Forfeiting the Culture War

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Woody Allen, a comedian beloved by lefties everywhere, once said that, "Eighty percent of success is showing up." Too bad that so many of his fans seem to think that eighty percent is enough when it comes to the culture war. Two stories that caught my eye this morning illustrate what I mean.

In the first, C. August names the issue clearly when he discusses the political rise of fundamentalists in Portland, Oregon, a city with a reputation for being so far to the left that one USA Today blogger he cites, "likened the Portland ethos to a disease, worrying ... about it 'metastasizing' to other parts of the country." (Conservatives tend to equate collectivism and skepticism with secularism. This is mistaken at best because both: (1) Collectivism neither exclusively nor necessarily follows from secularism; and (2) Skepticism and uncertainty are not the only alternative to religious faith. That said, the dominant philosophical outlook among secularists is skepticism and most secularists are leftists. I am, myself, neither a skeptic nor a collectivist, but an atheist and a capitalist. It is important to note further that atheism only describes my position regarding the question of the existence of God. It does not describe what I do hold to be true.)

It should not be surprising that the moral vacuum created by the nihilism of the left--the "city's secularism and skepticism" noted by the author--is driving people to the only alternative they know of: Christian altruism. That the progressives in this example are already gleefully practicing altruists, added to the fact that man requires moral standards whether he recognizes that fact or not, means that the denial of any objective moral code by the progressives makes them ripe candidates to be subsumed by their more philosophically consistent brethren. Of course, the Christians don't offer an objective moral code grounded in the facts of reality and the nature of man--only rational egoism is such an objective moral code--but because progressives deny the existence of objective truth to begin with... [bold added]
The secularists are certainly there in droves, but they're losing the culture war precisely because they have nothing to offer as a viable alternative to religious dogma. Most of them accept the altruism and collectivism of religion by default. Religion preaches these, too, but claims to offer certainty and standards -- two things possible and necessary for a proper human life.

We see this problem on a different scale in the lament of a "humanist" father that his children are asking him questions that presuppose the existence of God and that there seem not to be very many books around to help his children reach adulthood with a secular perspective:
... Are there any children's books, I wondered, that directly address religious questions from a humanistic point of view? Not necessarily an anti-Bible, but a strong alternative or counterpart in a secular key.

I called a friend of mine, who works for a humanist charity and is a parent too, feeling sure he would have some sage advice. His response surprised me. Not only did he not know of any good humanist children's books, he said, he didn't like the idea of such a thing. Rather than attempt to counter-indoctrinate kids with explicitly anti-religious messages, he argued, far better simply to expose them to the widest range of reading as possible - weren't Roald Dahl and Dr Seuss essentially humanistic? - and expose them to the manifold religions and philosophies in the world in order to nourish their imaginations and sense of wonder about the Universe, and help them view religion in a comparative context. The antidote I was seeking, he suggested, was to be found in books of evolution and science fiction, not didactic manifestos. [bold added]
Before I go on, I want to be clear that I sympathize with author Danny Postel: Helping a child develop a rational, independent mind despite the saturation of the culture with religious influence is exceedingly difficult. (And even if one does his best, human beings have free will. A child still also has to choose to think.)

That said, the very premises that govern most secular people -- See the bold above. -- cause them to see the issue as either indoctrination or providing no guidance at all. There is nothing wrong with reading about many religious traditions, but what good is it if the child has no concept of rationality? Or no standard by which to judge these traditions?

That Postel gets hung up on relatively unimportant content -- various religions and whether there is a God -- rather than concerning himself with how to teach his children how to think is important here. This premature concern tells me that he himself is crippled by the skepticism he extols, by the idea that certainty is impossible to man. The fact is that human consciousness, like anything else in existence, has a specific nature, and so functions in a specific way (i.e., by operating logically on sensory input and the concepts formed therefrom).

There are many reasons to be concerned about the cultural influence of religion, but whether a child believes (or thinks he believes) in God is among the least of these. If a child learns the proper method of dealing with such questions (and that method is generally applicable to all questions), he will be able to take care of himself. But one who rejects certainty as such will both fail to appreciate this fact and thus make religion seem more attractive to his children.

