Dropsafe

by Alec Muffett

meta-Atheism, dextro-Atheism and laevo-Atheism

So I was having a conversation in my blog comments, where I opined:

I find it understandable but inevitably curious that you put it like that – “walking away from faith” as if faith (in some kind of God) was something concrete, tangible and useful. I understand you believe that but it’s a perspective that I don’t share, much like “walking away from vegetarianism” or “walking away from Star Trek” – you can walk away from communities, people and places, but not from an abstract notion.

I’d find it more accurate to say that you choose to “embrace” a particular faith, whereas I ignore the multiplicity that are on offer — much as others embrace veganism as a way of life, while I enjoy bacon. In the first case you’ve made a choice and taken an action to participate and do stuff which is not actually incumbent upon you; in the latter case I have not chosen to restrict my diet from everything that the free market economy might make available to me – although I do make sub-choices amongst those.

In both cases it is those who have taken the positive step in either embracement or denial – Christians and Vegans – who are the identifiable subgroup, distinct from everyone else.

This led me to thinking about “positive choices” and “negative choices”, and yet how in both cases the choice is a positive act.

  • The Christian embraces a Christian faith from the panoply of faiths which are available.
  • The Vegan elects to remove from their diet any non-vegan food that is amongst the panoply of foods which are available.

Both of these choices require additional effort on the part of the individual, even though one is clearly positive (go to church, profess the faith, etc) and the other negative (not eat meat/milk/eggs/animal products, etc).

With the human body you do not really have the option not to eat — it’s not feasible to eschew food entirely, so there are few if any long-lasting “antifoodists” — but (in the West) it’s quite possible to do without theism, and the least-effort option is to do without religious belief, so at least one form of Atheism is simply “never bothering to participate in a religion”.

It struck me that there might be other forms of Atheism – notably those who reject religion rather than having never embraced it in the first place. I wondered if these might be “meta-atheists”, but a quick Google suggested the term meant something quite different:

http://philosophytalk.typepad.com/blog/files/MetaAtheism.pdf

Meta-atheism: Religious Avowal as Self-Deception
Georges Rey, Philosophy, Univ of Maryland

[…]

This is my hunch about what passes as “religious belief” (although I expect the other issues about self-ignorance, expression, and intended audience may also play a role). And so I find myself taking seriously the following hypothesis, which (for lack of a better name) I call meta-atheism:

Despite appearances, most Western adults who’ve been exposed to standard science and claim to believe in God are self-deceived; at some level they know full well the belief is false.

…viz: “meta-atheists” according to Rey are believers who – deep down in their hearts – don’t actually believe; which is fair enough and is a fair appropriation of the term.

But it means that I need an different name.

Hence I propose “dextroatheist” as a term to describe those atheists who simply have never been arsed to embrace a religion, and “laevoatheist” for those who are atheists in reaction against some experience of religion. From this model also springs “dextrotheist” for those who (eg: for family reasons) have never known the option of anything other than faith in a deity, and “laevotheist” for those who’ve actively chosen religion of their own accord – possibly in reaction to exposure to atheists. [typo fixed]

So I’m an dextroatheist antitheist. What are you? 🙂

One challenge of the laevo-forms is that you can get into discussions like this — but at least they’re entertaining.

⊞

Comments

26 responses to “meta-Atheism, dextro-Atheism and laevo-Atheism”

  1. Mel Rimmer

    It varies over time, then. In the Middle Ages in Britain, for example, theism (specifically one or other flavour of Christianity) was the default position requiring least action. Atheism at the time would have been a negative choice (choosing to eschew the social norm) requiring effort and placing oneself at personal risk.

    Reply
    1. alecm

      @mel – What you get lumbered with, does vary, yes; likewise if you live in a strongly Islamic country, or are raised by christian parents, or (swapping back to metaphor) live in a largely vegetarian country where bacon would not be available… then you will likely end up a believer and/or a vegetarian due to environment.

      What interests me is the individual context, though; whether you are chastened into believing that meat-eating (given the opportunity) would be wrong irrespective of your thoughts regarding the matter; or whether you might be beheaded for declaring apostasy.

