h2. This is not a theology weblog.
I thought I’d put that up there, just in case it wasn’t obvious. Generally I write about science–or scientists, at least–but Dr Isis reminds me that I’ve been thinking about the relationship of faith with science for a little while now. When I first started science-blogging I vowed not to enter the whole science versus religion debate, but it’s
SundayMonday night, I’m avoiding the vodka in the freezer and when you break promises you should do it good and proper; so I’m taking a deep breath and diving right in. Be warned. I might mention the ‘E’ word. I’m not deceiving myself by thinking that I might change any minds, and I don’t pretend to have any new or incisive insights. Put simply, there have been a few things knocking around my head and I think they need saying, so I’m going to write them down.
A false dichotomy
One of the problems with the science:faith dichotomy is that it isn’t, in fact, a dichotomy. Science is a way of understanding the natural world; a way of trying to understand what goes on around us. We observe something interesting, we think of a explanation for the observation, and we design an experiment to test that explanation. It works pretty well, and has given us all sorts of cool stuff such as antibiotics, computers, global warming and iPhones (yes: these are ‘technology’, which is the appliance of science, as the old ad used to say).
Faith, on the other hand, and I might get into a lot of trouble here, isn’t primarily a way of understanding the world. Certainly not the natural one. It is (and I’m concentrating particularly on the Christian faith, so your mileage may vary. I’m also being very careful to talk about ‘faith’ and not ‘religion’) a response to revelation. What you might do when someone says to you, ‘Uh, there’s something you should know’ (and anyone who says ‘religion has caused more wars’ or anything equally fatuous is going to get slapped, right? Let’s keep the tone a little higher than that, please).
Now, the full working out of that faith, in time, does lead to what we might call a worldview, but it’s not necessary nor sufficient. The beauty of faith is that it’s not an intellectual exercise. Anyone can join in, at whatever level they like. It doesn’t require you to be clever–or rich, or middle-class, or college-educated. But it doesn’t have to stop there–faith can expand according to your ability. Indeed, as someone’s faith grows they will find that it permeates more and more of their life and outlook. In fact, they will probably find themselves becoming a sceptic.
A sceptic, despite what the internets tell you, isn’t necessarily an unbeliever. A sceptic is one who questions, one who doesn’t take anything on faith (and I must piss off my friends mightily because it’s naturally difficult for me to take what anyone says without wanting to verify it myself). Someone who, in fact, might make a reasonable scientist. Now, you might say that my definition negates the possibility of a sceptic having faith: but that would be because you misunderstand the nature of ‘faith’.
The old joke goes that the definition of faith is believing something you know not to be true. Yes Victoria, it’s a joke–but you can understand why people think it. A lot of the faithful do seem, sometimes, to believe stuff that appears crazy or just plain wrong. But the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that faith is ‘being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see’. Not, you’ll notice, ‘being sure of something I just made up’. It presupposes a reason to be hopeful, to be certain. Faith does not exist in a vacuum: I might hope for a million bucks in my final pay cheque on Thursday, but I actually have no reason to expect it might happen. On the other hand, if someone I had reason to trust told me to look out for a huge bonus, then not expecting anything wouldn’t be sceptical–it’d be irrational.
To put it another way, people don’t have faith, or believe in something they can’t see, for no reason. In fact, if you talk to them you might find that they have very good reason (although not proof, and they’d happily admit as much) to have faith: on balance, given their experiences and the evidence they have seen, faith is a perfectly rational position. Faith is about weighing evidence, and then making a decision based on what you know so far. We have the phrase ‘a leap of faith’ for a reason. And perfectly sane, rational, sceptical people will make that leap because they think the evidence justifies that decision.
These are obvious (to me) points, but given some of the fights that happen in less ‘accessible’ parts of the internet I think they bear making; because there seems to be an implicit assumption among a lot of otherwise reasonably educated people that science and faith are two ways of looking at the same thing, i.e. the natural world; and furthermore that no rational person could ever have faith in anything supernatural.
And that leads us to all sorts of problems because we get the faithful qua faithful making claims about science and the natural world; and scientists qua scientists making claims about faith.
I’m going to think about that a little more in Part 2.
Oooh, you are going out on a limb. Again. Looking forward to part 2.
You might be interested in the Templeton Prize . I just read the biography of former laureate Charles Townes ‘ wife (I’ll get around to his own biography later), thanks to a recommendation from Stephen and this eminently rational couple is full of religious faith, but took a while to settle on a church (and even a religion, if you count flavors of Protestantism separately).
Darn, I see from that link that I promised a book review – or two. (whistles innocently)
Very nicely articulated, particularly the paragraph around the concept (joke) of faith not being believing something you know not to be true. This topic is one I don’t think about much (probably semi-intentionally), so I enjoyed this.
Awaiting part II. I have faith that it will appear in due course, because someone I had reason to trust told me to look out for it.
P.S. Aren’t you supposed to be on an airplane or something?
Yes, I know about the Templeton Prize.
Not wholly convinced it’s a good use of time or funds, but hey.
The comments so far are a little too namby-pamby, and no-one writes a blog about such issues unless they want to start a fight, right?
So, I shall try to see if we can engage in vociferous discussion of the logic of one of your themes. Get your wrestling spandex on, Grant, I’ve got my lightning emblazoned calf boots here already. (Note to listeners: Please do not attempt mental imagery at this point).
You quote from the Letter to the Hebrews (Anon, 80)[1] to illustrate your definition of what faith is, and I interpret your arguments to mean that the hope associated with faith is derived from reasonable experience. I would posit that many converts are attracted to their faithful ways, by a promise of eternal paradise (sit down at the back please, Gee. I’m sure someone will get to you in time), or the threat of eternal, fiery damnation.
I wonder how you would justify this as a reasonable position given their experiences and the evidence they have seen? The main “evidence” we have for life after death comes from some jolly folks whom the church would probably rather see cast asunder to a place where whales gnash their teeth, or a hastily gathered collection of letters, parables
comic stripsbawsy jokesand the like that were edited and whittled down selectively without peer review, a number of centuries later, before being abused and corrupted in successive translations. But heck, it’s the word of God, so it must be true. That sort of tautology is, hopefully, troubling to enquiring minds. Faith is not a barrier to enquiry.I think my
schleptisizinghealthy scepticism about many faith based life choices are based around the unabashed selectivity in which parts of the instruction manual you choose to follow verbatim and which parts you decide are allegorical.1 Aslo ascribed to “Holy Spirit, The”. See e.g., here or here
My question is, why do you trust the people who you choose to trust?
“Note to listeners: Please do not attempt mental imagery at this point”
Too late.
I’m actually saving my brilliant and insightful comments for part 2, because that sounds like it would be more relevant to the things I wanted to mention. But Mike, [whispers] I think you’re walking into a trap by mentioning “evidence”. Be careful! Take this sword and cape – they match your boots.[/whispers]
Also, good post ;). But I’m interested in your answer.
On second reading, the following jumped out at me: “there seems to be an implicit assumption among a lot of otherwise reasonably educated people that science and faith are two ways of looking at the same thing, i.e. the natural world; and furthermore that no rational person could ever have faith in anything supernatural.”
This ties in to a post I’ve had planned for months. I’ll wait until after this series is finished (is part 2 the last part, or will there be more?) to see if that changes my approach…
Mike:
(1) Those with long memories may recall that one of RPG’s interweb aliases is “The Caped Avenger”. Your spandex and wrestling boots may not be enough.
(2) Who you callin’ namby-pamby? [dances around threateningly, in the manner of Michael Palin with a small fish in hand]
RPG – in paragraph 3, there’s an implication that I think you didn’t intend… that perhaps science, in contrast to faith, does require you to be clever, or college-educated, or middle class (but certainly not rich, as far as I can tell – university tuition fees notwithstanding).