For example, saying something like, "Many people think that there is a God, but I don't," is fine, but it is just a start, and what one says (and teaches explicitly or demonstrates) in such situations is crucial. Unfortunately, Postel falls right into a trap of his own skeptical making:
"First, Theo, your question presumes that Jesus was God," I responded. "Many people, like mommy, believe he was, but many others don't. It also presumes that there is a God - we don't know for sure that there is." "I think there is," he retorted. "There may very well be a God, Theo. But not everyone agrees on that - there are many people who doubt there is a God. We might never know for sure if there is or not," I told him. "When we die we'll know," he came back. "Maybe," I said. "But maybe not."
If Postel is, as I suspect, a typical skeptic, all claims to knowledge are, to him, unwarranted and, as such, equivalent to religious faith. Furthermore, he would not see any consistent connection between perceptual knowledge and abstractions. This could explain why it seems not to occur to him to ask something like, "How do you know that Jesus is God?" (And if he saw such a connection, he would also realize that this is the first part of a line of questioning that will quickly cause young Theo to run out of ground to stand on.)

In addition to not understanding how to deal with (or demonstrate what is wrong with) arbitrary claims, an improper understanding of concept-formation on Postel's part could also account for his immediately attacking his son's premises rather than keeping the conversation on an appropriate level of abstraction for a child. His children may or may not be old enough to discuss such an issue, but no child is too young to learn that if he wants to say something is true, he ought to be prepared to back himself up with facts.

Postel's children may or may not be independent enough to begin to question religion on their own and they may or may not encounter a thinker like Ayn Rand during their intellectual development, but Postel's own philosophy is forcing him to leave many things to chance that he does not have to.

Worse, he may, with his haphazard, indiscriminate pedagogical approach and discomfort with what he takes to be certainty, even cause his children to have an incorrect idea of what being certain or rational or secular can and ought to mean. He risks making faith look like the shortest (or only) path to knowledge as they reach young adulthood, and are actively seeking guidance on philosophical issues in general and ethical questions in particular. Which religion, if they take it seriously enough, will not matter.

We have seen this before and we will see it again. If eighty percent of success is showing up, then the rest is knowing how to win. And the first part of that is knowing that you can know. Otherwise, you might as well show up for a ball game without even wearing a uniform and gape while the referee records a forfeit.

-- CAV

PS: It is important to note that secularism is properly only a position regarding a common belief and is not, as such, a coherent view of the world. Common cultural baggage aside, there is a need to go beyond simply opposing religion. It is not enough just to be a secularist. One must also offer an alternative to religion on every type of question it attempts to address. The fact that leftists are the largest fraction of secularists both obscures this fact and makes the position good polemical fodder for many less-than-forthright religious opponents.

21 comments:

Mo said...

so would skepticism equal subjectivism

Gus Van Horn said...

No. They are technically different, but are hard to tell apart in practice.

Skepticism holds that man cannot know anything; subjectivism that knowledge is whatever a human (or group of human) consciousness(es) say(s) it is, depending on exactly what TYPE of subjectivism.

Needless to say, pure skepticism would offer man no moral guidance at all and subjectivism would offer "do your own thing" or "conform to the group" (which can be practically the same).

On top of that, most people, passively absorbing elements from each (via various modern philosophies) won't be pure skeptics or subjectivists anyway.

So the two can be hard to tell apart anyway, and one person can hold a mishmash of the two implicitly and/or explicitly.

Gus Van Horn said...

And, to clarify further, these are each broad approaches to epistemology, not philosophies. When speaking of each offering ethical guidance, I am, of course referring to what each, if consistently applied would lead to.

Jc said...

http://rynomi.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/thinking-your-way-to-faith/

another response this article

Gus Van Horn said...

Thanks for pointing me to that link. I will say a few things about it:

(1) The author alleges that Postel makes a given presupposition about fundamentalism and calls it "ideology-laden". I have noted in the past that many Christians exempt their own ideology, Christianity, from that label, which they use derogatorily. This is wrong, and ideology is not, as such, a bad thing. That said, Christianity is an ideology and, its epistemological prescription of faith is beyond bad.

(2) The whole premise of the blog, titled, Thinking your Way to Faith and its contention "that one can 'freely' and thoughtfully decide to pursue a life of faith" are wrong.

