…and this is a 
A pleasant, smiling apologist is still lying to you
Category: Religion
Posted on: May 27, 2008 9:12 AM, by PZ Myers
John urges all to read a "lovely, lyrical and wistful piece" on religion. So I did.
Sorry, John, it's the same old noise.
The essay by Peter Bebergal has some good points: it's premise is to deplore biblical literalism because it's bad theology that is trying to ape science, and it cripples the imagination. That part I can agree with entirely. Biblical literalism is a slavishly stupid way to enshrine an absolutist authority — a false authority — as a source of information beyond question. So I am sympathetic to about half of its message.
However, the other half is the usual nonsense: ‘my version of religious belief is better, nobler, truer, more important, and essential to human health and welfare than their version’. Here's his rationalization for the virtues of his metaphorical religion over their literal religion.
Religious experience begins with an encounter, which is then given form by the imagination. We then turn this form into texts, prayers, rituals, and of course, myths. Communities gather around these stories and continue to use the religious imagination to keep them relevant. The very notion of being in communion with God, whether through prayer or ritual, in believing that a man died and was resurrected, or in eating unleavened bread for a week, is the least rational of endeavors. But this is where its power lies. If the moments we commemorate through our rituals had simply occurred in history, there would be little possibility of giving them new meaning in the way, for example, the American slaves saw in the miraculous moments of the Jewish Exodus story a vision for their own liberation. When ritual is seen as the retelling of a mythological event, then its ability to function as a metaphor is enlivened each time. A purely historical event is static. While it might offer a moral lesson, there is nothing inherently symbolic about it. The mythologizing of events makes them part of our ritual and liturgy and allows us to reimagine them. But the religious imagination has been replaced by a need to rationalize religious faith. The motto of the Creation Museum is "Prepare to Believe," but revelation is not the intent of the exhibits. The purpose of the museum is to prove that the Bible is truth, and to induce religious stupor it plays on an ignorance of science and what the doing of science really means.
That is disingenuous, not to mention bogus. Bebergal is waving his hands frantically, trying to justify irrationality as a power for human happiness rather than an impediment. There is no true power there. It is definitely the case that the human mind is not a piece of clockwork logic, and there are certainly irrational interpretations of the world that mesh well with our flawed preconceptions, and it can even make us feel good to give in to comforting myths. But this is not good for us. Put rats on a variable reinforcement schedule in a cage with a button that dispenses electric shocks to the pleasure centers of their brain, and they will push that button with passion and energy and even, as near as we can interpret it, joy … but that is a rat that has thrown away its rattiness and has dedicated its life to a shallow, empty abstraction. It is a rat that has found its god.
It is true that communities can accrete around myths; look at the Hajj, or Lourdes, all grand events built up around supposed supernatural events. People find consolation, satisfaction, and even happiness in the supposed virtues of these pilgrimages. I will agree 100% that this is all powerful stuff to the human psyche — even that weekly communal sit-in-a-pew-and-listen-to-boring-sermon stuff taps right into the social centers of the human brain and triggers potent rewards. Push that button, O Happy Rat. Do not question, do not think beyond, do not plan for something greater than call-and-response, the familiar hymn, the liturgy, the patterned dance of ritual. Go here to the small town in the Pyrenean foothills, and you will be healed because you wish to be healed, and because you are a good, wonderful person, never mind that reality often demands struggle and hard work of us, with no guarantees of success. But there is no victory there; there is no improvement. There are only happy lies.
One other word I must criticize in all these defenses of religion: imagination. I often hear that religion is all about using the imagination to see something beyond the literal and mundane, and imagination becomes a virtue in itself that is presented as something special to religion. It is not. It is also overrated. Imagination is essential, don't get me wrong; we need this kind of cognitive randomizer that pushes our thoughts beyond what we already know. However, one thing science has taught us is that our imagination is pathetic. The universe is more vast, more complex, and more surprising than anything our minds can conjure up. Imagination is not enough.
Here we sit in our comfortable little spot, snug and reassured that our butts are firmly planted. Imagination is the tool we use to reach out and fumble about and make guesses about our local neighborhood, and religion is the part that enshrines guesses as absolute knowledge and reassures us that the rest of the universe is just like our little niche.
Science is imagination equipped with grappling hooks. We toss them out, we snag new and interesting bits of our environment, and we use them to haul our butts out of those well-worn hollows to something new … and we anchor the lines so others so inclined may follow. Thus does the limited reach of paltry human imagination become a greater endeavor that explores farther and farther still, leaving behind the delusions of those incapable or unwilling to use their imagination as a tool to explore the world, rather than as a masturbation aid.
Bebergal is stuck in a rut where he thinks his imagination, or his rabbi's imagination, is sufficient and historically adequate, and he has no perception of what science actually does.
Scientists today are loath to admit that religious belief played an important part in their forebears' impetus to examine and understand the natural world. Any sentiment that has even a scent of religious feeling is greeted with pinched noses, with great skepticism if not outright contempt. This is true even for those religious ideas that one might consider moderate or even liberal. Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, himself a student of neuroscience and a staunch atheist, suggests that the religious moderate is just as dangerous as the fundamentalist because the moderate leaves the door open to religious ideas in all their forms, including the damaging literal ones.
