What Mr. Hume said. (And Heather, too.) Whether believers are healthier, better behaved, better citizens, less likely to establish totalitarian dictatorships, and all the rest, are shadow questions. I think the ground where all of us on this site stand is, that supernaturalist claims are, as best our judgments can determine, extremely unlikely to be true; and further that the propensities to make such claims and believe in them have rather obvious origins in natural phenomena well documented by psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists. We agree with William James that it is an intellectual sin to believe in something for which there is insufficient evidence.
Since we’re heading into the Christmas season, here is John Betjeman’s poem “Christmas.”
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
‘The church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare —
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
It’s a lovely poem — I find Betjeman irresistible in most of his moods. The answer to the question asked in lines 31 and 37, however, is “No.”
I would surmise that the contributors of this site are trying to figure out what they agree on, just as much as the folks reading (like myself) are trying to figure out your site’s objective/purpose. Some missteps, growing pains, clarifications, etc., are expected. It is in that spirit that I continue…
I take issue with “We” if you are meaning “all” conservative atheists, rather than limiting the “We” to the authors of posts. As a conservative atheist, I’m not at all interested in passing any sort of judgment on anyone for believing in whatever they want to believe in, or using charged words like “sin” to describe how they think. All I care about is that public policy discussions/decisions are religious-neutral, focusing on facts that can be validated without religious texts as their sole source. I’m not interested in converting people from theists to atheists. I have enough trouble with theists trying to convert me that I know how it feels (and it’s pretty damned irritating most of the time), so I have NO desire to do it to others.
I think trying to take someone’s religion from them is petty, violates their privacy, and is often cruel-headed. If a woman who just lost her child finds comfort in believing that her child is now with God, I think anyone who tries to take that away from her is a jerk. Wrapping it up in intellectual guises to champion a secular search for truth doesn’t seem to be different from soul saving.
If in a few months that poor mother is considering which candidate to vote for, based on issues he or she is championing, I would hope she could set aside her belief system and focus on a religious-neutral fact system, but other than in that arena, why should we care?
I subscribe to Jefferson’s take on the matter:
If, for example, we were discussing the concept of adultery laws, a religious person might argue the case from the perspective of the Judeo/Christian tenet which says that adultery is a sin, and might base their decision on that issue solely because of that (and that’s FINE). If, however, they wish to get other people (who do not share their religious beliefs, or do not base their public policy decisions on their religion) to agree with their take, then they will have to frame the argument with non-religious information. That evidence might include information about how we weaken the respect for law and contracts when we do not enforce them, if civil marriage has default clauses (such as adultery) in which the guilty party forfeits assets if they commit that act. We could also discuss the long term effects on an ordered society where there are no consequences for infidelity (and the harm it causes society, the spouse, and the children). It is the latter that I want to get to and where we might be able to attract others to conservatism. It is the religious aspects of the discussion that tend to alienate those who might otherwise agree with our informed opinions, but the religious aspect of the discussion is putting them off.
This site isn’t about reforming the world into one of exclusively non-believers is it? It’s beginning to read that way, intended or not.
This site isn’t about reforming the world into one of exclusively non-believers is it? It’s beginning to read that way, intended or not.
Since we have explicitly disavowed this intention SEVERAL TIMES, NO. You’re exegesis is off….
mrsdutoit: Hear, hear!
I think atheists are often dismissive of other people’s opinions (and I plead guilty to that myself). In fact, the habitual mode of thought of many atheists is to regard the religious in the same way that conservatives in general think of liberals: as dumb but not necessarily evil.
However, just because it is habitual, does not make it right, and I entirely agree with you that the purpose of this site should not be to try to convince the religious that they are wrong, and should all become atheists. That program is pointless and doomed to defeat. Let Harris, Dennett, Hitchens and Dawkins waste their time on that project.
What the site should concentrate on is finding common ground with the religious conservatives on policy issues, supporting the rights of religious conservatives against the zealots on the atheist side who object to such harmless traditions as nativity scenes on public property and voluntary school prayer.
Also, a private request, make if funny. Can we get Steyn to post here? (I know he isn’t an atheist, but he sure has a very secular sense of humor!)
It is the religious aspects of the discussion that tend to alienate those who might otherwise agree with our informed opinions, but the religious aspect of the discussion is putting them off.
Adultery can have separate religious arguments against it, but there might be problems with people of various religions making these arguments simultaneously. Even though the are concurrent, the use of particular symbolic markers (e.g., “cuz the Bible says so” vs. “cuz the Vedas says so”) can reduce unanimity. Public reason isn’t only for secular people.
Whoever said it was? I, in fact have said at least twice that there is no prospect of success in such a venture.
Like any other blog, the point of the site is to argue about topics of common interest, and to sound off.
Does mrsdutoit think I go round jeering at bereaved mothers? For heaven’s sake.
I did just get back from a trip to K-Mart, though, and saw and overheard a lot of K-Mart shoppers, average IQ I’d guess around 85. There’s an awful lot of clueless ignorance out there, a lot of people who’d struggle with a 3-line syllogism. Smart people have a social responsibility: to try to figure out what’s true and what isn’t, and to make our conclusions known. Not in socially inappropriate situations, but in, like, you know, blogs and such.