Faith is the acceptance of something as true regardless of an absence of evidence in its favor or the fact that it contradicts logic. Since rational thought consists of learning about reality through sensory perception and exercising logic (i.e., making non-contradictory identifications), one can not reach faith or conclude that it is a good thing, at least for very long, through a process of rational thought. (One can always accept religion and stop thinking, but that's not the same thing as concluding through reason that religion is correct.)

In other words, I think that the blog's author used his scare quotes in the wrong way. He should have said, "[O]ne can freely and 'thoughtfully' decide to pursue a life of faith."

Man's basic freedom is to think or not to think. Many people, sometimes including very well-educated people, decide to exempt the "truths" of religion from the light of reason. That is a fact, but it does not make them correct.

The author makes light of the claim that many secularists, "know that 'free' thought inexorably leads away from religion not toward it." He is right only insofar as you cannot force anyone to think. He is wrong, however, in that if someone does think about religion, he will find it intellectually wanting.

Ryan said...

I followed a link on my blog to this post, and just thought I would offer a brief response to the criticisms leveled at my post. There are many things that could be said about your response, but I just thought I would ask a few simple questions. You say this at the end of your response:

"The author makes light of the claim that many secularists, "know that 'free' thought inexorably leads away from religion not toward it." He is right only insofar as you cannot force anyone to think. He is wrong, however, in that if someone does think about religion, he will find it intellectually wanting."

If I am understanding you correctly, you would say (without knowing anything about me or my educational background) that because I am religious I have therefore not thought about my beliefs? And that if I were to have the temerity to suggest that I had thought about my faith and still had not found it intellectually wanting and had freely chosen to embrace it, that I would be... what? Lying? Stupid? Irrational? Just curious.

Gus Van Horn said...

"If I am understanding you correctly, you would say (without knowing anything about me or my educational background) that because I am religious I have therefore not thought about my beliefs?"

I would say that you have not thought enough about them. For example, How do you know that there is a God? Theologians have had thousands of years to prove this point, and yet have STILL not succeeded.

"And that if I were to have the temerity to suggest that I had thought about my faith and still had not found it intellectually wanting and had freely chosen to embrace it, that I would be... what? Lying? Stupid? Irrational? Just curious."

I have already indicated that faith is the opposite of reason. Not knowing your exact circumstances, a few other possibilities do come to mind, among them simple confusion on your part about what faith actually is, epistemologically.

But yes, you could be dishonest or lazy. That's always possible, but I don't know, nor am I particularly concerned. It's your life.

Ryan said...

How would I know when I have thought "enough" about my beliefs? When they lined up with yours? Is everyone who looks at the world and arrives at different conclusions re: the presence or absence of God by definition less rational, diligent, intelligent, and honest than you are?

Gus Van Horn said...

Either a proposition is true, it is false, or it is arbitrary (meaning: entirely made up, without any connection to reality, and thus, not EVEN wrong).

The notion of God is arbitrary, but most people have been taught it all their lives or have never fully learned that the burden of proof lies with the one making this assertion. (As a corollary, one needn't disprove the arbitrary.)

So yes, it is possible for someone to end up confused or giving the idea an undeserved benefit of the doubt, and still be rational: rational, but confused. But this assumes that they never just throw in the towel and simply accept it on faith.

Once someone does that, or fudges by treating an assertion he knows to be arbitrary like an actual hypothesis even though he knows better, then that person IS being irrational.

As for how so many people who accept such a huge variety of things on faith could all be "not even wrong," ... The human imagination is limitless. When people accept whatever it can come up with without demanding it have some relationship to reality, they will profess to believe many different things. (And the merely confused will be confused about these same things.)

You claim that reason supports your religion. Do you consider it TRUE? If so, then YOUR conclusion must be that either that anyone who disagrees with you has more work to do, or that reason is not man's means of knowledge. (Which is my best guess since you speak of reasoning to faith.)

If not, what are you getting all worked up about?

In a nutshell, I think that adults who accept the idea of God, or who don't reject it out of hand are either confused or irrational.

Jim May said...

Ryan asks:

How would I know when I have thought "enough" about my beliefs?.

Insofar as belief in God is concerned, if you are still a believer, you haven't thought about them enough to discover that there is no *reason * to believe in God, or even the possibility of such.

However, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as "thought enough" about one's beliefs, any more than one can at some point declare that he's "breathed enough". There is always more to learn.