Not true. I certainly do know that my ancestors relied on religion, and that virtually all early scientists and even many scientists now found happiness in pushing the big red button of religion. However, the only way any of them made greater progress in understanding the universe was by leaving the smug platitudes of faith behind, questioning what they were taught, and moving away to something new. Yes, I regard the scent of religion with disgust, but not because I lack an appreciation of its historical or sociological significance — it's because I can detect the odor of corruption and decay, and I can smell failure. It's not something I want in my house.
I also oppose moderate/liberal religion like Sam Harris, because it opens the door to more pernicious beliefs; reality provides only the coarsest constraint on religious belief, and allows nonsense to flow unchecked. But I also oppose moderate religion in itself, as the kind of smug reassurance of a fallacious perception of reality, as exhibited in the Bebergal essay. Why should we find virtue in the fact that "American slaves saw in the miraculous moments of the Jewish Exodus story a vision for their own liberation"? Couldn't they find motivation in their misery? Were their imaginations so paltry that they could not desire their own freedom? Did reliving the book of Exodus in Sunday church-meetings bring them one step closer to that freedom, or did it falsely reassure them that miracles were on the way? There were no miracles in the American Civil War, or in the long hard path towards civil rights. The religious would love to take credit for the actual steps towards emancipation, or greater understanding, or the advancement of science, but all they can do at best is claim that they were cheerleaders, inspiring our progress. Unfortunately, when we look at the actual history, what we find is that they were cheerleaders for all sides of the struggles, and now opportunistically accept the accolades of the winners, whoever they might be. If we should fall into a new dark age, there will be the priests, happily telling us that they led us into this new appreciation of the mysteries of God. And if scientists should open our minds and cure diseases and reveal new wonders of the universe, there will be the priests, telling us that religion "played an important part".
It's time we saw through the con game of these lying leeches, and that goes for the local liberal church as well as the most outrageous televangelist. The moderate church may be bad because it can lead congregants to the vilest exploiters, but it is also definitely bad because it is misleading you right now.
Politics
Comments
WELL, AND A NICE GOOD MORNING TO YOU, TOO, SIR...
Posted by: Bob | May 27, 2008 9:24 AM
Put rats on a variable reinforcement schedule in a cage with a button that dispenses electric shocks to the pleasure centers of their brain, and they will push that button with passion and energy and even, as near as we can interpret it, joy ... but that is a rat that has thrown away its rattiness and has dedicated its life to a shallow, empty abstraction. It is a rat that has found its god.
One of your best-written passages yet. Excellent imagery.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton | May 27, 2008 9:26 AM
Excellent and well-written, PZ. I think this is a great way to start the day.
Posted by: David Hunter | May 27, 2008 9:28 AM
Of course that was for a future or the afterlife. In the here and now, religion was just another tool of oppression by the slaveholders.
Sadly, this perversion of religion still holds sway as the descendants of slaves still accept the religion of the descendants of the slaveholders. They even share the same teachings for the most part even though Baptists and Methodists had and to a great degree continue to have white and black denominations. The United Methodist Church still hasn't gotten around to uniting with the AME.
Posted by: freelunch | May 27, 2008 9:36 AM
I've heard similar arguments from religious think-tanks on my campus. The "myths are so important" or there "are no secular/atheistic myths to replace the religious ones." They even went as far as to equate culture with religion. It's ridiculous.
Awesome piece.
Posted by: Ian | May 27, 2008 9:38 AM
This is a fantastic piece, PZ. More of a kick in the ass than coffee, that's for sure!
Posted by: Sam L. | May 27, 2008 9:41 AM
Great post, PZ, and gels well with this weeks' Non-Prophets podcast which was especially good, too.
I wonder if Bebergal would acknowledge that the major religions have a naturalistic basis in the observation of the sun and stars and the correlation of these celestial bodies to the yearly cycles on planet earth? That the metaphor and mumbo-jumbo were early theories developed until better evidence became available to support more sophisticated theories? I rather doubt it.
Why persist with outdated myths of humanity's long childhood when the real, observable universe is so much more fascinating?
Posted by: JJR | May 27, 2008 9:42 AM
Perfect!!
Posted by: Nick Kanellos | May 27, 2008 9:42 AM
"Science is imagination equipped with grappling hooks."
Nice new meme: bet it will latch on to many a post.
Posted by: Jason Failes | May 27, 2008 9:47 AM
"It is true that communities can accrete around myths; look at the Hajj, or Lourdes, all grand events built up around supposed supernatural events. People find consolation, satisfaction, and even happiness in the supposed virtues of these pilgrimages."
And communities can form around any shared cultural event. The dissemination of PZs thoughts via this blog produces a community of readers who can come to identify with one another and meet to talk science over beers. Secular art can be filled with metaphorical meaning and its enjoyment and criticism can define a community of fans and critics. Religion is different only in degree rather than in kind. People who talk about the power of the religious metaphor like to think it has a particularly significant relevance to life today.
