Commentary: (Fundamentalist) Atheists & Religion

[Ethos]

On Sunday, I was on the last ever Heaven and Earth show on the BBC which, for nine years has been a gentle dale in the noisy world of modern television – pleasurable, tranquil, receptive, candid and at times profoundly revealing of the place of religion in today's world.

Not a programme for the rowdy and brash God bashers, obviously, in particular Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who really are perilously close to losing their flawlessly rational heads as they fulminate like demented fire-and-brimstone preachers. Such men know it all, they don't listen, and presume to judge people they won't ever understand.

Radio 4's John Humphrys has taken on the fanatic atheists in a new book about faith and the human urge to believe. Some aspects of our nature are not susceptible to scientific enquiry, cannot be dissected, categorised and validated in terms that would satisfy the "rational" disbelievers, whose intellect is colossal but imagination puny.

There are no experiments and tests to explain love, empathy, longing, the agony and ecstasy of the heart, the wild and wonderful creativity of the brain, that thing that happens to you when a full moon appears above the sea and is reflected in it. Sorry, but knowing the science of why the moon shines is irrelevant to the experience. Faith is the light of the moon above and that light in the sea, reality and spirituality, both making you tremblingly conscious of forces vast and beyond words. Impertinent scientists cannot know what they speak of.

I agree with Dawkins, the quieter A C Grayling, and with humanists that religion can and does disable human aspiration and will; it can and does lead worshippers of various go s to a violent hatred of "outsiders"; it can and does debase women; it can and does create a religious autocracy; it can and does encourage appalling behaviour.

Since 9/11 Islam, Judaism and Christianity have become dangerously politicised. Too many people today have developed an intensified religious identity. I also believe strongly that public spaces and institutions should be wholly secular. An established church, state-funded faith schools and increasing encroachment of religion into politics are bad for us all. Sixty years ago, the inspirational leaders of liberated India established a secular constitution without which the country would have been ripped apart by its many competing, received religions. The gods had to keep to their place in free India, but they remain vital to individuals and communities.


http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/yasmin_alibhai_brown/article2921855.ece

While I think she sometimes falls into the same trap that many who debate faith tend to trip over (applying stereotypes to far too much of a sizeable group), I agree with many segments of this commentary. It is a respectable response to "fundamentalist atheism".

Ethos

[Groucho]

Yet Dawkins and Hutchins (whose books I have both read) address these issues fairly rationally, in my opinion. Just because one can't quantify emotions like love doesn't follow that one must necessarily then believe in Gods or magic or astrology.

The problem many religious people have is thinking that only through their religion can they truly appreciate things like a beautiful sunset or love, as if we atheists can only appreciate these things in a shadowy way and never as real.

It's the same way some religious people argue that we cannot have true morals without believing.

Can these critics be harsh on religion? Well, yes, that is their thesis. It makes sense in the context of their argument, which is that whatever benefits we can get from religion can come simply by being a moral human being.

[lord tammerlain]

Yet Dawkins and Hutchins (whose books I have both read) address these issues fairly rationally, in my opinion. Just because one can't quantify emotions like love doesn't follow that one must necessarily then believe in Gods or magic or astrology.

The problem many religious people have is thinking that only through their religion can they truly appreciate things like a beautiful sunset or love, as if we atheists can only appreciate these things in a shadowy way and never as real.

It's the same way some religious people argue that we cannot have true morals without believing.

Can these critics be harsh on religion? Well, yes, that is their thesis. It makes sense in the context of their argument, which is that whatever benefits we can get from religion can come simply by being a moral human being.
I thought emotions were based on chemical reactions generally within the brain. Most likely the result of evolutionary process's where "love" helped ensure the family unit stayed together long enough to raise offspring

[Ethos]

I thought emotions were based on chemical reactions generally within the brain. Most likely the result of evolutionary process's where "love" helped ensure the family unit stayed together long enough to raise offspring

This is correct, and I should add one point at which the writer and I diverge. Highly detailed scans of the brain (and body) pinpoint the biochemical signatures of emotional reactions.

