ULYSSES HAS NO USE FOR PLATO
“The man with a method good for purposes of his dominant interests is a pathological case in respect to his wider judgment on the coordination of this method with a more complete experience. Priests and scientist, statesmen and men of business, philosophers and mathematicians are all alike in this respect. We all start by being empiricists. But our empiricism is confined within our immediate interests. The more clearly we grasp the intellectual analysis of a way regulating procedure for the sake of those interest, the more decidedly we reject the inclusion of evidence which refuses to be immediately harmonized with the method before us. Some of the major disasters of mankind have been produced by the narrowness of men with good methodology. Ulysses has no use for Plato, and the bones of his companions are strewn on many a reef and many and isle.”
Alfred North Whitehead. The Function of Reason. 1929.
COMMENT
The post-Enlightenment program calling for destruction of the wall between physics and metaphysics represents, I believe, a collective example of the pathology Whitehead identifies. Religionists presume to dictate content of science textbooks without bothering to master the basic language of science or to grasp the fundamentals of the scientific method. When you hear the ostensibly damning phrase “just a theory,” you know you are dealing with an idiot or a demagogue. On the other side and in reaction to the religionists’ brayings, we find prominent members of the scientific fraternity holding forth on matters theological. Their wit amuses the intelligentsia—the few, the proud—while their glib arrogance infuriates the masses and frustrates the thoughtful theists and agnostics who have remained true to Enlightenment principles.
All the great thinkers have expressed awe in the face of their own ignorance. To begin to grasp the depth of one’s ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. Those damaged souls who would impose their wills upon all through various forms of coercion are the least wise among us. Yet, they are the very ones whose self-assuredness often attracts a following sufficient to ensure that some form of oppression will follow. The framers of the US Constitution sought through establishment of a government of laws (not of men) to limit damage done by these attractive hazards in human form.
CS
Showing posts with label secularism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label secularism. Show all posts
Friday, May 4, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Sounds Familiar
EPICURUS ON THE GODS
“For the gods exist; of them we have distinct knowledge. But they are not such as the majority think them to be. For they do not maintain a consistent view of what they think the gods are. The impious man is not he who confutes the gods of the majority, but he who applies to the gods the majority’s opinions. For the assertions of the many concerning the gods are conceptions grounded not in experience but in false assumptions, according to which the greatest misfortunes are brought upon the evil by the gods and the greatest benefits upon the good. Men being always at home with their own virtues, they embrace those like themselves and regard everything unlike themselves as alien.”
Epicurus. Letter to Menoeceus. Circa 300 BCE.
COMMENT
Epicurus presents us with the conclusion to an ontological argument for the existence of god and then moves on to a critique of the multifarious creeds, each of which uniquely defines with metaphysical certitude the essence and attributes of that god. In observing the contemporary scene, we might be tempted to ascribe the gift of prescience to this great and much-slandered philosopher. We observe today the consequences of blind belief in fundamentalist systems whose lines are so vividly drawn that tolerance is out of the question. And then we stumble upon this ancient critique of the idea of the alien other. Apparently—and comfortingly, in a perverse way—it must have been thus throughout human history since Epicurus no doubt drew upon his own empirical observations in coming to this unflattering assessment of the rabble. Small wonder he preferred his garden to the marketplace.
CS
“For the gods exist; of them we have distinct knowledge. But they are not such as the majority think them to be. For they do not maintain a consistent view of what they think the gods are. The impious man is not he who confutes the gods of the majority, but he who applies to the gods the majority’s opinions. For the assertions of the many concerning the gods are conceptions grounded not in experience but in false assumptions, according to which the greatest misfortunes are brought upon the evil by the gods and the greatest benefits upon the good. Men being always at home with their own virtues, they embrace those like themselves and regard everything unlike themselves as alien.”
Epicurus. Letter to Menoeceus. Circa 300 BCE.
COMMENT
Epicurus presents us with the conclusion to an ontological argument for the existence of god and then moves on to a critique of the multifarious creeds, each of which uniquely defines with metaphysical certitude the essence and attributes of that god. In observing the contemporary scene, we might be tempted to ascribe the gift of prescience to this great and much-slandered philosopher. We observe today the consequences of blind belief in fundamentalist systems whose lines are so vividly drawn that tolerance is out of the question. And then we stumble upon this ancient critique of the idea of the alien other. Apparently—and comfortingly, in a perverse way—it must have been thus throughout human history since Epicurus no doubt drew upon his own empirical observations in coming to this unflattering assessment of the rabble. Small wonder he preferred his garden to the marketplace.
