h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just read an interesting article on the Guardian comment is free site, which says something quite similar to something I wrote on my blog a few days ago.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/andrew_brown/2006/09/post_387.html

I take the view, as does the author of the article above, that although I believe that there is no god and that all religions are therefore at heart fundamentally wrong, it is not the case that religion is the source or the main source of all the worlds problems. I don't believe that doing away with religion would solve many problems (it would probably solve some), and I think the overly aggressive anti-religious stance taken by many atheists makes things worse because it polarises opinion.

What do others think about this article? There's a crap bit at the end about capitalism and some wooly nonsense about making religion work for good instead of bad, but up until the last couple of paragraphs it seems pretty good.

Simply doing away with religion (even if it could be accomplished without extreme violence) would have little obvious point if it were replaced in the minds of those who would have been religious extremists with extremism of some other form.

If there are people who are easy to convince about the presence of one or other invisible deity, with all other things being equal, in the absence of religion they may be prey to all kinds of other ideas, possibly some that are rather more dangerous than most religions.

History would indicate that there really *is* one born every minute, and whether the rest of the world is better off if those 'ones' are in a church or temple rather than at a Party rally is a question worth bearing in mind.

*If* it would actually work, education in critical thinking to try and protect people from all forms of extremist thinking would seem to be the way forwards - whether that resulted in religions declining across the board, or simply the worst kind of religion going whilst leaving moderate, nondogmatic and nonisolationist forms behind may not actually much matter.

However, there still remians the question of what you do with the people who maybe aren't easily educated, for one reason or another.

Is it morally justifiable for me to tell someone there *is* a God, even if I don't believe it myself, if I think it will end up with both them and me being better off than otherwise?
Maybe that's a question that crossed the mind of many a Medieval church-man

<>

You seem to be assuming, Potholer, that many mediaeval churchmen were insincere hypocrites, not really believers at all. Why?

When I saw the question, "Can atheists talk to theists", I thought why ever not? (Vice versa too, of course).

What bothers me, and most theists here too, I imagine, is the default assumption of many atheists, that there is something innately wrong, dangerous, bad or stupid about being a theist! It's that assumption that causes a lot of miscommunication, I fear..

>>"You seem to be assuming, Potholer, that many mediaeval churchmen were insincere hypocrites, not really believers at all. Why?"

It depends what 'sincerity' is taken to include. If someone has personal doubts, yet sincerely believes that *other people* really are better off if they believe in religion (and society as a whole is better off), there isn't necessarily one single correct way they should behave, even in the absence of systems that might have made it rather difficult, if not downright dangerous, for them to express their doubts publically.

It is, I think, a significant moral question, and one presumably faced repeatedly by parents who have doubts about their own faith, and yet who wonder if their children might be better off *with* faith.

However, if you'd rather ignore that wquestion and take 'Maybe' and turn it into 'I assume' so you can feel people are making some kind of attack on you or your particular faith, I guess there's not much I can [be bothered to] do about it.

There's a great podcast on the Grauniad site in which Christopher Hitchens, Stephen Fry and Joan Bakewell are talking religion.

At one point Hitchens talks about a political historian whose work he admires. The guy also writes about religion, but Hitchens says that when he does that, he's incomprehensible to him...he's using words that Hitchens just simply doesn't understand.

I see entirely what he means. My bugbear is the word 'spiritual'. (and there are some entertaining remarks from Fry on that). I simply don't understand what theists mean when they talk about spiritual matters, about people's lives having a spiritual dimension. However...without wishing to be arrogant...I suspect that the problem is theirs, not mine: I don't think *they* know what they mean. Or at least...I suspect they're using fancy language to elevate some more mundane concepts. For example, I heard a prison chaplain talking about how his job is to look after prisoners' 'spiritual needs.' I suspect he means social and psychological needs.

(The Podcast is highly recommended. They've edited out an incident in which a member of the audience flounces out because Hitchens insists on smoking. At one point it becomes evident that Hitchens and Fry are playing chess while talking.)

(DA)
>>What bothers me, and most theists here too, I imagine, is the default assumption of many atheists, that there is something innately wrong, dangerous, bad or stupid about being a theist! It's that assumption that causes a lot of miscommunication, I fear..

I suspect you're right. But in fairness, it cuts both ways. At very least, theists think that atheists are missing something in their lives. And I've lost count of the times that I've been called 'close-minded'.

I do know many sincere, intelligent theists, though - but I really can't figure out how they can believe such nonsense.

Potholer

>>If someone has personal doubts, yet sincerely believes that *other people* really are better off if they believe in religion (and society as a whole is better off), there isn't necessarily one single correct way they should behave, even in the absence of systems that might have made it rather difficult, if not downright dangerous, for them to express their doubts publically.

