Militant atheism
I’ve been pondering something Julian says in Atheism: a very short introduction (again). I think there’s something I disagree with; unless I misunderstand it, which is always possible.
It’s to do with his overall rejection of what he calls ‘militant atheism’ in favour of a less hostile or less noisy variety. I’m not saying there are no reasons to object to noisy and/or hostile atheism – people offer me such reasons often, and I can see that some of them have force. (There’s the fact that it can be boring, irritating and repetitive, for instance!) I’m just taking issue with a couple of particulars here.
On page 106 he says:
Nor do I believe that a firm belief in the falsity of religion is enough to justify militant opposition to it…I think my opposition to militant atheism is based on a commitment to the very values that I think inspire atheism: an open-minded commitment to the truth and rational enquiry…Hostile opposition to the beliefs of others combined with a dogged conviction of the certainty of one’s own beliefs is, I think, antithetical to such values.
Agreed – except for this objection I have, unless it’s a misunderstanding. It’s the (crucial, I think) bit about ‘hostile opposition to the beliefs of others.’ I don’t think it’s beliefs we’re hostile to (we militant or noisy or hostile atheists). I’m pretty sure it’s not. It’s statements, assertions, truth-claims, that we oppose, sometimes with hostility. Like Elizabeth I, we don’t really want to make a window into people’s heads. We (mostly)* don’t mess with people’s internal beliefs, we mess with the externalized version that comes out as assertions or arguments. I think that makes a difference. I could be wrong, but at the moment it seems to me that that makes a difference. Hostile opposition to the beliefs of others may well be objectionable, but hostile opposition to the assertions or arguments of others? Is that objectionable? (Well, it partly depends on how you define ‘hostile,’ of course. If it descends to name-calling, yes; but if it’s just energetic disagreement, that’s another matter.) It seems to me that even militant atheists, even outright brawlers, don’t care about internal states of other people, it’s only external states that meet opposition.
The assertions and arguments are of course based on the beliefs, so that by opposing the assertions and arguments we are in effect also opposing the beliefs – but not, I would say, as such; we’re opposing them as a necessary part of opposing what flows from them. Of course that’s not obvious when these disputes are going on (or afterwards either) – but I think it’s true all the same, and I think it matters.
If that’s right, I think it’s possible that militant atheists get something of a bad rap, even from other atheists. Being (I take it) what is meant by a ‘militant atheist’ myself, of course I have a motivation for saying that, but I think it’s possible all the same.
On the other hand – it may be that by ‘beliefs’ Julian means assertions and arguments as well as mental states. He may mean ‘beliefs’ to cover that whole complex – in which case my objection becomes irrelevant. Or it may be that he would argue that hostile opposition is objectionable in any case. Or it may be both of those. If that’s the case, then I admit that I offer hostile opposition to the beliefs of people like Theo Hobson, Giles Fraser, Keith Ward, Madeleine Bunting, Phillip Blond. In a way I suppose it’s reasonable to call what they write in columns and articles their ‘beliefs’ – arguments and assertions are instantiations of beliefs, at least. I do often feel and express hostility to such arguments and claims – but is that because of ‘a dogged conviction of the certainty of [my] own beliefs’? Hmm. No, I don’t think so…At least, not a dogged conviction of the certainty of oppositional ontological beliefs. I might have a certain amount of dogged conviction that their way of reaching conclusions is wrong…Yes; that’s what it is. That’s what sparks the hostility. It’s not the substantive beliefs, it’s the way of thinking.
So the question becomes – Is a firm belief in the badness of woolly thinking (as opposed to ‘a firm belief in the falsity of religion,’ see above) enough to justify militant opposition to it? Well, yes, frankly; I think it is, at least when the woolly thinking is published in newspapers and on newspaper websites. I think that’s a different kind of thing – different from beliefs about the falsity of religion. Furthermore, it seems to me that if the woolly thinking is offered up in public media, then it is necessarily fair game, in a way that mere beliefs about the non-falsity of religion are not. I think that’s especially true when the woolly thinking is itself rather aggressive, as with Theo Hobson and Co it so often is. There is in fact something inherently aggressive and would-be coercive about conspicuously bad arguments – they have a whiff of force about them, at least to my aristocratic nose. A whiff of ‘believe or else,’ of ‘unbelief is not permitted,’ of ‘submit,’ of ‘how dare you.’
I think that’s what triggers the militant atheism. Not the basic beliefs, not internal states, but aggressively weak arguments delivered as public challenges. You don’t see a great many militant atheists invading churches or disrupting funerals, as far as I know. You see them disputing public claims. And perhaps upsetting dinner tables, but that’s an issue for Miss Manners.
It’s a swell book, by the way, as commenters (and I) said in the previous post on the subject.
*I’m generalizing throughout. I think what I’m saying applies to most militant atheists, but I don’t claim it applies to all. I’m extrapolating from myself, is what it boils down to, and I certainly don’t know that there are no exceptions.
It’s the disappearing behind the inspissated fog of incense that I can’t abide. Take someone called Chris Hardwick in the Guardian today.
“I define [conscience] as a human being’s ethical sense.” Yup, might want to quibble, but no militant opposition. “A Christian description of conscience … would say that in educating and exercising conscience we nurture an umbilical link with God. It has an objective aspect as well as a subhective one.”
Whaaaat? How so? A still small voice, is it? (From the rest of the article, it’s apparently not the usual parroting of selected verses from an old book.) Chris, whoever you are, how could you possibly believe that, in the sense of thinking you know it? How could it possibly be “objective”? To the barricades!
