A Brief History
February 9th, 2007 by 
drunkentune
Some time ago, we didn’t know where we came from. We didn’t know how things worked. We had to protect ourselves from the unexplained. There were options available to us, early on. We could either keep things the way they were and maintain the village or … suffer exile. Today we see exile as a way to find what the world is really like (i.e. The Beach); these people – us – thought exile was impossible: we couldn’t survive, and if we somehow did, we couldn’t pull it off to actually live on our own. Tradition would hold us together. Even if we could survive, as it went, we would have to rely on the village. Socrates could choose between death and exile, and chose Coniine. Just yesterday, the 18th century, crimes were punishable by either death or exile.
Exile: thrown out into the maelstrom; chaos. With exile, we wouldn’t be able to cope, and would be reduced to less-than-human. We would be cut off from the world, for outside of the community – the village – there was no support system. England’s criminals were first shipped to Georgia, then to Australia, forced into exile halfway across the Earth. We had the sense that outside of the community was so frightening as to be like death, for exile was a death of sorts. The outside of the village was darkness.
Today we plant our feet and look at the darkness with confidence – not in fear. We learned that looking closely, through introspection and deduction, that nature was a mechanism governed by rules. Nature, before this, was willful; personal. If you made a mistake, nature was directed against your village: your crops would wither, your livestock would be sick, fire in the fields. Safety came from tradition. It is in the Cypria that Agamemnon sacrifices his own daughter Iphigenia in the sincere belief that her death will stop the storm. It is in Oresteia that an omen of two eagles slaughtering a pregnant hare tells the prophet that Troy will fall. It is in the Bible that Jonah is thrown to the sea to stop God’s wrath.
We’re not sure anymore that anyone would choose death over exile. There is a sense, not of a choice between the village and chaos, but that the village has disappeared. The collective wisdom of Shakespeare, Newton, and Faulkner is enough.
In some parts of the world, we can travel downtown and just stand there. Surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people – none of whom we know. It’s different. Most people will hold doors for us, smile, and be friendly, knowing far well that they will never see us again. It’s different, since for the bulk of human history we would have known everyone we talked to. In the village, we knew everyone. We’ve been taught how to behave to others in an impersonal world. The parameters are different, since at the core was an epistemological break. We now have a confidence - we will be able to figure it all out. The world was a clock, not a cloud, not a miasma. We can make sense of it all. When you drop your keys in your living room, the same force is in effect on the movement of planets, stars … entire galaxies. The universe is not arbitrary. The further we walked into the darkness, the more the gloam lifted. We did not blench. Exile was once: they are freeing us from the truth. Now, we can see there are patterns not subject to the whims of the gods!
And so came the rise of the nation-state and the Industrial Revolution, changing everything in time. Today, there is no single church, no lord controlling the tenant farming, no fear of what is outside the village. It has been thrust upon us. Then came religious tolerance, civic virtue, freedom of thought. There is a new popular sensibility: we can do things not the way they’ve always been done.
In England during the 18th century, there rose a self-help way of pulling up the quality of life through schooling. Someone will a wheelbarrow would traverse the streets, selling penny-tracts. The format was always the same: 30 pieces of paper bent in half to produce 60 pages, bound with string, with a double-column of small type. There are not many things smaller than a penny (a hay penny), but what was available? Not romance novels or mysteries or cheap thrills, but chapters of physics books, biology texts, chemistry – how machines worked. We – as working men and women – could know how and why things worked. We could know the intricacies to the world around us. We could make suggestions, patent things, discuss our ideas openly and without the fear.
Then came the working-men’s colleges. A room was rented in a pub or church and a library was constructed, bookshelves and chairs and light to read by. There was a monthly fee (usually a penny), the rent was paid and after the members of the college pooled their money and bought books. If there was excess money, we would have scholars come and lecture. Augustus Morgan would travel to pubs and speak. We had extraordinary confidence that we could understand. Knowing would make England better – and our lives better.
There were earlier ones precluding this Enlightenment: Descartes and Bacon were there in each their own way putting value to the natural sciences: a connection between the sciences and truth, religion and progress. Descartes is probably the most influential theologian to date, and with him came reason. There was a sense in the air: you don’t have to agree with me, but you must understand where I come from. Knowledge was no more kept in secret. We can reason, even if the ambages are narrow and dark, for the universe is not arbitrary.
