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#52: Aug. - Sept. 2008 (Non-Fiction)
hegel1066

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Review of Chapter 3: "Faith Is a Good Thing":

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In this chapter as in the first, it seems to this reader that the author sets up an easy definition of faith, and then uses that as a scapegoat. Early in the chapter, Mr. Harrison writes, "...faith is belief in a god that is secure and unconcerned with logic or reason." (p. 27). Well, this is only partially correct. The objects of a sophisticated faith do not totally eschew both logic and reason. It is not a responsible faithful act to say, "I don't care what the Einstein's field equations say, I refuse to believe in gravity. I have faith that gravity does not exist." These are not the words of someone of faith; they're the words of a contrarian. Faith is always, in part, answerable to logic and reason: the objects of my faith are all in accord with modern-day science (and, I hasten to add, Einstein's field equations.) The dynamic part of faith, however, does not rest in the ability of its content to be either proven or disproven. Faith is a wooly mix of person, interpersonal, communal, and cultural standards which can't be quantified (or qualified) by reason alone. The author shows that he does not understand this subtlety when he says, "I have faith in many things, too, but not in the existence of gods because there is nothing to base that faith on." (p. 27). Precisely: If you had "something to base that faith on," it would stop being faith and commence being something else: namely, scientific evidence. In short, the objects of faith cannot (or, in my opinion, should not) contradict what we know about the natural world, but the purview of faith is not science and scientific fact: the contents of faith are often those cultural, historical and religious meta-narratives that explain, console, and sometimes leave us in awe.

To contextualize what I mean here, I offer the author to look at a truer and what I would consider more "authentic" form of faith: the faith that can be found in the works of Danish existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. For Kierkegaard, to have faith is to make a trans-rational break with the rational, to connect with something more uncanny (the German here might be translated to Freud's unheimlich). So - and this is the clencher - to truly, and to say with intellectual honesty that you have faith that god exists - you must be uncertain of god's existence. Kierkegaard could never have been a Christian without this tremendous sense of existential angst. To make faith-claims about god without ever having been previously critical of those claims would be making claims in a faith that is not worth having - to borrow from Sartre, might even constitute having "bad faith." It takes no faith to believe in a lamp while it is bathing you in its light. In this same sense, to believe or have faith is to know that you have no perception or apperception of god, but still to believe in its existence. (For anyone interested in Kierkegaard, and especially his work on faith, please see especially "On Fear and Trembling" and "The Sickness Unto Death.")

It was in high school that I first read Kierkegaard, and after a century-and-a-half, he still seems to be to be one of the most profound exigetes of human faith I've yet come in contact with. Since that time, my personal set of religious beliefs have been enhanced with a strong Kierkegaardian fideism that I first got of whiff of on my first read of "On Fear and Trembling," and I cherish over and over again when I pick up anything by him.
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Chapter 4: On the Merits of Archeological Evidence?

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I have mentioned in previous posts that no number of natural or physical pieces of evidence could ever produce evidence for god, or evidence that one should believe in a god. No amount of NATURAL evidence can be gathered together to prove the existence of a SUPER-natural god; no amount of physical evidence can be gathered together to prove the existence of a META-physical god. (The etymology here should be a clue, but it seems that if it were a snake, it would have already bitten some people in the face.) (By the way, not all conceptions of god are either supernatural and metaphysical; mine, for example, is neither.) The author seems to realize this, too.

He spends about four pages averring that there has been no archeological evidence for any religious claim, or to support the existence of any god. The tablets of Moroni from the Mormon tradition have never been found. The Shroud of Turin has been found, but, alas, cannot stand up to the carbon-dating that says it dates more from the Middle Ages than from two thousand years ago. Let us then consider a case in, to coin a phrase, counterfactual religious archeology: What if the Shroud were carbon-dated, and were actually two thousand years old? What if the tables of Moroni were discovered in a remote digging site in New York tomorrow? What this any more verify the claims of these religions?

