Yesterday, the pope issued a encyclical which came down pretty hard on atheism.
Atheism may be “understandable†when mankind is confronted with evil and suffering, Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his second encyclical, issued on Friday. But the attempt to banish God, he wrote, “has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice,†whether through Marxist revolution or the science that produced the atomic bomb.
I imagine the original document is much more subtle and sophisticated than the summaries I’ve read. And the article also shows the Pope Benedict has opened up Christianity for self-critique. Nevertheless, his reasoning is way off. The line of thinking seems to be composed of several false dilemnas.
The choice is not simply between belief/goodness and unbelief/evil. I am atheist. As far as I can tell, I’m as moral as the next guy. This is often hard for believers to understand and accept; that atheists can have a code of beliefs that guides them just as strongly as a Bible.
The Pope has failed to distinguish between different kinds of atheists. One kind of atheism actively rejects that God exists. Another kind, more relevant to scientific understanding, merely proclaims it irrelevant to the topic. Science does not actively reject God, it just isn’t part of the field.
The Pope’s example of the atomic bomb is interesting. How is it linked to atheism? Many prominent scientists, including physicists and mathematicians are believers in God. Robert Oppenheimer (“father of the atomic bomb”) quoted Shiva when the bomb was tested, he was aware of the impact of this invention.
And where are all the other inventions that godless science has produced? Where are the mentions of eyeglasses, sanitation, hot water, increased food production, artificial limbs, quality fabrics and weaving, the internet, guitars, recording equipment, vitamins, natal care, automobiles, plastics, satellites, windmills, telecommunications, airplanes, kevlar, velcro, etc. Atomic power fuels most of Europe – the world supports billions more people in relative health and happiness than it could have without all the things that science has given us. If atheism is to be held responsible for all the bad things that science produces, it should be held responsible for the good also.
From Penn Jillete:
just made a post on a related topic at my blog
http://momsbasement.blogspot.com/2007/12/mitt-romney-and-judging-religion.html
Oh, and for a current and terrifying glance at exactly what I was talking about with how you have to deal with others when you give rational thought up to a text…
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=28162&only&rss
(This, this right here, and the violence that seems to errupt over hurt feelings, THIS is why so many people see all muslims as dangerous fanatics…at least a few in that room were monsters)
good find.
btw, I pulled a quote from that link you posted a while back for my email sig:
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
~ Denis Diderot
I really do hate abstract authority…
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.†[Stephen F Roberts]
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.†[Richard Dawkins]
http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/atheistquotes.html
(btw, this is also why the religious freaks are so unwilling to believe things like global warming…not only does it go against their worldview (god wouldn’t let the world be destroyed) but it also is part of science and no matter how many damned books are written saying otherwise, science and religion do NOT connect)
That was Dawkins, I think, though Hitchens and others use it constantly.
I don’t believe in faeries, either.
Yeah, I heard about him while he was doing the circuit promoting the book.
And I can understand the sentiment.
But the uncertainty simply isn’t scary enough to completely break a circuit in my brain.
Worse still, turning to any given book seems to bring its own lack of certainty. I don’t know any significant religion that hasn’t split into factions.
but yeah, turning your thoughts, your will, the burden of rationality over to a text, or a person, is very freeing.
Problem is (and there was a great article in The Guardian a few months after 9/11 that said basically this), when you do that, your entire life, your entire reason for being becomes that text.
If that text is wrong, then your life is a lie.
Once you get to that stage, anyone who DOESN’T follow your text is basically devoting their life to spitting on yours.
They become, by their very nature, your mortal enemy.
Worse still, they stop being human.
And you are given the freedom to do anything and everything to stop that enemy.
I linked to it a couple months ago… https://muttrox.com/index.php/2007/09/28/links-o-interest-16/
Nice discussion — I can’t think of anything to add except this. One atheist (the name escapes me) said something like this, “I believe in one less god than you. When you understand why you reject the thousands of other religions, you’ll understand why I reject yours.”
Did you hear about that guy who wrote a book based on his year in Manhattan where he tried to follow all of the Bible’s rules literally? It came out a few months ago. He said after a while, he found it extremely comforting to have set rules about how to behave in every situation. He could easily see how people would embrace that certainty in their own lives.
so I was thinking on the ride home…
What if some people simply aren’t cut out for a egalatarian, democratic society? They NEED authority.
The entire conservative movement is based on authority.
Conservative bloggers are, pretty much, ignored because blogging is, by its nature, anti-authoritarian (anyone can put up a blog, only Rush can get a radio show).
That same need would explain religion in general,and even more the deeply religious who, it seems, are almost always conservative.
The author I mentioned to muttrox above was EXACTLY that way. He hated the idea that someone could read one of his works and say it meant X when he says it means Y. Isn’t at all comfortable with non-black and white answers, lives, etc. (had a fit over parents letting their boys dress like girls…doesn’t like people slipping out of the predicted gender-role). And, of course, gave up all rational thought to a text.
I guess some people simply can’t handle the responsibility, and the fuzziness? of life. An internal morality is insufficient because it isn’t absolute. If it isn’t absolute, then maybe it is wrong.
And thats scary, I suppose.
Or, as my wife would put it (usually in the context of video games), “If there’s no score, how do I know if I won?”
Can’t be proven? Can’t even be reasonably supported!
And remember, only SOME religions get that kind of protection.
If I started voting based on my Ouija board (which, really, is a significantly more testable concept), people would NOT show that any respect.
