Jen this might be your finest essay ever - it's not journalism, per se, but something much richer.
I find it interesting that people criticise the piece for being confusing or meandering or whatever. I find essays on this topic that aren't confusing or meandering to be either simplistic to the point of merely asserting an author's faith, a la Dawkins or Hawkins, or to tautological that it adds nothing to topic. None of that here. For what it's worth, I'm hopeful that there emerges something - don't know what - that addresses humanity's need for spiritual meaning and place-in-the-universe relevance, but dispenses with the pre-Axial Age reliance on legends and superstitions and magic that even Christianity falls back on when presented with the as-yet inexpressible sides of such things. After all, the whack job fringe has always been there, almost especeially in ages of deep faith (flagellant sects, emergence of local messiahs, finding golden tablets that only you can read in your bedroom) - it's just that in an era of mass communication and transportation, it's easier to find other whack jobs with whom to compare notes.
But the evolution of man's expression of religious instinct or spirituality or whatever feels like a constant that's hit a bit of a wall in the face of the success of science in finding provably compelling narratives. Science hasn't solved for the need for meaning; we don't have a GLP-1 cure for anomie. Essays like this, though, feel singularly necessary to push the species forward.
Exactly Peter. When I was an atheist there was always a subtle feeling of something missing. This may not be the case for all other atheists but is for many.
Isn't the core Christian message behind the Enlightenment: "Love thy neighbour as thyself" aka "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? Surely that's the great human leveler and the basis on which we believe in basic rights, freedoms, and protections.
I also think there's truth in religious texts as literature. Clearly the Nativity stories aren't literally true: If the star was close enough to point the wise men to a specific stable the planet would have incinerated the planet; and surely the Angel of the Lord would have drawn a crowd bigger than a few shepherds.) But the central truth of the story is that each new birth is a renewal that gives us a chance to get things right. (We'll screw it up, of course -- it's a bit like Groundhog Day or Lucy and the football -- but at least it's hope in the void.)
Dear Jen, I am deeply grateful for your essay. I've been having the same thoughts, and struggling to untangle my own relationship to my birth-religion. Your words describe pretty much what I feel. I became an atheist when I was about 13 yrs old during an Easter mass, of all things. It hit me like a hammer that everything was made up. I've lived a life with a lot of tragedy and loss but never felt the presence of a god. You can't "choose" to believe in something - you either believe or you don't. But having said that, growing up in catholic school the constant message of the new testament was one of Love, even for one's enemies. I've come to appreciate that the christian doctrine, at its purest, is an unbeatable set of values by which to live one's life.
Well said, Anne. I myself was bought up in a convent school by the Sisters of Mercy, an Irish group. We Catholics all struggle with the relevant moral code embedded into us in our youth against the dogma of church teaching. I now call myself a cultural Catholic because I love the symbolism, the peacefulness of the rites, the beauty of the prayers, the shared history, but just can’t believe in the virgin birth, transubstantion of the Eucharist, etc.etc. Live long and prosper.
Why single out the values of the "Christian doctrine"? The Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" is found in every single religion with pretty much the same wording. As an atheist (I was born without the God gene and raised by atheists. No, I've never felt anything was missing), I do my best to live by this rule and don't think any other advice is necessary to be a good person. Let's face it, Christians are no more likely to respect its intent than anyone else.
Actually I have not found that to be so, at least insofar as “others” often refers only to the people of one’s own tribe. Regardless, I’m not a scholar and I can only reflect on my own thoughts. I’m glad you’ve found a working dogma for your life. That’s good.
I'm still here. I'm not quite obnoxious or arrogant enough (despite the opinions of several) to say there is no God. But I don't believe that if there is one, they take no functional interest in anything on the planet, nor do they intervene in any way. Thus, God is irrelevant.
I think all of humanity would do far better if they followed the golden rule; something that seems to be ignored by so many; especially those in positions of power. Worse, God...whichever one you pick is used as justification for unfettered violence in he name of appeasing something that just doesn't care. So God has been bastardised as a weapon of oppression and control; usually of women. We can't get rid of the concept soon enough IMHO. But common sense died years ago.......
I think C.S. Lewis would nod and point to the God-shaped hole in people's lives as evidence that they need God to be complete. The fact is that most of the humanist values that people assert are self-evident are derived from Judeo-Christian beliefs. You don't have to look very far to see proof of this - the historically-minded will understand that Roman morality diverges shockingly from modern mores despite developing contemporaneously with Jewish culture and eventually being supplanted by Christianity.
It feels like backlash to this notion is rooted in 2 sources. First, the tendency of too many religious people to believe that it's possible to compel virtue. Second, even in the absence of that element of compulsion, a lot of people resent the implication of religions that their choices are immoral.
I wonder if God is smiling at us trying to be smart monkeys or getting tired of the shenanigans and ready to pull the plug. Despite being a very minor player, I will continue to be His servant to the best of my abilities.