And, jumping around a bit as I do – Cath’s flagging of the line “no rational person could ever have faith in anything supernatural” makes me wonder why that way of looking at things would assume that people are “rational” or “not”. People can be both, and a whole lot in between, at different times and/or about different subjects.
Eva: I kinda hope it’s not a trap – I was quoting Richard when I used the word “evidence”. I realize traps are inherently sneaky, but that would be mind bendingly sneaky.
In other news, I’ve just finished cooking a divine omelet.
A delicious alternative to fluffy animal pictures
Take that, nambily pambilies!
They’re very good points Mike, and I’ll answer some of them without turning this into a theology blog. No, it wasn’t a trap. I’m not clever enough for that.
Richard, don’t you think you have to be clever and college-educated to do science?
I’ve read this blog a couple of times, and I have to the prospect of Mike’s omelet is more appealing. I am about to hav another go.
have to what the prospect of the omelette, Henry?
@Mike — I think before I even attempt to answer your major questions we should question your assumptions. What is it that makes people convert? (And convert they do—not everyone is born into it, and the traffic goes both ways). And now we’re getting into theology and proselytization, which I really didn’t want to do. But I left myself open to it, I guess.
To be brief, I’d say that converts are actually initially attracted by the lives of other believers. And that the things they see and hear tie up with things that they read and experience themselves. The promise of eternal life? That attracts nutters and suicide bombers, I think. A reason for living, on the other hand, is much more attractive, at least to me. And I might say something about that in Part 2. Or maybe 3.
I really don’t think that there’s much doubt about what’s meant to be allegorical, what’s meant to be historical, and what obviously is mythical (given that there was no one around to witness it). So that’s a bit of a smokescreen. I think saying the Bible is an ‘instruction manual’ is creatively point-missing, to be frank.
There’s interesting point about canon there, too. I think the whittling down of the huge numbers of manuscripts to get what we see as canon today is a pretty good example of the peer review process, actually. There were a lot of peers and a rather extensive review process.
To answer Cath’s question, you trust people whose lives appear trustworthy. Who act in accordance with what they say.
I’ve written, edited, deleted, and rewritten this comment a few times now. My apologies if this comes across as dumb and/or offensive (I seem to be able to offend people on this topic while specifically trying not to).
I’m just getting really stuck on that trust thing. In your paycheque analogy, you say “if someone I had reason to trust told me to look out for a huge bonus, then not expecting anything wouldn’t be sceptical—it’d be irrational”.
I inferred from that example that hope becomes expectation when you get information from someone you trust – but who you also feel to be in a position where they know something that you don’t. i.e. someone who works for the university, for example. I can’t argue with that interpretation – makes perfect sense.
It also makes perfect sense to say that you trust people who appear trustworthy due to their consistency.
The leap for me – the point where I can’t follow you – is how trustworthy people who live their lives consistently, also have that insider knowledge that leads you from hope to expectation.
I have one very good friend who lives what I would call a trustworthy life. She was1 one of the very, very few religious people I’ve ever met who truly practiced what she preached. I’ve seen her give her coat to a homeless person on a freezing cold Yorkshire night, for example. But did that ever make me think “well, there must be something to this Christianity thing after all”? No, it didn’t… because… well, she didn’t work for the university. I don’t think she can make a claim to the Ultimate Knowledge, any more than I can, or my cats can (I’ve said before that I call myself an atheist mostly because that’s the way I’d bet if I had to bet everything I own; I’m really an agnostic, which in my opinion is the only logically defensible position).
Maybe you used an analogy that doesn’t really reflect your own thinking. Or maybe we’re just looking at this from such different angles that we’re both missing parts of the big picture. Or maybe I’m getting way too hung up on a minor point. I dunno…
Anyway, I’ve probably crossed with several other comments now. This was written (well, started) immediately after RG’s comment at 00:16.
1 I say “was” because she’s now agnostic. And just as lovely. Incidentally, having grown up round the corner from me near York, she now lives just down the road in Seattle. THis is all beside the point, really, but I just realised that “was” looked weird. Man, I need to get off the computer and go home.
Also: “I really don’t think that there’s much doubt about what’s meant to be allegorical, what’s meant to be historical, and what obviously is mythical (given that there was no one around to witness it).”
On the contrary, I’ve heard plenty of doubt, both between and within different Christian denominations.
All analogies are flawed. And I was deliberately not invoking the supernatural because (deep breath) that’s really the core of the whole faith thing (and see my header). Ultimately there is a case of people knowing something you don’t, but then we’re firmly into Christian apologetics and away from science:faith discussions: what I have been trying to do is establish that a position of faith doesn’t have to be irrational. I’m trying to say that there are good reasons for believers to believe, although it’s difficult, sometimes, for those who don’t believe to accept that.
You’ll just have to take it on faith perhaps?
(and no, it was neither dumb nor offensive)
bq. On the contrary, I’ve heard plenty of doubt, both between and within different Christian denominations.
I’d like to hear more. I mean, yes, there are parts where it’s not clear, but on the whole, it’s pretty obvious that—for example—the last week of Jesus’ life is meant to be historical. It’s clear that the Book of Revelation is a vision (it says so!). It’s quite clear that the thought of mountains having vocal chords and trees having hands is poetic. Most of the rest it’s pretty clear what it’s intended to be. I know that people get hung up on interpretation and detail, but basically … thinks Mike’s choice of ‘allegorical’ was poor. I think perhaps I was answering something he didn’t mean to say.
I’ll agree with you, Cath, that there are big arguments about which parts apply, but I don’t think there’s a great deal of argument about what is allegory and what is history. (And Biblical literalists/fundamentalists need not apply. Seriously.)
“it was neither dumb nor offensive”
Good! The last time I got into anything like this on NN, I felt like I was constantly explaining “no, that’s not what I said, if you read my first comment you’ll see that what I meant was…” (repeat 4 times), and then I got told that something I’d said was very offensive, which I still can’t really see, although I’m sad that the person thought that…
It’s a minefield, and I have big feet.
Well, let’s show that we can have a civilized conversation about faith and science on the internets.
It must be possible, surely? And I’m not exactly renowned for my tact…
It must be a bit tricky, faith and science, when you are studying something that starts to pick away at the nature of our origins — because although I think you are right that science and faith are not both trying to explain the natural word, I do think that both do address in part how we got here, as people and as a species. There is not much of a disconnect if you study molecules and you also happen to believe that they were probably part of a divine master plan. That can all live together harmoniously. It might possibly get a bit more difficult if your field of interest is trying to understand what happened milliseconds after the Big Bang. Even the nature of human origins, obviously, can cause problems for those who took it on faith the parts of the literature that stated we were created in situ.
Depending on your starting point, retaining faith during scientific training must be a continuous act of letting go of certain things that you previous thought were unassailable — on a case-by-case basis. From what you’ve explained about the nature of faith, which I didn’t before appreciate, this is actually okay.
Yes Jenny, and in fact that’s probably something I want to bring out in a later wibble.
You’ve actually given me an idea, but I don’t know if i can work it in.
Caped avenger, don’t try and wriggle out of this through semantics or blaming fundamentalists – do you seriously think there is no issue with interpretation in the abrahamic faiths?[1]
How to make friends and influence people
The Vatican, (a fundamental concept in one branch of the tree of faith, but are they
mentalistsfundamentalists?) have scholarly councils and academies for interpretation of what the various translated versions of the bible mean. Much of this is academic historical work, some of it is about controlling human behaviour. Much of it is changed throughout time, e.g., the fact that the Vatican now accepts that Evolutionary theory is no longer at odds with biblical interpretation.Even the teachers change their mind about what’s right and what’s not. How can the students hope to pass the exam?