Today, we don’t look for interpretations in physics. We don’t make wild conjectures. Their commonalities are overwhelming. The similarity of Descartes and Bacon is profound, that we can make sense of the world. We don’t live in a village anymore. It’s gone. Nothing more than a bad dream.
Like it was never there.
Posted in naturalism, philosophical issues | 
February 11th, 2007 at 8:38 am
The history of the human struggle towards reason has been long and hard.
I see religion as the candle snuffer poised, as it always has been, to put out the flickering light of reason. Religion, on the otherhand, is viewed by religious people, as the flickering light.
If it was only a flickering light, most non-believers wouldn’t be concerned. Unfortunately, it can be likened to more to a bushfire. It moves with the prevailing political wind and spares few in its path.
(Yes, it’s true, I don’t see religion or religious beliefs as constructive means to solving human problems.)
February 11th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
It is remarkable how creative people have been in moving toward better understanding of the natural world via reason. It is also remarkable how creative people have been in seeking to explain what they could not via religion. Think of the great undertakings of the Pyramids, Stonehenge, and so on, all built as testament to the religious beliefs of people. And, imagine the necessity they found in needing to understand mathematics, physics, and other sciences as they undertook such projects. Indeed, it seems the religious nature of man and his creative methods of understanding his world are unique among all species. It seems that before hominid species showed signs of religion, that is before they engaged in ceremonial burial and sought to make a connection with what they saw as the unseen spiritual world around them, they mostly engaged in warfare and cannabalism. Only with the development of religion which pointed out the inhumanity of humankind was there any chance to build not just monuments, but also people who could rise above their brutish natures and become closer to their concept of perfection as their religions also pushed them toward.
February 11th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Ed,
Religion has been around far longer than culture, but it was the nation-state (think Ur ca. 2600 B.C.) that set down law (think Hamurabi’s Code ca. 1700 B.C.) in attempts to resolve conflicts nonviolenly. More recent religions came out of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures (See this map). Before large nation-states, there were tribal religions, such as shamanism and animism (You can see a few here) going much further back than any recent religion, almost to the dawn of man.
February 12th, 2007 at 3:06 am
Speaking of exile, consider the following hypothetical challenge: With only ordinary clothing, you are placed at Moscow. You have up to 1 year to reach the coast at Capetown, South Africa. If you do not make it there in 1 year, you die. What would it be like to attempt the journey in: 1) 2007 CE 2) 2007 BCE or 3) 200,007 BCE?
The bottom line: things are best today traveling through areas occupied by rational people influenced by modern religions for hundreds of years. Second best would be 200,007 BCE because there would only be hominids along the journey who would be so primitive in their lack of creativity/science and who had no religion. Worst would be 2007 BCE, because the people along the way would represent primitive religions, but would be creative and clever enough to catch you and do something most horrible to you, since you were not part of their group. My point is that the development of religion from primitive to modern parallels and supports the development of reason and morality. In fact, it could be that the evolutionary process that brings us the ability to reason now would have been impossible without the development of religious behaviors. But I agree with beep, the path to reason has been, and will continue to be, long and hard.
February 12th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Religions are supportive of science for as long as science does not contradict or conflict with religious faith.
This is the problem as far as I am concerned. Someone’s religious faith-based argument should not be the determining factor for whether a scientific theory, procedure, or methodology is accepted or not.
For example: If someone doesn’t believe in condom use because of their religious beliefs, so be it. But this should only be a personal decision based on their personal faith. Their faith should not be the determining factor as to whether africa is supplied with condoms to combat the spread of HIV, or whether they should be encouraged to practice abstinence as the latter complies with their religious faith.
An argument based in religious faith is insufficient for me and it is for many other people as well, not only atheists. We want more than just “my god says no.” I don’t believe in the existence of your god, and you are by default, compelling me act according to your faith, if your only argument is based in religious faith.
February 12th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Beep, I agree. I think, though, part of the issue is that religion speaks to the moral behavior of people. Then, it can become difficult for us to make “certified religion-free” decisions on issues that are perceived as not just scientific but also moral. Drawing the dividing line can be difficult for both religionists and non-religionists. Some of the decisions could be better made by more understanding of individual worldview differences and the art of compromise.
February 12th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
beep,
If I believe that using a condom will send a person to Hell, and I sincerely care about others, I will do everything in my power to save them from burning in damnnation, no matter the consiquences in the material world.
