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Ch. 1 - What about gods?

#39: July - Oct. 2007 (Non-Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Ch. 1 - What about gods?

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Ch. 1 - What about gods? should be discussed within this thread.
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George Ricker

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Re: Ch. 1 - What about gods?

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Author's noteIn this chapter I detail some of the difficulties in discussing concepts of gods: the absence of clear definitions, the tremendous number of notions -- many of them mutually exclusive -- about the nature of a god, and the lack of critical thinking on the part of many believers who claim to "know" a god exists. I also talk about some of the inconsistencies in the idea of a "perfect" being and in notions about what a god might expect of humankind. The chapter ends with some thoughts about the role of gods and religions in human societies throughout history.As I note in the endnotes, each chapter of the book begins with a question or statement that represents an attitude about the subject of the chapter that is present in popular culture. These statements are in quotation marks for stylistic purposes only. They are not direct quotes from any source.George http://www.godlessinamerica.com"Godlessness is not about denying the existence of nonsensical beings. It is the starting point for living life without them."Godless in America by George A. Ricker
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Re: Ch. 1 - What about gods?

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Ps. I'm really sorry about not joining in on this book. I checked for it in the library, but they don't have a copy, and between wisdom tooth surgery, identity theft and having my car broken into, all within a two week span, I'm not devoting much money to books for the moment. From the discussions we've had on BookTalk, I feel sure that your book is a good deal more reasoned and balanced than a lot of the other books that have recently filled this slot, and I feel much more inclined to participate knowing that the author is going to be a continuing contributant to the discussion.I mention it only because I realize that this discussion isn't getting the attention it deserves, and I wanted to situate my own non-involvement before trying to encourage you, George. Unfortunately, your book is under discussion during what is traditionally the slowest quarter of the year. The late summer slot has always gotten the short end of the stick at BookTalk, what with people going away on vacation and what not, and it's just bum luck that your book is up now rather than later on. I'm sure it wasn't intentional. Obviously, the Nonfiction selection isn't getting much attention either. Hopefully people will come around before the end of the quarter, and once I get my finances back in line, I'll see what I can do about securing a copy.
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I hope I'm not stepping out of line by commenting without really knowing where your chapter takes the idea, but I did want to throw in a perspective that probably departs from your own, just for the sake of stimulating discussion.garicker: In this chapter I detail some of the difficulties in discussing concepts of gods: the absence of clear definitions, the tremendous number of notions -- many of them mutually exclusive -- about the nature of a god...By way of extending your point, the fact of the matter is that most religions developed in contexts that were significantly isolated from one another, not only geographically but also in terms of what concerned the communities involved. There was some exchange of ideas, and the similarities that seem to arise across the board argue a common origin for a lot of the concepts basic to religion, but the description of a body of cultural facts as "religion" is ultimately a form of shorthand that can distort the fact that those facts aren't always as synonymous as we'd like. Just to give a really basic example, the Shinto notion of kami is superficially similar to the Western idea of gods, enough so that Western commentators have often translated kami as gods and applied the same standards of critique, but the more you deal with the specifics of Shinto religion and Japanese culture, the more that similarity breaks down. Ultimately, kami cannot be assimilated to gods in the Western sense of that term.The application of the term "religion" to a great many Asiatic traditions is, in fact, problematic, not because those traditions don't aspire to as much dignity as you would or would not accord a Western tradition, but because the concept of religion, rooted as it is in the Latin-Christian scholastic tradition, carries a lot of biases and presuppositions that just aren't entirely germaine to everything that we call religion. There's a polemical angle to that, in that European conquerers of the age of Reconnaisance employed those biases as a critique of the cultures they set about conquering -- there were presumably so backwards that their religious institutions had never reached a level of completion native to European Christendom. European Catholicism, Judaism and Islam exhibit a level of organization and orthodoxy that is, on the whole, uncharacteristic of religions as a whole, and the primacy of our familiarity with those traditions has conditioned our responses to everything we place under the heading of religion, despite the fluidity that seems to arise quite naturally in religions traditions that have evolved along different lines.As you've mentioned here, that leads to some problems when it comes time to talk about religion as a general phenomenon. And it seems to me that most American and European critics of religion have, on the whole, swallowed whole the presuppositions of Eurocentric definitions of religion. That isn't to say that they'd be any more kindly disposed to religion if they had a less Eurocentric understanding, or a wider and more in-depth familiarity with non-Western religious traditions, but I do think it likely that it would lead to some significant changes in the way they discuss religion, even if only to oppose it.... and the lack of critical thinking on the part of many believers who claim to "know" a god exists.This arises, in a great many cases, I think, because the motivations behind certain kinds of belief are not so uniform as we often suspect. Just as a for instance, I've read a lot of material about the Creationist debate, and most critics of Creationism seem to take it for granted that Creationists want from their cosmology the same thing that Evolutionists want from theirs: ie. a practical, plausible explanation of natural phenomenon. But it doesn't seem at all likely that Creationists have taken their side of the case for anything like that reason. For a lot of Creationists, I think moral concern is at root in their opposition to Darwinian evolution; and the matter is often complicated by their commitment to certain forms of status quo, like patriarchical social organization and the need to justify economic and social disparity levelled against minorities. If a person's objection to a scientific theory is premised on something other than technical interest or the practical application of knowledge about the natural world, then they're not likely to employ the same standards of critical thought, or if they do employ critical thought, they're likely to do it in conflicting ways.
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George Ricker

