I’m really enjoying Templeton Prize winner
Charles Taylor’s massive tome, “A Secular Age.” Unlike most philosophers, Taylor is a crystal-clear writer, and has the gift of being able to discuss profound and complex thoughts without giving himself over to impenetrable jargon.
In the passage I read last night, Taylor discusses the fundamental psychological shift that occurred with modernity, and how it orients us toward questions of religion (remember that the mission Taylor sets for himself in the book is to discuss how and why secularism rose in the West, and its implications for us today). In the pre-modern world, he writes, people saw the material world as charged with spiritual energy, and personality. Pagans saw spirits, and spiritual power, inhering in Nature, and in particular places. Christians retained many of those beliefs, though transferring much of that way of seeing the world to saints and relics, while still believing in evil spirits as actual entities which could bring harm to one. For the individual, Taylor writes, the boundary between a person and this spiritualized world was porous; absent God, the self had little protection from the spiritual forces in the world that threatened the self’s integrity and well-being. For pre-moderns, says Taylor, to reject God would not mean to reject the reality of these spiritual forces; rather, it would mean rejecting the only hope one had that Good would ultimately triumph over the forces of chaos and evil.
This is a critically important point: to reject God did not mean rejecting the supernatural; it meant rejecting the best hope the individual had of protecting oneself from it. So most people found this literally unthinkable.
Human consciousness became modern, he writes, when the natural world became “disenchanted” — that is, when man began to think of the world outside his own mind as spiritually inert, and having only the meaning we impute to it with our own minds. This, says Taylor, “buffers” the mind, putting a layer of protection between the individual and the outside world. It becomes less terrifying. It’s the equivalent of saying, “There’s no such thing as ghosts” — and believing it as the truth. The disenchantment of the world ushered in Protestantism, and in turn secularism. You can see the logic. Closing the Taylor book and turning my lamp off last night, I thought that there really is no way to reconcile the African Anglicans with their UK and American counterparts; both live on completely opposite sides of the divide between modernity and pre-modernity.
The thing is, all of us in the West, believers included, live on one side of that divide, whether we want to or not. What I mean to say is that even though I, as an Orthodox Christian, plainly espouse a pre-modern belief system, the psychological and cultural environment that shaped me, and in which I live and breathe is modern and secular. As Taylor points out, this comes so natural to all us Westerners that it’s hard to grasp how unusual this is in human experience, and how constructed it is.
We are so accustomed to thinking of our history in this regard as progressive, as one of gradual enlightenment from the forces of intellectual darkness, of priestcraft and sorcery preventing the mind from perceiving the world as it really is. It is impossible to deny that there is a lot of truth to this. Illness is caused by germs, for example, not evil spirits. This is a huge advance. Nobody can deny the immense intellectual and material progress that has been made by mankind learning to see the world a different way — a way that is more accurate.
But — and you knew there would be a but — it is at least possible that in learning how to see the material world more clearly, we blinded ourselves to spiritual realities. That is, we abandoned, or turned off, the faculties of perception that allowed our pre-modern ancestors to see an aspect of reality that eludes us today, and that we are thus endarkened in some sense by our enlightenment. Let me give a couple of examples of what I mean, past the jump…
I wear bifocal lenses in my glasses. This is the second pair of bifocals I’ve had. They don’t work. Both optometrists I’ve consulted put me through the usual round, and came up with the same prescription. And yet, I have to take my glasses off to read, or to see things up close clearly. But if I didn’t have them on, things in the distance are quite blurry. Drives me crazy, this on-and-off routine I have to follow. My eyes are so weak that I can’t see a clear picture of reality at all times with my glasses on, or off. The flaw here is one of perception.
Along those lines, an Orthodox priest I know who is also a physicist by training recently passed on to me a text he’s translating that was written by an Orthodox priest in Stalin’s gulag. It’s an imagined dialogue between an unbeliever and an elder monk, about the existence of God. In it, I encounted a striking metaphor. The unbeliever said that he didn’t believe in God because he could not discern God’s presence. The monk said to consider a light bulb that works properly. Energy runs through it, and can be discerned by everyone, because the filament works properly. But when the filament is broken, the bulb cannot make a connection to the energy available to it. A dim bulb does not disprove the existence of electricity; it only shows that there is something wrong with the bulb’s ability to tap into the energy source.
Now, that is not proof for the existence of God, of course, but it does offer an interesting way to think about spiritual realities and the human person as an instrument of perception. To recap what I was saying earlier, isn’t it possible that the psychological shift brought about my modernity, which made it possible for us to see aspects of the material world more clearly, also damaged our ability to perceive spiritual realities? And furthermore, isn’t it at least possible that as arrogant as the Church once was to tell Galileo and early scientists that what they were seeing couldn’t be true because it violated dogma, we are being similarly arrogant today by denying all possibility of spiritual realities — that is, by insisting that the world is completely disenchanted?
