Religion and truth revisited 7 Jul 2009 Chris Schoen, he of the u n d e r v e r s e, has a piece up on Coyne’s challenge to the religious as to why Scientology’s absurd etiology of Xenu and souls in volcanoes is any less stupid than the etiologies of the Catholic, Jewish and Islamic religions. In it, Chris makes the point that religion is (always?*) not about veridical claims (truth claims) of the scriptural stories, but about the role that scriptural stories like this play in the liturgical and ritual life of the religious communities. Chris is quite right, but it doesn’t answer the question to say, as he does It would be easy to conjure in our minds a hypothetical example of an unschooled rube, possibly bigoted, possibly lacking in self knowledge, and shielded from empathizing with his fellow humans by the comforting certainty of his dogma. To Coyne, or Dawkins, or Sam Harris, all literal religious belief is of this stripe. But we also have the benefit of calling to mind the writings of Kierkegaard, who brilliantly anticipated the quandary we find ourselves in now, by reversing the question: what’s so respectable, so free-thinking, of believing something simply because it’s patently true? Fideism is the view that belief is a good. This is fideism. It of course won’t convince us unbelievers, because, well, we’re unbelievers, but what I wonder is, does it answer the question for believers? What counts for faith is faith itself? That was, after all, Kierkegaard’s solution. The two parties here are talking past each other because they start at different locations and the vectors of their conversation do not intersect. The exclusivists want truth, or as much truth as you can get from empirical investigation. [I don’t. Science doesn’t deliver even that much “truth”; it delivers empirically adequate generalisations, and that is all we need. Leave “truth” for the religious and the philosophical.] The religious, at least the sophisticated religious that Chris represents, want a different kind of “truth” to the kind that Coyne and crew think science delivers. Neither are satisfied with the other. And I am not satisfied with either. It is a revealed truth that the sole Good in life is Chocolate [This is called chocoholism, and it’s no mistake that the active ingredient in chocolate is called theobromine, or “food of the gods”.] This is both empirically true, and a ritual centre. What more can you want? Okay, ignore my joking and go read both pieces. * At least some versions of religion do think these stories are true. Whether they are the interesting versions of religion from a philosophical perspective is open to question. I agree with Chris that they aren’t. Epistemology History Metaphysics Philosophy Religion Science
Freedom The place of religion in democratic secular countries 19 Feb 201519 Feb 2015 There is a religion which oppresses women, which is enthusiastically adopted by marginalised groups, which hates democracy and which has declared the modern world to be a heresy they call “Americanism”. This religion, which is run entirely by men, demands of its adherents loyalty to a small group of clerics… Read More
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Wittgenstein tells us, we understand a word by how it is used; he might have added . . . and who is using it. “WHAT is Truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.” It’s still worth reading Bacon on the subject http://hiwaay.net/~paul/bacon/essays/truth.html
Sure, if you gut a religion of all its factual claims then it can no longer be inconsistent with science, because science is only concerned with matters of fact. But I don’t believe anyone would recognise such a claimless construct as a religion. Schoen asserts that art (including literature) can communicate “some kind of deeper truth about the world that transcends our need for our personal desires to be met”, but fails to clarify what he means by this. No doubt facts can be communicated by non-literal means, such as imagery, metaphor, etc, and an artist may be consciously or subconsciously communicating his beliefs to the observer of his work. But then we’re still dealing with matters of fact, whose truth can be assessed by empirical reasoning. Or perhaps Schoen is referring not to matters of fact but to matters of moral and aesthetic value. I would argue that, since these are not matters of fact, the word “truth” cannot be applied to them. Schoen is so vague in his use of the word “truth” that his article borders on obscurantism.
I tend to agree, but I would at least allow the possibility that what the theist says they know from religion is indeed knowledge of something true. It’s a possibility I resolve in the negative, but it seems to me just question begging to assume that only scientific knowledge even can be knowledge at all.
