The Atheist (update)

Due to expert editorial advice for which I am most grateful, all updates follow the post at the end.

Yesterday Janna suggested I read The Atheist, an interview with Richard Dawkins by Gordy Slack. I did. I cannot find the words to describe how excited I was to read the things Dawkins had to say. In this evangelical, fundamentalist world of America lately I have been feeling so alone, sometimes desperate, and often concerned. Much of what Richard Dawkins said in this interview are ideas I have been thinking, or voicing quietly (sometimes passionately) alone to Tom in the confines of our personal living space.  I feel validated and hopeful.

For example, in reply to "Still, so many people resist believing in evolution. Where does this resistance come from?" Dawkins replied:

It comes, I'm sorry to say, from religion. And from bad religion. You won't find any opposition to the idea of evolution among sophisticated, educated theologians. It comes from an exceedingly retarded primitive version of religion, which unfortunately is at present undergoing an epidemic in the United States. Not in Europe, not in Britain, but in the United States. My American friends tell me that you are slipping towards a theocratic Dark Age. Which is very disagreeable for the very large number of educated, intelligent and right-thinking people in America. Unfortunately, at present, it's slightly outnumbered by the ignorant, uneducated people who voted Bush in. But the broad direction of history is toward enlightenment, and so I think that what America is going through at the moment will prove to be a temporary reverse. I think there is great hope for the future. My advice would be, Don't despair, these things pass.

Gordy Slack asked: "Fifty years ago, philosophers like Bertrand Russell felt that the religious worldview would fade as science and reason emerged. Why hasn't it?"

That trend toward enlightenment has indeed continued in Europe and Britain. It just has not continued in the US. and not in the Islamic world. We're seeing a rather unholy alliance between the burgeoning theocracy in the U.S. and its allies, the theocrats in the Islamic world. They are fighting the same battle: Christian on the one side, Muslim on the other. The very large numbers of people in the United States and in Europe who don't subscribe to that worldview are caught in the middle. Actually, holy alliance would be a better phrase. Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional "next world" is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.

On the child mind and raising children in a religious tradition ... as a form of abuse [Ah - Janna knew I would adore this answer!], Dawkins replied:

From a biological point of view, there are lots of different theories about why we have this extraordinary predisposition to believe in supernatural things. One suggestion is that the child mind is, for very good Darwinian reasons, susceptible to infection the same way a computer is. In order to be useful, a computer has to be programmable, to obey whatever it's told to do. That automatically makes it vulnerable to computer viruses, which are programs that say, "Spread me, copy me, pass me on." Once a viral program gets started, there is nothing to stop it. Similarly, the child's brain is preprogrammed by natural selection to obey and believe what parents and other adults tell it. In general, it's a good thing that child brains should be susceptible to being taught what to do and what to believe by adults. But this necessarily carries the down side that bad ideas, useless ideas, waste of time ideas like rain dances and other religious customs, will also be passed down the generations. The child brain is very susceptible to this kind of infection. And it also spreads sideways by cross infection when a charismatic preacher goes around infecting new minds that were previously uninfected.

What I think may be abuse is labeling children with religious labels like Catholic child and Muslim child. It think it very odd that in our civilization we're quite happy to speak of a Catholic child that is 4 years old or a Muslim child that is is 4, when these children are much too young to know what they think about the cosmos, life and morality. We wouldn't dream of speaking of a Keynesian child or a Marxist child. An yet, for some reason we make a privileged exception of religion. And, by the way, I think it would also be abuse to talk about an atheist child.

And finally, in answer to How would we better off without religion?

We'd all be free to concentrate on the only life we are ever going to have. We'd be free to exult in the privilege - the remarkable good fortune - that each one of us enjoys through having been born. An astronomically overwhelming majority of the people who could be born never will be. You are one of the tiny minority whose number came up. Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. The world would be a better place if we all had this positive attitude to life. It would also be a better place if morality was all about doing good to others and refraining from hurting them, rather than religion's morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment.

and the scientific worldview?

... the scientific worldview is a poetic worldview, it is almost a transcendental worldview. We are amazingly privileged to be born at all and to be granted a few decades - before we die forever - in which we can understand, appreciate and enjoy the universe. And those of us fortunate enough to be living today are even more privileged than those of earlier times. We have the benefit of those earlier centuries of scientific exploration. Through no talent of our own, we have the privilege of knowing far more than past centuries. Aristotle would be blown away by what any schoolchild could tell him today. And the fact that my life is finite, and that it's the only life I've got, makes me all the more eager to get up each morning and set about the business of understanding more about the world into which I am so privileged to have been born.

