Melani McAlister: RE: Atheism and Peace
I’m responding here to Christopher Young’s comments, plus some of the general debates on religion, secular, atheism, etc.
from Christopher: "Second, I am hoping that Melani can offer some thoughts around her statement "aren't we invited to do -many- things, from fighting wars to cleaning up the environment, "for the sake of our children." I am a bit concerned with this statement, as it implies that we (Evangelicals) are obligated by some theological rule to fight in wars....hmmm, I do not get a sense this is really the case- if one was to take a biblical standpoint. "
I meant to argue something a bit different here. I was responding to Michael Goldhaber’s comments that atheists are less likely to go to war than religious people. My point was that “we” – not Evangelicals, but all of us – are hailed by ideologies that invite us to strong action. These ideologies are often secular in their language or concerns; for example, we are called to do various things “for the sake of our children,” or “for the future of the planet.” The political content of this commitment to the future may be variable: it might be to save the environment, or to support the “war on terror” so that our children are not endangered, or to oppose nuclear weapons, or to fight the Soviets to prevent the spread of communism. Similarly, belief in God is evoked across the political spectrum, from pro- to anti-war, from pro- to anti-environmentalism.
I am personally an atheist (of which type, I’ll comment below), but I’m a bit shocked by the presumptions here that religious people who believe in God are more pro-war, more easily manipulated, etc. Do you really mean that? I think my religious friends are wrong on the question of God, but I can’t –imagine- arguing that pacifist Mennonite evangelicals, Sufi Muslims, liberal Jews, anti-Zionist orthodox Jews, liberation theology Catholics, or anti-war evangelicals etc. and etc. are, deep in their hearts, politically retrograde (not to mention, apparently, more likely to have children, despite a certain monastic tradition one might want to account for). And meanwhile, what about the lovely non-believers who in fact run the United States (do you –really- think Dick Cheney’s faith is the issue?), and who ran the Soviet Union, and who supported Saddam Hussein? They are what? Above ideology? Animated only by material interests?
I think that, in these various related strands, we might be having (at least) three conversations. To simplify (sometimes brutally):
1) What does it mean to be an atheist? Is atheism a type of faith?
2) What does it mean to be religious? Does it require a belief in God? Does it have an inherent political content?
3) What is the distinction, analytically, between secular and religious?
I just spoke to the second of these. I’ll make a comments on 1). (There is a lot more to be said on 3), too, but one has to have life outside of email…)
The stakes in question 1) seem to be, basically, whether atheism is better than belief in god. As several people have said, it’s impossible to prove a negative, so you can’t prove there is no god, and almost every religious person I know would agree that you can’t prove there –is- one, at least not in the terms that would count as proof to non-believers. Believers might cite their own experiences as proof, but this isn’t a rationalist sort of proof. So belief in god does require faith – the acceptance of a particular explanation for whatever experience is at hand. (I prayed and I experienced God’s love. One explanation: there is a god; another explanation: prayer produces nice brain waves, as does mediation on a flame.)
But neither belief nor non-belief has any given political effect. If we want to argue about the basis of our beliefs in the nature of the universe and the presence or lack thereof of God, then that’s great. If we want to argue about whether we need to go to war in Iraq, then let’s do that. If someone tells me they oppose war in Iraq because God calls us to turn the other cheek, I’m going to have to disagree with their rationale. But I’m happy to have them at my anti-war meeting, and I’m not going to argue theology with them -- unless we all go out to dinner and decide to do so.
People who don’t believe in god –mostly- hold that conviction on rationalist grounds; that is, given the lack of evidence in favor of god, and given a commitment to (some version of) empiricism, we are not convinced. (There are people who are non-believers based on their experience; that is, they feel bereft by a personal loss and believe this proves there is no God, but I don’t consider these to be morally serious persons: you believed in God when millions of people were dying of hunger and war, but not when your wife was killed in a car accident?)
I don’t believe in God, with a capital G, for the same reason I don’t believe in the Greek gods or in the presence of aliens. It’s not that I could not, under any circumstances, be convinced. If the aliens show up, I’m going to be pretty damn shocked, but I will believe those things which are observable, repeatable (in other words, I’m not the only one who sees them; if I were, other explanations will have to be pursued: like that I’m crazy), and possible to study, even if not to fully understand.
There are multiple and valuable critiques of Enlightenment rationalism and its assumptions, as well as its products. I accept many of those critiques, including that this rationalism requires and operates from certain assumptions and premises, including the scientific method itself, which is a myth of pure process, but which in fact requires theories of how the world is ordered in order to proceed. But the assumptions and models themselves are subject to revision -- Kuhn's paradigm shifts. And we all depend on this model of rationalism and its dependability SO frequently, from studies of how disease operates to making planes fly, it simply doesn't make sense to me to dismiss it when it comes to the question of God. For that reason, and others, I don’t think it makes sense at all to call atheism or rationalism a faith or a religion. (This is why Durkheim’s model is in fact quite problematic.)
Finally, and briefly, I think people often feel negatively about atheism, as opposed to just disagreeing with it, because 1) atheists can act like real jerks toward religious people; the reverse is also true, and probably has a lot to do with anti-religious feelings; or 2) they think that atheists have no experience of awe. I’ve actually talked to –very- educated people who said they would not call themselves atheists because they had feelings of awe in face of nature -- they are moved to wordlessly by a sunset. I suggested that reading more poetry might help them with that; feeling emotional richness or Kantian sublime is not limited to religious people. But I think this is where the spiritual-but-not-religious junk comes from; people want to find a way to claim their experience of the ineffable.
