One of the more commented posts here recently was Home Turf, in which I inveighed at some length regarding the logically necessary divide between science and religion. Religion is fine, I concluded, as long as it remains in the private sphere.
My good friend Von made a comment which brought to attention something which was left unsaid (though perhaps implied) in my original rant - why religion is actually OK at all.
There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that religion has played a positive role in a great many lives. The advantages it brings are almost too numerous to list, but here's a cursory top-of-the-head job: removes/reduces fear of death; provides consolation after a loss; creates a sense of wonder; absolves from guilt; "explains" everything; provides cast-iron moral code; binds communities together... I could go on, but I won't.
These are the things which should be celebrated about religion; but they should not be considered - as they so often are - the sole domain thereof. As an atheist, I am truly and profoundly insulted when people argue that atheism means amorality; I don't fear death because all evidence suggests that it is the absence of experience, and it is thus senseless to fear it; and a sense of wonder is certainly no stranger to me - nature in all its complex splendour is quite amazing enough without having to resort to supernature.
But isn't it more interesting (and fruitful) to discuss these issues, like the true value of religion and the role it might, should, does - or not - play in society? Rather than obsessing over complete and eternal non-starters like the verifiability of deities? Religious-types: stop offering proof. Scientific-types: stop demanding it.
The first step in looking for meaningful answers is to ask meaningful questions.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Away Turf
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4 comments:
It's fun to demand proof of deities, though :-) But yes, on the whole, doesn't get anybody very far.
I find the explorations of consolation particularly interesting. Was it Penn Jillette who said the worst thing about atheism is that losing a loved one hurts like nothing else you'll ever experience? I can see that. I can't conceive of a secular equivalent of the consolation religion provides in such circumstances, but it's certainly worth investigating, imho.
Indeed, I'd even go so far as to say that the arguments around the existence or non-existence of gods have some limited value as intellectual exercises. But that's about as far as it goes.
I don't know if your attribution is accurate or not, but the sentiment is spot on. There was an interesting interview with George Hrab recently on the SGU mentioning a song he wrote about the death of his dog. It strove to find a completely secular-based source of comfort and was basically of the flavour "the deceased won't have to miss me". It's not much, but it's about all we have in this regard.
Interesting tangential question: though the desire for consolation is understandable, shouldn't losing a loved one hurt like nothing else you'll ever experience? It's a pain which is at the very heart of being human, and therefore is there any reason we should seek to remove it?
People die. They're gone, and you'll never see them again. That really sucks. But it's a fact that should be accepted rather than avoided; I would rather be mourned than have people shrug and say "So what? We'll see him again when we die."
"Interesting tangential question: though the desire for consolation is understandable, shouldn't losing a loved one hurt like nothing else you'll ever experience? It's a pain which is at the very heart of being human, and therefore is there any reason we should seek to remove it?"
I think you're confusing 'cope' with 'remove' here. That search for an appropriate source of consolation is in itself part of the death-ritual: for entirely good reasons, I think, because consolation is an important step towards Getting The Hell On With Life.
The devoutly religious are capable of the most extraordinary grief, expressed through the most extraordinary rituals, but that expression of grief doesn't mean an excision of grief - it's catharsis, not annihilation of capacity, and catharsis is another of those things that's at the very heart of being human, as, for that matter, are ritualised behaviours.
I don't think it's possible to find a completely secular behaviour pattern anywhere - emergent behaviours are too tightly involved with other belief systems, and you can argue that the act of searching for a secular behaviour is in itself a religious perspective, albeit one based in denial. I'm not going to because that's spurious logic, but I don't think that secular society has a symbol-set that's strong enough to express grief at a death. Maybe the supernatural is necessary to express the extraordinary, precisely because the secular is so preoccupied with the ordinary?
Now, belief in the afterlife as separated from the ritual trappings, that's something we can rag on. I'm not sure such a separation is logically possible, given the origin of those trappings, but work with me here.
It might be healthier for the individual psyche to borrow the practice of grieving (the wailing and gnashing of teeth) without borrowing the framework (the appeal to the Big Beard in the Sky) - again, because I think extreme behaviour is appropriate given the extremity of the suffering.
Furthermore, I don't think "so what - we'll see him again when we die" is necessarily the point, or the point expressed. I think you're throwing that line away, and I think that's the kind of behaviour I associate with that Dawkins wanker.
I don't accept the lie-to-children that's expressed in the sentiment either - there isn't a celestial dinner party where only interesting people get to go and nobody cares what fork you use and you're allowed to drink spirits (that's my idea of heaven anyway), but I do think the lie accepts the fact that you're not there any more. It attempts to leaven that acceptance with something we both find distasteful and illogical, though, and that's where you're dead right about everything.
By the way, I'm going to have an enormous party when you die, and prop your carcass on a throne, overseeing the proceedings and being bedecked with foolish accoutrements. I'd therefore appreciate it if you didn't pass away in a fashion that mutilates you overmuch; might put people off their ale, and we can't have that.
Good sir, I will sign a contract enabling you to do just that, if you agree to afterwards place me in a longship and cast me out to sea, burning me along with all my armour and weapons.
And yes, I admit what I said was a little straw-mannish. I'm all for the coping and consolation, it just seems that sometimes the sentiment behind them is that there is no reason to mourn. Maybe that's a minority view only, but it's what I find most distasteful and ... wasteful about the whole thing.
I love your idea that "the supernatural is necessary to express the extraordinary, precisely because the secular is so preoccupied with the ordinary" .. That one's going to require a little more pondering. I would certainly agree that at least the linguistic framework of the supernatural is uniquely qualified to express the extraordinary; even the most secular person could feel the desire to describe in religious terms what they saw and how they felt the first time they look at the night sky through a telescope (for instance).
This is why these issues are worth discussing - they actually get somewhere, give us new things to think about - and new ways to think about old subjects.
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