People at North Hill text responses to the sermon during the service and I comment on them. The input from the congregation is often rich and provocative. Below are the responses to last Sabbath's sermon and my comments.
TEXT: Does "religion" really "lead" people to do heinous things? Is using religion to justify terrible acts the same as being led to do such things? NO!
My comment: Sometimes religion does lead people to do bad things. Some examples: In some religious circles nowadays, it is common to perform exorcisms on young people who struggle with same sex attraction. This demonization of unchosen sexual desire is driven by deeply sincere religious conviction. This demonization and the practice of exorcism in this setting is also wrong--wicked, evil, harmful.
Martin Luther approved the execution of Sabbath-keepers because of his own deeply held religious convictions.
The Jewish leaders got rid of Jesus because he violated their religious convicitons and threatened the stability of their religious system.
Many Christian parents continue to spank their children because they believe that is what Scripture teaches. However, study after study has shown that spanking, especially when it is frequent and severe, damages children. It does not "protect them from spoiling."
TEXT: How does an atheist describe the origin of conscience? This too is a deficit.
I know there is a lot of work being done to develop an explanation of conscience that is rooted in naturalism. However, I have not done any serious reading in this area.
TEST: Doesn't love of life provide all the "oughts" and "ought nots" you need without needing to believe in god or religion?
Love of life does point us in the direction of what we ought to do. However, without some reference to extra-natural or supra-natural values we have no basis on which to claim that people "ought" to act lovingly. Altruism, affection, mother-love, ambition, love of beauty, love of knowledge, romance all appear to be "natural" to humans. Selfishness, hatred, greed, lust, laziness, gluttony appear to be equally natural. On what basis can we make a strong argument that people "ought" to moderate their desires for sex, things, pleasure, relationships, food and drink? The fact that intemperate pursuit of these desires leads to harm and death is no proof that one ought not do them.
A moral worldview argues that life is precious and ought to be safeguarded. A non-moral, love-of-life worldview does not have a logical basis for valuing responsible, temperate, compassionate living above narcissist dissipation. Both are expressions of appreciation for life.
ON THE OTHER HAND, I think love of life can offer a wise counterbalance to excessive morality and hyper-scrupulosity, especially when connected with the belief that life originated in God. We are biological creatures per God's wish. The enjoyment of sex, food, romance, relationships, sunshine, physical prowess is good--not just permissible. These "ought" to be celebrated and enjoyed with great happiness and delight. In many religious traditions enjoyment of earthy pleasures is suspect. Love of life challenges this suspicion of earthy delights. Understanding life as God's creation and love as the supreme command brings together "high" morality and an earthy "love of life."
TEST: How is the question of origin of the big bang different from the question of the origin of God? God just is? Just as science just is?
My comment: Formally, saying the universe just is and saying God just is are equivalent. However, in naturalism all effects must have a cause. There can be no "first cause" without violating the very essence of naturalism which insists that reality is comprised of effects and their causes.
Theism is just as helpless to comment on the origin of God as naturalism is to comment on reality prior to the Big Bang or exterior to the universe. However, theism includes this helplessness as an expected truth. Theism is, at its most basic level, the declaration that there is an uncaused cause. The question raised by children and college freshmen--who created God--is good science. That is, it is a question that takes reality as we observe it and makes a prediction. Everything we observe has a cause so God must have a cause, an antecedent. However, mature theism embraces as truth, the declaration that God is the absolute end point in the regression of causes.
God as a stopping point of speculation and meaning looking back in time is no more difficult than embracing the concept of infinity looking forward. Both are logical, but don't hurt yourself trying to "get your mind around it."
TEXT: How can we witness to atheists? If our current methods don't meet their needs, what does?
My comment: Atheists are people which means they have the same complex needs and motivations of the rest of us. Some atheists have arrived at their views by what they see as the inescapable conclusions of science others have arrived there because of personal suffering or more generalized human pain. So there is no "one size fits all" except perhaps these points:
1. Respect. Give atheists the respect you wish them to show you and other believers. It's silly to damn, mock and dismiss atheism, then expect atheists to listen to our views.
2. Care and affection. If you hope to have influence in an atheist's mind, you should first win a place in his/her heart and life. Note, I said, "win", not contrive, not force, not chance upon. Winning someone, if it is ethical, is different from manipulation.
3. Give witness to what you believe rather than trying to fix what they believe.
4. Don't insist their theism must look like yours. Don't tell the atheist he/she must believe 6000 years and all the other details of classic conservative Christianity in order to engage with God. Allow the atheist to encounter God directly. Encourage them to explore. Don't order them to believe.
TEXT: I wonder how often the inability to "see" and relate to God has to do with inability--for whatever reason--to "see" and relate to other people.
My comment: Relationships between people and with God are not the same. However, they are obviously related--in fantastically complicated ways. Ideally our human relationships should help us imagine God and our religious relationship should help us participate more joyously and effectively in human relationships. Developing this theme deserves a book or two and knowledge and insight I don't have.
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7 comments:
Re: "However, without some reference to extra-natural or supra-natural values we have no basis on which to claim that people "ought" to act lovingly."
This statement does not have face validity for me. It seems that experience would teach us pretty quickly that being kind and cooperative produce better results than being rude and competative.
If anyone had any doubts you could just watch a natural experiment where one group acted one way, and another group acted the other. Natural selection would sort out which strategy is most effective very quickly without needing God.
Why do you need God to say "Don't commit adultry"? Certainly looking around and seening the results of adultery would inform your morality and ethics very quickly.
Antinyx, In experiments where people have the opportunity to act cooperatively or competitively many people will choose the route of competition even though it turns out badly.
