Religion, Theology and the New Atheism
This is the continuation of a conversation which was started under the post “Julian Baggini and the New Atheism.” The discussion was beginning to become shapeless and directionless, so I am going to try to put another spin on it. The underlying question is about the definition of religion, but I don’t think that’s the real issue. As I have said before, we are never going to achieve a definition of religion that will satisfy everyone. But we need to begin somewhere.
For, even if, as Mary Helena has said, the issue is to ascertain, as far as possible what can be learned about the phenomenon of religion in human existence, we still have to know what religion is. That’s logically prior. That’s why I quoted many days ago the opening rough definition that Atran provides that gives at least a provisional idea of what it is that he plans to investigate. The investigation itself can’t tell him what religion is. That has to come first, in order for him to identify his field of study. Obviously religions comprise more than just theological ideas, because everyone knows that religions also include practices, rituals, reverence for sacred spaces, persons, books, things, and so on, but it does include, as Atran points out, belief in or commitment to conterfactual worlds of supernatural agents, and these are usually unpacked in terms of beliefs of various kinds, and sometimes even theological systems based on those beliefs. But what we can’t do is not have any conception of religion to start with, because that would mean that we had nothing to investigate, nothing that determined the kinds of thing we are trying to explain.
Of course we can study religion in various ways, and not all of us want to be anthropologists. Some of us have some reasonably close familiarity with well-known religions, their beliefs and practices, and for some of us, the problem with religion lies right there, in the beliefs those religions espouse, and the practices that they engage in. If you read someone like Christopher Hitchens, for example, he is most concerned to point out that the great monotheisms, like Christianity and Islam, that base themselves on scriptures held to be revealed, are, in fact, and show themselves to be, undoubtedly human creations. And that, in itself, is a serious criticism of this kind of religion, for they claim to be so much more than that.
This is precisely the point that Kitcher makes in his argument from symmetry. Religions, which form their beliefs in similar ways, in which people are inducted in similar ways into religious belief, which make similar (parallel) claims about the world, can scarcely think of their belief and practice systems as in some sense ordained, as they think, by God. They must be human creations. There are simply too many of them. And this, says Kitcher, is really the strongest argument against the truth of religious beliefs.
However, we seem to be right back where we started a couple weeks ago, where I, or someone else, says that this is the kind of thing that we mean whe we speak about religion, and these are the reasons why religions, so understood, are really not credible – and therefore, we go on to say, since these religions are big, immovable objects in the middle of national and international affairs, we need to have some clarity about the limits of religion in the public sphere. And we do. When Taseer was killed in Pakistan, I said it was religion that killed him. No, Mary Helena said, it was theology. Well, fine it was theological religion, and most religion around the world, with the exception of marginal types of animism that have not been systematised and theologised, is theological. It makes claims about a god or gods, and about those being in relationship with the world and with human beings, and their making demands of human beings and their societies. These are good things to oppose, even if you can define religion in various ways.
There is, of course, Philip Kitcher’s idea of religion as an orientation, and, as I say, I’ll come to that, but meanwhile we are still faced with the big theological religions and how to deal with them, because they are becoming a menace in public life. They have big agendas, and they are very effective in lobbying for their favoured view of human life and society, views which very often will lead to a diminution of freedom and rights. They are worth opposing.
But some people think that the New Atheists are just too obnoxious in the way that they speak about religion and oppose it. When Scott Atran came to an atheist conference in California in late 2006, he was horrified by what he heard. Here was an expert anthropologist of religion listening to people who were concerned with the way that Islam and Christianity functioned in the societies of which they were a part. They were not anthropologists, and had no intention of becoming anthropologists. Like Mary Warnock, who is much more positive about religion and its role in society, they wanted to see religion take a back seat in the public sphere, instead of threatening us with theocracy, which is what they are still doing. Muslims are increasingly making demands that their religion be respected in special ways. The pope is demanding that laws be passed acknowledging the primacy of Roman Catholic morality regarding abortion, end of life, homosexuality and various other things. These are theocratic demands, and they are demands which need to be dealt with in fairly peremptory ways.
As I understand it, this is what the New Atheism was primarily all about. Its task, as the prime movers in the New Atheist movement (if that’s what it was) saw it, was to oppose the kinds of intrusions that religions were increasingly making in public space. The whole thing was prompted by the terrorist attack of 9/11, because that was the main thing in Sam Harris’s mind when he wrote The End of Faith. It is a sustained argument against religious faith. It’s a long time since I first read the book, but some of the points that he makes are still very powerful. And one point that he makes is to compare the religious terrorists of 9/11 with the way that a lot of Americans believe. They too believe, Harris says, that there are some fantastic things which we can, and should, believe without evidence. That’s what the guys who flew the airplanes into the twin towers thought too. Isn’t that dangerous? Another important point that he makes — at least from my point of view, because it is central to my interest in opposing religion — is that “[f]aith drives a wedge between ethics and suffering.” (168) It condemns harmless things, and it demands that people endure suffering for absurdly trivial reasons, like the lovers who were stoned to death by the Taliban in Afghanistan recently, or like the thousands that die every year in distress, pain and existential agony.
The New Atheist claim is that religion should stay out of the public sphere. We don’t want to be ruled by other people’s religious beliefs. There is simply no ground for them, no basis upon which they can be shown reasonably to be true. Religious beliefs are often, as Baggini says, pernicious and false. People are free to believe them if they wish, but they should not be permitted to impose them, without alternatives being provided, on young people, who should be helped to learn how to think reasonably about things, and make choices freely and for good reasons.
The fact that a significant proportion of young Muslims in Britain think that apostacy from Islam should be punished by death is an indication that something is terribly wrong, that they are not learning reasoned ways of understanding society and the rights of individuals, and how they should be respected. If we cannot speak out against this kind of religious fanaticism, and if we allow it to govern what happens in our societies, then we will end up with the kinds of violent instability that characterises lands where these kinds of belief are dominant.
Perhaps religion is not going away. I’m not convinced that that is true, but it may be. There certainly seem to be places where religion is of secondary concern to a majority of citizens. These places seem uncommonly peaceable and prosperous, so perhaps religion either flourishes where people are not prosperous, or religion actually contributes to conditions which lead to diminished wealth and opportunity. Perhaps it is a combination of both, mutually reinforcing. However, I see no reason why those who do not share religious beliefs should not encourage, by lives lived well, as well as by argument, that people are better off without religion. And that is what I take New Atheism to be about. We would be far better off without belief in supernatural beings and their dealings with us. These beliefs tend to make us less concerned about truth, less concerned about those who do not share our beliefs, and sometimes less interested in life here on earth, the only life that any of us, despite all the religious beliefs to the contrary, are likely to have. That religions are allowed to destroy so many lives in the names of their gods is one of the most horrifying aspects of religious belief. That they should, in the name of their gods, ruin anyone’s chance of happiness here on earth in the only life they will ever have, is contemptible, and needs to be opposed with great determination. People should understand that religions are completely private things, and should not be forced on others, either by upbringing or by law.
Posted on 28 January 2011, in New Atheism, Religion, Theology. Bookmark the permalink. 61 Comments.
I think your valiant attempts to re-focus attention where it properly belongs is somewhat quixotic insofar as you keep using that damned word: religion. That word is a nebulous and inexact proxy for what the actual problem is: faith.
Poor decisions and reprehensible actions are the natural consequence when people adopt, adhere to, and act on beliefs which are based on no genuine evidence whatsoever — beliefs which frequently not only fail to be supported by any evidence whatsoever, but are directly contradicted by all the relevant evidence that *is* available. However, faith is more than merely belief without reasons, or belief based on inadequate or mistaken reasons; faith is a positive act of the will. Faith consists in the choice to abandon the ordinary and otherwise universal expectation that people’s beliefs ought to be justified (or at least justifiable) — especially if they are going to publicly espouse and encourage others to adopt those beliefs, or base their actions on them — replacing that standard with the claim that it is virtuous and good to believe *some* claims that are not and cannot be justified. While anyone can be mistaken and any belief can be adopted on the basis of inadequate or flawed justification, faith is much more insidious than simple error: To have faith means to abandon the very idea that some beliefs need to be justified at all, and rigorous justification is the only means we have of avoiding error. Moreover, this error-encouraging approach is adopted not just for any old beliefs, but important beliefs which shape people’s understanding of the world and motivate their actions in it.
There’s a reason why all the religious traditions and institutions that cause the problems you cite so frequently here — the big three monotheisms, for the most part — are also the ones which place the strongest emphasis on faith as a virtue and most stringently demand that adherents adopt a particular set of faith beliefs. In contrast, religious traditions and institutions that are generally not pernicious in the same ways — most forms of Buddhism, Unitarian Universalism, neo-paganism — de-emphasize or completely eschew faith, and encourage a much more pluralistic attitude about what participants can and do believe.
