A Proposition of a Different Kind
Perhaps atheism is an inevitable stage of the journey towards a higher conception of transcendent truth.
What do you think?
What do you think?
posted by Joolya at
5:55 PM
Monday, April 02, 2007
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10 Comments:
Personally, I doubt it, as many atheists deny any kind of transcendent truth, myself included. Unless perhaps you're defining transcendent truth differently?
It could definitely be the last stage. The one where you look back at all the other stages and go, What the hell was I/were they thinking?
Religious people believe things in the absense of proof. Scientists try to discover the truth in the world based on what we can observe and prove. Saying "There is no God" is a religion, because you are saying you believe something in the absense of proof. Most scientists are not so much atheists, as people that reject major religions due to the fact that the stories that they believe are literally true are so error-ridden. In actuality, I would think that a supreme being would want his/her creation to be imaginative and questioning. In that respect, scientists would be most likely to make God happy (if there is a God). In any case, we may never know the answer to that question, so you have to ask yourself if that's such a big deal.
I am too busy working out my own existence to worry about God's. I'll let God worry about God's existence; because, frankly, I don't have time.
Mike, I'm uncertain that this argument follows. Scientists like inductive reasoning - they believe in things they can demonstrate and prove. Things which have been deduced are "theories", which are correct to the extent that they have empirical evidence to back them up. In your reasoning, as they don't have proof that God doesn't exist, they should be agnostic about its existence. God, as a theory, has not been proved.
But you might be on sandy ground here. Some theories are better than others. The theory of evolution, for example, has more evidence for it than the theory of creation. Therefore, scientists believe in the theory of evolution. "God", as a hypothesis, has little evidence for it, and a scientist should therefore not believe it to the extent that a scientist doesn't believe anything.
I think the entity "God" is a creation of human culture. To believe in God, I think you have to believe in direct revelation by God to prophets, and then believe them when they say it spoke to them. Or you have to believe that you have sensed God directly. If not, it is apparent that "God" as an idea was created by the human mind.
A true empiricist presupposes nothing. "God" is a presupposition: a figment of human culture which has been passed down through stories, sermons, and rites. There is no more reason to believe in God - unless you have directly sensed him - than there is to believe in unicorns. The "inductive" argument for agnosticism is based on a sort of unconscious, communal deduction, which amounts to "I have been told about "God", as an entity; I have no reason to believe that "God" does not exist: therefore God may exist." Replace "God" with "warriors from the planet Krikket" and alarm bells start to ring.
I suppose a scientist could say they are "agnostic" about God in the same way they are "agnostic" about unicorns. But neither theory has much evidence for it, so "agnostic" here means "almost certainly not true". Richard Dawkins makes this point well in "The God Delusion".
I'd like to add, I am an atheist, but I don't have a problem with people not being atheists. In fact, I think it makes the world much more interesting, and I like talking to people about it. I am not trying to ram atheism down your throat. Perhaps you have sensed God somehow. I haven't, and so I don't believe in God.
And you're right, it probably isn't such a big deal as everyone makes out, as long as religious and non-religious people treat each other with respect and don't try any jihading or crusading.
I personally can not believe in God. I am not sure that I have arrived at some transcendent idea other than I now believe in the nitrogen cycle.
Springy - Interesting comments. I can't say I disagree with what you've written. I've thought as much over the years, and some of it was well expressed in the book "Letter to a Christian Nation".
I was going to argue that dark matter or the big bang would also fit into your test case phrase ("I have been told..." etc.), but that's not as true today. However, at some points in history, it was. We looked at the universe's expansion and wondered where all the matter was. Someone came up with a theory that there must be matter that we can't see that accounts for it. At that point, you're talking like someone that believes in God. You've seen an effect and have no idea what caused it. Truly curious religious and non-religious people are the same. They look at the universe and go "where did this come from?" The religious person says "God did it." It shouldn't be blasphemous to then say "How did he do it?"