As longtime readers know, I’m fascinated by the problems of perception, and our limitations as embodied creatures. One of the most popular posts on my old Crunchy Con blog was this one, in which I wrote about the American linguist and missionary Daniel Everett who, in his book, wrote about a bizarre incident in the Amazon jungle where he was living at the time. The native people were deeply agitated, claiming that they were watching some sort of malevolent jungle deity dancing on a sandbar on the other side of the river. The whole tribe saw it. Everett and his daughter saw nothing. Though he later lost his faith and is now an atheist, Everett is still haunted by that experience. As he wrote in his book “Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes”:
What had I just witnessed? Over the more than two decades since that summer morning, I have tried to come to grips with the significance of how two cultures, my European-based culture and the Pirahas culture, could see reality so differently. I could never have proved to the Pirahas that the beach was empty. Nor could they have convinced me that there was anything, much less a spirit, on it.
As a scientist, objectivity is one of my most deeply held values. If we could just try harder, I once thought, surely we could each see the world as others see it and learn to respect one another’s views more readily. But as I learned from the Pirahas, our expectations, our culture, and our experiences can render even perceptions of the environment nearly incommensurable cross-culturally.
I encourage you to take a look at that entire post, and the comments thread, which really was one of the better ones we have here. Everett even added to it. See, this is why I find the work of Wade Davis so important, even though I strongly disagree with him about the nature of Haitian religion. Davis insists — correctly, I think — that we in the West do not have a monopoly on seeing truth, and that we have a lot to learn from premodern cultures whose way of seeing the world we think we’ve transcended. Davis is not a pure relativist; as he writes in “The Wayfinders,” if you have a broken leg, you want to see a physician, not a shaman. His main point, though, is that we ought to be humble enough to learn from these peoples, and to be open to the possibility that they might see some aspects of reality more clearly than we disenchanted moderns do. What I find most challenging about all this is the idea, raised most vividly in Everett’s anecdote, that our psychological and cultural conditioning could dramatically affect our ability to perceive the world as it is. That certain truths about the nature of reality itself only disclose themselves to those who are prepared to receive them.
posted February 9, 2010 at 11:19 am
Is it so clear that the cluster of narratives you call modern represent an advance at all? Yes, they have enabled us to *do* some impressive things, but have they advanced our understanding of the world at all? You say people get sick from germs, not from evil spirits, but I could say people get sick from low immunity, not germs. Or low immunity combined with germs. Or evil spirits crippling our immunity combined with germs. I mean, why would any of these accounts have to be fully out of step with each other.
You buy into the teleological narrative of progress when you refer to Episcopalians as modern and African Anglicans as pre-modern. Just because they didn’t go through the spiritual and intellectual struggles Europe went through the last 300 years doesn’t mean that they are pre-modern. That implies that the struggle is still out there in front of them. They might just be non-modern – without any implied need to go through any version of what we call the Enlightenment.
Finally, can you explain what you mean by “supernatural”?
posted February 9, 2010 at 11:24 am
The evidence for ghosts, unicorns, etc., has gotten no weaker or stronger from prehistory to today. It’s still stuck at zero and there’s nothing preventing people from believing in it even in this modern age.
I find it very interesting that you think de-spiritualizing and de-personifying the natural world “makes it less terrifying.” I’d say it’s the exact other way around: people are so unable to cope with the concept of an impersonal universe where there is no great meaning revolving around the self, where bad things happen without real reason and where life itself is hardly guaranteed, that they project consciousness and personhood onto the world around them just so they can better grasp and deal with it.
Death turning a person into an invisible angry person who still hangs out where they used to live, or death being the absolute extinction of personhood–which is truly more terrifying?
Perhaps modernism is the acceptance that reality doesn’t have to be as comforting as the narratives we imagine onto it.
posted February 9, 2010 at 11:36 am
Joseph: You buy into the teleological narrative of progress when you refer to Episcopalians as modern and African Anglicans as pre-modern. Just because they didn’t go through the spiritual and intellectual struggles Europe went through the last 300 years doesn’t mean that they are pre-modern. That implies that the struggle is still out there in front of them. They might just be non-modern – without any implied need to go through any version of what we call the Enlightenment.
I’m using “modern” here as a term of description, in the sense that Taylor uses it. “Moderns” have undergone the disenchantment of the world, as Taylor has it. I think you assume that “modern” is an adjective indicating something worthy of praise — which is how it’s often used in our culture (that tells you something about the bias we have towards the new, doesn’t it?). “Modern” is neither a term of praise nor condemnation, though it can be both, depending on the context. I don’t think the Africans “need” to go through an Enlightenment, or that it is at all inevitable that they pass through the same experience as Europeans.
