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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Memo to the New York Times: Tolerant AND Sectarian (Not a contradiction in terms)

What would you think would be the main idea of an article entitled “Survey Shows U.S. Religious Tolerance”? Wouldn’t you think the article would be about how, unlike many Middle Eastern countries (and most of the U.K.), the religious people of the U.S. are much more tolerant—as in not burning down mosques, outlawing proselytizing, or generally persecuting those who believe something different about God and the universe? That’s what I thought when I saw the New York Times headline about tolerance. The U.S. is more tolerant than say Britain where the archbishop of Canterbury is willing to relegate whole neighborhoods to Sharia law, where it might be a crime to proselytize or even question the Koran.

Sadly no. When I started reading the New York Times Article I soon discovered that I was a victim of an Orwellian switcheroo where words have new meanings but the “Ministry of Truth” has not changed the dictionary. According to the paper of record,

a majority of Americans are tolerant of religions other than their own because they think different religions can all lead to salvation. over 80% of Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists. Which is surprising. (I would think all Hindus would believe there are many paths to God. Why the unorthodox 20%? Maybe they didn’t understand the question.) More than half of the Muslims surveyed agreed. ???? Really? What’s going on there? What happened to “there is no god but Allah ands Muhammad is his messenger”? The list does get weirder. 57% of evangelicals agreed that there are many ways to get to heaven. I wonder how many of those were surveyed outside a Barnes and Noble carrying their venti latte espresso cappuccino (sorry I was just stuttering in Italian) getting into their hybrid SUV after picking up the latest book from Brian McLaren before they head off to a three day retreat cruise where they will sing the same three lines of a chorus over and over amid calls for authenticity and cool bumper stickers that say “relevant”

All ranting aside According to dictionary.com, the word tolerance means “a fair, objective and permissive attitudes . . . toward beliefs different than one’s own.” Funny that doesn’t sound like the NY times definition. I am fairly sure the reporter has a dictionary somewhere in that big gray building or at least in the not so distant past they would have. Maybe I’m just reading the wrong definition. The second definition says: “allowing the right of something for which one does not approve.” No nothing about that in the NY times version.

Maybe I’m missing something. That first definition did say something about being “permissive.” Maybe that’s what’s going on. Believing there are many ways to salvation is a permissive attitude. No can’t be that. Because a permissive attitude is not the same thing as believing contradictory claims about the nature of the universe and the state of human nature can both be true in the same way at the same time. That’s not a permissive attitude. That’s permissive logic, because make no mistake: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism are making competing and mutually exclusive claims about the nature of human beings and the nature of God.

One Pew Forum researcher said:

It is hard to hold a strongly sectarian view when you work together and your kids play soccer together.

Why? Why can’t I be tolerant and sectarian? Recently I spent a whole week surrounded by atheists and anarchists and atheist anarchists. Now we didn’t play soccer but we ate and drank, and made merry together and even managed to talk about Christianity. It’s not hard to be sectarian and tolerant. Tolerance would be respecting a person's right to worship as they believe. Tolerance would be to have a permissive attitude and not call for the outlawing of mosques or headscarves. Tolerance would be to engage Muslims in discussion over dinner. Tolerance would be to visit a synagogue, mosque, or ashram in order to avoid having a caricature of someone’s belief before you disapprove of it.

But NY Time’s tolerance isn’t a permissive attitude. It’s permissive logic. Apparently you have to permit your mind to believe that contradictory claims are both true and not true. You have to believe the Buddha was right that there is no God only nothingness and believe that God is triune and will have no other gods before Him and believe that there is no God but Allah, Allah “has no partners” (there is no trinity) and Mohammed is his prophet.

Honestly give me a good atheist or agnostic any day. At least they are dogmatists about logic. I know where I stand with atheists. Oh wait, according to the NY Times, an atheist “may mean they are just hostile to organized religion.” Where is Christopher Hitchins when you need him? He would be the first to say something like, “anyone who wants to worship in a grove while reading the Da Vinci Code and getting in touch with the divine consciousness is NOT an atheist. (Now where’s the bar?)” New Age haters of organized religion embrace the term “Pantheist” It has more letters, makes you look smart and looks cool on a bumper sticker.

I realize that I’ve been imbibing a little too much from the sarcasm well but as Flannery O’Connor said:

To the deaf you shout and to the blind you draw really big pictures.

One person who almost got it spot on was Todd Johnson of Gordon-Conwell Seminary. Contrary to Mr. Green’s “kid’s playing soccer” explanation, Johnson said, “It could also be a form of bland secularism.” Got that right Todd. But then he misses the putt at the end:

The real challenge to religious leaders is not to become more entrenched in their views, but to navigate the idea of what religion is all about and how it relates to others.

No Todd. The real challenge is how to be tolerant, loving, kind, and sectarian and teach others to do so as well. The early Christians, you know the ones who endured beatings, prison, and being the chew toys for lions, didn’t worry about navigating the idea of religion. Instead they loved people like crazy. Fed the hungry, stayed out of Roman politics (easy since there were no elections), raised children (theirs and the ones the pagans abandoned), cared for the sick of all religions, tended the graves of Christian and non-Christian alike, and one other thing they told everyone everywhere who would give them the time of day about their sect and how it was The Way till people were sick of it.

Imagine if one of the 57% of New York Times evangelicals ever stood before the Roman governor in Gaul:

Governor: “Do you acknowledge that Caesar is divine and Rome is the light.”

New York Times Christian: “Well, if you are asking if I think there are many ways to the truth, I would have to say that I am not so arrogant to say that my beliefs are the only way to salvation.”

Governor: “By order of the Emperor you are required to acknowledge Caesar as divine and Rome as the light by burning this incense to the statue of his divine form.”
NYTC: “Incense? Dude we don’t burn incense anymore. That’s not how you worship. You have to have some sort of chorus and really get into the worship. Incense is so old worship. I can help you with a few chords if you want.”

Governor: “Do you acknowledge Caesar as divine and Rome as the light or not?”

NYTC: “Well, I don’t like to put things into dichotomies really. That all seems so narrow, dogmatic and mean-spirited.”

Governor (under his breath): “Zeus preserve me. I have no idea what this lunatic is saying. What happened to the simple ‘I can not bow down’ of the old days? Quick. Simple. Question. Denial. Execution.”

Governor: “You are a Christian are you not?”

NYTC: “Well, I prefer the term Jesus follower.”

Governor: “Fine. Does your religion teach that there is but one God and you should worship no other.”

NYTC: “Um. Those divisive fundamentalists do, but you know following Jesus isn’t about you know tedious theology and endless questions and dogmatic statements. I’m open minded about you know paths to God”

Governor: “What is it about?”

NYTC: “What”

Governor: “Your religion. What is this Christianity?”

NYTC: “Well you know, it’s about community and fellowship and worship, it’s about social justice and equality. It’s also about coffee in the sanctuary and wearing sandals on Sunday morning oh and saving the environment.”

Governor: “Guard!”

Guard: “Yes, My Liege”

Governor: “Send this milquetoast to the lions.”

Guard: “Governor, he hasn’t denounced the Hebrew God nor acknowledged Caesar. We can’t throw him to the lions.”

Governor: “Okay Captain what do you suggest I do with him. He’s so like that luke-warm water we get from Laodicea—makes me spew.

Guard: “Liege, I suggest you let him go. If this is Christianity, then Rome has nothing to worry about.”

Consider this my really big picture.

Posted by Jay Lafayette on July 31, 2008 | Permalink

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Comments

1. If you actually read carefully ... you would have seen that the number is 89% of Hindu's agree that "many religions can lead to eternal life", not 80%.

2. "According to the paper of record, a majority of Americans are tolerant of religions other than their own because they think different religions can all lead to salvation." True. But then you later call this the NY Times' "definition" of tolerance". That's not true. To say "A because of B" is not to say "B is the definition of A". Far from it.

All the Times is saying is that people who believe that there are paths to salvation other than their own can reasonably be considered tolerant of other religions. It would be very odd indeed for someone to agree that another path exists, yet be intolerant of it. But for someone who says there is no path other than their own, the question remains open about their tolerance. Maybe they are ("Others are wrong, but that's their problem. I say live and let live.") or they might be intolerant ("Others are wrong and they must be stopped.").