> Melani McAlister
from Christopher: "Second, I am hoping that Melani can offer some thoughts around her statement "aren't we invited to do -many- things, from fighting wars to cleaning up the environment, "for the sake of our children." I am a bit concerned with this statement, as it implies that we (Evangelicals) are obligated by some theological rule to fight in wars....hmmm, I do not get a sense this is really the case- if one was to take a biblical standpoint. "
I meant to argue something a bit different here. I was responding to Michael Goldhaber’s comments that atheists are less likely to go to war than religious people. My point was that “we” – not Evangelicals, but all of us – are hailed by ideologies that invite us to strong action. These ideologies are often secular in their language or concerns; for example, we are called to do various things “for the sake of our children,” or “for the future of the planet.” The political content of this commitment to the future may be variable: it might be to save the environment, or to support the “war on terror” so that our children are not endangered, or to oppose nuclear weapons, or to fight the Soviets to prevent the spread of communism. Similarly, belief in God is evoked across the political spectrum, from pro- to anti-war, from pro- to anti-environmentalism.
I am personally an atheist (of which type, I’ll comment below), but I’m a bit shocked by the presumptions here that religious people who believe in God are more pro-war, more easily manipulated, etc. Do you really mean that? I think my religious friends are wrong on the question of God, but I can’t –imagine- arguing that pacifist Mennonite evangelicals, Sufi Muslims, liberal Jews, anti-Zionist orthodox Jews, liberation theology Catholics, or anti-war evangelicals etc. and etc. are, deep in their hearts, politically retrograde (not to mention, apparently, more likely to have children, despite a certain monastic tradition one might want to account for). And meanwhile, what about the lovely non-believers who in fact run the United States (do you –really- think Dick Cheney’s faith is the issue?), and who ran the Soviet Union, and who supported Saddam Hussein? They are what? Above ideology? Animated only by material interests?
I think that, in these various related strands, we might be having (at least) three conversations. To simplify (sometimes brutally):
1) What does it mean to be an atheist? Is atheism a type of faith?
2) What does it mean to be religious? Does it require a belief in God? Does it have an inherent political content?
3) What is the distinction, analytically, between secular and religious?
I just spoke to the second of these. I’ll make a comments on 1). (There is a lot more to be said on 3), too, but one has to have life outside of email…)
The stakes in question 1) seem to be, basically, whether atheism is better than belief in god. As several people have said, it’s impossible to prove a negative, so you can’t prove there is no god, and almost every religious person I know would agree that you can’t prove there –is- one, at least not in the terms that would count as proof to non-believers. Believers might cite their own experiences as proof, but this isn’t a rationalist sort of proof. So belief in god does require faith – the acceptance of a particular explanation for whatever experience is at hand. (I prayed and I experienced God’s love. One explanation: there is a god; another explanation: prayer produces nice brain waves, as does mediation on a flame.)
But neither belief nor non-belief has any given political effect. If we want to argue about the basis of our beliefs in the nature of the universe and the presence or lack thereof of God, then that’s great. If we want to argue about whether we need to go to war in Iraq, then let’s do that. If someone tells me they oppose war in Iraq because God calls us to turn the other cheek, I’m going to have to disagree with their rationale. But I’m happy to have them at my anti-war meeting, and I’m not going to argue theology with them -- unless we all go out to dinner and decide to do so.
People who don’t believe in god –mostly- hold that conviction on rationalist grounds; that is, given the lack of evidence in favor of god, and given a commitment to (some version of) empiricism, we are not convinced. (There are people who are non-believers based on their experience; that is, they feel bereft by a personal loss and believe this proves there is no God, but I don’t consider these to be morally serious persons: you believed in God when millions of people were dying of hunger and war, but not when your wife was killed in a car accident?)
I don’t believe in God, with a capital G, for the same reason I don’t believe in the Greek gods or in the presence of aliens. It’s not that I could not, under any circumstances, be convinced. If the aliens show up, I’m going to be pretty damn shocked, but I will believe those things which are observable, repeatable (in other words, I’m not the only one who sees them; if I were, other explanations will have to be pursued: like that I’m crazy), and possible to study, even if not to fully understand.
There are multiple and valuable critiques of Enlightenment rationalism and its assumptions, as well as its products. I accept many of those critiques, including that this rationalism requires and operates from certain assumptions and premises, including the scientific method itself, which is a myth of pure process, but which in fact requires theories of how the world is ordered in order to proceed. But the assumptions and models themselves are subject to revision -- Kuhn's paradigm shifts. And we all depend on this model of rationalism and its dependability SO frequently, from studies of how disease operates to making planes fly, it simply doesn't make sense to me to dismiss it when it comes to the question of God. For that reason, and others, I don’t think it makes sense at all to call atheism or rationalism a faith or a religion. (This is why Durkheim’s model is in fact quite problematic.)
Finally, and briefly, I think people often feel negatively about atheism, as opposed to just disagreeing with it, because 1) atheists can act like real jerks toward religious people; the reverse is also true, and probably has a lot to do with anti-religious feelings; or 2) they think that atheists have no experience of awe. I’ve actually talked to –very- educated people who said they would not call themselves atheists because they had feelings of awe in face of nature -- they are moved to wordlessly by a sunset. I suggested that reading more poetry might help them with that; feeling emotional richness or Kantian sublime is not limited to religious people. But I think this is where the spiritual-but-not-religious junk comes from; people want to find a way to claim their experience of the ineffable.
> Melani McAlister