Sorry to be so slow replying...in the future we might need to break this
up into pieces.
On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Dan Minette wrote:
<< Snipped compare & contrast of Christianity & Greco-Roman mythology >>
I'm not sure we're arguing over the same thing here. The point I want to
make is that a modern skeptic can use pretty much the same reasoning to
choose not to believe in the Christian God that he can use not to believe
in Zeus or Apollo. In response it seems to me that you're arguing that
Christianity is an altogether more satisfying religion than the Olympian
myth, which strikes me as being beside the point. That, or you're arguing
that Christianity's more linear, hierarchical structure for cosmic and
moral order makes it less subject to skeptical doubt than the more chaotic
collection of myths that formed most prior religions, in which case I
honestly don't follow your point. I'll grant that Christianity offers a
more unified and coherent picture of moral order than the Greek myths, but
I don't think that its mythic grounds for doing so are any more believable, or
less subject to skepticism, than the latter.
What caught my curiosity at first was a point brought up by that
philosophy quiz, which is that if it's reasonable to not believe that
which cannot be proven, then it makes more sense to say that atheism is a
reasonably-arrived-at conclusion (like the non-existence of Zeus, or of
fairies, or whatever) than it does to say that atheism is an alternate
form of faith. For the purpose of that argument, the otherwordly stories
of the Greek gods make them just as "transcendent" for the purpose
skepticism as the otherworldy claims made by the Christian religion.
I also suspect that you're giving the polytheistic religions slightly
short shrift. The gods weren't meant to be direct role models (the
way Jesus or the saints might be role models); rather, their successes and
failures are illustrative of moral and social principles and of the
mysteries of the natural world. Apollo was not an empirical thesis; or if
he was, he was in the same way that for fundamentalists Biblical scripture
is an empirical thesis. But there were also skeptics like Heraclitus who
could look on the variations of the Mediterranean religions and understood
that they pointed at things beyond the mere plot details of the mythical
stories, just as skeptics like you can look at Genesis or Exodus and
understand that these things might not be literally true but instead point
to grander truths.
> Its not a question of facts, its a question of how well
I'm not sure what this point was going to be, but I'd suggest that for the
hypothetical atheist of the original "contradictions" quiz, it very much
*is* a question of facts.
>
> Have you read those stories? Think of the difference between the creation
> story in Genesis and Gilgimesh (sp) for example. In one, the creation of
> human beings is a conscious final act of creation, we are created in God's
> image and likeness. In the other, humans came to exist as an accidental
> byproduct of a war between the gods. What does each say about one's self
> worth?
Almost nothing. The Gilgamesh story is essentially neutral. The Genesis
story implies that we were made by a psychotic (that is, unless one is
allowed to be very picky and choosy about which things are allowed to be
reinterpreted as not actually describing God, but instead providing some
kind of "transcendent" parable). Are we allowed to read the stories as
written, or only the Gilgamesh story as written, while we read Genesis as
reinterpreted and softened by thousands of years of Jewish and Christian
theology? We don't have access to much detailed Babylonian theology or
interpretation, as I recall. So you offer me a false choice.
On the other hand, I could take the choice and say, Hmm, the Gilgamesh
story, depicting man as a byproduct of a war between gods that are little
differentiated from the blind forces of nature, comes close to being a
symbolic image of natural history as I already understand it. Genesis by
contrast is obviously intended to explain why a given tribe is "chosen"
compared to others who are lost, so it's clearly a self-serving
culture-myth and thus of little transcendent significance. In the former,
man is a comparably independent and heroic creature in the cosmos; in the
latter, he is dominated by an micromanaging control freak who slays him at
the slightest provocation and cooks up villainously cruel tests of loyalty
(might makes right indeed). Given the limited evidence, I think I'll live
in Gilgamesh's universe.
Interpretation is everything.
> So, the meaning of life is what? The historical dialectic, he who dies with
> the most toys wins, nationalism? Does life have no meaning whatsoever?
