Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Progressive Religion vs. Fundamentalism, Part 2: A Slippery Slope?

Two Kinds of Religion

A few weeks back I offered the first post in a promised series--a series in which my aim will be to consider objections to the legitimacy of religion in general in the light of the distinction between progressive religion and fundamentalism.

In that first post my purpose was to explain what I have in mind by the two kinds of religion--not in rigorous philosophical terms, but in an accessible way that I hope is useful. As I made clear in that post, the distinction I have in mind is between ideal types. Actual religions can be more or less progressive, more or less fundamentalistic.

In brief, the key feature of fundamentalism is certainty: This creed, these texts, this leader or institution offers us the Truth with a capital "T"--that is, a deep and ultimate truth about the nature of reality (in theism, about the nature of God), and a decisive account of how we ought to live so as to be in harmony with this deepest reality (in theism, living in tune with God's nature and will). In fundamentalism an equivalence is asserted between the teachings of a particular book or other authority and the self-disclosure of the creator. The Bible is the Word of God. Hence, no distinction is made between doubting that the Bible is God's Word and doubting God's Word. Anyone who doubts the chosen holy book or prophet or clerical authority is thus an enemy of Truth.

In brief, the key feature of progressive religion is critical appropriation and living out of inherited worldviews and ways of life: A religious tradition, with its creeds and sacred narratives, its scriptures and its sacraments, is embraced on account of its perceived promise in helping us to grow in wisdom. It's a matter of trajectory. The religious tradition is seen as offering a powerful template for engaging with the world, one that promises ever deeper insight into fundamental truths about ourselves and the world if only we are open to having that template itself evolve in the light of what lived experience--our own and others'--teaches us.

In other words, like fundamentalism, progressive religion reaches for profound truths about ourselves and reality that transcend what ordinary empirical inquiry gives to us. But while fundamentalism claims to have grasped these truths, equating them with the doctrines and practices and narratives of their religion, the religious progressive sees these doctrines and practices and narratives as instruments for progressively moving towards truths that, by their nature, may never be fully within reach.

The Slippery Slope Premise

A recurring challenge to progressive religion, especially in the last few years, is that there's something about even religion in its progressive forms that facilitates fundamentalism. If we endorse or legitimize progressive religion, we thereby endorse or legitimize a pattern of thinking or approach to life that opens the door to fundamentalist belief. You can't have one without the other.

Let's call this the slippery slope premise: There's a slippery slope from progressive religion to fundamentalism, not in the sense that every person who embraces the former is inevitably going to slide into the latter, but in the sense that if society lets the former in the door, the latter will slide in with it.
The most sweeping recent critics of religion (the "New Atheists" such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris) have offered various reasons for thinking that this slippery slope premise is true, and have then made use of it to conclude that even if what they call "moderate" religion is in its own right harmless, it should be opposed because (in Dawkins' words) its teachings "though not extremist in themselves, are an open invitation to extremism" (The God Delusion, p. 306).

There's a sense in which my first book, Is God a Delusion?, was largely about this slippery slope argument. I wanted to delineate a way of being religious (which I perhaps unwisely sometimes called "true religion") that wan't touched by the New Atheist challenges. I responded to these challenges, in essence, by saying, "Here's a species of religion that doesn't have the vices you rail against; and your glancing efforts to show that 'moderate' religion provides succor to more extreme forms don't succeed in showing that the species of religion I have in mind does anything of the kind."  

But, of course, there are different ways to support a premise. Just because Dawkins and Harris haven't shown that progressive religion is "an open invitation to extremism," it doesn't follow that it's not. There might be better arguments for the slippery slope. In fact, there are probably different sorts of slippery slopes, in the sense of different ways in which endorsing one form of religion might inevitably advance the cause of another. Dawkins and Harris focus on what we might call logical slippery slopes: They think that you cannot consistently complain about or critique fundamentalism if you respect "moderate" religion. But perhaps there are slippery slopes that are less logical and more sociological, or perhaps psychological. What would be the arguments for those sorts of slippery slopes?  

While I hope to devote more attention to these questions in future posts, I don't want to do so here. Rather, for the rest of this post I want to consider what follows if you buy into the slippery slope premise.

Letting in the Bugs

If we accept the slippery slope premise as described above, should we conclude that religion in general ought to be opposed?