And I am sure you will do good and be a kind human being, and I will support your choice as long as you and your co-religionists are able to have a fulfilling life without imposing your beliefs and life-choices on me and mine.
What bothers me with the argument of the latest crop of converts is that it's ultimately super lazy on the part of the supposedly intellectual class, and in that way, it stokes my own disillusionment with humankind itself.
It's not that we desperately need religion, per se; it's that we're searching for something to believe in. The real problem is, absolutely, that other things that might fulfill that need - like a sense of pride in the collective achievements of our society - have been strongly discouraged (not least because said achievements are fading).
So, the question we should be asking is how to rejuvenate these aspects of our society, not whether we should give in and default back to religious belief instead of celebrating (and once again, more actively pursuing) human progress.
This resignation to the "least bad" option is beyond frustrating - that as if simply because one religion is deemed better than the alternatives, we should just give up trying to think of anything better to meet the same needs that religion can.
It's similar to the idea too many have that somewhere like Canada has no culture - we do, we just need to assert it more, make the fact that it is open and less exclusionary more obviously valuable.
We don't need religion - we do need less formlessness. We should decide what we stand for, not fall for religiosity again.
The question, though, is why are we "searching for something to believe in?" I would submit it's a reaction to the fundemental uncertainty baked into our existance. We don't know why we're here. We don't know why bad things happen. We don't know our purpose -- of if we have one. And, while death is certain, we don't know what happens next. That can create a constant low-level of anxiety that belief is good at quieting.
And, to be clear, some of the things we've come to are lovely to believe. That we're all part of some broader cosmic purpose too big to understand. That our actions for good are the only antidote to evil. That our purpose is to figure out how to expand the well of goodness in our lives and the people we engage with. And, that after this life is over -- there will be more. If we just stayed with that, I think we'd be good -- less certainty and more broad, useful organizing principles of what many of us would like to believe. But, humans being humans, we then treat belief as certainty and truth and then build incredibly specific and detailed theologies around them. Which then seems to divide believers into tribes -- tribes fighting for what is ultimately true -- something none of us can actually know or divine.
In my own life (as I detailed in a different post below) I've come to just embrace the fundemental uncertaintly -- the humility of knowing that the most important question in life are unansweable and that part of life is navigating the world in this uncertain state. We'll all come up with different ways to navigate this -- each as individual as our personality and circumstances.
We do know why we are here - to pass on our genes, just like every other species. We can certainly choose to strive for a life with more perceived “spiritual” meaning than that, but surely in any such quest we can do much better than the cult that speaks of a talking snake, laws carved into stone by an invisible man in the sky, rising from the dead, and all the rest of the nonsense. I find ample spiritual satisfaction in commitment to observable reality.
As someone who got very into Harris et al in my late teens and onwards (I'm of similar vintage to G+G, Star Wars mini-generation unite!) I very much enjoyed this post. And also found much to both agree and disagree with. It's interesting that you don't mention Harris' work on finding a secular moral landscape and spirituality that still relies on reason and not faith. I think he's addressed quite a bit of your criticisms/concerns above, but I'm not the one equipped to put all of that forth. I think a lot of people have issues with Harris' views that would actually melt away if he addressed them directly. It would be awesome if the 3 of you did a podcast, but not likely I would figure.
That said, it's hilarious how one of the other New Atheists, Bill Maher, is now basically aligned with Joe Rogan on just about everything. And not having HItchens around to call everyone out on their bullshit right now is such a tragedy.
I liked The Moral Landscape -- and I like the idea, in principle of trying to create a moral framework around objective outcomes and secular humanist principles. The problem -- I think -- is that there is no Year Zero in human society; no point at which we can just build a new system from scratch that doesn't draw from or exist in opposition to the moral frameworks that came before.
If we were to stop and say: "Ok, we're going to build a moral framework based on science and materialism and reason" we still couldn't escape the conceptions of the highest good that had been instilled in us by the societies in which we had been raised. Not all of which are rational or can be rationalized.
An analogous attempt at something like this was tried with the Effective Altruism crowd -- and while this set did come up with some novel ways to think thorough problems, where it ultimately landed was Utilitarianism with all of its attendant ethical contradictions and problems. JG
Just finished Going Infinite. Amazing that such smart and well intentioned people couldn't do a proper expected value calculation on going to jail for financial fraud.
Add in the difficulty of designing a system of interpersonal comparisons of utility (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PAweBFTd2k&list=PL2FD48CE33DFBEA7E&index=6), which is basically presumed by Harris in his 'use brain scans to find what is best for people' method. It's really freshmen philosophy by another name.
It could be an interesting exercise. Start with The Golden Rule, then submit that to the rigor of science, materialisn and reason. Feels quite "Descarte"
I'll offer my own personal experience here. I was brought up Catholic, going to Catholic elementary school, studying the Bible and taking sacrements (confession, communion and confirmation). I was both a curious and a bit of a serious kid, so I took it all very seriously and, eventually found it all a bit confusing. My moral grounding came from the people in my life that mattered to me; I didn't want to disappoint my parents more than I worried about whatever incomprehensible opinion God might have about me. Religion just didn't seem to offer anything that I felt like I needed in my life and I wasn't quite sure what it was all for.