I would prefer to avoid the slippery term “knowledge”, and say that empirical reasoning (not just formal science) is the only reliable way of forming beliefs about reality. I think this is a reasonable inference, not just an assumption.
Whether they are the interesting versions of religion from a philosophical perspective is open to question. Define “interesting.” If you mean intellectually or philosophically interesting, I tend to agree. If you mean socially or politically interesting, I disagree in that those who have literal belief in their holy texts tend to do some reprehensible things to others based on it.
Richard, If I’m merely bordering on obscurantism then I haven’t failed completely. But I’m aware that I did not offer a satisfyingly precise definition of what truth might be as conveyed by literature or religion. My point was not to make a bulletproof case for this type of truth (hardly a new argument, at any rate, among literary critics and ethical philosophers) but rather to offer something we all have a sense of (that Shakespeare, for example, is in some way “accurate,” even though he does not describe real events. I note that your definition of truth as “the factual” needs no defense, but these kinds of priors can get us into trouble if we never examine them. Ultimately the point of my posting, though, was not that literature and religion are “true,” but that they are (potentially) respectable, going to Coyne’s question. I think this raises a good contrapositive question: is believing in “fact” respectable? Do I deserve respect for believing the obvious, or the merely unfalsified? If we are going to reserve the right to mock religious beliefs for being factually incorrect, we are demoting “meaning” to something quite skimpy not just for them but for us too.
Richard, I’m not trying to pick on you, but you say something here that I hear often as though it were common sense, though I never see it substantiated: Sure, if you gut a religion of all its factual claims then it can no longer be inconsistent with science, because science is only concerned with matters of fact. But I don’t believe anyone would recognise such a claimless construct as a religion. I think you want to be careful to separate factual claims (open to investigation) from metaphysical and ethical claims. Many religions are “claimless” by the former standard, though they don’t get talked about much because of the present trench warfare with the creationists. When the Dalai Lama, representing millions of Tibetan Buddhists, says that where science conflicts with religious belief, we should follow the former, does that reduce Tibetan Buddhism to something less than a religion to you? What should we call it? Likewise any number of non-literalist Christian sects, including not just UU and UCC, but a sizable proportion of Catholics? We could add Sufis, Jains, numerous Buddhist sects, mystical Jews… These “claimless constructs” are certainly recognized as religions by their adherents!
Thanks for your reply, Chris. I don’t think Coyne or anyone else would deny that literature can be respectable. And he might well agree that the Bible has some literary merit, and even that parts of the Bible are uplifting. (I would certainly say so, and I seem to remember that Dawkins has said as much.) But Coyne’s criticism was aimed at the factual claims of scripture, not at its literary qualities. You may not consider those factual claims to be significant, but the vast majority of religious believers do, and it was the attempt to reconcile some of those factual claims with science that led to the whole “accommodationism” spat. I do think that we should respect rational beliefs over irrational ones, and I think mockery of irrational beliefs is sometimes justified. Still, I wouldn’t be as harsh in my criticism as Coyne has sometimes been.
Chris, I still doubt there are any religions that make no factual claims whatsoever. But I accept there could be, and that the word “religion” could still be used to describe them, so I retract my assertion that they would not be considered religions. By the way, feel free to pick on me.
Any emphasis on empiricism, which I agree is currently the best method of understanding our reality, must be presented honestly and take into account that our ability to pursue this path is limited to our technical stage at a given time (I imagine we yet have but a tiny comprehension of what we are yet to learn). That and the statistical limitations of what is essentially a refined but nevertheless inductive process. It’s best to avoid even using terms like “facts” and “truths” inre science, imho, I think it does our case more harm than good. It certainly does us no good to overstate what can realistically be achieved via the scientific endeavour in the present and use this to undermine what are, in many instances, nebulous truth claims not easily tested or that are straightforwardly unfeasible to test (e.g. the Resurrection). Particularly when the meaning and strength of those truth claims hasn’t even been fully resolved among the theologians who appeal to them (e.g. Genesis)*. Best to stick to the goal of arguing persuasively that although such truth claims aren’t always falsifiable, they are neither sound enough to base real world decisions upon (law, education, economics, health &c), when those decisions are likely to affect numbers of people that do no subscribe to these unverified truth claims and are thus likely to object to decisions based on such claims.