We not only know the science of why the moon shines, we also know the science of why people become emotional over the event.

Ethos

[Dangerrmouse]

.... And that we seem to be hard-wired for morality....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/27/AR2007052701056_pf.html

[Lumpen Prole]

"There are no experiments and tests to explain love, empathy, longing, the agony and ecstasy of the heart, the wild and wonderful creativity of the brain, that thing that happens to you when a full moon appears above the sea and is reflected in it."

See also: Neuroscience

[Lumpen Prole]

As far as people like Dawkins and Hitchens go, my gripe is that what they're doing is incomplete and perhaps too antagonistic at times (Hitchens especially). Dawkins generally presents himself in a calm manner and allows others to speak (at least in all the TV appearances I've seen). His book was quite good, especially at presenting possilbe ways to fill the gap that would inevitably be left in the lives of the faithful if religious belief were abandoned. However, I have never seen him say those types of things on TV or in the media! And if this 'New Atheism' movement spearheaded by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Dennet is going to make any significant progress they have to offer people something instead of simply criticizing what they already have (warranted or not). Otherwise, religious people are going to have negative reactions, which result in the type of generalizing we see here.

[Atticus]

"There are no experiments and tests to explain love, empathy, longing, the agony and ecstasy of the heart, the wild and wonderful creativity of the brain, that thing that happens to you when a full moon appears above the sea and is reflected in it."

See also: Neuroscience"We murder to dissect."--William Wordsworth

[Dangerrmouse]

Nowadays we scan, and detect functions.

[Lumpen Prole]

"We murder to dissect."--William Wordsworth

I enjoy poetry just as much as the next guy, but you still have an amygdala.

[Atticus]

I enjoy poetry just as much as the next guyI hope you'll take this the right way, but considering your comments in this and other threads, I don't think this is true.

Here are Wordsworth's last two stanzas:

Sweet is the lore which nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mishapes the beauteous forms of things;
-- We murder to dissect.

Enough of science and of art;
Close up these barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/wics/lballads/lb8.htm

Perhaps you can see his point here--science, in its rightful work to make us smarter and more capable in certain ways, does little to enhance our sense of wonder. In fact, it often tends to diminish it. Both elements of the human psyche have their place of course, but trying to define beauty by means of empiricism enhances neither the beautiful nor the empirical.

[Lumpen Prole]

I'd love to hear your reasoning for that one, Mr. DontOffendAnyoneInThisForum. And when you're ready to make a point with substance relevent to the topic, I'm more than willing to hear what you have to say, Mr. Moderator.

Please don't take this post the wrong way. Mister.

[Atticus]

Please look at my edit.

[Lumpen Prole]

Here are Wordsworth's last two stanzas:

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/wics/lballads/lb8.htm

Perhaps you can see his point here--science, in its rightful work to make us smarter and more capable in certain ways, does little to enhance our sense of wonder. In fact, it often tends to diminish it. Both elements of the human psyche have their place of course, but trying to define beauty by means of empiricism enhances neither the beautiful nor the empirical.

I was aware of Wordsworth's work prior to the existence of this thread, but I appreciate all of your kind, considerate, by-the-book words today. Anyways, I completely disagree that science diminishes our sense of wonder. In fact, that's absurd. I have received no greater sense of wonder in my life than the gifts of scientific discovery. My job allows me to see things at the molecular level. I would go so far as to call this absurd itself, just as I would call the idea that you and I were derived from a single cell absurd. It's absurd, it's wonderful, and these types of things fill my life.

To paraphrase the astro-physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson: Consider an iron asteroid. It's a chunk of iron floating in space. The image probably doesn't seem very, well, wonderful. But consider that the exact same substance that hunk of metal is made out of exists in your body in much, much smaller quantities (and is necessary for your survival, I might add). As Neil put it, if you were to extract all of the iron atoms from every single person in the Tri-State area it would amount to the mass of some asteroid (I forget the name of the asteroid, but I hope you can take my word that the mass is very large). All of these iron atoms ultimately came from the same place, forged in stars early in the history of the universe. So long ago that humans cannot properly comprehend the time scales. His point: in that sense, we are all essentially the stuff stars are made of. That sounds like something that would have been written on a motivational poster in my third grade classroom, but it is true. And to look up at the night sky and attempt to comprehend this vastness and beauty of the cosmos, and feel that connection to it all...