(Just pausing a moment to cheer what is claimed to be a quote from Cardinal Newman, no less: “there are extreme cases in which conscience may come into collision with the word of a Pope, and is to be followed in spite of that word.”)
Sighs heavily
And the blindingly obvious problem with that umbilical thing is that it applies just as much to people who believe it is their duty to go out and slaughter infidels as it does to Nice People.
Hence I immediately get all aggressive and hostile.
snicker
A great piece. I’m so sick of people (atheists themselves!!!) calling me “militant” simply because I refuse to smile and say “oh well, it’s a matter of opinion, I suppose” when confronted with stupid, idiotic religious BS. I don’t want to kill or torture religious people, nor do I want to legally prohibit them from going to church, do I? What’s so militant about telling people that they have absolutely no grounds for their beliefs (if they’re “moderates”), or insisting on punishing them for their infringing on other people’s basic human rights (if they’re fundamentalists)?
I guess what makes me militant is that I refuse to remain calm and understanding when listening to their “arguments”. Yes, I admit it. I often raise my voice and become sarcastic/rude. But no one calls you a “militant liberal” when you react in the same way to stupid conservative views, so why are other atheists and liberals buying into this “militant atheist” craze?
Thank you, Tea. I absolutely despise that “militant” label. It has the same whiff that use of the word “shrill” when referring to any feminist person or perspective: It’s an emotive code word for “How dare you! Stop being so uppity and get back in your place!”
Anyone who goes on about “militant atheists” can kiss my ass. How’s that for effing “militant”? *grrrr*
(This is my pet peeve. Do not poke the peeve. It bites.)
More to the point of the post, I think Ophelia’s criticism is spot on: The objection isn’t about content, it’s about how the content is arrived at and/or promoted (as OB phrased it, “woolly thinking”). It’s not beliefs I oppose, it’s faith – an entirely faulty way of going about accepting beliefs. To decide that a claim is true simply because you decide it is – or feel that it’s true, or want it to be true, or whatever – is about the worst epistemological move imaginable. When anyone defends or promotes such an egregiously flawed method for arriving at or accepting any conclusion whatsoever, I would be morally remiss NOT to oppose it.
And since Dr. Baggini spends so much time vigorously (dare I say “militantly”?) opposing poor reasoning in all its forms, I’d think he’d see the point of that distinction and not fall for, let alone promote, this manipulative and hateful “militant atheist” rhetoric.
To be fair, she gabbled anxiously, Julian really isn’t doing the kind of crude militant-atheist-kicking that The Hobson School goes in for. A militant atheist can read that chapter without feeling as if an atheist just can’t win.
Also, he wrote the book long before this rash of militant-bashers broke out.
I agree wholeheartedly that woolly thinking and fallacious reasoning need to be vigorously combatted wherever they are found, and they are quite often found in the vicinity of (or heart of) religion.
Where I think the religious people get their backs up is when us MAs (militant you-know-whos) take to calling them things like “stupid,” “ignorant,” and “deluded.” They may seem all of those things to us, but no one likes to be called such names to their faces, and you can’t be surprised when they react indignantly.
Actually, while it is easy to find religious people who are stupid and deluded through and through — total losers in the upstairs story — there are also many believers who are generally intelligent and rational except for this one area of religion, where they hold strongly to beliefs with no empirical or rational foundation at all.
What is so irritating is that, instead of frankly admitting that they have no empirical or rational foundation for these beliefs, they persist in trying to cook some up, and trying them out on you in the evident hope that you might be convinced. “Oh!” they hope you’ll say. “I never though of it that way! My goodness, you’re right. I’ll run right down to the local church or cathedral and sing some hosannas.”
This after they have presented you with some drivel that you’ve heard for the 500th time. It’s extremely hard on those occasions to refrain from shouting quite blasphemous imprecations and appending disparaging comments on their IQs and tenuous grasps on reality.
But I prefer to be as polite as possible, remembering the saw about catching bees with honey. My experience is that it’s pointless to try to argue rationally with them, because you’ll never shake that deep-seated belief. Just inform them calmly that that may be their belief, but you don’t share it, and go on your way.
From Baggini’s Atheism: AVSI (pg 101) in the section titled “Militant Atheism”:
Although I have argued that atheism is not necessarily hostile to religion, there are, of course, some atheists who are hostile to religion, and not just to fundamentalist religions, which attract hostility not only from atheists but moderate religious believers. Atheism which is actively hostile to religion I would call militant. To be hostile in this sense requires more than just strong disagreement with religion – it requires something verging on hatred and is characterized by a desire to wipe out all forms of religious belief. Militant atheists tend to make one or both of two claims that moderate atheists do not. The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense, and the second is that it is usually or always harmful.
Baggini in his definition of militant atheism says that militants must hate all religion and desire to wipe out all religious beliefs. When I first read this I thought that Baggini was constructing a straw man; besides a few cranks, I wonder if anyone of any prominence holds these beliefs, or the power to achieve their ends. I can’t think of any, at least not in the U.S.
Additionally, I would agree with the first claim made by militant atheists about religion, that it is nonsense, but not with the second, that it is necessarily harmful. Religion can sometimes be a force for good (i.e. the 1950-60s civil rights movement in the U.S., Gandhi opposing British colonial rule, religious opposition to the slave trade and slavery in the 1700 and 1800s), but most of the time isn’t too harmful or helpful.
Anyway, when will Baggini return with his fortnightly “Bad Moves” column return after its long hiatus?