3. "One Pew Forum researcher said: 'It is hard to hold a strongly sectarian view when you work together and your kids play soccer together.' Why? Why can't I be tolerant and sectarian?"

You completely misstate what you just quoted. saying it is HARD is not to say it is IMPOSSIBLE. So you CAN be tolerant and sectarian, all this person is saying is that being both is HARD. People tend not to want to believe that people they like and spend a lot of time with will be eternally damned because they worship God in a manner different from how they worship God, so they'd rather believe that there are many paths to salvation than that their friends will not be saved. That's what saying it's HARD to be sectarian means. But it still remains POSSIBLE. You CAN be tolerant and sectarian at the same time. It just seems a bit weird when you have friends whose faith is different. [Elaine Benes: "So it doesn't bother you that I'm not relegious?" David Putty: "No." Elaine: "Why not?" Putty: "Because I'm not the one going to hell."]

So before your next rant on "permissive logic", try getting your facts and your logic straight.

Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-07-31 11:26:25 AM

. If you actually read carefully ... you would have seen that the number is 89% of Hindu's agree that "many religions can lead to eternal life", not 80%.

My mistake. I stand corrected. Not a matter of reading correctly just a typo. The 9 is right next to the 0 on my keyboard. Thanks for the fact check.

I don't think this is what the times is saying since they didn't say any of that. My rant was about the misleading headline. There is nothing at all about tolerance in this article. There is nothing about having a permissive attitude toward those you disagree with. The headline is misleading at best and false at worst. IF the times had talked about tolerance and then made the connection to permissive attitude about contrary doctrines, your point would be well taken. I would have written a different article. My point is that you can't be tolerant of something you approve of. Saying there are many ways to salvation is tantamount to saying all of these ways to salvation are true. I claim that such claims are contradictory. To believe all of them are true is permissive logic. Please tell me where there is an error in my logic? Here's the syllogism as I see it:

1) Tolerance requires that one disapprove of the position one permits.

2) Statements that there are many ways to salvation is a kind of approval of the claims of the many ways

3) Therefore statements that there are many ways to salvation do not show tolerance. They show acceptance (1, 2)

4) The salvific claims of religions are contradictory (if Buddha is right, Mohammed is wrong.)

5) Contradictory claims cannot both be true (they could all be false and some other claim could be true)

6) To claim contradictory statements are true is to be "permissive in one's logic"

7) Those who say "many ways to salvation"
are using permissive logic

8) Permissive logic isn't tolerant.

Bottom line: Tolerance may lead to accepting these claims but the moment you are accepting of the claims. You are no longer tolerant.

Posted by: Jay Lafayette | 2008-07-31 12:13:31 PM

Actually, Fact check is right I must say about one thing. Since I typed 80% and then did the math about the other 20%. I did in a sense not read carefully. I didn't proofread carefully since I made the typo and then did the math from my typo instead of fact checking with the NYT piece I was reading. So I didn't read my own writing carefully enough. Overzealousness is happily a venial not mortal sin.

Posted by: Jay Lafayett | 2008-07-31 12:49:03 PM

"I don't think this is what the times is saying since they didn't say any of that."

The NY Times also did not offer "non-sectarian" as a definition of "tolerant", as you claim. My reading is based on the principle of charity by not imputing any absurd or outlandish claim to them they did not actually make and that need to be imputed to them to make plain sense of what they did write. Your reading casually throws around accusations that they are being "Orwellian".

"There is nothing at all about tolerance in this article."

False. The words "tolerance" and "tolerant" are used three times not counting the headline and you rant about those passaages in your original post, so you really should know that they do write about tolerance.

"My point is that you can't be tolerant of something you approve of. Saying there are many ways to salvation is tantamount to saying all of these ways to salvation are true. I claim that such claims are contradictory."

Wrong, again. One can believe that there are many ways to drive from point A to point B, but that there is one best one. If one, as a passanger, insists that the driver take that best way, then one is intolerant of other ways of getting there. If one silently says to oneself "It's not how I'd go and it's not the best way, but I won't impose my route on the driver", then one is tolerant. There is no contradiction in a Jew, for example, believing God is OK with how Mormans attempt to worship, yet still believe that it is an inferior way to do it.

Finally, your explanations of how you wrote "80%" are both quite likely false. In the article it says, "Among minority faiths, more than 80 percent of Jews, Hindus and Buddhists agreed with the statement, and more than half of Muslims did." You wrote in your post "a majority of Americans are tolerant of religions other than their own because they think different religions can all lead to salvation. 80% of Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists." It seems there was no "typo", just bad reading on your part taking "more than 80 percent" to be exactly 80%.

See? You even get wrong explaining how you get things wrong in the first place! But don't let that get in the way of a good rant. If you want to continue to read the Times in the least favourable light, go ahead. I can be tolerant of that, even if I do think it not the best way to read an article. Carry on! Your straw men await!

Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-07-31 1:38:00 PM

"One can believe that there are many ways to drive from point A to point B, but that there is one best one. If one, as a passenger, insists that the driver take that best way, then one is intolerant of other ways of getting there."

I think Jay has a point about one thing:
Some belief systems (certain versions of Christianity) do define one and only one path to salvation. As I've put to Christians who subscribe to such versions before, those belief systems create a bit of a puzzle:

(a) If salvation is infinitely better for a person (in terms of his own real interests) than damnation, and (b) Intolerant tactics are a reliable means of "persuading" people to become saved, then (c) It looks like it would almost be immoral not to engage in such tactics.

Typically, Christians will deny (b), but I don't know why they should. There are many ways to be intolerant to different religions besides bringing back(?) the Inquisition, some of which might have a greater likelihood of success.

The ideal example of the virtue of religious toleration, in my mind, would involve allowing others to worship as they please, even when (a) We believe there is no salvation outside our religion; (b) we believe intolerant tactics could get others to change their minds; (c) we are in a position to employ such tactics without much reprisal (e.g. the other religions are in a weak, minority position); and (d) we believe the moral costs of intolerance, in terms of everyone's interests, make imposing our religion on others worth doing (e.g. imposing our faith on others is not inherently evil, or not so evil that doing so would outweigh the benefits.)

I'm not sure there's ever been a case in which a religion and its adherents fit (a), (b), (c), and (d) and yet toleration wins the day. The hypothetical Jewish person you mentioned probably doesn't fit the description. That doesn't mean I wouldn't describe him as tolerant, but he's not an ideal case of the virtue of religious toleration, if I may call it that.

But that's the puzzle: I can't think of any ideal cases in the real world. Maybe Jay is just pointing out that it is far less difficult (and therefore, less virtuous) to be tolerant when none of the conditions I just set out obtain.

Widespread religious toleration is an achievement of the Enlightenment, no doubt about it. As I understand it, in the real world, the condition that we figured out did not reliably hold was actually (c) (and perhaps (d)). Religiously-based killings just set off a cycle of violence that made the whole religious persecution thing no longer worth doing.

I might be wrong, though. :-)

Best,

Terrence

Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2008-07-31 2:39:50 PM

One can believe that there are many ways to drive from point A to point B, but that there is one best one. If one, as a passanger, insists that the driver take that best way, then one is intolerant of other ways of getting there. If one silently says to oneself "It's not how I'd go and it's not the best way, but I won't impose my route on the driver",

While I use sarcasm and hyperbole to prove a point, I'll try to be more polite than fact check in my response rather than accusing him of straw man. I really think we are talking past each other. You say that if one insists that the driver take the best way he is being intolerant. I agree. But your analogy is faulty. For the evangelicals etc. are not saying there are many ways and some are better than others but not insisting on it. The Times reporting seemed to say that they simply accepted contrary to their own historic teachings that there are more than one way to salvation. That is not the same as your analogy. Disapproval is stronger than, "Well I'm doing it better."

