Taking the new atheists seriously

[dauer]

I am in a different space, personally, because I really like the ritual and the particularist forms that myth and mysticism take on. I have no qualms with talking about G!d in mythical terms or with prayer. At the same time, I don't understand Deity as something metaphysical. I don't see any reason why I should believe in such an entity's existence.

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by Paladin

Well, as I live and breathe, Devadatta! Haven't seen you around in ages! So good to see you.
As for your post, great stuff. One might conclude that as humans we are fundamentally insane.

I sure am!

Cheers.

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

At least we can hope for gentler insanities.

Cheers.

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Hi Big D and good to see you

What a good OP.

Those of a hazily defined spiritual bent have here on these pages brought me to task for the blanket dismissal of spiritual beliefs. Rationalism is a cold clinical route and is therfor perhaps not truly reflective of the human condition. I personally find it difficult to balance my own aesthetic leanings with the unambiguous dismissal that scientific rational cannot help but reach. But with the big two totalitarian religions that give or allow to be given sanction to the terrible deeds that daily fill our news bulletins I think it is high time we spoke honestly. They were both given to us by Individuals who's only aim was power and totalitarianism. Because of that remit hard wired into these ideologies the progression of atrocities can never be escaped.

You can divorce aesthetics from rationality as an atheist. There are many levels to appreciate a great cathedral without being touched by belief. Pleasure is a neurochemical reaction to stimuli. The eye and the ear can find patterns in many places that create harmonies our pleasure points in the brain find pleasing. (Incidentally we seem to find the greatest pleasure in the incomplete where we have to fill in the gaps). So I dont hold that atheism requires you to give up appreciation of complexity, no matter where it is found. Indeed for me my distaste for Islam and Christianity is tinged with a wonder of their complexity and their ability to pervert the logic of otherwise sane and intelligent individuals.

Religion is not going anywhere soon. The evangelical atheists appeal to a certain fringe group. The cult of atheism does not yet exist though. Its few champions are usually given media attention just to spice up a debate, to create good TV, than to have the issues truly debated. The rich and powerful require the soma of religion and as long as they do there is not going to be a widespread and real debate about the value of religion to human kind. Because rational analysis shows that value to be entirely negative.

Tao

I think you’ve brought up what may be the central issue as far as atheism is concerned: is there a sharp distinction between fact and non-fact, reality and the imagination, the operations of reason and virtually all other mental operations? Does reason have not only special but absolute privilege? Do such hard distinctions really exist?

I think here is where atheists of the Dawkins variety are most vulnerable: they put far too much faith in the existence of such hard distinctions, so that every time they stray as they must into the non-rational their whole project is undermined. It’s easy to smell this basic flaw, even when it’s hard to precisely sum it up for a given case.

I’m not really up to the task, but I’ll make a few jabs here at suggesting where this kind of atheism goes wrong. And knowing you’re a hardheaded person, I promise not to resort to misty notions like intuition, etc.

1. Because of the nature of consciousness, pure, value-free thoughts or statements are impossible, and that for a purely scientific reason: consciousness is always embodied, or what amounts to the same thing, consciousness is always interdependent with bodies, whether we mark these bodies subjects or objects, inner or outer.

I can call the sun the chariot of Apollo, a Spanish doubloon or a nuclear furnace, and speak truly in each case, depending on the context. In all cases, the sun will shine as always, but its comprehensive definition, never mind its meaning, will elude me. The point is not just that each statement can be “true” in the sense of a being an intelligible set of signifiers with a signified or referent we can with some effort locate. It’s also that each statement carries with it a complex feeling tone. No one can repeat these statements without some feeling attached. There’s no thought without feeling (again, because thought for us is always embodied). To call the sun a nuclear furnace may on the surface appear more factual than to call it a Spanish doubloon, but it cannot be factually expressed. That is, it can’t be expressed purely, in a way absolutely distinct from its embodiment.

Take the most refined example, pure mathematics. The dream that lies behind two-fisted rationalists like Dawkins I think is the old Platonic one, the mathematical god. I didn’t do much math in school, but I remember that even basic algebra had its aesthetic dimension, that there was a definite physical pleasure in solving equations, as there often is when one grasps (notice the metaphor) any concept. Mathematicians and scientists pursue truth for the same reason we all pursue the things we enjoy: because it feels good.

Nothing wrong with that, to the nth power. But it does mean that like all thought, even the most “rational” thought is embodied and so cannot be presented as pure fact, distinct from all the rest, but only as something relatively more or less factual, given its context.

2. All thought, but especially rational/scientific thought, is binary.
As William Blake said, the “rational” always partakes of the “ratio”, that is of relations between objects. It can’t say anything about things but only relations between things. Most importantly for Blake, reason can’t create and for him creativity is the fundamental characteristic of the universe.

But since reason after all isn’t some separate faculty of the mind, but just a set of operations we can point to, part of the way the mind works, I’d say that all thinking partakes of Blake’s ratio. It’s just that reason, especially as formally developed through scientific method makes a special virtue of this tendency. The scientific method after all is to isolate a piece of reality small enough to lend itself through hypothesis and experiment to a simple yes/no. Science must abstract from complex wholes in order to function.

Science accumulates ever more knowledge as it abstracts from complex wholes, but leaves those complex wholes ever more opaque, ever more uncanny. Science creates far more mystery than it ever dispels.

3. It’s a question language and its adequacy to a given task.
In contrast, with scientific language, metaphorical language runs against the inherent limitations of embodiment and binary pairs. The function of the symbol, for example, in literature, religion and the arts, is not to press reality into a binary or hold it to a restricted range of feeling, or to a particular body, but to open out and admit of ever more meanings and sets of interpretations.