Finally, can you explain what you mean by “supernatural”?
Well, to be clear, as an Orthodox Christian I don’t really recognize the concept of the supernatural, which implies that there is a realm of spirit outside the material. It’s all part of the natural world; the distinction is pretty much a false one. That said, we in the West do commonly use the term to refer to spiritual realities, which is how I use it here.
posted February 9, 2010 at 11:38 am
Very interesting. You know, Rod, I am reminded of instances in scripture where spiritual perception is changed:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they [were] naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
Num 22:31 Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.
2Ki 6:17 And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain [was] full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
posted February 9, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Having been admonished on an earlier thread, I don’t wish to denigrate Taylor based on inadequate information. But I ask, respectfully, how does he know all this about “pre-modern” people? What research has he done? When their voices and records have been so systematically eradicated, expunged, and misrepresented, how can a modern philosopher be sure of his analysis? I feel more confident of Wade Davis, because at least he spent time with the people he speaks about–though, to be sure, his experience was filtered through a consciousness shaped by the standard Western worldview, so it’s difficult to know how accurate his perceptions were, either.
If I were to theorize about this, I would say the desecration (or de-sacralization) of the world started much earlier, with the ascendance of patriarchal religions. The world was no longer the body of our mother, but a resource to be exploited and possessed, just as animals were no longer “all our relatives,” joined to us through the body of our common mother, and women were no longer sacred in themselves, but only insofar as they were submitted to the will of men and male gods. Even the self ultimately became an object.
Don’t forget, either, that once spiritual energy and personality were no longer perceived as inherent in the world, and thus accessible to everyone, spiritual “realities” had to be mediated through a power structure composed of men who stood to gain from using their divinely-revealed authority on those below them. That threat was practical and very real. A scientific worldview once again returned authority to the individual, since reality was based on an understanding free and open to all. In this way, it set people free from a spiritual regime that had become monstrously oppressive.
posted February 9, 2010 at 1:34 pm
And furthermore, isn’t it at least possible that as arrogant as the Church once was to tell Galileo and early scientists that what they were seeing couldn’t be true because it violated dogma, we are being similarly arrogant today by denying all possibility of spiritual realities — that is, by insisting that the world is completely disenchanted?
Point of order…
Many of us out here are not insisting the world is completely disenchanted.
We are simply asking you to demonstrate this aspect of reality that you claim exists.
Show us the fairy creatures, the angels, the demons, the ghosts that you claim exist. I really am willing to examine your evidence.
But without that demonstration, it is simpler for me to live as if there are no spirits that threaten my integrity and well-being.
posted February 9, 2010 at 1:40 pm
This is interesting because the book “The Demon Haunted World” by Carl Sagan used similar language, but from a different perspective and drew different conclusions.
I think it was also in that book where I read that humans have a built in bias to look for agency when something happens. This helps with survival because rustling leaves may be the wind or a tiger waiting to pounce. The problem is that we apply this bias to events that are impersonal and random. Things like comets, earthquakes, eclipses, disease and so forth. But as we developed the tools to study these events we realized their true nature.
So much of the disenchantment of the natural world is understanding that comets happen because they can happen, not because an outside agency is reacting to our actions. This will automatically make you revisit your assumption that the outside agency exists in the first place.
TTT, I’m with you, coming to grips with a universe indifferent to my existence seemed more terrifying than a universe where someone was running it with at least a nominal interest in my existence.
John E, the spirits are eliminating the evidence for their existence to lure you into a false sense of security. After a few more centuries they’ll be ready to pounce, just you wait.
posted February 9, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I am not going to quote Everett’s post. However, thanks for reprinting it. Could it be that he was looking at a natural phenomon that did not seem amiss to him? Imagine I am a birdwatcher, and you are not. As we walk together, I say “look! There’s a purple sinused Goldthwaite!” I point it out to you, where you see only a flock of nondescript birds, with nothing particular to distinguish one from the other. Just my 2c
posted February 9, 2010 at 1:53 pm
And furthermore, isn’t it at least possible that as arrogant as the Church once was to tell Galileo and early scientists that what they were seeing couldn’t be true because it violated dogma, we are being similarly arrogant today by denying all possibility of spiritual realities — that is, by insisting that the world is completely disenchanted?
If so, we are doing a brutish disservice to the many people we seize and place in psychiatric wards every year, often medicating them so heavily that they never are able to fully reveal to us the truths they perceive.
posted February 9, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Re: Show us the fairy creatures, the angels, the demons, the ghosts that you claim exist. I really am willing to examine your evidence.