CS
Monday, April 9, 2007
More on the Benefits of Freedom
A LIBERTARIAN’S VIEW
“Members of the religions right today insist that American is—or at least was—a Christian nation with a Christian government. . . . Some Americans opposed ratification of the Constitution because it was ‘coldly indifferent towards religion’ and would leave ‘religion to shift wholly for itself.’ Nevertheless, the revolutionary Constitution was adopted, and most of us believe that the experience with the separation of church and state has been a happy one.”
David Boaz. Libertarianism. 1998.
COMMENTARY
A few definitions, short and incomplete, are in order. In the United States, we acknowledge, through the programs of our two major political parties, that two distinct species of freedom exist: social freedom and economic freedom. Republicans, at least the traditional Republicans, stress the importance of economic freedom and the Democrats favor with their policies the social freedoms. Hence, we witness, for example, battles featuring deregulation (Republican) versus the safety-net (Democratic), tort reform (Republican) versus plaintiff rights (Democratic), and nutritional laissez faire (Republican) versus mandatory canola cooking oil (Democratic). Libertarianism represents a third alternative (there is another as well, totalitarianism). Libertarian theory, which has its roots in the Classical Liberalism that grew from the Scottish Enlightenment, restricts neither economic nor personal social freedom. Because small government has been the watchword of the Republican Party, most libertarians have found association with the so-called conservative appealing. Nevertheless, the NeoCon/Religious Right takeover of the Republican Party, which began benignly enough with the rise of Ronald Reagan and reached a toxic climate with the current occupant of the White House, has dislodged the party’s libertarian wing. Witnessing encroachments on personal freedoms unthinkable under previous Republican administrations, this freethinking bunch has begun to make common cause with the left on issues relating to personal freedom, including matters of separation of church and state. The Republicans continue their courtship of the Religious Right at the cost of alienating libertarians and thus becoming a minority party for the foreseeable future.
CS
“Members of the religions right today insist that American is—or at least was—a Christian nation with a Christian government. . . . Some Americans opposed ratification of the Constitution because it was ‘coldly indifferent towards religion’ and would leave ‘religion to shift wholly for itself.’ Nevertheless, the revolutionary Constitution was adopted, and most of us believe that the experience with the separation of church and state has been a happy one.”
David Boaz. Libertarianism. 1998.
COMMENTARY
A few definitions, short and incomplete, are in order. In the United States, we acknowledge, through the programs of our two major political parties, that two distinct species of freedom exist: social freedom and economic freedom. Republicans, at least the traditional Republicans, stress the importance of economic freedom and the Democrats favor with their policies the social freedoms. Hence, we witness, for example, battles featuring deregulation (Republican) versus the safety-net (Democratic), tort reform (Republican) versus plaintiff rights (Democratic), and nutritional laissez faire (Republican) versus mandatory canola cooking oil (Democratic). Libertarianism represents a third alternative (there is another as well, totalitarianism). Libertarian theory, which has its roots in the Classical Liberalism that grew from the Scottish Enlightenment, restricts neither economic nor personal social freedom. Because small government has been the watchword of the Republican Party, most libertarians have found association with the so-called conservative appealing. Nevertheless, the NeoCon/Religious Right takeover of the Republican Party, which began benignly enough with the rise of Ronald Reagan and reached a toxic climate with the current occupant of the White House, has dislodged the party’s libertarian wing. Witnessing encroachments on personal freedoms unthinkable under previous Republican administrations, this freethinking bunch has begun to make common cause with the left on issues relating to personal freedom, including matters of separation of church and state. The Republicans continue their courtship of the Religious Right at the cost of alienating libertarians and thus becoming a minority party for the foreseeable future.