By late adolesence, I found the church's weird focus on sexuality to be both a bit off-putting (as I started having sex before marriage, gasp!) and ... also very weird. The older I got, the less relevant the Catholic faith felt. Moreover, I didn't feel any realy pull to a different religion -- I didn't feel a need for any religion at all.
The older I've gotten ... and the more challenging times I've survived ... the less relevant religion has become to me. The big questions in life religion is supposed to be good for are essentially unanswerable: why are we here? Why do bad things happen? What is our purpose? What happens after we die?
For myself, life has kept reinforcing the same lessons over and over. Life is uncertain. It must be navigated with very fundemental questions (including those above) continually at question. Ultimately, I've come to different provisional answers when needed at different times in my life, and I'm humbed that it seems impossible to actually answer any of those four questions in a way that is authentic, true and unchanging.
Rather than looking at God (or a god) to provide some sense of certainty -- the certaintly that comes with faith -- I've worked to just get comfortable with the uncertaintly. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know why I've been lucky to have comparative privledge. I don't know why bad things happen -- to me, to those I love, and to those I've never even met. I don't know if my life has any purpose nor if I'm fulfilling a purpose or if that even matters at all. And, I have no idea if death will simply bring darkness or something else. It's all a mystery, one I suspect I'll never unravel while on this earthly realm.
Even in the absense of those answers, time is spent, a second at a time. There are things to do, experiences to have and people to cherish. I can do all those things in the uncertainty and I've never felt a religion-sized whole in my life.
That said, I am also humble enough to acknowledge that I'm a bit of an oddball and that faith does seeem to provide comfort to some people. As long as they don't expect the rest of us to conform to their beliefs -- rock on, I say!
But *then* you would not have experienced that deee-licious "Aha!" moment.
I initially toyed with the idea of providing the initials "JW" ... but just-as-quicky dropped the idea.
Me and Buddy go back a long ways. Just yesterday I received an email from my best friend's sister, who is also a friend of mine ... a nice Menno girl. She directed Keanu in a play at the Manitoba Theatre Centre years ago. They were both single, and regularly went out for supper.
And years later when I wrote a lengthy two-part automotive review (based on a weeklong road trip to The Coast) for the local newspaper, the editor coyly titled it "Ron's Excellent Adventure".
And then those people die and your memory slowly fades away. Nothing in this earthly realm is permanent, least of all us. That's a pretty heavy reality we all carry whether we realize it or not ... But it helps me stay grounded and focused :-)
But, agree: leaving people behind who miss you may be one of the few important impacts we can have. As does having people we will miss -- and realizing that while they are still here!
Neil DeGrasse Tyson has a good answer too, that his decomposing body will nourish the earth, as he has himself received nourishment from the earth. Yes, many are quite content to live with not knowing all the answers.
Ditto, Tony. I call myself a cultural Catholic. I love the symbolism, the history, the rites, Gregorian chant, Christian prayer, just not much of the dogma. I fell away from the Catholic Church with the child abuse scandal by priests, not because of the abuse, because predators will always hunt their prey, but because of the hierarchical cover up. Inexcusable. But Catholicism has a rich history and has provided much to Western culture.
This is as fine an essay as I have read in some time. Each reading reveals new layers. Not conclusions as that is not the point. And not really questions either. More comment about factors to be accounted, explored and understood in the struggle to move forward. I thank you for this.
Fabulous essay but dammit Jen I'm supposed to be working! Raised in a christian home that wasn't particularly observant I ultimately lost the feeling for christianity in light of what I was reading from science. I described myself as atheist. And yet there was this niggling feeling that that wasn't quite right either. I always found it interesting that so many ancient cultures had some sort of source that people felt was their north star. In their ignorance and innocence were they perhaps on to something that we lost sight of?
Many people are searching for meaning and finding it some shaky places. But there's something that wasn't commonly seen before - people who believe there is 'something out there', not a religion but a nameless thing with love as its root that can't be identified as a singular entity. A something we and the world are deeply part of. Maybe I'm a grasping idiot searching for meaning but that something feels right to me and feels more real than either atheism or christianity.
Cindy, as I read your post, I was struck by "... I described myself as atheist. And yet there was this niggling feeling that that wasn't quite right either.... "
Is it possible that you would be more correct to describe yourself as agnostic? I am asking, not prescribing.
Truth is, I also was raised in a somewhat Christian home and I cannot say that I have any real faith, as such. Oh, I don't object to attending church services if someone (usually my wife) suggests it but I would more describe myself as, not really searching, but more not denying much of anything. That is distinctly different that questioning - that is an active act - whereas I am willing to accept that there is much more than that of which I am aware [Winston Churchill - don't end a sentence with a dangling participle!] but I am not actively looking - laziness, sloth, afraid of what I will / won't find, etc.