It is, I think, a significant moral question, and one presumably faced repeatedly by parents who have doubts about their own faith, and yet who wonder if their children might be better off *with* faith.<<

This is very much to the point. From my perspective, of course it seems like dishonesty to advocate something you are actually quite unsure about.

The belief that religion is a good thing for people/society to have is of course part of religion, i.e. it is one of the beliefs that make up and define the religions that include it. So the doubting person of your example doesn't seem to realise that the same doubts logically extend to this belief in the virtue of religion.

I find the idea that we are better off not knowing some things, that some lies are better than the truth quite unacceptable. For one thing it is impossible to know that some lies are better than the truth, unless we know the truth. And it would be hypocritical for me to say that I can know the truth, but I will lie to you for your benefit. That would actually be a case of me trying to exercise power over you, diminishing your freedom for my own ends. A common accusation made against religion, of course.

Interesting discussion.

I've thought a lot about Potholer's question about education and religion. And in particular, after my own 'road from Damascus', whether I would return to Christianity if I had children, and use (some) Christian teaching to instill moral values at a young age, and then move towards something rather more humanist as they got older and acquired more critical thinking skills. I never did reach a conclusion - I suppose I'd justify lying by saying that I was telling a simplified version of the truth, using stories and parables that have key importance in human history that illustrate a greater truth about morality and the value of human beings that does not rest on the existence of a creator figure.

Edward made an intersting point about spirituality:
"However...without wishing to be arrogant...I suspect that the problem is theirs, not mine: I don't think *they* know what they mean. Or at least...I suspect they're using fancy language to elevate some more mundane concepts."

As an ex-Christian and now a theist/agnostic humanist, there's some truth in this. Theists and atheists/agnostics experience the world very differently. The same or similar experiences are interepted in very different ways - the atheist/agnostic explains that feeling you get watching a beautiful sunset in a much more mundane way than the theist who feels God's love in the beauty of the sunset.

Having been that theist as a young child and being that agnostic now, I can understand where both views are coming from, and I wouldn't call either irrational. But if you've only ever had one of those views, you'll struggle to understand the other. If you've never believed in God, it does sound irrational to have a spiritual reaction, but conversely if you've never doubted, the spiritual element is so *there* and pressingly obvious that it's very hard to understand how no-one can understand.

In the final Narnia book, CS Lewis has a group of dwarves (I think) eating food which appears to be the most sumptious banquet to all the onlookers, but to them it tastes like mouldy turnips, and they complain bitterly. I think this was Lewis' vision of hell - not being able to accept what's so obvious to everyone else. But I think this can be interpreted more liberally - the dwarves aren't wrong, their experiences are genuine but different to the onlookers.

So, I think theists and atheists can talk meaningfully, but I think it needs an understanding that the worlds they inhabit feel very very different. So if any theist or atheist finds herself stumped intuitively as to how the other doesn't share their view, and starts to think them irrational, they should consider that the phenomenology of their experience is very different.

The parenting thing is interesting.

My children's school places (i think) more than usual emphasis on Christianity for a non-demominational state school. I've chosen not to withdraw them from RE and acts of worship, remembering the anti-semitic singling out of the non-attenders at my own school. Plus I have no great objection to nativity plays and the like - nor to eid, diwwali, ros hashanah - although my kids know my view that it's just another story, up there with the Greek myths.

The one difficult area is death. The grandfather of a friend of theirs died recently, and she has a convenient off-the-shelf myth that Granddad's in heaven (although the parents don't seem to practice any faith - plus the man had a Humanist funeral). I've not used this myth on them, and they seem to have figured out the concept of the finality death...but I'm left with the niggling worry that it's a little scary for them. After all, it takes considerable maturity not to worry about something you can't do a damned thing about.

On the other hand...isn't the scary process of understanding death something that *all* children have to go through anyway, with or without the heaven myth?

Good post, Otto.

To expand a bit more on where I'm coming from:
- Nominally CofE...but it soon became obvious that it was a bit of a muddle.
- From adolescence, extremely interested in all sorts of religion in a hippy-trippy way and prepared to accept that it was reasonable to believe in a spirity god thing of some sort.
- Have matured into obstinance and define myself as a born-again militant atheist fundamentalist.

>>"...So the doubting person of your example doesn't seem to realise that the same doubts logically extend to this belief in the virtue of religion."

Someone might consider that in the conditions in their society and its neighbours at their time that having some people holding a particular belief really is, on balance, beneficial to those who hold it, yet be personally doubtful the belief is correct or even personally confident it is incorrect.
They may view the claims of social/personal benefit *made by the religion* skeptically, and yet consider for other reasons that those claims are actually justifiable.