I guess my point is that it's good to have that original curiosity. That's what our science is built on. Someone said "why does that tree move?" and eventually they figured out about wind even though you can't see it. Along the way, someone probably said that angry spirits were shaking the tree. But if you substitute "wind" for "angry spirits", you're essentially correct. I think that's what religion is - some day we'll find things we can replace the word "God" with in the sentences that say "God created ...". It's interesting to think of current scientific questions that are now at that primitive stage. For example, what came before the big bang? Are there other universes?
I have never believed in the myths of Christianity, but I've vacillated between atheism and agnosticism. I think I prefer agnosticism because it's more polite (but also out of some healthy social fear). I like to try to pose questions of faith to people of faith in ways that scientists look at things. I think you have to speak like a believer to get believers to even begin to listen to you. The only way we are going to move the world towards more reason is to speak their language. I spent part of the weekend arguing with a devote cousin about evolution and the formation of Earth, and I had to keep telling her that what was in the Bible wasn't wrong, it was just the limits of our understanding at that time. We understand more and better now.
They had a recent poll that showed that Atheists were the least respected and would have the hardest time getting elected. Look at what we do in the world in the name of religion - not just Muslims, but Christians too. It's a basis for hate and discrimination. It drives people away from knowledge and innovation and into blind obedience and dependency. Scientists MUST learn how to speak with people of faith to keep them from grabbing control of the world and pushing it into more extreme and illogical ways.
This is why Agnostics and Atheists need to learn how to speak in religious terms. The world is depending on scientists to guide us forward, but won't follow if they think we are leading them away from God. And I guess my point is, maybe in seeking the truth about the world, we are leading them closer to God. After all, in the word substitution example, isn't God "one who understands all things".
Thanks for your comments, Mike. I found them very interesting. You're right that our rhetorical stance should be gentle towards people who believe in God, for tactical reasons. Such a stance is unthreatening. I have noticed, when talking to religious people, that they perceive my questioning of their belief as an attack. This is because God seems to be somehow outside the realm of reason. God is something that we may not question - a non-hypothesis.
In this sense, though, God-belief (and "faith" as a category of thought) is antithetical to science. God is not an idea you may cast aside if there is no reason to believe it.
I think I understand what you mean, and actually what Julia meant, when you say we are moving towards God by the spirit of critical enquiry. We could define God as a sort of metaphor for absolute and perfect knowledge. Humans have imperfect knowledge, but by using tools like science we can come to understand the universe less imperfectly. But this means we have to have to accept our imperfections. We need to subject everything we think to criticism. And this, perhaps, includes God.
Springy,
You said "God is not an idea you may cast aside if there is no reason to believe it" when discussing the feelings of believers. Have you been reading Dennett? I'm just finishing up "Breaking the Spell," and this is one of the main points he makes very well. It is clear that the idea that there are ideas that you may not question is problematic, especially when we start to think about some of those things that were once the province of god(s) -- things like theories of mind, where emotions come from, why we are good or bad, etc. In those cases, belief in belief (as Dennett terms it) trumps scientific progress, which I am certain is not a Good Thing.
I would like to complain briefly about using the word "believe" to apply to scientific theories. (As Springy did upthread a bit, but explained it afterwards.) The word believe, as I've recently blogged on, implies some sort of "leap of faith," and to say that I "believe" in evolution conveys entirely the wrong concept. Trusting experts in a field is not the same as trusting your high priest, because if you had the time and the energy, you could find out about evolution yourself. You can't backtrack along any similar lines to find out for yourself when the topic is divine revelation. Sorry for that rant, but it bugs me. I think it bugs me because using that kind of language confuses people with belief-based worldviews. We've definitely discussed this before, how people who believe in god(s) and miracles can't conceive of ways of knowing that have no "leap of faith" element. So to say that I "believe" in evolution presents the false idea that science (or evolution or whatever) is just another religion.
Whew. That turned long! I can't wait to see you guys! Although it means I will have to clean :( Boo.
I do think that atheism is a natural stage to reach when exploring/learning about various disciplines ... and any open-minded learning must surely bring you nearer to any conception of transcendent truth. I find it hard not to be dismissive of the kind of organised religion that pervades the world, but I do think that (this idea was shamelessly stolen, and badly paraphrased from, Philip Pullman's section on religion on his website http://www.philip-pullman.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=12) the human instinct for something transcendent can be important and useful.
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