A very convincing atheist

[SamCA]

Neithan:

You know I realized something. The Atheist just doesn’t appreciate the value of faith, or religion. They say that it is holding us back, keeping us from ‘moving into the light,’ from socially evolving. I would argue that it is mankind’s unique faith in God, in a Higher Being, which has powered our social evolution.

Faith’s practical usefulness as a means of social control is, I think, largely unquestioned. In fact, atheists are some of the ones who argue for it most openly.

Something people forget about Marx’s “opiate of the masses” comment is that when he wrote that, opiates were considered an extremely useful form of medicine. For a modern equivalent, one might consider Marx to have said, “Religion is the aspirin of the masses.”

The question isn’t whether faith has useful effects in society. The question is whether it’s an accurate means of determining the actual truth.

Put another way – pagan cultures can be very faithful, too, and reap the same benefits of having a faithful population. I doubt most here would consider their faith a good thing, though.

Religion is unique to human beings, why should we abandon it?

As a tangential side-note, this may not be entirely true. There is a bit of evidence which seems to support the idea that other higher primates may possess a similar capacity. Chimpanzees have displayed what appears to be ritual behavior, for instance.

Naturally, such an idea has been debated back and forth since it first surfaced. But if you read reports of people who’ve followed tribes of such primates around, you find instances that definitely make you think – like an entire tribe of chimpanzees forming a semicircle around a waterfall and dancing, or individual members from the same tribe travelling well out of their way just to visit a local waterfall and dance before it, for instance.

The invention of the modern scientific method was a marvellous achievement for humanity, and has allowed our observation to probe nature like never before; assimilating information in our reasoning we have discovered the inner workings of Natural Law, into the atom and out into the cosmos. Unfortunately, our confidence in science has upset the balance of faith and reason, and we’re now attacking the former with the latter.

This always seems an odd claim to make. It isn’t as if the world’s greatest scientists got together and decided to declare war on religious faith.

Science seeks to discover the realities of the natural world. Is it the scientists’ fault if what they find doesn’t match religious dogma?

That, I would argue, is social devolution. Faith channels our human energies to a greater purpose, gives life an ultimate meaning and makes it beautiful. I honestly believe that religion, properly practiced, can only be a boon to us.

“Proper practice” being, of course, the bit that’s difficult to define. There is just as much room for dispute over who’s practicing properly among the religious as there is between atheists on morality.

Unless you take the Church’s position, that there is only one proper practice of religion – but then you’re faced with the question of how your single, infallible religious body responds to people who disagree on that point. You either let them do their thing, at which point you’re right back where you were above, or you try to stop them, at which point you’re right back in the Dark Ages.

The problem which faces the world, which eptatorata so succinctly stated above, is to get all humanity into ‘one tribe.’ Atheists see religion as an impediment to this, but I would say (and I hope Theists would agree) that it can be a valuable tool to its achievement… indeed… the *only *tool to its effective achievement! First we have to rediscover, on a global scale, the value and purpose of faith, and with our reasoning excise its proper object. Only then can the Universal Religion emerge.

I can’t envision a scenario in which a Universal Religion ever reduces the world to a single tribe. At best, you’d have two tribes – the faithful, and the kindling. You’ll never get everyone on Earth to agree about religion. The closest you’ll come is what theocracies have managed to accomplish throughout history, which is a majority of people either believing in their religion or pretending to out of fear, and everyone else making a convenient target for the rocks.

I know this is *heavily *biased, but I think this is the destiny of the three monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

I’m curious as to your opinion of the role of the religions that aren’t rooted in Judaistic monotheism. Simply fading out?

 

[Ecce_Homo]

It seems to me that one would have to have an incredible amount of faith to be an atheist.

For instance, no atheist believes in the resurrection of Christ, yet all vehemently maintain that somewhere along the way, life arose out of non-life, and to such a degree that we have all the many varieties of life we see today. So which is a greater leap of faith–that a single Man rose from the dead by Divine power (which He claimed to have) or that all life arose from something not alive by an accident?

 

[Neithan]

*The question isn’t whether faith has useful effects in society. The question is whether it’s an accurate means of determining the actual truth. *

Put another way – pagan cultures can be very faithful, too, and reap the same benefits of having a faithful population. I doubt most here would consider their faith a good thing, though.

Definitely, faith is dead if its adherents are not wholly convinced of its truthfulness. To this end, reason must remain a rule, because without it faith isn’t just ignorant, it’s dangerous and liable to superstition.

