Category Archives: Enlightenment

What’s this got to do with free speech?

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This Post is now available in Polish translation at Racjonalista. Thanks once again to Malgorzata.

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In an op-ed in the National Post this morning George Jonas seems to be desperately confused as well as confusing. People have a right to say stupid things, he tells us the in title of the piece, and then he spends 889 words telling us why Douglas Murray is wrong, and does not really stand in the tradition of his Enlightenment ancestors — the Scottish one’s, of course. Jonas is responding to Murray’s article in the Spectator in which Murray takes the press to task for not supporting one of its own, and he ends with this:

However, Murray reports “a rare piece of good news in Europe. Lars Hedegaard is … going to sue the Swedish media for libel. I hope — along with all decent people who believe the media should be more than the warm-up and PR wing of the jihad — that he takes them to the cleaners.”

Trouble is, the quoted words are not to be found in Murray’s Spectator article, which is the one Jonas highlights. So, Jonas’ parting shot –

There’s no doubt that lawsuits aren’t in a class with assassination attempts, and libel-chill is preferable to murder. Still, liberty’s ideal is a free press. That’s what constitutions guarantee, with a fair press just a hopeful consequence. I’m afraid people turn to libel suits when they lose hope in freedom.

– seems not to be about anything at all. But the words do come in an article that Douglas Murray wrote for the Gatestone Institute, entitled “Blaming the Victim” (which Jonas fails to link — perhaps the Gatestone Institute is beyond the pale). But the Spectator article is all about blaming the victim too, though in the Spectator Murray doesn’t pass on the “good news” of Lars Hedegaard’s decision to sue the Swedish press. That, Jonas says with some acerbity, is what people do when they lose hope in freedom.

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Toleration (in general) vs. Religious Toleration: Locke vs. Spinoza

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I have been struggling with Brian Leiter’s idea of religious toleration, and the quest for a reason for religious toleration in particular. I was finding it hard to put a finger on what seemed to me wrong about it. What is so important about religious toleration, in particular? Indeed, are there not situations in which we ought not to be tolerant of religion and religious practice? Leiter worries about the French idea of laïcité, which essentially refers to the preservation of a secular public sphere, or, as Leiter says:

to preserve the public sphere as a secular one in which persons interact as equal citizens without regard to sectarian identities, religious or ethnic. [Why Tolerate Religion? 104]

Thus, in support of the ideal of laïcité, the French government has banned the wearing of the burqa, hijab and other religiously identifying dress in public. However, says Leiter, given the French antipathy towards Muslims,

… it is tempting to think of this law as a surreptitious assault on the basic protections of religious toleration. [104-5]

This seems to me simply to be wrong. Even if there were the antipathy mentioned, why would removing identifying marks of the religious in public space increase it? Indeed, if people are not wearing identifying marks, it is arguably harder to express antipathy towards someone because of their religious affiliation. If it is racial antipathy, that is, of course, another thing. But there is no reason why people should not feel threatened by a religion which, in its expression elsewhere, and even locally, does not seem compatible with political values that are as precious to the French as the value of laïcité.

Here is where I felt the need to go back and consider the origins of the modern idea of toleration, and how this relates to religious belief. I began by reading John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration (which is accessible in full here). It is a long time since I had read it, and I was surprised to find how deeply theological it was. Basically, Locke speaks of religious toleration in a theological context, first of all as an aspect of Christianity itself, and then, by separating individual interest into this-worldly and other-worldly considerations. Thus, he begins by speaking about Christian intolerance as contrary to the values of Christianity itself:

For whatsoever some people boast of the antiquity of places and names, or of the pomp of their outward worship; others, of the reformation of their discipline; all, of the orthodoxy of their faith — for everyone is orthodox to himself — these things, and all others of this nature, are much rather marks of men striving for power and empire over one another than of the Church of Christ.

In other words, Christianity itself mandates tolerance, and anything else is simply a play for power and influence. Then he points out that (again according to Christianity) there is only value in belief when it is freely adopted, and not under compulsion. Therefore, the use of fire and sword to force people to profess belief is of little value in achieving people’s salvation. Besides, as he points out from time to time, each believer is orthodox to himself, and it is pointless to try to determine by force what doctrines or beliefs are to be considered orthodox. Well, just so long as people adopt their own orthodoxy, whatever that is. For the one category of people who cannot be tolerated in the commonwealth are atheists. As Locke says so bluntly:

Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration.

A view expressed, not that long ago, by the elder President Bush, who, remarkably, seemed to be of the same opinion. The assumption lying behind this is that there is a particular reason for tolerating religion, and those who deny religion obviously do not come within the scope of that reason.