      In many cases it might be a case of fish not knowing about air, or vacuum, because they can only swim (and survive) in the water – but that’s the tragedy of religion.

      It _needn’t_ be mandatory; but some people thrust it upon others.

      That’s pretty close to totalitarianism.

      Reply
  2. alecm

    @mel – one other thing; i don’t think it’s a matter of “least action” but “any action in the face of opportunity cost” – that it is wise to profess faith when all around you are holding knives just seems like common sense; see the meta-atheism paper, referenced; cf: to eat meat when all around you is vegetarian, requires (a) killing, cleaning and cooking and animal and (b) disposing of the remains without (c) being shunned. Cost/benefit comes into play.

    Reply
  3. Constantin Gonzalez

    Hi Alec,

    love your atheism related discussions and articles :).

    So by this nomenclature, we share the same variant first half of belief system: I’m a dextroatheist antitheist either.

    But I have a problem with the term “antitheist”. It implies some kind of fight against gods (which is impossible, at least inside our own belief system) or against those who worship gods.

    It’s the latter that I don’t want to be associated with. I think I understand why religions exist in the first place, and I think that the things religions do can be good for most people most of the time. And so I choose to respect those who (by choice or not) embrace a belief system that includes gods.

    If “anti” is “against” and “pro” is “for”, then what would be the prefix for “let everyone believe what they want”? dontcaretheist? toleratheist?

    I kinda like the latter: I’m a dextroatheist toleratheist. Thanks for letting me into your group, it was fun while it lastest, I’ll now create/join the non-church of dextroatheist toleratheists :).

    Cheers,
    Constantin

    P.S.: There’s a typo at the end of your article. It should say “have never known the option of anything other than faith in a deity”, which is more tangible than faith alone (which atheists are perfectly capable of).

    Reply
  4. Clive

    Me, I’m ignostic. While I suppose that involves at least a passive decision not to believe anything without terminology and evidence, it feels like a good default.

    Certainly, while I’ll reject much theistic thinking as deeply flawed, I don’t think the non-existence of any or all gods is any more proven than the existence.

    Reply
    1. alecm

      >I don’t think the non-existence of any or all gods is any more proven than the existence.

      You’re quite right; I’ve just gotten bored with all the discussions of “tooth-fairy agnosticism” and “99.99999…%” certainty.

      Reply
  5. Geoff Arnold

    Picking a category is different, because in my case I went along with the theatre of religion (incense, Latin Mass) right up to the point where I was old enough to think about it seriously (about 13-14). At that point I realized that the whole thing was an incoherent crock and I walked away. Not reacting against some experience of religion, just recognizing who I was.

    Excluded middle, anyone?

    Reply
    1. alecm

      @geoff – I suppose that makes you racemic 🙂

      Reply
  6. Adrian Cockcroft

    I’m also a dextroatheist antitheist. My parents told me that it was up to me to choose what I believed when I grew up, and I was aware of a diverse set of religions without being told at an impressionable age that one was true over the others.

    I became an antitheist more recently, as I’m sure that none of the gods can exist, because supernatural activity violates the most basic physics principle of conservation of energy. Stengers recent book, The New Atheism has a chapter that discusses how the laws of physics are internally consistent and emergent, that was what crystallized my thoughts firmly into Antitheism.

    Reply
  7. alecm

    @adrian – basically ditto; I think my Dad was a tad disappointed at how I tuned out in this regard, but hey ho; as for antitheism I ascribe that to Sagan and Harris – the belief that our highest goal should be to get off this rock and the observation that we could be doing rather more positive things with life other than arguing (to quote Bart) “who has the better imaginary friend”.

    Reply
  8. Simon

    I’m with Clive, ignostic.

    Decided not only do I not believe in any god or gods so far described to me (previously I’d have described myself as an atheist), those who claim to believe generally have no clear definition of what it is they believe in, or if they do they don’t actually believe that.

    Reply
  9. Mel Rimmer

    The way you characterise religion bears no resemblance at all to the way I live my own faith. I’ve never argued with anybody about who has the better imaginary friend. My faith has nothing at all to do with judging how anybody else lives their life. It also has nothing at all to do with punishment or reward in the hereafter. It is exclusively to do with how I live my own life, and my relationship with a personal God. It is not a list of “thou shalt not”s but a source of joy and wonder to me.