Of course, there is so much more that he has to say about religious extremism and violence, evolution, delusion, belief in God and, even, "intelligent design."

And so, to conclude my past "meme" I add another question: Which book will you buy next? and reply:

I already did (through RLC's Amazon link) - The Blind Watchmaker, by Richard Dawkins.

(didn't you, Pure Land Mountain?)

__________________________________________________________________

Updates:

Over at True Ancestor is more. I particularly love this:

But in the meantime, knowledge -- not just knowledge of one's own "beliefs," but literacy in more than one philosophical and religious system of thought -- knowledge, not belief -- is the best medicine.

See my comment to Danny over at Amba. I thought it would go well here too:

Danny, This has been a great discussion, I agree. Thanks for letting me know that I haven't offended anyone. I knew that Dawkins would have an affect on people because he sounds so harsh, unrelenting and radical. I have been honored that you all have shared your views so totally and completely. But more than that, it forced me to try and clarify what it is *I* think and feel about all of this. And I am happy to say that I still am "wandering" and don't feel "lost." I know that puts me at risk for all the sides and "isms" and "ists" to grab me for *their* camp. However, I love that people share with me what they believe and feel about stuff because that enhances the human connection and relationships - i.e. the more I know about you the more I can share about me. I guess using Dawkins to shield me, was a tad provocative. I have suffered from an extreme purist education and for now I need to bend towards confusion and against absolute truths.

I have not mistaken passion for anger in this discussion and do not lump you in with friends and colleagues who have been wanting me to take on their faith. Oh Danny, you are the least smug person I have ever had the good fortune to meet.

And why don't we get all riled up about Doris Day and Waltons, I wonder!

Danny's comment (to which I replied above) is here.

Blaugustine has an answer for us ... here

This just in - an e-mail from a friend:

You wrote on your blog: "In this evangelical, fundamentalist world of America lately I have been feeling so alone, sometimes desperate, and often concerned." Have you read this article (from NYT Magazine, Jan. 2001)? "The Bush Years; Confessions of a Lonely Atheist", By Natalie Angier
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20010114mag-atheism.html

You're not alone, but you're certainly in the minority.

Also of interest (especially the tables-- note how low the US ranked in evolution knowledge, and I think this was before the more recent pushes to remove evolution from the science curriculum): "What Americans Really Believe And Why Faith Isn't As Universal As They Think"
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/bishop_19_3.html

And a family member sent this e-mail right now:

You know me. I don't have to read it all to know whether I agree with you or anyone else there. As soon as I see the word "God" in any news report, as in "my commitment before God to her was the day I bought that ring and put it on her finger, and I'm not backing down from that, Mason said," I go SOUTH! I can't bear to read any more, because I feel like I can't believe fully anything else the person says. The most sacrilegious use of "God" is when there's been some big tragedy, like a tsunami or a train crash or something and someone survived out of dozens and you hear "God wanted him to live" or some other [stuff]. What about the rest? God DIDN'T want them to live? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM? Do you have an answer for that? If so, please write it in the space provided below.

Plus, check out Amba's viewpoint:

it makes you feel weary and depressed, as you sink into the barren, shell pocked quicksand of the DMZ between fundamentalist religion and dogmatic scientism, each in its own way so literal-minded. In that DMZ a subtler truth, at once scientific and mystical, keeps trying to take root, but every time it rears its head it's mistaken by each side for the other.

There's more here.

Comments

[david]

**Sigh**

I cannot tell you how depressed I am by what this guy has to say. For longer than any of us can imagine, the human being has had some kind of extrasensory perception of the larger forces that brought him into being. Let's say that the way we express that awareness, and try to force it upon others, is primitive. Let's grant that.

That would just be calling it a necessary step in our evolution, wouldn't it? Wasn't our every concept and advancement germinated under primitive conditions? And haven't any advancements come as a result of the forces of our human and planetary environment **forcing** us to adapt?

So why dismiss religion altogether? Why presume, or wish, to be able to do so? Why not see it as another something that's unique to us because it is an evolutionary opportunity -- a tool that, like any tool, can be used to destroy as well as to build, and that must advance in order to reach its full potential?

This extends to the political: would an atheist political regime be any better than, or substantially different from, a fundamentalist one?

This guy's views appear to me to be about as fraught with rigid viewpoint and unverifiable dogma as any Cardinal's or Baptist preacher's. Or many rabbis.

Our worst sin, the biggest impediment to our evolution, isn't our religions. It's that aspect of our being -- which spreads across all human disciplines, not just the religious -- that needs everyone else to adhere to the beliefs and systems upon which we each have staked our own identities.