Posted by: Ben | May 27, 2008 9:48 AM
If that were true, there wouldn't be the concept of heresy. On the contrary, religion is all about suppressing imagination, at least in the vast majority of the faithful. Only a tiny few are permitted to "imagine" the tenets of a religious belief, while the rest are required to follow those imagined tenets faithfully, or else be branded heretic and tossed out of the religion.
Just ask the Cathars as to how tolerant religion is of imagination.
While the whole piece is excellent, this is just brilliant. As Eddington's famous quote says, "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."
Posted by: Tulse | May 27, 2008 9:52 AM
That was beautiful, PZ. Well written and spot-on.
Posted by: Vic | May 27, 2008 9:53 AM
Whew. Good stuff. One of the keepers.
Posted by: Hank Fox | May 27, 2008 9:54 AM
Or, at least, it is a rat that has found an inexaustible supply of heroin.
If PZ's metaphor is apt, then religion really is the opiate of the masses.
Posted by: Kseniya | May 27, 2008 9:57 AM
Wonderful piece. It makes me want to confess: I am not an atheist. At root, I am a hopeful agnostic. I am a big fan of Pharyngula and I believe that ALL religions were created by men. There's just that nagging thought that there might be something bigger to it all (but maybe that's my evolved pattern-recognition talking). If there is a god, I believe the atheist mode of thought is what he/she/it wants us to pursue: that is open-minded yet skeptical, looking for evidence to shape our beliefs, that whole "we are the Universe seeking to understand itself". In short, I'm willing to admit I'm a rat, but I refuse to push the button.
Posted by: Cappy | May 27, 2008 10:07 AM
Ian @ #5
People really say that? Wow. I can think of plenty of things to refute that:
Most of the content of Snopes.com -- whether it is secular or religious depends on the content, but it does seem to be modern myths and legends trying to explain things or reassure us. For that matter, look at all the tales we tell about historical figures and celebrities. I've also seen people compare the activities of SF/Fantasy fans to how ancient people reacted to their own stories about heroes and monsters -- it's just novel/TV/movie heroes are usually under copyright, explicitly fictional, and you know who created them.
Posted by: Rebecca Harbison | May 27, 2008 10:10 AM
Nicely written. Bravo.
Posted by: David Lee | May 27, 2008 10:10 AM
"A rat that has found it's god"
This is excellent!
Posted by: Jens | May 27, 2008 10:11 AM
Why do the religious feel the need to be so long-winded and flowery. I think I'd be fine with their bronze age myths if they just admitted the only reason they do it at all is because of their unrelenting fear of dying.
Posted by: zer0 | May 27, 2008 10:16 AM
The God who created me gave me the knowledge to see that every other religion's creation stories are a bunch of bullsquat (with the notable exception of my own).
Enjoy.
Posted by: Tim Fuller | May 27, 2008 10:16 AM
I read the essay, and couldn't help but think that what he was really advocating was good, engrossing fiction - not religion. He just doesn't know it.
What does belief add to the equation? Get lost in Lord of the Rings or His Dark Materials, but come back to the real world when you're done. You can even do the same with some Biblical mythology (as in Indiana Jones, parts 1 and 3).
You can find plenty of true notions in any fictional construct, but you get nothing of value out of the experience by believing the whole experience is true in some deeper way.
Posted by: Thanny | May 27, 2008 10:21 AM
Yes Thanny (#21), I had similar thoughts when I was reading the piece. There is value in myth and metaphor - but it's vitally important to know what is and is not real.
Posted by: Kseniya | May 27, 2008 10:30 AM
Another reason to oppose religious moderation is because that is what fuels the religion industry, and the industry (as opposed to the philosophy) is what creates so much conflict and misery in the world. It is the industry that perpetuates the indoctrination of young children, force-feeding religious nonsense into kids well before they are capable of evaluating it with an open and critical mind. It is the industry that insinuates itself into politics to wage war against women, homosexuals and other infidels. It is the industry that attacks science and education simply because it views them as a threat to its survival.
Posted by: Paul | May 27, 2008 10:31 AM
Wow you really oooze bile for that guy. Nice.
(But for my distaste of your use of the 'dark ages'...stupid name)
Posted by: pubcat | May 27, 2008 10:37 AM
Me, I'm a big fan of myths and stories. I love them and draw great personal strength from them.
But I love the myths and stories of Asimov, Pratchett, Wheedon, Sagan, even George bloody Lucas (pre 1997, or course).
I think contrary to what Mr Bebergal says, the problem with religion comes EXACTLY from the fact that people think the stories are true, or that they have to be true to have power. And this is the case with all religions (of my acquaintance) - even the moderate ones. All of the moderate Christians (and a few others) that I am familiar with will tell me that their holy books are simply stories... but when you press them you realise that even they do in fact believe in a nugget of literal Truth ™ at the core: the doctrine of the resurrection, the belief in the divine... whatever.
I'm still a fan of moderates - at least they aren't trying to convert me or kill me. But they're still deluded and, in addition, they also seem to miss one of the wonderful things about stories: they don't need to be true.
Oh - and great post PZ. Scorching.