Naturally, such an idea has been debated back and forth since it first surfaced. But if you read reports of people who’ve followed tribes of such primates around, you find instances that definitely make you think – like an entire tribe of chimpanzees forming a semicircle around a waterfall and dancing, or individual members from the same tribe travelling well out of their way just to visit a local waterfall and dance before it, for instance.

LOL that’s interesting… chimpanzees worshipping waterfalls! I didn’t know that. Apparently elephant herds exhibit ritualistic behaviour as well, returning to visit the gravesites of their dead relatives. In a way, all animals exhibit ritualistic behaviour (the mating ritual, for instance). I wouldn’t call this religion, as animals are incapable of abstract reasoning, much less faith. Humans alone possess self-awareness and, arguably, God-awareness, or at least an idea of ‘God.’

This always seems an odd claim to make. It isn’t as if the world’s greatest scientists got together and decided to declare war on religious faith.

Of course not, scientists are also religious. The two work well together, i’d say.

Science seeks to discover the realities of the natural world. Is it the scientists’ fault if what they find doesn’t match religious dogma?

Science will never match religious dogma, the two concern completely different spheres of thought. They do not contradict one another (at least not in Catholic dogma), that is the key.

Unless you take the Church’s position, that there is only one proper practice of religion – but then you’re faced with the question of how your single, infallible religious body responds to people who disagree on that point. You either let them do their thing, at which point you’re right back where you were above, or you try to stop them, at which point you’re right back in the Dark Ages.

Of course I do believe that the religious doctrine of the Catholic Church is the closest to a coherent, objectively true dogmatic system of faith. Faith is, however, a receptive quality. It cannot be imposed, and anyone is free to reject it. There will always be atheists, nothing can be done about that. I think the Church learned this lesson (among many others!) from the Middle Ages.

I’m curious as to your opinion of the role of the religions that aren’t rooted in Judaistic monotheism. Simply fading out?

Perhaps not fading out, but they will continue to fade to a point of negligibility. That’s my hypothesis. It’s up to the Church now to properly evangelize India and the Orient, which I believe is now completely within her capabilities (the next pope will be a huge deciding factor toward this end, as well as Africa). The only obstacle, really, is the appearance of ‘the west’ which Christianity still has to eastern cultures, and they reject the faith outright due to its ‘foreign’ flavour. That and Islam. I have a kindling hope that the Islamic and Christian worlds will reconcile, after all, we do both worship God. Of course I’m no advocate of syncretism (e.g. Bahai).

 

[SamCA]

Neithan:

Definitely, faith is dead if its adherents are not wholly convinced of its truthfulness. To this end, reason must remain a rule, because without it faith isn’t just ignorant, it’s dangerous and liable to superstition.

But that’s the rub, yes? After all, those pagans are just as convinced of the truthfulness of their faith as Catholics are of theirs – and reason supports both (or neither) equally.

Which is where you begin to run into the major downside of faith as a mechanism for social cohesion – it only works within the tribe. When you try expanding it outward, you run into the next tribe’s faith, and you’re forced to either coexist, at which point faith becomes a major source of social strife, or one side kills the other.

LOL that’s interesting… chimpanzees worshipping waterfalls! I didn’t know that. Apparently elephant herds exhibit ritualistic behaviour as well, returning to visit the gravesites of their dead relatives.

Yeah. Elephants are pretty smart, too.

In a way, all animals exhibit ritualistic behaviour (the mating ritual, for instance). I wouldn’t call this religion, as animals are incapable of abstract reasoning, much less faith.

There seems to be a difference between instinctual rituals like mating rituals, which happen at a hardwired time and location, and occur throughout the animal kingdom, and the more abstract sort we discuss above. The latter only seem to occur in certain very intelligent species of animal, and they don’t seem to be hard-wired – for instance, not all chimpanzees “worship” waterfalls, from what I’ve been able to find on it.

Humans alone possess self-awareness and, arguably, God-awareness, or at least an idea of ‘God.’

Whether or not humans alone possess self-awareness is a concept which has been placed in great doubt over the past few decades. While most animals certainly don’t possess that particular quality, some seem to show evidence of self-awareness. Most notably this includes several species of primate, but it’s not just restricted to primates – the African Gray Parrot seems to occupy an intellectual plane somewhere equivalent to a 3 or 4 year old human child, for instance. A few species of dolphin are also in the “likely self-aware” category.

Whether they have any conception of God is much harder to address. Certainly, I don’t imagine even chimpanzees could have anywhere near as sophisticated a conception of God as we do, even if some of them might indeed worship that big waterfall over there.

[Continued.]

 

[SamCA]

Science will never match religious dogma, the two concern completely different spheres of thought. They do not contradict one another (at least not in Catholic dogma), that is the key.

