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Are You an Apatheist, too?

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DWill

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Re: Are You an Apatheist, too?

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Harry Marks wrote:
DWill wrote: It would be mistaken, I agree, to regard not caring about religion as a better thing than what Mennonites have added to the culture. I would hope that apatheism is capable of crediting the good that religious groups do.
Jonathan Rauch was capable, anyway. The Mennonites are a peace church, and as such have never been comfortable with any kind of religious enforcement. That idealism has made it easier to maintain a lot of genuine religious commitment in their movement, but they have had trouble grappling with LGBTQ issues, perhaps because devotion was always such a serious part of their ideology and way of life.
I appreciate the earlier parts of the post, too, but on the shortcomings of Mennonites on sex and gender,
I wanted to comment that if society is an ecosystem, we'll see these variations that all fit in interlocking fashion. Especially when strong commitment to ideology is present, it's hard to avoid some element of exclusiveness in the group's outlook. But normally the ecosystem seems to absorb that, rather than being thrown out of balance.
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DWill

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Re: Are You an Apatheist, too?

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Robert Tulip wrote:
Harry Marks wrote:If people don't have an over-arching conceptual structure to justify the rejection of particular behaviors, they may fall back on their own feelings without being willing to impose them on others.
This seems to sum up the meaning of apatheism, and its core weakness. I don't like it, because my view is that constructing a systematic worldview is the key to ethical action, and in the final analysis religion is central to systematic thinking, for example on the question of how humans are connected to the universe. In particular with climate change the apathetic absence of clear values is the main reason the world is sleepwalking into oblivion.
"The best lack all conviction/While the worst are full of passionate intensity"? I can understand your dislike of the idea, although to me apatheism is less an idea and more a social phenomenon. There is no reason I can see to call it wholly good, though temperamentally I favor it.
A further point, on Interbane's question of the inverse correlation between religiosity and happiness. My view is that by and large a lack of happiness is the main social cause of religiosity, so the correlation does involve causation. The main outliers are the atheist states for specific reasons of historical ideology.
It is often supposed that wealth and religiosity are negatively correlated. The graph shows possible support for that view.
The liberal worldview tries to paradoxically build a system based on cultural relativism and tolerance. That is not a sustainable approach since it eventually involves tolerating views that will cause the viral destruction of the liberal world.
So a further paradox is that a liberal worldview is impossible if it acts to prevent what will weaken it. The only comfort comes in knowing that illiberalism, too, has a short half-life. Is either pulse generally the stronger and more likely to dominate history? I don't know the answer to that.
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Re: Are You an Apatheist, too?

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Robert Tulip wrote: my view is that constructing a systematic worldview is the key to ethical action, and in the final analysis religion is central to systematic thinking, for example on the question of how humans are connected to the universe. In particular with climate change the apathetic absence of clear values is the main reason the world is sleepwalking into oblivion.
I guess I am fine with fox thinking, to borrow Isaiah Berlin's terms, and view hedgehog thinking with suspicion. A systematic worldview is a good thing as far as it goes, but all the systems are incomplete and the more they strive for unearned completeness, as with Jordan Peterson, Hegel or perhaps Sam Harris, the more likely that they uncover inconsistencies.

I feel that the main block to acting in the public interest is not absence of thought or awareness but inner preoccupation with the measuring sticks we use for self-esteem. A good appreciation of grace can go a long way to undoing that, but not because it clarifies anything about the science.
Robert Tulip wrote: by and large a lack of happiness is the main social cause of religiosity, so the correlation does involve causation.
Or they both could be markers for the effects of education, depending on how religiosity is measured. Prosperous societies tend to be well educated and to score well on most measures of happiness, and, for many measures of religiosity, they score low.
Robert Tulip wrote:The liberal worldview tries to paradoxically build a system based on cultural relativism and tolerance. That is not a sustainable approach since it eventually involves tolerating views that will cause the viral destruction of the liberal world.
Although I resist relativism (at least, the absolute version) (sorry, couldn't resist), I really am not understanding about the views that could virally destroy liberalism. I'm kind of with Fukuyama on this - tolerance is the pinnacle, because diversity is baked in.

The goal is a sufficiently sophisticated worldview that it allows a person to feel invested in their own values being correct without needing to see this as definite and sure. Because as we know, most rationales for values are based on incomplete evidence.

This is not just the (for me, inherent) besetting internal tension between competing values. My favorite econometrician once said that a good econometrician can always think of a reason why the obvious interpretation of the evidence might be wrong. Even in the world of fact, there is so much going on that the evidence we have is usually not good enough to be completely confident. That isn't true for most physics or chemistry, but even in the world of medicine it is often the case.
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Re: Are You an Apatheist, too?