    I recognise that there are people who describe themselves as Christian who are full of hate and unpleasantness and stupidity and other negative attributes. But the same is true if you replace “Christian” with any non-trivial set of people.

    This is not trying to say “My religion is ace and you should try it”. It is just a mild protest that keep referring to a group of which I define myself as a member, and yet most of the statements you make about that group do not describe me at all.

    Reply
  10. Constantin Gonzalez

    Hmm.

    If we all decide to worship Alec (or any other atheist) as a god, will he self-destruct?

    (Not that I would want this to happen.)

    SCNR :),
    Constantin

    Reply
  11. Chris Samuel

    @mel,@alecm,

    Re the medieval period, I suspect we are not really able to put ourselves into the mindset and beliefs of the people of that time and that colours our perception of what was normal and rational for them.

    I found it most enlightening to read Giraldus Cambrensis “The itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales” and “The Description of Wales” (both circa 1180,1190 CE) to get a handle on the sorts of things that were believed back then in terms of how the world worked, and what was in the world. It really does read like something from Holy Grail at times..

    For example:

    # The other lake is noted for a wonderful and
    # singular miracle. It contains three sorts of
    # fish – eels, trout, and perch, all of which have
    # only one eye, the left being wanting; but if the
    # curious reader should demand of me the
    # explanation of so extraordinary a circumstance,
    # I cannot presume to satisfy him. It is remarkable
    # also, that in two places in Scotland, one near
    # the eastern, the other near the western sea, the
    # fish called mullets possess the same defect,
    # having no left eye.

    and

    # A bitch also was pregnant by a monkey, and
    # produced a litter of whelps resembling a
    # monkey before, and the dog behind

    They also believed that weasels were poisonous..

    Reply
  12. alecm

    @Mel –

    So, in your religion will your Hindu friends go to heaven?

    And if so, why not prefer (say) Ganesha over Jesus, since ?

    Of course you might choose not to answer those questions, but then there’s not a lot to distinguish your position from either solipsism, or a god whose only attribute is to be able to change your mental state.

    Reply
  13. alecm

    @gonzo: No – although my ego might temporarily find it amusing, research suggests my super-id rejects praise. 🙂

    Reply
  14. alecm

    @chris: That’s fantastic. Puts homeopathy into context.

    Reply
  15. Mel Rimmer

    What are we talking about here? I was talking about some of your statements about “religion” which do not match my own experience of “religion”. For example “arguing about who has the best imaginary friend”. Do you want to talk about that some more, or shall we start talking about my own personal faith? That would take a while, since to answer your question we would both have to come to an agreement about what we each mean by “heaven” for just one thing.
    Incidentally, I once ran a Sunday school session wearing a Krishna tshirt. I only noticed as I was guiding all the little kiddies up the aisle to communion.

    Reply
    1. alecm

      @mel – I just asked a short and I feel reasonably simple question, of the wider context of what faith you adhere to.

      Your answer is not mandatory, but I’d be interested in it, in your own context – and I’d extend your observation that if I’d have to understand your definition of “heaven”[1] then I would also need an explanation or definition of the words “you” and “in” with regard to that heaven… and of course given “you” the question of whether there would be “others” there.

      And after that, we could do “if so, which others” and “why did they get there”?
      —
      [1] …not necessarily agree it, but understand it.