Well, right, but sometimes they do contradict each other. Case in point – according to Catholic dogma, animals are just beasts driven by instinct. An ever increasing body of scientific evidence is accumulating which shows that at least some animals are more than that.

Heck, a growing number of scientists are of the view that the chimpanzee is probably a subspecies of human, not an ape. A chimpanzee’s DNA is much more closely similar to a human’s than to an ape’s, as is its physiology. The main reason they haven’t already been reclassified into the genus homo is the public backlash that would result.

When it comes to the metaphysical, there’s not much worry about science finding things that contradict one’s faith. But when one’s faith holds certain things to be true about the material world, there’s always the possibility that an in-depth study of that bit of the material world will show otherwise.

It’s possible to hold faith that doesn’t conflict with reason. But most religions don’t quite manage it.

Beyond that, there’s also the problems posed by technology – which, barring a sudden reversal in the development of science, will be verging on the metaphysical within a century. You think the questions of soul/body dualism are tricky now? Wait and see the firestorm that starts when biochemical or cybernetic modification of the brain (and the mind) becomes more prevalent.

I say “more prevalent” because it’s already begun. There are chemicals which can make people smarter, and a microchip is in testing right now which, when integrated into the brain properly, can change clinically depressed peoples’ whole personal outlook and “make the void go away,” to quote one patient.

These are minor applications. Once the technology is really cracking, we will have the potential to make fundamental changes to human consciousness purely by manipulating the body.

It will be interesting to see the religious response.

Perhaps not fading out, but they will continue to fade to a point of negligibility. That’s my hypothesis.

Why is that, out of curiosity? As I recall, Hinduism happens to be the religion of one of the fastest growing segments of the Earth’s population.

It’s up to the Church now to properly evangelize India and the Orient, which I believe is now completely within her capabilities (the next pope will be a huge deciding factor toward this end, as well as Africa). The only obstacle, really, is the appearance of ‘the west’ which Christianity still has to eastern cultures, and they reject the faith outright due to its ‘foreign’ flavour.

I’d say the problem is a bit more fundamental than that – they believe in their religion about as much as you do in yours. Short of conversion by force, your average Hindu is no more interested in converting to Christianity than your average Christian is interested in converting to Hinduism. Sure, you’ll always get some, in the same way that some Christians switch over to other religions, but in terms of changing a population’s religion, the only thing that’s ever done it successfully is violence.

That and Islam. I have a kindling hope that the Islamic and Christian worlds will reconcile, after all, we do both worship God. Of course I’m no advocate of syncretism (e.g. Bahai).

Fear not, most Muslims aren’t interested in syncretism either.

The thing is, what that leaves, in terms of “reconciliation,” is for one side to give up some of their most closely cherished articles of faith. In order for Christianity and Islam to reconcile, either Christians would have to accept the idea that Christ wasn’t really God, or Muslims would have to accept that Mohammed was wrong and Christ was God. Either way, there isn’t really any reconciliation going on – there’s just one side converting to the other’s religion.

And I have to say, I can’t see any of that happening any time soon.

 

[oriel36]

SamCA:

When it comes to the metaphysical, there’s not much worry about science finding things that contradict one’s faith. But when one’s faith holds certain things to be true about the material world, there’s always the possibility that an in-depth study of that bit of the material world will show otherwise.

It’s possible to hold faith that doesn’t conflict with reason. But most religions don’t quite manage it.

.

I certainly agree that as things stand the empirical tradition has nothing to worry about,it managed somehow to detach reason and faith as two seperate things with two seperate ends and create an artificial division calling it the science/religion debate,divide,ect.

As a Catholic who is well aware at what exists at the bottom of the scientific method applied to the intuitive disciplines of geology and astronomy I have watched them wither before brute reasoning and ephemeral optimism.

You speak of religions conflicting with reason when you empirical freaks can’t even get basic geometric and astronomical principles right but somehow have manage to fool Catholics into accepting a linguistic labyrinth.Let them suffer you to tell them what you really think and what you are indoctrinated to think yourself that religion is some superstitous faculty that existed in the absence of empirical knowledge.

The trouble is that you are empirical empty cans on those matters which require real intuition and spirit.Western civilisation has suffered enough from exotic novelty on one side and consumerism on another,such a great heritage as Western society as a reflection of all that is good needs to step back into the framework of the richness and nobility of Christianity where it belongs.Without a great intellectual movement back into recognising the Spirit of Christ and Christianity the creativity which serves the soul of man all we are left is with sterile technological utility.

My hope is that Catholics will come to their senses and call a halt to the empirical absurdities passing themselves off a human achievement.

