John G. Messerly's Blog, page 16

Weather As The Default Conversation Piece

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“Hush, please. That is enough, Margaret. If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say, you will please restrict your remarks to the weather.” (Mrs. Dashwood to her daughter in the movie adaptation of Jane Austin’s “Sense and Sensibility,” 1995)

The weather is the quintessential default topic. If you don’t want to discuss “heavy” topics like politics or religion, you talk about the weather. It’s amazing how interested humans are in the weather. We have multiple internet sites devoted to it, local  TV channels discuss it throughout the day, and an entire cable channel talks weather 24 hours a day!

When I was a child we had three basic sources for the weather: 1) the newspaper; 2) the weather segment of the TV news and; 3) the groundhog “Punxsutawney Phil .” Let me discuss each in turn, especially for my younger audience.

This “newspaper” was a product made of wood pulp upon which ink was pressed—in the old days by a linotype machine—then loosely bound together and subsequently bought from a vendor or delivered to your home by a person who threw this bundled-up paper on your lawn, driveway, doorstep, or your neighbor’s yard. If it was raining this paper got wet, rendering some of it unreadable. After walking outside to pick it up, you read it, washed the residual newspaper ink off your fingertips, (else you would touch your face and look like a chimney sweep) and then discarded the remains in the trash because there was no recycling in those days. Then the process was repeated day and day, year after year, decade after decade until … we invented the internet. 

This “TV weather” was like our modern TV weather only everything on the screen existed colorless in shades of gray, it had an audience, and you couldn’t skip the commercials. It was also different because the people stood still and calmly read the weather against the background of immovable maps that you couldn’t read. Now they “put the clouds in motion” against the background of virtual 3D maps taking ten minutes to give you thirty seconds worth of information. The basic problem with the old-time weather was that their predictions were not good. If they said it would be sunny … bring your umbrella. 

As for the groundhog, my mother seemed to literally believe in this prognosticator, so I planned the start of baseball season around the groundhog’s predictions. If told it would be an early spring, I put my winter clothes away and oiled my baseball glove; told it would be a late spring, I did the opposite. Later, when I was about forty, I saw the movie “Groundhog Day” and realized there was nothing scientific about the groundhog. Just kidding, I already knew that! (I also discovered that “Groundhog Day” is one of the greatest films ever made; it is largely about Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence.)

Finally, there was one other option. We could also dial a special number called “time and temperature” and get those two pieces of data anytime, assuming the number wasn’t busy. Dialing on a rotary dial phone whose cord tethered you to the wall … all so you knew the time and the temperature.  

Of course, the weather forecast wasn’t very reliable in the day before “Doppler radar” and satellites. Weather is notoriously difficult to forecast—it is a chaotic system subject to small perturbations—and the fact that it is so reliably predicted today is a testimony to the power of science. Science, not Nostradamus, really predicts the future. (That’s why we know when Halley’s comet will come next!) Now we have nearly perfect daily forecasts and even four or five days into the future the predictions are quite good.

When it comes to weather, people have different preferences. Some like it hot, like Marilyn Monroe, some love the snow, some hate winter, and some love having four seasons. A philosophy professor in Las Vegas told me “perpetual sunshine is depressing.” When she told me this I thought of all those souls back in Buffalo who dreamed of leaving behind three feet of snow for that depressing perpetual sunshine. I was talking to a visitor from New York yesterday who said they would hate the winter cloudiness here in Seattle. Of course, I lived in Cleveland for years and a winter of mild temperatures and a few clouds is great—you can play golf in January. But to each his or her own.

So what is the perfect weather? Parts of Hawaii are in the 70s almost all the time so that’s great. But if one lived there  they might say “perpetual 70s is depressing.” Maybe a near-perfect place would be one that had multiple climates close by and you could constantly migrate between them. If you lived in a place with a rain shadow, for instance, you could drive a few miles and experience plenty of rain. Or you could live on say the dry east side of the Cascades, and journey just a bit to the west for more rain. Or you could have an advanced climate-controlled system in your own house and change the weather continually, or stick forever with the one you liked.

Very interesting how much we care about the weather. I would guess there are two main causes of this fascination. First, in our evolutionary history weather was crucial to our survival—so there must be some small genetic component to this concern, some innate desire to know the weather. Second, culture amplifies this concern since we do a lot outdoors—picnics, hikes, ballgames, parades, etc. So we simply want to know if it will rain or snow.