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DWill wrote:I wanted to comment that if society is an ecosystem, we'll see these variations that all fit in interlocking fashion. Especially when strong commitment to ideology is present, it's hard to avoid some element of exclusiveness in the group's outlook. But normally the ecosystem seems to absorb that, rather than being thrown out of balance.
This sounds interesting, but as with Robert's interesting "viral ideas" I am not sure I follow. Yes, I think there is a place for groups that give people a sense of confidence and rightness about traditional sex/gender roles, and maybe that's what you mean about the ecosystem - that such groups have their niche.

However, just as I am happy in my cis-gendered heterosexuality without being bothered by LGBTQ people, I think even traditional cultures can just let "some people" be different. This is not easy or obvious. Prostitution, polyamory, bestiality - many of the variations that are out there are problematic in one or more ways. Many of them are caught up in some pathology. But I don't think we need to assume that different is pathological, or that nothing is pathological.
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Re: Are You an Apatheist, too?

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Harry Marks wrote: However, just as I am happy in my cis-gendered heterosexuality without being bothered by LGBTQ people, I think even traditional cultures can just let "some people" be different. This is not easy or obvious. Prostitution, polyamory, bestiality - many of the variations that are out there are problematic in one or more ways. Many of them are caught up in some pathology. But I don't think we need to assume that different is pathological, or that nothing is pathological.
You mean letting people within the group be different, I think, without excluding them from the group. That does run into problems in terms of perhaps any traditional society or group. There is going to be intolerance of certain deviations from the "norm." Even liberal people have some intolerance, as you indicate. Intolerance may be something to condemn strongly, but it depends on the difference being condemned and whether the difference is punished severely. Intolerance in some cases acts as a guardrail for the group. Not the way we like to do things in liberal settings, but not necessarily wrong, either.
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Re: Are You an Apatheist, too?

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Harry Marks wrote:I guess I am fine with fox thinking, to borrow Isaiah Berlin's terms, and view hedgehog thinking with suspicion.
Thanks very much Harry for mentioning Isaiah Berlin. I read his biography by Michael Ignatieff a few years ago, and remain impressed by his pellucid wisdom. His famous Fox and Hedgehog essay is available here, with summary here. Apathy towards religion seems more aligned with the fox attitude of variety than with the single-mindedness of the hedgehog, although I think the religious attitude can incorporate both.

My own view on systematic thinking, reflected in my recent Jung essay, is that an emerging New Age Aquarian Christianity can integrate the best elements of the fox, knowing many things, and the hedgehog, knowing one big thing. Knowing many things in a Christian framework links closely to the moral framework that the meek shall inherit the earth, as an ethical basis to respect diversity. In my view the one big thing, which has been my preoccupation all my adult life, is that zodiac ages are the scientific basis of systematic philosophy. I know that may sound outrageous, but it is not to argue for belief in astrology, rather that the empirical planetary cosmology of precession can explain the memetic evolution of culture in a coherent way.

I agree with your suspicion about the tendency to monomaniacal ideology that Berlin critiqued in hedgehog thinking, but there are ways to address this problem. Combining the scientific respect for evidence and logic with the Gospel respect for diversity and love suggests how an integrated path can emerge. The integrating theme should be the primacy of planetary existence. The systematic cosmology emerging from planetary studies can then serve as a coherent basis for ethical action and interpretation of history. That for me is incompatible with an apatheic attitude.
Harry Marks wrote: A systematic worldview is a good thing as far as it goes, but all the systems are incomplete and the more they strive for unearned completeness, as with Jordan Peterson, Hegel or perhaps Sam Harris, the more likely that they uncover inconsistencies.
I agree that all alleged systems to date have serious weaknesses, but that does not mean a future system is impossible. The problem always rests in the foundational assumptions, the attitudes about what is real. For example, Christian systematic theology builds vast edifices of thought, but if its axiomatic beliefs about God, Jesus and the miraculous are wrong, then the entire framework is built on sand. I studied Martin Heidegger, the founder of systematic existentialism, who grounded his systematic ontology in the Greco-Hindu idea that all is one, but his coherence collapsed due to his emotional political commitments to German primacy. My view is that as we grow into the reality that we have one planetary cultural world, the underlying long term orbital drivers of evolution will emerge as the primary framework for systematic thinking.