At its core, faith is an epistemological problem. Or rather, faith is by its very nature an anti-epistemology — a willful rejection of the very possibility of knowledge, because knowledge requires justification and faith explicitly rejects justification. (If that claim looks familiar, you probably read my long argument for it over at Butterflies & Wheels.) Since faith is not a component of all religions, and since the degree to which a particular religious tradition or institution is a source for the moral and political problems that motivate gnu atheist opposition seems to be exactly the degree to which that religious tradition or institution encourages or even demands faith from its followers, religion as such — with all its variety and nebulousness — is a red herring in these arguments: Faith is the real problem, not religion.
Eric: “The New Atheist claim is that religion should stay out of the public sphere. We don’t want to be ruled by other people’s religious beliefs.”
Religion and beliefs are not synonymous terms. Beliefs can change with the weather. Religion is immune to the change in beliefs.
Yes, it’s people’s “beliefs’ that need to be kept out of the public sphere, in not being allowed to infiltrate public policy. If only the New Atheists kept to this important goal there would not be the same backlash from other atheists that they are getting. Because the New Atheists don’t stop there – they go after religion itself. And that is one bridge too far…
Eric, bottom line in all of this – it’s not a fight against religion that is necessary or even possible to win. The real fight is political. For as long as people have the political vote, that most cherished of western ideals, theological ideas will play havoc within the social/political arena. That’s life, that’s the much vaunted reality of democracy. Atheists are, and will remain, a minority. Democracy will not work for their benefit. That’s the big issue in all of this. The New Atheist’s fight against religion is a sad side-show that allows the real atheist enemy, that democratic political ‘god’ , to laugh all the way to the bank of public opinion. Eric, theology is one hell of an opponent; it’s ability to wear a coat of many colours; it’s ability to masquerade as man’s deliverer and saviour, is monumental in its reach. The French Revolution might have desecrated the churches – theology simply came back into the political arena through the wide open backdoor. Theocracy – oh, that’s what Islam’s all about. Really! Theocracy, the Christian version, is sitting pretty every time someone puts a cross on that damn piece of paper in the ballot box. Now that’s a fight and a half – but I don’t see any New Atheists manning the barricades. Hitting soft targets might be fun but winning a ‘war’ requires discipline, precision and a clear view of the goal. Christian triumphalism verse Islamic fundamentalism. Theocracy by a willing suspension of rationality or theocracy by coercion. Who cares – certainly not theology. Talk about how irrational are the proponents of Islamic theocracy – then one should look in the mirror before one throws the first verbal stone.
Eric, the social/political issues are huge – aiming at *religion* is a waste of time and energy that could be more profitable if used elsewhere.
OK, that’s my little rant for the day.
Looking forward to you tackling Kitcher.
I’ve talked to Christians who say they don’t BELIEVE in religion, but in God, Jesus, etc.
I guess this helps them separate the man-made from what they think is the God-made or God’s truth.
This notion kind of makes sense as a Protestant Reformation ideal, although perhaps only some Quakers ever really “got it.”
Mary Helena, it seems to me that you are the one who keeps shifting position, so that in the end it is very difficult to say what position you are taking in all this. Every time someone says one thing, that they think is directed towards what you are saying, you shift your ground, and come back on a completely different tack, and this is, in the end, very unproductive. Perhaps if you stated your view clearly, instead of simply opposing everything that everyone says, we would be able to discuss. But so long as you continue playing word games — and I’m afraid that’s what they seem like to me — we won’t get anywhere. I just don’t know what you’re talking about any more.
Thank you, George, for this. That puts some things into perspective for me, certainly. I assume — and perhaps I am wrong to do so — that religion as such presupposes faith in conterfactual beliefs. So I take it for granted, when discussing religion, that faith is involved at some level. But I have no particular love for the word or the category, and can easily give it up for the idea of faith, which is, as you say, “pernicious by its very nature.” I suspect that even religions which do not seem to rest on faith, do in fact do so, or are only sketchy facsimiles of religions. Unitarian Universalists, for example, while not, perhaps, prescribing faith, have an underlying belief system to which at least some of their members adhere. The same goes for Quakers. But I am quite willing to acknowledge that, in general, Quaker and Unitarian Universalist beliefs are secondary and not emphasised.
However, I do make it clear that when I am using the word ‘religion’ my attention is directed towards counterfactual beliefs, which essentially means that religion and faith are convertible terms for me. I have suggested, as Uzza keeps reminding me, that trying to define religion is really not very helpful. There are so many different possible ways of defining the word that it is useless to try to pin it down once and for all. In a Wittgensteinian way, there is probably a family of uses of the word which shade off into one another. However, when it is used, as for example by Pascal Boyer or Scott Atran, it certainly refers to human constructions in which counterfactual beliefs (non-ordinary beliefs) are uppermost, and as such, include what you are calling faith. If there are other human activities which bear resemblances to this core meaning of the word ‘religion’ — where counterfactuals are definitive — they are so by association. Very often they share features such as spiritual experiences, feelings of awe in the presence of majestic or powerful things, the sense of mystery that seems to lie at the heart of things which Einstein or Spinoza felt at the immensity, complexity and the comprehensibility of the universe, and so on. Religion, as I use the word ‘religion’ — and I’ve tried to make this clear — deals in faith. Perhaps, as you suggest, I should just dump the word ‘religion’ because that is just confusing the issue.
There is a significant problem, however, and that is that some people, like Philip Kitcher, for example, who wants to carve out a place for a kind of moderate religion, which is, as he says, not doctrinally entangled, seem not to be aware that, in doing so, they are really preserving a place for faith, and that distresses me. And, of course, this doesn’t even begin to deal with the issue that Mary Helena seems to be intent on pushing, namely, that we can separate religion from theology, where religion is, somehow, the good part, and theology is the bad. From your point of view, expressed in your essay “Matters of Faith”, this kind of separation cannot be made, since you hold that, whether dogmatically held or not, faith is pernicious simply because it encourages people to adopt indefensible beliefs, and I agree. I’m not sure how Mary Helena’s distinction works, and whether it overcomes your concerns, but I suspect that it does not. My own sense is that religion, in general, is pernicious, because it does encourage people to accept epistemically indefensible beliefs, even though, in some of its manifestations, people who profess that religion do not in fact hold them.
Eric, since my very first post to your blog I’ve been trying to find out what your definition of *religion* is. You continually use this word without defining it. There is no point in trying to shift the burden on to me – as though by suggesting various definitions of religion – and supplying quotations from various sources – that I am shifting ground. You wrote the blog post: “Salman Tasser is dead. Religion killed him”. I responded that No, theology killed him, ie it was the implementation of a theological idea – that blasphemy against the prophet deserves a death sentence – that led to the death of Tasser. A theological idea translated into real physical action.
Your blog post, by blaming *religion* for the death of Salman Tasser, has placed a condemnation upon*religion*. Hung, drawn and quartered. OK, if that’s your bottom line re a definition of religion, that religion is evil and as a consequence, needs to be eliminated from society – then, there is little more for me to say. I posted to your blog because, being a retired minister of the cloth, I thought perhaps you might be willing to discuss what the phenomenon of religion actually relates to in the human experience of living. I saw an opportunity to discuss religion with a New Atheist – perhaps I was mistaken.
Word games? Eric, the word games are your way – you are using *religion* with a very narrow definition. That’s a word game – and it’s a word game that is not doing the New Atheists one iota of good.
The challenge is yours to take up, Eric. Produce a definition of religion that will garner some respect outside of the New Atheist camp ground.
MH:
You’re not, as Eric as pointed out, being very consistent, even in the basics. Consider your last post. You write:
“since my very first post to your blog I’ve been trying to find out what your definition of *religion* is”
And, in the very same post, you write:
“you are using *religion* with a very narrow definition”
Followed up by:
“Produce a definition of religion that will garner some respect outside of the New Atheist camp ground.”
So, what do we learn from this? Eric has given a definition of religion and, moreover, one that you understand. You just don’t agree with it — which you’ve made abundantly clear.
But you don’t get to keep pushing for a definition (that you like) without offering anything in return.
The burden, whether you like it or not, is on you at this point. Eric has given and defended his definition of religion — you acknowledge as much yourself. If you want to disagree, the onus is on you not just to issue challenges ad nauseum but to supply and defend — CLEARLY — your alternative definition. Otherwise, as Eric says, the discussion isn’t going anywhere. (This is, by the way, standard in philosophical, scientific, etc. reasoning.)
So, what’s your view? I’ve been keeping up with this discussion (though commenting rarely) and I have NO idea what on earth your view is, why one should espouse it, or even that we need a view other than the one Eric’s already supplied. I get your negative position — roughly, “not Eric” — but what the heck’s your positive position?
**In retrospect, this kind of comes off as rude. I certainly don’t mean it to — if only typed comments conveyed tone of voice, mood, and facial expression! I really do just want, for the sake of making sense of the discussion, to understand what your view is.