Come on Fact (may I call you fact?) surely there is a difference between mentioning the word "Tolerance" and commenting on the connotation (or is it denotation? I never can remember Feel free to correct me on this) of tolerance. My point was that the only discussion of tolerance was in terms of accepting these religious claims. No mention of the toleration of a claim of which one disapproves. That's the point of my rant mostly against my own evangelical brothers and sisters for taking the easy route instead of being sectarian and tolerant. Which has sadly not been the history of Christianity.

As for the 80%, I will take your admonition as a lesson to read carefully and proofread even more carefully. There is no excuse for an error in facts (typo or not) but my explanation involves too little sleep and a teething 9 month old.

I really would be interested if you think there is an error any of the premises of my argument I gave in my response. Prose is sometimes unclear but I find premises to be helpful. You encourage me sarcastically and poetically that my strawmen await! I await your instruction so that hopefully I won't attack strawmen at all. You have my premises. Tell me which ones you take issue with. Thank you again for a spirited exchange.

Posted by: Jay Lafayette | 2008-07-31 2:57:59 PM

Far be it from me to try to make complete sense of Believers. As far as I'm concerned, the belief in any Supreme Being is irrational to begin with, so I always have to put on my most charitable hat when reviewing the claims believers make, but consider this (from the AP less than a week ago): "More than 50 dissident Catholic groups from around the world have written an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church's ban on birth control." And this (from 2005):"more than 75% of U.S. Catholics believe the church should allow the use of contraception". And from 2006: "Sexually active Catholic women above the age of 18 are just as likely (97%) to have used some form of contraception banned by the Catholic church as women in the general population". Now maybe you want to claim that these people are not REAL Catholics. Fine. But they say they are Catholic and they also say they disagree with church teaching on contraception and their practice reflects this disagreement.

Now if the "official" church teachings for some religion or another is "this is the one and only way to salvation", people might well choose to not accept this while still accepting the rest (or most of the rest) and so self-identify as Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or whatever. There is no contradiction in actively accepting most of a religion's teachings while just rejecting a few and still using the official label "Catholic" or "Jew" to self-identify. In fact, holding the hard line on use of such labels would only lead to the conclusion that 97% (or more) of Catholics aren't Catholic after all.

Now you ask: "I really would be interested if you think there is an error any of the premises of my argument I gave in my response." Ok. Start with #2. There is some slippage in the phrase "some kind of approval" here that my driving case makes very clear. If I think the driver is taking a route that will get us there, but not the best route, my saying nothing is "some kind of approval", but it is not FULL approval. So I endorse taking the BEST route, will tolerate going an inferior route, and will not tolerate going a route that does not get us there. In religious terms, I might endorse the Jewish route to salvation, tolerate Christian and Muslim routes, and not tolerate any others. There is nothing "permissive" about that logic.

That brings us to #7 - "Those who say 'many ways to salvation' are using permissive logic". As you point out yourself, Hindus have no trouble with believing "many ways to salvation" without contradiction or using "permissive" logic. Saying "I believe everything the Catholic Church teaches except that it is the only path to salvation" is not to endorse a contradiction either. If such a person says that, you might want to say that they cannot call themselves a Catholic, but, like I said, with such discounting in mind, you might find that this only means there virtually no Catholics at all in the US.

Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-07-31 4:16:57 PM

Didn't Jesus say "Follow me" ?

It's that simple.

Posted by: mark | 2008-07-31 4:45:24 PM

As you point out yourself, Hindus have no trouble with believing "many ways to salvation" without contradiction or using "permissive" logic.

Actually isn't it the case that Hinduism expressly rejects western logic with its law of non-contradiction? Which would be permissive to my mind. I don't think the law of non-contradiction is merely western. in other words I don't think Aristotle made up the law of non-contradiction or the square of opposition but instead discovered what was already the case. This is why I was surprised that the survey results for Hindus surveyed wasn't higher--that some Hindus actually believed some exclusive claim or (possibly had no opinion).

Posted by: Jay Lafayette | 2008-07-31 4:51:21 PM

Mark said:

Didn't Jesus say "Follow me" ?

It's that simple.

Not only that. He said something much more sectarian: "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me."

Posted by: Jay Lafayette | 2008-07-31 6:05:16 PM

Fact Check

"Far be it from me to try to make complete sense of Believers. As far as I'm concerned, the belief in any Supreme Being is irrational to begin with,..."

As an atheist myself, I try to be a bit more TOLERANT of people rather than labelling than IRRATIONAL simply because you disagree.

"... so I always have to put on my most charitable hat when reviewing the claims believers make,..."

I believe I just rebutted this assertion as you called them IRRATIONAL. You are not more charitable. Me, being an atheist AND not belittling their beliefs as IRRATIONAL makes me more charitable than you.

"... but consider this (from the AP less than a week ago): "More than 50 dissident Catholic groups from around the world have written an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church's ban on birth control." And this (from 2005):"more than 75% of U.S. Catholics believe the church should allow the use of contraception". And from 2006: "Sexually active Catholic women above the age of 18 are just as likely (97%) to have used some form of contraception banned by the Catholic church as women in the general population". Now maybe you want to claim that these people are not REAL Catholics. Fine. But they say they are Catholic and they also say they disagree with church teaching on contraception and their practice reflects this disagreement."

How does this dispute the claims of the believers? You clearly refer to the part-timers and cherry-picker believers and have the nerve to use it as a denunciation of the IRRATIONAL claims of the true believers.

Next time, don't use strawmen! Debunk the beliefs of the true believers instead.

Get your logic straight.

Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2008-07-31 6:27:24 PM

h2o: Speaking for Fact Check (if I may), I think he meant "irrational" in the technical sense, and not in the pejorative sense. He might just mean that the view entails or contains a contradiction, but that at least some (or many) believers are not personally criticizable for this (they would be if they discovered it, and failed to heed the normativity of rationality).

Sometimes "irrational" is used as a non-technical term of abuse, the intended meaning being, roughly, "stupid." If that's what Fact Check meant, then you would be right.

Fact Check, can you clarify?

Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2008-07-31 7:12:36 PM

PMJ,

There are any number of beliefs that people hold in our society that qualify under your defintion. I don't see FC intending to offend them.

Palestinians are victims, UFO sightings, bigfoot, ghosts, ESP, Jesus sightings, Elvis sightings, Jim Morrison is alive, Bush stole Florida, etc.

He knew what he meant by IRRATIONAL. As an atheist, I don't believe in a god-directed universe but I can't very well belittle the believers until I can prove it, can I?

Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2008-07-31 7:27:35 PM

Terrence said:
those belief systems create a bit of a puzzle:

This is an important argument. I don't pretend to have a complete answer as of yet. But here's a stab at it. Terrence says that while most Christians deny b, there isn't any good reason to think b) is false. Lots of intolerant acts that fall short of the inquisition (though no one expects the Spanish inquisition!) This seems right But the puzzle seems to rely on a maximizing of salvation. If its better for people, and intolerant persuasion leads to more salvation, then its immoral not to maximize. In other words if S is good for people and intolerant acts promote more of S, then it would be immoral not to promote more of S.

Yet, my gut reaction is to eschew maximizing as the morally relevant category. I think Christians generally have the view that maximizing salvation isn't as morally significant as the autonomous decision to accept the relationship salvation represents. There is something in these intolerant tactics that violate morality even if they maximize conversion. "Go and Make disciples of all men" isn't merely salvation from judgment. Its promoting a relationship between God and men (and women and children and maybe pets). Terrence's puzzle puts pressure on the idea that maximizing conversion could be a pyrrhic victory. Since the goal is free agents loving God, intolerant tactics could produce converts that don't freely and passionately love God and therefore Jesus doesn't support maximizing at the expense of becoming coercive. But I could be wrong :-)

Posted by: Jay Lafayette | 2008-07-31 9:28:51 PM

Whether or not theists are irrational depends on what you mean by "rationality." Do you mean scientific rationality, or instrumental rationality? If the former, do you mean they are irrational in the weak or the strong sense?

People are scientifically irrational in the weak sense merely in case their beliefs are not in conformity with the best scientific understanding of today. That's a true description of believers, but not terribly insulting, since we are all more or less irrational in this sense: nobody knows it all.

