God. Why do you care?
Dec. 13th, 2006 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsMark Vernon's essay, God. Who Knows?, has been sitting on my desk for over a week, and I'm still trying to figure out how to respond to him.
Vernon yearns for the return of a "passionate, committed agnosticism" to the religious debate, an establishment of a worldview committed to the "Who knows?" position. He writes that science encourages "a lust for certainty," and that atheism is "a kind of puritanism, as if certain areas of human experience must be put off-limits."
I'd like to know which scientists Vernon is speaking with. Vernon insults the profession of science when he dismisses the quest for finality. He states that "the best science is that which answers questions by opening up more questions," ignoring the point that ultimately, we must have answers or we must give up in despair. "What can we do with it?" is a scientific question that has given us solid and valuable answers, whether the "it" is gravity, aerodynamics, atomic theory, or antibiotics. For Vernon to dismiss these tools, which have led to a day where we feed, house, and educate more people, and more people per capita, than at any other time in history, is for him to embrace misery so he can keep wonder. We have those tools because we sought answers, not an exponentially-increasing array of "Oh, isn't it so mysterious!" questions. (To shut down a debate I know is coming, I have no quibble with science that raises questions; I just want to point out that very few scientists go into the field in the hopes of growing ever more befuddled with unanswerable riddles as their career progresses; they go into their field in the hopes that they will find answers and solve problems, and that's why we pay them.)
I'd also like to know which atheists Vernon is speaking to. Neither group (and no, they are not to be conflated, although their Venn overlap is quite large) is anything at all like Vernon describes. Most of the atheists I know are postively gleeful at the prospect of engaging in all areas of human experience, if only to challenge the supernatural explanations and show that there exist parsimonious, natural explanations. Despite the number of people left in the world who believe in the miracles found in their holy books whenever such a story has been tested it has been falsified, often cruelly so. The failure of the supernatural is so scandalous that the higher theologians of all the major religions have long cast off the exoteric god who walks on water, makes snakes and ants talk, and moves mountains, instead falling back to a more esoteric, vague, and undefinable other (convienient that) which is so far removed from the beliefs of their base congregation that it may as well be given another name. I propose "Om."
Vernon clings desperately to the corpse of Thomas Huxley, inventor of the word "agnostic" in 1869. I want to know why the word was needed then and not for the previous 2000 years of philosophical thought: the lack of such a term for so long should raise suspicion. One can see Huxley's reason later: "While avoiding the approbation of the 'infidel,' I wanted to show the foxes that I had a tail like the rest of them," he wrote, explaining how he came up with the term. It's a dodge, a cop-out. The most intellectually rigorous explanation for agnosticism is that it is a belief, a worldview all its own, one that says that reality cannot, ultimately, be explained at all, and perhaps we shouldn't even try.
Vernon bizarrely sets himself up as the arbiter between good and evil, the only man with the only plan for preventing religion from becoming "too extreme" (here's a hint, Vernon: it becomes more extreme the more painful the cognitive dissonance between what The Book tells you and what's really out there) and science from becoming "triumphalist" (here's a hint: when you can deliver what some other group has long promised, like, say, food and water and healing that would once have been thought miraculous, you've got good reason to feel triumphant). Vernon tops his intellectual braincandy with the maraschino cherry of an Einstein quote. Forgive me if I fail to be as impressed as his impressionable audience: Albert Einstein was a human being who had a precious and valuable insight into the nature of the physical world, and spent his life chasing down the consequences of that insight. But he was still a human being, with human frailities and foibles, with no special insight into Huxley's "ultimate questions" that have somehow helped form or inform the world since.
Vernon's essay is ultimately unhelpful. It reminds me of the bumper sticker, "If you're living life as if there were no Odin, you'd better be right!" I bet most of us do live as if there were no Odin. We're pretty "a-" about that particular theos. Vernon's "commitment to uncertainty" condemns us to remain at least a little anxious about that, and personally, I don't have time to be anxious about that, worried that someday I might not get to cross the Bifrost bridge.
Vernon yearns for the return of a "passionate, committed agnosticism" to the religious debate, an establishment of a worldview committed to the "Who knows?" position. He writes that science encourages "a lust for certainty," and that atheism is "a kind of puritanism, as if certain areas of human experience must be put off-limits."
I'd like to know which scientists Vernon is speaking with. Vernon insults the profession of science when he dismisses the quest for finality. He states that "the best science is that which answers questions by opening up more questions," ignoring the point that ultimately, we must have answers or we must give up in despair. "What can we do with it?" is a scientific question that has given us solid and valuable answers, whether the "it" is gravity, aerodynamics, atomic theory, or antibiotics. For Vernon to dismiss these tools, which have led to a day where we feed, house, and educate more people, and more people per capita, than at any other time in history, is for him to embrace misery so he can keep wonder. We have those tools because we sought answers, not an exponentially-increasing array of "Oh, isn't it so mysterious!" questions. (To shut down a debate I know is coming, I have no quibble with science that raises questions; I just want to point out that very few scientists go into the field in the hopes of growing ever more befuddled with unanswerable riddles as their career progresses; they go into their field in the hopes that they will find answers and solve problems, and that's why we pay them.)