Oh, and yes, you are correct - see? HAVE FAITH!! - that is, you are correct to love The Line.
There is a lovely acceptance in agnosticism that I too have come to over time -- just acknowledging the unknowability of a lot of key questions and accepting that.
But that isn’t atheism: atheism is a statement, or assertion, that you know or believe there to be no divine, no godly, nothing beyond the materialist fabric. Atheism doesn’t choose to say you don’t know: atheism knows, and knows that it is a negative.
No, atheism is a lack of belief in theism, feel free to prove it, but the burden of proof that there is a deity is on those that make the positive assertion.
So Dawkins isn't an atheist?
Here is his scale, putting himself at somewhere between 6 and 7. In his book he said 6.7, now he says 6.9.
This is not an article in which I would normally take interest. But wow, Jen does a great job of pulling in the reader and posing some very interesting, if be them embryonic, theories. I do not consider myself religious despite attending Catholic elementary school. My partner and I made a conscious decision to at least introduce our children to religion even though both of us are atheists and could be described as scientists. Some of that was duty to tradition, but some of it was to provide options to fill potential "holes" that may develop in their lives. When they were very young, I remember stating "I want to educate my children about religion so that they don't become overwhelmed by religion" as I knew many people raised as atheists who later in life became very devout. So Jen is on to three things that are very difficult to articulate and potentially profound:
1) humans have an innate need for group identity
2) to truly be an atheist, one must experience and reject religion
3) perhaps "wokeism" is an attempt to fill the holes left by lack of spirituality
I do feel like group identity, religion and "wokeism" are all attempts to rage against the obvious impotence of all of us against big, scary things: disaster, evil, death.
I'd argue a better approach is to accept our individual impotence and recognize that our success as a species has always been through finding new and effective ways to cooperate. And -- to recognize that even that ultimately still leaves us impotent to many things -- including the inevitability of death and the near-certainty that about 50 years after any of us are gone there will be nearly no trace that we were ever here.
Acceptance requires replacing fear (and anger) with humility. Which is hard (I know -- I don't come to it easily at all). Not humility as bowing down before a powerful (and potentially angry) god, but humility in accepting the reality -- and the frustrating limits -- of what it means to be human.
I feel this pretty deeply. I'm a true atheist who has nevertheless tried hard to maintain a religious community, mostly within the United Church of Canada. But while the UCC is happy to jettison some of the old theological baggage, they're quick to pick up pseudo-religious political beliefs. It's a hard line to walk.
Interestingly, there is a small, but growing atheist community within the UCC (most famously encapsulated by Greta Vosper, but there are examples across the country). I think they do a good job of being willing to embrace nuanced political views because of disagreeing with the wider church. Conversely, something like the Unitarian church has been more-or-less atheist for decades and seems to have become hyper-woke (at least stateside) because they don't have recent antibodies from disagreeing with their friends in the movement.
The success of western civilization has been rooted in the concepts of Enlightenment AND Christianity (with exceptions) that ran parallel to each other.
Enlightenment, with its challenging nature towards science and religion brought about huge increases in standards of living and income. Christianity was the social conscience of society to look after the needy, and could finance the ambitions because of the Enlightenment. It is worth noting that the original hospitals and universities were faith based institutions. And today, the signage on many of these institutions are plastered with names of business leaders who have some spare change to share in the name of benevolence. A neat example of the way that Enlightenment and Christian practices of love and caring for each other merge.
The struggles of the main religious denominations today is worrisome. The local charity that is being provided can’t be sustained by dwindling congregations, and who is going to pick up the slack?
If you want to flesh out this big think piece in your podcast, maybe invite on Lawrence Krauss. He is kinda the "Tom Thompson" of the 'group of 4 horsemen'. He wrote a very solid essay to/about Ali as a friend and not as a scoldy "You idiot, what do you believe in now" like Dawkins kinda did.
I've enjoyed his writings and podcast appearances. Unfortunately, looks like he was orbiting Epstein's world a little too close for comfort in the mid-aughts, to the point he defended Epstein 3 years AFTER his guilty plea for child prostitution. That's pretty gross. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the more recent accusations, but any association with or defense of Epstein after 2008 is completely without excuse.
Articles like this fill me with a profound ambition to get a better-paying job so I can send more money to The Line.
I support you in that ambition.
As do we all, as do we all.
Jen this might be your finest essay ever - it's not journalism, per se, but something much richer.
I find it interesting that people criticise the piece for being confusing or meandering or whatever. I find essays on this topic that aren't confusing or meandering to be either simplistic to the point of merely asserting an author's faith, a la Dawkins or Hawkins, or to tautological that it adds nothing to topic. None of that here. For what it's worth, I'm hopeful that there emerges something - don't know what - that addresses humanity's need for spiritual meaning and place-in-the-universe relevance, but dispenses with the pre-Axial Age reliance on legends and superstitions and magic that even Christianity falls back on when presented with the as-yet inexpressible sides of such things. After all, the whack job fringe has always been there, almost especeially in ages of deep faith (flagellant sects, emergence of local messiahs, finding golden tablets that only you can read in your bedroom) - it's just that in an era of mass communication and transportation, it's easier to find other whack jobs with whom to compare notes.