The open-ended nature of the symbol and of figurative language in general allows it to include so much more of “what’s there” in reality. The body limits scientific language, while metaphorical language invokes the body in its complexity, even while it assimilates scientific language into its grammar and lexicon.

Whether this metaphorical language points to spiritual realities or simply clusters of concepts and feelings, every person can decide for him or herself. (My belief follows the non-dual line of thought: matter/spirit is a false distinction.) The point is that when we’re talking about what is most fundamental to human experience, scientific language may only intensify our inherent limitations, while metaphorical language, especially that of the symbol, as found and exploited in all traditions, may get us closer to the mark, closer to the “facts”.

Cheers.

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by wil

I guess I'll have to read these books unless someone can describe this ideological virus that creates such.

I also don't have the world history knowledge to prove or disprove what I'm thinking, but the Abrahamic religions have only had any impact for 3,000 years and anything relating to a global impact for 1,500 or so.

So my question lies in dynasties in the east, in societies in Africa, South America (Mayan, Inca) these had differing beliefs, was the ideology also present there which caused the regimes which held power for centuries?

I'm wondering not if the 'virus' existed prior to the bible, but which came first the chicken or the egg, ie is this 'virus' in the bible due to the society that existed?

Those are good questions. We do need to keep these things in perspective. The bible certainly did not invent the will to power or absolutism, and the violence we see somtimes condoned there was of a piece with the rest of the ancient world.

And I once again be careful to remind everyone that this is no anti-semitic agenda here. The only fault of the Hebrews is being so brilliant in erecting a tribal ideology that everyone wanted to copy.

But what was and is cool for the Hebrews and Jews became extraordinarilly powerful and dangerous when it becamed generalized, first as an imperial orthodoxy by Christians and than as imperial orthopraxy by Islam.


The ideological rigour inaugurated by Christianity really was unique in the world. The world had always been violent and brutal. It never before had such method.

Cheers.

[China Cat Sunflower]

Originally Posted by Paladin

Sure we can, but won't it feel awkward when the Angelic Celestial Super Intelligent Space Beings show up to fix everything (deus ex machina) ?

[Tao_Equus]

I cannot disagree with much you say there as you present it. Though use of symbolism also throws up limitations. Sometimes a thought, message or statement has to be unambiguous lest it be abused in a dangerous way. We live in a world of increasing specialisation or focus and our 'progress' is built on the back of that. These "New Atheists" are highly focussed individuals that do not perform well out of the framework of cold rationality. I am only really familiar with the personality of Dawkins and lets be honest, he is no charismatic. But in a sense he is breaking new ground and the trail he beats will be walked by better communicators that are better prepared for the more difficult questions. I think Dawkins finds it hard to communicate the more gentle and aesthetic facets of the human psyche but is not entirely dismissive of them. Uncompromising to the central tenet of his argument is his way though and this does him few favours.
Atheism, as I said, is not going to become the new world religion any time soon. But I do hope that it does in time bring a more rational study of why mankind has this tendency toward thinking a fringe idea is a universal truth. And in the doing persuade enough individuals within every society to act as a balance to the insanity that seems to all too readily take root within supernatural belief structures.
On an individual level we cannot "know" we have "the" answer to the big question. We can dismiss, ignore or place faith in them. And we will each individually continue to create a symbolic language to express where we stand. And in that sense symbols are as polarising as they are collectivising. I think not taking atheists seriously is the loss of the theist. What better place to measure the efficacy of ones beliefs than against the benchmark of the non-partisan ?

tao

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Devadatta

At least we can hope for gentler insanities.

Cheers.

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.
~ C S Lewis

{Yes, I am capable of composing my own words, but like to quote others, especially when they expressed what I'm trying to express so much better than I can.}

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

I cannot disagree with much you say there as you present it. Though use of symbolism also throws up limitations. Sometimes a thought, message or statement has to be unambiguous lest it be abused in a dangerous way. We live in a world of increasing specialisation or focus and our 'progress' is built on the back of that. These "New Atheists" are highly focussed individuals that do not perform well out of the framework of cold rationality. I am only really familiar with the personality of Dawkins and lets be honest, he is no charismatic. But in a sense he is breaking new ground and the trail he beats will be walked by better communicators that are better prepared for the more difficult questions. I think Dawkins finds it hard to communicate the more gentle and aesthetic facets of the human psyche but is not entirely dismissive of them. Uncompromising to the central tenet of his argument is his way though and this does him few favours.
Atheism, as I said, is not going to become the new world religion any time soon. But I do hope that it does in time bring a more rational study of why mankind has this tendency toward thinking a fringe idea is a universal truth. And in the doing persuade enough individuals within every society to act as a balance to the insanity that seems to all too readily take root within supernatural belief structures.
On an individual level we cannot "know" we have "the" answer to the big question. We can dismiss, ignore or place faith in them. And we will each individually continue to create a symbolic language to express where we stand. And in that sense symbols are as polarising as they are collectivising. I think not taking atheists seriously is the loss of the theist. What better place to measure the efficacy of ones beliefs than against the benchmark of the non-partisan ?

tao

If I hear what you’re saying correctly I think you’re right that we certainly need reason to police and even occasionally to sober up our imaginations.

As for an atheist religion, I think many have pointed out the contradiction. To declare oneself an “atheist” is to admit defeat from the beginning in that it perpetuates a certain kind of discourse, and a false dichotomy. It’s only historical conditions that compel some people to make this declaration. One shouldn’t have to declare the non-existence of someone else’s metaphors.

I think here is a prime example of how our binary language simply obscures the reality that’s always there: dense, unsoundable, extraordinary. It doesn’t demand a doctrine, only a “yes” or a “no”.

Thanks for your thoughtful responses.