I agree with DSKS, very nicly put. I think that some christian groups, new age believers and some of the conspiracy lovers, all seem to hold the view that Science is a search for truth and as such, it as a valid measure of there own belief system. In this view, the areas where science can offer no “truth”, demonstrates it’s wrong and the right answers can be given to it, if only it would listen. They do all seem to borrow heavily from each other. A lot of the creationist anti-evolution arguments seem to appear in New Age/ conspiracy theory as well, in a diffrent form. I think what DSKS suggests kills a lot of birds with one stone.
Since religion isn’t about truth claims, that means it’s not “militant” of me to mock someone who says Jesus rose from the dead and actually believes it, right? I just can’t mock the ones who say it, but think it’s just a metaphor for………something or other. It seems to me that many “defenses” of religion involve redefining religion to a point where it bears little resemblance to the actual practice you find normal people engaging in. Regardless of what people in English departments say, Christians for the most part actually do believe that Jesus rose from the dead, turned water to wine, etc. They claim these are actual historical events which really occurred. And they are wrong. Factually wrong. I’ve met very few religious people who are actually comfortable with the idea that everything in their scriptures is just a fluffy metaphor, and none of these things are actual, real, tangible events. From now on, I think I’ll mock the literalists for believing silly things about the world, and I’ll mock the sophisticated theologians for believing silly things about religion.
The issue of factual claims about events occurring in the physical world bears on religion to the extent that belief in such claims is a prerequisite for membership. In Catholicism, for example, one is required to assent to the factual truth of the virgin birth and Christ’s resurrection from the dead as real events. Catholic theologians who dissent from such creedal beliefs are apt to be defrocked or have their credentials revoked. The job of the Catholic theologian is embodied in the notion of “faith seeking understanding”. In other words, it’s the theologian’s job to underwrite preexisting beliefs.
I’d be wary of equating “facts” with “truth”. Is the the statement: “Beethoven’s music is beautiful” a factual statement? Is it a true statement? Beethoven and his Immortal Beloved may also be a good example of the potential link between art and religion, although in Beethoven’s case I would deem it far more “spiritual” than religious. And I think that’s a worthwhile distinction to make here. Spiritual truth claims are personal and subjective, whereas religious claims attempt to objectify the spiritual with social interactions, traditions, historical claims, holy books, etc. And that “objectivity” will always be in direct conflict with science, whereas the subjective spiritual cannot be. Science seeks to maximize objectivity – the more objective it is, the “truer” it is in a scientific context.
“An actual flesh and blood person died and then came back to life in Jerusalem approximately 2,000 years ago” is not a subjective, spiritual claim. It is a claim about the physical world, and thus must be evaluated in relation to what we know about the physical world. You’re right about “Beethoven’s music is beautiful”, but that’s a completely different statement from, “There is only one God, and Mohammad is his prophet” or “The Jews are God’s chosen people” or “The universe was designed by an omnipotent, conscious person” or “Praying for something can make it happen.” None of those are subjective claims.
I am in complete agreement with you. But, how shall I say this… there are objective facts, and there are subjective facts. There is a difference between saying “Beethoven’s music is beautiful”, and saying “Beethoven’s music is beautiful… to me”, the first being subjective, and the second (seemingly) objective. But one must also be wary of subjective truths disguised in objective camouflage. If everyone on the planet liked Beethoven’s music unconditionally, would the statement “Beethoven’s music is beautiful” be a fact?