But the evolution of man's expression of religious instinct or spirituality or whatever feels like a constant that's hit a bit of a wall in the face of the success of science in finding provably compelling narratives. Science hasn't solved for the need for meaning; we don't have a GLP-1 cure for anomie. Essays like this, though, feel singularly necessary to push the species forward.
That is a kind comment. Thank you. JG
"Science hasn't solved for the need for meaning"
Exactly Peter. When I was an atheist there was always a subtle feeling of something missing. This may not be the case for all other atheists but is for many.
Isn't the core Christian message behind the Enlightenment: "Love thy neighbour as thyself" aka "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? Surely that's the great human leveler and the basis on which we believe in basic rights, freedoms, and protections.
I also think there's truth in religious texts as literature. Clearly the Nativity stories aren't literally true: If the star was close enough to point the wise men to a specific stable the planet would have incinerated the planet; and surely the Angel of the Lord would have drawn a crowd bigger than a few shepherds.) But the central truth of the story is that each new birth is a renewal that gives us a chance to get things right. (We'll screw it up, of course -- it's a bit like Groundhog Day or Lucy and the football -- but at least it's hope in the void.)
Dear Jen, I am deeply grateful for your essay. I've been having the same thoughts, and struggling to untangle my own relationship to my birth-religion. Your words describe pretty much what I feel. I became an atheist when I was about 13 yrs old during an Easter mass, of all things. It hit me like a hammer that everything was made up. I've lived a life with a lot of tragedy and loss but never felt the presence of a god. You can't "choose" to believe in something - you either believe or you don't. But having said that, growing up in catholic school the constant message of the new testament was one of Love, even for one's enemies. I've come to appreciate that the christian doctrine, at its purest, is an unbeatable set of values by which to live one's life.
Well said, Anne. I myself was bought up in a convent school by the Sisters of Mercy, an Irish group. We Catholics all struggle with the relevant moral code embedded into us in our youth against the dogma of church teaching. I now call myself a cultural Catholic because I love the symbolism, the peacefulness of the rites, the beauty of the prayers, the shared history, but just can’t believe in the virgin birth, transubstantion of the Eucharist, etc.etc. Live long and prosper.
Why single out the values of the "Christian doctrine"? The Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" is found in every single religion with pretty much the same wording. As an atheist (I was born without the God gene and raised by atheists. No, I've never felt anything was missing), I do my best to live by this rule and don't think any other advice is necessary to be a good person. Let's face it, Christians are no more likely to respect its intent than anyone else.
Actually I have not found that to be so, at least insofar as “others” often refers only to the people of one’s own tribe. Regardless, I’m not a scholar and I can only reflect on my own thoughts. I’m glad you’ve found a working dogma for your life. That’s good.
I'm still here. I'm not quite obnoxious or arrogant enough (despite the opinions of several) to say there is no God. But I don't believe that if there is one, they take no functional interest in anything on the planet, nor do they intervene in any way. Thus, God is irrelevant.
I think all of humanity would do far better if they followed the golden rule; something that seems to be ignored by so many; especially those in positions of power. Worse, God...whichever one you pick is used as justification for unfettered violence in he name of appeasing something that just doesn't care. So God has been bastardised as a weapon of oppression and control; usually of women. We can't get rid of the concept soon enough IMHO. But common sense died years ago.......
I think C.S. Lewis would nod and point to the God-shaped hole in people's lives as evidence that they need God to be complete. The fact is that most of the humanist values that people assert are self-evident are derived from Judeo-Christian beliefs. You don't have to look very far to see proof of this - the historically-minded will understand that Roman morality diverges shockingly from modern mores despite developing contemporaneously with Jewish culture and eventually being supplanted by Christianity.
It feels like backlash to this notion is rooted in 2 sources. First, the tendency of too many religious people to believe that it's possible to compel virtue. Second, even in the absence of that element of compulsion, a lot of people resent the implication of religions that their choices are immoral.
Not just their choices: their existence, in many cases.
I wonder if God is smiling at us trying to be smart monkeys or getting tired of the shenanigans and ready to pull the plug. Despite being a very minor player, I will continue to be His servant to the best of my abilities.
And I am sure you will do good and be a kind human being, and I will support your choice as long as you and your co-religionists are able to have a fulfilling life without imposing your beliefs and life-choices on me and mine.
That works for me, too.
What bothers me with the argument of the latest crop of converts is that it's ultimately super lazy on the part of the supposedly intellectual class, and in that way, it stokes my own disillusionment with humankind itself.
It's not that we desperately need religion, per se; it's that we're searching for something to believe in. The real problem is, absolutely, that other things that might fulfill that need - like a sense of pride in the collective achievements of our society - have been strongly discouraged (not least because said achievements are fading).