AR
The following are the definitions of religion that I have used in my various posts that followed from Eric’s blog post: Salman Taseer is dead. Religion killed him.
If Eric has given his definition of religion then I must have missed it. Perhaps you could point me to it?
My point throughout my posts is to draw attention to the very narrow view of religion that is being utilized by the New Atheists. Religion is a scam – Salman Taseer is dead. Religion killed him. I find nothing in the following definitions of religion that would in any way support these type of positions.
Winston King, Encyclopedia of Religion, p 7693
“In summary, it may be said that almost every known culture involves the religious in the above sense of a depth dimension in cultural experiences at all levels — a push, whether ill-defined or conscious, toward some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life. When more or less distinct patterns of behaviour are built around this depth dimension in a culture, this structure constitutes religion in its historically recognizable form. Religion is the organization of life around the depth dimensions of experience — varied in form, completeness, and clarity in accordance with the environing culture.”
Hans Küng: Christianity and the World Religions:
“Religion is a believing view of life, approach to life, way of life, and therefore a fundamental pattern embracing the individual and society, man and the world, through which a person … sees and experiences, thinks and feels, acts and suffers, everything. It is a transcendentally grounded and immanently operative system of coordinates, by which man orients himself intellectually, emotionally, and existentially.”
Albert Einstein
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.”
“The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no Church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who are filled with the highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as Atheists; sometimes also as saints.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are capable of it.”(The World As I See It.)” Albert Einstein:
Scott Atran: In God We Trust. The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion.
“The cognitive perspective I have chosen for this book is a biological and scientific perspective that focuses on the casual role of the mind/brain in generating behaviour. From this vantage, religion is not doctrine, or institutions, or even faith. Religion ensues from the ordinary workings of the human mind as it deals with emotionally compelling problems of human existence, such as birth, aging, death, unforeseen calamities, and love. In religion, these ‘facts of life’ are always inherent problems of society, caused by the very same intentional agents that are thought to constitute society. For religion, there is always an intentional, socially relevant reason for this particular person to have been born a man rather than a woman, for a wave to have knocked over and drowned a person at a specific place and time”. (page viii)
http://www.edge.org/discourse/bb.html#atran2
Scott Atran
“(4) Experiments on “sacred values” (which Harris refers to in his reply but misunderstands, and which were presented in more rigorous form before the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Security Council at the White House) suggest that arguments by Harris and others about how to best lessen the noxious effects of dogmatism are liable to do more harm than good for his own cause (which is also my own cause and that of most others at the conference).”
MH,
You still don’t state what YOU think. What is YOUR definition of religion? Ultimacy, transcendency and immanent are a big words, but what do they really mean? Is religion just a state of mind?
Mary Helena, I’m still having a real problem understanding what you want to say. I get the idea of quoting from a lot of people, even quoting Atran to the effect that Harris and others are really not being helpful. I happen to disagree with Atran, and I’m not at all sure that he has shown that Harris is doing more harm than good for his cause. I am also doubtful about the helpfulness, in this situation, of Atrans theory of religion. I think it is important to study religion, scientifically, as an empirical phenomenon. I am less sure whether this study will actually help us deal with the poisonous effects that religion is having on social discourse in Western democracies.
Take this point, for example, this quote by you from Atran: “For religion, there is always an intentional, socially relevant reason for this particular person to have been born a man rather than a woman, for a wave to have knocked over and drowned a person at a specific place and time.” Now, I understand that religion is a product of human minds, and that it can be studied scientifically, but when someone tells me that for religion someone’s being knocked over and drowned by a wave at this particular moment can be explained anthropomorphically or purposively, I have to say, so what? This particular religious conviction has no basis in any known confirmation sequence. You may have the belief if you like, and you may call it religion if you like, but it’s got no basis in empirical fact, and is thus irrelevant to how we should live our lives.
I accept Atran’s rough and ready definition of religion as having to do, amongst other things, with counterfactual beliefs. Fine. I agree, religion abounds in such things. Now, it may in fact be difficult to convince religious believers that their beliefs are ungrounded, let alone false. But that does not mean that they are either grounded or reasonable. It may be that we can strip away from these beliefs a form of life that can exist on its own. Liberal Christians sometimes think that this is possible. Philip Kitcher thinks that it is. I have reasons — which I am coming to — for thinking that it is not. However, it does not follow that the New Atheist opposition to religion in its full-blooded sense is a mistake. I think it is not only not a mistake, but that it may be too late to stop religion creating a situation that will be disastrously destructive. As I say, I don’t know that this is so, but I am not encouraged by what I see and hear. And none of this depends upon a definition of religion.
You seem to think that we can just strip the beliefs out of religion, and still religion will go on as before. Well, perhaps you can. Most religions are a lot more definite than this, but they are changeable to be sure, which makes them even more hopeless as vehicles for carrying the life projects of reasonable people. However, you want simply to separate religion and beliefs altogether, as though they are different things. And I still am waiting to hear what is left when the beliefs are taken away. In fact, it is fairly well understood that the so-called “higher” religions are not much more than “folk” religions expressed in writing. There is a continuum from very crude anthropomorphic religions to the religions of the book, and at each stage counterfactual beliefs play a vital role, as in Atran’s wave example. Contrary to all observable features of the situation, the animist will believe that the fact that someone was drowned by a wave was done with a purpose. There was a non-physical reason for its having occurred where and when it did. Yes, I admit, this is a feature of religion. But what difference does that make to the question of whether the New Atheism is right or wrong to find religion’s imprint in public space too large and dangerous? And why do you need my complete definition of religion before going on?
I once taught education students philosophy of education, and in one class there was one student who spent all the time endlessly talking about determinism. All very interesting no doubt, from a philosophical point of view, but from the point of view of what education is about, and how we can understand education, it was not obviously relevant, and it interfered with the plan of the course as a whole. The other students eventually got a bit tired hearing about BF Skinner and the Skinner Box, and wanted to talk about some of the philosophical ideas that I was trying to teach them. I feel somewhat the same way just now, wondering whether all this search for a defintion is really the problem that we should be spending so much time at. Let’s just call it faith, and forget about the misleading attempt to define religion.
By the way, if Uzza is following this, this is why I don’t think it’s particularly profitable trying to define religion. However, if you are going to study it anthropologically, it’s important to have some idea of how you are going to delimit the field.
Eric said: “Salman Tasser is dead. Religion killed him”.
MaryHelena responded: “No, theology killed him, ie it was the implementation of a theological idea – that blasphemy against the prophet deserves a death sentence – that led to the death of Tasser. A theological idea translated into real physical action.”
I can’t imagine a more succinct definition of religion than “the implementation of theological idea(s)”.
Most of the cited quotes from experts were *descriptions* of religion, rather than definitions. And these descriptions clearly reflected the theology of the describers. But even if Einstein’s religion would not have been deadly to Salman Tasser, that does not contradict the idea that a religion was responsible for his death.
MH:
I have to agree with Michael: you still haven’t given your definition of religion. You’ve given a bunch of quotations, from a bunch of other people, giving their views. I still have no idea what you take these quotations to mean or what you think religion is. Even if Eric hasn’t sat down and written “Religion is X”, I understand what he means by religion by how he uses it.* The same can’t be said of your use of the term.
Quite aside from this, you can’t just offer a quotation that expresses a view you like (though I still don’t know what that is, for you), and request (without reasons) that Eric accomodate these alternative views (and the fact that his doesn’t do so is not a reason why it should do so). You need to do more than just give alternative views of religion to argue that Eric has adopted the wrong one. It’s not clear from these quotations why they offer a better view than Eric’s as I (and you) understand it. Again, all you leave us with is: “Not Eric” without any clear expression of what YOU take religion to be.
*I tend to agree with Eric’s argument that giving a strict, categorical definition of religion won’t help the kind of discussion he is trying to promote. If, as he says in a response to Uzza on a previous post, we are doing an anthrological or similar study of religion, then, sure, we ought to define it. In discussions like these, it seems enough to understand it from its use. And, again, the nature of your complaints against Eric suggests that, definition or no, you understand what he means by religion. You just don’t like it.
That should be “anthropological”, not “anthrological”. Darned no-preview blogs. Not that I do any better with those…
I like to collect “definitions” of religion, for later attempts at unpacking and dissection, to see how many agendas have been tucked into the carry-on bags.
But for actual use in discussion, the definition of “religion” I prefer is a slight rewording of Dan Dennett’s: A religion is a social system whose participants profess a belief in supernatural agents whose approval is sought. This definition is broad enough to include polytheism and (I think) many forms of animism; it implies counterfactual beliefs and rituals; and it also acknowledges that a particular religion’s adherents are expected to and do profess certain beliefs while not necessarily holding those beliefs in full sincerity.
