Feb
14
Atheism, explained
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February 14th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Believers and nonbelievers alike often get caught in a category error when discussing religion. Trying to evaluate religious truth claims through the lens of science is a category error because faith is a transrational activity.
But science has been so effective at both explaining the natural world and selling itself as the One Way to know anything that since Enlightenment positivism many — even people of faith — have bought into the notion that science is the only respectable way of understanding the world. Nineteenth century Christian evangelicals, threatened by science’s march towards demythologizing the natural world (and by Darwin, specifically), worried that God would be its next victim. They responded not by vigorously reasserting the ineffable nature of religious experience, but by claiming biblical inerrancy. Where science and the Bible disagreed, science was in error. But this reduces a sacred text to a mere textbook. In essence, they conceded to playing for the hearts and minds of men on the field of scientific rationalism and distilled out of their faith much of the essence that had made it compelling for two millennia.
That was and continues to be a mistake. The result is day-age and gap theory, flood geology and creation science.
Their existence — and insistence — doesn’t make it any easier for nonbelievers just as much in the thrall of science to appreciate religious experience as anything beyond irrational nonsense. Yet they are just as much in the grip of the category error. If faith were rational, it wouldn’t be faith. And any believer who insists that his or her faith is rational isn’t doing it right.
February 14th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
He’s a witch burn him!
February 14th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
February 15th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Is this “atheism explained” or one person’s logical approach to letting go of the ‘god fantasy’?
Regardless, its a good series. Thanks for putting it up.
++++++
I agree with Tom. Religion signed its ‘notice of antiquity’ when it, specifically christianity, decided to go “toe-to-toe” with science, believing god wouldn’t let science prove the “infallible” text and authorities wrong. Galileo was just the beginning.
Look who turned out to be misinformed. Should be enough to show that the whole kit & kaboddle are less than ‘divine’ but people do love their stories.(and their source for bigotry, self-righteousness, violence, etc.)
February 15th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Um, how is that “agreeing” with Tom?
February 15th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
She blinded me with science.
People spend a lot of time and effort (money and study too) in pursuit of orgasms. And orgasms aren’t rational. They aren’t supposed to be. But we don’t ridicule them for that. Complaining that a nonrational experience isn’t rational kinda misses the point, doesn’t it? Like with religion or art.
Some believers invite ridicule by trying to have their religious experience and call it science too. And it doesn’t help that there’s a denomination called Christian Science.
As a priest friend asks, “Why is it that the people who talk about faith the most seem to understand it the least?” But that lack of understanding extends to people who consider religious experience worthless because it’s not scientific.
Blinded by science much?
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February 16th, 2010 at 12:41 am
The Quakers have an answer to the problems found in the bible: the truth is higher than the book…… and God’s truth is still being revealed.
My work and education is firmly in science, and I have experienced God’s presence in my life. I don’t have a problem with the Christian Scientists, although I don’t agree with them. I don’t have a problem with people not believing in God either – if they never experienced it, how would they know? (how would you know what an orgasm is like if you never experienced that?)…. but I do have a problem with religious folks who want to turn God into the Great Personnel Manager in the Sky, or who throw out science and rational thought and critical thinking for a belief system not grounded in anything.
oh, and I have a problem who think their religion is the ‘one true way’ and that they have some kind of superiority over others because of their beliefs. That is beyond silly.
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February 16th, 2010 at 8:45 am
Orgasms aren’t rational? I guess I missed the announcement.
From where I stand, an orgasm is as ‘rational’ as a brightly colored flower is to a bee or hummingbird. In the animal world the need to procreate is as ‘rational’ a concept as the need to eat or sleep.
Maybe this is the crux. From a religious standpoint, anything can be said to be rational or irrational through the blurry lens of faith and institution. Bottom line: Faith in Religion(belief in supernatural with no proof) is irrational and is incapable of being a starting point for understanding the irrational or rational.
If we want to understand the rational of sensory experiences maybe a new ‘standard’, outside of religion, should be sought?
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February 17th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
But there are a number of things that we’re asked to take on faith in order to simply function as human beings – not least of which is that our own thoughts and perceptions of the world have some rational basis, and bear some kind of consistent relation to the reality around us.
That necessary faith raises two fundamental questions about science – “what do your data in fact refer to?” and “what is the ultimate ground of the assumptions you make based on them?” Those two, along with the other biggie (“and remind me why I should care, again?”) aren’t just raised by Christians, or even by people of faith in general. I think quite a few atheists – Michel Foucault comes to mind – would probably laugh at the idea that science frees anyone from “the blurry lens of faith and institution.”
Moreover, I think that most people of faith would suggest that they do approach God in a rational manner – not in the sense that they offer rational proofs of God’s existence, but in the sense that they are prepared to listen to others’ experiences of the divine and amend their concepts of the deity accordingly. Indeed, that’s one of the reasons religious communities like churches exist – because people of faith understand that their individual experience is entirely subjective and almost impossible to disentangle from their own egos.
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February 17th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Beautifully said, Doug.
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