So, the question we should be asking is how to rejuvenate these aspects of our society, not whether we should give in and default back to religious belief instead of celebrating (and once again, more actively pursuing) human progress.
This resignation to the "least bad" option is beyond frustrating - that as if simply because one religion is deemed better than the alternatives, we should just give up trying to think of anything better to meet the same needs that religion can.
It's similar to the idea too many have that somewhere like Canada has no culture - we do, we just need to assert it more, make the fact that it is open and less exclusionary more obviously valuable.
We don't need religion - we do need less formlessness. We should decide what we stand for, not fall for religiosity again.
The question, though, is why are we "searching for something to believe in?" I would submit it's a reaction to the fundemental uncertainty baked into our existance. We don't know why we're here. We don't know why bad things happen. We don't know our purpose -- of if we have one. And, while death is certain, we don't know what happens next. That can create a constant low-level of anxiety that belief is good at quieting.
And, to be clear, some of the things we've come to are lovely to believe. That we're all part of some broader cosmic purpose too big to understand. That our actions for good are the only antidote to evil. That our purpose is to figure out how to expand the well of goodness in our lives and the people we engage with. And, that after this life is over -- there will be more. If we just stayed with that, I think we'd be good -- less certainty and more broad, useful organizing principles of what many of us would like to believe. But, humans being humans, we then treat belief as certainty and truth and then build incredibly specific and detailed theologies around them. Which then seems to divide believers into tribes -- tribes fighting for what is ultimately true -- something none of us can actually know or divine.
In my own life (as I detailed in a different post below) I've come to just embrace the fundemental uncertaintly -- the humility of knowing that the most important question in life are unansweable and that part of life is navigating the world in this uncertain state. We'll all come up with different ways to navigate this -- each as individual as our personality and circumstances.
We do know why we are here - to pass on our genes, just like every other species. We can certainly choose to strive for a life with more perceived “spiritual” meaning than that, but surely in any such quest we can do much better than the cult that speaks of a talking snake, laws carved into stone by an invisible man in the sky, rising from the dead, and all the rest of the nonsense. I find ample spiritual satisfaction in commitment to observable reality.
That’s interesting. What is Canada’ culture?
As someone who got very into Harris et al in my late teens and onwards (I'm of similar vintage to G+G, Star Wars mini-generation unite!) I very much enjoyed this post. And also found much to both agree and disagree with. It's interesting that you don't mention Harris' work on finding a secular moral landscape and spirituality that still relies on reason and not faith. I think he's addressed quite a bit of your criticisms/concerns above, but I'm not the one equipped to put all of that forth. I think a lot of people have issues with Harris' views that would actually melt away if he addressed them directly. It would be awesome if the 3 of you did a podcast, but not likely I would figure.
That said, it's hilarious how one of the other New Atheists, Bill Maher, is now basically aligned with Joe Rogan on just about everything. And not having HItchens around to call everyone out on their bullshit right now is such a tragedy.
I liked The Moral Landscape -- and I like the idea, in principle of trying to create a moral framework around objective outcomes and secular humanist principles. The problem -- I think -- is that there is no Year Zero in human society; no point at which we can just build a new system from scratch that doesn't draw from or exist in opposition to the moral frameworks that came before.
If we were to stop and say: "Ok, we're going to build a moral framework based on science and materialism and reason" we still couldn't escape the conceptions of the highest good that had been instilled in us by the societies in which we had been raised. Not all of which are rational or can be rationalized.
An analogous attempt at something like this was tried with the Effective Altruism crowd -- and while this set did come up with some novel ways to think thorough problems, where it ultimately landed was Utilitarianism with all of its attendant ethical contradictions and problems. JG
Just finished Going Infinite. Amazing that such smart and well intentioned people couldn't do a proper expected value calculation on going to jail for financial fraud.
Burninated.
Add in the difficulty of designing a system of interpersonal comparisons of utility (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PAweBFTd2k&list=PL2FD48CE33DFBEA7E&index=6), which is basically presumed by Harris in his 'use brain scans to find what is best for people' method. It's really freshmen philosophy by another name.
It could be an interesting exercise. Start with The Golden Rule, then submit that to the rigor of science, materialisn and reason. Feels quite "Descarte"
I'll offer my own personal experience here. I was brought up Catholic, going to Catholic elementary school, studying the Bible and taking sacrements (confession, communion and confirmation). I was both a curious and a bit of a serious kid, so I took it all very seriously and, eventually found it all a bit confusing. My moral grounding came from the people in my life that mattered to me; I didn't want to disappoint my parents more than I worried about whatever incomprehensible opinion God might have about me. Religion just didn't seem to offer anything that I felt like I needed in my life and I wasn't quite sure what it was all for.
By late adolesence, I found the church's weird focus on sexuality to be both a bit off-putting (as I started having sex before marriage, gasp!) and ... also very weird. The older I got, the less relevant the Catholic faith felt. Moreover, I didn't feel any realy pull to a different religion -- I didn't feel a need for any religion at all.
