David Brooks comes off as a sort of cut-rack Blavatsky in today's column, in which he predicts that the vague spiritualism that represents the last attempt by "faith" to comport itself to the contemporary understanding of the physical world will supplant both non-belief and "traditional" religion, by which he means Western monotheism, I suppose. The Buddhists get a little nod, as they often due from people who imagine Buddhism as a gentle hybrid of the Sundance Film Festival, Whole Foods Market, and Hot Yoga class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. As you'd expect:
Just as “The Origin of Species” reshaped social thinking, just as Einstein’s theory of relativity affected art, so the revolution in neuroscience is having an effect on how people see the world.This is itself a gentle way of saying that Darwin caused the Holocaust and Einstien was responsible for Modernism. The former is familiar and easily dismissable. Eugenics and attendent notions about heritable race traits have got fuck-all to do with the random mutation Darwin proposed, and instead indulge the Lamarckian fallacy. The latter is a little more novel, but General Relativity and the decline in the authority of the narrative voice are maybe related thematically, but certainly not causally.
The almost bottomless willingness of the bourgeois faithful to de-doxologize their religions in order to maintain the existence of a Higher Power is pretty amusing. Since God increasingly resembles a demiurge, the self-will of existence to become itself, or whatever, perhaps we can stop proposing that "faith" categorically contains some particular moral component. If you want to follow the urgings of the Beatitudes even though that Jesus is a myth, I'm okay with that; everyone needs a system of values, and if you want to crib someone else's, fine by me. On the other hand, I have difficulty accepting that belief in the deus abscondus proves that you're less likely to sacrifice kittens and sex-murder little boys than I am. Religionists in America anyway have made an intramural sport of imaginary besiegement, and I wonder at last if the true human universal is not belief in things unseen but instead the unremitting need to bitch and moan.
30 comments:
BoBos in Paradise meets Billy Sunday?
I think Levon Helm is composing the score.
This may not be your goal, but I have to say I find this weblog therapeutic.
I was just listening to a family-member discuss the Founding Fathers and how their faith was so important. Never mind that John Adams still vilified the deist Paine as an atheist, never mind Jefferson's repeated slander of the priestly class, never mind that the faithful Washington was also a Freemason ritualist and that he still got along with the atheist Alexander Hamilton. Faith was pretty insignificant to them as long as their political goals were met. And faith has never been enough to keep the Torquemadas or the Robespierres of the world from doing their grim service to God. But Anglos don't go in for that kind of thing. Don't mention Cromwell.
So... Yeah, anyway, I appreciated the line about how faith doesn't believably keep anyone from committed heinous, inhuman crimes. I keep hearing about that, and then I see people act the same all over. But these people are beyond empirical observation.
Say what you will about National Socialism, dude.....
I was rewatching "Scenes from a Marriage" the other night, and it struck me how nowadays one seldom hears the term "bourgeois"; and no one applies that qualifier to him, her or itself anymore. Or so it seems.
And then...voila!
RTR
Seht, ich lehre euch den Übermenschen!
Der Übermensch ist der Sinn der Erde. Euer Wille sage: der Übermensch _sei_ der Sinn der Erde!
Ich beschwöre euch, meine Brüder, _bleibt_der_Erde_treu_ und glaubt
Denen nicht, welche euch von überirdischen Hoffnungen reden!
Giftmischer sind es, ob sie es wissen oder nicht.
Verächter des Lebens sind es, Absterbende und selber Vergiftete, deren die Erde müde ist: so mögen sie dahinfahren!
Einst war der Frevel an Gott der grösste Frevel, aber Gott starb, und damit auch diese Frevelhaften. An der Erde zu freveln ist jetzt das Furchtbarste und die Eingeweide des Unerforschlichen höher zu achten, als der Sinn der Erde!
--Nietzsche: Also Sprach Zarathustra
Yer slipping dude ... that "bitch and moan" was uncomfortably close to HL Mencken's crack about Presbyterians. Or was it Baptists? Episcopalians?
Because it's you, Monsieur, I read Bobo - something I'd vowed never to do again.
Dewd still needs an editor.
That aside, umm, where is this "atheism debate" involving "a new group of assertive atheists" taking place?
At a temple near you??
Double Oy.
The man makes my brain hurt.
Oh, and great, great line about Buddhism IOZ. (The one about Sundance, Whole Foods, etc.)
The link to the Times did get me to check out their front page. The photos of the devastation in China are enough to make me wish I were a praying man....
Mike
Near the end of my Fred Phelpsian ultra-calvinist period the deity I imagined I worshiped was basically Azathoth.
What the hell does eugenics have to do with Lamarckism? Lysenkoism was Lamarckist: you can intervene in one generation and the effects will last into the next. Mendel-Morganism (or Darwinism) says that if you want to shape the next generation, change who produces the most kids. Hence, eugenics. A lot of scientists who certainly knew their Darwin from their Lamarck were eugenecists. So were some other odd-ducks. Now we have eugenics with a smiley face.