The New Atheists think so, but this is one of those places where they seem to be jumping to conclusions. Consider: What if the patterns of thinking that open the door to fundamentalism--and which are purportedly present even in progressive religion--are so deeply rooted in the human condition that there is no real hope of reducing their presence in human society? Our best hope, then, might be to channel those patterns into benign forms of expression. And what if progressive religion is the most effective way to do that?

In that case, promoting progressive religion could help reduce extremism even if it also legitimized a way of thinking found among extremists.

Or what if religion, in addition to having the harmful effect of promoting patterns of thinking that generate extremism, also has an array of positive effects? What if the negative costs of extremism can be overridden by religion’s benefits whenever the fundamentalist/progressive balance is weighted sufficiently on the side of progressivism? And what if such a progressive weighting is within reach?

In that case, legitimizing progressive religion might make the world a better place despite the negative side-effect of offering space for fundamentalism. To return to an earlier metaphor, perhaps it is true that if you open the door to progressive religion, fundamentalism will slip in, too. But likewise, when I let my dogs inside at night, bugs inevitably slip in with them. The opening for my dogs is wide enough, and my dogs slow enough, that sometimes a dozen insects pour in, attracted by the light, before I can get the sliding door shut again.

It hardly follows from this that I should forego the joys of pet ownership. Perhaps if I lived somewhere swarming with mosquitos carrying deadly diseases, the costs might outweigh the benefits. But even then, whether the costs outweigh the benefits might depend on whether there are steps one can take to minimize the number of bugs that pour through.

With my own dogs I've become quite adept at such steps. I avoid letting them out and in at twilight, when the mosquitos are most prevalent. When I let them in at night, I dim the lights inside the house, turn on a floodlight outside that attracts the bugs, open the door enough to call the dogs, shut the door quickly, and don't open it again until they're right there ready to come inside. Sometimes, I'm afraid to say, I almost nip off the tips of their tails sliding the door shut again.

Likewise, there may be strategies that we can take as a society to let in progressive religion while minimizing the number of fundamentalist bugs. If there is some sort of slippery slope--and if, as I believe, there are substantial and important contributions that progressive religion can make to society--then I think an exploration of such strategies is worth having.

And meaningful conversations about such strategies is hindered by polarizing language that throws all religion into a single basket, insisting on all or nothing.

27 comments:

  1. Hi Eric

    Thanks for this post, and the promised series. Fascinating, stimulating, important stuff.

    For me, the question becomes, what if there was a way of letting the dog in, without any of the bugs? Mightn't we be interested in that?

    The bugs, as I see it, have nothing to do with certainty. They are simply the warrant to believe, (with vary degrees of uncertainty) one's personally constructed narratives. In essence, the 'so long as a story works for you, then by all means consider it the best approximation of the truth' bug. I see this as a bug both because it deprives of at least one weapon in the battle against fundamentalism, and because I instinctively want to push my students in a slightly different direction when it comes to thinking about how they might acquire knowledge.

    You make an interesting statement here in describing progressive religion. You write of reaching for profound truths about ourselves and the world that transcend what ordinary empirical enquiry give to us. But what if the empirical method could indeed offer up something very similar?

    An empiricist, presumably, can examine their own culture and values, engage with its art and its meta-narratives, attempt to live out the wisdoms uncovered, discuss and critique this constantly evolving cultural artefact in a manner that you might call Hegelian, and so refine the very experience of living; reaching out, in effect, for the deeper truths of our human nature, and the way it plays out in the world in which we find ourselves.

    One does not need to be religious to do this, and as such it may be the bugs are an unnecessary companion. It is only at the point where we wish to move from saying 'here is the narrative that works best for me' to 'this narrative therefore speaks to something deeper than the point to which biological/cultural/personal evolution has delivered me' that the bugs slip in.

    Is the problem then that for some personality types, saying 'here's a story I embrace because it makes me feel good' only works when they believe the story is true- it's the belief that produces the good feeling? That's a paradox of sorts, perhaps, but I wonder if the human imagination isn't flexible enough to escape these shackles.

    Bernard

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    1. With respect to the following:

      "The bugs, as I see it, have nothing to do with certainty. They are simply the warrant to believe, (with vary degrees of uncertainty) one's personally constructed narratives. In essence, the 'so long as a story works for you, then by all means consider it the best approximation of the truth' bug. I see this as a bug both because it deprives of at least one weapon in the battle against fundamentalism, and because I instinctively want to push my students in a slightly different direction when it comes to thinking about how they might acquire knowledge."

