Over at B&W, Ophelia is animated.
[Dogmatic] believers have an answer that is both quick and easy, and that’s why it’s such a crap answer. Quick and easy answers are worthless for such disagreements. They’re worthless because they have no content. They’re empty. Saying “God said so” is exactly the same thing as saying nothing. It’s like holding up a street sign rather than saying anything. Why shouldn’t we execute gays for being gays? Why shouldn’t we kill women for talking to an unrelated man? Because Galer Street. That tells you just as much as “God said so.” Just saying a name doesn’t tell us anything. All “God said so” really means is “it’s what I think and ‘God’ is like an official stamp on what I think” – which leaves us exactly where we started. “God” is just the label people put on what they already think is good. They don’t put that label on what they already think is bad. They don’t punch “God” into a good-bad computer they have so that they know which goes with what. They just take God to endorse what they think is right, and that absolves them from the work of testing what they think is right.
Indeed. Saying “God said so” is difficult to distinguish from saying “the devil made me buy that dress.” I’ve had quite a few exchanges with dogmatic believers, including a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, for whom history and logic could be upended as convenient, and a Methodist minister from Alabama, whose claims to piety involved extraordinary temper and resentfulness. My attempts to tease out some explanation of exactly how they knew the detailed preferences of their hypothetical deities were unwelcome and, sadly, unsuccessful. At no time during such exchanges did I feel in the presence, albeit vicariously, of some numinous imperative. I did, however, feel I was in the presence of people who were trying, and failing, to hide their own egos, while indulging them with megalomaniacal abandon.
My daughter, who is thirteen, was speaking to me yesterday about her frustration debating the existence of God and the value of religion with another boy in her class – a true (Christian) believer. What struck me about what she said was that those arguments – or, rather, statements – about God and religion never get any more sophisticated or compelling. Sure, the language is more flowery and evasive, and there’s often a grab for intellectual or scholastic support, but it is still like talking to a child. Which is why I no longer even attempt to debate with people of religion. That may be short-sighted of me, intolerant, and insulting, but it saves me losing my temper with people I genuinely regard as being somewhat mentally ill.
Paul,
Well, over the years I’ve had dozens of such exchanges – and none of them have been rewarding in any obvious sense. I must admit I’ve pretty much given up on expecting a meaningful answer, or even honesty, but it seems to me important to ask the question nonetheless. I may not be able to have much impact on a position of dogmatic belief, whether political or religious, and I may not be able to encourage reflection of the kind that might be useful; but I can, perhaps, draw attention to the rhetorical dancing that belief of this kind involves. Which may benefit others.
Yes, and you and Ophelia – and Hitchens and Dawkins and many others – do it so well. And you’ve all created good platforms from which to do it. Whereas I simply end up losing my temper in the pub and embarrassing, yet again, my wife. There’s no point to it – and I just end up giving the person I’m arguing with the satisfaction of thinking I’m some kind of moronic, foul-mouthed thug. Maybe I should just grow up a bit.
My advice to my daughter, however, was to keep on debating with her classmate. In a nice way, of course.
Yes, it can be tiresome and exasperating; and being lied to, sometimes quite shamelessly, isn’t necessarily fun. But I think it’s helpful to identify some of the contortions and evasions that are performed, and performed quite often, as a sort of public service. And I suppose there’s an element of sport to it, if that’s your thing. On occasion I’ve been reduced to fits of laughter when perfectly civil questions, albeit of an unexpected kind, led to a barrage of personal insults and the Stare of Death™. That’s usually when you get to see the angry pouting child dressed up as God’s magician.
I think part of the problem is that, for many believers, it’s an *intuitive* belief – the attempts to justify it rationally only come later, when faced with people who don’t share it. So rational argument will never change their mind, it’ll only frustrate them. Where it’s useful is with those who already have doubts. For them the intuition that a god or gods exist is pretty weak or even none existent, so they can be brought around to other viewpoints through reasoned debate.
It’s only intuition if they’re right; otherwise it’s just a feeling, a prejudice or an emotional preference. I understand how a person might have a preference, though it’s not that much to work with. And I suppose it’s worth noting a distinction between people who feel there is, or ought to be, some benign ultimate cause and source of meaning involving human beings, and people who think this definitely has something to do with a quasi-fictional character called Jesus or a devious Bedouin.
“I have faith in God.”
“And how do you know that your faith in God is justified?”
“Because I have faith in myself.”
(Although they never actually come out and say that…)
“a quasi-fictional character called Jesus…”?
Sam,
The pre-Christian myths, of which the supernatural Jesus is an amalgam, are mentioned here:
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2007/11/explaining-why.html#comment-90154060
Tom,
The subject is a fog of vague argument and fuzzwords – terms that are remarkably ill-defined and can mean everything and nothing, depending on how far you tilt your head. I remember a thread at OD in which several readers and OD’s resident commentator on such matters tried to define the word “spirituality”. It went on for some time to very little effect.
Let me interject some advocacy on behalf of my old friend Nick.
Argument 1
I’d like to think that every independent human comes to develop a morality through understanding some philosophical principle. Maybe they agree with the Categorical Imperative, or maybe they are Utilitarians. That would be the ideal, so let’s park that.
We deal with children in a different way. We first establish the behaviour we want and only later do we try to identify a principle. Bullying or cruelty to animals is wrong regardless of whether the child understands why.