Posted by: James W | May 27, 2008 10:38 AM
Thanny @#21: I read it pretty much the same. I'm not even sure he claims the HE believes it. Certainly he doesn't seem to make any case for the Bible being better than King Lear or xkcd.
What I did like is that he calls the faculty he is talking about developing with the fiction "imagination". It is, at least a meaningful term. Often, this sort of piece would talk about "spirituality" which seems to mean "imagination" (maybe with "emotion" mixed in) but is an easily moveable goal. You say someone's statement about spirituality seems like bollocks and they will say you aren't understanding what spirituality really is.
As Charlie Brooker had it "Spirituality is what cretins have in place of imagination".
Posted by: Matt Heath | May 27, 2008 10:41 AM
Excellent post PZ,with a few quotes to behold,as others have mentioned before me !
This reminds me of the story of the Neuroscientist with the stroke that caused her to feel all spiritual and mysterious and right-brainy,that was mentioned here in a recent thread.
//... but that is a rat that has thrown away its rattiness and has dedicated its life to a shallow, empty abstraction. It is a rat that has found its god.//
Loved Kseniyas comment re opium of the masses,very much spot-on !!
Posted by: clinteas | May 27, 2008 10:43 AM
i'm reading a book about ancient greece right now, and i'm awed by their level of science! the book i'm reading states that the role gods played in ancient greece was essential to what happened. the greek gods were very human: they got drunk, were fighting all the time and lived on a mountain. that made greek gods pretty natural and therefore greeks could ask questions about the universe in an open way.
after the greeks, religion took hold again and it was only during the renaissance that we continued where the greeks had stopped. carl sagan says somewhere in 'cosmos' that the belief in a revengeful god has stopped our development for nearly 1500 years.
just imagine humanity 1500 years from now. that's where we could have been right now.
you can be all pessimistic about that and say that it means the world would be gone by now, but look at it more positively: what if humanity had landed an observer on mars in the year 208? where would we be now?
Posted by: michel | May 27, 2008 10:45 AM
If I may play devil's advocate: The "pleasure button" can be a metaphor for all motivations, including those of science oriented folks. We do what we are rewarded for doing. You take it for granted that all religious experience is delusional? Science is limited to things that can be subject to experiment. Even if it is turns out that that is all there is we can know with any objectivity, it does not mean we should not explore in other directions. Religion is for the most part what you say it is. However, religious experiences might be an important part of reality, even if they do not lend themselves to scientific inquiry. To each his own ... button.
Posted by: uncle noel | May 27, 2008 10:46 AM
@#14 Kseniya --
Indeed. The full Marx quote, because I think it rings even more true in context than as a single sentence:
Marx could really be quite poetic when he wanted to.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 27, 2008 10:47 AM
Good post, PZ!
Posted by: BadMA | May 27, 2008 10:52 AM
I just googled that quote to know more, and Google corrected me:
"Did you mean: Spirituality is what christians have in place of imagination"
Posted by: Andrés | May 27, 2008 10:54 AM
It is true that communities can accrete around myths
Thanksgiving Day as a prime example. It shows the need to make new myths, and the function of myths.
Posted by: Gerdien de Jong | May 27, 2008 10:56 AM
//The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. //
Marx's thoughts on religion are undervalued,he had a lot of very true things to say about it,and often in a poetic way,as Etha's quote above shows.
Btw Etha,have you spoken to Helen yet lol?Tragic case that one....
Posted by: clinteas | May 27, 2008 10:59 AM
@#32: *LOLs out loud*
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columnists/story/0,,2145124,00.html
There you go.
Posted by: Matt Heath | May 27, 2008 11:00 AM
Religion in the bronze age WAS about imagination. Someone ELSE'S imagination. Someone ELSE imagined why we're here and what it's all about. Religion now is about stomping on anyone's imagination that dare question the original imagination as dutifully recorded on pieces of animal skin. According to biblical literalism, we humans have had all the imagination we need forever and can now free our imagination neurons and refocus them to reading and obeying.
Posted by: lauram | May 27, 2008 11:00 AM
Of course, he conveniently forgets the portions of the New Testament which instructed slaves to work like hell for their masters because their rewards would be in heaven. And this was preached to the slaves in the churches. Some inspiration, huh? Don't worry about this life, everything will be copasetic in the next.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | May 27, 2008 11:03 AM
I always try to give these articles the benefit of the doubt, but they're always just so goddamned smug and self-indulgent that I end up vomiting into my own mouth after just a few paragraphs.
Why do I care what this J. Random Columnist thinks? Why do I care about his rabbi? It's nothing but a load of fluff. Like I should be so very interested in this guy's boring-ass life story just because he has a newspaper column. Well, sorry, I'm not. It sounds exactly like every other boring-ass life story I've ever heard. (Probably not coincidentally. "Journalism" has a template for "personal narrative about Important Issue of the Day" the same as it has templates for everything else...)
Posted by: Joshua | May 27, 2008 11:05 AM
"Yes, I regard the scent of religion with disgust, but not because I lack an appreciation of its historical or sociological significance -- it's because I can detect the odor of corruption and decay, and I can smell failure. It's not something I want in my house."
PZ Meyers
Just Marvelous PZ. Great write-up.