      I will aim to address this line of thought more fully later. For now, a couple of quick points. First, the Hegelian approach to advancing our understanding embodied in progressive religion doesn't just operate on personally constructed narratives, but on communally constructed ones. And the transformations and developments in the narrative thus have the benefit of (a) multiple perspectives and diverse experiences (so long as the community takes seriously the experiences of individual members that don't fit with the narrative in its current form), and (b) a time frame far greater than a single lifetime (assuming the narrative is passed on intergenerationally, and its evolution is an intergenerational project of critical conversation with the past and an invitation for future generations to critically appropriate and revise in turn).

      The second point is that when it comes to the acquisition of *individual* knowledge, I suspect I want to push my students in ways not too different from where you do. What they receive as an inheritance from their tradition is something they may or may not decide to live out critically--if they do, they participate in the intergenerational communal project of the tradition they were born into; if they don't, they may well pursue other projects worthy of pursuit (perhaps a different intergenerational project). But if they do the former, I would discourage them from thinking that the narratives they are critically living out constitutes knowledge. And I would encourage them to pursue knowledge, in part because it is often by virtue of the knowledge gained by individuals and communities who are part of an evolving narrative that the narrative evolves at all.

      These points, however, bracket the issue of belief (which, of course, isn't the same as knowledge). If progressive religion involves (fallibilistic) belief in the narrative that is being lived out critically (and I think it does), then what sort of belief are we talking about? Can we do without that sort of belief? Should we? What are the costs of legitimizing that sort of belief? What are the costs of not doing so?

      This is an interesting cluster of philosophical questions that I want to wrestle with, and I appreciate you pushing them to the surface. But the questions are hard. I probably won't have the amount of focused time I would like to have to devote to them until after I'm done organizing the upcoming philosophy conference I'm working on.

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    2. Thanks Eric

      I agree, these are exactly the questions we are led to. I do tend to use the term personal narrative loosely, and of course intend this to be understood as existing within a cultural context, to be part of a communal process of exploration. And there's a feedback loop here, of course; as our narratives develop, so they change us, extend in effect the potential of human existence, so in turn requiring/rewarding new narratives.

      But as you point out, the religious take on this includes an extra belief, that the evolving human possibility reflects a greater, and benign truth. This hopeful belief, in the narrative that is being lived out, is in stark contrast to those who, using art, literature, oral tradition etc, also lives out a narrative, but without believing it points to any greater truth. (For example, if I live a life of service, and find it to be rewarding, then it is enough to draw the conclusion that living this way suits well my personal/biological/cultural circumstances. The extra belief, that this is in accordance with a divine plan, is something of an optional add-on, one that in my case extends beyond both the communal and personal evidence).

      So I am confident, through experience, that one can lead a interesting life without such add-on beliefs. The costs of adopting them are, I think, primarily intellectual. It becomes much harder to dismiss other beliefs that, while contradicting our own, are reached by a similar manner of living out a received narrative (including, but hardly limited to fundamentalist narratives). Are there costs in not adopting these beliefs? I suspect there are, but I also suspect they differ from person to person, and are a function both of culture and personality. Some people seem to respond much more strongly to the pull of belief. Perhaps the smartest first move then, is to understand as best one can one's own psychological foundations and predilictions, which is perhaps even harder than the attendant philosophical questions.

      Bernard

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  2. It is enjoyable as always to interact with your posts. Sorry if I am a bit scattershot here.

    Don't you find the preaching of uncertainty, with such unfailing consitency and certainty, at all ironic? Hopefully you realize that from the perspective of anyone outside the circles of religion, this progressive vs fundamental seems a bit like splitting hairs. However polite, and however caveated, the progressive view holds to a variety of tenets that don't make any sense without one having been brought up in i.e. indoctrinated in, the tradition or gone through some related conversion experience, none of which deals in reason.

    "But while fundamentalism claims to have grasped these truths, equating them with the doctrines and practices and narratives of their religion, the religious progressive sees these doctrines and practices and narratives as instruments for progressively moving towards truths that, by their nature, may never be fully within reach."