[Tamar]

Oh I agree David that "the biggest impediment to our evolution ... it's that aspect of our being -- which spreads across all human disciplines, not just the religious -- that needs everyone else to adhere to the beliefs and systems upon which we each have staked our own identities." As an atheist I have religion thrust at me from every side and I have to be very careful stating my beliefs without being almost called a heretic. But let Dawkins respond here because you are questioning what he says and probably saddened by me in that I feel validated by what he is saying.

About "God Delusion" he says: A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence. Religion is scarcely distinguishable from childhood delusions like the imaginary friend and the bogeyman under the bed. Unfortunately, the God delusion possesses adults, and not just a minority of unfortunates in an asylum. The word "delusion" also carries negative connotations and religion has plenty of those ... [being] ...

A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means, which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

But you don't do that if you just know your holy book is the God-written truth and the other guys knows that his incompatible scripture is too. People brought up to believe in faith and revelation cannot be persuaded by evidence to change their minds. No wonder religious zealots throughout history have resorted to torture and execution, crusades and jihads, to holy wars and purges and pogroms, to the Inquisition and the burning of witches.

"The dark sides of religion today," according to Dawkins are:

Terrorism in the Middle East, militant Zionism, 9/11, the Northern Ireland "troubles," genocide, which turns out to be "credicide" in Yugoslavia, the subversion of American science education, oppression of women in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and the Roman Catholic Church, which thinks you can't be a valid priest without testicles.

David, when you say: "For longer than any of us can imagine, the human being has had some kind of extrasensory perception of the larger forces that brought him into being," couldn't that also be our child-mind unable to face that we just don't know what it all is yet, and there still is much to be learned, discovered, understood?

Besides, I love how Dawkins says: "the world would be a better place if ... morality was all about doing good to others and refraining from hurting them rather than religion's morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment."

[david]

Tamar:

1) The two religions I know a little something about -- Zen Buddhism and Judaism -- do not at all rail against "morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment." Sexual enjoyment -- under circumstances that do not hurt anyone -- are central to Buddhism. Sexual enjoyment -- under circumstances that celebrate life, albeit in a very utilitarian way -- are central to Judaism. Private sin seems to me a distinctly Christian preoccupation, and to ascribe this neurosis to all religions would be, if it were an observation applied to any individual ethnic group, an expression of blatant racism.

2) We could argue all day about whether there is "evidence" for the presence of the Divine in our lives. The mere fact that we can argue about the existence of evidence means one or the other of us may be mistaken. For one of us to say the other is suffering from "delusion" is delusion itself, suffused with arrogance.

3) The complex but unavoidable truth is that, even while religion has propagated the evils you list, it has also been the midwife and most insistent guardian of morality. The evils you list don't even begin to touch the sins or religion. But it doesn't even try to imagine the ills of lack of religion, to which one might ascribe the Holocaust, Columbine, corporate greed, the sufferings behind the Iron Curtain, drug abuse, gang warfare, and narcoterrorism, just to scratch the surface. The human animal always has had a unique talent for corrupting its most brilliant ideas. Morality in the absence of the Divine is completely relative -- in fact, in the absence of the Divine --even if it's only a childish delusion -- morality as we know it does not even exist.

4) Does Dawkins mean to suggest that no good scientist has religious beliefs? Or that no person of "faith" (an oft-misunderstood word) cannot adhere to and appreciate scientific principles? This is absurd.

In no way do I agree with anyone who begins a sentence with "The world would be a better place if..." and ends it with a blanket statement about wishing away one of the things that makes humanity unique -- even if that thing is sometimes corrupted. To me, wishing away anything uniquely human is not only futile whining, but, in failing to recognize the very similarities between its own views and those it derides, and to appreciate the differences -- and the origins of those differences promise the most interesting discoveries: are they borne of culture, vocabulary, even brain structure? -- is in itself corrupt.

[Tamar]

No, David, he does not suggest that no person of faith cannot adhere to and appreciate scientific principles. In the beginning I quoted him as saying: "You won't find any opposition to the idea of evolution among sophisticated, educated theologians." When you say "wishing away anything uniquely human" are you refering to how he says: "religion's morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment?" Because that is the context of his prefering the world to be without.

You say: "Morality in the absence of the Divine is completely relative." I say the concept of the divine is completely relative. And I think that morality does and can exist in the absence of the divine. I do agree that "We could argue all day about whether there is 'evidence' for the presence of the Divine in our lives."