If one were to insert in Dennett’s definition, between the words ‘approval’ and ‘is’ the construct ‘and/or propitiation’, it might be tighter. And, it is well to remember that, for the vast numbers of fundamentalist religionists, the extent of their ‘theology’ can be summed up by the bumper sticker not infrequently seen: “God said it, I believe it, that finishes it!”
I like Dennett’s definition as amended by LA. It is surely a good and serviceable one, and if someone disagrees with it, they will have to come up with some clear reasons for doing so. One of the things that interests me is that ambiguous space (a metaphorical one!) whence both the arts and religion arise, and something that I think we need to do is to differentiate between the natural mechanisms (that Boyet, Atran and Guthrie describe) that may help towards creating some sort of coherent religion (and have done so) and particular religions, as well as between the kind of numinous experience so well described by Wordsworth, for example, and more properly religious experience (by which I mean numinous experience as interpreted by a religion). It seems to me that this running debate on the nature of religion results from not keeping a clear enough distinction between the un-religious soil of religion (though not necessarily of religion, since it is the soil, too, of the arts), and actual religions.
On second thoughts, I don’t think LA’s amendment is necessary – partly because it is not the gods’ propitiation we seek, but it is we who seek to propitiate them. And surely if we succeed in propitiating them, we have their approval.
Yes, I think you are correct: the problem is faith, a faith that is translated into various positive acts of the will. The problem is that the motivation of faith for such acts is an open question, which undermines the claim that faith itself is virtuous when we it may not be.
And you are exactly right to explain that the unjustified nature of such an assumption – one that attempts to justify faith itself as a virtue and thus defend acts of faith as being positive acts – hinges on whether or not it is based on sound epistemology or on broken ground, a flawed epistemology, an anti-epistemology.
If faith-based beliefs have no epistemological soundness, we can deduce that any act done in their name cannot be justified as a virtuous act on this basis. But if not on this basis, then on what?
I think the obvious answer is on the basis of what is true, what can be known.
If we are concerned about what is true and what is not, then we have to be concerned with how we can tell the difference. Faith-based beliefs offers us no reliable method to accomplish this task because it assumes the truth of its answers first; it assumes and asserts the truth of its answers as a starting point. This is a problem of epistemology; faith-based beliefs categorize what is true to be assumed rather than concluded.
When there is a problem in the method of determining how we can know something to be true, we cannot trust its results. When we pretend that trusting untrustworthy results is virtuous, we know we are giving up ever knowing whether the faith-based belief is true. And when we capitulate on this point, we capitulate on ever knowing the difference between assertion/assumption that motivates acts in the name of faith-based beliefs and knowledge that based on what is true.
Eric said: “Salman Tasser is dead. Religion killed him”.
MaryHelena responded: “No, theology killed him, ie it was the implementation of a theological idea – that blasphemy against the prophet deserves a death sentence – that led to the death of Tasser. A theological idea translated into real physical action.”
I can’t imagine a more succinct definition of religion than “the implementation of theological idea(s)”.
Most of the cited quotes from experts were *descriptions* of religion, rather than definitions. And these descriptions clearly reflected the theology of the describers. But even if Einstein’s religion would not have been deadly to Salman Tasser, that does not contradict the idea that a religion was responsible for his death.
This is an excellent post, Eric. What you carefully and clearly lay out makes a lot of sense to me. I rather like George’s nuancing, but … but …
I’m not at all sure it’s actually helpful to say, “Oh, it’s not ‘religion’ we’re talking about it’s ‘faith’ … or ‘belief’ … or “theology’,” for two reasons.
Firstly, all of these alternatives, like “religion,” are ambiguous, with two or more uses of each word which shade off into one another. For instance, I’m sure Mary Helena uses “theology” to mean, “religious beliefs and theory when systematically developed,” rather than “the study of the nature of God and religious belief.” (Definitions from the New Oxford American Dictionary.)
Elsewhere (and I wish I could remember where), a blogger deprecated uses of “belief” and “believe” except in the reigious sense as it gave leverage to Creationist and other fundamentalist trolls (“You /believe/ evolution is true. Therefore, atheism is a religion.”). And I had an unresolved argument on Twitter with Labi Siffre, who was puzzled that I wouldn’t say, for example, that I had “faith” in gravity. For him, “faith” was something that was evidence based.
But I would say, “theology” is the least useful of these to describe what the New Athiests (should) oppose. Does any “religious” person say, “My theology is…”? Whereas, “My religion…,” “My faith…,” “My beliefs…” are all idiomatic and used, I think, pretty much interchangeably by the majority.
Which brings me to the second reason…
I think all of these things are hopelessly entangled, if in different degrees depending on, um, faction. (As George observed, the Abrahamic religions put the strongest emphasis on faith.)
Mary Helena says, “Yes, it’s people’s ‘beliefs’ that need to be kept out of the public sphere” – but isn’t it /religious/ leaders that are supporting the intrusion of those beliefs into the public sphere? Wasn’t it a former Archbishop of Cantebury who asserted that the courts showed “a lack of sensitivity to religious belief” and urged that “a specialist Panel of Judges designated to hear cases engaging religious rights” be established, in the case of McFarlane v. Relate Avon Limited? (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2010/B1.html)
This is organized, dogmatic, theological religion intruding into public policy – not people’s beliefs.
Quite properly, Lord Justice Laws firmly rebutted such intrusion, as Eric noted in an earlier post (“Laws’ Law”: http://choiceindying.com/2011/01/23/laws-law/).
Pace Dennett’s definition of religion that Jeff cites, I don’t believe (ha-ha) that all “social systems” that the man in the street would not hesitate to call “religions” have a supernatural element. See, for example, this chart from the Brights (a movement which, I think, Dennett, among others, started!): http://www.the-brights.net/vision/considerations/Brights%20and%20Supers%20compared.pdf [PDF]
So, are New Atheists opposed to all religions/faiths/beliefs/theologies? Or just to those that do have a supernatural worldview? (Hmm… if a religion has no god(s), can it be/have a theology?)
One final point: Mary Helena says, “Atheists are, and will remain, a minority.” Where are you looking, MH?
In the UK, according to a recent poll, there are now more atheists than Christians (although not, yet, more than the religious in toto). And in many other European countries, those that believe in a God are already very much the minority – Estonia, Czech Republic, Sweden, and so on. And the numbers are growing! Why, then, will atheists remain a minority elsewhere?
Another thing worth saying, I think, is that the situation of Christianity in the society it once ruled, but from which it has become separated off into a kind of religious space, is very different from the situation of a tribal religion which cannot be readily disentangled from customary ways of doing, thinking and feeling about things, where the the divine is, in G.E.R. Lloyd’s words, ‘in no sense SUPERnatural’, and where the question of faith, in the sense of a willed belief in some supernatural agent, really does not arise. I suspect that this perception lies behind Atran’s criticisms. He is an anthropologist. And – this is not to dismiss him – anthropologists tend to be as protective of the cultures they study as biologists are of rare and threatened species.
I have read the piece by Atran that MaryHelena draws attention to. He makes a few good points, so far as I can see. The first is that religion is not going to go away, and we have to find ways of dealing with it that go beyond simply rejecting it or saying that it is untrue. And, surely, in the situations he is talking of – trying to calm things down where religion is inflaming passions – it is not very productive to tell people that their beliefs are a load of codswallop and why don’t they just be sensible and secular. He has small time for the ‘Science Good, Religion Bad’ mantra; and to an extent I agree, as I think would most thoughtful people. Yes, surely, science is our best way of approaching things, but, as Atran points out, it is not the case that all scientists are somehow guiltless merely by virtue of being scientists (he points to those scientists who worked – and work – on nuclear bombs and other ‘weapons of mass destruction’). The point he makes in connexion with the South American tribe whose religion makes them good custodians of the forest is surely a valid one: the practices and beliefs of indigenous peoples should not simply be dismissed because ‘we know better’; not so long ago the World Food Organisation, as I recall, working together with Indonesian government, introduced the ‘green revolution’ to Bali with disastrous results; the Balinese had over some centuries perfected a way of organising their irrigation and cropping so as to minimise damage by pests – it was a system that evolved in an almost Darwinian way from immediate relations between neighbouring communities and was not perceived by the Balinese in its totality or as a totality: it was not a ‘top-down’ system imposed from above. But this system was (is) governed through an organisation of ‘water-temples’, with priests settling disputes and making recommendations so that good relations between communities could be preserved and crops maximised, and the technicians belonging to the WFO and the Indonesian government automatically and arrogantly assumed that priests could know nothing about agriculture and the involvement of religion in agriculture should be ended. (The American anthropologist Stephen Lansing has written some excellent books on the Balinese system, and he has an interesting web-page.) Also Atran doesn’t think much of Dawkins’s ‘Meme’ theory – rightly, I think.