February 13th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Somewhere religious people forgot that their religious beliefs are what THEY believe.
They forgot that they have a right to act within the world so that they belief that they are saved through faith. Unfortunately, they have replaced it with the concept that they have the right to dictate that everyone else follow their religious belief.
This means that if they believe that they shouldn’t use a condom becaause of their religious beliefs, they have the right NOT to use one, but NO right is afforded them to demand that I cease from using them if their religious belief is the ONLY argument on which they base their conclusion.
As soon as they start thinking they have the right to compel everyone else to comply with their religious beliefs, they are no longer just people who have a personal religious belief. They then become political activists who demand that regardless of your own right to a differing idea, that you must comply with their belief.
They are essentially demanding that you accept the tenets of their faith through force.
They become like impolite dinner guests who insist that you eat the spinach even if you will have an allergic reaction to it. Or like the impolite and dictatorial dinner guests who demand that you eat the pork, even if you have good reason to think that the pork is poisoned.
Thye have the right to eat the spinach and have an allergic reaction, or to eat the pork and poison themselves, they do NOT have the right to insist that I follow suit.
The problem is that religions ONLY survive through a determined and persistent marketting campaign and they know it, which is why they reserve the right to be persistently annoying “god botherers”.
It is like being forced to buy Amway even if you have information that suggests strongly that the product is overpriced, unnecessary and hazardous to your mental health.
Someone’s religious belief is an insufficient argument on which to base a conclusion for the whole of society.
February 13th, 2007 at 10:01 am
beepbeep, what is the point of these tirades? I notice you’re not even qualifying your statements any more; you simply paint all religious people with the same brush. What are you hoping to achieve here? Do you want someone to apologize to you for all the evils of religions? I’m sorry, but even as an agnostic atheist, I’m starting to find your tirades repetitious and unproductive.
February 13th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Imagine, if you can, a village of people with not a single vestige of any religious belief in anyone. You know the kind, everyone knows everyone. You grew up with them, they know your kids, you know theirs. Contact with the outside is infrequent, and people rarely move in or out. Much like the place drunkentune refers to in terms of exile being like a death sentence, everyone’s identity is wrapped up in the sense of community. Well, now imagine what kind of threat to the community FROM WITHIN is about the most devastating to its stability: infidelity and promiscuity. In a place where everyone knows everyone’s business, and relationships and status are fixed over lifetimes, it would tear the place apart for people to start sleeping with one another’s families and friends. So, along comes some UN worker, saying, “Of course, you all will be sleeping together randomly, so here is a truckload of condoms so your village can be happy.” Now, of course, you might object saying that any encouragement of promiscuity is bad for your social fabric, and it is hard enough restraining that kind of behavior anyway.
Just add on religious belief, and you’ll find people adding religious concepts to justify the same kind of resistence. It is not from religion per se, it is part of their view of social relatedness.
By the way, I totally disagree with the prudish village elder’s tendency to resist condoms in leiu of abstinence only, but I just see their resistance as more soical than religious.
February 13th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Ed,
Surprisingly, there are several villages, that, to keep it as a community, practice promiscuity. If as a male, you don’t know which kid is yours, you will be willing (or forced) to take care of all of them equally. As a female, it’s to your advantage to be promiscuous. The same strategies occur in the Bonobo of the Congo.
February 13th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Drunkentune,
On a related theme, that of pornography, there are strong efforts to use government to limit it in places like Cincinnati (Roman Catholic dominated) and China (Communist, officially atheist). My point is that human beings use their worldview’s language and themes to end up justifying enacting social restrictions, good or bad. This is not just a problem for religion, nor is exile.
February 13th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Also, do you have any references to the data on the promiscuous villages? No, I don’t plan on visiting, I’m interested in seeing how long such societies have remained stable. Boy, they are at extreme risk in the modern era with syphilis, HIV, etc. on the loose. The vast majority of societies seem to follow the pattern of tabboo against promiscuity, more or less.
Related to another thread, I heard on NPR yesterday a story about some bus lines in Israel in which some women have been harassed, even assaulted, by ultra-orthodox Jewish enforcers who make them move to the back of the bus. Here’s a link to their site: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7361060
It seems the ultra-orthodox Jews have a great deal of influence as the bus line seems reluctant to stop such abuses, and the women have to take the situation to the supreme court there.