    But why bother? Doesn't such a position presuppose a certainty that what you are seeking exists? Why else than that there were fundamentalists before you who propounded all the hocus pocus and pronounced it the god's honest truth would you, in your putatively meek, progressive way, spend your life chasing such a bizarre dream, espousing a dead prophet and a chaotic corpus?

    I know, I know.. you have your own resources of mysticism, and thus don't need (no stinkin') bible, or other organizations, sacred texts, prophets, or theologies. It all sprang, like Athena, from your untutored mind.

    But what kind of intellectual endpoints does such mysticism lead to? It sets a great store by intuition as telling us vast truths. As you note: "profound truths about ourselves and reality that transcend what ordinary empirical inquiry gives to us." Think about this for a second. (And let me say right away that truths about ourselves are indeed the currency of this mode of thought, and about nothing else. It functions very much like art, which seems to be in your life closely allied to the philosphical pursuit.)

    What could this possibly mean in terms of outer reality? It is unbounded by any reliable test of truth, other than what our minds can dream up, from their well known unconscious fertility. You may set yourself the truth-test of coming into consonance with the intutions of others. If others believe it, then perhaps it is true. But just as easily others disagree, setting the stage for undecidable (but still profoundly meaningful, thus intense) conflict, schism, etc.

    .. cont ..

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    1. With respect to this: "However polite, and however caveated, the progressive view holds to a variety of tenets that don't make any sense without one having been brought up in i.e. indoctrinated in, the tradition or gone through some related conversion experience, none of which deals in reason." See my response to Bernard above. Part of the point of progressive religion is that it involves an intergenerational project of critical development of a tradition of thought and practice, so in a sense I agree with you that outsiders to a tradition will be left scratching their heads--and I certainly do not think that all of this "springs up like Athena from my untutored mind." But what does spring up within my own experience, influenced and interpreted as it inevitably will be by my guiding presuppositions, can serve as a basis for critically refining those presuppositions. If those presuppositions spring from a tradition of thought of which I am a part, then those critical refinements will also have to potential to refine the broader tradition--assuming the broader tradition is progressive in its attitude as opposed to fundamentalistic.

      And as to the question, "Doesn't such a position presuppose a certainty that what you are seeking exists?" What I think it presupposes is a reasonable hope.

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  3. But you can appreciate that agreement between two people's unconscious/intuitions is no more veridical than one person's. The may agree on scientology. This is an insufficient test. You also refer to the test of life, holism, etc. This is another insufficient test, ridden as we are with ego, confirmation bias, cultural templating, etc.

    It also seems to yearn to reconcile itself with existing theologies. Somehow, you never set your journey in the context of Islam or some idiosyncretic path, rather using ambient Christianity as your vehicle towards the transcendent. Why was that? What does that say about its truth? What does that say about the deliverances of mysticism?

    These arguments hope to show that progressive religion deals in far more certainty than it admits, and depends on those who are more visibly certain (starting with that Jesus guy himself) for its sustenance. It is an ongoing symbiotic relationship mired in bad intellectual standards, with big dollops of hope and credulousness.

    "In that case, legitimizing progressive religion might make the world a better place despite the negative side-effect of offering space for fundamentalism."

    Frankly, I think these moral weight arguments are rather hard to make, though there certainly may be a case there, however historically-contingent and impossible to pin down. I guess I stake a great deal more value on respecting truth as an overarching value (as do religionists of all stripes, incidentally) over the whole gamut of political, social, intellectual, and academic landscapes to go for some happy-opiate method of trying to drive out the harder drugs with the methadone of Methodism, as it were.

    By all means, defend progressive religion on meliorist and psychological grounds. I am just saying that it is no more philosophically defensible than fundamentalism, and that it is valid to lump them all together in some important respects from a perspective outside both.

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  4. This post is so funny to me because I grew up as a fundamentalist Christian and was always taught that progressive Christianity was the slippery slope into atheism! And Atheists are saying that progressive Christianity is the slippery slope into fundamentalism. I just find that funny. I'm a progressive now. I don't see myself ever becoming a fundamentalist again or an atheist. But who knows?!