Gus Van Horn said...

Thanks Jim. I completely agree that there is no such thing as having thought through one's beliefs enough.

Ryan said...

Jim and Gus, I absolutely agree—one ought never to stop thinking; there is always more to learn.

I'm curious about this statement:

"Either a proposition is true, it is false, or it is arbitrary (meaning: entirely made up, without any connection to reality, and thus, not EVEN wrong)."

Surely this is a bit simplistic. What about propositions that express subjective value. "Love is beautiful," for instance, or "love is pathetic and weak." Are these propositions true? False? Arbitrary?

Nonetheless, I do agree that the proposition "God exists" is either true or false. But your disbelief is just as incapable of meeting the criteria that you demand for belief. As you are obviously aware, you can no more prove that God (or anything outside the realm of what is empirically demonstrable) does not exist than I can prove that he does. So we are all dealing with probabilities, not certainties. You do not "know" that God doesn't exist (or that the concept is, as you put it, "arbitrary" with no connection to reality) just as I do not "know" that he does. No doubt you consider it highly unlikely that God exists, but it's not as simple as saying that atheists are dealing with facts and theists just have faith. We may interpret the facts differently, and we may give different weight to different kinds of evidence, but every worldview is an interpretation of reality that goes beyond what can be empirically proven.

I do not think that the world of observation and experience unambiguously points to one and only one interpretation. There are good reasons for disbelief. There are also good reasons for belief, from my perspective. I might think that you aren't open to possibilities worth considering, but I certainly wouldn't consider you irrational or lazy for being an atheist.

Oh, and not to worry—I'm not "getting all worked up." I'm just asking a few questions and enjoying the dialogue.

Gus Van Horn said...

"What about propositions that express subjective value. 'Love is beautiful,' for instance, or 'love is pathetic and weak.' Are these propositions true? False? Arbitrary?"

Your error here lies in your assumption that there are no objective standards for defining abstract concepts like "love" or making normative evaluations about them.

"Nonetheless, I do agree that the proposition 'God exists' is either true or false."

I don't, and have to say so here, because you're coming close to putting words into my mouth. The notion of God is arbitrary, and as such does not even have the relation to reality that a false statement does. It is a figment. Otherwise, you would be able to prove it one way or the other. But you can't. THAT is what's wrong with it.

"But your disbelief is just as incapable of meeting the criteria that you demand for belief."

This is poppycock. You're the one who showed up here claiming that there is this thing called "God." So prove it. The rest of this paragraph merely follows from your insistence that I waste my time arguing about a made-up notion.

(Alternatively, I hear that God says you owe me $50,000.00. Why wasn't making out a check to me the first thing you did? Because this, too, is an arbitrary statement. You didn't feel a need to disprove that, did you?)

I do not think that the world of observation and experience unambiguously points to one and only one interpretation.

In other words, my earlier speculation that you might feel that "reason is not man's means of knowledge," was a good one.

That said, this is a remarkably modern outlook (That is not a compliment.), and is exactly what this post is about. The dominant strands of modern philosophy hold, incorrectly, that man cannot achieve certainty through reason.

This undercutting of reason feeds directly into the "alternative" most people know about in our culture, which is religion. For example, various advocates of religion, be they merely confused or dishonest, "justify" belief in arbitrary propositions by proceeding from this very error.

Austringer said...

"I would say that you have not thought enough about them."

I thought about my atheism, and realised that I had not thought enough about it, nor of Rand's ideas. When I did, I rejected my atheism and the ultimate subjectivism of Rand.

"For example, How do you know that there is a God? Theologians have had thousands of years to prove this point, and yet have STILL not succeeded."

I disagree -- good heavens, have you ever read Aquinas or others? Perhaps the problem is that you are looking for a misguided and narrow kind of "proof".

Gus Van Horn said...

"I disagree -- good heavens, have you ever read Aquinas or others? Perhaps the problem is that you are looking for a misguided and narrow kind of "proof"."

Yes. I first encountered his "proofs" in college, where I also learned further "proofs" by others, including by one of the professors who taught the Aquinas "proofs". One of these memorably involved relying on the air-tight plead that, "It is snobbish" to discount the Bible as "evidence."

All I have to say to that is: Good heavens -- why would a mere college professor feel the need to improve upon the iron-clad reasoning of a Church Doctor?

