Atheism, take two

[dougo]

mshonle pointed this out in a comment, but I think it deserves a new post: Bill Moyers interviewing Daniel Dennett on the Charlie Rose show. This I find much more satisfying than Dawkins's show, both in presentation and in content: it's nearly a full hour of one single conversation, without the uncomfortable and somewhat stuntish confontations. But moreover, Dennett's take on religion and atheism is much more sophisticated and benevolent than Dawkins's: rather than suggesting that religion and faith are fundamentally detrimental to society, Dennett is happy to let religion live and thrive, as long as we can get rid of what he calls the "toxic" parts of religion.

This is somewhat related to an idea I've been mulling over for a while now, which I was going to talk about in the previous post but decided to save for a later essay. But I'll mention a little bit of it now: I'd like to come up with an operational definition of what it means to be theist or atheist or agnostic. (Perhaps "behavioral" is a better word than "operational", if you know more about psychology than computer science theory.) In some sense, I truly don't care if you believe in God or not—what matters to me is what actions you take that affect me. Claiming to believe in God or not is often a good indicator for the actions you might take, but not always, and I'd like to think more about specifically what actions matter. There are different levels of mattering, of course; I care less about what a fellow citizen of my country does than what a coworker does or what a girlfriend does. But I haven't gotten much further than that yet. Maybe someone's already done this somewhere?

Comments

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

I like to consider to what degree a belief system is totalizing. A totalizing system doesn't simply claim infallibility, but completeness--every question can be, and can only be, answered by reference to the system.

This is really a description of the system as interpreted by the individual adherent, but some systems do seem to be more prone to implementation-as-totality (e.g. Marxism) than others.

[mshonle.livejournal.com]

The behavioral distinction actually points out something related that I don't like about protestantism. Many protestants (I won't say most) have this belief that "belief in Jesus" is the only thing you need to get into heaven. To make it worse, even those who've never found out about Jesus won't get in.

In other words, you could have two people: one acts like a total ass and just barely follows the law; the other does good deeds everywhere he goes and loves everyone he meets. If the first believes in Jesus, while the second doesn't, only the first would get into heaven.

I have much more respect for Catholicism, which says that deeds do matter and that even people who are good people who don't believe will still get in to heaven.

It's not that I have much of a claim in what each branch believes... it's the consequences of those beliefs that disturb me. And don't even get me started on their twisted concept of "morality."

[ex-colorwhe.livejournal.com]

in judaism, at least as i have always understand it, faith matters pretty much zero, and act/action matters 100%. i would be interested in others' opinions on whether i've misgrokked judaism.

Claiming to believe in God or not is often a good indicator for the actions you might take, but not always

not always, to the degree that i'm curious why the focus of your exploration is religion-focused. if it's because religion/atheism specifically interests you, that makes perfect sense (and is probably the answer, i see upon re-reading). but if what you're really after, overall, is various moral or immoral actions that are taken, why not trace all the paths that lead there instead of just religion?

i bristle at implications that immorality comes from faith/religion just as much as i bristle at the implication that morality does.

just my two cents.

-cw, a jew

[mshonle.livejournal.com]

It makes sense to study religion separately because it is an interesting phenomenon. I suppose you could broaden your search to include all memetic entities, including languages, common law, etiquette and markets.

But since when can we really study all of these things without also studying each separately? We have linguists, historians, economists... why not scientists that study religion too?

I think that's pretty much Dennett's point: it occurs to no one to ask why we might study prime numbers, soil samples, or insects. But the moment you mention you are studying religion the defense system starts up. The time has come that we break that spell.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I think that's just what I'm doing: I want to think about actions without referring to any religious beliefs or moral code at all, because the thing I care about is actions, not beliefs. I want to be agnostic about whether the actions are inspired by religion, or morality, or instinct, or an alien puppet master hiding in one's shirt.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Hm, let me try a different answer. Yes, I am focusing on religion here, but not because I think it is the ultimate source of all actions. What I want is to figure out what exactly someone means when they tell me they are religious or agnostic or atheist, in terms of how their actions might affect me. This is partly because these labels have so many different and conflicting definitions, but even two people who pretty much agree on their definitions can still come to very different conclusions about what actions to take. I realize that the path to these conclusions depends more on things other than religion, but I'd like to isolate which part of that path does come from religion (if any).

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

I finally figured out in the past few years that whether someone calls themselves a Christian or a pagan or an atheist or whatever bears very little relationship to how they treat people, or even, for that matter, what they believe about the nature of the universe and their place in it. People mean remarkably different things by their category labels.