      Reply
  16. Mel Rimmer

    Here goes. These speculations are arrived at from personal experience with something I perceived as “God”, from reading the Bible and other works, from prayer and from thinking.
    Heaven is not a place that is “up” and is filled with angels playing clouds on harps, nor is it the reward for living your life according to a particular set of rules. Nor is it, in fact, something either of us can understand because it is outside any frame of reference any of us have. But my understanding is that it is what we will all experience (you, me, Hindus, everyone) after we die, and the part of us which is immortal is freed from our corporeal existence and the limits that places on us. Freed from time, space etc. we will be able to perceive the sum total of how we lived our lives, the choices we made, the paths we didn’t take, and crucially the effects we had on other people. No doubt for all of us there will be aspects we are pleased with and aspects we regret. I believe God (I’m just as happy referring to God as “The Great Big Whatever” to indicate that my personal understanding of a Judeo-Christian God is not and cannot possibly be a complete or accurate representation, any more than an individual ant living in my back garden can know Mel Rimmer. But I believe that any human who has ever somehow perceived or wished to perceive the Great Big Whatever has access to the same entity that I habitually call “God”, although they may call it Ganesh or Allah or something else) Where was I? Oh yes, I believe God sent Jesus to earth to help us know how to live lives we would not regret. In the same way that when I teach my children not to stick their fingers in electric sockets I am not creating an arbitrary set of rules so that I can judge them, but I am merely trying to prevent them from coming to harm. God also sent other messengers to other peoples to convey similar messengers. In the Bible they are called Prophets. But the Bible comes from a particular culture and cannot speak about whether messengers were sent to groups with whom the ancient Hebrews had no contact, such as the Chinese or the Native American Indians, or the three-armed purple-skinned inhabitants of Zebulon Beta. In the bible a fairly simple set of ten rules were passed down to help people live their lives well, but apparently they managed to fuck that up. That’s people for you. So later we were given one even simpler rule “Love God and love each other”. I have no idea how you get from that simple rule to the Crusades or the Inquisition or the Vatican or Gitmo. People’s unlimited ability to fuck up I suppose. Anyway, I try to live my life according to this simple rule. I interpret “Love God” as meaning “read the Bible and try to figure out how God wants you to live, and pray to God for the same reason; have a personal day-to-day relationship with God, whatever you perceive it to be”. “Love each other” seems pretty self-explanatory, although it can be bastard-hard to put into practice sometimes.

    There you go, that’s my fairy tale or part of it anyway. You can dismiss it, or laugh at it, or ask me more questions and try to pick it apart. The only reason I tell it is because a) you asked and b) to demonstrate that it does not resemble (in my opinion) the way you represent faith and religion in some of your writings. Maybe you think it does actually. But I don’t argue over who has the best imaginary friend because they’re all the same one really. And I don’t live my life in fear of hell or wish of heaven. I live my life here on earth as best I can. I don’t fear God, because I know it loves me. I don’t try to please God because I’m trying to gain some reward or avoid some punishment, I try to do what it wants because I believe it wants what is best for me. I don’t give a damn about judging anyone else because I have been judged by other people and it sucks. What do they know anyway? What do I know? So I don’t do that. I go to church because I like to, it works for me. I teach my kids to love God because, honestly, if you can imagine believing the way I do, wouldn’t you want your kids to share it too? It seems to me the same as giving them ice cream. Ice cream is nice, I want my kids to have nice things. I could just throw a buch of sprouts and legos and chocolate bars and gravel and scorpions and stuff at them and let them figure out what tastes good and what doesn’t, but it seems bizarre when I have already worked out what things are good to eat and what are not, not to share that knowledge with them.

    One final story. My eldest son made his first communion when he was 8. Already at that age he had decided he didn’t believe in God. At age 6 he had told our priest “I don’t believe in God but I do believe in aliens”. The parent volunteers who taught the first communion programme kicked him out “for asking questions” so I went through the programme with him at home and tried to answer his questions as best I could. (Why did I make him do his first communion when he already said he didn’t believe in God? I agonised over it but decided to do it because a) it is an important social event in a Catholic primary school and my son was already struggling socially, I was reluctant to let him single himself out further, and b) he was 8 years old, who knew if he might not change his mind later. It would have been tricky at age 10 or 12 if he wanted to participate in catholic life if he had not made his first communion. And it seemed there was no harm done if he did not ever change his mind. I was not bending his arm up the aisle. It was just one of many things he did because mum wanted him to although he didn’t want to, along with doing his homework, tidying his bedroom and kissing his aunts) Anyway I was trying to get him excited about the day by telling him there was going to be a big party and he would get presents. “What kind of presents?” he asked suspiciously, “Good presents or holy presents?” Well he got a mixture of good presents and holy presents. His sponsor sent him a tenner, for example. But it just so happened that on the morning of his first communion a charity letter from Oxfam dropped through the door and on the cover it said “If you have brown eyes, you are twice as likely to die before your tenth birthday”. My son saw this. He has brown eyes and it freaked him out, so I opened the letter with him, just to reassure him, and showed him that it meant children in Africa, South America, India and so on are often much poorer and die young from disease, hunger, lanck of clean water etc. And that people in these places have brown eyes. And that was all it meant, it didn’t apply to him so he shouldn’t worry. Later that day he asked me if he could give his tenner from his sponsor to Oxfam, and he did. He is now 12 and he still hasn’t changed his mind about God. But I’m not worried about that. I’m very proud of him and I reckon God probably is, too.

