Category Archives: Religion - Page 3

The World in Our Heads: The Counter Punch.

Posted by on April 7, 2011 4 comments

Yesterday I wrote about my take on Religion and our illusions.  I took what might have seemed an anti religious stance, but there has to be balance, tonight I will throw my counter punch.  Let’s see if I can land it.

One of the things about illusions, is our confidence in them.  We believe that they are the truth, the whole truth and we don’t realise otherwise.  Often, we don’t want to.  You may think I am aiming at the religious, but not so, I am aiming this one towards dogmatic Atheism and something called “Scientism”.

Dogmatic Atheism, I define this as the belief that no worldview other than the strictly secular could have any validity.  I have seen this with the New Atheists, some of whom really seem to be off on an intellectual power trip; they reminded me of people kicking apart a dolls house.

Scientism is, at least in my view, closely related to this but not quite the same thing.  Scientific fundamentalists will try to tell you that everything is explained, bar a little filling in of the edges.  You don’t need to look any further than this, we’re right, trust us.  Hmm, sorry that sounds little like “don’t think, believe the dogma”.

As an aside, I used the word “belief”, how shocking.  The interesting part of this is that aversion.  Hey, not all of our illusion are nice, we can recoil away from them as well grasp towards them!  Let me clarify my use of the term “belief”, dictionary.com give this definition, and I use the first one:

1. Something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.
2. Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief.
3. Confidence; faith; trust: a child’s belief in his parents.
4. A religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith: the Christian belief.

“But.. But I don’t believe, I’m an Atheist!”  Well, a belief is an opinion or a conviction, this is regardless of the source be it science or religion.  A conviction that the Earth is round, based on empirical evidence is still a belief, the belief is not the source.  But enough of that, back on topic.
The concern I have about Scientism and dogmatic Atheism is that they seem to refuse to acknowledge our fallibility, our limits.  Science is a great method for discovering the truth, but we can only be so certain.  Each generation of Scientists seeks to increase that certainty, but this is within the limitations of our minds and available technology.  We must not be overconfident, Human brain is a great thing, but it has upper limits; we must bear that in mind lest we get cocky.
Let me try to illuminate what I mean.  We remember Einstein, because he proved Newton wrong.  Newton’s laws were thought to be the last word, and they are indeed very accurate, in fact we can still calculate the orbits of satellites using them.  Einstein showed that once you get up near lightspeed they break down.  Einstein came up with a better description of how things work, we remember him for superceding Newton.  If I were a scientific fundamentalist, I’d be a bit worried by that because it means that I might one day have to explain why I wasn’t quite as right as I thought I was.  Very embarassing.
I think it’s very important to remember that Science is a humble interrogation of the universe.  Let me end with a fitional quote I have used before, but that I have always found apt:

 

“I heard once of an American who so defined faith, “that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.” For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe.”
- Professor Abraham Van Helsing (taken from the novel Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The Worlds in Our Heads

Posted by on April 6, 2011 1 comment

This is where I realise, with some shamefaced embarassment, how long it’s been since my last post.

I have spent some time over the last few weeks, discussing things with fellow secularists and some Jehovah’s Witnesses we have the acquaintance of.  The discussions are relating to God, Creationism and Evolution; the usual, in other words.  I do try to keep things as polite and civil as I can, I try to make my points gently and without causing offence.  But I do begin to understand why many secular people get frustrated when dealing with true believers, so I’d like to open the can of worms here; at least part of the way.

I write from the perspective of a Secular Buddhist, and my understanding is this.  Our problems stem from the fact we do not see clearly. We clutch after things we believe are solid and permanent without realising that they are changing and impermanent, our illusions blind us to the basic impermanence of the world and also of ourselves.  This is why you’ll sometimes hear Buddhists referred to as believing the world is an illusion, that’s because the world most of us inhabit is; it’s an illusion that exists only in our minds.  The trouble starts when we respond to this illusion as if it were concrete reality, then we start storing up trouble for the future (think Karma).  There’s a lot more I could say, but I’ll save it for another time.  Believe it or not, I’ve expressed the above to an Anglican and a Jehovah’s Witness and both have agreed with the sentiment that responding to our illusions as if they were real is nothing but trouble.  I can’t imagine that either would agree with what I have to say next.

When expressing ideas to believers, I’ve found that no matter how well you put things or how you back things up with proof, there is a wall.  You can get so far, then you’re up against faith and you can get no further.  From what I can see, the whole position of ‘supernatural’ religions would seem to be exactly the problem I describe in my last paragraph; they have their beliefs from their book and regardless of the evidence will stick to those beliefs with varying degrees of rigidity.

The level of intellectual evasion can be quite breathtaking at times.  I’ve seen false dichotomies and strawman arguments presented confidently as fact in articles sourced from around the Internet and thought “Why?”, “Why distort things like this, when it undermines everything you’re trying to do?”  I can understand defending a cherished belief, I can genuinely empathise, but if you can’t defend it honestly then why is it worth defending at all?

But it’s when I see believers taking these things and accepting them as accurate logic without a peep, not even a murmur; when I start to realise how many people are doing this, and not bringing even a shred of critical thought to bear on these things, it’s then that I start to get a glimpse of the sheer enormity of what the Buddha meant.

Signs of the Times

Posted by on January 19, 2011 2 comments

Today, I read the news that a gay couple have won a court case against the proprietors of a hotel. The proprietors are a devout Christian couple who denied them a room for the night after they had previously booked it.  The whole thing has been covered to death in the UK media, so I will simply refer you to the media coverage for the in depth details, Google News is your friend.

This really does seem to have been portrayed as a victory for Gay Rights legislation against religious doctrine, but I’d like to suggest a different take.  My take on this comes from a secular humanist perspective, and I should point out that this is in fact a case where secular law delivered a rebuke to a faith based morality.

This is something that I perceive as a sign of the times, and it was inevitable with the tensions in certain areas between secular law and religious doctrine.  I have to admit this walking this line is going to be difficult as both parties are standing up for something they believe in passionately, but I consider that ultimately the rule of secular law will eclipse religious objection; it has to for our society to work.  There have been claims that Christians are a persecuted group, that their rights are infringed.  I imagine we would hear the same from any religious group.  My response is : “No, you’re just being asked to abide by the same laws everyone else is”.