Posted by: Alex | May 27, 2008 11:10 AM
Great article. As a philosophy, you are entirely right, this is useless and may be dangerous. Like, presumably, you I would love to see a world where religions were a thing of the past. The question is - do moderate religions have a role in getting us there?
One apparent hope (Dawkins?) is to provoke an epiphany in the believer by sheer force of intellect. This is great to the extent it works. But I think moderate religions have a role to play in developing another pathway to atheism.
The Church of England is a magnificent institution which has gradually dropped (or so de-emphasised) its theology as to be little more than deist in many of its churches. At the same time it has more-or-less kept up its heirarchy and buildings. The result is that the UK population is largely post-religious. On the current track, the presence of the expensive infrastructure and the lack of believers will allow the CoE to collapse under its own weight. There are similar stories in most post-religious countries.
My (small) town has two churches, one Unitarian and one Episcopalian. Wouldn't the rest of America be a happier place if the place for the most fundamentally minded was an Episcopalian church?
Posted by: alexa | May 27, 2008 11:11 AM
Sorry PZ....Myers.
Posted by: Alex | May 27, 2008 11:13 AM
You're my hero Pz. Religion has gained too much respect. It deserves none. Sigh.
Posted by: andrew | May 27, 2008 11:17 AM
Yes, I've heard this many times, too, that unbelievers don't have the imagination to recognize beauty, and complexity, and the intricate interconnectedness of all things in the world. What these defenders of the faith have a hard time understanding is that their belief system is built on imagination--the imagination of others--and that there are those who have the imagination to see this!
Religion is not only the rat pushing the big red button to get a jolt of pleasure; it is training the rat as to what feelings it is to concentrate on when it does push it, and holding up the promise of much greater pleasure if it keeps pushing it. I often feel that those who fall for this have just enough imagination to grasp simple concepts--and nothing left over.
Posted by: RamblinDude | May 27, 2008 11:17 AM
TWO churches? How small is your town? Mine has a population of 5,000, and I think we have something like FOURTEEN churches here. On my short, 6 block morning walk to the coffeeshop, I have to walk past three of them. They're like a blight upon the landscape, little festering boils popping up on any corner.
Posted by: PZ Myers | May 27, 2008 11:18 AM
Religious experience begins with an encounter...
Yeah? An "encounter" with what?
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | May 27, 2008 11:20 AM
Above par, PZ. I can't express how much I agree with you.
Posted by: Mac | May 27, 2008 11:21 AM
Berbergal seems not to understand why people rally around the creation museum and other rank nonsense. It's because if it is "just a myth," it hardly counts at all to a lot of people.
Sure, many aestheticize religion into a perpetual myth, make it pretty, go through the rituals. It's probably a bit infantile, but nothing to get too worked up over.
The truth is, the IDists and most other creationists want their beliefs to have the evidence and concrete power of science. The big problem is, it simply isn't science, and destroying science standards won't turn it into science.
Evolution is often accused of being elitist, something that isn't inherently true at all, and probably doesn't tell us much of its social status at the present time either. What is elitist in the main is actually Berbergal's religion, the kind that will treat religion as a kind of art of narrative and imagination. I'm not saying that such a religion absolutely has to be elitist, but it tends to be.
Your lower classes, especially, want something that works, that produces results. They will not settle for religion as art, or at least they think that they won't. That's why ID promises them science. Sadly, it will never deliver, and yes, we have an obligation to at least offer science to them.
Berbergal is not wholly wrong, I would say. The religion that he favors is neither especially anti-science nor is it aesthetically displeasing to a number of folk. It's just not the answer for most, and especially it's not the answer for those who cling to religion because they have little else. "Liberal religion" exists for those who are happpy enough with their lot in life, not for those who are needy.
All that can be promised to those who need is learning and science. It's a load of hard work, and expense, of which not all are willing or able. But there is no substitute, for science delivers, religion does not. Religion as myth will never be acceptable for those in need, because the latter need truth, and pretty lies that admit to being lies simply advertise to those in need that there's no truth there.
"Liberal religion" is the promised shortcut which became the perpetual journey for those who were unwilling to give up religion. "Conservative religion" is the promised shortcut that is the endless grind that is "just about to deliver." Science is the hard work, the grind that pays out in the end.
Liberal religion exists for the satisfied, for those who need no more than ritual in their lives. In one sense, both science and traditional religion are for those who demand results. The problem is that only one of them produces results. And for a lot of us, even if we enjoy myths aesthetically, only the route that produces results is worth more than, say, a good acid trip.
That's what it comes down to, of course. Religion might be safer than acid. But if it's just a matter of aesthetics and pleasure, it really doesn't provide as much as LSD does.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 27, 2008 11:23 AM
@ Ian (#5)
Am I the only one who sees the implicit irony in the phrase "Religious think-tanks)?
Excuse me, my irony meter needs a new overload buffer installed - the old one has been acting glitchy lately.
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | May 27, 2008 11:31 AM
Can we give PZ the next Molly? :-)
Posted by: demallien | May 27, 2008 11:34 AM
PZ, in practice, is society stable if composed of human beings trying to behave rationally? Or conversely, is an irrational component necessary to keep society as a functioning, continuing entity?