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Being in the Hot Seat: Mehdi Hassan and Richard Dawkins

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It must really have stung when Dawkins ask Mehdi Hassan whether he really believed that Muhammad rode to heaven on a winged horse, because he apparently does believe it. We’ll begin with that particular exchange in Hasan’s Al Jazeera interview of Richard Dawkins. If you watch the whole interview, note Hasan’s belligerent interviewing style, and how, after being challenged, he became, if anything, even more aggressive than he had already been.

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Hasan’s defensiveness shows clearly how much the imputation stung. How is it possible, Dawkins asks, incredulously, for someone to believe such a fanciful story in the 21st century? And yet Hasan comes back quickly with his unqualified , “Yes, I believe.” It’s a bit like Thomas (in the account in John’s gospel) meeting the risen Jesus, and saying, “Lord, I believe.” Yet Thomas goes on to say, “Help my unbelief.” But there is not even the shade of  a question in Hasan’s response. He believes, full stop! (It is notable, though, that he does not mention splitting the moon, a miracle that does not offer the option, sometimes taken, that it was an optical illusion. In Pickthall’s translation of Sura 52: The Moon, verses 1-2, this reads: “1. The hour drew nigh, and the moon was rent in twain. 2. And if they behold a portent they turn away and say: Prolonged illusion.” Apparently there were some rational people around at the time! )

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Religion and Democracy really are incompatible

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In a mad dash the other day, just before I had to go out for Thanksgiving Dinner — we do things differently in Canada — I quickly put up a post about the compatibility of religion and politics. Some people have pointed out that the incompatibility here, if there even is one, is very different to the incompatibility between religion and science, which really do conflict. One commentator on that post put it this way:

Eric, your premise rests on this: “The point is this. Governance, just like science, should be based on reason and evidence, and not just on one’s personal prejudices, because one’s personal prejudices have no place in the making of laws, which should be blind to religious belief.”

And it fails because of one word: “should”.   Science is so based. But politics is not based on that ideal. Democracy, politics and governance all are based as much on lies, distortions, half-truths, spin, greed, hero worship, concentrations of power, manipulating people, false advertising, character assassination, etc., etc., etc.

In this sense, there is not a definite outcome, as in science, for religion to be compatible or incompatible with.

And, of course, in this sense, I agree, but I would ask you to notice that science also suffers to a considerable degree from distortions, half-truths, spin, greed, hero-worship and concentrations of power. There’s a considerable dose of false accusation and character assassination around as well. Science is not all bright and shiny compared to the tawdriness and lack-lustre world of politics. Many people still think that Rosalind Franklin, for example, was unfairly treated, since her contribution to the discovery of the structure and function of DNA was considerable. Her work was shown to Watson without her knowledge or approval, and without it, Watson and Crick may not have had the evidence they needed to confirm their theory. The biological world was abuzz at the time with the race to discover the building blocks of life, and Franklin’s contribution has never been adequately or appropriately recognised. Science is a far messier world than is often acknowledged, and religion can find a resting place there too, as a number of accommodationists have shown. Certainly, the straight denial that religion and science are somehow compatible is difficult to establish, and probably has only a minority following amongst scientists (though not amongst senior scientists, perhaps). Of course, I don’t think religion has a place in science either, but it’s not a slam dunk when it comes to showing why not.

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On joining the barbarians

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Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has a thoughtful and for the most part well-reasoned expression of concern in this morning’s Independent entitled “Mobs in the Middle East, Salman Rushdie’s new book, and how progressive Islam fell to the barbarians.” At least that’s the way it looks, at first reading, though the histrionic title may give the game away. I hope she is wrong when she says:

It’s more or less over for progressive, liberal Islam. Many of us who’ve tried to keep alive the thoughtful, humane, cultured beliefs and practices of our parents and enlightened scholars can barely breathe or speak after the last wretched week when benighted mobs raved and killed across Muslim countries – some of them newly free and supposedly democratic.

But then she goes on immediately to say:

The Arab Spring turned to vicious winter and dashed naïve expectations and hopes. Casting out dictators does not necessarily bring wisdom, responsibility and self-control.

Surprise! Surprise! The key word here is “naïve”. It had never occurred to me, at least, that, just because despotism fell, we were in for a peaceful future. Huge convulsive changes are taking place in the Middle East, and we do not know the shape of the future, but certainly, no one should have expected that these despotisms would have turned at once into peaceful, freedom loving democracies. Religion had too large a hand in the so-called “Arab Spring” for the outcome to have been other than tumultuous. Religion is like that. Or did people just forget?