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    1. Lara,

      as someone who has staked out the middle ground--the piety that lies between--for myself, I've noticed the same thing. Many of the criticisms that come from either direction are similar in form, and it seems to me that in many cases this is because on either side there are shared assumptions about what the questions are, or what the problem is, or what the options are--and the difference lies in the answer to the question, the solution to the problem, or the option chosen. I think a classic example of this is that many fundamentalists and atheists accuse progressives of "cherry picking" from the Bible or from their tradition--and they frame this as a case of someone who can't quite give up on the religious authority but won't give up their own rational judgment either, and so are muddled about who to give their allegiance to. I had a post about this awhile back.

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    2. For me the slippery slope does seem to go the other way. The more comfortable I become with being open, testing, seeking, and trying to live with compassion, the less connected I feel with Christianity.

      It could be that I'm a bad seed, but as I get more therapy and the terror of Hell fades, I see less and less reason to give lip service to Christianity.

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  5. Thanks, Lara- you offer a helpful perspective.

    It is a funny situation. I can stipulate that progressive religion is not as bad as fundamentalist religion. But that doesn't mean that atheists have to like it. It is like being asked whether one prefers young earth creationism or intelligent design. One is wronger than the other, and more pernicious in other ways. But the world would be better off without either.

    This is what drives Eric so nuts.. that agnosticism/atheism is the only solid and defensible intellectual position. All other positions are derived from emotion, tradition, mystical intutions, social pressure, hope ... anything but reason. If one's temperament is drawn to hierarchy, pat answers, and subservience, then one will be drawn to fundamentalism. If one's temperament is more liberal, open to differing perspectives and egalitarian social structures, then one will be drawn to progressive religion. It maps quite well to our political system at the moment.

    So yes, as a political and tempramental liberal, I appreciate the virtues of religious liberalism and agree with them on countless things. But intellectually there remains a large gulf.

    Lastly, this argument of Hegelian progressivism as a critical stance doesn't do alot for me. I see it as an excuse to keep doing whatever you are already doing in a social and temperamental sense without following the intellectual argument. Communally constructed narratives are particularly poor forms of intellectual argument, looking over the history of such things. They tend to be tribal, superstitious, etc. In Darwinian terms they can be very successful without being intellectually defensible in the least. So what really is the metric of success?

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  6. After reading the post, I kind of knew what I would find in the comments. One idea that interests me in the post is that of certainty. It seems to me that part of the difficulty that atheists have with progressive religion is that it does not promise an epistemological path to certainty. I think many atheists value the certainty found in their atheism, and many fundamentalists value the certainty found in their fundamentalism, but both disdain progressive religion because it cannot promise what their belief systems deliver. So fundamentalists and atheists can stake out a common ground (certainty of one sort or another) to argue with one another, but that common ground doesn't exist with progressives. Hence the seeming gulf of miscommunication between some atheists and progressive Christians.

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    1. Hi, CP-

      Well, that is quite true. But that doesn't relieve you of the task of figuring out which certainty or uncertainty is actually correct and reflective of reality. And of delving into the nature of an uncertainty that keeps hammering on a door that never opens, refusing to call itself agnosticism.

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  8. Burk,

    “This is what drives Eric so nuts.. that agnosticism/atheism is the only solid and defensible intellectual position. All other positions are derived from emotion, tradition, mystical intutions, social pressure, hope ...”

    You have the uncanny ability to demonstrate the very thing Eric is gesturing toward as something indicative of all fundamentalisms, and, at the same time, seem to be completely oblivious to the fact you are doing so.

    Is this really unintentional or is it sort of a comical/ironic way of trying to prove Eric’s point? Just curious.

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  9. Hi Eric,

    What strikes me in your description of progressive religion (PR) is how much of it can be interpreted in a non-religious way.

    The key feature of PR, as you say it, is a critical appropriation and living out of inherited worldviews and ways of life. Many non-religious people could say this describes their lives well.

    When you write “religious tradition”, one could almost as well read “cultural tradition”, with its defining texts, values and rituals.

    There is the bit about transcending what ordinary empirical inquiry gives to us. Bernard has addressed this but, in any case, this can be interpreted with no religious references at all.

    You mention certainty as a characteristic of fundamentalist religion (FR). Perhaps so, you know more about this than I do. Nevertheless, another striking difference between FR and PR is that, while FR comes with a set of well-defined beliefs (certain or not), PR seems to avoid them altogether. In fact, your definition makes no mention of God or anything, really, that would remind one of traditional religious beliefs.