The older I've gotten ... and the more challenging times I've survived ... the less relevant religion has become to me. The big questions in life religion is supposed to be good for are essentially unanswerable: why are we here? Why do bad things happen? What is our purpose? What happens after we die?
For myself, life has kept reinforcing the same lessons over and over. Life is uncertain. It must be navigated with very fundemental questions (including those above) continually at question. Ultimately, I've come to different provisional answers when needed at different times in my life, and I'm humbed that it seems impossible to actually answer any of those four questions in a way that is authentic, true and unchanging.
Rather than looking at God (or a god) to provide some sense of certainty -- the certaintly that comes with faith -- I've worked to just get comfortable with the uncertaintly. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know why I've been lucky to have comparative privledge. I don't know why bad things happen -- to me, to those I love, and to those I've never even met. I don't know if my life has any purpose nor if I'm fulfilling a purpose or if that even matters at all. And, I have no idea if death will simply bring darkness or something else. It's all a mystery, one I suspect I'll never unravel while on this earthly realm.
Even in the absense of those answers, time is spent, a second at a time. There are things to do, experiences to have and people to cherish. I can do all those things in the uncertainty and I've never felt a religion-sized whole in my life.
That said, I am also humble enough to acknowledge that I'm a bit of an oddball and that faith does seeem to provide comfort to some people. As long as they don't expect the rest of us to conform to their beliefs -- rock on, I say!
"What happens after we die?"
Tony, that struck a chord. From my Twitter profile ...
Pinned
Ron Drysdale
@Boomeranch
·
Jun 14, 2023
Replying to
@jengerson
Stephen Colbert asks guest a hypothetical question, "What do you think happens after you die?"
Guest replies, "The people who loved you will miss you."
Host smiles broadly, and leans across, and shakes guest's hand.
Perfect ...
Come on, at least give Keanu credit for saying that!
But *then* you would not have experienced that deee-licious "Aha!" moment.
I initially toyed with the idea of providing the initials "JW" ... but just-as-quicky dropped the idea.
Me and Buddy go back a long ways. Just yesterday I received an email from my best friend's sister, who is also a friend of mine ... a nice Menno girl. She directed Keanu in a play at the Manitoba Theatre Centre years ago. They were both single, and regularly went out for supper.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/from-the-cbc-archives-keanu-s-excellent-adventure-in-winnipeg-1.2943591
And years later when I wrote a lengthy two-part automotive review (based on a weeklong road trip to The Coast) for the local newspaper, the editor coyly titled it "Ron's Excellent Adventure".
And then those people die and your memory slowly fades away. Nothing in this earthly realm is permanent, least of all us. That's a pretty heavy reality we all carry whether we realize it or not ... But it helps me stay grounded and focused :-)
But, agree: leaving people behind who miss you may be one of the few important impacts we can have. As does having people we will miss -- and realizing that while they are still here!
Neil DeGrasse Tyson has a good answer too, that his decomposing body will nourish the earth, as he has himself received nourishment from the earth. Yes, many are quite content to live with not knowing all the answers.
I am very glad that I continued reading past your first two grim sentences.
I was already composing my classic "Then why don't YOU fuck-off-and die ... and let's see what happens!" riposte ... but was glad I didn't.
There, you said it: "uncertainty" - I'm learning to live with it also; there's a certain kind of comfort therein.
Ditto, Tony. I call myself a cultural Catholic. I love the symbolism, the history, the rites, Gregorian chant, Christian prayer, just not much of the dogma. I fell away from the Catholic Church with the child abuse scandal by priests, not because of the abuse, because predators will always hunt their prey, but because of the hierarchical cover up. Inexcusable. But Catholicism has a rich history and has provided much to Western culture.
This is as fine an essay as I have read in some time. Each reading reveals new layers. Not conclusions as that is not the point. And not really questions either. More comment about factors to be accounted, explored and understood in the struggle to move forward. I thank you for this.
Fabulous essay but dammit Jen I'm supposed to be working! Raised in a christian home that wasn't particularly observant I ultimately lost the feeling for christianity in light of what I was reading from science. I described myself as atheist. And yet there was this niggling feeling that that wasn't quite right either. I always found it interesting that so many ancient cultures had some sort of source that people felt was their north star. In their ignorance and innocence were they perhaps on to something that we lost sight of?
Many people are searching for meaning and finding it some shaky places. But there's something that wasn't commonly seen before - people who believe there is 'something out there', not a religion but a nameless thing with love as its root that can't be identified as a singular entity. A something we and the world are deeply part of. Maybe I'm a grasping idiot searching for meaning but that something feels right to me and feels more real than either atheism or christianity.
I love The Line. Thank you!!!
Cindy, as I read your post, I was struck by "... I described myself as atheist. And yet there was this niggling feeling that that wasn't quite right either.... "
Is it possible that you would be more correct to describe yourself as agnostic? I am asking, not prescribing.