The context of "delusion" for Dawkins is in a rational sense: i.e. "A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence." He is not being offensive when he uses that terminology. That is to say, he is not calling *you* delusional. I don't think he is being arrogant - just rational. And if he is sounding arrogant, it is no more than the religious arrogance out there being hurled at people who prefer not to believe in a god and don't usually say how they feel for fear of the terrible wrath it incurs. In fact, Gordy Slack opens his interview by saying: "Richard Dawkins is the world's most famous out-of-the-closet living atheist." People who come out of closets have great courage, I think!

The list that I made was Dawkins' and yes there is a lot of evil outside of religion as well. I agree with you about that. And I can certainly see how you would think he is being racist when it comes to Buddhism and Judaism although Christians don't agree with him either re: private sin and shame about sexual pleasure.

[david]

1) No, Tamar. When I am referring to something uniquely human, I am referring to a search for a unifying principle, a code of conduct and a source of origin larger than our rationality. I am talking about religion.
2) If you do agree that we could argue about the presence of the Divine in our lives, then why wish to dispense with it? Or with religion, which seeks it? All we're talking about -- or all I'm talking about -- in using the word "religion" is a systematized search for truths bearing on the origins of, ethics of and reasons for our existence.
3) It's not for you to judge whether he's being offensive or not. I'm offended. To say there's not a scrap of evidence for the Divine is widely disagreed with -- even by you, when you concur that we could argue about whether such evidence exists.
4) Let's lay off the "na-na-na-boo-boo" stuff. Of course his arrogance is no worse than that of the pompously pious, nor of his other co-religionists (that's what they are). That in no way excuses his bigoted and, it seems, uninformed view of the complexity, the diversity and the utility of the systematized searching of religion or the hunger of the spirit.

People who come out of the closet do have courage. Some of them are bigots.

[Danny]

I certainly believe that in many ways this country seems headed back to the Dark Ages and that religious extremism is at the root of much of the world's misery. But "fundamentalist atheists" make me squirm just as much (not you, Tamar, you are the most spiritual atheist I know!).

Arguments like the ones excerpted here only convince me that this guy is painting with way too broad a brush, thus diluting his points at every turn. But maybe that's the only way to get people's attention and I know it's unfair of me to comment on something without knowing the full context.

I think there is a world of difference between the kind of "I am right, you are wrong" extremism that produces the ills he outlines and BELIEF in general. My eyes involuntarily roll into my head when I hear hear people dismiss all beliefs that can't be "proven" by "evidence." Oy, I could never live like that. What evidence? At that point why should even the evidence be "believed?" That need seems like just as dangerous a form of extremism to me! I think it can be the height of human maturity to reach for beliefs and understandings that go beyond what we can "prove."

I've met many self-described religious folks in my life, including the miserably intolerant and dangerous variety, but the ones that I always feel are the most "religious" are the people who have no interest in converting others to their beliefs but for whom their faith adds an incredible richness to their lives and the lives of everyone they come in contact with. I don't mean to sound defensive (but I'm sure I do) because I love reading such provocative stuff that makes me think about where I stand. I understand that declaring yourself as an atheist must not always seem comfortable or safe these days so I can see why reading these views would provide some relief for you.

I think so many of these words have been polluted by misuse--I bet we're all hearing very different things when the word "religion" is used. I guess I'm just saying that I am very cautious of the religious fundamentalism that can often exist in an anti-religious worldview! You know what I think about Bush and the religous right, but I wouldn't necessarily breathe a sigh of relief if an atheist became president (fat chance of that!). Jimmy Carter would probably be considered a religous fundamentalist by many but I suggest that his beliefs are the type that can help, not hinder, a person's sense of responsibility and his or her understanding of the world. (Does it sound like I'm saying that religious people are okay only if I agree with their politics?)

This guy is presenting such a one-sided and small view of religious belief. The religion I follow, for example, while obsessed with many things, is NOT obsessed with "private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment." If anything, Judaism places a lot of importance of both partners being sexually satisfied.

I also happen to believe that we do experience "lives" other than the ones we're living now and while I don't need anyone else to share that point of view, it is such a turn-off to hear people state as an indisputable fact that this is the only life we're ever going to have. How is that belief any less rigid than the ones held by people who think atheists are "wrong" for not believing in God? I'd like to read more about this guy but in truth I'd rather read YOUR book on atheism, Tamar! Maybe you should write one--but only AFTER your next Heinemann book!