“I would agree with the first claim made by militant atheists about religion, that it is nonsense”
Ah, but notice that he said ‘demonstrably nonsense’ – which is harder to, uh, demonstrate. Also the second claim attributed to MAs is not that religion is ‘necessarily harmful’ but that it usually or always is.
I think the attribution of wanting to wipe out all forms of religious belief is a bit of a straw man though – especially if one makes the distinction between internal and external belief. I think you’re right that dang few MAs want that.
Sorry to say, ‘Bad Moves’ is indefinitely suspended if not terminated. JB is too busy with other things – as a result of writing popular books like this here atheism one. He’s a grand fromage. A pezzo grosso.
still… it’s a weird thing to call someone militant because she believes that something is demonstrably nonsense, or that something is necessarily harmful. you would think calling someone militant would have at least something to do with the person being… well… militant.
What ticks me off about militant atheists is their refusal to make any distinction between religions eg.christianity and islam are as bad as each other,they also seem incapable of recognising that there may be some validity in the teachings of Jesus. It should be possible for an intelligent person who disputes the divinity claim of Christ to at least see some value to his teachings.
Militant – willing to argue the toss – not cowed into silence – why all the fuss? – if the cap fits, feel honoured to wear it.
_
It is rather a straw person, I feel, this ‘militant atheist’ as JB constructs it. Suppose we spoke of those who wish to be ‘rigorously secularist’ in the construction of public life – is that not the same, without the imputation of hostile motive?
Richard
What has seeing some validity in the teachings of Jesus got to do with Christianity or Islam? I also see validity in the teachings of Plato, Hume and Isaiah Berlin (and Gandalf, to acknowledge the possibility that Jesus was a fictional character) but I don’t feel compelled to go out and slaughter thousands of people who refuse to agree with me.
Richard, I think the point is that atheists are quite happy to accept that there may be some value in some of the teachings of Jesus (or even Mohammed) while finding absolutely no reason to accept the metaphysical commitments that go with Christianity (or Islam). Without those commitments Jesus’s teaching are just one moral philosophy among many, and the atheist would be happy to discuss that along with Bentham, Mill and Kant. Atheism per se has nothing to say about your personal moral philosophy.
I have no problem with “militant atheists”. I guess I would have a problem with an “inverted fundamentalist” kind of atheist – one who is only able to take scriptural claims as literally as possible. I.e. either Eve ate that apple or not, and a religious person’s disbelief in the literal truth of Eve eating that apple is triumphantly hailed as a concession to “science”. I would not argue, as some non-militant atheists would, that religious metaphorical language is wholly divorced from truth value – but they are quite right in rejecting literalist critiques of religion.
Part of the problem here I guess is that a lot of the more “militant”, outreaching religion is, well, stupid, shallow and one-dimensional – and that this causes a certain kind of “militant atheist” to be shallow and one-dimensional in his arguments against it, coupled with a kind of smugness about the intellectual superiority granted by his fealty to “rationality” and “science”.
Which brings me to a final beef with certain brands of “militant atheism”. The way the word “rationality” is used, in my opinion illicitly, as a synonym for empiricist, atheist, etc. Which seems nonsensical to me. Rationality, I would think, applies to logical processes of thought and goal-bound processes of action which are quite neutral to their metaphysical contents. For someone wholly unacquainted with the mechanics of the weather, it is quite rational to believe that thunder is caused by the hoofs of the horse of the thunder god. For someone who has undergone and witnessed an unexpected recovery from a terminal disease, it is not irrational to believe a benevolent Deity had a hand in it. The ultimate question, whether the universe is at bottom mindless or whether it is based on or permeated by a minded entity, is neutral to rationality.
But there is certainly nothing wrong with hostility to arguments one deems to be wrongheaded. To the contrary. At the same time, beliefs should be argued for, underlying assumptions brought “out in the open”, etc. rather than remain hidden. The above certainly does not go for all “militant” atheists. A reflective, intellectually scrupulous and well-argued hostility to religious beliefs is much superior, in my opinion, than a jaded and lazy kind of semi-neutrality to religious beliefs. At the same time, I would consider a somewhat orthodox set of religious claims which tries to scaffold the set of claims with reason – internal consistency, logical correctness, etc. – superior to a wholly vague kind of religion which ends up claiming nothing at all. Because I think both show a commitment to certain intellectual values which transcend the theism vs. atheism thing.
Yes, Merlijn, but where is the rational basis for thinking that the universe is “based on or permeated by a minded entity”? To use the American expression, “where’s the beef?” I have heard all my life about this idea of a rational metaphysics of the “Mind behind the universe,” from Plato to Spinoza to Hegel, etc., and I have never seen anything the slightest bit “rational” about it. That is, rational in the sense that it would compel assent from anyone, such as “2+2=4” or “either A or not-A” does.
That may be a high standard for rationality, but anything less means that I can reply, “Well, you believe that, but I don’t.” For example, Plato ends up admitting that his Demiurge is a “mythos,” that is, he can’t really prove it.
I’m not so sure about this distinction between “internal beliefs” and “statements, assertions, truth-claims” about beliefs. Nor that we are really “hostile” to “the way of thinking” and not the “substantive beliefs” themselves.
Suppose someone holds an “internal belief” that, say, slavery is OK. I’m pretty sure many would object to that belief even if the person did not manifest it (passing over the questions of how we’d know about the belief without some manifestations of it, or just what it might mean to hold a belief that has no manifestations), and pretty much irrespective of the “way of reaching conclusions” which the person used to get to the belief in question.