February 13th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
RE benny:
I don’t consdier it a tirade. It is just how I feel about it. I don’t have the right to compel you to be non-religious and you don’t have the right to compel me to be religious.
The point I am trying to make is that an argument based on an appeal to god belief, means nothing to an atheist, or to anyone who doesn’t believe in the same god.
So, if someone’s reason for not providing condoms to africa is - “my god wouldn’t like it” - then I consider that to be an insufficient argument. Your god belief can dictate YOUR world. As soon as you make it a requirement that your god belief is a sufficient reason, you are demanding that everyone else, by default, comply with your religious beliefs.
So, to convince me about condom use, you would need to be able to show scientifically, that condoms do nothing or little to stop the spread of HIV.
Realistically, you can’t do this. So religious people resort to -”but my god wouldn’t like it.” If your god wouldn’t like it, you have the right not to wear a condom based on your god belief. You don’t have the right to decide that everyone else should have your religious beliefs by default.
February 13th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
My last post came out more harshly than is justified. How ironic is it for me to protest tirades with a tirade of my own?
beepbeep, I think you are insightful, and I enjoy reading your posts. I just think dialogues will be more productive when we stop holding each other responsible for the extremists in our respective camps. Thank you.
February 13th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Minor clarification: I am an agnostic atheist
February 13th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Here’s an article that addresses the condom/abstinence debate as played out in Uganda. Clearly, the condom advocates win:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/24/MNG2PBG3VF1.DTL
My question to beep: what if the abstinence plan had shown itself better despite its religious origin? Would that make it awful at the start because it was based on “what my God wants”, but good in the end because “it shows empirical efficacy”. Sometimes there is no empirical data, then how do we make decisions? Based on the lack of a religious motive?
February 13th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
No condom use because my god says so, should only apply to those who believe in that god. If you want the rest of us to comply with the “no condom use policy”, you need a better justiciation than this, as “my god says so” is insufficient if you don’t believe in the existence of your god, and insufficient if you believe in another god.
February 13th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
RE ed
Frankly, I think that asking people to abstain from sex could only be the request that a religious person would make. And because religious people consider sex to be sinful except under the conditions prescribed by their religious faith, they are forever looking for an opportunity to view sex as sinful.
Basically, I think that many religious people like the idea that some people die from sexually transmitted diseases. In a perverse way, it validates their faith for them.
Sex isn’t sinful. Sexual activity, however, has biological risks. All germs and viruses are opportunistic. If you minimise the opportunity for infection, that is the responsible thing to do. This may include abstinence, but it definitely SHOULD include condom use.
Do I think that people should abstain from sex because of the risk associated with sexual activity? ONLY if that is a decision they make on their own cognizance, not because some powerful religious group has decided that sex is sinful and institutes faith-based health programs which have more to do with their religious agenda than with trying to provide the best health advice.
Many religious people have faith that their god is punishing the wicked, and they kind of like it. It validates their belief for them. That I consider this type of thinking to be sick and twisted, is an understatement.
If people contract disease, this becomes evidence of sin. Sin becomes evidence of punishment and punishment becomes evidence of a god. (My version of how I believe they think.)
So religious people have a vested interest in disease and suffering, if you eliminate or minimise disease and suffering, you eliminate “observable sin”. If you eliminate “observable sin” you diminish the supposed observable power of god to punish sinners.
Religion and god belief requires the concepts of sin and suffering in order to survive. It has one less means to sell salvation, if the “results of sin” become less prevalent.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:07 am
I guess I don’t see God as being in the business of punishing sin since he himself bore that penalty. Of course, his universe is set up in a way that tends to result in bad results in the end to sin, and he is interested in correcting our sinful ways. But you are right, there are lots of religious people of all sorts who get some kind of thrill out of such perverse validation. But back to the issue of sex. Do you have kids? I do, and besides the biological risks, I see lots of emotional and relational risks to untimely sex for them. I’ve had the discussion with them about using condoms if they choose, but I also strongly advise them to choose such behavior very carefully, if at all, before commitment. My point is that this area is one in which even non-religious people often come to a more restrictive/nearly abstinence based stance based on reasonable considerations. When we see how casual sexual behavior is portrayed by the entertainment industry, many people, religious or not, find it to be not helpful for themselves and their kids. You know, Benny observed your comments to seem too strident, like you are on a mission against religion. Well, what do you think happens when some religious people see the trash coming into their homes on the TV screen for their kids to see? Could they over-react by becoming strident in their proclamations and stances against that philosophy of sexuality? Might they use a broad stroke to color those who think differently?