[Tamar]

David, Dawkins talks mainly about evolution versus the divine. He is coming at it from a purely scientific perspective. Therefore he is not putting his argument forward as "excuses." He has a right to believe that if there is no evidence of the divine it is delusional in the rational sense. He does not say there is no hunger in the human spirit to explore, learn and discover. He says about scientists this:

When you meet a scientist who calls himself or herself religious, you'll often find that ... by "religious" they do not mean anything supernatural. They mean precisely the kind of emotional response to the natural world as [the intellectual enterprise of exploring the story of life on Earth}. Einstein had it very strongly. Unfortunately he used the word "God" to describe it, which has led to a great deal of misunderstanding. But Einstein had that feeling, I have that feeling, you'll find it in the writings of many scientists. It's a kind of quasi-religious feeling. And there are those who wish to call it religious and who therefore are annoyed when a scientist calls himself an atheist. They think, "No, you believe in this transcendental feeling, you can't be an atheist." That's a confusion of language.

[Tamar]

Ah Danny, you are giving away my "spiritual atheism" eh?

Dawkins, to be fair, writes a lot about evolution and I did not quote him here on that. He writes that in terms of the "evidence" and "proof" as well.

I, too, have met many self-described religious people in my life whose beliefs have enriched and enhanced their lives wonderfully - I write about them in my book as having major influence in my growing years as I was forming my identity - most of them Christian, actually. But I have also met people who do not ascribe to religion in the way you or David are talking about but in the way Dawkins is, and they were just as enriched, moral, responsible, kind and compassionate. Am thinking of Charlie as I say this.

For Dawkins, religion as a belief in a god, is delusional in the rational sense. He compares it to a "teapot in orbit around Mars." (now don't start yelling at me!) Dawkins goes on to say:

It's said that the only rational stance is agnosticism because you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the supernatural creator. I find that a weak position. It is true that you can't disprove anything but you can put a probability value on it. There's an infinite number of things that you can't disprove: unicorns, werewolves, and teapots in orbit around Mars. But we don't pay any heed to them unless there is some positive reason to think that they do exist.

For a long time it seemed clear to just about everybody that the beauty and elegance of the world seemed to be prima facie evidence for a divine creator. But the philosopher David Hume already realized three centuries ago that this was a bad argument. It leads to an infinite regression. You can't statistically explain improbable things like living creatures by saying that they must have been designed because you are still left to explain the designer, who must be, if anything, an even more statistically improbable and elegant thing. Design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything. It can only be a proximate explanation. A plane or car is explained by a designer but that's because the designer himself, the engineer, is explained by natural selection.

Dawkins goes on:
There is just no evidence for the existence of God. Evolution by natural selection is a process that works up from simple beginnings and simple beginnings are easy to explain. The engineer or any other living thing is difficult to explain - but it is explicable by evolution by natural selection. So the relevance of evolutionary biology to atheism is that evolutionary biology gives us the only known mechanism whereby the illusion of design, or apparent design, could ever come into the universe anywhere.

[Danny]

Why does the word "rational" get my goat so? I can't help wincing every time I read it in this discussion including the comment that "belief in a god is delusional in the rational sense." What is this so-called "rational sense"—this world where things are real because we can "prove" that they are? Again, I posit that this in itself is a kind of fantasy.

I was intrigued by this notion of "spiritual atheism" and discovered through a quick search that it is a concept adopted by many Unitarian Universalist churches. The first one that came up in Google states on its website that "there is no reason to believe in a god, higher power, designer or creator of the universe and life. Such belief only confounds and corrupts connection with the natural order of things." And that Jesus "is a poor example of morality and ethics." Oy.

I agree that the move to get evolution out of the textbooks or presented as a theory is an alarming sign of the current power of the religious right in this country.

[Tamar]

Yes, I think rational is a tough word that has associations with perfect clarity and cold rigidity. A stereotype of science as if emotion is not part of it. I think of it more in the sense of reason and not made of myths or fantasy.

Interesting what you discovered about "spiritual atheism" and that you found it in the Unitarian Universalist Church of which I once was a member for a few years! The one I belonged to did not talk of Jesus in that manner at all. The sermons were intellectual in nature and explored all the best philosophical and theological ideas of all the world's religions with great respect.

This statement of Dawkins: "And the fact that my life is finite, and that it's the only life I've got, makes me all the more eager to get up each morning and set about the business of understanding more about the world into which I am so privileged to have been born," doesn't make me feel he is arrogant or unemotional or against transcendental feelings about "the intellectual enterprise of exploring the story of life on Earth."