To be scientifically irrational in the stronger sense, one has to *reject* the best scientific understanding in favour of some other theory. Most believers are not irrational in this sense simply because they are not familiar enough with the best science of the day to positively understand and reject it. Some of them who could familiarize and understand are wilfully ignorant or blind, so you might classify them as scientifically irrational, too. But most are simply unaware of the best science, or not capable of comprehending it for one reason or another.

This ignorance of lack of understanding might not even be irrational in the instrumental sense. For many people, it probably doesn't repay the investment of time and energy to study the issue of god's non-existence in great depth. For others who are deeply imbedded in a particular social or familial milieu, the psychological or emotional dissonance might make such an investigation a loser on a cost-benefit scale. (Maximizing expected utility is often taken to be the paradigm of instrumental rationality, at least in parametric [non-strategic] choice situations like this.)

So it is harsh to characterize "believers" as "irrational" as a class. It is not harsh to so characterize believers who take a rather strident public stance on the issue, because they should know better and they invite the characterization.

Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-07-31 11:35:10 PM

"The world’s weakest states are also the most religiously intolerant. Countries with a poor freedom of religion score are often most likely to meet their maker."

http://thejagwire.blogspot.com/2008/06/failed-states-index-2007.html

Posted by: James Goneaux | 2008-08-01 8:17:29 AM

Grant Brown Said:

"Most believers are not irrational in this sense simply because they are not familiar enough with the best science of the day to positively understand and reject it. Some of them who could familiarize and understand are wilfully ignorant or blind, so you might classify them as scientifically irrational, too. But most are simply unaware of the best science, or not capable of comprehending it for one reason or another."

I'm curious Grant, I wonder if you could clarify your point. Is it the case that believers can't be scientifically rational and believe in God or that most aren't scientifically rational because of ignorance or willful blindness. What do you make of those people who have studied and contributed to the latest science and still believe partially because of it. Microbiologists, Physicists (John Polkinghorn), Astrophysicists, PhDs in Philosophy (Antony Flew), etc. Are they willfully ignorant or could their belief be rational in the scientific sense? And if not why?

Posted by: Jay Lafayette | 2008-08-01 9:14:36 AM

Jay, Grant is merely a dogmatic atheist who chooses to believe that those who believe in God are somehow factually wrong. He's one of those people who went to Sunday school and thinks there's nothing more to Christianity than what he learned when he was 10. You're just not going to have an intelligent conversation with him on this subject, and you're sure not going to enlighten him. He's worth talking to on other matters, so maybe you should wait for one of those to come up.

Posted by: ebt | 2008-08-01 1:58:47 PM

Jay:

If I understand your question right, I actually believe BOTH of those things you present as a dichotomy -- both that "believers can't be scientifically rational" (in the strong sense) AND that "most aren't scientifically rational because of ignorance or willful blindness." Sometimes, indeed, the scientific irrationality of believers is instrumentally rational, since the cost in terms of time and energy, or psychological and emotional dissonance, of understanding the scientific truth is too great. Although I must say that the psychological and emotional dissonance is rapidly falling, and is much, much lower today than in Darwin's time.

Before Darwin, the argument from design was a respectable defense of the existence of a creator -- though far from compelling. After Darwin, that argument could not longer be rationally defended. There is simply no evidence for a creator, now that we know how complex design could arise without one. Modern neurology debunks the homunculous theory in exactly the same way.

What do I make of some of the leading scientists (in fields other than biology) who nevertheless are believers? First, humans have an amazingly ability to compartmentalize their lives. It is reported that the Nazis who were in charge of exterminating the Jews and other undesireables were mostly very excellent family men -- compasionate, intelligent parents for that era. Likewise, many scientists compartmentalize their beliefs. Many excellent scientists simply hive off their Sunday beliefs from their weekday beliefs, often for the reasons suggested above.

Richard Dawkins himself has said that there might possibly be an argument for the existence of a supreme being based on the nuances of physics: the idea that our laws of nature are too finely tuned to produce thinking creatures like us to be accidental. He doesn't reject that out of hand, although there is scant reason to positivlely believe it, too.

As for Anthony Flew, I think it is pretty clear from his latest statements that the man has gone senile, or something close to that. For one thing, he gives no argument in favour of his near-death-bed conversion that he wasn't perfectly well aware of (and refuted) decades ago, when he was a campaigning atheist. Which is troubling. Also, if you take a close look at his "review" of The God Delusion, he makes such elementary mistakes and oversights (e.g. alleging that Dawkins never even defines the terms 'theist' and 'deist') that it is obvious we are not dealign with a man in full possession of his faculties.

I strongly recommend that you poke around Richard Dawkins's website, and explore his links to others in the forefront of this debate. You will find that all of this is explored and discussed in great detail there -- sometimes quite humorously. Here's a link to a video clip Richard helped to produce, mocking the "Expelled" movie; it's hilarious.

"Where babies come from: Stork theory vs. Sex theory -- teach the controversy!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ThQQuHtzHM

(I favour the stork theory. I have had sex literally several times, and it has never resulted in a baby.)

P.S.: Please ignore the completely false biographical information about me being maliciously spread by ebt.

Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-01 3:07:28 PM

ebt,

"Jay, Grant is merely a dogmatic atheist who chooses to believe that those who believe in God are somehow factually wrong. He's one of those people who went to Sunday school and thinks there's nothing more to Christianity than what he learned when he was 10."

Sorry, here's where I defend the atheist. I think Grant has offered some guidelines on how to approach the subject. Even if he does believe you are factually wrong, so what? You believe he is factually wrong. Shall I dismiss you? I don't.

Neither, you, me, Grant, nor FC has a lock on the "truth" here. Atheism is no more or less RATIONAL a belief system than belief in a superior being directing our lives because it's all just a belief.

Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2008-08-01 3:45:05 PM

Grant said:

Grant I was really hoping for something more compelling on the irrationality of religious scientists other than Well if they believe they must be irrational, or compartmentalizing, or whatever. What evidence of this scientific irrationality is there other than, "They are believers so they must be doing something other than taking the evidence where it leads them because after all if they really looked at the evidence they would agree with folks like Dawkins? (I'll not comment on your comparision between religious scientists and Nazis which I think was . . . well very Richard Dawkins like.)
My problem Grant is that your statement is unfalsifiable. (Something really important in scientific discussions) You say believers are practically rational for not looking at the evidence. I respond that some believers do look at the evidence and still believe and your response is that if they believe in God after being familiar with the evidence there must some other ulterior motive. Does that seem convincing to you?

Would you be convinced by a Freudian who said all your mental anxiety was the result of your sex drive. When you ask him why and in order to debate with him you say, "But doctor here's an anxiety that doesn't seem to have any sexual derivation." and the doctor's response is: "Well, now you are just repressing your sexual drive." Such statements seem well troublesome. Thank you for engaging me on this because I really am enjoying the exchange.

Posted by: Jay Lafayette | 2008-08-01 6:57:56 PM

Jay:

Most scientists in fields other than biology -- even top scientists -- know next to nothing about the philosophy of religion and perhaps even less about evolution by natural selection. They therefore haven't a proper basis to evaluate the argument from design, much less the ontological argument, the first-mover argument, the argument of god as the giver of moral law, etc.

Frankly, what most scientists know about arguments for or against the existence of god is pitiful. So what they think -- either for or against the god hypothesis -- is about as relevant as what they think about the existence of Cepaea nemoralis.

Are there any top biologists who are believers? Dawkins says he isn't aware of any who actually believe in an interventionist god who answers prayers, performs miracles, was born of a virgin, punishes people in eternal hellfire for the sins of Adam, etc., etc. Insofar as they say they are religious, they are religious in the Einstein sense of wonderment at the complexity of physics.

That probably over-states the case. I think there are accomplished biologists who are fully-fledged believers. But their belief is in SPITE of their knowledge of biology (or science more generally), not because of it. They believe even though they know there is no scientific evidence for it. Insofar as believing in the existence of anything for which there is no empirical evidence is irrational, these folks are irrational -- yes, I would assert that. Why not?