CS
Monday, February 26, 2007
Jung and Impressionable
BIBLICAL AUTHORITY
“Protestantism has . . . intensified the authority of the Bible as a substitute for the lost authority of the church. But as history has shown, one can interpret certain biblical texts in many ways. . . . . [U]nder the influence of a so-called scientific enlightenment great masses of educated people have either left the church or have become profoundly indifferent to it. . . . But many of them are religious people, only incapable of agreeing with the actually existing forms of the creed. . . . The Catholic who has turned his back on the church usually develops a secret or manifest inclination toward atheism, whereas the Protestant follows, if possible, a sectarian movement. The absolutism of the Catholic church seems to demand an equally absolute negation, while Protestant relativism permits variations.”
Carl Jung. Psychology and Religion. 1938.
A REFLECTION
Of course the sects Jung had in mind were what Americans now characterize as Mainline Protestant, a breed whose numbers continue to decline. Eighty years on in America the authoritarian face is less that of the Pope than that of the non-denominational “Bible Church” minister who leads large, semi-autonomous congregations made up of the theological illiterati. That the manipulative and unbiblical apocalyptic visions expressed in sermons and popular fiction, e.g., the Left Behind series, could be taken seriously might be held to demonstrate the depths of biblical and historical ignorance to which a large majority have sunk. The religious perversion that is the Dominionist movement exploits this ignorance and, furthermore, countenances none of the relativism to which Jung refers. What might he say about today’s atheist/Muslim Europe and secularist/Christianist America?
CS
“Protestantism has . . . intensified the authority of the Bible as a substitute for the lost authority of the church. But as history has shown, one can interpret certain biblical texts in many ways. . . . . [U]nder the influence of a so-called scientific enlightenment great masses of educated people have either left the church or have become profoundly indifferent to it. . . . But many of them are religious people, only incapable of agreeing with the actually existing forms of the creed. . . . The Catholic who has turned his back on the church usually develops a secret or manifest inclination toward atheism, whereas the Protestant follows, if possible, a sectarian movement. The absolutism of the Catholic church seems to demand an equally absolute negation, while Protestant relativism permits variations.”
Carl Jung. Psychology and Religion. 1938.
A REFLECTION
Of course the sects Jung had in mind were what Americans now characterize as Mainline Protestant, a breed whose numbers continue to decline. Eighty years on in America the authoritarian face is less that of the Pope than that of the non-denominational “Bible Church” minister who leads large, semi-autonomous congregations made up of the theological illiterati. That the manipulative and unbiblical apocalyptic visions expressed in sermons and popular fiction, e.g., the Left Behind series, could be taken seriously might be held to demonstrate the depths of biblical and historical ignorance to which a large majority have sunk. The religious perversion that is the Dominionist movement exploits this ignorance and, furthermore, countenances none of the relativism to which Jung refers. What might he say about today’s atheist/Muslim Europe and secularist/Christianist America?
CS
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
DEMOCRACY IS NOT THE ENEMY OF FAITH
CRYPTO-FASCISTS (CHRISTO-FASCISTS) AMONG US
“Democracy is not, as the Christo-fascists claim, the enemy of faith. Democracy keeps religious faith in the private sphere, ensuring that all believers have an equal measure of protection and practice mutual tolerance. Democracy sets no religious ideal. It simply ensures coexistence. It permits the individual to avoid simply being subsumed by the crowd—the chief goal of totalitarianism, which seeks to tell all citizens what to believe, how to behave and how to speak. The call to obliterate the public and the private wall that keeps faith the prerogative of the individual means the obliteration of democracy.”
Chris Hedges. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. 2006.
COMMENT
Where is the virtue in blind obedience to authority or adherence to any law that mandates religious or political orthodoxy? Where is the virtue and, finally, what is the point? If the Far Right ever manages to persuade the nation to ratify a constitutional amendment outlawing disrespect for the flag, the sense of virtue we feel when we stand and place our hands over our hearts will be nullified; when the flag passes, we will merely be complying with the law. We will no longer act out of genuine patriotism. Similarly, required adherence to a narrow range of religious and moral behavior would give rise to a culture in which outward conformity masks the truth of private thought. As the ultimate disintegration of the 20th Century’s totalitarian states shows, such a system is inherently unstable.
CS
“Democracy is not, as the Christo-fascists claim, the enemy of faith. Democracy keeps religious faith in the private sphere, ensuring that all believers have an equal measure of protection and practice mutual tolerance. Democracy sets no religious ideal. It simply ensures coexistence. It permits the individual to avoid simply being subsumed by the crowd—the chief goal of totalitarianism, which seeks to tell all citizens what to believe, how to behave and how to speak. The call to obliterate the public and the private wall that keeps faith the prerogative of the individual means the obliteration of democracy.”