We might, of course, object more to “wrong” beliefs depending on the extent to which they were manifested, but I think that’s a different question. As is the “doggedness” of our own “conviction of the certainty” of our own belief(s), or the manners with which we manifest “militant” opposition, or for that matter whether we also object to the shoddy thinking that resulted in a person’s holding the objectionable belief.
“Suppose someone holds an “internal belief” that, say, slavery is OK. I’m pretty sure many would object to that belief even if the person did not manifest it (passing over the questions of how we’d know about the belief without some manifestations of it”
Well but is it even possible to pass over those questions? What does it mean to object ‘to that belief’ if we don’t know it exists? It doesn’t seem to me to mean anything, or be possible. We can object to the belief itself, the belief ‘slavery is OK’ – which is an external statement. We can and do. We object to the stand-alone belief – so if that’s what you’re saying, I agree, but I take you to be saying that we object to the fact that someone holds it even if said someone doesn’t manifest it. I can’t quite get my head around that. I think it isn’t possible.
I think I agree that without some external manifestation it’s not possible to object to a belief. It seems to follow that what we object to is the external manifestations. But if this is all we have knowledge of (information about?), then what’s left of the “internal” belief not to object to? And whence the idea that objecting to external manifestations of beliefs is objecting “merely” to the thought processes which resulted in a person holding those beliefs?
“But if this is all we have knowledge of (information about?), then what’s left of the “internal” belief not to object to?”
Sorry, I don’t follow.
“And whence the idea that objecting to external manifestations of beliefs is objecting “merely” to the thought processes which resulted in a person holding those beliefs?”
Not sure what you mean there either. You mean what I said about the ‘dogged conviction that their way of reaching conclusions is wrong’ and the idea that ‘It’s not the substantive beliefs, it’s the way of thinking’? If so – but I didn’t say ‘merely’ – my point wasn’t to say that the latter was lesser or more mere than the former, it was simply to make a distinction. And I think it’s clear from the context that I’m talking about ‘their way of reaching conclusions’ in argument – their way of reaching external conclusions.
Then again – there is an issue there. I think I get it. If the internal process of getting at the internal belief is bad (relies on bad thinking, etc), then perhaps it is worth objecting to.
Yeh – I think it is. For reasons I’ve talked about before – in the post on indoctrination and dogmatism and taboos, for instance. Good point.
But it’s tricky, of course, because it’s worth objecting to for the owner’s own good, for the sake of cognitive functioning, etc, and it’s pretty hard to make that case without seeming like Looming Monsternanny.
“For someone wholly unacquainted with the mechanics of the weather, it is quite rational to believe that thunder is caused by the hoofs of the horse of the thunder god.”
I dispute that. There’s a good deal of territory between a rational guess in a state of ignorance and a cartoonish one like the hoofs of the horse of the thunder god.
OB, if I understood you correctly, you said that it’s not the beliefs themselves we are hostile to, but rather the external manifestations of beliefs. But all we have to go on is the external manifestations, so I just don’t know what it means to say we don’t (also? inevitably?) object to the internal beliefs themselves.
(As a “brute fact,” I think that if the substance of your belief is that slavery is OK, I think I object to that substance, and not just how you manifested that belief or the thought processes which led you to it.)
If the manifestations are instantiations of a belief, then if we object to the instantiations why aren’t we also objecting to the belief itself? (“I don’t like the way you talk about slavery being OK, but I don’t object to your belief that slavery is OK?”)
I suppose that perhaps I don’t care about the “internal” beliefs of people, no matter what they are. But if these don’t manifest, what is it that I’m not objecting to? What is the “substance” of a belief which has no manifestations?
You also said, I think, that we can object to the thought processes which result in beliefs if we think those thought processes are wooly. Is that really the same kind of thing as the distinction between beliefs and their manifestations? We could, surely, object to wooly thought processes, as such, irrespective of what we thought about the beliefs generated (or manifested) as a result of the wooly thought processes. Isn’t objecting to wooly thinking different from objecting to beliefs (or their manifestations)? Couldn’t someone be against slavery for the stupidest of reasons and provoke objections to their wooly thought processes without objections to their conclusions? (The opposite is harder. I think we probably always think that folks with beliefs we find objectionable have reached them via wooly thought processes.)
You indeed did not say “merely.” But wasn’t that implied? I inferred it from sentences like “It’s not the substantive beliefs, it’s the way of thinking.”
Jeff
Hmm. It’s a combination of things, I suppose, not objecting to internal beliefs themselves. Part pragmatic (to do with getting along, etc), part principle (freedom, etc), part brute fact (we can’t object to what we don’t know), part epistemic (uncertainty, etc), part manners. It’s a knot. We don’t know; we could be wrong about the whole thing and while it’s still worth disputing external manifestations, it doesn’t seem worth disputing inert internal beliefs; it’s none of anyone’s business; as long as it’s genuinely purely internal it can’t harm anyone but the owner (which in the case of non-functional cognition might still be worth trying to dispute); it’s pointless; it’s presmuptuous; and so on.
I said we are objecting to the belief itself, but the stand-alone belief, as opposed to the self-contained belief inside someone’s head. I really don’t care if you believe slavery is okay, if you never say so or act on the belief. (I might care in the case of a friend – but that’s a bit different.)
“I think we probably always think that folks with beliefs we find objectionable have reached them via wooly thought processes.”