You seem to say that rationality is making a informed decision based on the available evidence (if not, please clarify), so why do people with (what might be considered) access to evidence to the contrary still turn to faith?
I think you run the risk of saying that people who ignore some of the available evidence are still being rational (many faithful people make rational decisions in other parts of their lives), and I think your definition of what faith is (without being a fundamentalist) excludes many of the faithful. It verges on a tautology – Those who have faith must have a rational reason for it. Those who claim faith but interpret certain parts in a different manner are irrational, therefore of no further interest to the discussion. Likewise, “evidence” is a term fraught with difficulty here. If you have faith, how can you find evidence to the contrary of this position? And why would you need to? What could this evidence possibly be?
Oh, and the conversion thing – it’s more than my assumption. Certainly people convert for reasons other than hope or fear of the afterlife. Can you say how many convert for which reason though?
Conversion requires some experience with the faith you turn to. While there are suggestions that some genes are associated with becoming religious, conversion is not spontaneous. I think this brings us back to rationality. If achieving faith is rational, we would expect all the available evidence to be weighed before a decision is made. While young children may only have a limited set of information available to them
before they are brainwashed, adults have a whole lot more available, yet still convert for a host of irrational reasons. It still boils down to selectivity – which parts you find more appealing and easier to fit in with your personal world view.1 I agree that the bible is some part history, some part whimsy and two parts baking soda. I was trying to be brief, but I certainly did mean “allegorical”. Bible’s packed to the pulpit with allegory. So, you have answered something which I didn’t say, not something I didn’t mean to say.
I don’t have a problem with allegory. There’s a lot of allegory the bible. I was saying that it’s not difficult to distinguish between allegory and history: what’s difficult is establishing what they mean.
I certainly wasn’t trying to say that all people/believers/sceptics/non-believers are rational all of the time. I’m sorry you seem to have got that impression. I was trying to establish that the holding of faith is not a priori an irrational act. Trying to extrapolate from that is futile.
None of us make decisions on all the data available. We do the best we can. Sometimes we’re irrational in one part of our lives, and totally rational in others.
The question I’m going to ask you, Mike, is “Is faith irrational?”
I am enjoying this. Just for the record.
Well, I’m glad someone is entertained. laugh
Science is a way of understanding the natural world; a way of trying to understand what goes on around us
Check.
Faith … is … a response to revelation
I hadn’t thought of it like that, but I guess you’re right. So we’re OK so far. The key difference between faith and science is that the latter doesn’t require proof to substantiate belief.
because there seems to be an implicit assumption among a lot of otherwise reasonably educated people that science and faith are two ways of looking at the same thing, i.e. the natural world; and furthermore that no rational person could ever have faith in anything supernatural.
OK. My remaining sticking point is your use of the concept ‘reason’ and I’ll have to think about that some more. Part of the problem is the way that faith interats with tradition. My outlook is Jewish, and yours is Christian, and the two religions llok at ‘faith’ in ways too subtle for me to know about, let alone articulate. This might be why I’ve had some trouble understanding your post.
have to what the prospect of the omelette, Henry?
Basilosaurus.
By the way, what’s the ‘e’ word? Eremite? Eleutherozoa? Exothermic? Endive?
Esperanto? Just curious.
Okay… I think it was Aristotlean ideas that were subverted to show that (Abrahamic) faith(s) could be reasonable, although I’d have to check my ‘Introduction to Christian Theology’, which is currently providing a counterweight to the Australasian Coriolis effect.
E: ‘evidence’. The other ‘E’ word will make an appearance next time, only to be dismissed summarily.
_By the way, what’s the ‘e’ word? Eremite? Eleutherozoa? Exothermic? Endive?
Esperanto? Just curious._
I thought it must be Effluvia.
I’m surprised no one suggested ‘eldritch’, which would have been preternaturally appropriate.
Effluvia. Good call, but a little too chthonic. Possibly. Yesterday.
Sorry to derail the thread. Can you explain the Aristotle thing to the ignorant folks at home, i.e. me?
Me too.
Okay… briefly (unearths McGrath’s weighty ‘Introduction’), various theologians used Aristotlean ideas to build a rational theology.
That was very brief, wasn’t it?
Let me quote:
Aristotle fell out of favour when his ideas were applied to distinctive Christian doctrines, rather than as a basis for thinking about faith in general.
Christian Theology: An Introduction
A. E. McGrath, Blackwell, 1994
Nothing to do with ignorance, folks, all to do with availability of
evidenceresources.Richard: The answer I’m going to give you, is “Yes”; but I’ll qualify it by saying, “Yes, from my point of view”. I don’t think I’ll give the long answer here, or elsewhere. But I might volte-face as you did, someday. No shame in that.
Henry makes a useful point here: people conflate faith and tradition all the time. Societies are often built on the back of traditions which are firmly rooted in religious tenets. I tried to make a similar point, less succinctly (_Conversion requires experience…_), but I think once you remove societal effects from faith, it becomes such a personal event (revelation), that it is difficult (if not impossible) to find common features among people who claim faith. I think this is where difficulties with rationalisation can arise from.
From my own experience, I would state that to become a Christian (or to accept the Christian faith) you must accept the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart as your Saviour.
Was the other ‘E’ word an abbreviation for modern, popular, small computers?
P.S. If anyone can tell me how to change the language correction dictionary settings on NN, I’m more likely to spell omelette in a more
faithfulbawdytraditional manner next time. Oh, and if you have to consult a theology book to reply to comments, Richard, you definitely run the risk of turning this into a theology blog 🙂Yah, I know, Mike. I was hoping not to, but Jenny started it. grin
Your statement about becoming a Christian is .. fair (although I might have put it differently), but that’s really not what I wanted to get into, here.
(The language correction settings are a function of your browser, not NN)
Ahhh, nuts, I meant to add something to that statement, about how could this be a rational decision? It’s something to do with pure love for mankind, then decided I didn’t want to add that, it would get too complicated and I really have to do some proof reading, and then I forgot to delete the sentence. Sorry. It just kinda hangs, don’t it.
Henry makes a useful point here
One Endeavours to Give Satisfaction.
From my own experience, I would state that to become a Christian (or to accept the Christian faith) you must accept the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart as your Saviour.
Indeed. From my limited understanding to become a Christian (or a Moslem) all you really need to do is say your are one, and the rest follows. Judaism is different in that observance is more important than faith. The idea is that if you walk the walk and talk the talk long enough, then the faith will come, or perhaps it won’t, but, really, who cares? Have some chicken soup. Perhaps related to this is that Judaism has, historically (or at least for the past coupla thousand years), actively discouraged converts.
By giving the world Jerry Seinfeld?
Henry, being on the same side of the fence as you are, but with a lot of Christians in my family, I think that the point is not just to say but to believe you are one – that is, assume the identity. This is also true for Islam and Zoroastrianism. Here, one’s personal initiative does suffice, whereas in Judaism or Buddhism if you want to convert in, authoritative representatives of the community have to approve.
These are just cultural attributes, though. The faith aspect, as Cath seems to also identify it, has everything to do with trust. I am not sure that trust is a rational quality (much as I treasure it). Like love. Therefore, I do not have much issue with scientists or anyone else demonstrating that they have faith in a spiritual aspect to the world, in which I myself do not. I am sure that where I place my trust is not universally shared, either, although like Richard writes, I have my reasons. Some people are just more trusting than others (one calls them/us naive).
So I think my point is, that I agree with Richard, in that being what I would define as a rational person, I still engage in an inherently irrational process, that of loving and trusting other human beings. I think that faith could easily come from similar wellsprings, if the humans one loves and/or trusts transmit their own faith.