Adultery may have unpleasant sequelae, but that fact has not led to a decreasing incidence of adultery in the American population. Rudeness also does not appear to be attenuating in spite of Dale Carnegie's advice.
More to the point, consider the difference between Larry Ellison and Bill Gates in regard to their millions. One practices philanthropy. The other does not. Apart from a non-natural moral perspective, I don't know how one can argue that one approach is "better" than the other.
We argue that people ought to act lovingly. The claim that they "ought" to love is a reference to an extra-material, supra-natural perspective that dares to speak not just about what is, but what ought to be.
I guess I don't see religion "leading" anywhere as it's suggested in the first text message. I guess I see religion as a manifestation of pre-existing choices. If you're hostile and intolerant your religion will be hostile and intolerant. Certianly you have the capability of making a different choice just as a good person can make a bad choice, but religion will be manifest and amplified the life experiences that will lead you to make choices either good or bad. Obviously there's a chicken/egg paradigm here. I think the relationship of the choices people make and the religion they follow is very cyclical.
Text 2
The origin of consciousness for an atheist is considered to be an "emergent property". Setting aside a/theism question this can be easily be seen. A simple nerve cell emits an elecro/chemical pulse. Yet this behavior doesn't by itself describe a thought. It is the combination of relatively simple elements to create something that is more than the sum of it's parts. Any sufficently complex system will develop such emergent properties that can not be explained by the workings of it's simple and individula components. Now, did God design it that way? or did it naturally evolve? That is a matter of faith.
Text 3# I strongly agree with your seniment here. I think the love of life and a passion for people is something that atheists and theists can both appreciate.
I also wanted to affirm what you said in resposne to the final message. You dont' want to "convert" atheists per se. You want to be their friend. I know some atheists. Atheists want friendship and respect. They know there won't be universal agreement, they don't even mind the discussion. But mutual respect is very crucial, just as it is in any relationship
RE: "The fact that intemperate pursuit of these desires leads to harm and death is no proof that one ought not do them."
I am not so sure about that. It seems that a thinking person would find the "ought" in that outcome. If a person were NOT thinking and didn't see the "ought", then it seems that the "harm and death" would exert evolutionary pressure toward those individuals that do see the morality. Therefore morality is an emergent property among those that survive the best.
I don't know Larry Ellison, but if Bill Gates winds up saving millions of lives because his philanthropy solves the malaria problem, then it seems to me that philanthropy would get a strong evoulutionary boost over non-philanthropy.
Antinyx, It seems to me we are talking around two distinct questions. 1. Why do people behave in moral ways? 2. Why do we label some behaviors moral.
You argue that acting in cooperative, considerate ways toward others makes sense from a straightforward materialistic perspective. It is the kind of behavior we would expect evolution to encourage. So the real question is why is there so much competitive, ruthless behavior?
It appears to me the only progress humans have made is in the area of the second question. There does seem to be a growing consensus that genocide, human rights abuses, judicial thuggery, racism, homophobic violence, etc. is immoral. However, even though there is this broad consensus that such actions are immoral, they still occur. So we have the situation where what is--that is the "given" of human behavior--is at variance with what we say "ought" to be. A genuinely naturalistic worldview does not provide a satisfactory philosophical or rational basis for saying that human behavior is anything other than human behavior. That is naturalism cannot say the behavior is wrong or right. Naturalism is limited to describing what is. Naturalism can note that some behaviors in the long run lead to greater happiness or reproductive success or decreased morbidity and mortality. However, to say that people ought to pursue such behaviors is invoking a non-naturalistic category. Ought is a contradiction of "is." Or at the very least is a radically different kind of statement.
"It appears to me the only progress humans have made is in the area of the second question."
I think we can probably both agree that the predominent world view during recorded history has been that there is a God. In that light, the statement quoted above would seem to argue that belief in God, and religion has failed.
You have to remember that secularism as only appeared in the last 100 years. In the last 100 years as seculism has grown stronger, we have seen the decline of religious persecution, war in europe, a rejection of tribalism, monarchy, facism, communism, totalinarianism, genocide, slavery, and we have seen the rise of government by representation, social justice, and social safety networks for the poor and elderly. The rule of law is becoming stronger, and we are even starting to see the rejection of war, at least nuclear war, as an option. More and more, economic ties international law prevent military confrontation.
On the whole, it looks to me like society has vastly improved in the last 100 years. If the rate of population growth is any indicator of societies strength, then there has been a dramatic improvement.
Yes, there are a minority of individuals who are criminals, and there are regions of the world where the above values are not completely actualized, however the trend is certainly in the positive direction, and even the fact that as a global society we agree that the above are positive values, I think is a dramatic change over the previous 10,000 year history of religious life.
So, looking at history imperically, it seems like secularism is vastly superior and Dawkins et.al. may have a valid point.
On the other hand, if the Catholic notion of "natural law" has any validity, you could say that God created the world in such a way that "good" wins, "evil" looses. So God prejudiced the universe in such a way that it "naturally" exerts evolutionary pressure on behalf of the good. In which case, universe still operates according to an evolutionary model, so the assertion of God seems superfluous. Why add a complication to your theory that isn't needed?
"In experiments where people have the opportunity to act cooperatively or competitively many people will choose the route of competition even though it turns out badly."
"Even though it turns out badly" I think are the operative words. The fact that it turns out badly will exert an evolutionary pressure against those that prefer competition to cooperation. The fact that competition does not Always turn out badly ensures that there will be a minority who persist in this mind set.
"Rudeness also does not appear to be attenuating in spite of Dale Carnegie's advice." perhaps you are right, however, watching the political news would suggest that rudeness definitely exerts evolutionary pressure. Only the most suave and politically correct (polite) survive. When you are at the upper eschelons of society it is astonishing at how small a gaff it takes to ruin a career.
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