I learned this mostly by falling in love with someone who designated himself a Christian. He doesn't anymore, but that's a different story....

[ex-colorwhe.livejournal.com]

yes, that sounds pretty interesting to me too then. though it's hard for me to picture any results being solid, because people and their motivations are so complicated and ever-shifting...

i guess i mean, i predict you'll have to be finding that stuff out for each person individually, rather reaching any point where formulas appear. i'm including how they explain their chosen label, what sorts of actions they take in life, and how those categories are connected. i'm not sure any of that can be pinned down in any neat categories.

-cw, a deconstructionist (duh) ;)

[llyrica.livejournal.com]

think that you've set yourself a big task, in that within each religion you have vastly different interpretations of how one "should" behave as well as people with behavioral problems that may or may not live up to the "shoulds."

For example, molesting children is not something that the Catholic church teaches is good, but look at the news. I'm sure each one of us has our take on why and how the huge proliferation of the behavioral problem came about, but it's definitely antithetical to the beliefs taught by the religion.

So, interesting questions for me that I think are adjacent to yours would be as follows:

"What, if anything, is reasonable to assume someone believes if they participate in or self-identify with a given religion or belief system?"

"What is the relationship between belief and practise?"

"What is the relationship between belief and action?"

[llyrica.livejournal.com]

Argh, having trouble not messing up posting this. Pls to be adding an "I" at the top of my comment above.

[anyeone.livejournal.com]

in judaism, at least as i have always understand it, faith matters pretty much zero, and act/action matters 100%. i would be interested in others' opinions on whether i've misgrokked judaism.

Yes and no.

First of all, I'll give the disclaimer that my comments refer to traditional Judaism rather than what someone in a reform or conservative synagogue might say, because that's what I'm familiar with as having previously been an observer of traditional (aka Orthodox) Judaism.

In traditional Judaism, the belief is that all Jews and righteous gentiles have a place in the world to come (closest analogue to the Christian "heaven" concept). All it takes to be a righteous gentile is to follow the seven Noahide laws, which are very basic things like not murdering, not committing adultery, not eating the leg of an animal while it is still alive...very basic stuff.

So why "all" Jews, you may ask. Surely they aren't all righteous enough to deserve a place in the world to come? Well, no, they are not - at least not right away. The idea as I understand it is that after Jews die there is some place they would go to effectively (to use a Christian metaphor that only sort of fits) be cleansed of their non-righteousness and become worthy. The better a person lived on Earth, the less of this "spirit washing" they'd need to go through.

Now, back to the "action vs. faith" issue.

In traditional Judaism there are many commandments (something like 633) that Jews are supposed to follow. Not all commandments apply to each person - some are for men, some for women, some for married people etc. But Jews don't follow these commandments to get some reward or salvation, and there is no concept that these things make you a good *person*. They may make you a good *Jew* but not necessarily a good person. They do them because they believe they are obligated to do them. Their faith is actually not relevant though - if a Jew tells his rabbi that he's feeling doubts about faith, the rabbi will most likely tell him that it is not the faith that is important but the actions.

As an example of this view, compare the Jewish and Christian opinions on charity. In the Christian viewpoint, it is better for a poor person to give $5 to charity than a millionaire to give $50,000 to charity, if that $5 is a bigger proportion of the poor person's wealth, because it shows more generosity on the part of the giver. In the Jewish viewpoint, both people are doing a mitzvah (good deed) but the millionaire giving $50,000 is better because it gives more help than the $5 donation does. Judaism doesn't care as much about the motivation as it does about the end result - how many people are helped (or how much they are helped).

All of these things lead to why Judaism is not an evangelical religion. There isn't really any advantage to being Jewish for most people - most people will have a place in the world to come as long as they aren't really horrible people. In fact, were they to become Jewish without really truly wanting to, they would essentially go from being good gentiles to not-quite-as-good Jews -- because they might not follow the commandments that Jews are supposed to follow. In essence being Jewish is an obligation, not a privilege, and why would someone really want to take on this obligation (that has no inherent advantage) unless they truly felt in their heart that was what they were supposed to do? This is why traditional Judaism *discourages* people from converting, asks them to live as an observant Jew for a long time to make sure it is what they really want. (Note that more modern forms of Judaism are far more lenient and open to people converting to Judaism - because they don't believe these obligations apply anymore, so there is no reason to discourage people.)

i bristle at implications that immorality comes from faith/religion just as much as i bristle at the implication that morality does.