“It might possibly get a bit more difficult if your field of interest is trying to understand what happened milliseconds after the Big Bang.”
Oh, that was actually one of the mini-subplots in a documentary I keep plugging*, BLAST!
One of the scientists working on this project is a Christian, and they are studying the Big Bang, and asked him how he dealt with it. Basically, his faith seemed to be a motivation for him to figure out how things worked, not at odds with his research.
(*disclaimer: while their promoters sometimes ask to spread the word, I actually really did like it, and this was spontaneous.)
Oh, and why do I trust whom I trust? It depends in what aspect. We’ve identified these important qualities so far: consistency, and demonstrable authority relative to one’s personal state of knowledge. One also trusts in protection, for example, by testing the other person’s ability to protect one’s vulnerability (or, possibly, someone else’s). So there could be some aspect of hypothesis testing in conferring trust?
Heather, I think there are plenty of scientific studies on the topic of trust – in evolutionary biology you can search the literature for “honest and dishonest signals” to find out more about how and why we (animals) trust (or don’t) each other, particularly in reproductive and conflict situations.
I thought Richard was trying to avoid the interaction of science and faith, by (correctly, in my opinion) stating that there need not be a dichotomy between them, they don’t need to describe the same thing. However, while faith may not have much to say about science, science can certainly say a lot about faith, at least in terms of the behavioural mechanisms that underlie it.
I must say I’m still a bit foggy about a lot of this, but hey, don’t mind me.
So I think my point is, that I agree with Richard, in that being what I would define as a rational person, I still engage in an inherently irrational process, that of loving and trusting other human beings
A much ignored blog post reports on research showing that irrationality (or at least emotion) is vital for making decisions in what we think of as a rational way.
One of the scientists working on this project is a Christian, and they are studying the Big Bang, and asked him how he dealt with it. Basically, his faith seemed to be a motivation for him to figure out how things worked, not at odds with his research.
I think that this is how scintists used to behave as a matter of course – the ratyionale for pursuing science was to ‘magnify the name of the Creator’ or to ‘better underatand God’s plan’ or some such. I think many Jews and Catholics would still subscribe to that view.
So there could be some aspect of hypothesis testing in conferring trust?
I expect there might be. There now exists quite a literature on exploring the evolutionary biology of such things as social standing and reputation.
Henry,
I think this is wrong. It takes more than simply talking the talk. You can show up to church/temple/mosque, read scripture, sing hymns,
playpreyjust go have a talk with God anywhere, but these behaviours say nothing about actually having faith. Just as putting on a tutu and spinning round the room while trying not to spill mypubes under the hem of the tutupint doesn’t make me a ballerina.(Sorry.)
My mind is
spinningboggling.An injustly ignored blog post, Henry. I am curious if we can tie in the physiological tendency toward loss aversion that you cite, with the desire to place faith in people or concepts.
Mike, Henry wrote that to convert to be a Christian/Moslem it suffices to profess, and then the faith can in theory come later (in the “expanding according to your ability” manner mentioned by Richard). But you can still consider that you have converted. In Judaism and Budhhism, you not only have to profess, you have to demonstrate in some way that you not only can talk the talk but also have had some mystical reason to convert to an authoritative arbitrer. So it adds an extra barrier, because if you don’t have faith, then the non-proselytizing religions have an incentive to expose that, where the proselytizing ones do not.
If faith is a response to revelation, Richard, doesn’t that imply that some intentionality is covering abstract knowledge up, to only reveal it at certain times or places?
Mine too, Henry. Extra points to you for using “Basilosaurus” in the comments above (Junior Wintle #1 would be very pleased – anything with teeth, and preferably prehistoric, plays well with him).
Waaaaaaaaaaay back up there somewhere, RPG said:
Richard, don’t you think you have to be clever and college-educated to do science?
No, I don’t, although I think ‘clever’ (depending how you define it) might be an absolute requirement. College-educated, certainly not, although it helps (depending on where you went to college, and of course what you studied – I once met someone who was a Rhodes Scholar specializing in Portuguese Medieval History, and I suspect he would be pants at ‘science’ as I define it). But I digress.
My point (such as it is) being: there will always be examples of non (college) educated people who turn out to be good ‘scientists’ (again depending on your definition). Mark Bittner jumps to mind – his observations of wild parrots in San Francisco, with no formal training, are a rather impressive display of field biology skills. I suspect there are many other examples (maybe going back in history – Victorian naturalists and North American fossil hunters spring to mind), although I’ll concede that if you’re talking about ‘proper’ hypothesis-driven experimental science, maybe examples are a bit thin on the ground.
‘Science belongs to no one country’ said Louis Pasteur. I’d like to think this could be extended to ‘people’, or ‘educational level’ as well.
Heather, in my book (which I haven’t written yet, and may never1), simply professing doesn’t cut the
foreskinmustard. To profess you are a Christian, without actually having accepted the sweet baby Jebus into your heart, is to be economical with the truth, at best. And if your economical with the truth with God who can by definition see behind such economies, well, you’re gonna have a pretty hard time convincing Him that you’re alright, cometh the time. Which largely defeats the point of conversion.I have such limited knowledge of Islam I won’t say anything about it here.
1 It may contain harmful mental images. Please, just think of the children.
@Heather: “So I think my point is, that I agree with Richard, in that being what I would define as a rational person, I still engage in an inherently irrational process, that of loving and trusting other human beings. I think that faith could easily come from similar wellsprings, if the humans one loves and/or trusts transmit their own faith.”
Veeeery interesting point. Like I said above, being close to people who transmit and share their faith has never made me consider signing up to any religion (although if I did, a Sikh friend has actually made the strongest case). But, like you say, we all trust different people and for different reasons, and will no doubt be affected by those people in different ways, too. I shall have to go away and ponder that.
Oh, and I thought the e word might be evangelism. (shudders).
Mike – your book sounds reasonable enough for me. But people convert – both themselves, and others – for reasons that bring material and promised advantages to evangelist and converted, and may have little to do with faith per se. One can always set up an Inquisition (or equivalent) to make sure the converted “truly” have faith, but it’s somewhat less efficient than just making the standard higher to get in to begin with.
Yes, Cath, I also thought the “e” word was evangelism! Suspicious minds.
Heather, to clarify my position, I think that I would define conversion as the
punting of an egg shaped ball through some big sticksmoment of revelation, the spiritual act of taking a personal decision to accept the existence of a god (and possibly his wee boy as your personal saviour) through faith rather than material evidence.This has to be a completely personal decision, which may be prompted by others who may or may not have this faith. Evangelists don’t actually have to be faithful under this interpretation, but anyone they convert does. So, I pretty much agree with what you say here though, but nobody expects the … oh sod it.
All this thinking and careful choice of words is unhealthy. I’m off to worship at the altar of association football, drinking from the relevant body of the referee. For the interested congregation out there, I shall be watching 2 games simultaneously. Inter – Man U on the TV and Lyon – Barca on the computer. I actually want 2 of the teams to win, even though neither are the mighty United. Hopefully they’re taking part in different games. Maybe I’ll even live blog it.
I got up this morning and saw all the comments. Expected carnage.
stunned
Great conversation folks. I’ll respond more seriously when I’m awake, but essentially we seem to be in agreement about a lot of things.
1. This has got to be the most civilized thread about religion on a science blog, ever. It’s nice.
2. I actually wavered a little bit from atheism when I was about 7 or 8, and did some mental experimentation about the existence of a god. I even witnessed an event that seemed pretty strong evidence for it, but I later wrote that off as a combination of wishful thinking, coincidence, bad memory, and a vivid imagination.
