Facebook Nonsense #1

Actually, I suppose this is my second Facebook nonsense post, since I could count this one as number one. But I’ll start with number two and call it number one. Why not? Who’s counting?

First up, then (consider the Reagan post a pre-game warm-up), is an excerpt from Dinesh D’Souza’s recent book, Godforsaken:

My goodness, where do I start with this one? I’ll begin by noting D’Souza’s claim that Richard Dawkins isn’t actually an atheist – just an ordinary (brilliant and famous, but otherwise ordinary) guy who doesn’t believe in gods. Instead, according to D’Souza, Dawkins is actually a wounded theist – someone who believes in god(s) but doesn’t like him/her/it/them very much at the moment. Apparently, either Dawkins doesn’t know he’s wounded, or he knows it and isn’t admitting it. D’Souza’s claim raises some questions for me.

1. The first one has to do with rhetorical strategy: what does D’Souza gain strategically/rhetorically by renaming Dawkins (and his unnamed cohorts, a group that may include, for all I know, you and me)?

2. Another question has to do with ethics: what gives D’Souza the right to label Dawkins (or anyone else) as something other than what he claims to be?

3. A third question is evidentiary: how does D’Souza know whether Dawkins (and others) should be classified as “an ordinary atheist” or a “wounded theist?”

I don’t know if any of you are interested in reading D’Souza’s book, but I’ll pause here to make a public service (or perhaps it’s a disservice) announcement and inform you that the book is currently available as a free Kindle download from Amazon.com. I’ve downloaded it and may actually read it. The only things stopping me at the moment are

a. I’m still reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (five books in one volume – convenient!), and
b. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stomach D’Souza’s arrogance. Anyone who thinks he has the right to classify nonbelievers into categories he prefers rather than accepting their claims at face value strikes me as someone with an enormous amount of hubris.

Unless it’s actually weakness hidden behind fake hubris. Maybe D’Souza can’t argue effectively against the actual atheistic claims of Dawkins and others, so he has to reconstruct their arguments into positions that he can argue against. Could this be the rhetorical advantage he seeks? If so, then I’ve answered question number one. And that leads to the answer to question number two: is D’Souza behaving underhandedly (i.e., unethically) by recasting his interlocutors and their claims? If I’m right about number one, then the answer to question number two is yes, he is. He has no right to redefine people or their positions; he appears simply to be staking a claim and hoping that no one catches him crossing the boundary. If I’m right about those two issues, then the answer to question number three is a no-brainer: D’Souza has no evidence for his claim that Dawkins (and who knows who else) is a wounded, angry, perhaps even hateful and vengeful theist rather than a straightforward atheist as he claims to be. It’s just easier for D’Souza to argue that Dawkins himself is flawed than it is to address flaws in Dawkins’ (or anyone else’s) actual atheistic claims, which brings us right back to where we started – question number one.

Damn. Now I’ll have to read the fucking book to find out whether I’ve sussed out D’Souza’s game. Wish me luck. And send me a few bottles of French wine; they’ll make the bullshit go down easier.

– the chaplain

 

Life’s Value

I finally started reading The Greatest Show on Earth last week. As I read the chapter on embryology a couple of nights ago, I couldn’t help marveling at how amazing life is in all its forms. Religionists often claim that their views enhance the value of life, particularly human life, because all of it has been ordained and designed by the hand(s) of god(s). It seems to me, however, that religious views actually cheapen the value of life. I want to point out three ways in which this occurs.

First, the creation of life forms is not a particularly significant accomplishment for a deity or deities that are capable of doing all sorts of spectacular things. A galaxy here and a supernova there, a parasite here and a mammal there – just another mundane day in the deity office. Ho hum; now it’s time to rest (or take a vacation). Big deal.