February 14th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Ed (per Comment#4),
I’d just like to point out that one of the most modern and widespread religions (Islam) has this thing called female genital mutilation (FGM), where, to stop sexual desire, the clitoris is hacked off. WADI, a German nongovernmental organization focusing on women’s issues, found that ~60% of Kurdish women have undergone FGM. Nearly every woman in the survey declaired FGM to be a ‘normal’ practice. There are also indications that FGM may be more widespread in the Middle East; the rate is known to be 90% or more in Egypt (Thomas von der Osten-Saken and Thomas Uwer, Middle East Quarterly). I don’t see a big difference between primitive and modern religions when it comes to violence towards others, or even their own.
The reference to the village comes from A Natural History of Sex: The Ecology and Evolution of Mating Behavior, by Adrian Forsyth. He actually doesn’t say how long it’s been active, but from what I can tell, they’re highly isolated from other groups. It’s a great, short read, by the way, so I suggest picking up the book if you see it at your local bookstore.
February 14th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Thanks. Yes, I am aghast at female genital mutilation, but then again, I’m not a big fan of Islam, being a mainstream Protestant Christian. Relating this to our prior adventure with Herr Immanuel Kant, we hopefully both agree that cutting other people up relates to a universal absolute moral law. This is true whether it is as the victim of a primitive religion to appease one of its gods, or of Islam to satisfy its strictures against female sexuality, or of some National Socialist Party scientist to further studies on human physiology. For without recourse to such a law, there is no basis for decrying such “cultural” practices. And by recourse to such a law, Kant used a priori reasoning to infer the existence of a lawgiver. I’d still rather take the trip today. In 2007 BC, I might prefer finding a quiet isolated place near Moscow and try to enjoy my last year. I’d take my chances against homo erectus.
February 14th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
RE: “I guess I don’t see God as being in the business of punishing sin since he himself bore that penalty. Of course, his universe is set up in a way that tends to result in bad results in the end to sin, and he is interested in correcting our sinful ways.”
Obviously I don’t think that such a thing as sin in a religious sense exists, I am an atheist afterall. So, I don’t believe that the universe is set up in ways that tends to bad results because of sin. I think that the natural world has many inherent dangers. Disease being just one of them. So, as a non-believer, there are actions and or decisions, based on our knowledge of the natural world, that are wise and those which are unwise. It is unwise, according to what we know about HIV/AIDS for example, to have many sexual partners especially without some form of protection. It is probably also unwise, to have many sexual partners from an emotional and psychological point of view. Though, it is probably more emotionally damaging if you subscribe to a religious belief where sex outside of marriage is viewed as sin.
RE: “besides the biological risks, I see lots of emotional and relational risks to untimely sex for them. I’ve had the discussion with them about using condoms if they choose, but I also strongly advise them to choose such behavior very carefully, if at all, before commitment.”
I don’t disagree with you. It depends of course on what one considers “untimely sex” to be. Obviously physical risks of pregnancy in young girls is one which a parent would hope that their daughters would avoid. And this is probably one of the reasons why the age of consent is (16 here), so at least from a physical point of view, a young woman may not encounter as many damaging issues associated with pregnancy at a young age.
There are thousands of young women in africa annually who are physically too young for their bodies to handle a pregnancy. Many of those young women die or end up with fistulas of the bladder because of the stresses of childbirth on a young, physically immature body. Most of these go untreated and these young women become social outcasts. They drip urine continally as the trauma of childbirth on their young bodies damages the bladder and the vagina.
Obviously, no parent wants their daughter to go through such a thing. So there are good reasons why it is advisable for young women to abstain from sex at least until their bodies are physically able to cope with the possible results of a pregnancy. And then, of course, they need to also consider what would be best for themselves emotionally and psychologically as well.
I don’t see bladder fistulas as the results of sin, I see it as the consequence of unwise behaviour which can lead to unfortunate consequences. So, we do not think so differently on this issue, it is just that my reasons for schooling my children about responsible sexual activity, would be different.
RE: “When we see how casual sexual behavior is portrayed by the entertainment industry, many people, religious or not, find it to be not helpful for themselves and their kids.”