Chris Hedges. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. 2006.
COMMENT
Where is the virtue in blind obedience to authority or adherence to any law that mandates religious or political orthodoxy? Where is the virtue and, finally, what is the point? If the Far Right ever manages to persuade the nation to ratify a constitutional amendment outlawing disrespect for the flag, the sense of virtue we feel when we stand and place our hands over our hearts will be nullified; when the flag passes, we will merely be complying with the law. We will no longer act out of genuine patriotism. Similarly, required adherence to a narrow range of religious and moral behavior would give rise to a culture in which outward conformity masks the truth of private thought. As the ultimate disintegration of the 20th Century’s totalitarian states shows, such a system is inherently unstable.
CS
Friday, January 5, 2007
Science, Religion, and Democracy
A FREETHINKER’S LOGIC
“The attack on science is a prime secularist issue not because religion and science are incompatible but because particular forms of religious belief—those that claim to have found the one true answer to the origins and ultimate purpose of human life—are incompatible not only with science but with democracy. Those who rely on the perfect hand of the Almighty for political guidance, whether on biomedical research or capital punishment, are really saying that such issues can never be a matter of imperfect human opinion. If the hand of the Almighty explains and rules the workings of nature, it can hardly fail to rule the workings of the American political system.”
Susan Jacoby. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. 2004*
COMMENT
In the depths of reflection unburdened by self-criticism, I often wonder how the true-believers among us—and here I refer to true believers of any persuasion—can manage to miss the mark on so many issues. In fact, it seems the case that on every issue of consequence do the true believers get it wrong. Well, Jacoby gives us a hint here, doesn’t she? I would move a step beyond her focus on fundamentalist Christianity and assert that adherence to any literalist system will lead to authoritarian political views and a skewed scientific method designed to support the agenda of the state.
CS
* Link to Amazon:
“The attack on science is a prime secularist issue not because religion and science are incompatible but because particular forms of religious belief—those that claim to have found the one true answer to the origins and ultimate purpose of human life—are incompatible not only with science but with democracy. Those who rely on the perfect hand of the Almighty for political guidance, whether on biomedical research or capital punishment, are really saying that such issues can never be a matter of imperfect human opinion. If the hand of the Almighty explains and rules the workings of nature, it can hardly fail to rule the workings of the American political system.”
Susan Jacoby. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. 2004*
COMMENT
In the depths of reflection unburdened by self-criticism, I often wonder how the true-believers among us—and here I refer to true believers of any persuasion—can manage to miss the mark on so many issues. In fact, it seems the case that on every issue of consequence do the true believers get it wrong. Well, Jacoby gives us a hint here, doesn’t she? I would move a step beyond her focus on fundamentalist Christianity and assert that adherence to any literalist system will lead to authoritarian political views and a skewed scientific method designed to support the agenda of the state.
CS
* Link to Amazon:
Friday, December 29, 2006
George Carlin has a Point
A THOUGHTFUL RANT
“The use of faith-based is just one more way the Bush administration found to bypass the Constitution. They knew Americans would never approve of government-promoted religious initiatives, but faith-based? Hey, what’s the problem?”
The term faith-based is nothing more than an attempt to slip religion past you when you’re not thinking; which is the way religion is always slipped past you.”
George Carlin. When will Jesus bring the Pork Chops? 2004
COMMENT
Upon the death of Eudora Welty, George Carlin became the funniest living writer in America. Here we can admire a manifest ability to display unselfconsciously the courage of one’s convictions. The provocative Mr. Carlin’s antipathy toward organized religion reveals his clear awareness that society’s elites will use whatever institutions happen to be handy in order to manipulate the masses. And what handier institution than systematized, ritualized, and concretized theism?
CS
Link to Amazon:
“The use of faith-based is just one more way the Bush administration found to bypass the Constitution. They knew Americans would never approve of government-promoted religious initiatives, but faith-based? Hey, what’s the problem?”
The term faith-based is nothing more than an attempt to slip religion past you when you’re not thinking; which is the way religion is always slipped past you.”
