The Intellectual Crudity of Non-Theist Apologists
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 5:40 am
I think that much of what passes these days for argument on behalf of non-theism is intolerably crude and embarrassingly naïve, and it's driving me nuts. Am I wrong about this?
So here are a few of my objections. Non-theists out there: can you satisfactorily answer them? (By the way, I have no particular religious beliefs).
1.) Non-theists (call them NTs) never tire of proclaiming that while hundreds of thousands have been killed in the name of theism, that no one has ever been killed in the name of non-theism; but appalling ignorance of historical fact doesn't make that fact non-existent. The fact is that many millions have been killed in the name of non-theism, by way of an explicitly, fundamentally non-theist ideology which claimed to be the "one true way" of seeing the world (in fact, the "one true [social] science"). I'm speaking of course of Marxism.
Their usual retort is that Marxists killed in the name of Marxism, not non-theism; but that is only like saying that Catholics killed in the name of Catholicism, not theism. This retort, in other words, is no defence at all; or at least, if it is, then by the same line of reasoning, no one has ever killed in the name of "theism", only particular "belief systems" which included theism.
Conclusion: "belief systems" don't need to include a supernatural god to encourage or justify mass murder.
2.) While acknowledging that some religious beliefs may have had adaptive value and therefore selected for, non-theist blowhard Richard Dawkins paints religious belief largely as a "super-meme", as alluded to by Dartagnan in another thread. I find this characterization of religious belief problematic; but even if it were true, it would be as damaging to non-theism as to theism. First point first.
In Dawkins's telling, "memes" include things like bell bottom jeans, a rage for checkers at a particular school, a new way of wearing a hat, or a new buzzword. They are units of culture stemming often from quirky expressions of human creativity, or even mere accident, which, in essence, float into some social miasma, and - due to our natures as social and imitative beings - are then in effect "downloaded" into our brains.
Certainly, religious beliefs can be shaped, meme-like, by a sort of joint-sculpting over generations, or by bold new "add-ons" created immediately by imaginative, ambitious men like L. Ron Hubbard or Joseph Smith; but I submit it is extremely difficult to account for the enduring popularity of religious beliefs in general - and more to the point given my comments about Marxism above - the popularity of cosmologies, or narrative, moralized, teleological contexts for our existence - without positing a deep, hardwired biological predisposition for them. Dawkins gives this inference fairly short shrift in "The God Delusion" - I imagine because he is committed to the belief that religious beliefs come close to being "the root of all evil".
That is, Dawkins's problem is that to the extent the roots of religious belief are hard-wired, to that extent is implied the adaptiveness of religious beliefs over eons, and this conflicts with Dawkins's view that they have virtually no adaptive value at all. (He attempts to deal with this in "TGD" by venturing that it is possible for some traits to be carried even though they confer no survival advantage at all [see p. 191]). (On this point, I find David Sloan Wilson's account of religion far more plausible given evolutionary theory. See "Darwin's Cathedral").
Dawkins's memophilia drives him to focus on the "virus" itself - religious belief - and its "effects" on the human organism, rather than the deep psychological wellsprings which all great critical thinkers on religion, from Hobbes to Freud to Marx to Boyer, have identified as the roots of religious belief. In short, rather than leveling his ammo at the beliefs themselves, he ought perhaps to be leveling his ammo at the human psyche which so naturally, instinctively craves them. (But then again, he can't - because to do so would be to tacitly acknowledge that religious beliefs appear to have been adaptive in a net sense).
One other little problem for Dawkins (though I don't think he would concede it) is one which Dartagnan points out: that to the extent that theism is, or could be, considered nothing more than a meme, to the same extent NON-theism is, or could be, considered nothing more than a meme. But Dawkins wouldn't like this very much at all, would he?
3.) NTs often distinguish belief systems in terms of whether they are religious or non-religious, and then label the former as more "potentially dangerous". But since both "religious" and "non-religious" belief systems can be more or less warranted by the evidence, I think NTs would be far better off focusing on "warranted versus unwarranted beliefs", period. Otherwise, you would be lumping Marxism into the non-religious side, when really all it did was replace god as a figment of human imagination with a tangible god (the state), and Buddhism into the religious side, when officially, it posits no god at all. In short, contests between belief systems should be, in fact, contests between the evidences for belief systems, regardless of what category we tend to sort them into.