The point I wanted to make, though, is that at the time nobody was talking to me about religion. I had so far only been to public schools, all my friends were raised atheist like I was, and this was before my aunt and uncle had taken me with them to their church. There was no trusted person, no person at all even, who talked to me about this. On the other hand, I later did attend a catholic school, where i was an angel in the Christmas play, and went to church with relatives a few times, I was friends with JW girl in high school, and I attended a university with strong Reformed roots, where some of my best friends were very active in their church. These were all people I trusted, but that whole time I never once doubted my lack of religion. They also never tried to convert me, though. At all. Oddly, the only people who have tried to sell me their religion were atheists. But that is a comment for the part that is more about science. (Those previous sentences should not make sense together, and it saddens me that they do.)
Ha! Our comments crossed, and my point 1 was entirely out of the blue, really!
Interesting, Eva. My experiences are quite different, I started out as a (more or less) Christian, due to being told all the bible stories etc. by people I trusted from an early age.
From a post I wrote on my other blog last year:
“Our exposure to religion mostly took the form of teachers telling us the nativity, crucifixion and resurrection stories, with none of the “some people believe” phrases that you’d need to include nowadays. So, for all intents and purposes, the same people who told us that there are two high tides and two low tides each day, and that the Earth goes around the sun, also told us that our saviour was born in a stable in Bethlehem and died for our sins before coming back to life and ascending to heaven. No context, no caveats, no nothing, and we had no reason not to believe every word they said.”
[…]
“[later], we started to learn about history, biology, and, more importantly, other religions. This was my first “hang on a minute” moment. You’re saying that the Hindus, and Moslems, and Buddhists, and Jews, all believe different things, all with the same conviction with which my former teachers believed those bible stories? And what about the Greek, Roman and Norse gods? People back then knew that those stories were true, too.”
This was my very first step on the path to agnosticism. And I guess you could call it a bit of a betrayal of my trust in my primary school teachers. Maybe that’s why I got so hung up on this point earlier…?
Could be, Cath. And you’re making a point for me that I’m intending to cover next time. Or the time after.
How many parts are there going to BE? (Incidentally, a quote that could also have been ascribed to authors of the bible. “There’s another book? How many parts are there going to BE?”)
Wow, this is all interesting. But Richard, I don’t understand why you feel that you have to explain your faith as being rational (and wish you didn’t feel that way). Nothing wrong with being irrational in parts of your life: Heather’s examples of trust and love are good – as long as you don’t hurt someone else or tell them what to do, is there?
Another reason I don’t agree with you is your argument on making a decision based on evidence. I know people that have a lot of faith, and they seem to be very happy with it and it seems to add a richness to their lives – heck, there’s even scientific evidence that people that have faith are more healthy – all good stuff, but it still doesn’t switch my faith button on.
Cath: obviously, I’m with you on the ‘people I trust have not changed my mind’, having grown up with a father that’s a lutheran pastor (although very far from the stereotype that probably springs to mind). Growing up, I knew quite a few other ‘pastor’s children’, and I don’t think many of them are religious (or have faith) these days.. I always wondered whether it’s the fact of growing up seeing the nuts and bolts of it all.
On rereading my long comment above, it sounds like my relatives are Catholic because I named them right after the school. They’re not, they’re Protestant – I was just writing chronologically, not sorted by religious denomination. I don’t want to misrepresent their faith on the internet, on the off chance that they read this one day.
(damn. I knew this should have been one blog post)
This post is essentially an introduction. I wanted to show that faith was not necessarily totally irrational; that it’s something a reasonable, sceptical person could be happy with; that it should not be dismissed out of hand on grounds of reason and rationality.
The actual circumstances surrounding any single person’s faith may vary: I’m not trying to make any other general points other than that one.
Steffi, one of my friends from university was a pastor’s child, and he is still religious. In fact, his husband is a pastor, too.
How long have you been waiting to use that line, Eva?!
Eva: I’m sure what I’ve seen may not be the norm (and maybe should have framed what I said more as ‘just my personal experience’). I grew up in the context of ‘protestantism in a city with millions of people’, which seems to have its own set of rules (but again, I’m just going on personal experience!).
I guess about 15 years, Cath.
Steffi, we all are going on personal experience. I suspect that’s why most of these conversations turn into train wrecks—because we think our experience is normative.
“How long have you been waiting to use that line, Eva?!”
It had actually slipped my mind, so only while reading Steffi’s comment about being a pastor’s child. I actually had to think of how to craft the sentence creatively.
But I did mainly leave the comment to use the line, yes. So, Steffi, no worries, I wasn’t trying to normalize or generalize or draw any sort of conclusions.
As long as you weren’t trying to be jovial or accessible, either.
Whimsy? Now, I can cope with whimsical.
See, I was trying to ignore the line, pretending that it’s just normal – hopefully not too wishful thinking. The Lutheran church in Northern Germany almost got a gay bishop last year: final count 77 vs. 56 votes. He had full support of the female bishop of Hamburg and Luebeck.
Anyway, back on track!
(It is normal. I wasn’t going to comment on it had Cath not asked about it.)
Hmm. My question is, what exactly is it that you have faith in? Because the answer to that brings with it lots of sequelae that will have a bearing on whether you are making a rational or irrational choice. I’m with Henry above in that I don’t quite get the point yet. And with Mike in that I don’t think you can quite so deftly side-step the issues of what is and is not meant to be believed in the Bible. But I appreciate you may not want to get mired in a religious discussion. Perhaps Part 2 will shed some light (from the heavens…)?
“His husband” is becoming normal, here at least! “His husband is a pastor” is less normal, at least in my experience.
My last comment crossed with Eva’s and Stephen’s 😉
This is a great post, Richard. Let me see if I can jump back in the game tonight.
He is still religious. In fact, his husband is a pastor, too.
I love it. It is becoming more normal here too.
I think Steffi made a crucial point in this
tragicallycivil discussion. Just because people seem reasonable, rational and intelligent in some other aspects of their lives doesn’t mean that having faith is reasonable or rational.Richard, I think you summarised your main point clearly @20.15.
I don’t really think you’ve done that yet, which is why there’s still a certain amount of confusion here. If you’re holding back ideas to continue this theme in other posts, please don’t. Spit it out man, the suspense is giving me gip.
Mike – your post from waaaay up there crossed with mine. Sorry! Anyway, if you do a “pubmed search”: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez an look for the works of Ernst Fehr, you’ll find a great deal on the evolutionary biology (and neurobiology) or trust, altruism, status, reputation and such. We’ve come an awfully long way from prisoner’s-dilemma games, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if someone, somewhere, is beginning to design experiments around faith and belief. Now that would be worth seeing. I might sell tickets.
bq. I don’t really think you’ve done that yet,
OK.
I wonder if it will detract from what I say next. I guess those who still pooh-pooh faith aren’t going to get anything from reading this anyway.
Let me clarify that—Not those who don’t believe, but those who can not accept that a reasonable, rational person might believe.
I don’t believe, for example, all that guff about how differential airflow keeps planes in the air. Rubbish. What I think is that planes only stay airborne because people believe they can.
Why are you channeling Ben Goldacre?
Are there any studies or surveys suggesting that one is more likely to believe/have faith in a god as an adult if one is raised that way from birth?
It sounds like a stupid question but I don’t want to assume the answer.
Jenny, Google books has this cheeky little effort, which deals with the Psychology of Religion, by Spika et al. Might be an interesting place to start.
The New Scientist also has an article from 2005 discussing genes and religion. I guess they will answer your questions.
Let me clarify that—Not those who don’t believe, but those who can not accept that a reasonable, rational person might believe.