Truth is, I also was raised in a somewhat Christian home and I cannot say that I have any real faith, as such. Oh, I don't object to attending church services if someone (usually my wife) suggests it but I would more describe myself as, not really searching, but more not denying much of anything. That is distinctly different that questioning - that is an active act - whereas I am willing to accept that there is much more than that of which I am aware [Winston Churchill - don't end a sentence with a dangling participle!] but I am not actively looking - laziness, sloth, afraid of what I will / won't find, etc.
Oh, and yes, you are correct - see? HAVE FAITH!! - that is, you are correct to love The Line.
There is a lovely acceptance in agnosticism that I too have come to over time -- just acknowledging the unknowability of a lot of key questions and accepting that.
Agnosticism is the same as atheism, to paraphrase Dawkins: "I don't know if there is a God or not, I chose to live my life as if there is no God."
Agnosticism is saying you don't know, I don't know, nobody does.
But that isn’t atheism: atheism is a statement, or assertion, that you know or believe there to be no divine, no godly, nothing beyond the materialist fabric. Atheism doesn’t choose to say you don’t know: atheism knows, and knows that it is a negative.
No, atheism is a lack of belief in theism, feel free to prove it, but the burden of proof that there is a deity is on those that make the positive assertion.
So Dawkins isn't an atheist?
Here is his scale, putting himself at somewhere between 6 and 7. In his book he said 6.7, now he says 6.9.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_of_theistic_probability
This is not an article in which I would normally take interest. But wow, Jen does a great job of pulling in the reader and posing some very interesting, if be them embryonic, theories. I do not consider myself religious despite attending Catholic elementary school. My partner and I made a conscious decision to at least introduce our children to religion even though both of us are atheists and could be described as scientists. Some of that was duty to tradition, but some of it was to provide options to fill potential "holes" that may develop in their lives. When they were very young, I remember stating "I want to educate my children about religion so that they don't become overwhelmed by religion" as I knew many people raised as atheists who later in life became very devout. So Jen is on to three things that are very difficult to articulate and potentially profound:
1) humans have an innate need for group identity
2) to truly be an atheist, one must experience and reject religion
3) perhaps "wokeism" is an attempt to fill the holes left by lack of spirituality
I do feel like group identity, religion and "wokeism" are all attempts to rage against the obvious impotence of all of us against big, scary things: disaster, evil, death.
I'd argue a better approach is to accept our individual impotence and recognize that our success as a species has always been through finding new and effective ways to cooperate. And -- to recognize that even that ultimately still leaves us impotent to many things -- including the inevitability of death and the near-certainty that about 50 years after any of us are gone there will be nearly no trace that we were ever here.
Acceptance requires replacing fear (and anger) with humility. Which is hard (I know -- I don't come to it easily at all). Not humility as bowing down before a powerful (and potentially angry) god, but humility in accepting the reality -- and the frustrating limits -- of what it means to be human.
I feel this pretty deeply. I'm a true atheist who has nevertheless tried hard to maintain a religious community, mostly within the United Church of Canada. But while the UCC is happy to jettison some of the old theological baggage, they're quick to pick up pseudo-religious political beliefs. It's a hard line to walk.
Interestingly, there is a small, but growing atheist community within the UCC (most famously encapsulated by Greta Vosper, but there are examples across the country). I think they do a good job of being willing to embrace nuanced political views because of disagreeing with the wider church. Conversely, something like the Unitarian church has been more-or-less atheist for decades and seems to have become hyper-woke (at least stateside) because they don't have recent antibodies from disagreeing with their friends in the movement.
watching the unitarians crumble (and so quickly) has been a learning experience
The success of western civilization has been rooted in the concepts of Enlightenment AND Christianity (with exceptions) that ran parallel to each other.
Enlightenment, with its challenging nature towards science and religion brought about huge increases in standards of living and income. Christianity was the social conscience of society to look after the needy, and could finance the ambitions because of the Enlightenment. It is worth noting that the original hospitals and universities were faith based institutions. And today, the signage on many of these institutions are plastered with names of business leaders who have some spare change to share in the name of benevolence. A neat example of the way that Enlightenment and Christian practices of love and caring for each other merge.
The struggles of the main religious denominations today is worrisome. The local charity that is being provided can’t be sustained by dwindling congregations, and who is going to pick up the slack?
If you want to flesh out this big think piece in your podcast, maybe invite on Lawrence Krauss. He is kinda the "Tom Thompson" of the 'group of 4 horsemen'. He wrote a very solid essay to/about Ali as a friend and not as a scoldy "You idiot, what do you believe in now" like Dawkins kinda did.
I've enjoyed his writings and podcast appearances. Unfortunately, looks like he was orbiting Epstein's world a little too close for comfort in the mid-aughts, to the point he defended Epstein 3 years AFTER his guilty plea for child prostitution. That's pretty gross. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the more recent accusations, but any association with or defense of Epstein after 2008 is completely without excuse.