    TLDR: The answer to Alec’s question is “yes”

    Reply
  17. alecm

    @Mel –

    Thanks for the long, and considered answer; it’s interesting to get a handle on someone’s belief – although i do tend to nitpick, which is in the nature of an antitheist.

    In deference to Gonzo re: antitheism – I use that word because I share the belief that religious belief is more harmful to mankind than good, in terms of economic and opportunity cost, not to mention charlatanry, fraud, sectarianism and occasionally war.

    Your vision of heaven is not one that I can agree with, not least because I don’t believe any aspect of humanity is either immortal or even effectively so, other than the ability to propagate a section of our DNA, or (negatively) to prevent someone else doing the same, or in the ideas and works we leave behind. For me our immortality is in “influence” and nothing more.

    The vision of God you present appears to be some form of pantheism which has been skinned-up with monotheistic christianity; you don’t say why you elevate Jesus as having been sent by the Panthegod, apparently preferentially over Mohammed, Buddha, Moses, J. Random Prophet, Zoroaster or Joseph Smith – and I cannot but wonder why?

    Three extremes of answer present themselves:

    * Jesus was the only one sent by God – but why choose/believe/follow him over and above anyone else, before or since?

    * Jesus, Mohammed (etc) were all sent by God – in which case how dare the followers of one prefer and enforce their revealer-of-truth above all others?

    * We were all sent by God – in which case why exalt one/any over any other?

    These questions strike me as critical to belief – to not be able to answer them lays belief open to the charge of being very woolly.

    Stopping childrem playing with 240V sockets, knives, chainsaws, etc, is just plain sense, though given any sort of godly power I – like other wannabee MUD designers – would have graven a sodding big message on the front face of the moon, magically comprehensible to every observer in their own tongue, just to make sure the point was clear, rather than trust to virgin births and the oral tradition.

    Re: Bible-reading, the same question applies as “Why Jesus?” – Have you attacked the Apocrypha? Do you buy into the notion that the Synod of Hippo got the list of writings precisely correct? Because… well, in the end because if God is ineffable and directly unknowable, and if all of the supporting documentation for faith is created, chosen or mutually plagiarised from other faiths by man, then there is a reasonable possibility that faith is all wishful thinking – and we’re back to the Parable of the Invisible Gardener:

    The Parable of the Invisible Gardener is a tale told by John Wisdom. It is often used to illustrate the perceived differences between assertions based on faith and assertions based on scientific evidence, and the problems associated with unfalsifiable beliefs. The tale runs as follows:

    “Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds, that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, ‘It must be that a gardener has been coming and doing something about these weeds.’ The other disagrees and an argument ensues. They pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. The believer wonders if there is an invisible gardener, so they patrol with bloodhounds but the bloodhounds never give a cry. Yet the believer remains unconvinced, and insists that the gardener is invisible, has no scent and gives no sound. The sceptic doesn’t agree, and asks how a so-called invisible, intangible, elusive gardener differs from an imaginary gardener, or even no gardener at all.”

    And whereas the benefits of believing in a invisible, intangible, elusive God are 1) community and 2) peace of mind, the disbenefits I list above (opportunity cost, etc) and I believe outweigh the benefits.

    So to me your faith does resemble that which I attack:

    You cite no grounds for preferring one prophet over another – and (again) if they are all valid, how can you reconcile the differences between them?