But without that demonstration, it is simpler for me to live as if there are no spirits that threaten my integrity and well-being.
John E,
I’m glad you’re willing to examine the evidence. I have faith that someday you’ll receive the evidence you seek, in this world or the next.
I’d like to have regular visions of angels and demons too! Unfortunately this is something that few of us are blessed to ever have, and even they don’t have such visionary experiences often. For most of us, we have to rely on second-hand accounts of people throughout history- saints, mystics, and theologians- who do claim to have personally witnessed or experienced angels and demons. I find it easier to believe, for example, that St. Joan of Arc really talked with Michael the Archangel then that she was just making it up, or than that she was hallucinating.
I believe in angels and demons because they seem to flow naturally from the conception of a perfect God who delights in creation; because of abundant scriptural and traditional evidence; because of some semi-suggestive personal experiences, and (most of all) because of the testimony of people who have directly experienced angelic or demonic visions. A world in which angels and demons exist makes much more sense to me than one in which they don’t. (I don’t believe in ghosts, per se, though it wouldn’t shake my worldview too much if they were shown to exist).
MH,
Have you ever considered the possibility you might be wrong about the existence of angels and demons?
posted February 9, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Could it be that he was looking at a natural phenomon that did not seem amiss to him?
Or an even simpler explanation – the tribal folk were just messing with him…
Look Rod, why should we believe in ‘spirits’ when there does not seem to be any evidence of their existence?
posted February 9, 2010 at 2:17 pm
I find it easier to believe, for example, that St. Joan of Arc really talked with Michael the Archangel then that she was just making it up, or than that she was hallucinating.
Hector, why do you find that easier to believe?
posted February 9, 2010 at 2:18 pm
I’m glad you’re willing to examine the evidence. I have faith that someday you’ll receive the evidence you seek, in this world or the next.
Well, here’s hoping.
posted February 9, 2010 at 2:39 pm
John E,
See the book by science journalist Jay Ingram below, it includes a chapter on Joan of Arc, in which he discusses various psychiatrists who studied the court records and concluded that she almost certainly was _not_ suffering from schizophrenia or other mental disorders. I’d add that she seems to have lacked the sophistication to have kept up a lie convicningly for years, and to go to the fire for it.
N.B.: Ingram is, as far as I could tell, an agnostic, and doesn’t believe that Joan of Arc actually talked with the Archangel Michael; but what he does say is that the mystery seems unexplainable, and that we probably won’t ever be able to explain it. Which is exactly as it should be- concluding that Joan of Arc saw the archangel is a metaphysical conclusion, not a scientific one, and it takes over when scientific explanations seem implausible.
http://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/0140260676
posted February 9, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Rod, as you get further into the book you’ll see that Taylor doesn’t think we can ever go back on disenchantment. We will have to progress through disenchantment. There’s no call to return to the pre-modern; that’s impossible, he thinks. A chief goal of his work is to begin making sense of what a religious would be that actually comes to grips with modernity.
posted February 9, 2010 at 3:10 pm
“why should we believe in ‘spirits’ when there does not seem to be any evidence of their existence?”
(I don’t know how to do the italic quote feature you guys all seem to be able to do)
John E.
A fair question on its face, but doesn’t it contain a flawed assumption? It’s not a matter of having no evidence, it’s a matter of what “evidence” we each give authority to. We can’t see UV rays, but we have people who make gadgets that can and we believe those people. There are also people who claim to have experienced the supernatural or spiritual in some way. Lots of us would typically think those people are somewhere between mistaken and crazy. And maybe they are. But it’s not as if we’re being objective and scientific in thinking that. I think we all, to some extent, absorb the notion that supernatural things are unlikely or even impossible. And it seems to me that we bring that filter to a lot of “evidence” that presents itself.
I, personally, do believe in objective truth. I think there is an actual reality, whatever it may be. But I don’t believe in human objectivity. At least not in complete objectivity. I think we assign, en masse, some basic parameters of what’s probable and what’s not and our default is to operate under those parameters. And if I’m right about that, matters of “evidence” are a lot more wishy-washy than we might like them to be.
posted February 9, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Hector, I was raised Christian and used to believe in such things. At 16 I began to have doubts because of the problem of evil. At the time I pushed them away, but they came back later. One thing I found distinctly troubling was how interactive God was and how distinctly hands off God now seemed. I was also struck by how mental illness might be confused for demonic possession by people who didn’t understand it. So I wondered why Jesus would cast out demons when no one hadn’t seen such things in modern times.