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

I'm with David and Danny here. Scientists who oppose religion usually oppose a caricature of religion, a straw man with a white beard sitting on a cloud, disapproving of sex and fighting against the laws of nature. And their view of design is so simplistic -- because it's based on the metaphor of the automobile designer, the rocket designer, not the artist. God has much more in common with the latter. (Norman Mailer, in a recent talk here in Austin, called God an "imperfect artist." I would say that, perfect or not, God is a self-evolving artist who continually refines and revises his work. (And so do car and rocket designers, actually, if you look at their process over a long timespace.)) He's not working from an immutable blueprint that was thought up all at once 15 billion years ago and remains locked in place. No designer works like that.

In fact, Tamar, your view of some universal transcendentalism and Dawkins' enthusiasm for the miracle (though he doesn't use that term) of being alive are much closer to religion than the primitive cultism that Dawkins opposes. Einstein once said somewhere that there are two possible ways of looking at the universe: as if everything is a miracle or as if nothing is a miracle. I choose the former. And it's not a matter of proof through evidence. How do we decide what constitutes evidence? I think the fact that we're here, doing this, is evidence. We can spend a lifetime refusing the obvious, like children refusing their cereal. That's a kind of child mind too.

William James, I think, is a lot better guide on these matters than Dawkins. And as far as European secularism is concerned, that's a culture that is currently in the process of reasonably lying down so it can be trampled to death by the unreasonable.

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

I meant timespan, not timespace.

[Tamar]

Richard,
"How do we decide what constitutes evidence? I think the fact that we're here, doing this, is evidence."

Yeah! For me human connection and relationships is wherein my "spirituality" lies.

I respect your, Danny's and David's faith even though I am sure each of you believe and value different things in different ways and with differing degrees of complexity.

Here I will reiterate part of my comment that I posted over at Amba's today for those who won't get there in the hopes that you are able to respect my view, as misguided as you may believe it is:

As I said at Amba:

I was amused by the story you tell of your friends trying to convince you that there is no god. I was amused because the reverse has been happening to me so much lately. Not only from the media, our administration and colleagues at the end of my presentations. But really close friends have been begging me to see the light - to believe in an afterlife and they *all* are convinced they have been with me in a former life, even though their religious beliefs differ. In a way it has been touching and flattering because they truly care about me and want what is best for me. Plus I understand that they have found something really wonderful that has enriched their lives and they want to share it with me. They don't come at it in arrogance or a "holier than thou" manner as your friends seem to have done. I usually sit quietly and listen. I even attend their churches, synagogues or whatever they are into. I chant with them, and accept that this is where they are in their lives, feelings, ideas. I am even happy for them that they are happy. But there just seems to be so little respect for my view or, even, any interest in if I have a different view at all. And if I do talk about it (and I seldom do with friends) there seems to be so much anger at me.

A blogger friend once wrote this to me:
"I seem to be in a minority on this, most particularly now during America's trend toward Christian McCarthyism, but I believe one's faith, religion or lack thereof, to be at least as personal as one's sexual practices and for anyone to try to persuade another to his/her beliefs without being invited is out of human bounds. I don't have a lot of rules about other people's behavior, but that is one I don't tolerate and have been known to be quite 'un Christian' in my response."

I guess I agree with that blogger about this except that I am more accepting when people come at me with religion. Like the time I wrote to my colleague who had given me a bible:
http://tamarika.typepad.com/in_and_out_of_confidence/2005/02/today_i_was_rea.html

I guess my post on Dawkins was offensive to some people and I am truly sorry about that. It was not my intention. As my friend wrote to me in my "update" today, I am in the minority and perhaps have been hiding frightened in the closet. My "coming out" might have been a shock to some. But I'm not a bigot, even though some people have suggested that some people who come out of closets are bigots! Gee, I so hope they are not refering to me.

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

Tamar, I share your concern about the new fundamentalist McCarthyism. I'm saying that to take that as coterminous with religion is a mistake, a rhetorical error that atheists falll into because it gives them an easier argument. To reject religion because of Pat Robertson and his ilk is to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I don't think God cares what you or I believe, but that's just my opinion.

On the other hand, look at it from the fundamentalists' perspective. If you were convinced that you possessed an absolute truth and that without it, all your friends and loved ones would suffer horrible eternal punishment, wouldn't you want to rescue them even if they considered it a gauche imposition?

[Tamar]

Ah Richard, here is what I think: I don't know what to think because everything that has been taught to me by women, men, society and religion is a patriarchal world view. This god of which you speak is always male, for starters. It was determined eons ago by a bunch of men that all the well-known prophets and divine gods are male. So, for one, I want to work this out for myself. I want to read everyone's view, think about what works for me inside my psyche, taking into consideration who I am, how I came to be whom I am and what kinds of choices, decisions I want to make for myself as a responsible, moral, mature adult who is able to think for myself in the future. This process has been so difficult because of the deeply patriarchal socialization that has taken place. It is, indeed, a constant struggle.