Well, if that isn't wonder than I do not know what is.

[Lumpen Prole]

Please look at my edit.

:angel:

[Ethos]

These are of course points of perspective. Someone who would rather not consider high emotions to be merely products of biochemistry might indeed find the concept especially empty.

How could one so coldly explain through science the sense of euphoria that grips a soul, spiriting time and space below the conscious mind, propelling us into complexities of wonder or joy or adulation that flood the heart in seemingly supernatural splendor?

Some of us find wonder itself within the idea that such emotions can be explained through "cold" scientific analysis.

Again, perspective.

Ethos

[Groucho]

The closest thing I have ever had to a religious experience is the first time I went to Independence Hall in Philadelphia and thought to myself "This is where it happened! That's where Benjamin Franklin sat! And Thomas Jefferson! And James Madison!"

Seriously. I was deeply moved as I considered it.

Why is my epiphany not as valid as a religious person's? At least I was awed by people who I can prove actually existed.

[GI Joe]

The closest thing I have ever had to a religious experience is the first time I went to Independence Hall in Philadelphia and thought to myself "This is where it happened! That's where Benjamin Franklin sat! And Thomas Jefferson! And James Madison!"

Seriously. I was deeply moved as I considered it.

Why is my epiphany not as valid as a religious person's? At least I was awed by people who I can prove actually existed.



I felt the same way at Indy Hall. It was amazing

I also felt that way when I was in DC during the Reagan Admin. I was standing in front of the WH and thinking Reagan was only a hundred yards or so from me. I was close to a living god. I also could feel the power eminating from the WH

I have felt that way to a lesser extent at other historical sites such as the Palace of Versaille, The Great Pyramids and others. I love being at a site where great history was made

[Riddley]

You, the intellect, respond to something that pleases you. It might be a place or a person or the weather or a combination. Your brain reacts in the "training for pleasurable experiences" way and floods the body with endorphins. Thus you feel it wash through you.
Then your brain, which has acted subconsiously, wonders where the good feeling came from. It happened to me when the kids were born, when I got married, when I was voted Member of the Month at WS:). Some people figure that it's from a higher power, some very smart people have done that.
People are free to believe or not as they wish, just leave me alone both sides.

[Cedars]

.... And that we seem to be hard-wired for morality....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/27/AR2007052701056_pf.html
Hard-wired for morality? . . . but, of course! God created man to love God, sacrifice self and live for others. It comes as no surprise, then, that any scientific or social study would find empirical evidence of the basic Christian belief that helping others is satisfying to the self. Mother Theresa said that through faith comes love and through love comes service and through service comes peace. She did not need a scientific study to come to that conclusion. If others do, then God bless science for bringing those others to understand this fundamental Christian tenet!

[Craig]

Hard-wired for morality? . . . but, of course! God created man to love God, sacrifice self and live for others. It comes as no surprise, then, that any scientific or social study would find empirical evidence of the basic Christian belief that helping others is satisfying to the self. Mother Theresa said that through faith comes love and through love comes service and through service comes peace. She did not need a scientific study to come to that conclusion. If others do, then God bless science for bringing those others to understand this fundamental Christian tenet!

The thing that you ought to keep in mind though is that you and the scientists mentioned in the article are coming at the same data with two very different perspectives: you're coming at it from the perspective that it reaffirms the existence of God, and they're coming at it from the perspective that it contributes to our knowledge of the world under the evolutionary understanding of biology.

[Craig]

These are of course points of perspective. Someone who would rather not consider high emotions to be merely products of biochemistry might indeed find the concept especially empty.