> What gives meaning to your life, and what do you base that on?
>
> I'm sure that many would start off with family and friends. But, when
> pushed, the atheists that I admire go on to talk about regard for other
> human beings. As with the faith statement "the humanist manifesto", many go
> on to discuss the importance of other human beings. The atheists I don't
> respect talk about "looking out for number 1" and "I care for my immediate
> family, but I have no obligation at all to the rest of the world. Altruism
> is either evil or at best misguided."
>
> Where do you weight in on this, if that's not too pointed a question? Is our
> worth something we must prove every day? Are we only as good as what we've
> done lately, or what we can do tomorrow? Or, do we each have an intrinsic
> value that cannot be undone by a lost job, a divorce, a stroke, etc?
>
> I would postulate that at some point in most people's lives the question
> "what's it all about." comes up. Religion adresses that question, as do
> other belief systems. Science does not.
You're right, but as I think William T. has already said, the question of
the meaning of life is irrelevant to the question of whether or not the
myth of a given religion is actually and factually true. It is irrelevant
to the question of whether applying a certain standard of evidence to one
myth is simply an act of reason, while applying that same standard to
another myth suddenly propels the skeptic into creating a new variation on
faith.
As for your other question, which is not too pointed at all, my honest
answer is simply, "I don't know what the meaning of life is." It's quite
possible that meaning is simply a by-product of life itself, in which case
meaning is something we create and not something that exists out in the
universe, waiting for us to find it. I'll grant that the idea of a loving
and attentive God is attractive--in moments of despair I have been known
to pray, and I don't mock those who pray more faithfully than I--but I
never quite believe in the one I'm praying to. Call it a personal problem
of mine if you like.
As for what give's *my* life meaning, I'd have to say right now that it's
love of family and friends, love of music and books and the decadent
temptations of civilization, doing a good job at work, and trying very
hard to learn how to play a decent blues riff on my guitar.
I'm happy to agree that in any ethical system, at some point you have to
say a priori that life is valuable, people are important. Some people
have argued very persuasively that religion, by placing emphasis on the
transcendent, in fact devalues human life and has the opposite of its
intended effect.
I think it's a really hard call to make.
> meaning of fairies is from our understanding of a variety of literature,
> from Shakespeare to the present day. I don't doubt that someone could point
> out their origin in ancient religions, but that's not what one thinks of
> now.
(Which is why I said fairies were a bad example and offered the other gods
of the world as a substitute.)
> Let me try a simple rule for understanding what's transcendental.
> Eliminate anything that has empirical content, and you will be left with
> what is transcendental. Meaning, good, evil, right, wrong, are all
> transcendental. There is no means to empirically deduce those.
Horsefeathers! Nietzsche does. I'm pretty sure Foucault does. No, let
me backtrack--not "deduce." Not in the mathematical sense of "deduce."
But as cultural anthropologists we can create plausible hypotheses about
the origins of values and and test them as we learn more about our own
natural history and about the way life evolves. We will never have a
mathematically tight metaphysics of morals that way, but then we don't
have a mathematically tight metaphysics of morals anyway.
If good and evil are to be treated at the outset as transcendent
descriptive categories, however, then you're right, they cannot be
empirically or even logically deduced--hence the need for revelation. On
the other hand, as propositions they cannot be falsified either, and there
is no condition that they can meet or fail to meet which would determine
their truth. The cannot be true or false, or even True or False, except
as pure assumptions, i.e. revelation.
UNLESS...
Earlier you compared the Christian myth to the Greco-Roman myths and
explained why the former conquered the latter. Why? (The answer will be
relevant to the stuff you wrote below, so I'll write it after quoting...)
> There are those that argue that the empirical is all there is. If its not
> proven by evidence of the senses, it is not real. My argument is that I
> cannot disprove that, but anyone who states that needs to agree to chuck a
> lot of stuff most atheists seem unwilling to chuck. Then, the question
> becomes, why this understanding and faith instead of that.