And no, I do not agree that someone else who is sure of an absolute truth has any rights over what I believe, nor do they have the right to determine what is best for me. To begin with, it is undemocratic. I have lived in a country for close to twenty years where there is no separation of church and state (Israel) and believe me it is horrific - and usually for women.

I am not throwing anything out with the bathwater but I want to be very careful before I just go ahead and accept some sort of male deity or practice riutals that men have determined as the truth or dictated for years - without question and with blind faith. Intolerance of gays, women, and other points of view or ways of believing is what I see much of organized religion as doing. I don't want people to be suspicious of me or pity me as misguided and lost because I don't agree with their belief system or world view. I want to be accepted, respected and taken seriously. Somehow, when the god belief thing comes into play all that stuff that I want gets thrown out with the bathwater.

I believe in human connection and relationships, not hurting others and compassion. I believe in doing good, discipline and freedom. I work, struggle hard at accepting diversity and surely understand that everyone believes differently, personally, deeply, spiritually (though not necessarily through religion), in very different ways. I believe that it is all very complex and there is still so much mystery for which I am content in not knowing the answers. I believe in emotion - lots of it - and expression of it - lots of it - in death and dying and pain. If you want to shake your head bemusedly and say, "well that's god, kiddo, and you just won't admit it," that's your prerogative - that's where you are at right now and that's what fits with your belief. For me it is what it is, and I surely don't want to hurt anyone with it.

[adrianabliss]

Although I'm late to the party, I wanted to say, Tamar, congratulations on coming out of your atheistic closet! Your post, the follow-up discussion, and all the provocation has been an amazing read.

So much so, I'm going to blog about it, I think. I started a lengthy response and decided it was so "me" oriented that I better save it. :)

I'm in between extremes. I consider myself an agnostic.

[Tamar]

Adriana, thanks for joining in. I can't wait to read what you have to say about all this and learning more about the *you* you will be sharing.

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

Tamar, I don't want anyone to have any rights over what you, I, or anyone else believe. I believe in the Constitution of the United States. I was saying that although we don't want to be badgered by proselytizers, we can try to exercise some empathy for them as for any other person who is different from us.

As far as the issue of patriarchy, I fully understand how that could turn a woman away from organized religion. That fits in with one of my themes: that we shouldn't mistake the fallible, primitive, contingent, adulterated forms of human religion for the ineffable thing that has inspired those religions. As Zen says, don't mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon.

And now on to Adriana's site...

[Tamar]

Richard, I understand what you mean about exercising empathy for people different from me. Have become alert though to how insidious the religious right (of any religion)can be as a "body" that takes over our rights based on taking advantage of everyone's fear of the word "God."

I like the Zen saying that you use here and thanks for the James recommendations over at T.A. Thanks too for this discussion.

[amba]

Gamble everything for love,
if you're a true human being.
If not, leave this gathering.
Half-heartedness doesn't reach
into majesty. You set out
to find God, but then you
keep stopping for long periods
at mean-spirited road houses.

---Rumi

[Jeff]

Tamar,

I've just come across your blog. If I may, I'd like to comment upon three of Dawkin's statements:

1. "When you meet a scientist who calls himself or herself religious, you'll often find that ... by "religious" they do not mean anything supernatural."

I'm not sure that this is true. I've read of surveys that have been conducted in which a significant number of scientists have claimed to adhere to some form of institutional religion. Of course, statistics like these are never really reliable, but I don't think that Dawkins really can make such a claim legitimately; it would seem to be subjective.

2. "Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements."

Actually, the history of science is filled with examples of jealousy, rancor, libel, theft of ideas, etc. They're human beings. They just don't pick up guns (usually!).

3. "...the ignorant, uneducated people who voted Bush in."

I certainly wish that I could agree with Dawkins here. It was easier to dismiss them in the old days (even as recently as a couple of decades ago), when all of the fundamentalists were uneducated morons. Unfortunately, in recent years, they've been breaking the rules - they've been getting educations. Now, we're actually witnessing the spectacle of fundamentalists receiving doctorates from top-tier, even ivy league universities (God help us!).

Dawkins always claims that there is no evidence to support religious belief. I'm not sure that he's correct. I believe that he also makes the same statements about paranormal phenomena, yet there appears to be a growing body of evidence in support of them. When radical materialists argue vociferously for atheism, I often come away with the impression that it's a matter of aesthetic preference. Which isn’t to say that I disagree with everything that he says about religion; on the contrary, it’s rife with idiocy and abuse. Huston Smith has been saying for years that religion reflects the best and the worst in us. I’m not sure that the former is worth the latter.