    Thinking about this I realize that, even after reading your book and following this blog for a couple of years, I couldn't tell what your beliefs are about topics like the afterlife, the resurrection or, say, divine intervention in the evolution of life.

    Not that you have to tell, to be sure - this is a private matter. But your type of religion seems to have very little in common with what, it seems to me, most people would recognize as such.

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  10. Hi CPO

    I agree that certainty is the key issue, or rather the relationship between uncertainty and belief. I think there are some very public atheists who revel in the same sort of certainty that proves succour to the religiously inclined fundamentalists, although I'm not sure I've come across any on this site.

    From my perspective, Eric and Burk seem to have a very similar approach to uncertainty. Given we can not know, they each propose that a certain type of belief is nevertheless reasonable. I think it's probably fair to characterise all progressive religions in this way? (If they choose, in the face of uncertainty, to believe nothing, then it's hard to know in what sense they'd be religious).

    I'm particularly interested in what happens further down the spectrum, when, at the point where we're pretty sure our uncertainty on a particular issue is well justified, we attempt to train ourselves to accept our ignorance and believe nothing at all. Is this a tenable position? It is a useful one? Does it offer advantages over fallibilistic versions of religion and atheism? I think it works for me, although of course life is something of an ongoing exploration in this respect.

    Bernard





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  11. Bernard,

    How in the world can you read something like this (an assertion on this site):

    This is what drives Eric so nuts.. that agnosticism/atheism is the only solid and defensible intellectual position. All other positions are derived from emotion, tradition, mystical intutions, social pressure, hope ...”

    And then write this:

    “I think there are some very public atheists who revel in the same sort of certainty that proves succour to the religiously inclined fundamentalists, although I'm not sure I've come across any on this site.”

    I find this mind boggling. And then to claim that Eric and Burk have a “similar” approach to uncertainty? I’m either reading a different blog or I have a completely different sense of what words mean given their context.

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  12. Hi, All-

    I appreciate this discussion. I don't think one can escape the fact that whether one has hope of transcendence, or secret knowledge about it through some mystical deliverance, either way it is not philosophically secure/warranted as "belief", but rather functions as a speculative hypothesis, whether one acknowledges this frankly via agnosticism, or worships it and wants to turn it into a program for ones' life: the living-out-critically ... etc formulation that Eric offers. It is in this sense that agnosticism (and functional atheism) is the default case that is fully defensible, while various spiritual hypotheticals and speculations are "reasonable" only insofar as one holds them quite tenatively, unlike what I would argue is the norm for progressive religion, let alone fundamentalism.

    We all also acknowledge that fundamentalism is wrong- on factual, moral, historical, probably temperamental grounds, and in its intuitions. My proposition is that being half-wrong is not so great either. The truth does not always lie in the middle, in this case, the land of progressive semi-piety, which professes speculative hope for things unknown.

    It is interesting how fundamentalists deal with intution. As Darrell mentioned so intruguingly, they do not (explicitly) trust their own for theological guidance, at least at lower social levels. Where progressives respect everyone's intuititions and thus have a loose democratic and pretty syncretistic approach, fundamentalists demand more conformity, which means not everyone can follow one's own intution (or reason for that matter). However, they do trust the intutions of others (i.e. religious leaders, and past prophets, etc.) pronounced in biblical ways, without asking too many questions. Thus you get someone like Pat Robertson, who, in the name of all that is holy and Christian, spouts off about whatever pops into his head. Or the magisterium of the Catholic church.

    At the other extreme, atheists/agnostics are quite dismissive, even suspicious, of intution. This is not for reasons of conformity, but for other reasons. While every great idea, scientific insight, etc. began its life as an intuition, intuitions tend to not be equally accurate in all fields of inquiry. And in the sciences, their record, among those whose intutions are not specifically trained to a particular field, is dreadful. Witness the history of astronomy and biology. And as fundamentalists show most acutely, intutions tend to be very trainable, subject to cultural templating, which can go down all sorts of bizarre and immoral paths, not to mention inaccurate ones.

    And what's the virtue of living in a speculative pietistic hope? Humans have climbed through an astonishingly painful process to a height of non-violence, at the pinnacle of which stand non-religious societies. Whether we hope for moral aid from the beyond, it has been appallingly slow in coming, and any progress (indeed any action at all) depends on our behavior, so whether one is progressive or agnostic, one has to be humanistic to get anything positive done.