    And if the god/s really are all the same then that’s a serious statement of apostasy in some religions you’ll include.

    The thing that I do agree with is that “it works for [you]”, which is fine, and I know others who have other communities of shared interest including (for the sake of example) sci-fi fanatics of various stripes; but somehow they don’t get free seats for political representation in the House of Lords.

    As an unbaptised kid from a CoE family who went to a Catholic boys’ school, I sympathise for your son; I believe that you can always do the baptism-and-communion thing later, and I know people who did so, so if you forced him into it it’s your parental call. If he turns out like me he might resent it – I’m glad I’ve never had to deny a faith and have the “you’re only an atheist because you’re reacting against the faith in which you were brought up” canard thrown at me.

    But it sounds like you have a nice kid, even if you don’t agree with his disbelief.

    Reply
  18. Mel Rimmer

    I’d like to keep it very clear why I am having this conversation. I am not trying to persuade you to share my point of view. I have only respect for anyone who sincerely tries to think about these sorts of important questions, whatever answer they come to. Like you, I have little respect for the opinions of people who just go along with whatever their parents or some other authority figure told them, without ever questioning it. A bit of background; my mother was raised a Catholic, my father was a convert and a very intelligent, educated and questioning man who fiercely quizzed an equally intelligent priest over a long period before his conversion. My dad and Father Walker are important role models in my life and taught me to question everything, even them.

    I am not a pantheist. A pantheist believes that God and the universe are one and the same. I believe that God made the universe, but God is more than the universe. The universe may be part of God, I am not sure. I tend to think it is.

    Were Mohammed, Buddha, Moses, J. Random Prophet, Zoroaster or Joseph Smith also sent by God? Quite possibly. It seems that God is keen for humans to know it and have a relationship with it. So it makes sense that pre-communication-age God would sent multiple messengers to the different groups of humans (and for all I know, sentient inhabitants of other planets). Why do I have a fixation with Jesus? Because I was born into a Catholic family, so that’s the version of God-worship I am familiar with. But I think there is a lot of chaff in Catholicism and a lot of truth in other religions. Now and then I spend some time investigating other faiths and traditions, and learning more about Catholicism and thinking for myself about what I can accept and what seems like garbage to me, whilst trying to avoid the arrogant belief that I am even capable of figuring out all the right answers by myself, or that God has to fit into my own definition and preferences.

    Stopping children playing with sockets was meant to be an explanation that God’s “laws” are not an arbitrary set of stupid rules just to test whether you will blindly follow a set of stupid rules or not. If we follow God’s rules, the world becomes better for everyone. Not sticking your fingers in a socket is obvious to us adults but it is not obvious to an 18-month-old. Similarly “Thou shalt not kill” is not obvious to a vast number of people, even people who claim to be Christian. Yeah, God could carve it on the moon. God could smite anyone who kills. God could hardwire all our psyches so we are incapable of killing. But instead God told us the rule and then gave us each free will whether or not to follow it. Why? That’s a REALLY good question, and one I admit I don’t know the answer to. I could speculate, but these comments are already getting long.

    Apocrypha – well, as a Catholic some of the books of our “bible” are already considered apocrypha in other christian “Bibles”. As for other books of the apocrypha, they’re on my “to do” list. It’s an interesting question. Synod of Hippo – no, they were just people. The books were written by people in the first place. Divinely inspired? Maybe, yes, but what does that mean anyway? I believe the Bible contains the revealed word of God, but you only have to try to read it to realise that it’s no “Dummies’ Guide”. It takes a lot of careful thought to try to figure out what any of it means. I have settled for trying to work out what it means TO ME. Of course, you could read The Lord of the Rings and try to figure out what it means to you, too. But nobody thinks that is the revealed word of God. At least, I hope not.

    There is a reasonable possibility that all faith is wishful thinking. Yep, sure. I have had experiences that I interpret as direct personal contact with God. I don’t expect that to convince you, or anyone else. But it convinced me. I believe in God. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t. I can entertain the possibility my experience was some kind of delusion. I can also entertain the possibility that I am really just a brain in a jar in some mad scientist’s laboratory, and my whole life (including typing this message) is an illusion caused by the computers I am hooked up to. But it doesn’t feel true. And trying to live my life as if it were true (that I am a brain in a jar, or that God does not exist) feels very silly to me. I choose not to deny the evidence of my senses, of my memory.