Rationality is a recent evolutionary phenomenon. It isn't needed for pre-human societies to function. What would be the likelihood that such a recent innovation would be sufficient for stability (given that it may have become necessary at this point in time)? As far as I can see, every current human society is predicated to some extent on irrational beliefs and impulses - and religion is one kind of organization of this irrationality.
Is there a better way to organize irrationality, rather than to simply dismiss it? It would seem that if one was interested in the social behavior of animals and their ability to continue this social behavior, questions of their native irrationality would trump any questions of intentional organization.
Posted by: frog | May 27, 2008 11:43 AM
The key to all this of course, is the last part PZ wrote about: The unchallenged assertions of religion that they are responsible for all the good and never any of the bad. Success has a thousand mothers and fathers, but failure is an orphan. These assertions must be attacked mercilessly, because they are some of the worst lies ever devised.
I've heard people who don't even practice or subscribe to religion give credence to the "Christians ended slavery" myth. I never bought into it because it was obviously a shuffling lie, or at the very least very thin thinking and acceptance of (in reality) the political agenda of a certain party...
Posted by: BlueIndependent | May 27, 2008 11:50 AM
Some general thoughts from an open-minded theist. My own position is in some ways similar to Bebergal's, but not quite.
As I've noted on other threads, I deplore young-earth creationism and biblical literalism. It is both bad science and bad theology; bad science, because it necessitates ignoring vast swathes of geological and biological evidence about the age of the earth and the history of species, or twisting that evidence to fit a predetermined belief; and bad theology, because the natural and physical world is full of flaws and cruelties, many of which are in no way attributable to human activity, which does not square with the idea of intricate design by an omnipotent and loving God. I think we all agree here that the earth was not created in six 24-hour days in 4004 BC (indeed, I have difficulty understanding how any rational and intellectually honest person could promote such a belief in the present day).
My background is in law, not science, and I'm not scientifically literate enough to make any sort of meaningful judgment about the science involved. I do understand that evolutionary change, through a process of natural selection, is a near-universally accepted explanation, among scientists, for the diversity of life. I would not seek to challenge it on any level. However, I also understand - correct me if I'm wrong - that evolutionary theory does not purport to explain abiogenesis, and that how life itself emerged from non-living matter remains a near-total mystery. (I'd appreciate more information about this from any biologists in the forum, I'm interested in learning about it.)
But at the same time, while I certainly do not consider Genesis 1-11 to be a literal account of the creation of the world, I do not view the Bible either as valueless or as pure mythos, nor do I believe its utility to be limited to the role of a didactic storybook, as Bebergal seemed to be implicitly suggesting in his article. Rather, I think it is valuable as a historical text. While some would challenge this assertion, the majority of mainstream scholars hold that the Biblical historical accounts are, broadly, reconcilable with archaeological and extra-biblical evidence. While the traditional chronology of the Exodus does not square with archaeology - the Exodus is usually dated to around 1300 BC, while excavations show that Jericho and the other Canaanite cities were destroyed around 1550 BC - the "new chronology" suggested by the British Egyptologist David Rohl (which remains controversial in academic circles) would seem to reconcile the dates. (Rohl, incidentally, is an agnostic.) Furthermore, many aspects of the Biblical narrative have been shown to be more plausible than previously believed. The Hittites, for instance, were believed to be an invention of the Biblical text until the early twentieth century, when archaeological remnants identified as Hittite were unearthed in Anatolia. Also, Belshazzar, King of Babylon in the Book of Daniel, was believed to be fictional until 1854, when archaeological evidence from Babylon itself verified the existence of a prince called "Bel-sar-usur". Moving on to the New Testament, although the historicity of Jesus has never been absolutely proven (hence the "Jesus myth hypothesis" proposed by Earl Doherty and others), the writings of Josephus verify large parts of the Gospel account, including much of the life of Herod the Great, Herod Antipas and John the Baptist.
None of this, of course, demonstrates the existence of God or the truth of Judeo-Christian beliefs, nor is it intended to. All it shows is that the Bible is probably a reasonably accurate history (with the exception of those stories existing purely for didactic purposes, such as the book of Job) of the development of the Jewish people and the nation of Israel. Whether or not one believes in the supernatural elements, or whether these are mythological embellishments, is a matter of personal opinion. Being open-minded myself, I'm open to the view that it may be accurate, or to the view that it may not.
Sorry about this incoherent rambling post; I don't have time to set down my thoughts in a properly organised way, but I wanted to share my thoughts before I forget about it.
Posted by: Walton | May 27, 2008 11:54 AM
PZ, we're also about 5000, but this is Massachusetts. I know what you mean about boils - I lived for a little while below the bible belt and was amazed by the proliferation of brands "Abiding Faith" a few blocks down from "Abiding Saviour".