Still, the most important thing to remember about the weather comes from Mark Twain:

“It is best to read the weather forecasts before we pray for rain.”

Our Connection to the Future

THE PAST

We are connected with the distant past and the faraway future. The atoms in our body, all cooked inside ancient stars, link us back to the beginnings of time; our evolutionary history imprints our minds, behaviors, and beliefs; and culture, an outgrowth of our chemistry and biology, is itself a creation of the past. The past is embedded within and surrounds us as a shell. Every existent thing, from stars to genes to culture, is the result of something that happened in the past.

THE FUTURE

But culture allows us to escape from and transcend the past. Science, art, music, religion, and all the elements of culture introduce novelty; the arrival of culture transforms. Like a child who progressively constructs new numbers—negative, irrational, and imaginary—we too abstract from the given and leap beyond, fashioning the unconventional in the process. Through our imagination and creativity, along with our care and concern, we connect with the future; we create the future now; we live in the future now. And if anything in this whole world matters, it is this. We carry the past and the future inside us; we are the past and future. And surely there is something profound in this.

THE INNER LIGHT

One finds a moving tribute to these ideas in the Star Trek The Next Generation episode: “The Inner Light.”  In it, a probe scans the ship and an energy beam renders Captain Picard unconscious. He wakes to find himself living on the planet Kataan with a loving family and friends who tell him he is Kamin, an iron weaver recovering from a feverish sickness. Picard talks of his memories on the Enterprise, but his wife Eline and their close friend Batai try to convince Picard that his memories were only dreams. Slowly he acclimates himself into their society. Picard begins living out his life as Kamin in the village of Ressik, starting a family with Eline, and learning to play his beloved flute.

As the years pass, he begins to notice that the planet is suffering a worldwide drought owing to increased radiation from the planet’s sun. He sends reports to the planet’s leaders, who seem to ignore his concerns. Ultimately Kamin confronts a government official who admits that the government already knows this but wish to keep it a secret to avoid panic. The official points out to Kamin that they do not possess the technology needed to evacuate even a small colony’s worth of people before their planet is rendered uninhabitable.

Years pass and Kamin grows old, outliving his wife. Kamin and his daughter Meribor continue their study of the drought. They find that it is not temporary; extinction of all life on the planet is inevitable. One day, while playing with his grandson, Kamin is summoned by his adult children to watch the launch of a rocket, which everyone seems to know about accept him. Here are the final moments of the episode:

The past lives in the present, which creates the future, which represents our hopes.

Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study

Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study

A Harvard study followed 268 undergraduates from the classes of 1938-1940 for 75 years, regularly collecting data on various aspects of their lives. The findings were reported in this recent book by Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant.

Here are five lessons from the study pertaining to a happy and meaningful life. First, the most important ingredient for meaning and happiness is loving relationships. Even individuals with successful careers and good physical health were not fulfilled without loving relationships. Second, money and power are small parts of a fulfilling life; they correlate poorly with happiness. Those proudest of their achievements are those most content in their work, not the ones who make the most money. Third, we can become happier in life as we proceed through it, despite how we started our lives. Fourth, connection with others and work is essential for joy; and this seems to be increasingly true as one ages. Finally, coping well with challenges makes you happier. The key is to replace narcissism with mature coping mechanisms like concern for others and productive work.

Noteworthy is that these findings overlap almost perfectly with what Victor Frankl discovered about the meaningful life. Frankl says we find meaning through 1) personal relationships, 2) productive work, and 3) by nobly enduring suffering. The only difference is that Frankl doesn’t talk specifically about money, although no doubt he would agree that it is of secondary concern. Also noteworthy is how the findings of Vaillant and Frankl agree with modern happiness research. Here are just a few of the excellent books whose social science research supports these basic findings.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want [image error]

Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being [image error]

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience [image error]

 

Peter Watson: The Age of Atheists

In a previous post, I commented on Emma Green’s review of Peter Watson’s: The Age of Atheists: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God[image error]. Since then I have finished reading this magisterial work.

