude towards mainstream religios tradition to be determined by the excesses of a psychopathic minority. Great religions however imperfect, remind us what it is to be human and how a decent society enfranchises its citizens.
“….no reason for the Church of England to be represented in the House of Lords…” ? I disagree.
Regarding Merlijn’s “the Piraha appear to have little in the way of a creation mythology, etc. – but they do see ghosts. Meaning, bizarrely, that they _see_ them, literally, rather than imagine seeing them.”.
I am reminded of WH Auden’s poem Archaelogy with its lines:
“When Norsemen heard thunder,
did they seriously believe
Thor was hammering?
No, I’d say: I’d swear
that men have always lounged in myths
as Tall Stories..”
See http://lib.ru/POEZIQ/AUDEN/poems.txt for the full text
“In western religious dogma at least, it is man who determines his own actions.”
Peter, that’s true, however a further thought: if God is indeed Omniscient as per the scriptures, then He would know, prior to their enactment, the wretched of humans’ utelage of free will: lots of people doing completely reprehensible nasty things to eachother like gang rape, torture, child abuse, selling Britney Spears cds, etc. And yet despite knowing this, God still issues the power of free ‘choice’. And even if this doesn’t mean He’s a bit more controlling than His devotees let on, it surely implies he’s a really nasty bastard. I don’t worship nasty bastards, real or imaginary.
Sure, Cartwright’s article is less than brilliant, but it has the virtue of saying something that is usually swept under the toaster.
“Who would you rather meet on a dark night? A group of skinheads coming out of a pub or a group of Jehova’s Witnesses coming out of Kingdom Hall?”
Neither! Drather meet a group of atheists coming out of a coffeeshop talking about women’s rights in Iran and Iraq.
cackle
snap, Don.
niconoclast–
Are you saying that skinheads are atheists? If so, what’s your evidence?
“We are also unlikely to get anywhere if the argument concludes with the words john c halasz.”
Just so. Which is why that particular troll is on the verge of being banned.
“If a religious person argues ‘I believe X is morally wrong and is also condemned by by religion.’ we have a possibility of discourse. If they argue that ‘X is wrong because it is condemned by my religion.’ we are unlikely to get anywhere.”
Just so again. Of course, what that means is that ‘and is also condemned by by religion’ is entirely supererogatory. Is ‘God’ against X because it’s wrong? Fine, then we can talk about why X is wrong. Is X wrong because ‘God’ is against it? Then if ‘God’ says ‘it’s wrong to prevent people from murdering their neighbours with machetes because they are in the wrong ethnic group’ does that mean it is in fact wrong to prevent people from murdering their neighbours with machetes because they are in the wrong ethnic group? If so, life on earth is even more hellish than it already is, and it’s time to join Satan’s party.
Whaddya know, we’re back with Socrates. Funny how that keeps happening.
Yeah – Sock had a good one there.
G. Tingey, I think your test is not ambitious enough. Helicopter crashes happen all the time. On Churches, too.
I’d go for the church being stomped to dust by Marshmellow Man as proof. Or being devoured by a gigantic radioactive dinosaur. Or sucked into a miniature black hole, suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
You want Proof? Why only last night my harmless local Methodist chapple was caught up in the 5-dimensional climax of a three-hundred-thousand year conflict between the Kettle Droids and the Pot People. There was blame everywhere…
Nope. What we need is for the clouds to part and a huge, bearded face to announce, so that each heard in their own language, ‘Listen, you fuckwits, I do not exist.’
I’d believe then.
David James did not exist last night.