I agree that it isn’t potentially helpful for kids. This becomes an issue of what do we expect from television? What are our expectations of it? And what is it prepared to provide?
It is basically called “commercial television” - so the primary agenda of the majority of television stations is in the title. It’s primary focus is to show programs which large %s of people will watch. The more people who watch, the higher the show or program ranks, the higher the ranking, the more businesses want to place advertisements in and around that time slot. The more advertising that is sold, the more wealthy the tv channel becomes.
Does this mean I am anti- commercial television? No. But I recognise that its primary focus is as a business to sell product. It’s primary focus is NOT to inform and educate and the sooner the majority of people have this realization, the sooner they will cease to have higher expectations of it.
Television is basically just a business which sells product and that’s about all. I rarely watch it. And for anyone else who spends their time channel surfing hoping for a program they would like to watch and getting more and more annoyed and or disappointed that they can’t find something to watch, my suggestion to them would be the same. Don’t watch it. Read a book, play a game, listen to the radio, cook a nice meal etc etc. Television isn’t there to serve our needs, commercial television especially so. It is there to serve its financial needs.
I was brought up in a non-religious household where we didn’t have a television until I was about 12. I am probably one of the last generation who hasn’t been moulded by television. My years before television came into my house were spent reading, playing games, listening to radio and going to bed early!
When we did eventually get television, I wasn’t allowed to watch everything or anything on it either. I wasn’t allowed to watch violent programs or scary programs or programs which had sex in them. In other words, my parents used their parental discretion to limit my television viewing based on what they thought was appropriate for my age and intellectual development. I think they did the right thing.
On the odd chance that I got to watch a violent program, something like the modern CSI, it would bother me for days and my mother would say to me - “There, that is the reason it is inappropriate for you to watch that show.” - And she was right.
Television has no responsibility to cater for our specific individual moral, religious, non-religious, political or intellectual tastes. Television has an economic responsibility to its shareholders and its advertisers. Would I prefer that it was otherwise? Probably. But I don’t have the disposable income to start my own television company. And my viewing requirements are so far removed from the demographic to which most television programming is aimed, that I watch very little of it.
RE: “You know, Benny observed your comments to seem too strident, like you are on a mission against religion. ”
I don’t think I am strident. I am forthright.
And I am sure I have expressed this before, but I will express it again. I believe it is your right to practice a religion. I believe it is my right to not practice a religion. There is no freedom if it is only the freedom of religion and there is no freedom if there is only the freedom of no religion.
But I don’t consider religions to be benign entities. Television stations and programing aren’t benign for that matter either. As I recognize that television is just a technological medium to sell product, in my opinion, religion is just another product. I occasionally watch a religious program on television, but I treat it in the same way as I treat any other subject on television. I am aware that they are attempting to sell me a product and in most cases they hope that if they are successful at selling me that product, that they will get a financial return.
Should religions be able to try and increase their market value through the use of television? Sure, as I have the ability to turn off the television at any stage and go and read “The God Delusion” instead.
The issue I have with the concept of religion is that it is rarely satisfied with just being a personal belief system. It is more usually a political point of view based on religious beliefs. It is a political point of view which historically has sought to be the ONLY political point of view. Most religionists have found it very difficult to sit back and enjoy their personal belief system and the comfort it may give them, most desire to market their product to the masses in the same way that television markets its products. Like the televsion stations which wouldn’t survive unless they could sell product, religion wouldn’t survive either, if it couldn’t proselytise its product either. The difference is that I can turn the proselytising of television off, I can’t turn off the proselytising of religion if it becomes a cultural and political requirement to be religious.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Hello all! I have returned from the dead. Let that be evidence to the doubters
.
beepbeep:
My wife and I agreed not to have a TV in our married lives because it played such a dominant role in our childhoods. I am the type to ignore atomic blasts if the tube is on, and my wife can spent hours watching 3.2 seconds of every available channel. For time management and relational health, we decided a TV would not be good. Since then, I’ve noticed a similar reaction to what happened in your childhood: Now that I’m not that exposed, violence, etc impacts me more. Also, shows seem more surreal — disconnected from anything real. All this just to say, I am living proof that we still maintain our right to limit the TV’s influence by turning it off, changing the channel, or going to more drastic measures. Although, I have in many cases wondered if TV fits into the same category as other addictives and should therefore be a controlled substance. As evidence, I could submit many coach potatoe case studies of those who have met ruin because of the TV. I think we have yet to appropriately respond to the maxim “the medium is the message”.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
It’s great to have you back, soulster! We’ve all missed you!