Personally, I'd be uncomfortable with the idea of telling someone something the speaker doesn't believe in supposedly for the listener's benefit, but possibly my main motivation for that is that I don't really trust other people (or even myself) to accurately judge what is best for other people, especially in the situation where the speaker stands to gain some personal benefit.
It seems a bit too tempting for people to say 'It's for their own good' when they are basically rationalising things advantageous to themselves.

However, I can imagine situations (such as a near-theocracy) where it may be rather difficult for doubts to be raised, and I couldn't say what I would do if placed in certain uncomfortable positions.

Even on a simpler level, if faced with a seemingly 'simple' person who took comfort from the idea of a loving God, at the very least I'd be tempted into some fancy footwork if they placed me in a position where I had the option of agreeing with them or attempting to change their mind.

I might reserve the right to expresss an opinion, but I think I'm allowed to be selective how I use it.
If I thought I had a duty to attack religion whereever it might be, I'd be picketing churches or doing door-to-door UnProselytising.

Generally, I restrain myself to debating, or pointing out where people like Creationists are actually spreading misinformation on the science message boards, etc.

If someone claims is an adult, talks about religion online and actually objects to being asked essentially theological questions along the lines of "What is your *evidence* for God?" or "Why should an omniscient deity be expected to respond to prople praying (effectively, people pointing out a desire that they believe the deity was already fully aware of?", I'm not responsible for them taking the hump.
If someone reacts to discussions of what is wrong with *extreme* religion by taking those discussions as some kind of pwersonal attack, that's their problem.

Likewise, if someone is simply talking nonsense, promoting bigotry or speaking untruths, whether they are doing so supposedly from a religious standpoint or not doesn't seem to be something I should be required to bear in mind when replying - if someone is a homophobe, I see no reason to respect their opinion any more if they claim religious justification than if they don't.

To my mind, people expecting some special respect for religion over any other kind of idea system deserve to be disappointed.

<>

No, of course I didn't think it was an attack! Mine was a genuine question... I think parents sometimes *do* have that query, I've known of some (not mine) who have.

<> (Edward)

Perhaps better said that you can't figure out how they can believe such things you don't happen to believe.

When you call someone else's beliefs 'nonsense' you have already dismissed them and no further debate can take place.

I mean, you may hold that particular opinion, but if (for example) I am debating with someone about (pick your topic) and their comeback is - Ah, that's just a load of cr@p! - then I certainly wouldn't feel inclined to debate further with this person.

I think this has been Della's complaint and I think she is quite right in feeling the way she does, though she may have (from experience on certain threads here) extended that to include *all* atheists, which is unfortunate.

The Bill Moyers programme on Faith and Reason clearly shows that athiests and theists can talk to each other. It isn't the 'talking' that creates a problem, it's the inability to 'listen'.

I no longer believe in a Christian God (not sure I ever really did, it was my upbringing as a Catholic that made me feel I had to for awhile) but I prefer to see the Christian God in terms of mythology and in that sense I can understand what some Christians have to say.

Is mythology all nonsense? I don't think so. I think the myths were created by man to explain the inexplicable as best they could.

I also believe that all gods are man-made, so in this sense I would disagree with a devout Christian or Muslim or Jew who believes in a personal God 'somewhere out there'. But that doesn't mean what they have to say is 'nonsense' just because they are using a specific vocabulary.

Again, it becomes a question of learning how to *listen*, not just responding to terms that you might think are 'nonsense'. What are people actually trying to say when they talk about their God or their Saviour, or what-have-you? Surely there is a lot to be learned by listening to them and, if it's easier for you, making the vocabulary a bit more secular in order to understand it better.

I don't think beliefs are ever 'nonsense', just what sometimes (okay, often) happens in the world as a result of holding certain beliefs.



az

>>"... the atheist/agnostic explains that feeling you get watching a beautiful sunset in a much more mundane way than the theist who feels God's love in the beauty of the sunset."

That seems to be an apples/oranges comparison.

The scientific *explanation* of a sunset (wavelength-dependent atmospheric scattering, etc) is open to anyone - theist, deist, atheist, etc.

The internal *feeling* is a feeling - calling it 'the work of God' seems pretty inadequate as a description.
If I wanted a good description of the experience and emotions of a sunset, I'd go and see a poet, not a priest.
Better yet, I'd sit on my favourite Slovenian mountain ridge and just experience it, possibly with the spiritual assistance of whatever friends and drinks were available.

>>"If you've never believed in God, it does sound irrational to have a spiritual reaction..."

I'm not sure about that - the mystical/oneness side of looking at the world, I can understand from certain experiences in my younger days, but I'm not sure that living constantly in such a mental state would actually be a Good Thing, whether for an evangelical believer, a religious mystic or a hippy.
It's understandable that people do have various achievable mental states that might be achived through meditation, prayer meetings, 'herbalism' or just the way their head is wired up.
However, I'd suggest that the mystic/spiritual feeling really is a case of a distorted (or 'irrational, if you insist') internal mental state, that doesn't necessarily say anything at all about how reality actually is, just how we can sometimes view it as being.
There may be personal value in such states of fantasy, and there may be people who can bring something useful out for others to see, but that something is really just the resutl of people looking at their own thoughts from another angle.