In college I took philosophy and religion courses to fulfill humanities requirements. After taking them I concluded that the most reasonable conclusion was that religions are constructs of human culture. It explained why so many religions existed, why they disagreed on the proper manner of worship, and why supernatural claims always happened in the past and not in the present. It also resolved the problem of evil because the omni^3 deity was a blunder by people who didn’t think through the implications.
However, I did not become an atheist. I’m willing to entertain the possibility of God, but it has to be one that seems plausible given the universe we observe. I did concluded that supernatural evil couldn’t exist because there’s even less evidence for it and any competent God wouldn’t tolerate it for a nanosecond or even have created it in the first place.
posted February 9, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Sal, I expect that, and I eagerly await Taylor’s insights. We can’t un-learn what we’ve learned, or erase our culture’s experience. What I’m interested in, as a believing Christian, is recovery, both on an individual and a cultural basis.
posted February 9, 2010 at 3:55 pm
right—we can’t unlearn our culture. Nor should we long to do so. We have gained an immense amount in modernity: pre-modern life, including faith, had many terrible aspects too. As I understand Taylor’s ultimate stance, he has a great deal of hope for what Christianity will become in modernity. This is why I’m so excited that you’re working through this book.
One more thing: part of what’s at stake in the book is exactly what “secularity” is. Perhaps the main question of the book is: what does it mean to live in a secular age?
posted February 9, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Human errors are errors of conception not of perception. Perception is the automatic process of integrating sense data. Sense data are signals automatically produced by our sense organs when impacted by reality. They deliver them to the brain in accordance with their capacity. They cannot “choose” otherwise. On the other hand, your brain does have a choice when it comes to creating concepts out of percepts. That is where errors occur. For instance, your mind can choose to take an empty, silent room and conceive of an invisible, inaudible living entity that fills it or not. Through concept-formation you choose the content of your mind but not the automatic method by which it operates. See “Atlas Shrugged” for more details.
posted February 9, 2010 at 4:12 pm
It’s not a matter of having no evidence, it’s a matter of what “evidence” we each give authority to. We can’t see UV rays, but we have people who make gadgets that can and we believe those people. There are also people who claim to have experienced the supernatural or spiritual in some way.
Well, those are two different classes of evidence, aren’t they?
The evidence for UV rays is testable and the tests are repeatable.
People claiming to have experienced the supernatural are just making unprovable assertions.
Hector – thanks for expanding on that.
Rod, I still don’t see that there is anything to recover. I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask those who claim spirits exist to prove their claims.
posted February 9, 2010 at 4:13 pm
quote: “I did concluded that supernatural evil couldn’t exist because there’s even less evidence for it and any competent God wouldn’t tolerate it for a nanosecond or even have created it in the first place.”
This line of reasoning has never made any sense to me. Good and evil are themselves theological concepts. If God does not exist, then there is no reason to believe that any objective notion (i.e. “murder is always wrong”) of “good” and “evil” exist either. The only arguments I’ve seen against this point from secularists usually boil down to sentimentalism.
If God is a cultural construct, so too are good and evil. This is why the problem of evil is more a problem for atheism and agnosticism than for theism. The existence of evil does not disprove God when the only way we can say good and evil exist in the first place is if there is a God.
rr
posted February 9, 2010 at 4:33 pm
rr, I said religion is a cultural construct. I’m willing to entertain the concept of God. We’ve been round and round on this blog before about how Good and evil could exist independent of God. For example:
A secularist might define them in terms of hard wired instincts rooted in their biological utility.
A mathematician might use game theory to describe them and claim that other life forms might have similar moral laws because math is a universal property of reality.
A philosopher would raise the euthyphro dilemma and state they have to exist independent of God to avoid being God’s opinion.
The problem of evil is a problem for any God which claims the inconsistent triad of properties. If God only has two of them then there’s no problem. If God has no properties there’s no problem either.
posted February 9, 2010 at 4:48 pm
quote: “A philosopher would raise the euthyphro dilemma and state they have to exist independent of God to avoid being God’s opinion.”
MH,
I realize that people have been round and round on this topic here before. Briefly, the reasons you listed don’t add up in the slightest to me. The euthyphro dilemma is especially silly. As if God’s opinion (assuming we are talking about a God with the characteristics of the Christian God) doesn’t matter or is somehow an “opinion” any other being, or can even be properly described as an “opinion” in the first place. If God exist, he sure as heck isn’t like you and me.
I’m sure you’ll disagree and it’s probably not worth a lengthy argument, but in my view the idea that any meaningful morality exists without God is laughable. If I didn’t believe in God, I won’t believe in good and evil either.
rr
posted February 9, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Re: The problem of evil is a problem for any God which claims the inconsistent triad of properties. If God only has two of them then there’s no problem.