I think that this is basically what Atran is saying, but perhaps – as the Gnu Atheists are alleged to do – he is saying it in such a way as to obscure, for those whom he attacks, his fundamental message and to raise in them resistance.
Incidentally, another thing worth pondering is that if, as seems to be the case, secularism is to a considerable degree dependent on there being politically stable, prosperous societies, we should all be striving, so far as we can, to create a more just world order, which involves, among other things, in not supposing that technological ‘fixes’ that chiefly benefit large Western companies are necessarily a good thing.
AR and Michael Fugate
If either of you have been reading my posts from the start, from the Eric’s blog post, “Salman Taseer is dead. Religion killed him”, you would have seen numerous occasions where I laid out how I understand religion. My personal take on religion is in no way a definitive statement. That is not what I’m about at all. My aim has been to highlight the necessitate of distinguishing between religion and theology; that they are not synonymous terms. And no more is this distinguishing between religion and theology necessary as in the campaign of the New Atheists for a war or fight with religion.
So here are quotes from my earlier posts – in no particular order. So don’t read them as one post but just a cut and past job.
Religion, seen as an expression of what each of us value as spiritual values (love, kindness, charity etc) seen as an expression of how humans strive to live and interact beyond the bare fact of existence, is, in actuality, something about human nature that could well be viewed as ‘sacred ground’. In contrast, theology, does not stand upon ‘sacred ground’. It stands upon purely intellectual premises. Premises that are continually subject to the winds of change, to the onward call of intellectual evolution.
A ‘depth dimension’ in a culture – in other words, something more than simple existence. To prosper requires values, love, kindness etc. Words and ideas are not necessary at this basic level. Connection to one another provides life with experiences that are not intellectual. Nature provides ample scope for wonder and awe. Sure, another name could be brought forth for this – spirituality? But we have the word *religion* – so no need to try and re-invent the wheel…
Show you a religion without theology? Every human has a *religion* in the basic meaning of the term – values for living and prospering on this earth. We might value one thing over another – but values – both material and spiritual we do have.
Why use the word ‘sacred’ in connection with religion? Life is sacred and religion strives to ennoble that experience of life by striving for spiritual values. OK, such terms might not be everyone’s cup of tea – but confining a term such as *sacred* to theological ideas is nonsense. Ideas can never be *sacred* – they serve their time and then must give way to the new.
Theology as the “more” of religion? Theology has the inherent potential to destroy ideas, to keep intellectual evolution up and running. So in a sense it is an added element, a superstructure, to religion. A superstructure that can be continually knocked down and rebuilt. Problems arise when theology and religion become synonymous. Thereby giving birth to the dangerous monstrosity we see today – theology that is stagnant. Theology that has lost it’s ability to renew itself. And religion, contaminated by it’s amalgamation with theology, reaps the backlash of theology’s numerous humanitarian crimes.
Religion is our need to hold and to express spiritual values (however, individually, defined – meaning, purpose, depth, sense of life, spiritual as opposed to material values, etc); theology is an attempt at giving these values an intellectual grounding. Obviously, as science has progressed, theology’s super-naturalist content has become indefensible. It is super-naturalistic theology that has become redundant – not religion.
Religion without super-naturalist theology? That is the way that opens up a road forward. Atheists spending energy on knocking ‘super-naturalist religion’ on it’s head is misspent energy, its attempting to hit out at a straw man. The real debate is not over religion – the real debate is theological. The diet is wrong – not the need for nourishment. However bizarre has been man’s attempt to give voice to his spiritual values, however bizarre his theology – his need to seek and give voice to spiritual values is a fundamental human need – a necessary and hence a beneficial need.
The point I want to make here is that ideas, on their own, are not what motivates ‘worship’. Ideas can often improve our lives in a material sense; they can produce physical material benefits. But to improve our lives in a spiritual sense, in a way that resonates with our striving for depth and purpose in our lives, ideas have to reach some bedrock need; they need to link up with some intrinsic capacity within our human nature. Hence the awesome power of a non-humanitarian theology when it is able to develop even the illusion of a link with our powerful religious capacity, our need for spiritual values.
The question is not, ‘Religion. How much will it cost? The real question is what would it cost our humanity, our human nature, without religion. I would suggest that without religion, without our need to uphold spiritual values, existence as we know it would be impossible. It is the striving and upholding of spiritual values that enables us, as a species, to flourish.
While we may all favour one thing over another – having a purpose in life, wanting some sort of depth to our existence, searching for meaning etc, these non-tangible elements of our existence are fundamental to all of us. They are, in you like, connected to a sort of motor that drives us, that propels us forward – instead of, without them, being reduced to a state of inertia. We seem to need, in order to flourish, something to float our boat.
Eric, well, I suppose in my own mind I’ve settled for a definition of sorts re religion – but it’s a very broadly based definition ie. Religion is our capacity for spiritual values. That does leave the field open, so to speak, for much variation in what constitutes spiritual values for each of us. Yes, the future does look dark re theological issues infiltrating secular life. That is why I think it important to have the enemy in clear view – hence my posts to your blog…
I use the terms *religion* and *spiritual values* or *spirituality* to denote aspects of human nature that are evidenced all around us – and have been for evidenced in human history going back to whenever. I appreciate that some atheists might prefer that these terms be jettisoned. I appreciate that some new atheists, after coming out of the ‘closet’, tend to have some residue of anger towards religion. (and end up on having cat fights with theists on web forums..). The approach seems to be to throw the religion ‘baby’ out with the theological ‘bathwater’. This, to my mind, is a mistaken view of things. It does not reflect the historical situation re religion and theology. Both have been part of human existence for as long as history goes back. Theology changes with the weather, often with the political climate. What stays put is religion – or as I would put it – our capacity for and hence our need to hold spiritual values.
Spiritual values? The list is surely endless. Love, joy, beauty, loyalty, integrity, dignity, a sense of life, a sense of what is does not have to be; hope, charity, kindness, compassion etc.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/497082/religion
“religion, human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine. Religion is commonly regarded as consisting of a person’s relation to God or to gods or spirits. Worship is probably the most basic element of religion, but moral conduct, right belief, and participation in religious institutions are generally also constituent elements of the religious life as practiced by believers and worshipers and as commanded by religious sages and scriptures.”
The essence of religion: that which we regard as holy, sacred, or spiritual. We can all have variations in what we deem to be holy, sacred or spiritual values – but that we, as in humans, do ‘worship’, to value, certain aspects of our lives is part of our human makeup. It’s the human experience of living. We thrive on the intangible while the mundane sustains us. We seek meaning, we seek to make sense out of the uniqueness of life. We seek to ennoble our existence by endowing it with sacred terms.
I have spoken about trying to identify what it is about religion that one could understand to be its essence. I have not changed my original idea re this endeavour. The quote from the online Britannica clearly states in its opening words the following: “religion, human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine.” It is these words, and similar words like reverence, veneration, honor, devotion, that indicate, that reflect, the human capacity for, and the desire to express and to bestow accolades upon their spiritual values. That is the undercurrent, if you like, the foundation, upon which theology is able to build its superstructures.
We are all religious people, that is our nature. It’s only because of a hybrid definition of religion that there is this divide between religious people and atheists. We all have spiritual values (however we may define them) – it’s just that as atheists we have discarded the primary value of many religious people – the supernatural god in the heavens. However, there are many more values that we share than those we discard. The humanitarian values, compassion, empathy etc.
And, as with all intellectual position, can be challenged and negated. Not so with the human capacity to seek and to hold spiritual values (however individually we define them). That human capacity for non-material values is what religion is all about. The theological diet is certainly causing huge problems – obesity – but the need for non-material values remains a constant in our human nature. It’s a change of diet that is necessary not a starvation exercise.
http://www.edge.org/discourse/bb.html#atran2
Atran: “Religious behavior often seems to be motivated by sacred values, that is, values which a moral community treats as possessing transcendental significance that underlies cultural identity and precludes comparisons or tradeoffs with material or instrumental values of realpolitik or the marketplace. As Immanuel Kant framed it, virtuous religious behavior is its own reward and attempts to base it on utility nullifies its moral worth. Instrumental decision-making (or “rational choice”) involves strict cost-benefit calculations regarding goals, and entails abandoning or adjusting goals if costs for realizing them are too high. A sacred value is a value that incorporates moral and ethical beliefs independently of, or all out of proportion to, its prospect of success.”
http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2010/07/
“Ms. Basson is right when she implies that Richard Dawkins missed a golden opportunity to highlight the complexity of religion and to distinguish between the theological axioms that are really the target of modern atheist critique and the less cooperative subject matter called religion. They are not the same. For wholecloth atheism ever to be a garment someone can wear, it needs to be fashioned carefully, not just fashionable.: (Joseph Hoffmann)
Eric: “And why do you need my complete definition of religion before going on?”