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Mad: As you've mentioned here, that leads to some problems when it comes time to talk about religion as a general phenomenon. And it seems to me that most American and European critics of religion have, on the whole, swallowed whole the presuppositions of Eurocentric definitions of religion.One of the points I tried to emphasize in this chapter and throughout the book is that there is no genuine uniformity of opinion on the part of believers about either gods or religions. This is not just true of diversity in religious traditions in various parts of the world, as you note. It also is true within the various religious traditions themselves. For example, Christians come in all shapes and sizes. So much so that one must spend some time exploring what an individual believer means by the designation. By the same token, it's impossible to know what a believer means by the word "God" before investigating the matter. Until someone fills in the blanks, the word "God" is, for all practical intents and purposes, empty of any clear meaning. George http://www.godlessinamerica.com"Godlessness is not about denying the existence of nonsensical beings. It is the starting point for living life without them."Godless in America by George A. Ricker
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garicker: It also is true within the various religious traditions themselves. For example, Christians come in all shapes and sizes. So much so that one must spend some time exploring what an individual believer means by the designation.Mmhmm. In some ways, it took me a while to really cut through the assumption that religion as a phenomenon was internally consistent and recognize that it may be more honest to recognize innovation and variation as natural phenomenon in religious development. It took a massive amount of work for medieval Catholicism to develop, disseminate and ultimately enforce a consistent orthodoxy; ultimately, the papacy and scholastics had to work against a natural tendency to take an idea and run with it. The history of heresy is basically one long testament to that fact.Until someone fills in the blanks, the word "God" is, for all practical intents and purposes, empty of any clear meaning.I don't know if I'd go that far. I think context is important in discussion of just about any topic, and while variation does make religious terminology difficult to compass, the same can be said of a lot of ideas that we generally treat as solid and stable. In social situations we interact with the presumption that everyone is using language in roughly congruent ways, but the deeper we dig in any given discussion, the more likely I think we are to find serious disparities in the way people both understand and employ the words they use to communicate. So I don't think the problematics of talking about God render it meaningless.
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Mad: So I don't think the problematics of talking about God render it meaningless.Oh, it's easy enough to have a broad general discussion about something that may have had something to do with the creation of the universe or the "God" of philosophy. In the introduction I talk about a generic definition of "God" as an entity that created the universe, created everything in the universe and created it for a purpose. My, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, name for that worthy is the "cosmic super critter." But when you start talking about the "God" people actually worship, the one they actually claim to believe in, the question gets much trickier. People make all sorts of modifications to any basic idea about a god, so that the idea itself becomes very idiosyncratic. As a consequence, in any discussion with a nonbeliever, the believer has to fill in the blanks before the nonbeliever can know what the believer is talking about. Yet, in popular culture people throw out the word "God" as if there was a broad consensus about what the word actually means, and there really isn't.I've been involved in many such discussions over the years. Inevitably there has to be a lot of spadework before the believer can articulate to me just what he or she means by the word "God." Again, I'm not interested in vagueries like "the ground of all being" or other such verbiage. My interest is in ideas about the gods people actually worship and the evidentiary basis for those ideas.My chief interest in gods and religions is in the intersection between those concepts and the culture in which I live. I've made the statement in other places that I'm not much bothered by people's religious opinions unless they start bothering me with them or trying to impose them as the norm on the society in which I live. There seems to be an effort, on the part of a very noisy minority, to do that in today's America and that worries me, especially when I observe the reaction to that effort by politicians in both major parties. It's one of the chief reasons I wrote the book.George http://www.godlessinamerica.com"Godlessness is not about denying the existence of nonsensical beings. It is the starting point for living life without them."Godless in America by George A. RickerEdited by: garicker  at: 8/12/07 11:38 am