[Tamar]

Jeff,
Thanks so much for your comments and for reading my blog!

I agree with you about all your three points actually, although I think that "They just don't pick up guns (usually!)" - can not be over emphasized.

I like your quote: "that religion reflects the best and the worst in us."

The Dawkins interview appealed to me because lately I have been feeling like I'm drowning in a sea of fundamentalist evangelism, that scares me because I fear it will (might have already!) lead us into an Age of Darkness.

Before I am drowned completely, I'd like to be aware of what is happening, and capable of asking questions.

[Jeff]

Yes, I understand completely. I'm something of an amateur student of religion, and fundamentalism, particularly of the Christian variety, upsets me terribly. I'm forced to agree with them that we are engaged in a culture war, and lately, I've been telling my friends that I no longer think that it's a question of whether or not the Right (religious and secular) will win; I think that they have won. We just don't realize it yet. They usually reply that these things are cyclical, that the pendulum will swing back to the Left, but I’m not sure that we have enough time. It seems that our civilization has reached a certain threshold of complexity – technologically, and in terms of sheer number and our effect on the environment, etc. – and I don’t know that we have much time left.

I've been discovering lately how pervasive the fundamentalist influence is - even more than I realized. You may be interested in this series of reports presented recently on NPR (if you haven't already heard them):

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4631923

Also, here are recordings of two segments aired last week on Fresh Air. The first is an interview with D. James Kennedy, the fundamentalist minister/activist; the second is with Frederick Clarkson, an author and journalist who writes about the Religious Right and their growing influence in government. They're quite disturbing:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4656600

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4656603

[Tamar]

Jeff, thanks so much for those links. I have not heard them actually so this is interesting indeed.

So, isn't it time for a blog of your own?
and

What do you mean by an "amateur student of religion?"

[Jeff]

Hi Tamar,

You may also find this interesting:

http://www.frederickclarkson.com/

It’s Clarkson’s blog, and contains an archive of some of his articles, as well as links to sites that he considers relevant.

I wanted to say something about Hume and infinite regression, which you mentioned in a recent posting (I think that Aquinas had a problem with it as well). The Buddhists, especially the Tibetans who have a long tradition of debate, have some elegant arguments in which they maintain that infinite regression is the only logical conclusion. They argue that a moment of consciousness can only be caused by a previous moment (otherwise the principle of “dependent origination”, one of their core beliefs, would be violated), and that this process is infinite in both directions. The interesting thing is that they feel that this in itself invalidates the idea of a creator. For them, mind, which is the basis of all reality, has always existed. (Yeah, I know – “Where does mind come from?” I can’t get a straight answer.)

I have to confess that I find this to be counter-intuitive. I feel that there has to be a point of origin. It needn’t be “personal”, as we would understand the term. It could be a creative absolute, such as the Hindu conceptualization of Brahman, or the Kabbalistic idea of Eyn Sof, or Infinite Being.

The reason that I bring it up is that it refers to what I mentioned the other day about aesthetic preference. I’m certainly not qualified to judge between all of the various arguments, East and West (I’m not familiar enough with all of them, to begin with), but the farther along that I go with all of this, the more I come to feel that rational argument, while important, only takes us to a certain point. Beyond that, it may be impossible to say that one argument is “better” than another, especially when one takes into consideration worldviews that are the result of thousands of years of separate cultural development. Eventually, you get Hume and the Buddhists – one arguing for infinite regression, the other against it – yet each side feels that its line of reasoning dispenses successfully with the idea of a creator god. I think that ultimately, even with minds as sophisticated as those of the great philosophers, one of the most important determining factors is what appeals to us, intuitively - what is attractive to us.

Regarding your two questions:

> What do you mean by an "amateur student of religion?"

I’ve been studying it, as best I could independently and outside of the academic arena, for about thirty years. I probably have an above-average level of general knowledge by now, but I am by no means a scholar.

> So, isn't it time for a blog of your own?

Thank you for the compliment. In fact, people are always telling me to write. The thing is – I have such a pessimistic, cynical view of life that I find it impossible to believe that most people would be interested in what I have to say (It isn’t a self-esteem issue; it’s just that, as I’m sure you know, people want to hear what they want to hear). And as far as the few who might be interested go – I don’t feel that I should encourage their masochism!

Also, having a blog means posting on a regular basis, replying to comments, etc. It’s a commitment.

I don’t know. Maybe.