Second, religious believers frequently assert that earthly life is second-rate compared to what’s ahead in the next life (or lives). Life on earth in the here and now is a trial run, a testing ground, the primary significance of which is to prepare people (or allow people to prepare themselves, or for people to allow god(s) to prepare them – there are many variations on this theme) for the hereafter. If you think this life is great, just wait till you get to heaven; you haven’t seen anything yet. Or, if you think this life sucks, just wait till you get to heaven; god(s) will reward your patience and faithfulness with something much better.

Third, there are religious believers who teach that humankind is the pinnacle of creation. Think about this a moment. As marvelous as human life is, it takes real hubris to believe that humanity is the apex of creation. Bertrand Russell put this idea well when he said, “If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as my final accomplishment.” Human life is remarkable, but to consider it the best thing going (outside of heaven) is tragically impoverished.

On the other hand, a naturalistic view of life, which asserts that we still don’t know exactly how life came about, but we do know quite a lot about how it functions now and how it developed historically – once it got started (on earth) – inspires awe. Life is precious precisely because, in many ways, it’s mysterious. Regardless of whether we ever figure out exactly how life began, it will always retain an air of wonder. After all, as abundant as organic life is on earth, it is relatively rare compared to the abundance of inorganic matter that surrounds us. It’s amazing that anything lives at all, let alone that the earth teems with countless life forms ranging from bacteria to whales. Life is also precious because the best evidence uncovered thus far indicates that living beings only get one chance at it. There are no do-overs, no second chances, no hereafters. This life is all we get, so it’s important to make the most of it. Finally, as varied as life on earth is, there may be other planets that are populated with many other life forms, forms that may (or may not) resemble the diversity of life here. There is still much more to learn about life right here on our little planet, and there may well be volumes to discover about life on other worlds. I find all of these ideas utterly inspiring and more than a little bit humbling.

One does not need to believe in divine sanction to treasure life. Rather, all one needs is an appreciation for the wonder of a cosmos that humankind is just beginning to understand. As far as we can tell so far, life forms play small roles on the stage of the cosmos. Organic beings may be relatively few in number, but we’re pretty amazing nonetheless. This shouldn’t surprise you. After all, it’s often the bit characters that steal the show.

– the chaplain

 

A Fresh Start, A New Purpose

This is the time of year when people pause to look both backwards and forwards. As I look back on the year 2007, I am struck by the tremendous intellectual changes the deacon and I went through this past year. The processes began years, even decades, earlier, but it was only within the past year that we set our minds free and dared to examine our lives, our world and the universe in ways that are, to us, completely novel.

Looking ahead to 2008, we have decided to use this New Year to mark the start of a new, faith-free life together. We will be doing this by renewing our marriage vows in a private ceremony. The vows we exchanged in 1979, which we composed, were heavily laden with Christian language and ideals. The vows we will exchange tonight, again composed by us, have been stripped of all religious imagery. The old ideals that constrained us will be replaced by a new vision of our life together. The new vows reaffirm our commitment to each other’s individual growth and fulfillment, as well as to our relationship, and express our joy in venturing forward into a future unbound by the shackles of religious dogma.

People who are steeped within religious traditions often have difficulty understanding how non-believers can face the world. They ask, what is your purpose in life? Or, what do you hope for? At this point, the deacon and I are still developing our answers to such questions. We are excited by the idea that we are free to design our own purposes for living. Our hopes are to live our lives in ways that will honor our families, our friends and ourselves, and to do whatever lies within our small powers to leave this world a better place than it was when we entered it.

I think these excerpts from two well-known humanist authors, one still very much alive and the other long dead, summarize our thoughts very nicely.

The first selection is excerpted from Richard Dawkins’ lovely essay, To Live at All is Miracle Enough:

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here….

[W]e have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked — as I am surprisingly often — why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn’t it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?

The second excerpt is from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass collection:

O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless–of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light–of the objects mean–of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all–of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest–with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring–What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here–that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

I hope all of you will join the deacon and me in contributing a few humble, worthwhile lines to the drama of life!

–the chaplain