Nooo. I don’t think so at all. There are a lot of beliefs in economics and politics, for example, that are not woolly at all, not arrived at via woolly processes, but that I for one find objectionable. I bump into that all the time – don’t you?
No, ‘merely’ really wasn’t implied at all. I don’t quite see how you inferred it from ‘It’s not the substantive beliefs, it’s the way of thinking’ – that looks to me like a very ‘mere’ distinction – that is, all it’s doing is making a distinction. There aren’t any value-words in it to imply mereness, I’d have thought.
“I really don’t care if you believe slavery is okay, if you never say so or act on the belief. (I might care in the case of a friend – but that’s a bit different.)”
That’s insane. I have to re-word it. I can’t care in the case of a friend if I don’t know about it, can I. I mean, I might care about the hypothetical in the case of a friend…wait…
if it’s just a hypothetical I might care in the case of anyone. And if I don’t know about it, I can’t care in the case of anyone, friend or stranger.
Well. I seem to care slightly more about the possibility in the case of friends than I do in the case of strangers – but – it’s a very odd kind of caring, that I can’t seem to think about without getting dizzy.
Perhaps I’ll just start asking everyone I know – ‘Do you have any bizarro beliefs I should know about, so that I can object to them?’
Ophelia said …
“There are a lot of beliefs in economics and politics, for example, that are not woolly at all, not arrived at via woolly processes, but that I for one find objectionable. I bump into that all the time – don’t you?”
Sorry, but I would have thought that the answer to that was obvious.
Yes, the economic/political beliefs were arrived at by non-wooly processes, BUT what has always (?) gone wrong is an underlying, unquestioned assumption, that has false, somewhere.
The classic case must be “Marxism” – a rigidly set-up and intellectually rigorous system, based on false premises (premisses?) ….
Scientists and engineers have to watch out for this one all the time, and still fall for it occasionally, even though it is a known trap.
But the others, the economists, politicians and religious, just don’t seem to get it.
Odd that – or perhaps not.
“(As a “brute fact,” I think that if the substance of your belief is that slavery is OK, I think I object to that substance, and not just how you manifested that belief or the thought processes which led you to it.)”
That is a different type of belief. It is a value claim, not a truth claim. If I beleive the world is flat rather than round I am demonstrably wrong (I hope this is not news to anyone). If I beleive that flat is a better shape for a planet than round then I am not right or wrong, I am expressing a preference. Likewise I may think slavery is OK (I don’t btw). I am not right or wrong (except in a moral sense), I am expressing a value.
JonJ: I think you do set the standards for rationality too high. Because eventually all knowledge claims can be traced back to some sort of unsupportable principle. The alternative – skepticism – I would consider highly unsatisfactory intellectually. The point I wanted to make (and this goes to OB’s point as well) is that you cannot specify the rationality of a belief without taking the background knowledge of the believer into account. The thunder hoofs belief would be probably zany right now even for the climatologically uninformed – but for the ancient Teutons? Quite rational, I would deem. An inference to the best explanation which served nicely to make sense of the world around them.
GT: So what are these awful Christians actually been doing that you have to call the boys in blue on them? Light a pyre to burn the heretics? Threaten to bomb subways? Indulged in public fornication? Or – let me guess – informing you that Jesus loves you and some such toss?
Come on! The day proselyting for one’s beliefs – regardless how weird – would call for the constabulary to intervene would be a sad one for liberty, indeed. I have no love for Christian evangelism. It’s a sad shallow parody of what religion should be. Though I have little problem with Christian Evangelists – some of the more reliable and pleasant persons I grew up with were of that orientation. I certainly do not see the need to jeer at them if they drop their keys in the sewer grate (an episode you have repeatedly recounted here with surprising relish). Where does all the anger come from?
OB: “So you consider ‘I don’t know’ more intellectually unsatisfactory than an unsupported principle? Interesting. I’m the opposite. I like to say I don’t know when I don’t know, and I like other people to say it, too.”
In a way, yes. Of course depending on how the unsupported principle is furnished. I would not regard one advanced by armed guards knocking at my door to be particularly satisfying, intellectually. But unsupportable ultimates advanced as such and within a system as a whole conforming to demands of coherence, internal consistency and consistency with any empirical evidence that there may be – and potentially attackable on these grounds – yes. The foundational claim itself may not be open to attack, but the system of knowledge claims as a whole may be.
There’s varying degrees of certainty and doubt with which a knowledge claim may be advanced. I know with pretty much unassailable certainty that jumping out of my office window would have the (undesirable) result of my death – and I am extremely unlikely to be convinced otherwise. Obviously, I do not (and do not claim to) know that a Deity exists with any kind of similar certainty. All I can say is that, provisionally, a world-view involving a Deity makes a lot of sense to me. But I may be convinced otherwise (ultimately, I would guess, not solely based on rational arguments – that would be presumptuous – but neither would my beliefs be wholly impervious to them).
I like it that you mentioned this, because I think this difference in “attitude” – you seem generally to be of a skeptical mind-set while accepting a very limited set of foundational beliefs; I am conspicuously not a skeptic – is a lot more fundamental than any difference of opinion we may have about individual knowledge claims (such as the existence of a Deity).
Merlijn,
Would you say the two are linked? The skeptical or non-skeptical ‘attitude’ and the opinion on individual knowledge claims? I would guess they are. I would guess my attitude to knowledge claims such as the existence of a deity (perhaps along with my dislike of the deferential habit of capitalizing its name and even its pronouns) is rooted in a visceral or temperamental aversion to leaps of faith. I quite like ‘I don’t know.’ I mean after all – there’s so much we don’t know. Saying ‘I don’t know’ is like saying ‘I breathe.’