    You consider religion in terms of a cost-benefit analysis. That seems erroneous to me. Do you analyse your relationships in the same way? Maybe you do, but that would seem very strange to me.

    If all prophets are valid how do I account for the differences? Two things: 1) prophets are humans (e.g. Jesus was human) and so conveys what God tells them through the limitations of their own understanding, culture, language etc. 2) the differences and similarities are very interesting in their own right, and perhaps can be interpreted to help understand better what God is really trying to tell us. In the same way that three different photographs taken from different angles can help us form a more complete picture that three photos from exactly the same angle.

    Bishops in the House of Lords? Chuck ’em out. I’d say chuck out the whole House of Lords except that it sometimes seems saner than the elected house. Our whole political system is badly up the creek.

    I taught my son to question everything, including me, and I am proud of him for doing it. I know God loves him just as he is and although I think God would like my son to forge a relationship with it, it won’t hold his inquisitive mind against him any more than I do. My son might one day resent me making him take his first communion? I am resigned that my kids will resent me for many things, including kissing their aunts. I hope to keep a good relationship with my kids so they’ll forgive me. It sounds like you have such a relationship with your parents.

    Reply
  19. ray

    I believe the words Michael uttered to Stanley in The Deer Hunter. So I’m a Seethisthisisthisthisaintsomethingelsethisisthistheist. Guess I’m on my own.

    Reply
  20. alecm

    Mel, I’ve never thought you were trying to get me to share your point of view, and I don’t think you’re trying to convert me or anyone, and I am not attacking you as if you were; but I am trying to think very clearly about some very important questions, and your provision of a framework against which to measure them is very welcome, and I thank you for that.

    In exchange, I do try to engage with you as considerately, fairly and logically as I can muster.

    I think questioning religion is good.

    I dimly remember aged 6 or so, saying to my fellow junior-school bretheren that there was no god, and being told by them they I was “gwin t’hayell” – but since there was no god that didn’t seem to be a problem…

    And I remember on vacation in Canada reading the Bible out of curiosity due to references in Charles Schultz’ Peanuts cartoons – quotes from Linus, Charlie Brown and Lucy – and I wanted to try and find out what the quotes meant. Quotes such as “Man was born to suffer as [surely as] the sparks fly upwards” – Job 5:7; probably nowadays more recognisable as “shit happens”. I wondered why Linus quoted that, and what was the bigger context?

    And I remember coming to the UK and being dumped into a RC school where everyone was mouthing along to these words regarding “blessed women” and “trespasses”; I had to look up the latter because I was certain I must have misheard it – and then I had to ask someone exactly what interest God had in Tort law because I had only a literal concept of trespass.

    And eventually after flirting with christianity, and buddhism, and coming up with my own beliefs, I eventually realised it’s all codswallop which may have started off with self-deluding good intent but which evolved into a means of simultaneous hope and control for the masses.[1]

    You write that you’re not a pantheist – and you’re right, I’m wrong, I have misspoken; but I lack a copy of the Collins GEM Guide to Theistic Belief Models – I could probably use one. “Pantheist” was the nearest description I could find to what I actually wanted to describe. You’re certainly a self-professed follower of an exclusively monotheistic belief (as per the 10 commandments) but somehow you’re inclusive post-mortem of people who are polytheistic (eg: Hindu) or non-theistic (Buddhism) – and I have no idea how to reconcile this diversity other than to observe that quite a few people have got to be comprehensively wrong…

    In fairness there’s also the Terry Pratchett Discworld-Death possibility, that EVERYBODY GETS WHAT THEY THINK THEY DESERVE – in which case I will cease while you get your God and suicide bombers get milk, honey and 72 self-restarting virgins – or raisins – but sadly it also means all the people who believe it when they’re told that they’re sinners will burn in endless sulphur. In that circumstance I’ll take the atheist option.