MH,
The problem of evil probably won’t ever be _solved_ this side of the grave, and you can certainly argue that you find the Christian arguments unconvicning on this point. (Though I would think the logical thing then would be to find another religion that you find more convincing). My own views on the problem of evil border on the heretical, and I’m not going to derail this thread here, but I don’t see why _atheism_ is a good solution.
To my mind, the problem of evil can be made more soluble by redefining what we mean by ‘omnipotence’. It doesn’t mean ‘able to do every action that we can name’. There is a whole list of Things that God Cannot Do, because they would be in some way contrary to His nature. God cannot decree that adultery or mass murder is OK. God cannot make 2 + 2 = 5. God cannot cease to exist, nor can he create another God. All these things are impossible for God because they would be contrary to His nature, but none of these things is a real limitation on God’s power. Omnipotence, properly understood, means the ability to do all things that are compatible with His nature. If we can demonstrate that blotting the devil out of existence would detract from God’s perfection, which I think does make a certain kind of sense (because a God that exists in opposition to evil is more perfect than a God who doesn’t) then that provides a solution, convincing to me at least, of why supernatural evil must exist.
posted February 9, 2010 at 4:56 pm
This probably stands as the secular counterpoint here:
http://blip.tv/file/2204956/
(It’s long, but very interesting) The basic point though, is looking at how we’re mentally wired for supernatural beliefs, and ways in which those can be helpful to community cohesion.
We’ve shifted hat propensity for magical thinking with the times (think of how often people take “research shows” at evidence without thinking to question the validity, or even actual existence of such) and found ways to exploit it (it’s pretty much the foundation on which modern advertising operates) but it’s still the same basic sense that oriented us on the supernatural to begin with.
Now whether this represents an actual ability to connect with something greater, or an inherited accident of development is probably a question that no one will agree on the answer to.
posted February 9, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Joan of Arc was my patron saint, so I’d be loath to consider her insane. But, even if we stipulate that she saw something, or was personally convinced that she saw something, why must we therefore concur that it was an angel? Those were the categories she had in mind, so that’s what she said she saw. A modern person might say she’d seen an alien. “Well, that’s obviously CRAZY!” you say, rolling your eyes. Why is it that seeing an alien is less believable than seeing an angel? There’s some inconsistency in Christians accepting the existence of angels and demons (and occasionally ghosts) but denying that people of other faiths can see djinns, fairies, devas, fox spirits, ascended masters and spirit guides of various stripes, gods, demigods, and the spirits of their ancestors. How do you banish all spiritual beings except those of your own tradition?
posted February 9, 2010 at 5:16 pm
John E.
Sure. Testimony is of a different nature than contained experimentation. Much in the same way that forensic evidence in court is different than a witness’s statements. Obviously the witness can’t reproduce the murder he claims to have seen. But that doesn’t mean he’s not telling the truth. It’s just a different kind of evidence. And it relies on trusting the witness. And you’re right, witness testimony is pretty much unprovable. But I would ask, is anything intrinsically provable? Is science? It seems to me that we trust science because it seems to work. We can make antibiotics and build bridges all based on scientific understanding and the drugs and bridges function. The interpretation grid that science places over reality seems to ring true and function. But it could be argued that religion also “rings true” and “functions”. Faith is a deeply held, personal thing, yes, but I think there’s also an element of resonation. The picture of reality presented by the religion resonates and functions and seems true and right to the person. I would argue that those two interpretation grids (scientific materialism on the one hand and religious mysticism on the other) have a lot of overlap in the way they operate. I don’t think science has the upper hand on intrinsic ‘provability’.
And if I sound like a totally detached ultra-relativist, I’m not. I’m a Christian. Belief in a supernatural Christ and all. But I know that if I’m talking to someone who doesn’t share my belief, a lot of what resonates with me is irrelevant to them. I wouldn’t try to convince someone that God exists (to me compulsive evangelizing betrays a severely atrophied faith) only that God or the supernatural in general is not as improbable as is commonly thought.
posted February 9, 2010 at 5:17 pm
rr, it makes sense you would view things that way because I think you derive the source of meaning from God. Someone who doesn’t would have a very different take on things.
Hector, I don’t think it is possible to will yourself to believe something you don’t. I all religions seemed equally unconvincing, then by default you fall into agnosticism or atheism.
My comparative religion course claimed all religions state there is something wrong with reality, but there is a perfect reality if you follow the path the religion describes. This seemed like humans complaining because the universe didn’t exist for our benefit. We could dispense with the whole enterprise if we just learned to accept the universe as it is.