I have been having trouble with this thought but have been
compostingmulling it over, and I find that it’s crucial, because it makes a very necessary distinction between ‘faith’ and ‘superstition’. I’d be very interested to see you expand, Richard. Not only that, but I’d be very interested to see you expand on that point in particular, as it would answer the usual impertinent remarks about people believing in sky-fairies, in God being the same thing as Father Christmas or walking under moonlit ladders holding a black cat during a month with a ‘K’ in it.All Finnish months have a ‘K’ in them. “Kuu” means moon here, and is the suffix for all 12 of the buggers here. Luckily I don’t have a cat, but I start to worry for Bob.
Bob’s OK, as his cat isn’t black.
bq. not only that, but I’d be very interested to see you expand on that point in particular, as it would answer the usual impertinent remarks about people believing in sky-fairies, in God being the same thing as Father Christmas or walking under moonlit ladders holding a black cat during a month with a ‘K’ in it.
Um. Ok. We’re getting well beyond the realms of what I’m currently thinking about, so let me think about some more about this.
/placeholder
Gypsy Rose Gee foresees a long and very dull plane flight in which the eternal verities shall be very much on your mind, so they will.
Gypsy Rose Gee can sod right off.
Cross her palm with silver, and she’ll do whatever you want, duckie.
She could go to Melbourne for me.
There’s no call for you to take that tone with me sunshine. Anyway, I thought it had burned down?
(ducks)
Thanks for the smiles and all, everyone, so far. Trying to rein it in to give Richard a chance to compose part 2 while on the plane… but I think I’ve lost my battle. Here’s something to think about for the next round.
There seem to be a number of examples that prove wrong my initial assertion, that an environment of trustworthy people will easily transmit their faith to a receptive mind. I can even think of a couple myself, for that matter.
Perhaps, then, the way out of an environmentally deterministic faith is to learn about – and admit the validity of – alternatives? In a homogeneous upbringing or place of residence, where the vast majority, including those people one trusts, professes (and possibly even has, Mike) faith in certain principles, there may be a “faith by default”? I suggest that most of us would not be original or deep enough thinkers to come up with alternative philosophies to the personal ones we have to date pieced together from exposure to the assertions of our predecessors. So, faced with the choice between having faith in one or some of these or coming up with something new, the former option is almost the most rational. This might be about the most efficient use of finite mental resources, after all.
(rubs her hands gleefully)
“In a homogeneous upbringing or place of residence, where the vast majority, including those people one trusts, professes (…) faith in certain principles, there may be a “faith by default”?”
That reminds me of something. I read a “question online”http://ask.metafilter.com/108605/Oh-Christmas-Tree-Oh-Christmas-Tree a while ago, where someone asked if atheists/agnostics put up Christmas trees. To me that question was so weird. Of course we do! I couldn’t imagine someone even asking, because I simply could not imagine anyone not knowing anyone who wasn’t a Christian. And I think that’s kind of an important thing to realize – that there are lots of people who really don’t meet anyone outside of their faith. I’m so used to everyone having different backgrounds, but I always pictured others being exposed to the same mixture of people (just from other directions). I didn’t think I could be surprised, and there I was…
Anyway, I digress. Continue.
And I think that’s kind of an important thing to realize – that there are lots of people who really don’t meet anyone outside of their faith
The President and Eminence Grise of my former synagogue grew up in the Jewish East End and told me once that he was 14 when he saw his first Christmas tree. In those days the Judaism on offer was strictly Orthodox and in that milieu there was no question that one would do (or ‘believe’) anything else.
Now, our synagogue — where we were having this discussion — was (and still is) part of the 100-year-old Liberal movement which broke new ground by, among other things, having much of the service in English (that is, not in Hebrew). Orthodox services are completely in Hebrew (except perhaps for a sermon and parochial announcements) so there is no guarantee that the people there can follow what’s going on.
So I asked this Revered Elder how he’d made the switch to Liberal Judaism. His answer was very interesting: as an adult, he’d had cause to be in a strange town on a business trip on a Friday night, and being observant, wanted to go to a synagogue for a Shabbat service. The nearest one happened to be a Liberal synagogue, at which the Revered Elder was exposed to the services he’d recited all his life in a language he could understand. The scales fell from his eyes, and all of a sudden he found it all much more relevant, meaningful and interesting. For the first time in his life, he felt invited to take a more active (and I daresay ‘rational’) role in his own religious observance.
Don’t forget also that, even though these days the chances that you meet someone outside of your faith are becoming bigger (unless you leave in a completely isolated Amish community or something of that sort), there is also a strong psychological component to it: one might be bright enough to come up with alternative philosophies (as Heather puts it), but if your family and the people who are closer to you when growing up let you know that somehow there is something “not quite right” about those who don’t share your same faith, you may feel a strong pressure not to deviate from the norm. It works for jean brands, why not for religion? Granted, once you get to know people with different points of view, you may reconsider this assertion, but not everyone actually reaches that stage. As those who work in advertisement know quite well, people of all ages still base their (purchasing) decisions based on the need to be “normal” or “acceptable”
“faith by default” – that sums up my early childhood perfectly, Heather! York in the early 1980s was not exactly a haven of multiculturalism, and the
commuter housing estatevillage where I grew up was almost entirely populated by white Christians. There were only 2 non-white kids in my whole school (even during the first couple of years of secondary school, among ~1500 students). Initially through an accident of addresses and parents’ friendships, I became good friends with them – but if I hadn’t been to their house, or to the Sikh temple in Leeds with them, I would have had absolutely zero exposure to other faiths and cultures until I hit 18 and moved to a bigger city.When my Vancouver-raised husband first visited York, he actually experienced mild culture shock – “everyone looks like me! This is really effing weird!” he opined loudly in the middle of Coney Street. “This is nothing, you should have seen it 20 years ago”, I replied.
@Cath – when your husband said “everyone looks like me!” – did you ever wonder if, deep down your attraction to him was based on an ingrained childhood bias..? 😉
Anyway, am happy to report that current UK religious education (in the non-denominational state sector) has a healthy focus on teaching about the diversity of faiths. My kids have been on school trips to Sikh temples and synagogues. Makes a change from my upbringing in Northern Ireland where you could choose only between one of two flavours of christianity, and almost all the schools split along religious lines. No need to drive home how well that worked… Which is why I am dead set against religious schooling. Very, very healthy for people to appreciate the mix.
Oh and I just can’t help it: will we get part 2 when the comments here hit 100? I believe I may just be being cynical. Come on, Richard!
{ducks}
Richard is too busy thinking, don’t bother him Stephen.
{ducks as well}
Nope.
Stephen, well, he actually bears some resemblance to a school friend I fancied when I was 12… Oh, and Hugh Jackman too, obviously.
Heather and Cath: church stuff and religious ceremonies by default – yes. Not so sure about faith by default. Having faith is hard work, I think (which is somewhat counter intuitive, of course).
Growing up, I remember being very fond of the music and singing (I grew up in one of Hamburg’s five very big churches, with an organ Bach applied to play – he didn’t get the job, Telemann did), but don’t really remember any big moments of ‘ah, I see’ or ‘I believe this stuff’. It was more about stories, really. (Don’t tell my dad).
I remember a tale of the young Bach who walked all the way from Thuringia to Luebeck just to hear the legendary organist
Keith EmersonBuxtehude play. Apparently there was a job going, and Bach was interested until he read the small print… the successful applicant was obliged to marry Buxtehude’s daughter. Bach declined. Unknown to him, the young Handel had already turned the job down. I don’t know if any portrait of Miss Buxtehude survives …You’re probably right there, Steffi. I was really too young to make the distinction – to me, bible stories and ceremonies were faith. I did go through a phase of praying every night, and I did definitely believe in the whole thing on some level – but I started to question it all in my early teens, so have no idea what more mature faith might feel like.