George Carlin. When will Jesus bring the Pork Chops? 2004
COMMENT
Upon the death of Eudora Welty, George Carlin became the funniest living writer in America. Here we can admire a manifest ability to display unselfconsciously the courage of one’s convictions. The provocative Mr. Carlin’s antipathy toward organized religion reveals his clear awareness that society’s elites will use whatever institutions happen to be handy in order to manipulate the masses. And what handier institution than systematized, ritualized, and concretized theism?
CS
Link to Amazon:
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Tocqueville, Despotism, Liberties
SOURCE TEXT
“A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this . . . compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience.
“I do not however deny that a constitution of this kind appears to me to be infinitely preferable to one, which, after having concentrated all the powers of government, should vest them in the hands of an irresponsible person or body of persons. Of all forms which democratic despotism could assume, the latter would assuredly be the worst.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835
OBSERVATION
The danger Tocqueville addresses here relates to the incremental erosion of individual and community responsibility in a maturing liberal democracy. While the system typically checks the most oppressive and violent manifestations of despotism, the mundane and on-going usurpation of minority rights becomes ever more apparent. Tax-supported faith-based initiates, prison programs rewarding adherents of favored sects, and, indeed, a tax code providing relief to religions bodies and their supporters all fulfill to one degree or another Tocqueville’s fears for America.
CS
Link to Amazon:
“A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this . . . compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience.
“I do not however deny that a constitution of this kind appears to me to be infinitely preferable to one, which, after having concentrated all the powers of government, should vest them in the hands of an irresponsible person or body of persons. Of all forms which democratic despotism could assume, the latter would assuredly be the worst.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835
OBSERVATION
The danger Tocqueville addresses here relates to the incremental erosion of individual and community responsibility in a maturing liberal democracy. While the system typically checks the most oppressive and violent manifestations of despotism, the mundane and on-going usurpation of minority rights becomes ever more apparent. Tax-supported faith-based initiates, prison programs rewarding adherents of favored sects, and, indeed, a tax code providing relief to religions bodies and their supporters all fulfill to one degree or another Tocqueville’s fears for America.
CS
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Thursday, December 14, 2006
Jefferson, Danbury Baptist Association
SOURCE TEXT
‘Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State.’
—Thomas Jefferson. Letter to Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge and others, a Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut. (1802)
COMMENT
The General Baptists and other denominations springing from the tradition begun by the radical reformers of middle Europe--a movement whose members held, on theological and practical grounds, a special aversion to political involvement—brought their axiomatic understanding of the elements of Christian life with them to the English Colonies in the New World. For these heirs of Manz, Hus, Simmons, et al, seeking favor from the state, whether represented by king, duke, Holy Roman Emperor, or even an elected body, would have violated fundamental tenets. That other denominations of Anglican, Calvinist, and Roman origins had no such historical aversion to formal establishment or political favor gave minority religionists cause for considerable concern in the early days of the republic. Indeed, the individual colonies themselves were not above granting special status to one denomination or another. Under Jefferson’s leadership, first Virginia and then the US, through the Establishment Clause found in the First Amendment to the Constitution, erected the “wall of separation” to which Jefferson refers in the above excerpt. Ironic that this wall has been under mounting attack from some members of the sectarian quarter whose paths were made safer by Jefferson’s Constitutional Wall.
CS
Link to Amazon:
‘Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State.’
—Thomas Jefferson. Letter to Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge and others, a Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut. (1802)
COMMENT
The General Baptists and other denominations springing from the tradition begun by the radical reformers of middle Europe--a movement whose members held, on theological and practical grounds, a special aversion to political involvement—brought their axiomatic understanding of the elements of Christian life with them to the English Colonies in the New World. For these heirs of Manz, Hus, Simmons, et al, seeking favor from the state, whether represented by king, duke, Holy Roman Emperor, or even an elected body, would have violated fundamental tenets. That other denominations of Anglican, Calvinist, and Roman origins had no such historical aversion to formal establishment or political favor gave minority religionists cause for considerable concern in the early days of the republic. Indeed, the individual colonies themselves were not above granting special status to one denomination or another. Under Jefferson’s leadership, first Virginia and then the US, through the Establishment Clause found in the First Amendment to the Constitution, erected the “wall of separation” to which Jefferson refers in the above excerpt. Ironic that this wall has been under mounting attack from some members of the sectarian quarter whose paths were made safer by Jefferson’s Constitutional Wall.
CS
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