All scientists worthy of the name have to admit that the god hypothesis has become a fifth wheel; we don't need it to make sense of anything within human experience. In fact, the more you flesh out your conception of 'god', the more likely it is that your conception will be incompatible with what we do know about the universe. (No, it wasn't created in 6 days roughly 4,000 years ago. No, virgin birth is not possible. No, wafers do not transmogrify into flesh, nor wine into human blood...)

The reason I can "psychologize" about scientists who are believers is that since there isn't a rational explanation the only way to explain their belief is with some kind of psychological hypothesis. If it isn't based on the best available science, then it must be based on deep emotional or psychological commitments or some such. If they were able to give me a good argument based on experiences I could in principle share with them, and thus test for myself, it would be different. But they don't purport to do so; or when they do they fail the test. So no, your Freudian analogy is not apt.

Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-02 5:10:42 PM

With respect Grant, contemporary science has merely ruled out certain kinds of explanations as rational. Religious perspectives have long been thought to be offering explanations to the "why" questions, and the "how" questions were only very broadly constrained. Any relatively canny contemporary theist should be fairly unconcerned with whether the world is six thousand or sixteen billion years old (intramural debates over the "how" of creation occur even among conservative Christian intellectual communities). But tell that same Christian that the universe ultimately originates from nothing, and that it will eventually amount to nothing as everything is eventually utterly destroyed, and you will have a sincere debate about the nature of whether there are really facts of the matter about the "why" questions. That modern atheism rules out such answers as hopelessly subjective and epistemically untenable is a consequence of, not an argument for, its rejection of God.

This is, however, to leave the main point of this article, so I propose a truce under the following conditions: theism and atheism are both rational views given their respective epistemologies, and settling the right epistemology is certainly a task beyond Dawkins, Sam Harris, or almost any of the new breed of militant atheists publishing today. My concession is that each position will ultimately do no better than the epistemic intuitions of the parties debating, and no appeal to the pragmatic value of empiricism is capable of settling which set of beliefs rationality requires us to adopt. (This is precisely because it is the analysis of rationality itself that is under discusssion.) Ultimately what these kinds of internet discussions do is to clarify the resources and commitments of each position, and few (if indeed anyone) believes these questions are going to be decisively settled once and for all when they've been perennially discussed since the time of the ancient skeptics. Pick your view, and you'll have a wide literature written by people smarter than anyone commenting here to back your position.

Okay, so I'm going to hopefully set aside the rationality question as a stalemated discussion, and now return to the point about tolerance. This is relatively simpler. Here's a definition: tolerance is a self-imposed constraint on the way we treat those with whom we disagree. We do not "tolerate" our philosophical friends, we agree with them!

Tolerance in religious matters traditionally extends to the religious practices and customs of those with whom we disagree. Now if the NYT is right, then there is no disagreement among those of various faiths who claim that their faith is not the only way to salvation. Hence, for those with that view, there is no tolerance because there is no need for it.

That said, it's an entirely separate matter whether they're entitled to both identify themselves with one of the five major religious traditions of the world, and at the same time claim that that tradition is both accurate and not exclusively so. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism all claim that not only do they have a story about the what reality is like, but that their story is right, and that dissenting views are incorrect to the extent that they disagree. If contemporary religious adherents choose to overlook this point when answering a survey, they may be uninformed about the views they identify with, or they may not wish to be seen as "intolerant," but they are not at liberty to redefine what the world's religions actually claim about themselves. That's what the NYT is praising as tolerance, and that's what's got Jay exercised.

If your intuitions are not moved yet, I'll try one last example. Imagine that rival physicists spilled blood over the truth or falsehood of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. That would have been historically unfortunate, and today's physicists, chastened by historical perspective, might rightly feel that they should settle such disputes in academic journals rather than by offing their scientific rivals. However, what physicists would not be entitled to do is to settle their debates about the facts of quantum mechanics by appealing to people's guilt over the past social injustices of their intellectual rivals.

No disagreement about any matter of fact has ever been rationally settled that way.

Posted by: Ben Dyer | 2008-08-02 11:10:07 PM

Dyer: "Religious perspectives have long been thought to be offering explanations to the "why" questions... you will have a sincere debate about the nature of whether there are really facts of the matter about the "why" questions."

GB: That's one form of compartmentalization that religious folks use to avoid the tension between science and belief in the supernatural that I was referring to earlier. "Science answers one set of questions; religion answers a different set." Not good enough. First, how can religion answer ANY questions by positing the existence of entities for which there is no objective evidence? What kind if an "answer" could possibly come of that? Nothing comes of nothing.

Second, science purports to be comprehensive: if there is a truth to be known, science is in principle the way to discover it. Science is just as capable of answering the "why" questions as any other meaningful questions. It is just a religious prejudice and closed-mindedness to think science is incapable of answering "why" questions.

Dyer: "...theism and atheism are both rational views given their respective epistemologies, and settling the right epistemology is certainly a task beyond Dawkins, Sam Harris, or almost any of the new breed of militant atheists publishing today."

GB: It isn't really that complicated. Scientific method is fundamentally aimed at the discovery of *publicly convincing* hypotheses. Science will accept anything as a working hypothesis that is capable of being supported by evidence that can replicated in the face of skepticism. Important nuances and details aside, that's the only "epistemlogy" scientists have.

Religious folks, by contrast, defend their beliefs at last resort by claims about the quality of experiences that are essentially private to their own consciousness and inscrutible to science -- i.e. to skeptical examiners. They claim to have experienced something so unique and compelling that it could only be supernatural -- miracles, revelation, enlightenment, call it what you will. That way lies solipsism, which is why all religions depend for their transmission and long-term survival upon indoctrination, social pressure, and often enough physical force -- as opposed to free and open inquiry. Free and open inquiry, as the past couple of centuries has shown, is the antidote to superstition.

(Yes, "scientists" sometimes fight in less reputable ways than by free and open inquiry. University politics is at least as vicious as any other kind. But we recognize that as a perversion of scientific inquiry, not as the normal state of affairs.)

No, you are right, I cannot prove that a solipsistic religious epistemology is "wrong" or "irrational" -- and neither can Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris or PZ Meyers or Daniel Dennett. Nor do they claim to be able to. All we say is: If you are happy to keep your imaginary friends to yourself, we are happy to let you believe whatever you want; but if you want to teach about your imaginary friends in our children's schools, or shut down our businesses on your imaginary frends' favourite days, or fight crusades against people who have different imaginary friends than you have, or declare wars on prostitution, drugs, or other things your imaginary friends consider to be vices -- then count us out. You had better have a better reason -- i.e. one you can show publicly the reasons for -- to push us around like that.

(And yes, lots of scientists have bad reasons for pushing others around that they mistakenly think are publicly defensible. Eschewing religion does not guarantee a wonderful world; it merely removes one kind of obstacle to achieving a wonderful world of understanding and peace and freedom.)

Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-03 12:31:23 AM

Grant, I think you're missing my point. The evidentiary requirements you propose are running two claims together as one. The first is that evidence must be empirical to be counted as evidence. The second is that empirical evidence is the only kind of evidence that is acceptable in public discussion. The second claim is false to the extent that we take ourselves to be doing nothing controversial when we make truth claims about history. Was Pickett's Charge repulsed with heavy losses at Gettysburg? This is an important claim that informs military history, and (let's say) future military policy and planning. It's a historical claim whose evidentiary support is inference from a state of the world and from the documents of witnesses, and nonetheless it is publicly acceptable. Now I'm not going to produce a reading list, but please believe me when I tell you that religious intellectuals have produced an abundant literature that offers exactly that kind of publicly acceptable argument. Historically grounded faith traditions (the western monotheisms) ask no more of the public than an open mind and the same historiographical standards applied to non-religious historical claims. If history is publicly acceptable discussion that informs policy, then so are historical religions that are ready to supply proper historical evidence and reasoning religious claims.

Now the reason I began with the second claim is because I anticipate the following objection to my argument: "look, Pickett's Charge makes assumptions consistent with empirical scientific methods, and that's why it's publicly acceptable. Religious claims on the other hand are asking us to accept a strong metaphysical claim that isn't consistent with empiricism." The philosopher's response is this: it only matters that we're consistent with empiricism if there's a separate argument that proves that any knowledge claim must be consistent with empiricism to be adequately supported. Is there such an argument? Well, that depends on your more basic epistemic commitments, and that was the whole point of my prior post. It is in fact that complicated because without that argument you're not going to produce an argument that makes contact with the historical arguments that are no different in form from any you'll find in any other book containing adequately supported historical claims. Atheism doesn't get a free pass on the burden of generating an epistemic argument that requires empiricism just because of its present sociological representation among working scientists.