Nice to see Bobo's still writing in his classic form. Step 1: admit that your critics are right and cite their demolishing arguments. If vilifying modifiers are used, use them badly. Step 2: assert some dumb-shit counterargument, perhaps with a bonus appeal to incredulity or claim a similarity to some conservative value system.
Look, I like me some vague spirituality, but just because people tend to feel all mystical, because it's in our wiring, that doesn't mean that it's rational or even true. And mapping neuroscience to some increasingly nonspecific faith doesn't validate all the primitive religions. I don't have a doubt that "particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits," nor do I have a particular problem with it. (Maybe I wouldn't use the word "traits." Or "just.")
Bah. The closer I look at his article, the more false conflations I see. Does any science of the consciousness really suggest the soul lives outside of the body?
Does the soul exist within the body? I mean, I don't know much Tom Wolfe, but he isn't even the first novelist I'd turn to to play with the question.
If there is a God, what we theorize about God is not as important as what and who God is. It's amusing to me when people talk or write about the true nature of reality as if they are some kind of authority on the subject. If there is a God, his is the only perspective that would matter. All other commentary should come with a disclaimer.
If there is an omnipotent flying pink lesbian elephant, what we theorize about this omnipotent flying pink lesbian elephant is not as important as what and who this omnipotent flying pink lesbian elephant is. It's amusing to me when people talk or write about the true nature of reality as if they are some kind of authority. If there is an omnipotent flying pink lesbian elephant, hers is the only perspective that would matter. All other commentary should come with a disclaimer.
But that said, I don't find much beef with rewriting religion and keeping just the good parts. It's not like this hasn't happened since religion started or anything.
And finally, is this Einstien guy played by Gene Wilder or what?
Brooks: "Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment."
Um... Genes are not people. I am not a single, gigantic Far Side-esque glasses wearing gene that can use a computer.
I have a high school education. I have never read a Dawkins book. Why do I know more about the Selfish Gene than a New York Times columnist?
Instead, everything arises from atoms. Genes shape temperament. Brain chemicals shape behavior. Assemblies of neurons create consciousness.
What's the alternative? That the brain has nothing to do with consciousness? That, for example, people get drunk not because of the alcohol interacting with their body but because their soul coincidentally wants them to act drunk at the times they're drunk?
I appreciate the crack on the lefty view of Buddhism. The few Buddhists I've talked to have all had that same insufferable "Thank goodness I'm enlightened, and not stuck in the dark like you poor dopes" attitude that animates American Christians.
Actually... how does Brooks get paid to write? He doesn't really seem to know the definitions of words. In this column he uses the terms "Buddhism" and "gene" in a way that indicates he's heard other people use the words, but doesn't know what they mean, and is trying to use the context he heard them in to make an educated guess.
What the fuck? If they're paying you the least you can do is log on to the internet and read the wikipedia page on these things. Show some respect.
Hooray, we've defeated the characatured atheist, the one who eats puppies and uses babies as toilet paper!!! Now the real fight is going to be with non-imaginary people. Ones that us faithful think twice about calling amoral monsters!
But seriously, if Buhddism is about hot yogis, sign me up. I hear that Yoga makes a person, in the words of Regina Phlange, very bendy.
CB - Just because we can substitute anything we like for God doesn't mean there isn't one whose perspective on life is the only one that matters.
I suppose you would reply that it doesn't mean there is one, either, that is, after pitching some pithy insulting comment my way.
Ultimately, of course, the issue distills to faith - that there is a God or that there isn't.
Chris - Umm, the answer to one of your questions is: yes, people really do believe the brain just thinks, but its the soul that makes people do what they do.
It's true! I can have you speak with my mother.
I don't have the heart to tell her she's wrong.
We are nothing if not chemical reactions to stimuli. Just because we have emotions and feelings doesn't negate that fact. But that's not something you can explain to most people.
The assumption certainly has implications Erin, like one material perspective, for instance. It's just that the implications take a back seat to the other half of your argument.
erin -
You may have missed my point (which was, admittedly, buried under a massive troll. My apologies.) Your original post assumed that a) there is a God, b) there is exactly one God, c) God's perspective is unified and coherent, d)God's perspective is the only thing that matters, and e) "his" is the correct pronoun to use when referring to this God.
How do we know any of these things without engaging in the kind of hubris-filled theorizing that you yourself find amusing?
cb - Well you gotta start somewhere with an argument. And I did start with the whole "IF there is a God" premise, so I suppose if you want to add all your qualifiers in there in the middle, the point still stands that this being or beings (if you prefer) ultimately would have the only absolutely accurate perspective about life.