>
> Well, in reality, the world has a few great traditions: the people of the
> book (Jewish, Christian, Islam), Hindu/Buddhist, and the Taoism. I'd agree
> that it would be rather presumptuous of me to proclaim my particular version
> of Christianity "God's own way" and all others false.
>
> Indeed, if you look at the official teaching of the Catholic church, its not
> really a matter of the other religions being false, but "lesser
> understandings." Hindus worship the same God as Catholics, but the official
> Catholic church questions their discernment on a number of theological
> issues. No doubt, the reverse is true.
>
> I'll agree that is impossible to devise an experiment to find the best
> religion. Faith definately needs to be involved. But, that doesn't mean
> there isn't a truth. That its just as good to choose Afganastan's
> interpretation of Islam as it is to have Mother Theresa's view of
> Catholicism. It means that all of our discernment is limited and that we
> must all strive to improve our discernment.
>
> So, from that standpoint, I can look at the old Babylonian religions and see
> little that's appealing. I can look at Buddhist works and find things that
> are inspiring.
Ok, again: why are we comparing and contrasting religions at all? If
Christianity is true, then other religions aren't merely variations on a
theme--they are wrong (perhaps sympathetic, but wrong). If Hinduism in
true, then Christianity has it's place but makes the mistake of thinking
that its one God is the alpha and omega, when in fact it is merely a
transitory being in a transitory universe, and He will die and come back
as some other, very likely lowly being, in a future existence, just like
the rest of us. If Buddhism is true, then belief in the supremacy of
gods is an error to be overcome through further reflection.
Similarities can be found between the faiths, of course, but they cannot
be compared and contrasted unless one thing is true, and that is this:
there exists a standard of judging ethics that transcends, if you
will, the teachings of any particular given faith. The million dollar
question is, "What is that standard, and where does it come from?"
There are two ways to answer the question. One is to rely on empiricism,
and to do one's best through the study of history and athropology and
biology and evolution to understand where and how values emerge, survive,
evolve, and so on -- it will be a study of memes, to some respect. To a
considerable degree, I think that really strict Buddhism will tend to fall
in this camp, since it insists that its truths can be known directly
through experience--even the Buddha said one should not have to rely on
faith in dogma, IIRC.
The other way is to go with religion or metaphysics, in which case we are
again faced with two choices. One is to take the Taliban or the
old-school Catholic route: my truth is the one and only truth, and
everyone else is wrong. I am allowed to define the first propositions,
and I am allowed to define the rules of deduction thereform.
The other way is more ecumenical, and it grants that there is an
amorphous, hard-to-define Truth out there to which our religions point
but which no religion or philosophy totally explains. But in order for
this ecumenical route to work--and I believe that this is
the route you espouse, Dan--there has to be a standard by which to judge
religions themselves. It's not enough to accept God's word, in other
words, and we have to use the standards of decency that exist in part
through religion, but also through the serious rational criticism of
religion, to judge whether or not God's word is in fact good or is in fact
God's and not just the work of a misguided prophet or ten. Which sort of
returns us to the original dilemma I outlined above. The tricky thing for
Christianity is, if God's not infallible, then he doesn't exist. If his
prophets make mistakes, then the religion isn't crucial except as a
jumping-off point. It's a nice place to start, but there's no reason to
stop there.
Another way to think of it is as a chicken-or-egg question. Do ethically
advanced religions exist because we needed ways to express new and more
humane ethical insights, or do humane and ethical insights exist because
God ripped the veil of the universe and told us, in person, how to behave,
and the rest is just arguing over details? I think we can find a lot of
empirical support for the former, but little to none for the latter point
of view. On the other hand, there's lots of empirical evidence that
clinging to the latter point of view is something that creates an
enormous amount of suffering, something that isn't transcendent at all.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
For music that won't bugger your soul: www.guyforsyth.com
"The ego that sees a 'thou' is fundamentally different from an ego that
sees an 'it.'" -- Joseph Campbell