Now we consider our adult. They are an average adult, uninterested in deeper philosophical enquiry. They do not murder, steal or assault, not because they have independently come to the conclusion that such behaviour is abhorant, but because since an earlier age they have been told that certain behaviour is not permitted. They have internalised the desired behaviour but not necessarily rationalised it
I’m inclined to be grateful that people don’t murder, rob or assault me regardless of the reasons why they so behave. That they call this God doesn’t invalid the fact.
Argument 2
We might also conjecture why certain religions have been successful whilst others have failed. It seems likely that successful religions have either co-opted existing working morality or become successful because they promoted a working morality. That is to say the reasons for success of any religious morality must have secular roots. Conversely a religion that attempted to foist an unworkable morality or to preserve a decaying morality would in the long term fail. I suggest that part of the decline of Christianity can be laid at the wider change in morality. eg. Attitudes to homosexuality. I think this argument is known as the evolution approach to religion. ie. Successful religions are the ones that are “fitter” than failing ones.
That said, we should adopt a conservative attitude to religion. Whilst we don’t rule out change, we acknowledge that the prior success of the culture warrants at least a caution about change.
Therefore we should read “because God says so” as “because a culture that believed this and acted as if it was an axiom was successful, whereas a culture that rejected this failed”.
TDK,
“Therefore we should read ‘because God says so’ as ‘because a culture that believed this and acted as if it was an axiom was successful, whereas a culture that rejected this failed’.”
I suppose the point is that “God says so” can also – and more often – mean any number of things, generally things that are much less coherent and meaningful. Therefore, while you raise an interesting point, I’m not inclined to assume that *everyone* who says “God says so” is being quite so thoughtful.
“I’m not inclined to assume that *everyone* who says “God says so” is being quite so thoughtful”
I’m not sure that’s relevant. My first argument gives me leave to say “so what”; it certainly doesn’t invalidate the second.
That people behave according to the norms of a civilized society yet do so without much thought is probably a good thing.
One thing I notice, whenever a “God debate” kicks off in the blogosphere. The Star / Cross / Crescent believers temporarily pretend they’re no more than 18th century Deists, believing in a minimalist god – one that’s more or less a synonym for “nature”. They then say to Dawins / Hitchens / Grayling / whoever, “how can we know such a “god” does not exist?”. Of course we can’t. But since this isn’t the “god” they really believe in either, what’s the point?
Inayat Bunglawala sometimes tries this trick at the Guardian. As a pious Muslim, he presumably believes that the Quran is a perfect verbatim record of an Arabic speech act by a celestial super being – one with very specific wishes for his human creations. This is a far more difficult belief to defend. So the softer Deist idea is first used as a kind of metaphysical crowbar.
TDK,
“That people behave according to the norms of a civilized society yet do so without much thought is probably a good thing.”
Well, I’m thinking about efforts to shape social policy or advance moral positions to that end. It’s also a norm of a civilised society to explain, as best one can, why such-and-such is better than something else, preferably with evidence and a coherent line of thought. While the underlying preference that’s not being explained may be desirable, saying “God says so” and not much else doesn’t really warrant my respect.
“It’s also a norm of a civilised society to explain, as best one can, why such-and-such is better than something else, preferably with evidence and a coherent line of thought.”
Are the religious are worse than say those who despise the fact that the profit motive provides better outcomes and therefore reflexively reject any kind of private involvement or even insurance basis for health care?
In other words, it’s not that I disagree with your ideal, I just see a selective use of the test.
TDK,
“Are the religious [any?] worse than say those who despise the fact that the profit motive provides better outcomes and therefore reflexively reject any kind of private involvement or even insurance basis for health care?”
I’m not sure I follow you. “The religious” covers an awful lot of ground and a range of quite different outlooks, including believers who make fairly reasonable arguments about what they think is right. Much as the left includes some people who make reasoned arguments with which I may not agree, along with more devout Socialists, whose views are based on posturing, voodoo and fluff.
Sorry, not a very clear example. I’ve been sneeking in replies whilst at work. And I’ll “come out of character now”
It seems to me that much political debate is informed by little more than reflexive posturing of the type I tried to illustrate but you capture better here. https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2008/04/not-left-thus-e.html
Now it sounds like a reasoned argument but as you point out he easily drops into received wisdom at the given point. Right wing is bad. That’s his axiom and he builds a whole layer of argument on top of it. Never mind that leftists have practised appalling bigotry and intolerance, he can’t see it and if you point them out, they were rightists.
And I’d go along with you that the Mormons and JHs that call at my door are bloody idiots, who don’t warrant any respect, but this type of argument is rarely limited to those people. It is extended to cover many who do argue sensibly. It is notable that many who despise the war in Iraq are quick to blame the religiosity of Blair and Bush (but are conversely blind to the religiosity of Muslim extremists). In other words I don’t respect people who say “It’s the oil” any more than the people who say “god says so”.
Fair enough. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. 🙂 Some music to celebrate. http://fp.ignatz.plus.com/porkchops.mp3
Check out the IP I’m posting from.
You will understand that my comments strangely seem to coincide with certain times of the day when my colleagues left me alone. Suffice to say that Pork chops are permanently off the menu to be replaced by veal bacon.
Ah, I see. 🙂 Something less controversial, then. http://fp.ignatz.plus.com/feets.mp3