So I still find statements like "We are nothing if not chemical reactions to stimuli" silly because anon 10:19 doesn't have any clue any better than anyone else about the nature of reality yet he simultaneously criticises absoulutism while relying on it.
The question I am asking is this: Why are your assumptions about reality (one god who possesses the only accurate and valid perspective) okay -- since an argument has to start somewhere -- while anon's are "silly"?
Personally I believe that consciousness resides in the Muladhara chakra "at the base of the spine in the vicinity of the coccygeal plexus beneath the sacrum." But, you know, I'm partial to the region.
cb - I guess it distills to the fact we cannot disprove God's (or some ultimate higher power's - as you might prefer I describe the concept) existence. Therefore, we shouldn't arrogantly presume He/She/It doesn't exist and that we are the final arbiter of reality. While we are all free to think and believe as we like, we should do so keeping in mind that what we think and believe is from a finite perspective and could be wrong. Nobody likes to do that, though, because then they can't be god themselves.
Ah, but what I've been harping on is this: Even if we are to accept your case that it is more realistic to not reject the idea of some kind of deity outright, you still have no, and I mean absolutely zero, ground to assume that the deity resembles the oh-so-popular Christian personal saviour and not (to use another's apt example) Azathoth, the insane blind idiot-god who thrashes senselessly at the center of the universe.
For in accepting the existence of some specific God, aren't you presuming that all the other He/She/Its don't exist? If you believe in one specific God, then you are presuming the other N gods are false/non-existent. So why does disbelieving in N gods make you rational and sensible, while disbelieving in N+1 gods is an "arrogant presumption"?
If you're certain of all those assumptions about that nature of God that you clearly are making, you've got no keepin'-it-real high ground to stand on w/r/t the nuthin'-but-chemicals crew.
But, despite our disagreement, let me say that I thank you for your poise. Usually discussions that I spark by strafing someone with a flying lesbian pink elephant have much more namecalling and much less substance.
Well you got me, but there are reasons, but reasons you would likely not accept, to believe in the kind of God my argument presupposes. But I will leave that for another time and post.
In any event, thanks for the kind words. The chemicals reactions that stimulate all my responses caused me to smile.
But followers of every religion lay claim to similar "reasons" for their particular faith. Many of which you as a Christian find ridiculous. I would merely extend that argument.
I also find the basic theology of the Bible, and certainly the historical God and Church, repellant, but then I always argue that there must have been a reason for 1/3 of Jehovah's perfect created angelic host to join the rebellion :)
(The Gnostic Heresy seems to me to better answer many of my questions. But, said heresy merely moves the ultimate questions up another level of woo-woo, so....)
PRobably a little late to the party here, but I agree that we are nothing but synapses. That doesn't preclude an "inventor" ultimately, but it does, in my mind, preclude a soul.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; that I get. Angels, heaven, hell, transubstantiation; just nice fairy tales no more real than Cinderella, Blair Witch or any other imaginary story.
But, Erin, please expound on your 'reasons', I'm interested in hearing what the justification could be.
Mikee you are a bit late to the party, but thanks for asking. It's a serious question you're asking and I want to give it serious attention. Right now, I am up to my neck with work, but I will try to get back to you sometime over the weekend.
erin:
"cb - I guess it distills to the fact we cannot disprove God's (or some ultimate higher power's - as you might prefer I describe the concept) existence. Therefore, we shouldn't arrogantly presume He/She/It doesn't exist and that we are the final arbiter of reality."
I think you're confusing "presume" with "assume." There's nothing "arrogant" about presuming the non-existence of a god (whatever that is); what is arrogant is assuming that "we" (i.e., you) are the final arbiters of reality because you have the unlisted number of the Supreme Being, and you're just following its orders.
Since believers brandish many competing versions of the Supreme Being, all of which are incompatible with some or all of the others, I think it's fair to go along with Antony Flew's presumption of atheism: the burden of proof lies on the theist, first to explain just what he or she means by "god," and then to give some reasons why anyone should believe that such an entity exists. Oh yes -- and you'd also have to establish that your pet being has an "ultimately would have the only absolutely accurate perspective about life", as opposed to "our" finite "perspective", and that this gives it an opinion which overrides "ours." Judging from the Jewish / Christian Bible, neither Yahweh nor Jesus qualifies for the post.
"... we should do so keeping in mind that what we think and believe is from a finite perspective and could be wrong. Nobody likes to do that, though, because then they can't be god themselves." Are you including yourself in that "we" and that "nobody"?
Prom-reader: As Ioz so elequently put it, "what and ever." I never said I was the final arbiter or god, nor do I in any way believe that, just that it is presumptious to assume that any of us are. The beautiful thing about it all is that, at least in America, you are free to believe what you want to believe. Far be it from me to stand in your way. Just don't blame me when you are standing in front of the ultimate judge some day and all your protestations about his/her/its/their existence seem kinda shortsighted and ill conceived.
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