Oh, and Ed,
I don’t see how there is a universal law, since women in the Middle East and Africa seem perfectly fine with it. Doesn’t it look more like a cultural law, instead? If we were Middle Eastern women, I’m sure we’d say that the universal law was that genital mutilation is great. In fact, don’t we turn a blind eye to genital mutilation in the States, and accept it as a cultural norm? I see it as backwards from you do: there are tendencies of humans, which lead to general laws, not the other way around. Ah, but I’m not talking about multiculturalism here. It’s a bit more nuanced: anti-multiculturalism. Some cultures are good; others bad, and we can tell which ones are good or bad. Such as, humans are self-interested in preservation, we don’t like being at the bad end of violent conflict (such as pain, misery, and horrific mass death), so since in many situations we don’t know if we’ll get the short end of the stick this time, or the next, or the next, and since we experience empathy towards others (I really do care about women in the Middle East that suffer genital mutilation), let’s try to resolve disputes in a nonviolent way. The losing party, instead of forming a blood feud that perpetuates violence, can have a chance to dispute the results verbally (such as in court or a public protest) in a nonviolent fashion. Thus begins a procedure to discover truth; the universal law always seems to me to be personal belief on what is a universal law, and provides no procedure to discover anything. I say, let the disputes be resolved through procedure, not dictates from revelation.
And what of the procedure? I had to pull out some old papers of mine to find what I was looking for, but this should show the difference:
Bullshit. If you lie, you lie, because if you lie, you don’t die. Those taking the oath know better than that. It’s a custom of magic, nothing more. That’s the entirety of their court system: ‘I swear, I won’t lie, and if I do, may the spirits strike me dead!’
Now, get this:
Bullshit. The midwives killed babies because it is a custom of magic, nothing more. There is no justification.
Bullshit. Witchcraft doesn’t cause disease; female genital mutilation is nothing more than a religious ritual; male circumcision is nothing more than a cultural holdover. People will lie, kill babies and mutilate others because of certain cultures. I don’t want to be falsely accused, killed as a newborn, or, once knowing that if I have my genitals mutilated, there’s a tremendous chance of bleeding to death, dying from infection, adverse health effects, or being traumatized for life, and I think we’d agree that no one else wants that either. So we don’t desire cultures that have this; we want cultures that value empiricism, not magical thinking; nonviolent answers, not perpetual violence; a system based on the previous two (empiricism and nonviolence), not conflicting sets of ‘universal’ laws.
And anyone that wants cultures of magical thinking and perpetual violence?
There are people like that: they’re in Sheppard Pratt.
February 15th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Yes, welcome back soulster. I was beginning to wonder whether I had converted you to “atheism”.
February 15th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Drunkentune: It seems to me that you still have to resort to some non-empirical reasoning (a priori assumptions) to come up with your moral law. And, you seem to be agreeing with me, it is universal, even if not recognized to be. Those examples you gave of magic or superstition, I agree, are real bullshit, to me and you and to the unfortunate souls who live in such degraded cultures. I think Christians are accused of as much “anti-multiculturalism” as anyone. For example, my missionary friends often face criticism that their activity toward more primitive cultures is a form of cultural imperialism. My point is that there is a universal moral law, it is generally derived from both revelation and empiricism (read, the scripture and natural law), and that it is specifically derived to the individual by living in relationship with the lawgiver. After all, how do you otherwise reconcile correctly conflicting moral demands?
February 15th, 2007 at 10:39 am
drunkentune:
Fascinating examples. Such magical thinking is incredibly heart-rending and yet frustratingly common.
I think my recent post is on the brain because I see teleology as one of the challenges of communication here. I think everyone must include a sense of the purpose of everything in such judgements (survival and freedom for the atheist, correspondence to the Maker for the believer). The problem is, we have little practice talking about these teleologies.
I would agree with Ed that you are being somewhat universal as well (as I think you would agree, but not in the same progression as a believer i.e. revelation > experience > culture > law, but experience > culture > law; correct me if I’m wrong). I think, since most of us here believe the universe is both rational and contingent, the next logical step is to universalize teleological purposes.
February 15th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Ed and soulster,
Good points all: they’ll hopefully be addressed in my next post on naturalism vs. supernaturalism.