I also doubt a statement like “Yes, I’m voting for this because it might be bad for me now, but it’ll be great for me when I’m reincarnated” would also not be met with the revereance the sky god gets.
But yeah, what matters is NOT letting it slide (in appropriate context). I don’t let it slide with my brother, though I do try to avoid the topic because, well, there’s really no defense, and I don’t like arguing with him that much. On the plus side, he never brings it up anymore either (he was fucking nuts for a couple years)
I think that new boldness to challenge the “magic book” idea in public is also the biggest thing I got out of the book. Why should it be OK for religious people to predicate serius consequences on assertions that can’t be proven? These kind of beliefs can’t be off the table because it’s impolite to challenge someone’s faith.
Hey, J
yeah, I read about half of Harris’ book, and basically I agree with him. I should go back and finish it.
I don’t always agree with him 100%, but we see eye to eye on the basics, and he really opened my eyes on things like religious moderates being a big part of the problem (at least in the US).
I think he’s a bit off when he says things like (basically) every one in Al Queda is there because they are religious whack jobs, though I do agree that the only way one could justify many of their actions is through the belief in Allah being on their side (terrorism always bets the bank on the terrorist being more homicidal than the target, OR being fanatically in the right)
The thing that REALLY changed for me when I started reading his stuff was the idea that religion shouldn’t be allowed to have some special, exempt status when it comes to public policy. You want to vote based on your magic book? Thats your right, but you’d better be prepared to defend those beliefs, not just by saying ‘my god says so’.
That was a huge turning point for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying its worth arguing over all the time, sometimes you just aren’t going to get anywhere. But other times you HAVE to say something and you simply can’t allow ‘faeries whispered it in my ear’ to stand.
Ironically, my brother converted to christianity a few years back.
PS – Hi Joel – hope you’re well & so is your brother
You guys should read this – Sam Harris’ “An Athiest Manifesto”, which contains many of the ideas in his fantastic book “THE END OF FAITH.” Here’s the link:
http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/200512_an_atheist_manifesto/
I think he’s great and I love how he clearly articulates ideas that get all mangled when I try to express them in an argument.
His book has a very useful section which isn’t covered in this article. It’s about the strategies that religious people use to try to prove their point and win arguments. I went to a debate at UCLA where Harris was paired against a supporter of religion, and sure enough, the opponent advanced almost every argument that Harris had predicted, almost as if he was going down a checklist right out of the book. One of the most common arguments is that religion must be good because it has produced ethics (a “good thing”). Another is that all the important inventions and advances in knowledge EVER have been produced by religious people – from the wheel to electricity. Harris’ answer to that is… of course they were religious. Everybody was religious in those days, because all primitive cultures produce religion. So it was inevitable that the wheel would be invented by a religious person, because someone was gonna do it, and those were the only people out there!
I could go on and on, so I’ll stop. But check out the article.
Exactly. I suspect the more moral a religious person is, the more they deviate from the standard (though this probably works in reverse, too…the less moral, etc)
For example, we all acknowledge that we shouldn’t stone witches, regardless of what the Bible might say, and so forth. It is your inner morality that allows you to decide that that is wrong, that some things in the Bible are wrong, and so should be ignored.
Anyhow, reminds me of something.
Guy named Doug Tennapel wrote a graphic novel called Creature Tech that I really loved. I eventually ended up at his blog and had a number of conversations with him. Through this, I learned a couple things about the religious psyche.
1. I had COMPLETELY misunderstood what Christians had faith in. I had thought that their faith was in the existence of Jesus and God. In reality, they accept Jesus and God as fact. The faith is in the promises made by the two
2. I’m not sure how to phrase what I learned here, so I’ll just describe the statement. Doug and I were talking about sin, and morality and he said: “I don’t have the luxury of thinking that homosexuality is OK. I personally have no problem with it. But I am required to view it as a sin because God says it is.” This is a telling statement that scares the bejezuz out of me.
We see this one the same. Morality does not equal religion. I know moral people of all different religions. I know good and bad Atheists, good and bad Catholics, Baptists, Jews, etc.
(I can only assume the summaries are piss-poor as the CNN version made it sound very much like the Pope acknowledged that belief in God is a lie.)
And don’t forget the written word. People had writing long before they had Yahwah/Jehovah.
that said…
The pope doesn’t seem to have a problem with science, per se. It seems mostly that he doesn’t like it when non-believers make use of science.
Because he feels like we can’t possibly have any morality of our own. Of course, if you bet the bank that your morality is the only legitimate worldview, then no matter what someone does, if they do it for reasons other than yours, they are, by definition, almost, evil. I’m not saying all Christians feel that their morality is the only one, just the Pope…and, by definition and extension, all Catholics…anyone who says otherwise isn’t actually Catholic (given the highly structured and dogmatic nature of Catholicism, its pretty easy to determine).
And, just like he doesn’t really want to mention all the good that atheists have done, he doesn’t really like to talk about, y’know, things like the inquisition.
If you have a philosophy, you can’t just point to the good things that have come out of it. You also have to take responsibility for the bad. Witches were burned, but Mother Teresa tended to the sick (though, apparently, most of that time she felt little, if any, connection to god).
Religious wars slaughter millions, but missionaries go and feed the poor.
Obviously, my feeling is that religion has done nothing that rational approaches couldn’t have done.
Enlightened self-interest goes a long way.
Alas, for the pope, Catholicism may be in its dying days…