Complete definition? No, Eric, not that. Because a complete definition would be to short-change the very complex phenomenon that we are trying to understand. It’s a working definition that I’m asking for. Some indication of where your standing, so to speak. Because otherwise we are talking past one another. You use religion one way, to include X, and I use it another way, to exclude X. Impossibly to communicate that way.
My basic definition of religion – a definition that I have previously articulated is:: Religion is our human capacity for spiritual values – however individually we might define our spiritual values. Spiritual values = non-material values. love, kindness, charity, compassion, empathy; meaning, purpose, depth, sense of life, spiritual as opposed to material values; joy, beauty, loyalty, integrity, dignity; a sense of what is does not have to be; hope, etc. The intangibles that give our species a sense of life as opposed to mere existence.
Eric: ..”I don’t think it’s particularly profitable trying to define religion. However, if you are going to study it anthropologically, it’s important to have some idea of how you are going to delimit the field.”
But Eric, the New Atheists are wanting to wage war on religion: “The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion” [Paperback] Tina Beattie. (No, I’ve not read it.). Surely, then, knowing what one is fighting against is of the utmost importance. Definitions matter. Identity matters. Even if all one can do is delimit the field in a process of elimination of what religion is not.
And what religion is, at its root, it is not is a set of intellectual dogma. Words are inadequate as vehicles to express human emotions. Sure, we can try and poetry perhaps comes closest. But the words are only a reflection, they are not the emotion; they are not the spiritual values that lie beneath the words. A differentiation needs to be upheld. Words can be empty, mere words – as one may sometimes feel when being offered an apology, for instance. How does one define love – again words often fail us. With defining religion it is this type of differentiation that I think needs to be kept in focus. Words, theological words, will be inadequate vehicles to express or reflect our spiritual values. Thus, while we can reject many of the words, the dogma, the beliefs, of theology, this rejection does not lead to a negation of the underlying reality – our capacity to seek and to uphold spiritual values, our capacity for religion. Love is there however inadequate our words are to convey it. Sure, all we have are words – but we can learn to speak better, we can learn to change the manner in which we communicate our hopes and values. We can change our diet but we cannot change our need for spiritual values, our need for spiritual nourishment. This is why I think it is really important to keep in mind a differentiation between religion and theology – they are not synonymous terms.
If one keeps in mind that there is a real differentiation between theology and religion – then it’s impossible to assert that religion killed Salman Tasser. Religion is about spiritual values, sacred values. (I really do think Scott Atran is on to something important here when he uses this term. Not only using it in his writing of course – he has plenty of field experience in using it; hence is able to support his intellectual position with actual data.). Religion is about the intangible values that elevate human life; the values that see a win/win experience of living. Theology, dogmas and beliefs, based upon ideas, based upon intellectual flights of fancy, have the inherent capacity, when translated into real time action, to negate spiritual values. The capacity to negate the most cherished value of all; that incompressible value, human life itself.
Eric, I won’t pursue this matter with you. As I said earlier, my interest arose from your blog post re religion killing Salam Tasser. I have tried to present a different perspective. If I have failed to do so then the fault lies with my words and not with my intention.
AR and Michael Fugate
My reply to you both – containing points I made regarding a definition of religion in my earlier posts to Eric’s blog – has been put on moderation – most likely because it’s a bit long….anyway, just so you both know that I did attempt to provide some background for you both. Should have split the post I suppose….Oh well…
Seems like six of one, half-a-dozen of another to me. Apologists (like our dogmatic friend maryhelena) are perfectly capable of playing the same word games with “faith” that they do with “religion.” In an arena where semantics are subject to constant squabbles, both words are severely ambiguous, and attacking the former is just as quixotic as attacking the latter.
Moreover, it seems to me that plenty of the problems Eric (and others) are writing about are at least somewhat independent of faith-as-such. For example, the societal privilege that adherents to various religions enjoy is not a simple matter of the beliefs they hold; that privilege is granted based on religious identification, not doctrine.
So it seems to me that both faith and religion are suitable subjects for the critiques in question—and religion, as the broader category, is a better general target.
…Rendering all atheists religious.
No. Sorry. That’s not how nearly anyone understands the term “religion,” and you still have provided no reason why anyone should.
Eric’s argument (like that of any other Gnu Atheist) is not wrong just because he uses the word “religion” in a way that differs from your arbitrary whims about how that word should be defined.
I am sorry, MH, but your definition of religion is sentimental and vacuous.
I think this is terrific, Eric; you reason and write very well.
I disagree with thephilosophicalprimate‘s (albeit constructive) argument that you should focus on “faith” rather than “religion” in your critique. Sure, most of the major problems religion presents in our world are the result of unjustified belief—but not all of them. The broader phenomenon of religious privilege—which is based on identity and identification, not doctrine—is only indirectly connected to faith-as-such.
As an example, take the Catholic luminaries whose notions about end-of-life care you oppose (as do I): there is an obvious “faith” element to that problem, in the baseless notions about souls and “dignity” and divine-command (or natural law or what-have-you) morality. But I submit that the more tangible aspect of the problem is the social one, the more-or-less widely accepted notion that said Catholic luminaries have some kind of authority to weigh in on what kinds of decisions we all should be allowed to make about the way we die.
Now, there’s arguably faith lurking behind that part of the problem, as well: allegedly Catholic officials (as an example) derive the aforementioned authority from God via Jesus via Peter via Ratzo, Matthew 16:18, blah blah blah. And that’s a notably silly faith belief that can’t stand up to rational scrutiny. But I don’t think that popular notions about religious people’s right to impose their ideas on public policy are very often actually grounded in faith beliefs about those people’s authority; most religious privilege seems, to me, much more unthinking and inertial than that. (Which is one reason so many atheists participate in enforcing religious privilege on their brethren.)
And so I think you’re right to criticize religion, the broader social phenomenon, and not just faith, one of its uglier characteristics. A religion without faith may not (pace maryhelena) amount to much of anything, but plenty of the damage religion does in the modern world stems from its social aspects at least as much as its lousy epistemology.
Anyway: very nice post. I look forward to your extending your critique (as I gather you plan to do) to more liberal and tolerant strands of religion, given the frequent assertions from certain quarters that atheists have no business criticizing belief systems that don’t happen to threaten the lives of blasphemers in Pakistan or pregnant women in Phoenix. More like this, please.
For reference, I expanded a little on that idea in a subsequent comment downthread.
[quote]Religion is our human capacity for spiritual values – however individually we might define our spiritual values. Spiritual values = non-material values. love, kindness, charity, compassion, empathy; meaning, purpose, depth, sense of life, spiritual as opposed to material values; joy, beauty, loyalty, integrity, dignity; a sense of what is does not have to be; hope, etc. The intangibles that give our species a sense of life as opposed to mere existence.[/quote]
My suspicions are instantly aroused when that word “spiritual” is trotted out, because it introduces considerable fuzziness into any discussion. Especially here, where “spiritual” is given a broad, heavy load to carry, but still devoid of any supernatural elements.
On the one hand, “spiritual” and “spirituality” are familiar labels (and therefore, perhaps, among the best labels available) for the sense of awe, joy and wonder that human beings can feel at the connectedness of human life to the rest of the cosmos. On the other hand, “spiritual” and “spirituality” seem to me to be a shabby, mildewed curtain behind which incoherent ideas are often placed in an attempt to make them seem profound.
Here where I live, in the American Midwest, if you were to conduct a well-designed poll of adults and ask if “religion” or “religious instruction” be “put back” in the public schools, I think that a majority of respondents would say YES, and what this majority would have in mind would not be the teaching or refininement of “love, kindness, charity, compassion, empathy . . . .” In fact, if one phrased the question in that way here in the Midwest, a large number of respondents might suspect some sort of left-liberal “educationist” conspiracy at work. No, what most of the Midwestern respondents would have in mind would be monotheistic “religion” of the Judeo-Christian, god-fearing, witnessing, praying, and Bible-reading type. If they were told that what they want to see put back in the schools is not “religion” but “theology,” we’d see a large number of blank, uncomprehending stares.
Intelligent people who are not social scientists and who give (to my mind) a ridiculously overbroad definition to “religion” seem to be genuinely worried about something. They seem to be worried that if it [b]were[/bold] possible to purge religion of its superstitious, supernatural aspects — such as the poisonous idea that gods have plans, intentions and commands that are accurately communicated through human intermediaries — then the values of love, charity, compassion, beauty, integrity, empathy and the quest for meaning would also disappear. I hope that this worry is nonsense. And I don’t need to believe in deities or go to church to have that hope.
Bingo.
Oh, it clearly is. Which is why several of us in this discussion keep gesticulating at Sweden, Denmark, South Korea, New Zealand, etc.—parts of the globe in which religion has largely expired, but which enjoy enviable readings on nearly every objective indicator of societal well-being.
I think it takes a fair amount of gall, or at least cultural myopia, to declare that “love, charity, compassion,” and so on depend upon religion and are in potential danger if it disappears. The many irreligious people on this planet are doing rather well, thanks, and it would be nice if apologists for religion noticed.