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Mad: Ps. I'm really sorry about not joining in on this book. I checked for it in the library, but they don't have a copy, and between wisdom tooth surgery, identity theft and having my car broken into, all within a two week span, I'm not devoting much money to books for the moment. No worries. Actually, I would be amazed if my book has made it onto any library shelves. I'm hoping some people will buy the book and donate it to various libraries. But print-on-demand books don't get much publicity and between personal finances and health issues, I'm afraid my own efforts at advertising the book have been limited to launching my web site and a few talks before groups locally. I'm hopeful interest in the book will grow as more and more people find out about it.Needless to say, but I will anyway, I hope you are able to get the personal matters taken care of satisfactorily.Mad: From the discussions we've had on BookTalk, I feel sure that your book is a good deal more reasoned and balanced than a lot of the other books that have recently filled this slot, and I feel much more inclined to participate knowing that the author is going to be a continuing contributant to the discussion.I'm looking forward to it. The discussion is off to a pretty slow start, but I'm hoping it will generate some steam. I want to try to contribute to it, but, at the same time, I really don't want to dominate it. Maybe we'll be able to keep it going past the end of September if there's enough interest to warrant it.George http://www.godlessinamerica.com"Godlessness is not about denying the existence of nonsensical beings. It is the starting point for living life without them."Godless in America by George A. Ricker
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I see your point about the problem being the way in which religion is discussed in society and the part it plays in determining, say, public policy, or something equally portentious. And I'm sorry if I, in effect, confused your point of view with one that takes any inkling of religious belief more to heart. There seem to be a handful of people on BookTalk -- and I take them to be unwittingly representative of a growing contingent in the American population -- who take personal belief on the part of people around them as something of a personal affront. And I'm not entirely sure that writers like Dawkins and Harris have really drawn for themselves a strict line between private belief and public incursion. Even though they sometimes tow the Jamesian line about not caring what another person believes so long as it's kept private, that sort of tolerant position is contradicted by the programs of inquiry they espouse, which seem to work from the premise that the best way to keep people's private beliefs from unduly effecting public policy is to make those beliefs untenable. But from what you've written above it seems clear that isn't your interest in the topic.Trust me, I know well enough about the various difficulties involved in the publish on demand industry. My father released a book that way, and while he's happy with the degree of success he's had (he's currently working on the follow-up), it's required a lot of work on his part to make his book known to a reading public. So all my sympathy to the toil you go through, and congratulations on the success you've had so far.
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Mad, what I've tried to do in this book is tell the reader what I think about gods and religions and why I think it. I'm sure this comes across as an attack to some. Unfortunately that seems to be in the nature of the beast. When we start talking about beliefs that are important to people, any criticism of the belief is taken as a criticism of the believer. I just helped my mother celebrate her 90th birthday (we had a great party). She has been attending church for almost all of her life and considers herself a Christian. I'm sure she hopes at the end of her life she will meet up once again with all the people she has lost along the way. I know she gets great comfort from the church she attends and the interaction with that community. Now I consider most of what she believes to be nonsensical, and I'm sure she knows that, but we have no problem because of it. She knows that I do respect her right to her beliefs.In fact, and I've told other people this, when she read my book she was much more miffed by the unkind things I say about George W. Bush and the Republican Party than anything I said about gods and religions. Anyway, that's where I come from in all of this. If you want to take a look at something on my web site, there's a piece called "An open letter to the religious from one who is not" that sum's up my thinking fairly succinctly.George http://www.godlessinamerica.com"Godlessness is not about denying the existence of nonsensical beings. It is the starting point for living life without them."Godless in America by George A. Ricker
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