Grant, let me address your later points as the important ones for this discussion. What I've said up till now is just that the religious intellectual is not epistemically worse off than the atheist intellectual, but what seems to interest you in the last two paragraphs of your last comment is the political upshot of this discussion. I've gone overlong, so I'll keep this short. Even if you concede the epistemic point I've made thus far, that does nothing to inform subsequent political discussion that must take place about how we resolve policies in a pluralistic society where people can and do disagree with each other about conceptions of the good. Nonetheless, I do think that in some religious traditions you'll find resources for genuine tolerance (the kind that presumes pluralism and disagreement), and for a sustained discussion of that see Jeremy Waldron's "God, Locke, and Equality" (Cambridge 2002). Does atheism have similar resources for tolerance? At least if it is Dawkins's sort, I'm a lot less optimistic.

Posted by: Ben Dyer | 2008-08-03 9:02:25 AM

Dyer: "The evidentiary requirements you propose are running two claims together as one. The first is that evidence must be empirical to be counted as evidence. The second is that empirical evidence is the only kind of evidence that is acceptable in public discussion."

GB: No, I'm not running two claims together. They are one and the same claim. 'Empirical' just means 'publicly verifiable or falsifiable' (in principle). If we had a sixth sense that allowed people in general to agree, under ideal and replicable conditions, on (i) when they had contact with the supernatural and (ii) what the quality or nature of that contact was, then religion would be a part of science and subject to the same methods. But we don't have a sixth sense -- at least scientists don't. Religion by definition puts itself outside the scope of public testing, and therefore by definition is unscientific and solipsistic.

If there is no evidence -- no publicly testable means of establishing -- that disruptions to the space-time continuum ever happen in the pressent, then that is a pretty strong reason to reject historical accounts of miracles -- Hume notwithstanding. The more reasonable account -- because we can actually observe and explain the phenomenon happening today -- is that the writers of the historical acounts of miracles suffered from some kind of delusion.

(No doubt non-religious writers about non-religious historical events suffered from delusions, too, which is what makes history a difficult detective job. History is not replicable, which is why history isn't in the "science" wing of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in any universities I am familiar with. Maybe history is deemed a science in your university, at or Oral Roberts or Brigham Young... All historians can do is approach their subject in a more-or-less scientific way, and come to conclusions that are more or less persuasive. That's good enough for me.)

I happily grant you Hume's point -- that I can't prove that the past always resembled the present in terms of basic laws of physics. It is a working hypothesis, based on the fact that we don't see the laws of physics changing much when we study them. It'll take my chances with THAT working hypothesis as opposed to the god hypothesis.

Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-03 11:41:04 AM

Well Grant, I'm afraid we've reached the usual impasse. When I say something is empirically verifiable, I mean that that thing can be verified by appeal to the perceptions of the five senses. I never claimed history was science, and do not hold that view. This isn't a discussion of whether religion or history is or isn't compatible with (or best described by) science. Rather, it's a discussion of what follows politically from the inclusion of religious claims in public discourse.

You've claimed only scientific claims should be allowed in public discourse because it is only they that are empirical. I've counter-argued that historical claims are also thought publicly acceptable in policy discourse, but that these claims are not empirically verifiable in the way that scientific claims are. I've further suggested that because some religious traditions stake the truth of their beliefs on historic events (e.g., the resurrection or the receiving of the Law of Moses), then these arguments should be treated no differently from any other kind of historical claims. If the supporting arguments obey the normal standards of historical reasoning and inference, then there's no reason that religious claims of that sort should be excluded from public reasoning.

As I've said in previous comments and repeat again since you've not answered, even if you granted my epistemic point, the desired constraints on policy produced by the value of tolerance are not worse off if we include religious claims in public discourse. Waldron at least thinks it's a striking fact that absent religious perspectives, tolerance may very well be worse off instead.

Posted by: Ben Dyer | 2008-08-03 12:28:12 PM

Ben:

I will concede that history is a useful form of discourse, even though it is not a science. So is philosophy; so is economics (to pick a borderline case, since there is an element of replicability in economics, though not perfect). All I ask is that the history or philosophy or economics you espouse be scientifically informed, or at a minimum, not incompatible with science.

You seem to think that there is an "historical method" -- analogous to the "scientific method" -- that historians apply to get at "historical truths" -- as distinct from scientific truths. You seem to be suggesting that if the established "historical method" is applied to the accounts of the miracles in the New Testament, or the account of Moses being given the 10 Commandments, those religious myths will turn out to be "historically true" in the same way that recent military battles are known to be historically true.

But this is all rubbish, of course. There is no "historical method" that arrives at "historical truths" because history isn't a science. There is no "philosphical method" that arrives at "philosophical truths," either. There are only better and worse ways of reasoning; better- and worse-informed investigations.

An historical investigation that assumes the laws of science might not apply to historical events is no more worthy of being considered serious history than an account of the planets that assumes they might have occult powers over human personality traits. There are always dozens of possible explanations of an historcal accounts of "miracles" that are more plausible than the god hypothesis -- just as there are always dozens of possible explanations for contemporary claims of the supernatural that are better than the god hypothesis.

Religiously-informed but scientifically impossible historical claims deserve no more respect than feminist-informed but biologically erroneous claims do. I don't care what kind of ideology is at issue -- religious, feminist, libertarian -- if it is based on underlying claims that are unscientific, then it is rubbish. E.g. brands of libertarianism that ascribe inalienable rights to humans on the basis of us being the children of god are rubbish -- even though I agree with libertarianism for other reasons.

The answer to the question you posed (if I understand it correctly) is trivially easy. As long as we live in a democracy, we will have to tolerate any damn fool form of discourse you care to mention into the political area. That's what democracy is -- rule by the people, not rule by the intelligencia, the cogniscenti, the scientists. That's one reason why it is important to take as much out of the sphere of democratic government control as possible.

Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-03 5:04:54 PM

Hi Grant,

I think we've returned to my earlier point about the basic epistemological work that needs to be done in order for people to stop talking past one another. I agree with you that there are not discipline-specific brands of truth, but I disagree with the claim that disciplines must be scientific (in the observable, testable, repeatable sense) in order to generate true claims. Tell a historian that what she's doing isn't scientific, and she'll shrug and concede the point. Tell her also that her discipline doesn't produce true claims because they can't be observed, repeated, or tested, and she'll tell you (rightly I believe) that you're applying the wrong tests for evidence to her discipline. Maybe you would now shrug and concede that point, but require the weaker condition that to count as truth her discipline's claims be consistent with the limits imposed by our best physics. If that were true, then your position would be that historical claims are true when backed by proper forms of historical inference as long as they obey constraints imposed by our best understanding of physics. If this were your view, then there wouldn't be several species of truths, there would be discipline-specific methods for generating true claims, and no claims (let this story be told for the other non-science disciplines you mention) would violate the understanding of our best physics.

But now we come to the main point I raised a few comments ago: why should we impose such a constraint and privilege physics over history? If the historian generates a claim and the physicist generates a contrary claim, don't we have to do the work of finding out which claim has the best evidence? From a purely formal perspective, we're supposed to believe true things, and that doesn't tell us ahead of time whether it's the scientist or the historian who's right. If you think that science will ALWAYS produce a more justified claim than history, then you've got to produce a separate argument for that claim. That's not going to be a scientific argument because it's about science itself, and that's precisely my point.

The claim that science is the gatekeeper for whatever counts as knowledge is just factually false. It never has been, and it isn't now anyway because that's the work of epistemology, and it's philosophers who spend time doing it. Dawkins is not trained in that work, and hasn't bothered himself to take the time because he's got no practical reason to: he's getting his books out to a popular audience who isn't prepared to evaluate his epistemological credentials. Among those with such credentials, no atheist philosopher I've ever met would say that if it's not science then it doesn't count as knowledge. They may say that science gives us the best knowledge, and they may even offer an argument for why science will properly impose constraints on the knowledge claims of other disciplines. What they won't think that no argument is necessary, or that the kind of argument needed is going to be supplied by recourse to anything that's observable, testable, or repeatable, precisely because it is those standards that are being assessed.