 

[AuntMartha]

oriel36:

I certainly agree that as things stand the empirical tradition has nothing to worry about,it managed somehow to detach reason and faith as two seperate things with two seperate ends and create an artificial division calling it the science/religion debate,divide,ect.

As a Catholic who is well aware at what exists at the bottom of the scientific method applied to the intuitive disciplines of geology and astronomy I have watched them wither before brute reasoning and ephemeral optimism.

You speak of religions conflicting with reason when you empirical freaks can’t even get basic geometric and astronomical principles right but somehow have manage to fool Catholics into accepting a linguistic labyrinth.Let them suffer you to tell them what you really think and what you are indoctrinated to think yourself that religion is some superstitous faculty that existed in the absence of empirical knowledge.

The trouble is that you are empirical empty cans on those matters which require real intuition and spirit.Western civilisation has suffered enough from exotic novelty on one side and consumerism on another,such a great heritage as Western society as a reflection of all that is good needs to step back into the framework of the richness and nobility of Christianity where it belongs.Without a great intellectual movement back into recognising the Spirit of Christ and Christianity the creativity which serves the soul of man all we are left is with sterile technological utility.

My hope is that Catholics will come to their senses and call a halt to the empirical absurdities passing themselves off a human achievement.

Translation, please?

Aunt Martha

 

[SamCA]

AuntMartha:

Translation, please?

Aunt Martha

I didn’t want to be rude, but I too am unclear on what I’m being asked. Or told. Or whatever.

 

[Stevereeno]

SamCA:

…according to Catholic dogma, animals are just beasts driven by instinct. An ever increasing body of scientific evidence is accumulating which shows that at least some animals are more than that.

SamCA:

You think the questions of soul/body dualism are tricky now? Wait and see the firestorm that starts when biochemical or cybernetic modification of the brain (and the mind) becomes more prevalent.

In the first quote you attempt to convince us that other animals are more than, just, organisms that respond to stimuli. In the second quote it seems you would like us believe the opposite about humans. C’mon, be brave, and adopt your own belief. Or, is belligerence your sole purpose here.

 

[SamCA]

Stevereeno:

In the first quote you attempt to convince us that other animals are more than, just, organisms that respond to stimuli. In the second quote it seems you would like us believe the opposite about humans. C’mon, be brave, and adopt your own belief.

I don’t accept the premise that if our minds are based entirely within the biochemical computers between our ears, that automatically translates into us just being animals responding to stimuli. I see no reason to think a complex enough biochemical computer could not have intelligence arise from it as an emergent property.

For that matter, I think it’s quite likely – although obviously nowhere near certain – that within some of our lifetimes we will see intelligence arise from entirely synthetic computers. Come to think of it, I’m really curious about the Church’s position on the possibility of artificial intelligence. Do they have any? (Sorry, I’m straying off topic…)

Or, is belligerence your sole purpose here.

I’ve been trying not to be belligerent. If I’m still coming off as such, I apologize.

 

[john_doran]

SamCA:

I don’t accept the premise that if our minds are based entirely within the biochemical computers between our ears, that automatically translates into us just being animals responding to stimuli. I see no reason to think a complex enough biochemical computer could not have intelligence arise from it as an emergent property.

this seems to conflate the problem of consciousness with the problem of free will: even if (some form of) emergentism is true, the world could still be causally closed in such a fashion that all animal behaviours (including our own) are still the necessary result of initial conditions and causal laws.

in other words, human beings and all the rest of the conscious animals would still be stimulus-response machines, albeit very complicated and aware ones.

incidentally, what kind of emergentism is it to which you subscribe?

 

[SamCA]

john doran:

this seems to conflate the problem of consciousness with the problem of free will: even if (some form of) emergentism is true, the world could still be causally closed in such a fashion that all animal behaviours (including our own) are still the necessary result of initial conditions and causal laws.

in other words, human beings and all the rest of the conscious animals would still be stimulus-response machines, albeit very complicated and aware ones.

Sure. I have no problem believing that this may be true. I just don’t think it necessarily follows from an entirely biochemical model of consciousness.

incidentally, what kind of emergentism is it to which you subscribe?

Keep in mind that I’m just a layman who likes to read, and not a professional scientist or philosopher, so my thoughts on emergentism probably aren’t the most developed you’re apt to encounter.

The proponents of strong emergence have a case, in that there are many properties of complex systems that we have thus far found impossible to reduce to a direct result of the constituent parts of the system – human consciousness being a good example thereof. However, the fact that we’ve been unable to do it so far doesn’t mean we never will be able to.

So I guess I’m undecided on the issue. This is also due somewhat to my lack of knowledge on the subject. I haven’t read enough about it to make any kind of really informed decision.