When William James spoke of something being an “intellectual sin,” he wasn’t consigning anyone to hellfire, in which he didn’t believe (probably — I find him a bit shifty about his own actual beliefs), just that he’d think less of someone who did that thing. So would I.
I’m not sure what bit of James you’re referring to, but in his famous talk ‘The Will To Believe’, James explicitly *rejects* the idea that it’s wrong to believe something on insufficient evidence. Discussing a passage from Clifford that ends with the famous line, “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence,” James writes:
“Believe nothing, [Clifford] tells us, keep your mind in suspense forever, rather than by closing it on insufficient evidence incur the awful risk of believing lies. […] I myself find it impossible to go with Clifford. We must remember that these feelings of our duty about either truth or error are in any case only expressions of our passional life. Biologically considered, our minds are as ready to grind out falsehood as veracity, and he who says, “Better go without belief forever than believe a lie!” merely shows his own preponderant private horror of becoming a dupe. He may be critical of many of his desires and fears, but this fear he slavishly obeys. He cannot imagine any one questioning its binding force. For my own part, I have also a horror of being duped; but I can believe that worse things than being duped may happen to a man in this world: so Clifford’s exhortation has to my ears a thoroughly fantastic sound. It is like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of battle forever than to risk a single wound. Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained. Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf. At any rate, it seems the fittest thing for the empiricist philosopher.” (http://falcon.jmu.edu/~omearawm/ph101willtobelieve.html)
Geoff: You are quite right. I was working from memory, always hazardous. I have just looked up Richard Rorty’s “Religious Faith, Intellectual Responsibility, and Romance” in The Cambridge Companion to William James, where the business is aired. I don’t know how I got the Clifford and James views mixed up, and apologize to the James estate. I do believe the thing I said James believed, though, in the sense I defined up above — that I’d think less of a person who could not or would not apply ordinary evidentiary standards to matters he thought important.
Then I’ll take my eisegesis in for a tune up.
You can say this site isn’t about that, but if the majority of the posts/comments are bashing religious people and arguing how inferior the religious are (or, by contrast, how superior atheists are with quotes about it being a “sin” to the intellect to be otherwise), you’re not going to win any friends in the religious category.
We in the minority, as atheists, know what we want (a secular discussion of issues), but we’re not the ones we’re trying to convince.
I don’t think anyone’s addressed the issue whether there is a difference between truth and utility when it comes to a belief. In the short-term, you can pull off the con, especially if you’re dealing with people who want to believe. However, the truth eventually comes out, so even the prettiest and most beneficial lie will lose its ability to deceive.
Think of it this way: say it could be proved with mathematical certainty that belief in the Ptolemaic universe made for perfect human behavior. For some odd reason, let us pretend, people always become saints when they believe their world is the center of the universe. All good and wonderful, but eventually someone will figure out the truth, that the earth moves (as indeed happened), and the whole structure will come down.
So we’re back where we started. Thus it is with any religious belief. No matter how noble the lie may be, a lie it remains, and one fine day it will be shown as such. Thus, any good behavior procured by the lie will die too.
The best you can say of the utility argument, aside from pure apologetics, is that it’s a stall, not a vindication.
need a lawyer?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81459
@Bradlaugh
Iirc Varieities of Religious Experience is little concened with the empirical validity of religious doctrines. The point for James is the impact of ‘religious’ experiences on individual lives and on history. Irrespective of whether Scrooge’s visions were supernatural or due to something he ate, his life was transformed.
A political program which cannot be justified in secular terms is likely to do more harm than good. On the other hand, national elections are not won by cerebral argumentation.
‘Necessary but not sufficient.’
Did somebody reference Scrooge? In a Bradlaugh thread? Scrooge? Bradlaugh? Scrooge/Bradlaugh? SbCrRaOdOlGaEugh?
As for the I.Q. of K-Mart shoppers…
This is a better way to judge intelligence: You’re in a locked cage, you’re given no food; hanging from the top of the cage, out-of-reach, is a basket of food; in the corner of the cage is a table and a chair. Now, if you’re intelligent you will move the table under the hanging basket, put the chair on top of the table, climb up and get the food.
The average Obama-voting Republican self-declared ‘elitist’ would probably starve. They might get the ‘put the table under the basket’ part, but they’d never figure out the ‘put the chair on top of the table.’
K-Mart shoppers figure out that move in big-box type stores every day. “Get that thing over there [ladder with platform on wheels]. Now I will stand on it and lift you up, and you grab that last toaster-oven up there, OK? Before the store police see us!”
” There’s an awful lot of clueless ignorance out there, a lot of people who’d struggle with a 3-line syllogism. Smart people have a social responsibility: to try to figure out what’s true and what isn’t, and to make our conclusions known. Not in socially inappropriate situations, but in, like, you know, blogs and such.”
Who knows, maybe it’s mrsdutoit’s responsibility to nudge you gently out of the intellectual beltway. Cluelessness is not confined to the ignorant, and the truths you establish to your own satisfaction won’t just trickle down to Walmart if you only engage your peers.
Since truth telling is supposedly the name of the game here, I’ll just say that if I had to pick a good neighbor, I’d take the Walmart guy every time. His I.Q. may be half of mine, but he’s going to be here with his chainsaw when the tree falls across my driveway, and if he asks me to offer up a prayer on his behalf, I won’t be wasting time deciding whether that would represent a moral compromise that will do him more harm than good.