Posted by: alexa | May 27, 2008 11:56 AM
There are times when I am glad I live in the UK. Here the churches I see in the locality are all rather attractive buildings, most dating back several hundred years. What goes on within may be a waste of time, but at least the buildings have architectural merit.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 27, 2008 12:03 PM
@#52 Walton --
But shouldn't the elements in which the supernatural/god interacts with the natural (eg, the plagues of Egypt, parting of the Red/Reed Sea, the great flood) be subjected to the same standards of historical/natural evidence, since they have obvious natural effects? Though there may be evidence for the historicity of many parts of the completely natural stories in the bible, there is no evidence for any supernatural-natural interactions told therein. Why should the conclusions from this (lack of) evidence be a "matter of personal opinion," while the conclusions regarding completely non-supernatural events are subjected to scholarly standards of historical/natural proof?
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 27, 2008 12:06 PM
Ramen, brother!
So many bits of this great post already have been quoted in comments here, so here is my fave bit:
It's time we saw through the con game of these lying leeches, and that goes for the local liberal church as well as the most outrageous televangelist. The moderate church may be bad because it can lead congregants to the vilest exploiters, but it is also definitely bad because it is misleading you right now.
Think your SQ (Sexy Quotient) just went up a notch, and this post should not be allowed to be seen by pubescent girls.
Posted by: Logicel | May 27, 2008 12:06 PM
So umm....where can I get some electrodes installed into my pleasure center? =)
I'm just sayin'.....
Cheers
Posted by: FastLane | May 27, 2008 12:07 PM
Outstanding piece of prose - reminds me why I check this blog every day (I don't care much for cephalopods actually - Sorry PZ!)
After reading this, I have to ask: When are you going to write your own "God Delusion"? If it's done in this style it might even outsell the original - especially if it's coming from an American writing to fellow Americans. (I know you tend to mistrust us Brits over there. Why else do you always cast us as villians in your movies?)
Posted by: Elwood Herring | May 27, 2008 12:12 PM
But we have politics, organized sports, "school spirit," and a host of other irrational social organizations and beliefs. Religion isn't close to being the only one, it is just one of the most anachronistic ones.
Pre-human societies didn't need religion, any more than they needed rationality. Religion at its earliest is a kind of quasi-science (from a certain late perspective) that attempts to rationalize what is not rational. Today it very often is an attempt to irrationalize what in fact is rationally understandable.
True, it probably will never go away, and I don't oppose it in the way that PZ does. But I am not the least bit concerned that rationality will take over with or without religion. Nor do I think that humans need religion to be "spiritual" or to indulge in the irrational.
Thanks to writing, ancient beliefs parasitize the present (the dead hand of the past), particularly in the mode of religion. People try to rationalize not only the irrational aspects of their psyche, but also the irrational aspects of past psyches and societies. That's why it turns into such a mess that people like Bebergal try to aestheticize it, where the believers agree with rationality as far as they can outside of religion.
When that works I am not going to fuss (much). But for many, the treatment of religion as meaningless myth is simply intolerable, and for those I think we need the PZ types to take religion seriously and to skewer it as the contrary collection of nonsense that it is.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 27, 2008 12:16 PM
To Etha at #55: I think you've slightly misunderstood what I was trying to say (which is my fault entirely, I'd concede that it wasn't very clear).
What I meant was that, when subjected to standards of historical scholarship, much of the historical narrative in the Bible does hold up - and, therefore, the Bible is not discredited as a source of historical information. It is true that there is no evidence for the veracity of any of the supernatural elements of the story - but there's no evidence for the veracity of many of its natural elements either. For instance, there is no direct evidence for the existence of the Patriarchs, nor would we expect there to be; four generations of a single family wandering around the ancient Near East would not have left a massive physical impact identifiable by today's archaeologists.
The point I was trying to make, simply put, is this. There are many elements of the Bible, both natural or supernatural, for which there is no independent historical evidence. But where there is historical evidence which covers the same ground as the Bible, there is no radical inconsistency. Thus, on its testable and falsifiable aspects, the Bible stands the test; this makes it possible, though by no means inevitable, to believe in its untestable and unfalsifiable aspects.
To draw a parallel with secular history: there is no archaeological evidence, for instance, that the Huns rode horses. Yet written records of the time make very, very clear that horse-riding was central to the Huns' way of life and method of warfare. As Kenneth Kitchen says, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
Basically, the fact that the Bible is broadly consistent with extra-biblical historical evidence is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for belief. If archaeological evidence had consistently proven the Bible's historical narratice to be entirely false, then Judeo-Christian beliefs would be intellectually unsustainable; however, that is not the case.
This is not in any way intended to be a solid argument for the existence of God; it's nothing of the sort. I'm just pointing out that it is possible, at the least, to believe in the veracity of the Bible without rejecting secular history and scholarship.
Posted by: Walton | May 27, 2008 12:21 PM
Um, no. The fact that people writing much closer in time to the Hittite Empire than we are could throw an incidental mention of the Hittites into their story, treating them on a par with completely obscure tribes like the "Girgashites", does not make their story a reliable historical document. We're talking about people who couldn't tell Rome apart from Cyprus, fer jebus's sake.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | May 27, 2008 12:27 PM
That is a very insightful way of looking at the imagination, and it leads so well into what you say next:
So true. When you look at the religious explanations of creation and destruction, the contrast between imagination and reality could not be any starker. What we see in religion are facets of a culture's everyday experience transplanted into a setting they find fitting for the theme (creation/destruction). But I am not sure I would have really ever had these thoughts laid out so clearly if not for this post. This is definitely a quote mine!