Thanks for outlining your solution to the problem of evil. No shocker, but I find a problem with your solution. God claims that it is possible for him to create a perfect reality at a later point in time. So why didn’t he just create the universe at that point in time? He may be made more perfect in the struggle against evil, but everyone else suffers because of it.
posted February 9, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Re: God claims that it is possible for him to create a perfect reality at a later point in time. So why didn’t he just create the universe at that point in time?
Ah, the old “Heaven” riposte to my argument. I suspected you might bring that up. It’s a good and sophisticated argument, and I’m not really sure of a good response to it.
One shot at answering that challenge comes from St. Augustine, who argued that heaven wouldn’t really be heaven without our memories of having struggled with sin on earth (and perhaps in purgatory as well), because those struggles give us our identity. Of course this creates another problem- what about the souls of very young infants, who presumably don’t experience temptation and struggle in this life. So I wouldn’t say I buy the Augustinian argument wholesale.
But no, I can’t give you a good logical response.
posted February 9, 2010 at 6:14 pm
God cannot decree that adultery or mass murder is OK.
Tell that to the Canaanites
I don’t think science has the upper hand on intrinsic ‘provability’.
Seriously? To you your example – do you really think that there is equivalent evidence for the existence of UV light as there is for the existence of angels?
posted February 9, 2010 at 6:44 pm
“what a religious would be that actually comes to grips with modernity”
Buddhism?
posted February 9, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Rod, I think that there is more than one way of reading the Galileo affair: The modern prejudice is that the Jesuits and Dominicans in the curia who decided his case were acting in defense of religious dogma.
I say that they (Renaissance men all, polymaths who could intellectually blitz 99% of the modern critics who smear them for being religious bigots) were far more concerned with defending the *scientific* dogma then in vogue. Namely Aristotelian and Ptolemaic theory that the sun orbited the earth.. As you know, Orthodox/Catholic exegesis has never been “fundamentalist” – The cardinals judging Galileo were not obsessing over Joshua 10:12, as if Biblical inerrancy was at all at issue..
Reading the actual record – the minutes of the trial and the correspondence of the principles – is pretty illuminating. The philosophy (natural science) faculty at Bologna (etc.) was very threatened by Galileo and Copernicus. They played politics, and the curial court came to their assistance..
To defend the then current scientific orthodoxy.
I always like to remind people that Copernicus was a Catholic priest, and that both Galileo’s daughters were nuns. Galileo’s patrons at the Medici court were also consummately Catholic. The Italian Renaissance was born of a Catholic milieu..
It is only modern secularist bigotry that glosses over the wider and deeper context, to paint the Church as obscurantist and backward.
As you ought to know, she is anything but..
Cheers.
posted February 9, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Hector, my mom always said “rough seas make strong strong sailors” when I brought this up, which is along that line of thought. Personally I think the best answer is “it’s a mystery” because at some level the universe really is baffling.
Charles Curtis, Copernicus had the good sense to publish posthumously, so he was untouchable. From what I’ve read Galileo’s book had some pretty harsh parody which is what got him in hot water. It still isn’t a defense for how he was treated.
posted February 9, 2010 at 9:13 pm
John E.
No. I don’t think there’s equivalent evidence. I don’t think they’re the same types of knowledge. I only meant to make the point that there is some overlap in the faith that some people put into rationalism and the faith that some people put into mysticism/religion. That scientific understanding is not exempt from demanding of its followers some level of, for lack of a better term, faith. At its most basic level, it’s faith in our senses. A little further up the tree it’s a faith in inference. And so on. And on the other side of that, I was just trying to say that religious experience is not completely without evidence.
So no, I don’t think they’re equivalent, I just think they’re less disparate than is commonly thought.
posted February 9, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Ragan, rather than faith I would say axioms. Science assumes that objective reality exists, that it means something when we do the same action and get the same outcome, the laws of nature apply everywhere, and our memories can be trusted.
I wouldn’t put ultraviolet light in that camp because like all electromagnetic radiation it has visible side effects. If it gets red shifted you can see it, or at least infer that it was ultraviolet light.
posted February 9, 2010 at 10:52 pm
MH.
Fair enough. Science wouldn’t have anywhere to go if it didn’t assume those things. An idea that interests me personally is whether or not you can believe in objective reality without believing in some sort of higher power giving “Truth” its capital “T”. I don’t know for sure where I stand on it, but its something I keep coming back to. How do we know we can trust our reason? Besides the fact that it does its job and functions for us, what makes us believe that our reasoning is a true response to our world and not simply a fact about our brains? A peculiarity of our physical makeup that might well have been otherwise. I do believe in reasoning, but I wonder if my belief in its ability to reach actual Truth might require something beyond materialism.
posted February 9, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Besides the fact that it does its job and functions for us,
That’s really all I require from my reasoning faculties.
what makes us believe that our reasoning is a true response to our world and not simply a fact about our brains?