I agree 100% with this. Religion *can* lead to morality or immorality, and so can the lack thereof. The two have no inherent relationship, despite the insistence of many religious people to the contrary.

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

There are different levels of mattering, of course; I care less about what a fellow citizen of my country does than what a coworker does or what a girlfriend does. But I haven't gotten much further than that yet. Maybe someone's already done this somewhere?

That part is covered by The Monkeysphere.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

To be clear, I wasn't saying that a fellow citizen matters less to me than a girlfriend. (Which may or may not be true, depending on context—I wouldn't mourn the death of a random stranger, but that doesn't mean it's any more okay to murder a random stranger that to murder my girlfriend.) But what actions I would tolerate from a fellow citizen is different from what actions I would tolerate from a girlfriend. For example, I don't think getting drunk every night should be illegal, but I wouldn't date someone who did.

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

Yup. The death of a random stranger doesn't emotionally affect you personally very much, but you rationally and ethically recognize it as wrong.

[nosrednayduj]

In some ways it matters more what the man-on-the-street does than your girlfriend, as he's the one electing the president...

Personally I think that organized religion is much worse than just plain belief. It's the people who tell the man on the street to vote for Bush that are the problem. People don't want to think, so they turn to the church for their opinions.

I know! Let's have them turn to the Unitarian-Universalists for their opinions!

I've sent this link to my housemate, who is a UU and a raving athiest, and often has thoughts on these subjects. Perhaps she'll post.

UU's and non-belief

[valerie-white.livejournal.com]

I'm the housemate nosrednayduj mentioned. I've been a UU for 44 years. Historically, in the US, Unitarians took the position that there was no basis in scripture for a belief in the trinity. Transcendentalism liberalized their beliefs even further. By the 1930's there was a wave of humanism in the denomination. Many of the signers of the first Humanist Manifesto were humanist Unitarian ministers. Eventually they rejected hell. They were "universalists" with a small u.

Universalists on the other hand took the position that there was no basis in scripture for a belief in damnation. They believed that a loving creator god would not damn any of his/her creations to hell. They therefore believed in universal salvation. Eventually they too rejected the trinity. They were "unitarian" with a small u. (Incidentally, that "his/her" is not just 21st century political correctness. A renowned Universalist preacher of the 1800's whose prayers are preserved regularly addressed them to "our father and our mother god.")

They two denominations merged in 1961. Until the 1980s or so, the Unitarian Universalists were overwhelmingly humanist--finding the concept of a deity meaningless. Now, humanists comprise slightly less than 50 percent of UUs. The rest UU Buddhists, UU Taoists, UU Pagans, UU Christians, deists and agnostics and "I'm not sure but there must be something out there." (UU Christians revere and admire Jesus as a prophet and teacher but do not generally consider him divine.)

There is no statement of beliefs or creed to which one must subscribe in order to join a UU congregation. There are a set of "principles" which are intended to summarize the core beliefs UU's hold in common, but they are "descriptive", not "prescriptive". We covenant to affirm and promote: "the inherent dignity and worth of every person." "The democratic process", "Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part." "The goal of world community."

I should say that by "humanist" I mean a person without belief in a deity, who thinks that what is important is the quality of self-aware life in the here and now. I use the term "humanist" as functionally equivalent to "atheist" . . . a "humanist" is an atheist with compassion, perhaps.

In the same vein, I should report a common UU joke . . ."What's the definition of a UU?" "An atheist with kids." The point is that UU non-believers who have been "unchurched" frequently "come it" (to borrow an espionage term) when they feel the need of a beloved community and some ethical/comparative religion studies for their children.

Valerie

more on morals and belief

[valerie-white.livejournal.com]

Ethics are derived from reason guided by experience and tempered by compassion. The god-believer who "behaves" for fear of divine retribution is less praiseworthy than the non-believer who acts morally out of conviction and lovingkindness. It has always been strange to me that (the Catholic church excepted) the SAME people who claim to be "pro-life" in opposing a woman's right to choose her reproductive destiny are the same people who fervently advocate for the death penalty. Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong? In my opinion, the primary motivation behind opposition to abortion rights is the conviction that any woman who has sex should be punished with a pregnancy.

Re: more on morals and belief

[anyeone.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, the primary motivation behind opposition to abortion rights is the conviction that any woman who has sex should be punished with a pregnancy.

Well said!