Indeed, the fact that people can seemingly achieve similar mental states while contemplating all kinds of incompatible religions or while contemplating no religion at all would, at least to me, logically suggest that such states are not god-given (or, are at least, by no means exclusively god-given), and that the feelings felt in such states are, however important to an individual, deeply poor evidence for the correctness of their religion, or indeed are poor evidence for anything outside the individual's own head.

>>"I also believe that all gods are man-made, so in this sense I would disagree with a devout Christian or Muslim or Jew who believes in a personal God 'somewhere out there'. But that doesn't mean what they have to say is 'nonsense' just because they are using a specific vocabulary."

Generally speaking, I think it is people trying to use religion to justify what looks to others like a personal opinion who are the likeliest to be (or to feel) attacked by atheism, or inbdeed by any kind of rational debate not delying on claims of divine authority.

"Because [deity] or [divine text] says so" is basically a non-reason as far as people who don't believe in [deity] or [divine text] are concerned, and it may not be a good enough reason even for people who do believe [deity] exists, but who are not convinced everything claimed about [deity]'s opinions is actually reliable.

If there isn't any other useful argument to justify a stance, a believer seems to stand no chance in even the most polite discussion of convincing a non-believer about the reasons for supporting of attacking a particular worldly behavior.
Likewise, if a believer feels that '[deity] says so' trumps any other kind of argument, no non-beleiver seems likely to change the believer's opinion, however polite a debate.

<> (Potholer)

But is the believer actually trying to *convince* the non-believer, or simply wanting their position to be heard and listened to - acknowledged?

For example, I've never seen Della wanting to convert anyone here, though some of her beliefs run afoul on certain threads here about abortion or euthenasia. Meanwhile, there are plenty of people against abortion and euthenasia who aren't particularly religious.

And what about my stance against anti-abortionists? I have no *reason* to believe this other than it's a personal belief I happen to hold (for various reasons). So I put forward my reasons, which I think are quite debatable. Though I agree it's probably not debatable at all if someone just says 'God says this is BAD'. End of discussion.

<>

I'd agree with that, Potholer. You cannot simply use apples to explain oranges to someone. That's where a lot of theists fail in the debate thing ... they think their beliefs should be understood and respected by all, but they often don't show the same courtesy for those who disagree with them.

I still think it comes down to the ability to *listen* on both parts, not just talking.

az

Hello, azahar!
(I would like to have had a another, closer look at that link you sent but the computer has been wigging out lately. )

Meanwhile, I want to say that you are expressing the "theist" point of view admirably.

What I am mostly trying to express, Della, is that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of *listening* going on between theists and atheists. Each faction seems stuck in their own concepts and don't want to budge an inch. And it works both ways. Sure you can talk together, but what does it count for if nobody is listening?

It's a shame you aren't able to access the link to the Bill Moyers programmes - they are not only very interesting but also rather eye-opening, especially with regards to the idea of Faith and Reason existing side-by-side.

az

>>"But is the believer actually trying to *convince* the non-believer, or simply wanting their position to be heard and listened to - acknowledged?"

If it was merely a case of listening to someone and seeing 'that's what they currently think', there seems little actual communication to be had there.

The thing is, if someone has a personal opinion, it's usually going to be based on some combination of reasoning and emotional feelings.

Reasoning can be explained, and useful debate can ensue about whether one or other person's reasoning is somehow logically flawed, or assumptions they have made can be demonstrated to be cast into doubt by research, or whether there are confounding factors one or other person has ignored, or whether someone has used one assumption or form of reasoning in one place in an argument, but a seemingly contradictory form elsewhere.
If someone is going to say 'I just feel X is right, or Y is wrong', then at least other people know where the other person stands, and could maybe respect their opinions or not, depending on what the opinions were.

A 'because [deity] says so' justification isn't really a personal form of reasoning at all, it's basically an abdication of reasoning to an external authority, or an abdication of personal responsibility for an opinion.

It's less that people have personal opinions on evolution, abortion, extramatital sex, sexuality that non-beleivers find trying and/or potentially dangerous, but the fact that some people are either actually being told what to believe in the apparent absence of real-world argument, or are using religious argument to justify something they already believe for personal reasons that they don't want to admit, or don't even want to think about.

If someone is potentially going to have a strong opinion seemingly in the absence of obvious thought, it's not surprising that other people might be disturbed by that.

They might be disturbed by it, but if they then start a discussion from the point of view (certainly the expressed point of view) that the belief is "nonsense", then they are already colouring the discussion.