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Evidence, Interpretation and Scientism

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This post is a continuation of themes addressed in my last two posts about interpretation. There are two reasons for adding to them. First, there seems to be a widespread misunderstanding of scientism; and second, there is a deep sense of confusion about what constitutes knowledge, and how knowledge is grounded. First, as to scientism. In a couple of essays, already referred to, the philosophers Philip Kitcher and Massimo Pigliucci have suggested that there is a worrying narrowing of focus in the new atheism, a growing sense that science, and science alone, provides the foundations for rational understanding of the world, and that reason, in its most robust sense, must be sought and can only be found in the more determinate techniques and findings of the natural sciences.

Thus, when Richard Dawkins, in an enchanting book, tells us that there is something quite magical about the things that scientists know about the world, and that what they know, and the techniques by which they discover this knowledge, is how real knowledge is acquired, the implicit suggestion is that there is no other means of discovering the truth about the world except the methods of natural science. This has been discussed ad libitum in the atheist blogosphere, and it usually takes the form of disputing that there are other “ways of knowing.” At the very least, amongst the ways of knowing, religion is not to be found; but usually the point is made in a quite general way in the claim that the only way of knowing is scientific and empirical, and whatever else people think they know must be accepted as only a simulacrum of knowledge; and I have noticed that critics are almost as quick as the early Christian fathers to charge with heresy anyone who should have the temerity to suggest otherwise, as I have done.

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Faith is a Cognitive Sickness

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I’ve been listening to some of Peter Boghossian’s public lectures about the nature of faith. Here are a couple of examples, and they’re worth watching straight through. Here’s the first — entitled “Jesus, The Easter Bunny and Other Delusions: Just Say No!”

That is quite long, and there is a shorter version, dealing with roughly the same things, accessible here — entitled “Faith: Pretending to know things you don’t know”

Now, as most of you will know, when philosophers and others begin to criticise faith as believing things, people of faith will immediately turn round and claim that faith has nothing to do with believing. They will begin, as the Archbishop of Canterbury did with Richard Dawkins, talking in poetic language, which, no matter how you read it, simply cannot be understood as belief about things “out there,” but become, instead, about things “in here” — “in my head,” “conformable to my feelings,” and so on.

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We are puzzled along with Dawkins. What could Rowan Williams actually mean by nature “opening itself up to its own depths”? But by slipping off into poetic language it seems as if he is no longer talking about things “out there,” and so the language of faith seems to escape the epistemic conditions necessary for us to be talking about “the same thing,” about something that could claimed with justice to be true.

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Why do you have to hunt down everyone unless you’re weak?

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Just a preface by way of explanation. I’m sorry to be so unproductive over the last few days. It is Spring here, and I have my usual spring-time allergies, but this year they are affecting me particularly seriously. When that happens, stringing words together to make a sentence, let alone a post, is a struggle. This post took longer to write than almost any other, not because of its complexity or length, but because of what might be called thought-block. Bear with me. This Spring too will pass.

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Maureen Dowd has an interesting piece in the New York Times for Saturday (19th May 2012). Entitled Here Comes Nobody it is an attack on the Roman Catholic Church’s growing tendency to control its message, and to marginalise those who differ. It also expresses concern over the increasingly popular political idea that public policy should be governed by the religious beliefs of elected officials and members of legislatures, a growing tendency which is going to land us in serious political trouble if we are not careful. The telltale signs are increasing. Muslims, pretending that their religion is not political, are practically everywhere insisting that Islamic principles should govern everything from finances to women’s dress, and a host of things in between, all designed to normalise Islamic oppression in democratic contexts. The Roman Catholic Church is playing exactly the same game, by condemning liberal democratic establishments as radically secular and anti-Catholic, going so far as to tell women religious in the United States where the emphasis of their ministry must lie — not in the direction of social justice, but in an emphasis on the “pro-life” agenda of the Vatican, something that is governed by rigorously orthodox teaching. The sign of weakness lies in the increasingly narrow focus of religious practice. When religions are strong they are diversified, expansive, and encompass societies. When they are weak, they become narrow, intolerant and self-centred; brand loyalty becomes a central concern, and emphasis is placed on things which arouse deep emotions. During the 18th century Enlightenment this was known, in Britain at least, as “enthusiasm,” and was shunned by people who considered themselves intellectually sophisticated, and who had felt the winds of change blowing.