Merlin thank you for taking G.T.to task for his obvious hostility to christian evangelism,yes it my be anoying but to recact to it the way that G.T. does is o.t.t.
Merlyn: I’m trying very hard not to be militant! I am puzzled by your “The thunder hoofs belief would be probably zany right now even for the climatologically uninformed – but for the ancient Teutons? Quite rational, I would deem. An inference to the best explanation which served nicely to make sense of the world around them.”
An explanation, yes. But on what grounds could a Teuton have thought it the best explanation? It seems to me that Teutons could (and possibly did?) invent all manner of magical beings who could make lightning flashes and thunder. If some did think hoofs were “best”, what was rational about that choice?
Oon the other hand, I can see an argument that “dark matter” isn’t much different from “thunder hoofs”. If any cosmologists say “dark matter” is the best explanation, I am surprised. I would hope thay say “the least unplausible anyone’s come up with so far”, or something like that.
Two things:
FIRSTLY: Ophelia said, sarcastically…”Really! So any belief in economics or politics that I find objectionable has a false assumption in it somewhere?! Who knew I was so infallible!”
No, that is NOT what I said.
I said that it is a common mistake, and easy to make. It is not necessarily, therefore always that mistake. That’s where you should look for to start with, because it is the most likely cause, but it is not the only one.
The next commonest “mistake” is what a mathematician or a physicist would call a “hidden variable”.
Not a false assumption, but an un-noticed or unconsidered factor (or factors) that come into play, without being allowed for in the calculations, whatever they are.
Seriously, those two errors have caused untold technical greif in the sciences, and real actual grief in engineering, because both those sorts of mistakes usually wind up killing people when some structure (such as an aircraft or a bridge) fall apart, with people on/in them.
Yet again, can I PLEASE recommend that people read J.E. Gordon’s “Structures, or why things don’t fall down.”
It’s so depressing listening and watching a group of intelligent people, such as populate B&W not getting this, as it is really important.
SECOND: Richard and Merlijn – so I’m o.t.t. in criticising evangelical christianity, am I?
I must be one of these dangerous militant atheists we’re hearing so much about.
You try being hassled on your own street, where you’ve lived for over 50 years by this group of brainwashed followers of the first church of Yeshua the Profoundly Deaf, who are themselves browbeaten by a truly scary “pastor” (Yes, I’ve met it, at a planning application) and who are all controlled from somewhere in Arizona.
To me, living here, there isn’t much to choose between them, and the people who are currently in (I assume) HM prison, Belmarsh, answering interesting questions about islamic activities ….
If these various religious believers mind their own business, and leave me in peace, then what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes/churches/mosques/temples, is their business.
But they won’t leave me in peace, and insist that I take notice of them and their invisible friends, when I’ve got better things to do with my time.
christian evengelism is almost as dangerous as islamism – I suggest you look at the way these peole behave, and have behaved in the past, before you write them off as loud-mouthed, but harmless loonies.
Come to that, you could try reading (re-reading?) “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Here’s a scary scenario:
H. Clinton wins 2 terms as US president.
In 2016 a christian evangelist born-again “wins”, with a very disputed result, that makes Florida 2000 look straight.
There is a “reichstag fire” and a state of emergency is declared, anf the US constitution is suspended – Gilead. It gets worse.
Thanks to Blair/Browns defence cuts, and Blair/Brown/Kelly etc pandering to the religious briandead, there are demonstrations here, at the same time as people try to flee the USA or Canada.
The US troops etc are politely asked to leave the UK, as people finally take fright, except that the aircraft taking troops etc out, are actually bringing them in …
And we become christian Airstrip One, with the evangelical churches being the new masters.
The Smithsonian and the Nat hist Mus are razed, etc …..
It would make a good SF-dystopian novel, I think?
Oh, and look at this:
http://www.harpers.org/ThroughAGlassDarkly-12838838.html
“Through a Glass, Darkly
How the Christian right is reimagining U.S. history”
OB: The two are definitely linked, in that the underlying difference in “temperament” causes the different attitude to various claims. I have no problem with leaps of faith as such. Minor day-to-day abductive “leaps” to hypotheses on the basis of slim evidence are pretty much the warp and woof of rational thought – and rational inquiry, too (in the context of discovery rather than justification). What matters is first that the possibility that one may be mistaken is always kept in mind, second what is being done on the basis of these leaps of faith. You would probably agree that “I may be mistaken, but I think God exists” sounds quite a bit different than “I may be mistaken, but I think there are WMDs in Iraq” or “I may be mistaken, but I think you are a terrorist. Where are the thumbscrews?”.
There’s something between the skeptical “I don’t know, and I don’t think I can”, and dogmatic claims resting only on authority. I agree some sort of humility in the face of nature and the complexity of it all is terribly important. But I also think that it is important to try and think beyond what is warranted by empirical evidence.
“But I also think that it is important to try and think beyond what is warranted by empirical evidence.”
Such as?
Besides orbiting teapots and mystical invisible pink unicorns, that is?
Regardless of how many atheists are “militant,” there is a very simple reason why religious people will LABEL atheists militant.
The statement “I am an atheist” has implications. For one, it implies, “I think your religion is wrong. And not just your religion, the entire premise of faith upon which you rest your religion.” This in turn implies “I believe that you believe things which are only fantasy.” Well, people who believe in fantasies are silly, stupid people, aren’t they? That’s the general implication.