Just a few thoughts, don't know if that makes any sense.
I have to run, see ya.
Tal
So here are a few of my objections. Non-theists out there: can you satisfactorily answer them? (By the way, I have no particular religious beliefs).
1.) Non-theists (call them NTs) never tire of proclaiming that while hundreds of thousands have been killed in the name of theism, that no one has ever been killed in the name of non-theism; but appalling ignorance of historical fact doesn't make that fact non-existent. The fact is that many millions have been killed in the name of non-theism, by way of an explicitly, fundamentally non-theist ideology which claimed to be the "one true way" of seeing the world (in fact, the "one true [social] science"). I'm speaking of course of Marxism.
Their usual retort is that Marxists killed in the name of Marxism, not non-theism; but that is only like saying that Catholics killed in the name of Catholicism, not theism. This retort, in other words, is no defence at all; or at least, if it is, then by the same line of reasoning, no one has ever killed in the name of "theism", only particular "belief systems" which included theism.
Conclusion: "belief systems" don't need to include a supernatural god to encourage or justify mass murder.
2.) While acknowledging that some religious beliefs may have had adaptive value and therefore selected for, non-theist blowhard Richard Dawkins paints religious belief largely as a "super-meme", as alluded to by Dartagnan in another thread. I find this characterization of religious belief problematic; but even if it were true, it would be as damaging to non-theism as to theism. First point first.
In Dawkins's telling, "memes" include things like bell bottom jeans, a rage for checkers at a particular school, a new way of wearing a hat, or a new buzzword. They are units of culture stemming often from quirky expressions of human creativity, or even mere accident, which, in essence, float into some social miasma, and - due to our natures as social and imitative beings - are then in effect "downloaded" into our brains.
Certainly, religious beliefs can be shaped, meme-like, by a sort of joint-sculpting over generations, or by bold new "add-ons" created immediately by imaginative, ambitious men like L. Ron Hubbard or Joseph Smith; but I submit it is extremely difficult to account for the enduring popularity of religious beliefs in general - and more to the point given my comments about Marxism above - the popularity of cosmologies, or narrative, moralized, teleological contexts for our existence - without positing a deep, hardwired biological predisposition for them. Dawkins gives this inference fairly short shrift in "The God Delusion" - I imagine because he is committed to the belief that religious beliefs come close to being "the root of all evil".
That is, Dawkins's problem is that to the extent the roots of religious belief are hard-wired, to that extent is implied the adaptiveness of religious beliefs over eons, and this conflicts with Dawkins's view that they have virtually no adaptive value at all. (He attempts to deal with this in "TGD" by venturing that it is possible for some traits to be carried even though they confer no survival advantage at all [see p. 191]). (On this point, I find David Sloan Wilson's account of religion far more plausible given evolutionary theory. See "Darwin's Cathedral").
Dawkins's memophilia drives him to focus on the "virus" itself - religious belief - and its "effects" on the human organism, rather than the deep psychological wellsprings which all great critical thinkers on religion, from Hobbes to Freud to Marx to Boyer, have identified as the roots of religious belief. In short, rather than leveling his ammo at the beliefs themselves, he ought perhaps to be leveling his ammo at the human psyche which so naturally, instinctively craves them. (But then again, he can't - because to do so would be to tacitly acknowledge that religious beliefs appear to have been adaptive in a net sense).
One other little problem for Dawkins (though I don't think he would concede it) is one which Dartagnan points out: that to the extent that theism is, or could be, considered nothing more than a meme, to the same extent NON-theism is, or could be, considered nothing more than a meme. But Dawkins wouldn't like this very much at all, would he?
3.) NTs often distinguish belief systems in terms of whether they are religious or non-religious, and then label the former as more "potentially dangerous". But since both "religious" and "non-religious" belief systems can be more or less warranted by the evidence, I think NTs would be far better off focusing on "warranted versus unwarranted beliefs", period. Otherwise, you would be lumping Marxism into the non-religious side, when really all it did was replace god as a figment of human imagination with a tangible god (the state), and Buddhism into the religious side, when officially, it posits no god at all. In short, contests between belief systems should be, in fact, contests between the evidences for belief systems, regardless of what category we tend to sort them into.
Just a few thoughts, don't know if that makes any sense.
I have to run, see ya.
Tal