Religions tend to be static, because they depend upon the loyalty of ordinary people whose lives are marked by a fair degree of stasis, and for whom change is threatening. When religions go through a period when they feel themselves at risk, they tend to shorten their defence perimeter, choosing easily identifiable features of their internal landscape to defend. This also has the virtue of making their enemies and opponents more easily identifiable. In Dowd’s essay this tendency is clearly identified.  Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, was invited to give the commencement address at Georgetown University, which, because of her role in the insurance kerfuffle that the USCCB has made such a circus of, made her an easy target. As Dowd says:

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Roman Catholicism is a threat to freedom

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The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is making a play for limiting the freedom of non-Catholic Canadians in the name of religious freedom. In a Pastoral Letter issued yesterday (14th April 2012), the bishops tell us that religious freedom is, in the words of Pope Karol Józef Wojtyła, “the litmus test for the respect of all other human rights.” (§ 3) This is surely wrong. The freedom to think and to express one’s thoughts is far more important than freedom of religion. Indeed, without freedom of expression even freedom of religious belief and practice would be subverted. By making freedom of religion the litmus test, they are already skewing the notion of freedom in such a way as to ensure that, in the end, other freedoms will be able, in the name of all that is holy, to be abrogated in favour of religion and its priorities.

This becomes even more clear when, in the next section, the bishops state:

The right to freedom of conscience and religion derive from the unique dignity of the human person created in the image of God (cf. Gen 1: 26-27) and endowed with reason and free will. [§ 4]

This is totally wrong-headed. Our human rights cannot be dependent on the religious beliefs of a few, no matter how many. Rights must be morally prior to religious belief, and freedom of religion derives from such prior rights, rather than the other way about. Making the right to freedom of conscience depend on the idea of the dignity of the human person created in the image of God — even if, which I doubt, this makes any sense — is to put the whole regime of human rights into the thrall of religion, and subservient to it.  In fact, when the pastoral letter immediately goes on to say that human beings are the only creatures who can be in conscious relationship with God, and that to enter such a relationship freely “is essential to their dignity,” then we know that we have passed through the religious looking-glass, and everything is topsy-turvy.

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Nothing Beside Remains

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Thanks to Jerry Coyne for the reference to the YouTube priest, Fr. Robert Barron. You can watch the whole of his “take-down” of the New Atheists here. It’s the old odd complaint. The New Atheists aren’t serious enough. We should be, as Jerry says, lugubrious, ready to blow ourselves away because life is so meaningless. After all, says the YouTube priest:

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This is really a cock-and-bull story! We do have a longing for truth, justice, peace, love, meaning, purpose, etc. etc. — no doubt about that. But this is not pace Barron, a thirst for a god or a god like being. Certainly, Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, and others, used to feel a tension between their atheism and their search for meaning. Of course they did. Going without god is a relatively new thing, and belief in a god or gods is so deeply interwoven with the texture of a culture that it is hard to distinguish the one from the other. So, of course there was a tension, a serious concern about whether it was possible to retain the value of things while letting go of god or gods, in which value had been vested for so long.

As a consequence, the first people who began to take atheism, complete non-belief in god or gods, with deadly earnestness, not only felt the tension, but expressed it in their lives and in their writing. Seriousness was a problem. How could you be serious without god? That used to be a deeply felt problem, since seriousness itself was somehow all wrapped up in religious vestments. That’s why Robert Barron can come out with the nonsense represented by the short video clip above. And it is a nonsense, almost as nonsensical as it’s possible to be, a bit like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. That’s also why he misrepresents one of the most sceptical of the Jewish scriptures. He calls it “Qoheleth,” which is usually translated by the English word ‘preacher’ – though it is more familiar to most English speakers as the book of Ecclesiastes. For the writer of this piece of Wisdom literature, as it is commonly called, amongst which are usually included the Song of Songs, Proverbs, Job, and the Psalms (as well as the book of Sirach in what Protestants call the Apocrypha, since the Protestant Old Testament included only the books recognised in the Jewish canon of scripture, the Tanach) — life is ephemeral, and so are all the joys and accomplishments of life. The end of all, wise or foolish, is the same, namely, death. There is simply no sense, in the book of Ecclesiastes, that the writer recommends trusting in the Lord. Indeed, it is clear that he cannot ascribe eternal meaning to life at all. It all ends in death, regardless of the effort put into living life well. Of course, this is what he recommends, but part of wisdom is to live life as fully as it is given us to live. But, he says, there is a season for everything, for marriage, for peace, for war, for planting, for harvesting, for destroying things, for building things up. In the end, the only significance lies in the things themselves, and what meaning we can give to them. Barron’s claim that the preacher is a firm believer is nonsense. There is no sign that, for Qoheleth, there is any transcendent meaning to life. Life is what it is, and it comes as it comes, and we must live within the moment, and for the moment, because, in the end, as Wordsworth says in his poem on the French revolution, this is the only life we have, and the only place we will find our happiness, or not at all.

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