Johnson and Interbane, many thanks for continuing this dialogue on whether the metaphysical claims of religion are false. With Hitchens, you make a series of invalid inferences. A key illogical step in your argument, as I pointed out earlier, is the elision from “SOME metaphysical claims of religion are false” to “ALL metaphysical claims of religion are false.” The first is demonstrable, the second is not.
johnson1010 wrote: your evaluation of the bible is a good starting point to understand that everyone makes choices about morality and the meaning of life on their own. Atheist, or believer, quaker, jehova’s witness, scientologist or pastafarian. We all make our moral judgements based on our cultural background and personal experience.
But, some moral judgements are good and some are bad. Pastafarians invent a logical faith which fails the test of Ockham’s Razor, as do Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists. The question here is whether Christianity necessarily fails this test. Moral judgements are not based only on personal experience, but also on shared observation and reason. In this sense, the goal of objectivity is that rational judgement should base values on facts. As a coherent system of thought, atheism seeks to base its values on facts, arguing that Christianity’s values are based on fantasy. The conflicting views are incompatible.
We are influenced by the things we have experienced in the past whether it be the bible or “don’t worry be happy”, but the ultimate moral authority within each of our choices is own decision making process.
Yes, from the modern humanist framework of autonomy, but no if we argue a moral authority can be external and objective. In a sense, Darwin argued for such an external basis in the theory of cumulative adaptation, and Dawkins develops this with his observation of the genetic basis of empathy in
The Selfish Gene. “Our decision making process” need not be purely subjective and arbitrary.
What we can see explicitly in your case is where you have developed a moral framework to live your life by and rejected all interpretations of the bible except those that fit your personal world-view.
The question here is whether an objectively valid moral framework can be found in the Bible. Hitchens rightly derides creationism as an invalid moral framework, but wrongly deduces that the Bible does not conceal a deeper meaning which is compatible with science.
Undoubtedly it is a just way of life, but it is not based on the bible, rather, you have selected portions of the bible that apply to your moral framework and endorse those while ignoring the others. You have decided which rules you will follow from the bible, the bible has not told you what is right and wrong.
I am applying a rational criterion to the selection of Biblical ideas, namely whether they are compatible with science. This approach is compatible with the metaphor in the Bible that the path to heaven is narrow and difficult but the path to hell is broad and easy. It is not about ignoring wrong ideas, but rather explaining why they are wrong and destructive.
That is just like me. I decided what is right and wrong, only I don’t bother to consult the bible and burden myself with having to ignore what it says.
Your decisions about what is right and wrong sit in a deep cultural context, where you largely accept the consensus values of like-minded people. Decisions do not occur in a vacuum. The Bible is at the centre of the theory of value of western civilisation. It deserves the courtesy of assessment to evaluate its merits, rather than the simplistic ‘some parts false, all parts false’ approach.
People all around the world do this on a regular basis, but you have gone through the trouble to evaluate your thought processes and know specifically which things in the bible appeal to you and those that do not, then you mentioned some of them here on this board.
You have not engaged with my claim that the Beatitudes, The Lord’s Prayer and the Last Judgement are at the centre of biblical faith. I am suggesting these texts can function as a prism to assess the merits of other parts of the bible.
This is not wrong, but it does show that your reading is a subjective experience and does not translate into a universal key to unlock goodness in humanity. You have interpreted these portions of the bible to fit the meanings you desire.
The meaning I desire is the reform of theology in accordance with the findings of modern science. Whether this approach may lead to a universal key to unlock goodness remains an open question. It certainly looks a far better option than the atheist rejection of theology on principle.
Likewise many religious believers who maintain the bible is to be read literally are able to rationalize away the portions of the bible that they do not agree with by saying that those portions are allegorical.
Allegories can be tested against evidence, and deconstructed to find their moral messages. Literal readings of the bible are severely deficient in view of the massive quantity of scientific evidence refuting such readings as false. No such evidence exists to refute the ideas I have presented here.
However it is not stated that the story of Adam and Eve is meant to be understood as allegorical. Historically, the bible is read to be literal truth. So if you assert that the story of Adam and Eve is meant to be allegorical then it is a decision you made in defiance of commonly held belief.
This historical literalism is the error which Hitchens rightly identifies. So, defiance of commonly held error is necessary if we are to make any progress and not be beholden to past beliefs.
The same tactic you employ to utilize portions of the bible to validate your moral framework can be used to justify hate and destruction, as so often has been the case in the past. Note the Westboro Baptist protestors, the mormon notion that dark pigmented skin reflects sin, and many other examples. I’m sure anyone could compile a suitably long list.
No, the tactics are completely different. I am reading the actual Bible and arguing for its core messages, which are about love and forgiveness, the ideas which took Christ on the path of the cross. These ideas are not compatible with hate and destruction. Have you read Hitchens’ critique of the Mormons? It might be useful to open discussion on that chapter to illustrate how people use fantasy to justify a delusory moral schema. Religionists have not all found the narrow path.
You are selecting very specific and narrow portions of the bible to endorse. What of the rest?
Criteria such as the parables of the narrow path, the wheat and tares, the beatitudes and the last judgement provide a good prism for assessment.
It seems that you are a well educated individual who still desires that the bible be relevant as more than a simple moral story telling device. You desire that it contain a higher truth, or be more important than other teachings. But it does not, and it is not.
This is a statement of faith on your part to categorically assert the Bible contains no higher truth. It is a provocative rejection of Christian thought, where I would argue for a middle path to accept that at least some aspects of the bible contain a higher truth.
You could scour any literature you chose and pick out some small gleaming morsels of goodness and hold them up as an ultimate path to world peace, and perhaps in an ideal world they might lead to that, but it does not validate the work as a whole.
I am just looking at the central texts of the central book of the world. You are right these “small gleaming morsels” do not validate everything in the Bible, but they do provide a good context for assessment of the merits of the rest of the book.
The world can be understood on its own terms and does not need the crutch of mysticism. The shadows on the cave wall is poetic and sounds suitably cryptic but does not impress me very much.
I don’t agree that Plato’s Republic, the source of this allegory, is necessarily a mystical book. But it does show that the “own terms” of the world are often delusory. ‘World’ is an ambiguous term, referring either to the physical universe or the constructed systems of thought which inform worldviews. Your implication that we should abolish mysticism removes a large part of the basis to assess constructed systems. By some definitions, quantum mechanics is highly mystical. I similarly think there is a deep mystery in the structure of the solar system which we can investigate scientifically and which provides an empirical basis for the bible.
The world is exactly the way the world seems to be.
Another comment covering big lacunae. In philosophy, “the way the world seems to be” is understood as how it appears to human perception. However many perceptions are false. The way “the world is” is understood as the noumenal reality of how things actually are in themselves. Your equation of the phenomenal and the noumenal is a problem for epistemology. I agree with you that science has discovered much about how the world is, but it is a big jump to say the current worldview resulting from scientific discovery is exactly the way the world is. As
Hamlet said, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt in your philosophy.
Just because matter is comprised mostly of empty space does not change the fact that you cannot walk through a wall. The wall IS solid. If we see things dimly, it is just because we have not shined a light in the right direction. Not being able to determine the exact location or speed of an electron simultaneously is a result of our current limitations, not a limit built into the cosmos. There is order in the universe owing to the patterns of behavior inherent to energy. If we look long enough, and with enough care we can know these patterns.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle may be more complex than you imagine. In fact, we cannot know the position and speed of an electron according to mainstream scientific consensus. Maybe there are other scientific mysteries locked with the opacity of the Bible?