What I think should give people like Dawkins pause is that atheists of the careful sort I'm describing--people like J.L. Mackie and Quentin Smith for example--have taken a much more measured tone in their arguments because they have met their ideological counterparts and not found them as wanting as Dawkins and the militant wings of atheism suggest. (Smith makes this point in the online journal Philo, vol 4, no 2: http://www.philoonline.org/library/smith_4_2.htm)

Does this mean that Dawkins is in any danger of losing debates on what counts as science? No, of course not. But as I said earlier, if the subject is public reasoning, then we're interested in truth and knowledge, and that's logically prior to scientific inquiry. Science has a voice in the discussions of the public square, and maybe even a loud voice, but it is not one that is entitled to silence or subordinate all other voices when it speaks.

One final note. You've said it's "trivially easy" to answer the question of how to resolve policy in the context of cultural pluralism. If you're right, then my friend you've got a career ready and waiting in political philosophy. Among contemporary theorists, this is maybe as pressing a question as questions of distrubitive justice were in the 70's and 80's, and the answers are nowhere nearly as easy to resolve because in principle there aren't metrics for normative ideals (a point even act utilitarians generally concede). To what do we appeal when we've got questions of moral and political value to answer, and we've got several views on the table? Well, I won't attempt to frame an answer to that here, but I will say that it's not one that scientists will answer for us because it's not one that appeals to empirical facts (like economics does). To paraphrase Hume (again), we cannot derive an ought from an is, and so the political questions arising from pluralistic settings remain incredibly pressing.

Thank goodness the people polled by the NYT are content to play soccer with their neighbors instead of trying to kick them out of the neighborhood. Even so, Jay's earlier point (and mine) is that we shouldn't confuse tolerance with intellectual conformity, and it's the latter that threatens to vitiate the substance of the religions those same respondents claimed as their own. We hope they're not confused about what their traditions claim, but if they are then I see that as a problem for both, not a virtue as the NYT would have us believe.

Posted by: Ben Dyer | 2008-08-04 10:20:02 PM

It occurred to me after my last post that Terrance did an excellent job of spelling out one such puzzle that makes the pluralism questions difficult for policy makers. Bravo Terrance!

By way of a (too) quick reply, I can say only that Christians were never given a political framework in the New Testament, and they've had to subsequently work out whatever seemed most practical in light of the moral commitments that were given to them. That's covered everything from the instrumental political commitments in Augustine's City of God to the integrated ecclesiastical polity of John Calvin's Geneva.

On my view, Christians should take the form best suited to their evangelical purposes in the world since that is their final charge from Christ, but I think they can reject (b) in good conscience because even God does not compel people to follow him because that compromises the value of conversion. It is because we freely accept Christ that our fellowship with God is valuable. If God does not force people to become Christian, then why should Christians do so by means of the state's coercive power? So far as I know, nothing in the New Testament commits Christians to such a view.

Posted by: Ben Dyer | 2008-08-04 11:11:52 PM

Ben, you are still making everything more complicated than it needs to be. I think you are deliberately complicating things in order to bamboozle yourself into accepting some kind of parity between religious claims and scientific claims. There is no parity, period.

And you are misconstruing my argument. Perhaps it wasn't felicitously put, so let me try again:

I start with the proposition that modern science tells us there is no evidence of anything supernatural in *contemporary* life. If you disagree with that premise, then you are squarely in Dawkins' court -- claiming you can point to phenomena he is incapable (in principle) of giving a scientific explanation for.

That is, in fact, what Intelligent Designers do claim; they point to entities that they say are so "irreducibly complex" that they could not possibly be the product of incremental, stepwise adaptation. They "must" have been created whole. Problem is, they are simply wrong about the science of these things.

There is a scientific explanation; they just don't want to see it. Same with tarrot card readers, water-dowsers, astrologers, mind-readers, spoon-benders, and faith-healers. It has all been debunked by modern science -- maybe not in detail, in every case; but in principle we know how these things work (or don't work, as the case may be). At least that is what Dawkins claims -- a claim he needs to know nothing about philosophy or epistemology to assert and defend. (I'm with Quine when he says that epistemology, properly understood, is just the ever-better articulation of the scientific method.) If you can't get past the hurdle of proving the supernatural in the here and now, your project is doomed.

How do you propose to move the ball into a more congenial court? Appeal to "historical truths" surely won't do, for the obvious reason that history is merely current events that have receded into the fogs of the past. There is no more reason to believe that supernatural phenomena influenced past events than that they influence present ones. Therefore, if you have two historical accounts, one of which posits a supernatural phenomenon occuring, and the other gives a naturalistic account, the latter HAS to be the more plausible account, no matter how implausible it is, at least until you can defeat Dawkins in his court by showing that there is any evidence for the supernatural in present events. THAT'S why historical truths are "constrained" by scientific knowkedge.

It isn't a matter of "privileging" physics over history. It is a matter of accepting that the past resembles the present where the fundamental laws of nature are concerned. I don't really see a sane alternative to that, and I don't think Hume could, either.

The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to "philosophical truths," or "economic truths," or any other kind of non-scientific or quasi-scientific truths you care to mention. To accept a philosophical "truth" that is incompatible with a scientific truth is to challenge the validity of the scientific truth -- i.e. to challenge Dawkins in his own court.

It is quite inescapable, unless you appeal to a sixth sense that only some of us have, or to the special qualities of your own private experience. That way lies solipsism.

"If the historian generates a claim and the physicist generates a contrary claim, don't we have to do the work of finding out which claim has the best evidence?" Huh? Surely by definition -- assuming the "physicist" is a REAL physicist and not a crackpot -- the physicist's claim has the better evidence: it is the product of carefully controled and replicated experiments by highly trained observers. No historical account can ever top that, can it?

Maybe you want to compare an historical claim that is rather well-founded as far as historical claims go to a scientific claim that is way out there on the edges of scientific inquiry, based on dozens of sub-theories that are themselves rather speculative. The whole thing could be a house of cards. Fine. But in that case, the conflict is more apparent than real. To be more subtle, scientific claims are really claims about probability distributions, and it is quite possible that a given scientific claim is closer to the tail of a probability distribution than a given (incompatible) historical claim. So what?

"You've said it's "trivially easy" to answer the question of how to resolve policy in the context of cultural pluralism." No, I said it is trivially easy to answer the question of what voices must be tolerated in a democracy, namely any damn fool voice out there. That's what democracy is: every damn fool having an equal say in running your life.

Anyone who studies philosophy for very long should realize that it is better to simplify the questions you try to answer, and look for solid answers to those simpler questions, than to pose mind-numbingly "big" questions that nobody has a clear enough handle on to answer in any meaningful or convincing way.

Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-05 3:39:17 AM

Hi Grant,

I think we're about to start rehashing things to little avail, so I'll try to keep this relatively short.

First, modern science doesn't rule out the supernatural, it merely observes the natural. Atheists and some scientists rule out the supernatural by appealing to philosophical principles like Occam's Razor in much the way that you have in your last comment. You didn't make that explicit, but saying, "we have a scientific explanation for that" means you're telling us to prefer that one when another one is available because it's in principle simpler. Now if you revisit the last point I made, it was merely that science by itself requires the additional support of epistemological (that is, certain philosophical) arguments to make the point you want. You've offered just such an argument, but I want you to see that that argument is not itself scientific because science is about observed phenomena (what is). We cannot therefore use it as a regulative norm to rule out anything (what ought or ought not to be). The regulative norms have to come from outside science, and I've claimed that these are the province of epistemologists. On some versions of these norms, the existence of the supernatural is ruled out, and on some others it is not. Dawkins and his like have not done the necessary work to establish their epistemological position, and it's simply no help to your position that you're just ruling out the other alternatives at the level of those epistemological norms.