(Er… in case it’s not clear, my frustration is not directed at you, Jeff. Nor, really, at anyone I’ve seen commenting on this blog.)
Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion.
“Let me sum up Einsteinian religion in one more quotation from Einstein himself: “To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, that is religiousness. In this sense I am religious”. In this sense I too am religious, with the reservation that ‘cannot grasp’ does not have to mean ‘forever ungraspable”. But I prefer not to call myself religious because it is misleading. It is destructively misleading because, for the vast majority of people, ‘religion’ implies ‘supernatural’…”
“My title, The God Delusion, does not refer to the God of Einstein and the other enlightened scientists of the previous section. That is why I needed to get Einsteinian religion out of the way to begin with: it has a proven capacity to confuse.”
So, there you are – Dawkins himself says that, in one sense, he too is religious. Dawkins, in his book goes after what he calls ‘supernatural gods’. Dawkins is going after theology. He has left the door open for the New Atheists to consider Einsteinian religion; he has not attempted to make ‘war’ upon Einsteinian religion. All he says is that Einsteinian religion, ie a view of religion without theology, has a “capacity to confuse”. Confuse? Well, it does get in the way of the New Atheist war on religion! But as to “cannot grasp” what it is – perhaps Dawkins other words need to be repeated “does not mean “forever ungraspable”.
Sigh.
Your continuing shibboleth aside, maryhelena, you have still provided no reason whatsoever for anyone to define “religion” the way you do. You have also ignored every word of explanation your opponents have provided regarding why it is a bad idea to define “religion” the way you do.
If you’re not interested in presenting an argument for your approach, I’m not clear on what you’re doing here. We can find dogmatists reciting mantras very easily; that yours are semantic rather than theological doesn’t render them any the more constructive or interesting.
Jeff D
Bottom line, it does not matter what most people think religion is. It matters on a scientific study, an anthropological investigation, a psychological examination. That is if one wants to understand the phenomenon. It is the results of such studies that the New Atheists need to consider if they are preparing for a ‘war’ on religion. Going to ‘war’ with ones own in-house definition of religion could prove foolhardy.
President Bush later said that the biggest regret of his presidency was “the intelligence failure” in Iraq, while the Senate Intelligence Committee found in 2008 that his administration “misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq”. (Wikipedia.)
And where is the US now – sitting with egg all over it’s face…
Scott Atran has presented his anthropological studies; Philip Kitcher has presented his philosophical ideas re religion as an orientation. Experts offering ‘intelligence’. And the New Atheists seem prepared to ignore the ‘intelligence’ and march right into the ‘sacred ground’ of *religion* believing it to contain WMD…
MH: when Dawkins says that ‘Einsteinian religion’ has ‘a proven capacity to confuse’, he does not mean that it gets in the way of the New Atheists’ ‘war on religion’, as you, for your own purposes, claim: he means that Christians and other believers in what you assert are theologies, rather than religions, fondly believe that Einstein is on their side: he is not.
Not because of that…. I was simply asleep! And besides, all it took, at one point, was approval of the first, and all the rest sailed through. But yours was not help up in moderation.
Huh?
Ahem: if the conception of religion we are arguing from is “what most people think religion is” (and it is), then we are not in fact “[g]oing to ‘war’[*] with [an] in-house definition of religion.”
The overwhelming consensus understandings of the world “religion” are, by (cough) definition, not “in-house.”
Indeed. Neither one settles (and Atran’s studies don’t even have apparent relevance to) this semantic dispute. Neither constitutes an argument for defining the word the way you do.
I ask again: do you intend to offer an argument, or are you just going to keep reciting a mantra?
*: I note that none of your opponents here have claimed to be “going to war with religion.” More than one of us have stated our goals on the threads you’ve participated in (as have various Gnu Atheists who are more prominent than we, in other fora)—and, alas, you have ignored what we are actually after.
maryhelena, you are using an unfortunately common HumptyDumptyism in the broad definition or pseudo-definition of “religion” that you seem to prefer.
“Every human has a *religion* in the basic meaning of the term – values for living and prospering on this earth. ”
That strikes me as ridiculously overbroad. You label this as a “basic meaning,” but the values you are describing are more typically labeled as “ethics” or “eudaemonics.”
Sorry, so long as human beings use words to communicate with each other, it [b]does[/b] matter how most human beings define and use the word “religion.”
If we were to take your broad definition of “religion” as embracing “non-material” values (joy, beauty, empathy, charity, kindness) and “values for living and prospering on this earth,” and substitute that definition into U. S. First Amendment jurisprudence, what would we have? A rule that prohibits the U. S. Congress (and, through the 14th Amendment, State and local governments) from making any laws “respecting an establishment of” charity, kindness, joy, empathy, beauty, and “values for living and prospering on this earth.”
The co-opting of ethics by [Christian] religion in the 3rd-4th centuries C.E. continues to do its damage, to pay terrible dividends. Intelligent people conflate “ethics” with particular sets of superstitious, nonsensical beliefs, and lose the ability to distinguish the two, or to imagine the possibility of the former surviving without the latter.
Everyone has their own notions about words like spiritual, religion, or god “mean”. There is no right or wrong definition for these words, and I think we should respect the convention that people are entitled to hold differing views until such time as they are shown to be harmful. Fred Phelps notions are harmful. Those of an atheistic Taoist, not so much, and not for the same reasons. If MaryHelena’s views are harmful, let’s point out why, but let’s not deny her the right to her different perspective, which is actually pretty widespread.
When atheists claim they don’t believe in “god” the suspicion is that they are merely rejecting the Abrahamic bearded Guy in the Sky, and to the extent that they are railing at a cartoon, they are not worth taking seriously. The common disregard of Voltaire’s injunction to ‘first, define your terms’ does nothing to allay those suspicions.
Claims that “everybody knows” these terms are rather ethnocentric. Were you to ask “most people” in Kansas, Andhra Pradesh and Xin Jiang, you would not get a uniform response or even a clear consensus. The ‘World’s Major Religions’ customarily include such things as Confucianism, Juche, and Scientology, that many feel do not qualify, and excludes the non-supernatural religion of Hawking and Einstein, and in any conversation with a person it is reasonable to ask if that person intends to include or exclude these.
Everyone is free to use an idiosyncratic definition or a common one for “religion” or “spiritual,” but unless that working definition is made clear at the outset of the discussion, the participants may end up talking past each other.
I just came across this 2005 speech by an Indian screenwriter (and atheist), Javed Akhtar.
http://palakmathur.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/speech-javed-akhtar-india-today-conclave-session-on-spirituality-halo-or-hoax/
Akhtar was on the same symposium panel with a well-known and successful (rich) guru, and he tried to explain why he preferred not to use the word “spiritual”:
“I am not revealing a secret, I am saying something that I have said many times, in writing or on TV, in public…I am an atheist, I have no religious beliefs. And obviously I don’t believe in spirituality of some kind. Some kind.
. . . .
“When I was invited to give this talk, I felt that yes, I am an atheist, try to be a rationalist in any given situation, Maybe that’s why I have been called. But suddenly I have realized that there is another quality that I share with Modern Age gurus. I work in films. We have lot in common. Both of us, sell dreams, both of us create illusions, both of us create icons, but with a difference. After three hours we put a placard – the end. Go back to reality. They don’t.
. . . .
“Plato in his dialogues has said many a wise thing, and one of them is – before starting any discussion decide on the meanings of words. Let us try to decide on the meaning of this word spirituality. Does it mean love for mankind that transcends all religion, caste, creed, race? Is that so? Then I have no problem. Except that I call it humanity. Does it mean love of plants, trees, mountains, oceans, rivers, animals? The non-human world? If that is so, again I have no problem at all. Except that I call it environmental consciousness. Does spirituality mean heartfelt regard for social institutions like marriage, parenthood, fine arts, judiciary, freedom of expression. I have no problem again sir, how can I disagree here? I call it civil responsibility. Does spirituality mean going into your own world trying to understand the meaning of your own life? Who can object on that? I call it self-introspection, self assessment. Does spirituality mean Yoga? Thanks to Patanjali, who has given us the details of Yoga, Yam, Yatam, aasan, pranayam…We may do it under any name, but if we are doing pranayam, wonderful. I call it healthcare. Physical fitness.
“Now is it a matter of only semantics. If all this is spirituality, then what is the discussion. All these words that I have used are extremely respectable and totally acceptable words. There is nothing abstract or intangible about them. So why stick to this word spirituality? What is there in spirituality that has not been covered by all these words? Is there something? If that is so then what is that?
“Somebody in return can ask me what is my problem with this word. I am asking to change it, leave it, drop it, make it obsolete but why so? I will tell you what is my reservation. If spirituality means all this then there is no discussion. . . .”