    You appear to be taking the path that you were born into; what amazes me is that one paragraph you can say:

    learning more about Catholicism and thinking for myself about what I can accept and what seems like garbage to me

    …and the next:

    If we follow God’s rules, the world becomes better for everyone.

    …so you’re free to pick and choose amongst god’s rules (eg: “love thy neighbour” and ignore the rest) in spite of seeking to avoid the arrogance of choice. The net result of a legal system where you get to pick and choose what to obey is no legal system at all. Plus: given that god’s clear, evident and commonsensical laws also include the more drastic aspects of Sharia (since Muslims are included in the above) – not to mention the no-interference “God sees the fall of every sparrow, and will provide” attitude that is/was antithetical to (for instance) the largely secular, scientific programs that eradicated smallpox, I really cannot agree that if we follow God’s rules, the world becomes better for everyone.

    My take is that there is no God, there are no “God’s rules”, and anyone who says that there are is lying, and the best we can hope for in a hierarchy where those sorts of claims are respected is that the guys claiming it are hopefully quite anodyne. I stop short of considering any book the revealed word of god, because… well, the revelations wouldn’t pass journalism citation standards. Where does “written by man” stop, and “word of god” begin? There are good morality (and bad morality) tales in there of course, but that’s just educational material, quite a lot of it plagiarised from other tales prior to the Judeo-Christian period.

    Tolkien aside – because it’s much too recent – there’s perhaps as much wisdom deployed in Aesop’s fables as in the Bible’s parables; they’re good, they teach wisdom, fairness, and the risks of stupidity. But nobody worships Aesop; however we can write our own punchlines about Jedis 🙂

    Responding to:

    You consider religion in terms of a cost-benefit analysis. That seems erroneous to me. Do you analyse your relationships in the same way? Maybe you do, but that would seem very strange to me.

    …several of my female friends have told me they got married because their husbands would be a good father to their children, and take care of the family; that is a form of cost-benefit analysis – the “fish or cut bait” problem. “Do I spend time with my biological clock ticking looking for Mr Perfect, or will this one do?” – So I don’t see it as strange at all; and the economics of extra-marital affairs are even more brutal…

    By now you’ll have worked out that I barely believe Jesus existed, and suspect that a lot, perhaps most of the stories attributed to him are there for retro-continuity with prior prophesy (“Let’s have Jesus ride into Jerusalem on an ass; it’s a non-sequitur but we’ll mention it because it was foreshadowed by Zechariah”) or to recycle some educational parable. I do wonder after the mess of organised religion, agendas and rewriting since that time, whether Douglas Adams was correct when he summarised what is truly knowable as “someone being nailed to a tree for saying ‘wouldn’t it be great to be nice to people for a change?’”

    Hmmm…

    In the same way that three different photographs taken from different angles can help us form a more complete picture that three photos from exactly the same angle.

    Yes, so long as they’re meant to be photographs of the same object, and assuming someone removed their lenscap first – the Zen Buddhists enjoy interpreting the blackness.

    I think we’re pretty much in agreement re: the House of Lords; and as far as parenting goes you’re evidently no worse than most and better than many, the one clear overlap with my upbringing was my father telling me “don’t take bullshit from anybody” and it only really became an issue when I occasionally called BS on him.

    Be ready for that one. 🙂

    —
    [1] As ever I sat this flatly – stating it as a fact – which I know some believers find offensive; I hope that you (amongst others) won’t, because I hear those friends who do believe equally flatly talk about how they found God – the one whom I do not believe exists – and they further tell me that Jesus talks to them. It wouldn’t be fair for them to assert that God exists and describe their daily experience of him, and yet deny me the freedom to assert that no god exists, nor permit me to speak equally casually of his non-existence.

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  21. Adrian

    Another good book and blog is John Loftus’ The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, and postings e.g. http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2010/08/deceptive-apologetic-strategies.html

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  22. Adrian

    @alec in comment 10 you talk about our highest goal. Why should we have a highest goal? You can have a goal if you want, but my cat’s highest goal is to sleep all day and have people work the tuna can opener for him, and that is just as valid a goal as anything humans have. I don’t see any need for there to be a grand purpose in life.

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