    Positive thinking does have its virtues, so the best one can say is that if we use these religious cultural traditions to intensely visualize goodness, then we stand a better chance of creating such conditions for ourselves. Indeed, if the pietistic moral speculation were actually true, and we are already getting supernatural assistance, then the need for us to pray, to worship, to theologize, etc. is rather minimal.. we would be in god's hands and she would be creating our fate no matter what we do or don't do. (This is not to indulge in psychoanalysis of god- what she wants, doesn't want, hates, etc., which just drives the speculative project way beyond its warrant.)

    Speculations about "life" after death, which we don't know anything about and can't do anything about in any case, is another case where hope operates in a starkly psychotherapeutic way rather than a philosophical one.

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  13. Hi Darrell

    Perhaps Burk's explanation above goes some way to assuaging your puzzlement? If I understand Burk correctly, he doesn't argue God's existence is a logical or physical impossibility, rather he argues that whatever sits outside the realm of empirical investigation is unknowable, and as such speculation upon it is more likely an exercise in personal imagination than it is one of genuine discovery.

    And this, to my mind, doesn't make him a defender of certainty (no matter his taste for forceful prose). At the very least, there are some significantly more certain viewpoints out there. Rather, the disagreement comes from what is the appropriate stance towards belief when confronted with uncertainty. Eric appears to argue that in the face of uncertainty, hopeful belief in communally lived out narratives is warranted, and Burk's approach seems to be that in the face of uncertainty, an agnostic/atheistic response is more reasonable.

    To the extent that each references pragmatic arguments at times, and each is suspicious of the reasonableness of the other's stance, I think there are some significant similarities here. Of course, I may have them very much wrong on these matters. Sometimes though, marking out similarities is the most provocative way of exploring a dispute.

    For my part, I admire them both for having moved a little further along the path of intellectual commitment than I have. I find some of the key differences here very difficult to resolve.

    Bernard

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  14. Bernard,

    No, his “explanation” does not in the least.

    If you can square this assertion:

    “This is what drives Eric so nuts.. that agnosticism/atheism is the only solid and defensible intellectual position. All other positions are derived from emotion, tradition, mystical intutions, social pressure, hope ...”

    With this explanation:

    “If I understand Burk correctly, he doesn't argue God's existence is a logical or physical impossibility, rather he argues that whatever sits outside the realm of empirical investigation is unknowable,…”

    Then God bless you! If Burk’s position is the “only” solid and defensible intellectual position does that not smack of “certainty” to you? How is anything in that statement suggesting humility toward the unknowable? His assertion is a blatant dismissal of every position except his own. You have to be kidding me?

    What if we were to reverse this? What if Eric were to assert that belief in God were the “only” solid and defensible intellectual position. I have the feeling that you and Burk were be crying “foul” especially if this were done in a post about the very issue of fundamentalism being about this type of “certainty.” I think you are doing a little dissembling here. Your excusing here of Burk’s statement is very weak. If we want to have a respectful conversation then please quit excusing the very thing (a certainty that dismisses everyone else’s position—I’m right and everyone else is wrong—mentality) that is the very point of the post.

    I think the truth of the matter is that Burk displays the same sort of sensibility that all fundamentalists do, he simply does it from the other side of the coin. Eric is pointing out the possibility of coming at all this from a different place—a place of epistemic humility.

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  15. Hi Darrell

    I wonder if the key phrase here is 'defensible intellectual position.' This is a claim about where reason will necessarily lead us, and by using reason as its bedrock, it invites disagreement from those, like you, who believe reason can lead us in another direction. This, it seems to me, is distinct from a fundamentalism that says 'here is a truth, to which I have direct access, and reason be damned.' The great thing about this site is that it isn't peopled by fundamentalists, and consequently discussion across the trenches is entirely possible.

    If we define fundamentalism as any position that is not open to every other position, we get into trouble, I think. Indeed, my biggest misgiving with the living out approach is that, depending upon the cultural starting point, it appears to endorse any narrative. You in the past have expressed lack of support for some of these narratives (leprachauns). This doesn't, for my money, make you a fundamentalist.

    Bernard

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  16. Bernard,

    I would challenge you to read Eric’s post again. How can you read this:

    “In brief, the key feature of fundamentalism is certainty.”