Really, I just never knew there was an alternative. When you’re being taught bible stories as if they were fact by your teachers, and when the only two non-Christian kids you know celebrate Christmas and Easter (and always got way more Easter eggs than the paltry ONE that I was allowed by the way), it just never occurs to you… if I’d stayed in that environment, I think Heather’s right, I probably wouldn’t have come up with anything different myself. But secondary school (especially RE, history and biology lessons) did the job for me in the end!
There’s a lovely environment/culture and faith thing going on here, which I’d love to explore, actually (having known quite a few people (separately) go in the available directions: religious background -> no faith, no religious background -> faith, religious background -> faith; and whatever. There’s an unspoken assumption underlying these comments equating Christianity with white Europeanism, which is amusing me somewhat.
Currently a little tired and stressed (as you might imagine): rest assured I am reading and cogitating, and will try to respond to all y’all a little bit more cogently. Later. And part 2 has lots of notes.
“There’s an unspoken assumption underlying these comments equating Christianity with white Europeanism, which is amusing me somewhat.”
But that’s kinda my point – that was all I knew until I hit my teens! Seriously, have you ever been to York? 😉
Hope the tired and stressed phase passes soon
There’s also the issue that “atheist” often just refers to “atheist from a background in which people are generally Christian”. The other kind of atheists I know explicitly say they’re “atheist Jewish”, and I assume there are other types, too.
I noticed it in my own Christmas tree comment, but couldn’t be bothered to elaborate.
Yes Cath (and I do like visiting York). There is certainly the whole cultural religion thing going on, so you do what everyone else does. I am deliberately using ‘faith’ in this conversation to mean a life choice rather than a default position because of upbringing (which we might call ‘religion’). Your experience is a useful example; many people don’t get that challenge, or don’t know how to respond when they do.
Choice is another crucial concept in this whole conversation1. Faith has to be separated from habit, which is what a few people have described here. Did you ever hear the one about the nun with the dirty habit?
Anyway, I think this is where the rationality argument hasn’t been demonstrated yet. Behaving in a certain way: attending religious building of choice, praying, singing, chanting, doing what your parents tell you; is about obeying social norms, which can be rational if you want to avoid being punished. Having genuine, firm, unshakable faith goes way beyond that.
fn1- Although why Cath chose to marry Freddy Krueger remains to be clarified.
“I am deliberately using ‘faith’ in this conversation to mean a life choice rather than a default position because of upbringing (which we might call ‘religion’”
I think (YMMV) that ‘religion’ can be further broken down into ‘religious practices’ and ‘culture’. I’m culturally Christian, without partaking in even any of the most superficial Christian religious practices. It would be interesting to see how a person raised in a more multicultural and/or secular society would perceive the difference.
@Mike: “why Cath chose to marry Freddy Krueger remains to be clarified.”
The bigger question is, “I don’t know why, he married a fly”.
The official title of that photo is “a pretty fly for a white guy”, BTW.
I’m culturally Christian,
Yes! And that’s a difference I’m trying to emphasize—for obvious reasons.
I’m going to put this as simply as I can, at the risk of losing nuance and explanation.
If someone is satisfied that the accounts in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are true (or at least ‘honest’ — which may or may not be the same thing), and that the lives of people they know have been changed as a result of their having faith; then having faith themselves might seem reasonable. A further personal experience and concomitant change would support their decision. This thought process is as close to ‘rational’ as anything humans do, I’d say. No, you don’t have access to all the facts, and yes, you may have doubts about things: but we do that all the time. We make decisions on the basis of what is available to us — and it cuts both ways, remember.
I guess it depends on your definition of ‘rational’. People believe that the evidence points to one conclusion and not the other, and so acting in accordance with that conclusion seems perfectly rational to me.
‘Strong’ agnostics claim theirs is the only rational position: but to say “we can’t know for certain therefore we can’t (or won’t) decide” is irrational given that we can never know everything about anything. It’s rational to stay in bed because you might get knocked down by a car — well, you don’t know one way or the other. Making decisions on the basis of limited information, balancing the probabilities, is the only way to behave.
So it is with faith. You might decide for or against, depending on how convinced you are by the arguments. That is rational.
I have deliberately steered away from the christian theology of what happens at conversion, which might well be convincing to the new believer but really isn’t going to cut the mustard when discussing this issue from this distance (and I don’t think Mike’s ‘sweet baby Jebus into your heart’ comment is particularly helpful, on a couple of levels). You will note also that I’m not discussing the issue of whether or not the Gospels are an accurate — or even ‘good enough’ — record. That’s a whole other kettle of prawns.
Having faith might be reasonable (if by that you feel that your personal life is improved), but the contents of that faith (what you actually decide to believe in) remain as irrational as they always were. That is, there is not a shred of positive evidence that you can come up with to back it up. I think that nowadays even religious authorities have come to accept this, when they declare that faith and reason are two different things and it is unreasonable to try to reach the former by the latter (it took them a while to get there, though, and people still get them confused).
It’s not rational to stay in bed because you might get knocked by a car. You know (based on evidence) that the chances that this might actually happen are really low, whereas you’re almost certain that staying in bed will have negative consequences for your life (career, socialization, etc). So we decide to take that (minimal) risk in order to avoid the negative consequences that are almost bound to happen should we decide to stay, and that’s a rational decision.
“Strong’ agnostics claim theirs is the only rational position: but to say “we can’t know for certain therefore we can’t (or won’t) decide” is irrational given that we can never know everything about anything. “
For me it’s not so much not wanting or being able to decide, as not ruling anything out. I guess the best description of me is an agnostic atheist – I’m an atheist due to my perception of the balance of probability (i.e. I think the odds of there being a god or gods is vanishingly unlikely), but agnostic because I know I can’t be 100% sure and I’m open to changing my stance if convincing evidence comes my way.
There’s that e word!
And, what Christian said about the comparison with staying in bed to avoid getting hit by a car. Besides, don’t you know the statistics of injury due to collapsing bedroom ceilings?
I saw a great bumper sticker last week:
MILITANT AGNOSTIC
I don’t know, and you don’t either.
Have you seen the road outside my house?
Cristian—that’s actually an argument I want to avoid here. I’m interested more in thought processes and — well, hopefully you’ll see soon enough that what you claim doesn’t actually matter.
Are you ever going to write the second part or just going to keep referring to it?
[/impatient]
Heh, Eva.
I have a pile of notes, but little things like moving around the world are taking up most of my energy at the moment. I was hoping today. Or maybe tomorrow. Or perhaps Tuesday.
Richard – I’m trying but I still find your position unsatisfactory. I can see that it might be perceived by some as a rational choice. Certainly it was one that I chose for a long time. But to me now, it seems to be on the wishful thinking side of rationality.
It’s difficult to accept the Gospels on the lesser level of being an ‘honest account’ because it is so easy for people to make honest mistakes. This seems like a big ask, particularly for those of a scientific bent (this is Nature Network after all). The instinct is to dig deeper and of course that throws up many, many questions about the reliability of the accounts given in the New Testament.
And yes, if you see that the choice to believe has made a difference to the lives of people whom you trust, that could be the basis of a ‘rational’ decision to make the same choice. But that path doesn’t work for me. A relative of mine—one of the wisest people I know—is a very thoughtful member of the clergy, but even his example I find insufficient. Christianity is usually framed as a way of having a relationship with God but I ended up believing it was a wholly one-sided affair.
I don’t know what the answer is. I’ve moved into the agnostic camp but I still find the whole existence of the universe mystifying.