The obvious answer, the only intellectually honest answer is: no, of course it wouldn't. And Mr. Harrison seems to admit this himself in the last two pages of the Chapter Four. If carbon-dating proved that the Shroud really was two thousand years old, was signed by the twelve disciples, and was autographed by Jesus himself, would that bring us any closer in proving true the ascension of Jesus' body? If something bearing the exact Biblical dimensions of Noah's Arc were found, say, at the top of Mount Ararat (where at least one claimant has "discovered Noah's Arc") with documentary evidence of someone named Noah and evidence on the ship that there were a male and female of every type of animal aboard, what would that prove? All it does is prove that someone named Jesus had twelve followers who found his burial shroud important enough to sign and keep in a safe place, and that some animal-obsessed ancient Turk named Noah flirted with navigation, respectively. And that's ALL it would prove.

What, then, precisely, was the purpose of this chapter? It seems as if it might have been to just set up another foil made in scientific ignorance, just to knock it down.

-John (hegel1066)
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Atheism Really is a Religion:

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In Chapter Five, the author tries to argue against the idea that atheism is a religion. Since his argument left me unconvinced, I will try to argue the other side. First, I will attempt to give an outline of what we call "religion," and then try to show why atheism fits into that mold. By calling atheism a religion, or trying to define it as such, my goal is not to denigrate it or demean its intellectual value. I simply mean that I think that, epistemologically speaking, both knowledge claims are categorically alike.

What is religion? Mr. Harrison cites a rather broad-minded definition popular in cultural anthropology: "religions are behaviors and ideas that are an important part of a culture." (p. 51.) I'm glad that the author included the words "of a culture" into this formulation, because this will be one of the lynchpins in my argument that atheism, in fact, is a religion. This definition indeed is a bit too broad: accepting it would have us believe that ancient Greek pottery, the Industrial Revolution, and the invention of the crossword puzzle are all religious artifacts. We know that religious claims deal with those things that cannot be sensed. So let's change the definition a bit: "Religion is a claim or set of claims about metaphysical premises that have social, cultural, and historical resonance within a society." If this proves unsatisfactory to the reader, we can always consider the definition in Random House's Unabridged Dictionary: "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies ... and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs."

So when Mr. Harrison says, "for most people, religion includes belief and atheism is, by definition, godless," (p. 51), he's only partially correct. Buddhism is a godless, but we still consider among the world's major religious traditions. Religion is constituted by an acceptance or dismissal of certain metaphysical statements. Let A be the logical claim "god or gods exist." Let ~A be its logical negation. People that believe in god will assert "A." Atheists will assert "~A." The author tries to argue that just because the atheist's religious claim is one of negation, that it's not really religious at all. But its purview (making a decision about the existence of god or gods) is religious, and so therefore is his claim. The believer makes a positive logical affirmation, and the atheist makes a negative one. This is the only difference. In the special case of agnosticism, which is not a religious claim, the person says, "I don't know what to think about A, and will therefore suspend making a judgment." Usually, an agnostic will suspend judgment because they believe they do not know enough about matters to say one way or another. (Again, I point to the etymology: agnosticism comes from the Greek suffix "a" or "ab," meaning without and "gnosis," meaning "knowledge.")

Both of the alternative definitions of religion that I gave at the end of the second paragraph hint at some sort of "societal" or "moral" code that is somehow associated with that religious belief. Let me list some that my own brand of liberal Christianity associates itself with:

- We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.

- We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.

- We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.

- We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence.

- We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences.

These sound all like lofty Christian ideals to you, don't they? They seem to me like cultural mores that have been adopted as a way of life over a period of years, and are meant to be perpetuated. They certainly strike me as such. But
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John,

Thank you very much for your interesting comments on Harrison's book. I have not yet read it but hope to. From your points it seems clear that Harrison is indeed presenting atheism as an alternative religion by arguing that theist belief systems are incoherent. Looking at fifty reasons is bound to dwell on some which are just silly or ignorant. To suggest that lame ideas are essential is a weak form of reasoning, suggesting only that coherent theology suffers by its association with incoherent views. It would be better for Harrison to engage with those reasons which are credible. For example your mention of Tillich's conception of God as the ground of our being is a deeply coherent philosophical theology, but the format of Harrison's book, more polemic than engagement, is not suited to assessment of the merits of thinkers such as Tillich.