“They claim these are actual historical events which really occurred. And they are wrong. Factually wrong.” No, they aren’t factually wrong, they are seemingly highly improbable. But of course events counted as revelatory and miraculous are hardly counted so as a result of being commonplace; the resurrection was not to be the cornerstone of Christianity if rising from the dead was a daily occurrence in daily Jewish life (Lazarus doesn’t really count, because it was the same magician pulling off the trick). Thus, arguing against events considered significant by their improbability by appealing to their improbability is hardly going to sway the theist who, as Antonio says, is surely operating from a well-entrenched presupposition in the first place. It’s a waste of time and energy, and of course in some cases actually logically unsound (and you don’t want to be caught in a fallacy when you’re trying to push the cause of reason, it doesn’t look good). The bottom line is that it is absolutely possible to believe in all sorts of zany weirdness under the guise of revelation, and yet approach the material world in an empirical manner. Now, we can get into a philosophical discussion about whether such faith in revelatorry things is healthy for mind and body, and whether it presents a clear conflict of interest for theists in science (are Christian scientists likely to be prone to erroneous revelations about potassium channel architecture?). But there’s really no way to bring science to bear on theological concepts like revelation, Holy Trinities, invisible Pink Unicorns and whatnot. The best one can do is chase these ideas to the limits of our perceivable material universe, which for many theists is fine by them. They have the rest of the universe, and of course the ultimate bastion of Cartesian Doubt in which to provide refuge for their various quirks and fantasies.
I said I was going to mock them, not persuade them. I’m well aware of how obstinate people can be when it comes to beliefs they’ve acquired due to social commitment rather than reasoning. Trying to persuade someone away from such beliefs is usually (but not always) a waste of time. Just to give an example, several years ago I confronted my father (a fundamentalist Christian) with the fact that the Bible gives three inconsistent accounts of who killed Goliath “whose staff was as a weaver’s rod”. His reply was that there must have been three identical giants, all named Goliath, one to correspond to each story. So they’re all true. I asked him if, confronted with three conflicting stories about George Washington, he would conclude that there were three George Washingtons who were first president of the united states. He said no, because George Washington is not in the Bible. And sure it’s possible to believe in anything, but that does not make it rational. Hiding behind Cartesian doubt is always arbitrary, because Cartesian doubt, taken to its logical conclusion, would leave one in a state of doubt in regards to everything, ever, everywhere.
It’s not even Cartesian doubt, because a certain mindset would deny they existed if their Scriptures or tradition told them to (and a certain mindset does – see Hinayana Buddhism). It is epistemic nihilism – the view that nobody knows anything so you can believe whatever you like.
All these rational responses. Damn. All I got so far is : if the ritual centre is fudge, I want to convert.
John says, * At least some versions of religion do think these stories are true. Whether they are the interesting versions of religion from a philosophical perspective is open to question. I agree with Chris that they aren’t. What is it that makes only the unjustifiable in principle stories so interesting from a philosophical perspective for you? After a few back and forths on metaphysics from elite philosophers, doesn’t it get old — beyond trying to sharpen reasoning skills? Isn’t there at least equal value in the philosophical examination of truth claims that are both false (in as much as anything can be false) and have negative consequencies? You can’t seed all that territory to psychology and political science.
Something is empirically interesting if it is both empirically adequate (i.e., not false) and explanatory. Something is philosophically interesting to me if it is empirically interesting and raises metalevel questions that are not simple to resolve. On this basis, it is clear that I don’t find much philosophy philosophically interesting. These are judgements about me, by the way. Some people find counterfactual hypotheticals enormously fascinating. Like the paper I got to review recently in which species are sets of possible entities which can differ in every historical respect. I am just bored with that.
That is fascinating to me. I loved reading metaphysics and ethics, and believe I learned to think more clearly, (I hope:) but became bored as I felt in the end there were no resolutions. Can you give me an idea of the sorts of metalevel questions of empirically interesting things that you believe have been adequately resolved? Is there some pragmatic standard for determining this – I tried to read Peirce once, but it was beyond me.