I agree with Stephen, Richard. I also notice that you’ve listed a whole bunch of things now that you want to keep out of the discussion (most of which seem rather difficult to avoid), but the whole thing is not really going anywhere – maybe that will change with the next installment. So far, I still don’t know what exactly you are trying to achieve.
P.S. On moving around the world: obviously I know what you mean. On the upside, I’ve also found that times like this – as immensely stressful as they are – can also be extremely creative, because they shake you up all the way, bringing all kinds of good (and also bad) stuff to the surface.
“that would be because you misunderstand the nature of ‘faith’”
Or it could be that you’re redefining the nature of faith. To wit:
“Faith is about weighing evidence, and then making a decision based on what you know so far.”
No, it is not. What you just described goes by another name; it’s called “reason”. Websters gives several definitions of “faith” but the one that is pertinent to the current discussion is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof”. It is the “firm” part which is germane here. Faith is not, as you depict it, skeptical. Faith is certain. In fact, certainty is intrinsic to the nature of faith. That’s why believers are so concerned with “tests” of their faith. If faith were tentative or subject to revision and being disproved, why would anyone worry at its being tested?
I got here from Sullivan’s blog, and it doesn’t surprise me that he linked to you approvingly. He, too, seems intent on rescuing faith by redefining what it means. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this is; why otherwise rational people seek to preserve such a useless and anachronistic concept. And yet, sadly, it seems to be a project whose membership is swelling.
why otherwise rational people seek to preserve such a useless and anachronistic concept
Political correctness, for starters. After all, we live in a world were the faithful are everywhere, and you’ll make few friends by highlighting the divide between faith and reason (absolutely NO ONE enjoys being called “irrational”)
I agree with you that faith is the absolute opposite of reason, but it does not follow necessarily from that that faith is “useless”. I do think that the lives of many, many human beings around the world are improved by their faith, and that hardly qualifies as “useless”. I’m with Richard on that one.
Looking forward to the next installment too!
Right, discussion is good. And, Steffi, that is why I’m trying to avoid certain things, because then it dissolves into argument and name-calling (it’s the internet). I am trying to steer a middle way between the ‘faith is fairies at the bottom of the garden’ and the ‘accept everything the bible says without thinking’ extremes.
Which probably means I’ll end up pissing off everybody, but hey.
Stephen, thanks for writing that. Uh, I have nothing to add, I just didn’t want you to think I was dismissing your experience! (It’s a useful demonstration of the reasoning of humans, and that people reach different conclusions from looking at the same thing.) Joseph, Cristian: my contention is that faith is a reasonable response to certain events and evidence (the quality of that evidence is a discussion for another place). Faith itself can be (it isn’t always. I know that) internally consistent and therefore a rational process (but see below).
Perhaps I should say it straight: if you believe that God has spoken to you then faith is a perfectly rational response (of course then you have to have faith that it wasn’t the voices in your head or the tequila; which, I think, is where ‘testing’ comes in). Happy now, Mike? 😉 And, yeah: when it comes to ‘testing’ faith, when it comes to doubting, I say ‘bring it on’.
I am not saying that faith and reason are two different ways of looking at the same thing. I am also not saying that you necessarily get to faith from reason.
That seems to be a sticking point, so let me emphasize it.
That is why I said faith is a response to revelation. You can’t get to faith from pure reason, but faith is not a ‘fairies at the bottom of the garden’ thing either. You have to have a reason to believe. And that reason(s) can be quite rational.
I seem to be repeating myself. That risk is inherent in this type of discussion. Now, I know that I’m not going to convince anyone of my point of view (especially not those who already have strongly-held opinions) but that’s OK. I don’t need to.
Let me remind you of two paragraphs in my post:
Which is where I’m headed, eventually, with this.
I’ll agree with you, Cath, that there are big arguments about which parts apply, but I don’t think there’s a great deal of argument about what is allegory and what is history.
Are you serious? As far as I know (and I’m very much a lay theologian), there is considerable debate about whether Jesus even existed, whether there was a Paul, and who came up with Christian doctrine. Not just in comparative religion and history of christianity, but also in theology itself. The historical core of the Gospels is still very much unclear and buried beneath a lot of posturing and audience design by the evangelists.
I’m interested in seeing where you will take this. Personally, I have faith in God, but for me, it’s more a case of “I have this experience of something not-of-this-world – how can I make sense of it?”
Maria (and others), I think the person you want to talk to is my friend Mark.
I have been looking at this post for a few days, and find it interesting! You have so many comments. But it looks like it is just an introduction. When are you going to write more?
Wilson, as you may or may not know, I’m currently in the throes of moving halfway round the world. I had hoped to get something done this week, but that turned out to be not possible. Next week, maybe, when I’m on holiday in NZ.
Thank you for your response. I do remember now that I read a blog about your career change and move. How forgetful of me! You lead a fascinating life.
Is NZ “New Zealand”? Hopefully your vacation will reignite your creative juices.
That’s odd.
we seem to be italicized
Wilson, did you break NN_ ?
Words have hypostatizing effects that can subsume layers of hidden meaning. We tend to emotionally identify with left brain language to the detriment of right brain intuitive insight. All cultures use words to identify things like trees and rocks and then intuitively perceive certain causal connections that become expressed in language about how things work. World views develop as belief systems about how things have come to be as they are. We all need a Theory of Everything to meaningfully integrate experience. We need to make some holistic sense of phenomena in order to care for our person and also to cope collectively for our needs in a social context. Every culture has had a Theory of Everything from Grandfather Fire and the Garden of Eden to the Big Bang. Even if we believe that everything has come into being from absolutely nothing in a Big Bang, and that life is an accidental development without plan or purpose, we believe that this is so for all people for all time everywhere in this vast universe. Death brings utter psychic annihilation to us all. There is no reality that transcends our birth and death. This requires that there is no transcending basis to universal truth beyond this collection of molecules that we happen to walk around in. This belief system is as closed as the biblical story of creation.
We are back to the divided house of faith and reason that has plagued the history of civilization.
Reason and logic are founded on belief, on axioms, syllogism, categories and the like, according to how our diverse languages have evolved. Left to its own devices reason leads to closed belief systems formulated in language. On the other hand, faith is rooted in question and open wonder with faith that there must be such a thing as universal truth unless we are all lost forever. The former is a left brain linguistic endeavor. The latter is a right brain intuitive quest into the nature of truth. It brings realization that can inspire thought and behavior. It is logic and reason that manipulates language in both science and traditional religion and this can erode at the foundations of faith. Faith that there is a transcending basis to truth that can be directly accessed in experience should inform logic and reason, not vice versa.
In faith we seek insight into the structural dynamics of the cosmic order, whether our pursuit is scientifically or spiritually oriented or both. We seek an insight into how it all works together. Science has accumulated a great many empirical pieces of the jigsaw puzzle but it is inept at fitting them into a coherently working whole. We need the dynamic picture on the cover of the puzzle box to intuitively guide their meaningful assembly.
Is it possible to accurately delineate how the cosmic order works in a way that facilitates direct intuitive insight into the roots of meaning? Is it possible to do this in a way that is not dependent upon language but from which the meaning in language derives?
There is a new methodology introduced at this website that complements traditional approaches to the sciences. It embraces all possible structural varieties of phenomenal experience. It can find direct pragmatic application to the sciences consistent with the empirical evidence. It requires direct confirmation in phenomenal experience. It can emotionally balance the left and right brains.
It is perhaps surprising that the most important contributors to physics have been profoundly spiritual men, although not always in a traditional sense. As Max Planck once put it:
“Anyone who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: ‘Ye must have faith.’ It is a quality which scientists cannot dispense with. … The pure rationalist has no place here.” (From “Where is Science Going,” Norton, NY 1932)