Now I will grant that if you gesture at Quine's "Epistemology Naturalized," then that's something. But Quine's position doesn't represent the consensus position of epistemologists, and it remains highly controversial. So notice that I've never claimed that you're not entitled to take the position you have with Dawkins, but until a view like Quine's becomes the gold standard for construing epistemology, others are rationally entitled to their dissent, and there's no amount of table-thumping ("Science is observable (thump), testable (thump), repeatable (thump), and about the stuff we can actually SEE; this stuff!(thump)") that's going to change that. (By the way, if you didn't catch the allusion to Bible-thumpers arguing by, well, thumping Bibles, let me now make that painfully explicit.) At the end of the day, it's not Dawkins's atheism I'm taking issue with (which is why I posted the link to Smith's article in my last comment), but his claim that others aren't rationally entitled to the alternative position because science says "no."

Now it should be clear that if I don't agree with Dawkins, then it's because I've got different basic commitments in epistemology, and so I'm not going to just assume physics always wins. I (and others) are rationally entitled to that view unless you've got the resources to rule it out with such dazzling epistemological arguments that I (and others) would be irrational to reject them. Arguments of that kind have not been forthcoming, and as the most recent example I refer you to the troubled history of Logical Positivism in the twentieth century.

What I've tried to illustrate that if one isn't entitled to maintain a death-grip on an epistemic privilege for science, then in one case, the historically-grounded western monotheisms, there are claims being offered that do not differ in any formal respect from other historical claims. These claims have not been ruled out as impossible, and they ask no special exceptions of the inquiring historian. Thus, like any other historical claims, they should count as publicly acceptable reason not because in a democracy we have to listen to any nutcase who has something to say (in fact, we don't), but because these claims are no less rational (or at least no less uncontroversial) than any other claims if they make their historical case.

Well, I didn't quite succeed in keeping this short, but I've recapped much, and if I don't respond to Grant's next post, it'll be basically because I don't see anything new, and will therefore avoid wasting people's time rehashing things.

Posted by: Ben Dyer | 2008-08-05 7:52:55 AM

At least we can agree on this: Science is about what there is evidence for rather than what is accepted on faith (or on the basis of some other solispistic conduit to "reality").

You are right to see a kind of "Occam's Razor" operating in my argument. But my position is that "Occam's Razor" is a scientific principle, not a mysterious, faith-based or "philosophical" epistemic one. Here's why:

Take two accounts of the building of the pyramids: one posits only things known by science to have existed at the time, and the other posits all of those things plus little green martians, or interventionist gods, or spiritual forces of some kind. The fact that the first theory "works" shows that martians or gods or spirits are NOT NEEDED to explain the building of the pyramids; and that is precisely equivalent to saying that the existence of the pyramids provides NO EVIDENCE for martians or gods or spirits.

This is NOT to say that martians or gods or spirits don't exist, of course. (It is impossible to prove such a negative proposition.) But if you believe in them, then your belief is, ipso facto, based on faith or private intuition rather than on the evidence provided by the existence of the pyramids -- or, by extention, by evidence from any and all natural phenonena explained by science today.

As you say, "...it should be clear that if I don't agree with Dawkins, then it's because I've got different basic commitments in epistemology." Precisely! You have faith-based commitments to unscientific epistemic principles.

If you want to say that 'what counts as evidence for what' is a "philosophical" or "epistemic" issue rather than a "scientific" one, be my guest. But in that case, I would hold that scientists like Dawkins engage in "epistemology" all the time in their working capacity. To paraphrase you: why "privilege" philosophers over work-a-day scientists when it comes to such routine matters as 'what counts as evidence for what'? Something like Occam's Razor is a bedrock principle of the scientific method -- of science. (I say "something like" Occam's Razor, because Occam's Razor is a bit simplistic and only covers crude-ish cases like the pyramids above. Far more sophisticated forms of Occam's Razor are implicit in the work-a-day repertoire of scientists, e.g. statistical methods like vector analysis, factor analysis, etc.)

Occam's Razor is widely misunderstood by philosophers as some kind of "faith-based" or extra-scientific principle. But those who think so really know nothing about the scientific method and how real work-a-day scientists reason and construct theories. Rejecting the sophisticated articulation of Occam's Razor implicit in the scientific method is on a par with rejecting the proposition that the past resembles the present and future. It is the path to insanity, not the path to non-scientific reality or "Truth." (thump!)

Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-05 4:29:10 PM

Hi Grant,

Well this is new. Occam is William of Ockham (spelling wasn't standard for a while and is still used in both ways, but the place is spelled the latter way I think), and his "razor" was a strategy to shift the burden of proof in the medieval realist/nominalist debates. (See the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for detail on William: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/ ) If you like, we can agree to disagree on the point about whether Occam's Razor is a principle whose central arguments are grounded in philosophy or science, but I wanted to offer evidence for my claim that it is a philosophical argument even though it is frequently used by scientists.

For what it's worth, I don't know any philosopher who thinks of Occam's Razor is a faith-based principle, and I do not think that myself. On the other hand, I think many of them could agree (without damaging the work or assumptions of science) that it's not strictly a scientific principle. For one thing, it's used to adjudicate theories in metaphysics for example as well (and not just in the medieval debates).

In response to why I privilege philosophers over scientists like Dawkins when it comes to standards of evidence, it's important to remember that I do so only as long as the claims are what counts as knowledge simpliciter. If you asked me whom I should trust when it came to establishing standards of evidence for adjudicating between interpretations of quantum mechanics, I would turn to the scientist. However, the scientist isn't trained to offer explanations of (for instance) how justification works, what causality is, or how counterfactual or modal logic works. These are just a few examples of the kinds of discussion going on in philosophy that are logically prior to the real and important spade-work and empirical theorizing that goes on in the daily routine of a working scientist. Scientists aren't trained to do that stuff because they don't need to do it to start doing their work, and they (quite reasonably) accept the division of labor that lets them get to work on what interests them--the empirical work of their discipline. Rejecting that division between the discipline of science and philosophy represents a kind of disciplinary imperialism that is simply not representative of the actual norms and practices of science or philosophy. Nor is it inimical to the practice of either discipline to accept such a division.

Posted by: Ben Dyer | 2008-08-05 9:16:26 PM

"Well this is new.": Not new, just unpublished. I have been elucidating this "naturalistic" account of Occam's Razor for about 22 years now, but only in sketchy emails, conversation, and now blogs. (And even then, only rarely: I'm not a philosopher of science; this is just a minor interest to me.) Maybe I should write it up more rigorously and send it in to some philosophy journal?

(I contrast this naturalistic account of Occam's Razor with what I consider primitive faith-based or philosophical acounts, such as the view that it is written by god on some Platonic Tablet; or a Kantian theory that says it's a "synthetic a priori truth." I just don't think that any other account really *explains* the principle, explains how it is used and why it is effective.)

My naturalistic account of Occam's Razor is just a small part of a "naturalized" epistemology. As Quine says, a naturalized epistemology rejects any sharp distinction between the empirical (synthetic, scientific) and philosophical (analytic, a priori). Science -- the systematic search for public knowledge -- is a bootstraps enterprise that creates a self-referencing web of belief. You can point to different parts of the web that are more analytic-like (philosophical-sounding) and parts that are more synthetic-like (scientific-sounding); but in the end the whole web hangs together seemlessly. It makes practical sense to divide knowledge-producing labour into disciplines; but important scientific works are always heavily conceptual / philosophical (see "The Selfish Gene" or the General Theory of Relativity), and good philosophy always draws heavily on the scientific.

You want to reject a naturalistic epistemology so that you can open up space in your philosophy for things not known to science. I see what motivates that move; I just don't see any reason to make it. There is no evidence for it, because a naturalized epistemology is adequate to account for what we know.

Moreover, I don't think Dawkins needs to be able to articulate the finest nuances of a naturalistic epistemology in order to make any claims he is interested in making. What he says shows that he has a good enough, even if unarticulated, working sense of epistemology naturalized, to address the issues he wishes to address. That's my point.

Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-08-06 2:40:07 AM

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Posted by: audigmaappeax | 2008-08-25 8:50:30 AM

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