Speaking of Sam Harris, he argued in The Moral Landscape that neuroscience provides a basis to integrate facts and values in a systematic ontology. I did not find that a coherent argument. My own view is that a better basis to ground values in facts emerges from cosmology, not from biology, interpreting cosmology at terrestrial scale to analyse how human existence connects to the universe.
Harry Marks wrote:I feel that the main block to acting in the public interest is not absence of thought or awareness but inner preoccupation with the measuring sticks we use for self-esteem. A good appreciation of grace can go a long way to undoing that, but not because it clarifies anything about the science.
That is a complicated and valuable statement Harry for deconstructing the problems with an apatheist attitude. “The measuring sticks we use for self-esteem” are mainly about success in the world, in money, relationships, career and public and personal achievements. Against that hyper-individualised mentality, the big religious questions of what is intrinsically good for the world are matters of distracting indifference. Hence the paradox known in theology as kenosis, that divine action involves emptying of the self, a rejection of the values of the world. The apathy of Alfred E Neuman, candidate patron saint of apatheism, fastidiously avoids any such higher commitments.
Harry Marks wrote:Although I resist relativism (at least, the absolute version) (sorry, couldn't resist), I really am not understanding about the views that could virally destroy liberalism. I'm kind of with Fukuyama on this - tolerance is the pinnacle, because diversity is baked in.
Viral is putting it too strongly, but setting tolerance as the highest value only works while everyone is tolerant. The problem with fanaticism arises when a fanatical belief is demonstrably wrong, including beliefs that are violent, dangerous and harmful, and yet its expansion is tolerated due to liberal apathy.
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Re: Are You an Apatheist, too?

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I posted an article here a few years back by Henry Rollins called "Why I Am Not An Atheist" which basically covered this. Rollins said he didn't consider himself as atheist because he didn't care to do the requisite study it requires in order to debates its merits. He didn't believe in religion himself but acknowledged that it might even be good for some unbalanced people. Maybe it kept them from going off the deep end. Of course, it seems far more likely that it forced unbalanced people off the deep end but Rollins's point was that there are a lot of people who don't believe but who are not atheists because they don't care enough about atheism to be be one.
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DB Roy wrote: Rollins said he didn't consider himself as atheist because he didn't care to do the requisite study it requires in order to debates its merits.
Since I no longer think of religion or Christianity as primarily a matter of beliefs, I don't take seriously the idea of "the requisite study." If you want to assess theism as a theory of where things originate and how they got to be the way they are, it doesn't take a whole lot of study to reach a conclusion. If, on the other hand, you want to assess people's response to justice and benevolence in spiritual terms (spirit refers to one's relationship to oneself, and therefore to universals as well), then the effort required is not intellectual but internal. Agnostics are often accused of moral laziness, which in some ways is more appropriate than intellectual laziness.
DB Roy wrote: He didn't believe in religion himself but acknowledged that it might even be good for some unbalanced people. Maybe it kept them from going off the deep end.
I think the practice of religion may be good, on balance, for the majority of people who have trouble with a strictly logical and calculating approach to life. By giving them a sense of their own significance, a sense that they matter, and by creating social support structures (talk to womenfolk about the support structures of the church - this is not a minor issue), it creates inner resources for staying in touch with reality. If that sounds paradoxical, consider whether it is important for them to stay in touch with the reality of evolution or the reality of their family commitments.
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Harry Marks wrote: Since I no longer think of religion or Christianity as primarily a matter of beliefs, I don't take seriously the idea of "the requisite study." If you want to assess theism as a theory of where things originate and how they got to be the way they are, it doesn't take a whole lot of study to reach a conclusion. If, on the other hand, you want to assess people's response to justice and benevolence in spiritual terms (spirit refers to one's relationship to oneself, and therefore to universals as well), then the effort required is not intellectual but internal. Agnostics are often accused of moral laziness, which in some ways is more appropriate than intellectual laziness.
Religion is a matter of belief (as opposed to "beliefs). If you don't have any belief in the religion you claim to follow then why are you following it? Theism isn't a theory, it's a belief. It is the belief of where things originate and they got to be the way they are. There is no study involved. Their response to justice and benevolence is even more of a sham than their belief in where things originate. "God chose Donald Trump to be president." Really? "Yes, because God can use anybody." So, he picks the most morally vacuous, selfish, narcissistic, intellectually stunted and incurious anybody he could find and decided to make HIM president??? Seriously??? Oh, I know, not ALL Christians voted for Trump, I know. They have just remained utterly silent about how the loudmouth Christians are presenting their religion to the world and the inestimable damage they have done to it as a result. Not that it's anything new. It has been happening for centuries. If it only affected them, I wouldn't care.
I think the practice of religion may be good, on balance, for the majority of people who have trouble with a strictly logical and calculating approach to life. By giving them a sense of their own significance, a sense that they matter, and by creating social support structures (talk to womenfolk about the support structures of the church - this is not a minor issue), it creates inner resources for staying in touch with reality. If that sounds paradoxical, consider whether it is important for them to stay in touch with the reality of evolution or the reality of their family commitments.
Anyone who has trouble with a strictly logical and calculating approach to life is a threat to our very existence because such people can and ARE frequently recruited into religious and political cults that can and frequently do commit atrocities because they were unable to reason things out because logic is too troublesome to bother with. If most of them haven't, it's because most of them have never been approached.
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Robert Tulip wrote:Apathy towards religion seems more aligned with the fox attitude of variety than with the single-mindedness of the hedgehog, although I think the religious attitude can incorporate both.
Yes, this seems to me to be true, IMO unfortunately. Religious studies researchers should study the tendencies within religion to drift toward literal claims of supernatural forces, and the tendencies within religion to insist on exclusive claims to truth, even moral truth. Something to do with lack of empirical grounding, I suspect, but also something to do with the forces at work in politics.
Robert Tulip wrote:The problem always rests in the foundational assumptions, the attitudes about what is real. For example, Christian systematic theology builds vast edifices of thought, but if its axiomatic beliefs about God, Jesus and the miraculous are wrong, then the entire framework is built on sand.
It probably won't surprise you to hear that I disagree. Since I see the talk of supernatural things as a language for deeper matters, I think a framework of broken myth, in which one can think about spiritual matters through the imagery of myth but without the literalist insistence on the supernatural as a more real reality, can lead us to function very effectively in social interaction.