Peirce is a God, but only in small doses, like any respectable deity. I initially found all philosophy interesting, and at one time considered specialising in the nature of truth, but after a time I decided that what was worth my time was analysing and trying to tease out the implications of the area of life where we actually do have knowledge, which is science. Now I do not propose that science is the only area in which there is knowledge, but if it ain’t in science, it ain’t anywhere, so I specialised in the philosophy of science. I got into philosophy of biology backwards, when trying in my masters thesis to give David Hull’s evolutionary and Frederick Suppe’s semantic conception accounts of science progeny. That meant I had to learn about evolution. I’m still learning. Oh, and the only standard is “does it interest you enough to try to understand it?” Students of philosophy specialise early on – I for example, am a moral vacuum, and so have little to no interest in the abtrusities of ethics. The thing about science is that it does come to resolutions, and these raise problems elsewhere in philosophical terms, which is why it interests me philosophically. Philosophy of religion is basically commentary on a few philosophy problems and the rest on theology. It is of abstract interest to me, but only abstract. I couldn’t, for example, delve as deeply as Chris or Siris do.
Ok, John – Have a good night (or day – wish the earth was flat!!) Not sure I understand the metalevel questions any better, but that’s OK. BTW, I have read your posts on Australian politics and such — you are no moral vacuum, but in a good way.
“It is epistemic nihilism – the view that nobody knows anything so you can believe whatever you like.” Yes, that’s a much better way of putting describing it. Another new term for my sparse philosophical lexicon… “I said I was going to mock them…” This I don’t understand, though, for two reasons. First, it’s simply unnecessarily aggressive and unpleasant, and second it doesn’t do justice to the fact that there is much that is “rational” that many people are, by virtue of the limitations of their understanding, required to take on faith. Are they to be ridiculed also, simply for not being able to comprehend a certain esoteric aspect of mathematics or physics or, indeed, evolution theory? This touches on what I think is a central issue inre anti-science sentiment. A suspicion I’ve harboured for a while is that the antipathy towards the scientific establishment that seem disproportionately attributable to the Protestant sections of the Christian community (in the US, at least) may stem indirectly from the very same themes that brought about the reformation; a community forced by the observation of corruption to reconsider their trust in the group of middleman ostensibly in possession of The Mysteries. Well, regardless of the fact that we scientists can convince ourselves that our “Mysteries” are rooted firmly in reason, this is often not so readily apparent, or possible to make so, to some laypeople. We must essentially demand that they take our word for it in many cases. So, rational or irrational, a large number of people are being asked to make a faith choice between an old dusty, but longstanding tradition and a constantly changing and morally ambiguous materialism. For me, a large part of convincing people that the latter is the way to go is to ensure that scientists conduct themselves as impeccably, as unimpeachably as possible. But this hasn’t always happened, either through fraud or simply intellectual arrogance, and thus fostered exactly the kind of mistrust that I think has at least in part facilitated the retreat of many laymen towards their cosy traditional worldviews.
I think you’re approaching this from the wrong angle. “Laymen” (by which you appear to mean, scientifically uninformed people) are not in “retreat” to their traditions. They already had the traditions, and are reluctant to relinquish them. This is easily seen: People associate tradition with stability and order. People for whom stability and order are paramount will be very defensive of tradition, which they think is the only thing preserving stability and order. When numerous demagogues and charlatans exploit this common human tendency (which they inevitably do), they can stir up irrational reactionary attitudes towards “outsiders” or unfamiliar ideas. Mockery can be very useful, so long as you mock the right people. I don’t intend to mock the sweet old grandmother who prays to an imaginary man every day but is otherwise totally harmless. But I do intend to mock the leaders of these movements. Why? Because I want to marginalize them. They are taken seriously not because they have any rational justification for what they’re saying, but because they are perceived as authorities. Well, I think we should counteract that perception. Portray them as dingleberries who don’t know what their talking about.