I'd also like to know which atheists Vernon is speaking to. Neither group (and no, they are not to be conflated, although their Venn overlap is quite large) is anything at all like Vernon describes. Most of the atheists I know are postively gleeful at the prospect of engaging in all areas of human experience, if only to challenge the supernatural explanations and show that there exist parsimonious, natural explanations. Despite the number of people left in the world who believe in the miracles found in their holy books whenever such a story has been tested it has been falsified, often cruelly so. The failure of the supernatural is so scandalous that the higher theologians of all the major religions have long cast off the exoteric god who walks on water, makes snakes and ants talk, and moves mountains, instead falling back to a more esoteric, vague, and undefinable other (convienient that) which is so far removed from the beliefs of their base congregation that it may as well be given another name. I propose "Om."
Vernon clings desperately to the corpse of Thomas Huxley, inventor of the word "agnostic" in 1869. I want to know why the word was needed then and not for the previous 2000 years of philosophical thought: the lack of such a term for so long should raise suspicion. One can see Huxley's reason later: "While avoiding the approbation of the 'infidel,' I wanted to show the foxes that I had a tail like the rest of them," he wrote, explaining how he came up with the term. It's a dodge, a cop-out. The most intellectually rigorous explanation for agnosticism is that it is a belief, a worldview all its own, one that says that reality cannot, ultimately, be explained at all, and perhaps we shouldn't even try.
Vernon bizarrely sets himself up as the arbiter between good and evil, the only man with the only plan for preventing religion from becoming "too extreme" (here's a hint, Vernon: it becomes more extreme the more painful the cognitive dissonance between what The Book tells you and what's really out there) and science from becoming "triumphalist" (here's a hint: when you can deliver what some other group has long promised, like, say, food and water and healing that would once have been thought miraculous, you've got good reason to feel triumphant). Vernon tops his intellectual braincandy with the maraschino cherry of an Einstein quote. Forgive me if I fail to be as impressed as his impressionable audience: Albert Einstein was a human being who had a precious and valuable insight into the nature of the physical world, and spent his life chasing down the consequences of that insight. But he was still a human being, with human frailities and foibles, with no special insight into Huxley's "ultimate questions" that have somehow helped form or inform the world since.
Vernon's essay is ultimately unhelpful. It reminds me of the bumper sticker, "If you're living life as if there were no Odin, you'd better be right!" I bet most of us do live as if there were no Odin. We're pretty "a-" about that particular theos. Vernon's "commitment to uncertainty" condemns us to remain at least a little anxious about that, and personally, I don't have time to be anxious about that, worried that someday I might not get to cross the Bifrost bridge.
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Date: 2006-12-14 06:53 pm (UTC)To say that _anything_ is 'ultimately unknowable' goes against my nature. Sure, there are some questions that can't be answered. If you look at things right, it's impossible to really _know_ that anything is real, other than your own thought. That's the basis of solipsism, and it's always struck me as a particularly pointless and impractical worldview. It is, however, at least logical. To say that we shouldn't even try to find out whether something exists, though, is ridiculous. Curiosity is a huge part of human nature, and it is the very quest for answers that brought me to the conclusion that I, at this point in time, with currently available resources and within my own experience, did not have any way of determining whether there exists any sort of divine being. My inclination is to say that there is no all-powerful, all-knowing, loving god, because when you look at the world today, the very idea is laughable. I could be wrong, though. I have less difficulty in believing there are likely a multitude of 'spiritual' beings that exist as a result of human belief, but I see no reason to believe in them myself... they've never done anything for me, and I've never had one offer me any concrete proof of its existance. Either way, I consider the existence of deity to be completely irrelevant. I base my behaviour on my own system of ethics, which stems logically from the idea that in order to live in a society such as I wish to live in, it is in my own best interests to avoid causing harm to other sentient beings. I do not live my life based upon what some potential deity may think of it, nor do I care particularly if I'm wrong and the christians are right and their god is just wetting his pants in anticipation of punishing me when I die... if they _are_ right, that doesn't change the fact that I have no respect for their god and would not bow to him for any reason, hence, there would be no change in my life.
I won't, however, say that there won't come a time when we can concretely prove or disprove the existence of the divine. How would I know whether or not we ever will? To me, agnostic means that right now, we can't. Certainly, _I_ can't, one way or the other. I've had experiences I can't explain, but I feel no great need _to_ explain them, because it doesn't change the way I live my life. I make my own ethical decisions, and do not base them off of any sort of scripture. I don't tell anyone else that they shouldn't though, because for all I know (all I _can_ know, right now), they may be right, and certainly if it feels right to them, I have no right to tell them they can't believe as they please. Solid religious beliefs can be quite a comfort to some people, and I occasionally envy that, but personally prefer the freedom of adaptability.