To give a non-Christian example, it seems that mythology gave us a gift in the form of the term "narcissism" which came to label the obsession with markers for self-esteem, and the compulsion to attack others and degrade others as a path to shoring up self-esteem. That remarkable insight that might not have happened as early or as effectively without the imagery from the story of Narcissus.
Robert Tulip wrote:Speaking of Sam Harris, he argued in The Moral Landscape that neuroscience provides a basis to integrate facts and values in a systematic ontology. I did not find that a coherent argument. My own view is that a better basis to ground values in facts emerges from cosmology, not from biology, interpreting cosmology at terrestrial scale to analyse how human existence connects to the universe.
I suspect it is futile to argue moral principles from requirements of survival or from cosmological analogies, but I am okay with being proven wrong. I think moral imperatives are recognizable from the requirements for people to be able to get along with each other.

Obviously survival is a requirement for people to get along with each other, but I am suspicious of basing a system of deducing moral imperatives from some method of extrapolating the requirements of survival. It sounds to me like a cart of survival requirements being put ahead of horse of moral inquiry, rather than resting the deduction of the importance of survival on the primacy of moral issues.
Robert Tulip wrote: “The measuring sticks we use for self-esteem” are mainly about success in the world, in money, relationships, career and public and personal achievements. Against that hyper-individualised mentality, the big religious questions of what is intrinsically good for the world are matters of distracting indifference.
I think I object not so much to their individualized mentality, which is certainly an accurate observation, as to their glorification of competition and conflict. A kind of (pagan) sacred status is given to being better than someone else, and the intrinsic zero-sum nature of such comparisons is elevated to the position of imperative rather than being seen as something a person has a choice about.

Just to pull out one strand of that for examination, I am told Aristotle's conception of virtue was fundamentally about what helps the whole polis, rather than what exalts one person above others.
Robert Tulip wrote:Hence the paradox known in theology as kenosis, that divine action involves emptying of the self, a rejection of the values of the world. The apathy of Alfred E Neuman, candidate patron saint of apatheism, fastidiously avoids any such higher commitments.
I really like your contrast with "higher commitments" here. Although I struggle with them in reality, in my view of meaning it is clear that higher commitments are the basis of a meaningful life. The two concepts are almost synonymous. So if apatheism means mere apathy, mere avoidance of those commitments which lack an instrumental and fundamentally reciprocal basis, then I would definitely oppose apatheism.
Robert Tulip wrote: setting tolerance as the highest value only works while everyone is tolerant. The problem with fanaticism arises when a fanatical belief is demonstrably wrong, including beliefs that are violent, dangerous and harmful, and yet its expansion is tolerated due to liberal apathy.
Well, I don't think a typical liberal account of matters makes tolerance the highest value. Tolerance is a means, not an end in itself, and it is a means to the goal of a society in which one may think for oneself, and values are more chosen than enforced.

In a liberal framework, one may disapprove of choices or opinions of others, such as unwed motherhood, polyamory, flat-earthism and racism, without taking violent means in hand to suppress them. Only those paths which insist on themselves taking up violent means are to be restrained (that's a bit of an exaggeration, but that's the typical formulation of the core logic of tolerance).
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