Everyone is free to use an idiosyncratic definition or a common one for “religion” or “spiritual,” but unless that working definition is made clear at the outset of the discussion, the participants may end up talking past each other.
LOL! Y’think?
I see that my post is now up on your website – minus the moderation notice – but it’s still not showing up in my software…Oh, well.
Yep, re the different time zones and sleeping…:-)
Touché, Jeff.
Is there a right or wrong definition, then, for anything? Are there any principles to semantics at all?
Really? Phelps’s semantic notions about what “words like spiritual, religion, or god ‘mean’” are harmful? Do tell: how is that?
And what would those reasons be? Who says atheistic Taoists don’t have pernicious ideas about what “religion” does and does not mean? Besides, er, you?
We have. She’s ignored it. (So, it appears, have you.)
That’s a rather odd assertion for someone who just claimed that “[t]here is no right or wrong definition for these words”! Where, exactly, does this notion of a “cartoon” come from? That would seem to imply that somebody is wrong, no?
More to the point, do you have a better definition of “god” to submit, one that doesn’t amount to an “Abrahamic bearded Guy in the Sky”? I note that theists are routinely incredibly evasive about defining their deity(ies). I also note that at least millions of “Abrahamic” believers would find it laughable that the deity they believe in is a “bearded Guy in the Sky.” And one or two atheists you may have heard of have noticed the trivial evasiveness of your tactic:
And I’m sure you treat any and all religious invocations of “god” the same way, right? You always cite Voltaire (wow!) and ask them to define their terms?
If you managed to find a member of the small minority in Xinjiang who even have the language background to contemplate what the word “religion” might mean, that would be a notable step in itself.
Hello? “Religion” is a categorizing concept invented by European people. It’s hardly shocking that it fits (or excludes) other European notions rather clearly, but non-European ones more ambiguously.
Who’s denying anyone the right to a perspective? To the contrary, it is maryhelena who has been declaring, over and over again, that atheists’ acceptance of (far more widespread, thanks) standard definitions of “religion” is some kind of ignorant mistake and fatal flaw in Gnu Atheist advocacy. It is she who is trying to shove her semantic notions down our throats—without, one notes, providing actual reasoning for the postulate that we should accept hers. I don’t understand how you missed this.
Rieux,
if you want to fight, you’re welcome to come on over to my blog, but I prefer not to waste people’s time on this one where they’re trying to have a serious discussion.
Cute, Uzza.
Back over here, I for one am “trying to have a serious discussion.” I think the potshots you took in your 09:24 comment are a little less conducive to such an effort, and I think my response did a bit to show how they are incoherent and occasionally internally contradictory.
If you want to discuss, I’m right here.
antallan
“In the UK, according to a recent poll, there are now more atheists than Christians (although not, yet, more than the religious in toto). And in many other European countries, those that believe in a God are already very much the minority – Estonia, Czech Republic, Sweden, and so on. And the numbers are growing! Why, then, will atheists remain a minority elsewhere?”
Wikipedia has a chart re the religion demographics in South Africa.
Between the years 2001 and 2007 the percentage of Non-Religious dropped from 15.1 to 8.08.
Jeff D
“Everyone is free to use an idiosyncratic definition or a common one for “religion” or “spiritual,” but unless that working definition is made clear at the outset of the discussion, the participants may end up talking past each other.”
Of course, in any debate the terms used in the discussion need to be clearly stated. I’m not denying that. Outside of a debate, what people choose to define as *religion* can indeed be idiosyncratic. After all, there is no legislation that criminalizes ideas – it’s actions that can break the law not thoughts. The issue of a definition of *religion* comes up when the New Atheists seek to wage ‘war’ against religion. In that connection it’s wise to consider a biological and scientific perspective on religion. (which is what Scott Atran has done). One needs to look past the idiosyncratic ideas of religion and supply some science if one is going on the warpath against religion.
As to your quotation re how someone was able to get along without using the term ‘spiritual’ – I have no problem with that. ‘Spiritual’, ‘religion’, ‘god’; these are terms that have some market value. In other words; some product type branding is involved in the public consciousness. Sure, one can try out new names – but these short-hand type names have a long history behind them, their almost symbols of the ideas they are endeavoring to conceptualize. So – be my guest – go with the re-naming by all means.
Why do you keep putting “war” in quotation marks? Whom are you quoting? Yourself? What Gnu Atheist has claimed (s)he is, or wants to, “wage war against religion”?
The fact that you find Atran convincing fails to do anything to connect his findings to your notions about semantics. Defining religion as X and not Y is not a scientific result, much as you pretend otherwise.
That’s all? South Africa? That’s your answer to my question?
I think that was the case for all religions, wasn’t it? The Abrahamic God started as a natural entity, but the advance of science and reason limited the places He could exist undiscovered in the natural world such that, eventually, He was forced to retreat (theologically speaking) to the realm of the supernatural. And now science has shown that He’s not even necessary for The act of Creation (per Hawking’s recent book).
“And no more is this distinguishing between religion and theology necessary as in the campaign of the New Atheists for a war or fight with religion.”
You seem to suggest that the New Atheists should oppose theology (“dogma” rather than “study”) rather than religion.
But I don’t think what the New Atheists mean by “religion” is what you mean by “religion” (now that that’s clear(er)).
I think what the New Atheists mean by “religion” is, in fact, pretty much what you mean by “theology”.
What’s more, I think the vast majority of their readership know just what they mean too.
I already posted these links.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/27/worlds-muslim-population-_n_814866.html#s231069&title=Indonesia_
World’s Muslim Population Expected To Grow Twice As Fast As Non-Muslims In 20 Years: Report
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/study-rising-religious-ti_b_811665.html
Study: Rising Religious Tide in China Overwhelms Atheist Doctrine
One of the last great efforts at state-sponsored atheism is a failure.
And not just any kind of failure. China has enforced its anti-religion policy through decades of repression, coercion and persecution, but the lack of success is spectacular, according to a major new study.
No more than 15 percent of adults in the world’s most populous country are “real atheists.” 85 percent of the Chinese either hold some religious beliefs or practice some kind of religion, according to theChinese Spiritual Life Survey.
That’s fine, MH, and I apologize if I’ve failed to synthesize all your thoughts on this into a clear understanding of what you mean by religion. Thank you for making explicit your definition.
“Rendering all atheists religious.”
Indeed. Though, by that definition, we are all unwilling religionists — and that much is true, if we can usefully be thought religious!
“Eric’s argument (like that of any other Gnu Atheist) is not wrong just because he uses the word “religion” in a way that differs from your arbitrary whims about how that word should be defined.”
It’s this that I tried to get across in a post above, in however a ham-fisted way. I still see no reason to accept this definition over Eric’s — which I (and others) understand, is clearly defended, and is consistent with how the term is being used not just by “Gnu Atheists” but by those who consider themselves religious.
quoth maryhelena: China has enforced its anti-religion policy through decades of repression, coercion and persecution, but the lack of success is spectacular, according to a major new study.
So, China’s attempt to eliminate religion has not been very successful. But who here is suggesting that the use of repression, coercion and persecution would be either a useful or desirable strategy against religion?
Yes, you did. And Rieux already rebutted them.
Neither answers the question.
The Muslim population is growing. And it is clear why atheism will struggle to grow in that culture. As Eric points out in a comment on another post, in Islam the focus on the Ummah – and thus apostasy is a sharper brake on atheism than it was in “Christendom”.
The social exigencies that encourage adherence to religion must change significantly before atheism sees significant growth. But that is not to say that it will not happen. Already, people do turn away from it.
Regarding China, I’m dubious about the slant of that HuffPo article. Looking at the original data in the Chinese Spiritual Life Survey, in answer to the question, “Regardless of whether you have been to churches or temples, do you believe in any of the following?” the number of people who responded “I don’t believe in anything/ I don’t have any religious belief” was 78%.
(Let alone the atheists among the 18% that are Buddhists. And the ~1% that are Daoists or Confucianists.)
MORE THAN THREE-QUARTERS.
Isn’t that a *majority* of atheists?
I can’t see in the data what the supposed “growth” in Buddhism (some of which may be atheistic anyway) and Christianity is based on, nor what the figures are. The evidence in the HuffPo article seems to be only anecdotal.
I think China is a red herring.
PS. I can’t see anything in the data that supports HuffPo’s assertion that “85 percent of the Chinese either hold some religious beliefs or practice some kind of religion” — and certainly nothing to suggest that those beliefs and practices are theistic.
Good catch, antallan.
“The issue of a definition of *religion* comes up when the New Atheists seek to wage ‘war’ against religion.”
No, the strategy of those defending religion is to shift its definition so it can’t be criticised. You redefine religion so that it is unrecognisable to almost everyone and then act as though spiritual, religion and god have universal meanings?
It is like Karen Armstrong calling god ineffable – a ploy that means everything and nothing.