    And this:

    “…agnosticism/atheism is the only solid and defensible intellectual position. All other positions are derived from emotion, tradition, mystical intutions, social pressure, hope ...”

    And not think Burk is expressing the very sensibility Eric is speaking about? Regardless the problems you think this humility may lead to (belief in Leprechauns I guess—where are their temples?), if you cannot see the fundamentalist strain in Burk’s assertion, where in the world do you see it? Only when it comes from religious people?

    The key word you are not addressing in Burk’s assertion is “only.” People use that word when they are certain about something. I’m certain you are opposed to religious fundamentalism, but please don’t defend it when it comes from a secular voice.

    By the way, if your agnosticism was attributed to emotion, tradition, mystical intuition, social pressure, or hope (anything but reason or logic), while I expressed my position as the “only” solid and intellectually defensible position, which of us would be more tacking toward fundamentalism as Eric has expressed its key feature?

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  17. It seems to me it would be possible for someone to have a position of the following sort: "While the truth cannot be known on subject S, I am convinced that given the evidence available, the only position on S that can be supported by reason and evidence is position P. All other positions are unsupported by reason and evidence. But this is not to say that position P is certain, only that it is the only one in accord with the available evidence, and hence the only position that it is rationally legitimate to adopt."

    Such a view does not pretend to certainty about P, but may espouse certainty about what reason and evidence warrant. In that case there would be a meta-level certainty: there is a certainty about which belief-forming practices are rational and which are not, even if there is no profession of certainty about the beliefs themselves.

    It would be interesting to consider how certainty at that meta-level compares to certainty at the primary level. Traditional fundamentalism seems to feature certainty at the primary level, and arguably also at the meta-level. Is certainty that exists only at the meta-level problematic in the same ways?

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  18. Yes, this is the interesting question, isn't it? I'm often unclear as to whether the disagreements here really are at the meta-level, or whether they are about the way shared assumptions of rationality are being applied.

    So, if for example the method of communally living out a belief can in fact be manipulated so as to support almost any belief, including some that the proponents of such living out reject, then there may be a disagreement here based not upon a difference at the meta-level, but rather at the level of way agreed rules of rationality are being applied. Burk can speak for himself on this, of course, but I'm not sure his disagreement with you is actually at the meta-level, although his rhetoric often veers there. Perhaps this is being too generous?

    Bernard

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  19. Hi Darrell

    You may well be right, clearly this business of deciphering a third party's motives is fraught, and possibly I'm pushing this further than it can reasonably be stretched. I do however think that the more generously we interpret the opposing view, the more fruitful.

    As an aside, were somebody to describe my agnosticism as springing from emotion, social pressure, hope etc, well they'd be bang on actually. At the fundamental level, my foundational beliefs are mostly a matter of taste!

    Bernard

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  20. Hi, Darrell-

    Perhaps it is time you get your head around the fact that you don't know that god exists. You may spend your waking hours believing in it, propounding it, professing it, etc. But faith does not knowledge make.

    That is all I am saying, by way of agnosticism. To try an analogy, suppose I "believed" that there is life on other planets (LOOP, for short). It would make the cosmos make sense to me and give me a reason to live to believe in this. I have faith in LOOP. Whether and to what degree it is "reasonable" to believe in LOOP as a fallibilistic speculative hypothesis seems pretty questionable (philosophically speaking), however much it helps me get through the night (psychologically speaking). Surely the reasons to believe in it are better than for supernaturalism, even though SETI has not decided that any evidence really passes critical muster. Yet you might well be tempted to say that "I will believe it when I see it".

    Which would be the right response.

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  21. Eric,

    I have an observation and question as to your last comment. I think what you sketch out is the way many agnostics/atheists approach the question of God’s existence. However, it is also the way that many evangelicals approach similar questions (completely modern). Where the fundamentalist sensibility comes in, is when the assertion of certainty is made that one “must” view and interpret the “evidence” the way I do (and therefore come to the same conclusion I do) and any other way is stupid, or based on anything but logic and reason. Because the approach you sketch out begs the question of how one must understand “reason and evidence” in my view it is ultimately a dead end and demonstrates why we must always be open to the fact we could be wrong in how we interpret and understand the “evidence” and even what counts as “evidence.”

    My question: What is the “primary level” you note? Perhaps I missed the explanation for it in your post. How is it different than the meta-level?

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