Which is why religious people, upon hearing “I am an atheist,” are really hearing “I have considered and rejected your belief system as silly and ridiculous, you stupid, misguided childish little person.”
Even if you are polite, the insult is implied. And the more you discuss the issue with them, and explain the intellectual underpinnings of your views on their faith, the more the insult is refined into an insult to their intelligence.
This could probably be written up to be a little more presentable, but I’m pretty sure I’m onto something with it.
Until so-called “Militant Atheists” start blowing themselves up on buses full of religious pilgrims, or killing newspaper editors and documentary filmmakers over ‘slander’ or postasy, I do not believe the descriptor “militant” is warranted.
Patrick,
But why would an athiest be more upsettig than someone who simply believes in a different faith?
Saying ” I have considered and rejected your belief system in favor of this one” is more insulting than rejecting it without a “replacement”?
I wonder why…
Bombing: I don’t think militant trades unionists are usually so inclined.
_
“But I also think that it is important to try and think beyond what is warranted by empirical evidence.”
Hmmmmmmm.
I have strong reservations about that thought. On the one hand I think speculation is fine, interesting, can be fruitful of ideas, etc – but on the other hand I also think we need to acknowledge that we can’t know what we can’t know. So I suppose (as usual) it depends what ‘think beyond’ means – how provisional and tentative it is, how aware the thinker is that it is simply speculative, and so on.
Dave-
I’ve wondered that myself. It doesn’t seem immediately obvious why this should be the case, and yet I’ve seen countless religious people automatically assume that atheists think they’re stupid for being religious, and I’ve yet to see even once a religious person automatically assume that a practitioner of a different religion thinks they’re stupid for not adhering to their particular faith.
My theory is that when someone announces that they’re a member of a different religion, the implication is that they have faith in something different than the believe to whom they’re speaking. But when someone announces that they’re an atheist, it implies that they’ve rejected the concept of faith as magical thinking. This is offensive in a different way.
OB: Absolutely. What is terribly important is how reflective one’s own suppositions about “life, the universe, and everything” are – to what extent one is aware that they may be wrong. But I also believe that these suppositions often creep in unbidden. I think a lot of people have ideas about the relationship between matter and mind, about whether or not we have genuinely free will, about what matter at bottom “is” – even if they reject philosophy as sophistry. And it is much more difficult to evaluate and reflect on half-hidden assumptions than on those that are at least brought out in the open.
Patrick
“I’ve yet to see even once a religious person automatically assume that a practitioner of a different religion thinks they’re stupid for not adhering to their particular faith.”
How about the ‘apostate’ Christians murdered by Wahabist Taliban ? Northern Ireland…
I have many religious friends. I am profoundly atheist. I don’t think any of them are stupid. I am intrigued about their faith, but don’t impugne their intelligence, nor do I anyone who posts here, (because obviously and thankfully the truly militant dimlos of all stripes keep away..)
And the whole ‘atheist militancy’ thing was a non-starter until well after militant Islamists indiscriminately started bombing the crap out of people of all and no faith… for some reason a couple of notable people in the sciences and other areas actually found the religious element at the heart of this nihilistic campaign for totalitarianism to be suspect, rather than worthy of craven and mindless ‘respect’. And they had the sheer rudeness to say so.
I didn’t say that I’ve never seen a religious person really really hate members of a religion. I said I’ve never seen a religious person assume that a practitioner of a different faith was secretly impugning their intelligence.
There’s a cultural assumption that atheists are smugly convinced of their intellectual superiority over the religious. This doesn’t exist for members of other religions. I think it has to do with the nature of reasoned atheism versus the nature of opposing faiths.
Well that’s an unfair assumption, Patrick.
1st Atheist aren’t a homogenous whole – by defninition they’re people who don’t happen to believe in God or organised religion; but that’s not the organising proniciple of an atheist’s life. Far from it in most cases.
2nd It’s as if you accuse ‘the atheist’ of bullying a religious person by the atheist merely saying ‘I doubt if praying will fix that flat back tyre.’ My point would be there isn’t anything smug about that. It might hurt the sensibilities of the one praying, but then to paraphrase the old addage: what’s the point of believing in something if it won’t stand a good working over every couple of weeks ?
3rd Much of the hoo-ha and hot-air over the subject of faith only started when some fundamentalist loons decided to build a tenth terminal for JFK Airport in South Manhatten. Much of what has been written since would not have even got printed if the religious right in the middle east and washington hadn’t got so active. From that point of view, most public critisim of religion in the last past five years will have been in direct or indirect response to the sheer mind-numbingly awful proposition of a set of arcane and irrational socio-economic principles put in the hand of some well financed but bone-headed zealots.
Nick S! I love it…
The only time I ever got a rise out of the first church of Yeshua the profundly Deaf round the corner from me, was when they were having a wedding, and one of the car-drivers (car all polished up, white ribbons, driver in extra-Sunday-best) dropped his car-keys down the grid.
I suggested, in as loud a voice as possible (i.e. bloody loud) that perhaps he should pray to Yesua to miraculously levitate the keys ….
Your part 3 is spot on.
I’ve said it before – I didn’t really become an atheist, as opposed to a sleepy agnostic, until I was repatedly provoked by various christian, muslim etc brain-deads shouting the odds, and disturbing the peace.
Nick S-
For crying out loud, I didn’t say it was true. I said it was a cultural assumption.