Why not both?
posted February 9, 2010 at 11:28 pm
John E.
Point taken. But if our reasoning were only a fact about our brains, we would have no way to claim it was also a means of getting at actual Truth. In that scenario, saying “2+2=4″ wouldn’t be any different than saying “I prefer carrots to potatos.”
Also, I’m new here. How is everyone doing the italic quote thing?
posted February 10, 2010 at 12:55 am
We should have some sort of sticky explaining the bracket codes.
to start italicizing, type the less-than sign, the letter ‘i’, then the greater-than sign
to stop italicizing, type the less-than sign, the forward-slash ‘/’ the letter ‘i’, then the greater-than sign
to bold, same thing, but b instead of i
to blockquote, same thing, but ‘blockquote’ (minus the quote marks) instead of i.
I don’t know the code for making links, anyone want to post that?
Ragan: But if our reasoning were only a fact about our brains, we would have no way to claim it was also a means of getting at actual Truth.
I’m not sure you can ever get at Truth. I think the best you can do is to work with more accurate descriptions of Objective Reality.
In that scenario, saying “2+2=4″ wouldn’t be any different than saying “I prefer carrots to potatos.”
I’m not sure I agree with you there. Mathematics has a limited rule set for manipulating symbols and also, those rules are not subject to change. The range of human preferences is wide.
I know you are getting at something important. I’m just not getting these metaphors.
posted February 10, 2010 at 2:16 am
John E.
Thanks for explaining the quote thing. Now I wish I needed to italicize something.
I know that mathematics isn’t subject to change. It’s rigid and there is always a right answer (there, found something). It’s just that, in a materialist worldview, I don’t see how the answer can claim to be Objectively Right, in the universally true sense, if our Reasoning (which is what gives us mathematics) is merely a phenomenon of the atoms moving in our brains, which to me seems to inevitably be the case if physical matter is the whole of reality. The answer could be Right, in the objective sense, we just wouldn’t ever be able to verify it, since the only thing we have to scrutinize and evaluate our Reasoning with is our Reasoning. It seems like there’s no getting beyond that as a materialist. Every event (thought, Reason, logic, Math – all that is purely physical in a materialist worldview) seems like it would have to just be the inevitable playing-out of matter. Just complex cause and effect, in the dirt we walk on and in the synapses we use to infer things. How can that produce objectively knowable and verifiable Truth? Who or what can verify it? We can’t. Our Reasoning can’t be the judge and the defendant. Does that make any sense?
Anyway. No need to go round and round about it. It’s just something I’m very intrigued with.
posted February 10, 2010 at 8:05 am
Ragan, yeah, we’re kind of reaching the point of diminishing returns here.
What I keep coming back to is that while a Materialists ideal might be to find Truth about the external world – and, yes, that presupposes that what we sense corresponds to an external reality, I totally concede that point – the best we can do is to approach more and more accurate models of Reality.
posted February 10, 2010 at 10:24 am
Ragan, your asking what is the foundation of mathematics which is something no one has an answer to. Most mathematicians any physicists suspect that math is a property of reality just like gravity. That’s why it is predictive about reality and not just descriptive.
Basically it is possible to observe a truth and not know why it is true.
posted February 10, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Fair enough. I can respect a pragmatic approach to the ‘Truth’ question.
posted February 11, 2010 at 7:15 am
Rod, do you think you’d be better off with a separate pair of prescription reading glasses, instead of bifocals? You’d still have to switch glasses, but maybe the prescription reading lenses would then work for you.
posted February 11, 2010 at 9:17 am
I started wearing progressive lenses almost three years ago after resisting for two years. In some people they cause motions sickness during a period of adjustment. It took about three weeks of feeling like I was in a fun-house, but after pushing through I adapted.
Regular bifocals drive me crazy because I’m so nearsighted that my eyes can focus on the line instead of looking through the lens. Dust on my lenses or glare has the same effect so I keep them scrupulously clean.
The downside of progressives or bifocals is that you can’t get them made cheaply like a single vision pair of glasses. The optician needs to take into account your near and far PD, the drop in your gaze, and your height (no kidding). So I pay dearly for a good pair of glasses.
Now two pairs of glasses avoids all this trouble, and you save money. But the conservation of difficulty theorem says it creates the juggling glasses problem.
posted February 18, 2010 at 3:02 pm
By all means, if something is at least possible, we are justified in ordering our lives by it.
“That certain truths about the nature of reality itself only disclose themselves to those who are prepared to receive them.”
A classic statement of mystery cults. Good luck with that.