I'm just guessing here, but it might be for the same reason you want to go back and re-define "proof" until you get one for the conclusion you want.

"Perhaps the problem is that you are looking for a misguided and narrow kind of 'proof'."

And I've heard that about a million times before, too. My request is simple: Give me a proof -- using sensory evidence and logic -- that there is a God.

By belittling this concept of a proof, you are doing two things: (1) You are admitting that you can't produce it, and (2) You're really just reiterating what I have said here in the past: That your kind of "proof" relies on something other than evidence and logic.

So, if you have nothing to offer to this discussion aside from insults and attempts to smuggle in irrationality, I suggest that you leave.

madmax said...

Ryan is using standard Thomistic apologetics; ie there is "proof" or there are inferences which lead to the conclusion that a supernatural deity exists and that one must have "faith in reason." These *have* been refuted a thousand times since Aquinas by logicians and the better philosophers.

I would like to suggest for Ryan that he visit Dawson Bethrick's website. Dawson is an Objectivist that has posted an incredible amount of material dealing with atheist refutations of both Presuppositionalist and Thomistic theistic arguments all from the Objectivist perspective (in fact, his writings on the subject are some of the best that I have seen). If Ryan wants to debate Objectivists or more rational atheists on the subject, Dawson's site would be a good place to do it as Dawson himself loves when he is challenged and he takes the time to actually debate the issues and he *never* engages in ad hominems.

Here is link to one of Dawson's latest posts which deals with at least one of Ryan's arguments.

http://bahnsenburner.blogspot.com/2009/07/chris-bolt-on-conditions-of-knowledge.html

If Ryan wants to make the claim that the rejection of supernaturalism is an arbitrary position which could never be defended by rational argumentation (a skeptical position really even though many religionists hold it), Dawson will definitely take the time to make the counter-argument. In fact, Dawson as indicated to me that he would like his site to be a one-stop location for a collection of Objectivist influenced arguments against theism.

Gus Van Horn said...

Thanks for the recommendation, madmax. I'd forgotten about that site.

Also, just to be clear (I am not sure you're making this mistake, madmax.), the last comment before mine was NOT by Ryan, who, although I think he's wrong, was polite.

madmax said...

Oh, I see. I actually did think that last comment was by Ryan. My apology.

But for Ryan or any other theistic apologists that read this, the important point is that Dawson has a multi-year history of engaging in these type of debates and he is cordial when he does it. He takes the ideas seriously so for any theists that really want to discuss these issues and want to challenge Rand's metaphysical foundation, Dawson's site is a great place.

He's actually in debate right now with a Christian apologist that is using the very common argument that to deny supernaturalism is to mandate belief in philosophic materialism because consciousness, belief, logic and concepts are all supernatural phenomena because they are not "material." Dawson takes these claims on and challenges them to their core. He has dealt with the "reason is another type of faith" and "reason leads to supernaturalism" arguments as well. Ryan might be interested in those.

I draw attention to Dawson's site because, not understandably, most Objectivists tend not to be too interested in refuting theistic apologetics. Objectivism is a positive philosophy after all so once you get past god, you go on living your life. But I do think that as Objectivism grows it will need an "atheology corps" because at some point we are going to run head-on into religion and that will be a battle royale.

Gus Van Horn said...

I draw attention to Dawson's site because, not understandably, most Objectivists tend not to be too interested in refuting theistic apologetics.

Not to mention not necessarily having the time for it.

I rejected a comment last night mainly for being rude, but also partly for being unreasonable. The person demanded that I refute Aquinas's arguments. (Which one(s)? All of them? In how much detail?)

While I have gone over these and saw what was wrong with them, I don't know them by heart and haven't thought about them in awhile. It's also not the primary focus of my blog or a major interest of mine.

For the same reason that we have division of labor in the physical realm, so we do in the intellectual. I'm glad someone actually wants to spend time doing this.

Jim May said...

Nonetheless, I do agree that the proposition "God exists" is either true or false. But your disbelief is just as incapable of meeting the criteria that you demand for belief.

That's like a salesman whose pitch involves demanind that a potential customer justify not buying their product. What do you suppose that would do for sales?

Gus Van Horn said...

It would take divine intervention to make that sale!