How could one so coldly explain through science the sense of euphoria that grips a soul, spiriting time and space below the conscious mind, propelling us into complexities of wonder or joy or adulation that flood the heart in seemingly supernatural splendor?

Some of us find wonder itself within the idea that such emotions can be explained through "cold" scientific analysis.

Again, perspective.

Ethos

I can certainly see their point. While biology certainly does explain emotions as neurochemical functionings in the brain, the explanation alone doesn't seem to account for the richness of the actual emotion. Sure, there might be dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin which is released in my brain, but is that really sufficient to capture the feeling of love? Can such emotions truly and adequately be reduced to simple brain functions?

That having been said, just because I personally find it difficult to think that science can properly account for such things does not mean that it actually is insufficient or lacking. I may have trouble understanding the apparent dichotomy of how chemicals in my brain and what I experience as emotions, but that doesn't mean that there necessarily is more to emotions- some intangible, non-scientific aspect that cannot be empirically understood. There have been many people who have had difficulties understanding or accepting many scientific facts, but that does not change the truth value of the facts.

[Ethos]

I can certainly see their point. While biology certainly does explain emotions as neurochemical functionings in the brain, the explanation alone doesn't seem to account for the richness of the actual emotion. Sure, there might be dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin which is released in my brain, but is that really sufficient to capture the feeling of love? Can such emotions truly and adequately be reduced to simple brain functions?

That having been said, just because I personally find it difficult to think that science can properly account for such things does not mean that it actually is insufficient or lacking. I may have trouble understanding the apparent dichotomy of how chemicals in my brain and what I experience as emotions, but that doesn't mean that there necessarily is more to emotions- some intangible, non-scientific aspect that cannot be empirically understood. There have been many people who have had difficulties understanding or accepting many scientific facts, but that does not change the truth value of the facts.

I can see your point as well, however I have seen (if not experienced) extreme and and stunning emotional consequences of pure chemical interactions.

As an experiment, perhaps you could obtain a small quantity of methamphetamine. The emotional high gained off this man-made chemical compound is perhaps the strongest and most fantastic impact one can feel.

Of course the eventual consequence of meth addiction tends to render any benefits useless, and I don't actually suggest experimenting in this manner... but I expect my point is clear. Meth can make a man feel like a god, but that feeling does not come from god. It is a chemical action from beginning to end.

Ethos

[Craig]

I can see your point as well, however I have seen (if not experienced) extreme and and stunning emotional consequences of pure chemical interactions.

As an experiment, perhaps you could obtain a small quantity of methamphetamine. The emotional high gained off this man-made chemical compound is perhaps the strongest and most fantastic impact one can feel.

Of course the eventual consequence of meth addiction tends to render any benefits useless, and I don't actually suggest experimenting in this manner... but I expect my point is clear. Meth can make a man feel like a god, but that feeling does not come from god. It is a chemical action from beginning to end.

Ethos

Indeed, this is a good example to illustrate the chemical nature of emotions, and it's one that I hadn't thought about. However, I think the initial point still stands- while I might know that the emotions I feel are caused by methamphetamine, just as I know that neurochemicals similarly cause emotions in the body, the mere understanding of how the chemicals work in my body still seems insufficient as an explanation for the sensation of the emotions, etc. It seems as though something is still missing.

Of course, my other points about an individual's difficulty accounting for emotions purely by scientific explanations being potentially irrelevant also applies.

[Cedars]

The thing that you ought to keep in mind though is that you and the scientists mentioned in the article are coming at the same data with two very different perspectives: you're coming at it from the perspective that it reaffirms the existence of God, and they're coming at it from the perspective that it contributes to our knowledge of the world under the evolutionary understanding of biology.
No, my point is that regardless of whether one believes in God, some people do not need science to recognize a basic truth.

[Craig]

No, my point is that regardless of whether one believes in God, some people do not need science to recognize a basic truth.

Oh, I see. That makes sense; however, what the research has established has gone beyond simply a basic truth, and offered a more sophisticated understanding, as well as many other questions, about the nature of human morality.