Posted by: aratina | May 27, 2008 12:29 PM
Imagination is an ability that seems to be very significant, does anyone know of any scientific studies of it? Are we the only animal that possess this ability or is our ability just more advanced, developed than other animals?
We all tell stories, all cultures have important stories that explain or illustrate their understanding of how the world works and what it is.
We spend a large part of our energy and time reading, listening and watching stories of all kinds. Look at the spread of TV and movies. Are not computer/digital games acting in stories?
If you want to get elected you have to have the better story. You need to "capture the imagination " of the electorate! Does not seem mater if it is true or not look at recent history.
Advertising is a story not information.
Is not faith and religion all about stories?
The past, history, can be told and transformed by imagination into stories that do not match the "objective facts" of events thus giving it power to shape our present perception and action.
Scientific Interpretation or any other kind is what part imagination and what part fact?
There is not much of a chance that the ill effects of imagination nor our need for it are going to go anywhere. I would say that at the least it is a double edged sword that cuts for the good and the bad. I allows us to see more than what is right in front of us and allows us to see things that are just not so.
George Orwell said " The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue and when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show us to be right.
Intellectually it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time. The only check on it that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield".
Posted by: uncle frogy | May 27, 2008 12:35 PM
To Glen D at #59.
Religion at its earliest is a kind of quasi-science (from a certain late perspective) that attempts to rationalize what is not rational. Today it very often is an attempt to irrationalize what in fact is rationally understandable.
Your latter sentence is, admittedly, true of a lot of manifestations of religious belief in modern society. Young earth creationism is probably the best example of this. Prior to the nineteenth century, when very little was known about natural history, some explanation was needed of how the complex natural and physical world had come to be, and so a reliance on the literal truth of the Biblical account was as good as anything. A "God of the gaps" role, in other words; there was no known natural explanation, so nothing wrong with relying on a supernatural explanation. Today, we have natural explanations (modern geology, natural selection, etc.), and evidence which effectively disproves the literal truth of the Biblical account; YEC seeks to rely on a supernatural explanation in preference to natural explanations, which is fundamentally irrational.
However, there is so much which has no natural explanation - or, at least, no non-speculative natural explanation. For instance, how the physical laws of the universe came to be, in such a way that the universe can generate and support intelligent life. (I'm no physicist, but I'm told that if some constants of physical laws were slightly different, the universe would either consist of nothing but hydrogen atoms or nothing but energy. I could have misunderstood this completely, so please correct me if I'm wrong.)
Not to mention human consciousness. As I understand it (again, correct me if I'm wrong) science provides no answer to the question of what consciousness is, and what quality gives us the self-awareness and self-introspection that human beings alone possess. Or, indeed, those qualities which are referred to in a religious and spiritual context as the "soul" (which is a universal concept found in all cultures, not an invention of any one religious tradition).
I am no scientist, as I've said repeatedly, and I could be talking absolute nonsense, so am entirely open to correction. But as I understand it, there is a point at which reason and demonstrable human knowledge ends - and there is a point beyond which said knowledge cannot go using the scientific method. Beyond that, there is space for belief in God. To limit and reduce God to something which can be scientifically demonstrated through material means - as creationists try to do - is, to my mind, meaningless.
Posted by: Walton | May 27, 2008 12:36 PM
So he's a Bokononist, then?
Posted by: Ktesibios | May 27, 2008 12:39 PM
This is an empirical question, and the answer implied does not square with the historical record. The story of even the most radical movements and slave rebellions in early American history shows that religious myths and beliefs were key motivating factors in struggles against oppression (see Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra). Religion was simply one of few cultural frameworks available to uneducated people. The relationship between religion and struggles against oppression is an extremely complicated one, and I don't understand why people want to ignore that complex reality.
As you state correctly, religion was also shared, and used as a tool, by the oppressors, and the suggestion made by the religious that it has invariably been a weapon of resistance is self-serving and disingenuous. But the counter-argument, that religion has historically served solely as the opiate of the masses, is historically unsupportable (for a more contemporary example, see Deborah Levenson Estrada's Trade Unionists Against Terror). It really doesn't matter how poetically Marx put it (I'm still partial to Bakunin, but I'll spare everyone another link to "God and the State"); the question is the role religious myths have played on the ground in real struggles.
Now, I disagree with Bebergal that the fact that this myth was important to the struggles of slaves and to the Civil Rights movement demonstrates something about the enduring social value of religious myths. First, because these myths are plastic and can be understood and used in ways that facilitate or impede human freedom. But, more importantly, because unlike some people in the past, we now have available other, non-religious cultural frameworks through which to understand struggle - civil rights, human rights, social justice, the class struggle,.... While these modern frameworks in some hands can take on mythological characteristics, the notion that irrational religious myths provide superior organizing principles to them is, in my view, wrong, and the fact that religious myths are just that - myths - should count them out immediately.
Anyway, that said, I liked