I suppose I assumed when I wrote that last post that you had read my previous posts, and I didn’t need to keep piously saying, “Now, I’m not saying this is correct, but this is how people think, see?”
In your first post you wrote
“The statement “I am an atheist” has implications. For one, it implies, “I think your religion is wrong. And not just your religion, the entire premise of faith upon which you rest your religion.” This in turn implies “I believe that you believe things which are only fantasy.” Well, people who believe in fantasies are silly, stupid people, aren’t they? That’s the general implication.”
I disagree. This is an observation which could just as easily apply to people of differing views on politics or economics; e.g. Marxist vs Neocon, with either side pleading ‘see how s/he totally disrespects my analysis and undermines the very tennets of my personal philosophy, the very basics of such an obvious and correct argument for the betterment of life on Earth are being denied and mocked.
Just go to Comment is Free to see how readily people of differing political outlooks are willing to sneeringly debase and deny eachothers argument. I don’t see that the position of atheist holds any more threat to someone’s crdibility or holds any more implicit automatic condemnation than say, a free market activist arguing with a Trot over global warming. I know who I agree with; but people ‘of faith’ are not special you know. I really don’t see much a difference, it’s just a differing wold view at the end of the day, and by you repeating this observation, it occurred to me you may actually have some sympathy or truck with it, so I followed that up. No bother though, I have no beef with you.
But there is still a difference between religious belief and political opinion. Those who disagree on political matters don’t have as deep a disagreement on the most basic issues as do believers and non-believers. Two people arguing about the best ways to bring happiness to society may propose radically different ways of achieving that and each may think the other is dead wrong. Even the most extreme case of that (and I admit it can get very difficult if someone holds a dogmatic position) doesn’t compare to the divide between those who accept the claims of religion on faith and those for whom it is all nonsense. In that sense, yes, I do think the potential for getting offended is greater on the religion question. The statement “you are wrong” in the context of a political (or economic etc.) argument does not, I think, carry quite the same payload as the implied “you are deluded” that can be heard in a profession of atheism when made to a believer.
Stewart, depends on your view on how people develop their beliefs – I don’t think anyone is born a believer in a God any more than they are born a Chelsea supporter (and let’s pity them if they were); nor do most believers find God after they finish school – it is a matter of conjecture, but I think kids just believe whatever old b@llocks their parents and schools tell them in their earliest and most formative years, about politics, religion, culture, race, etc.
But – with the familiar feeling of weary submission – I concede that believers are particularly offended by the sheer existence of atheists, no matter how well they behave, and would rather they just all went away because it just spoils the godamn party. Emperors new clothes and all that.
Well, I mainly agree with your first paragraph; I suspect it’s a minority that breaks away from the faith of their fathers and an even smaller minority that never accepts it in the first place.
And your second paragraph agrees with me. I find myself in a bind (socially, that is) when confronted by believers: simultaneously not wanting to step on their right to believe whatever they want (which is the one thing I do respect: the right; not the belief or the believer) and never forgetting that keeping silent to the extent that they don’t even know I disagree with them makes me an accomplice to the religious feeling they must be the default position and automatically deserving of respect. How about I not regale you with an experience I had last week?
I can never stay silent, but it’s never clever to just be rude.
And, oh go on, ‘fess up ! Wha’appen ?
Well, if you and the whole world must know, I found out how a Jerusalem rabbinical court employee can react if he has reason to believe you’re Jewish and learns you are booked on a Saturday morning flight. “This is very serious! It’s a grave sin! You must call your agent to change the booking!” and a few more minutes of variations on that theme.
As I needed enough goodwill to get a document required for a completely secular purpose, I settled for appreciation of his concern for me (well, no, it wasn’t enough) rather than a pitched battle dragging on for years through the Israeli court system, which has already had its precedent-setting case on whether identity can exist without a religious component (the loser was the guy mentioned in “The God Delusion” who did the survey about schoolchildren’s attitudes to Joshua’s slaughter at Jericho).
This kind of thing does have to be fought from outside; inside, they have you in a stranglehold.
You Quisling !
;-)
Don’t you have to be born Norwegian for that?
That would be Oslo-ist
Well, Oslo is synonymous with treachery in certain Israeli circles.
Damn – so a rabbinical court employee can withold a document needed for a completely secular purpose?
Clearly I don’t know enough about this subject…
“so a rabbinical court employee can withold a document needed for a completely secular purpose?”
Probably not legally. But there are things that are secular outside Israel, but not inside it. Anything he would have understood as antagonising him at that point (no matter how I meant it) would have been counter-productive for me. He could easily have deliberately screwed me while finding excuses to serve as deniability, while the little I could have done in the other direction would have been so time and energy-consuming that I took a pragmatic decision to take shit I have gotten used to not having to take anymore. No, he didn’t actually force me to do anything, but it’s still galling to be given religious orders by someone who is nominally a public servant. Everyone there I told this to said a) that I was an idiot for not having remembered that you don’t say something like that to someone like that (it was Thursday and I needed the documents sent because I couldn’t come back to pick them up: “Are you flying on Sunday morning already?” “No, even a day earlier than that” “But’s that forbidden! etc…”) and b) that I should have lied to him rather than let him be confronted with the ugliness of people who don’t live by the same rules as he does.
Arrggh. Sounds ghastly.
It is, but I’ve escaped. That nonsense is part of disposing of the remnants. Useful as a reminder of why escape was necessary at any price. Right now I feel a lot sorrier for atheists living in parts of Murkistan who are afraid their non-belief will become public knowledge, not to mention anyone sane living in the Muslim world.