I like atheism for its hermeneutics of suspicion, but it leaves a big gap. My reason for believing in God is that humanity is a child of the cosmos and is naturally connected to the cosmic whole. This connection is divine in nature, because the part of the universe that we connect to directly - the visible stars - is a mirror for and path to the eternal and infinite that we define as God. The problem is whether this local part of the universe is in any sense anthropic. Turning this anthropic argument around, and even leaving out any 'strong' argument that the universe loves us, we can ask whether human efforts to be cosmic, to align with the nature of the cosmos, necessarily involve a spiritual and theological dimension.

The cosmos provides the context of ultimate purpose and meaning. This context needs to be conveyed in broad mythic symbols and ideas, such as grace, love and truth, that combine the essence of the universal idea of God towards which we move to restore human integrity.
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Hegel quoted and commented:

[quote]"If any gods are real, I sincerely want to know them." (p. 19.) If you want to know them, Mr. Harrison, I politely suggest that you make yourself a student of comparative religion and religious history. (It seems to a great extent that you have already done this.) If you wish to "know" them to any greater extent, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.

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hegel1066

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Robert Tulip:

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By all means, get the book so we can begin look at it together. It sounds at least like we might be of similar mind with regard to the author's over approach. You mentioned Tillich: and I'm glad that you know of him. I mentioned to Chris in another thread that it's precisely because the author is "leaving out all the philosopical fluff" that makes his book an easier target than it would be otherwise. Anyone can set up a strawman and knock it down. That doesn't take any tremendous sense of effort or intellectual poise.

I have a feeling that most of my arguments are going to be dismissed on the basis of being too "philosophically sophisticated" because they mention people like Tillich and Kierkegaard. (I don't mean to sound conceited when I say this, and I genuinely hope it's not the case.) But if subtlety is not actively engaged with, how are we to arrive at an intellectually dynamic conclusion?

-John (hegel1066)
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Penelope:

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I don't actually think we disagree. It's just that I have to be very careful when I use the word "prayer" here where I live. People tend to understand it as "chatting with Jesus." I think both you and I would have it mean something very divergent from that.

And as far as reading religion to get closer to god ... well, I'm not sure it can take you further away, like you might have suggested. But I think I learn more from meditating about history than most things.

-John (hegel1066
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I am thinking about the prayer of the atheist:

Dear God, if there is a God...save my soul, if I've got one.

Is this like 'chatting with Jesus'?

Does it make it any less viable because we don't have the intellect to follow the philosophical discussions?

I don't pretend to know......I am just asking, as I pray, with humility.
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.

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hegel1066

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Penelope:

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Penelope:

This is the way I've heard some people pray. Seriously...

"Jesus, I'm still waiting on that set of lottery numbers to come in, but they haven't .... and my boyfriend is still unattractive, can you make him moreso?"

Thanks like that. The most superficial ridiculous things you could ever imagine.

-John (hegel1066)
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Robert
My reason for believing in God is that humanity is a child of the cosmos and is naturally connected to the cosmic whole.
As you lay down your premises I immediately see problems. No, humanity is not a child of anything. Our species is but one of millions of species currently thriving on this planet. Why do you need to call us a child of the cosmos? Are acorns and water buffalo children of the cosmos and naturally connected to the cosmic whole? What is this "cosmic whole?" And why are you able to see it and I can't?
This connection is divine in nature, because the part of the universe that we connect to directly - the visible stars - is a mirror for and path to the eternal and infinite that we define as God.
To say that this doesn't make sense would be being far too kind. This is "word salad" with absolutely no real meaning. I guess I'll wait for you to explain yourself in more detail.
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