WATSON’S STARTING POINT

It is hard to do justice to this extraordinary piece of scholarship—there are over 500 footnotes—and the depth and breadth of Watson’s knowledge amaze me. Yet there is no snobbishness in it. I’d guess that Green can’t relate to atheism or the death of god. Like some of my undergraduates who took my course in existentialism years ago, she doesn’t get what all the fuss is about. Why does Kierkegaard think Christianity is irrational, that it takes a leap of faith to be a Christian? Why does Nietzsche think god is dead, that the idea no longer informs culture? Why are questions about meaning, death, and freedom such big deals? After all, god made the world and if we love and praise him we’ll go to heaven.

Does the previous sentence betray my snobbishness? Maybe. Yet I am just making this observation. If one knows little about the last four centuries of Western culture, then it may seem that not much has changed. But things have changed. The seventeenth-century scientific revolution altered the way scientists, philosophers, and theologians see the world. Thus there is a reason that belief in freedom, souls, and gods was once ubiquitous but is now minimal among the intelligentsia—the reason is modern science.

It’s not as if philosophers suddenly decided to ruminate on materialistic theories of mind, the problem of free will, or atheism as idle pursuits. No. These problems arose because of science. It is now a challenge to show how freedom, souls, or gods can coexist with science; rather than seeing them as pre-scientific ideas. This is Watson’s cultural milieu, as it is for many in the intelligentsia. The consequences can be seen in the statistics—only 7% of the members of the National Academy of Science,1 and less than 15% of professional philosophers are theists.2 Again, the reason for this is modern science.

THE BOOK

The range of the book is vast covering poets, philosophers, artists, social and natural scientists,  and more. The penultimate chapter surveys those, mostly scientists, who find meaning in the evolutionary or cosmological epics including Dawkins, Dennett, Pinker, and E.O. Wilson. The final chapter surveys today’s great thinkers, mostly philosophers, on the question of meaning including MacIntyre, Gadamer, Grayling, Rorty, Nozick, Dworkin, and Habermas. Both chapters are masterfully researched, impartial, and thorough.

The conclusion suggests—remember the book is not a polemic—that the crux of the answer to the question, of how to live without gods, demands that we bring forth something from within ourselves; essentially an appreciation of the joy available in this life and an intense observation of life’s experiences. He quotes from Darwin’s notebooks, “the sublime is reached through the commonplace … the slow accretion of facts.” Such thoughts bring Watson back to the happy moments of life, to the butterflies and flowers of this world, not to an imagined afterlife. What we are called upon to do is to keep experiencing, observing, and naming our world. To continue the long and laborious process of understanding with hope for the future. In the end, he echoes Wordsworth,

We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;

1. http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

2. http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/04/29/what-do-philosophers-believe/

Walking & Thinking

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Thought a bit more about nostalgia today on my morning walk. (I blogged about the same theme years ago.)

Perhaps I enjoy nostalgia because of having, as best I remember, an idyllic childhood—wonderful parents who had a middle-class income, a healthy mind and body, a good education, a physically safe environment, and all in the midst of a bustling economy with wealth distributed relatively fairly (much more so than it is now) and a polity still somewhat united in the aftermath of WWII. Had I not been born with that genome in that environment, I may be less nostalgic. I wish everyone had an excellent past to look back on, and an infinitely good future to look forward to.

It is not surprising that such ideas took hold while walking, which provides the opportunity for and is conducive to, uninterrupted, reflective thinking. Many have extolled the virtues of walking: Lao Tzu, Aristotle, Rousseau, Dickens, Freud, Piaget, and former US Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Harry Truman.1 2 The physical and psychological benefits of walking make it even more appealing. I encourage everyone to walk if possible and if you cannot, then move your body in whatever way you can.

And if you cannot move for some reason, then move your mind and explore its space. There you can travel as far as your imagination and sense of wonder allow; seeing sights and thinking thoughts that the able-bodied may miss.

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1. http://blog.ted.com/2013/04/29/walkin...
2. http://www.laweekly.com/2008-10-30/ar...

Mother’s Day Tribute

Mary Jane Hurley Messerly

The following is a letter I wrote to my mother over 20 years ago. I reprint it on mother’s day today in remembrance of my mother.

April 29, 2000

A SPECIAL 81ST BIRTHDAY WISH FOR MY MOTHER

This letter should arrive on your 81st birthday—a time of rejoicing for a life well-lived. Emerging from the stable background of loving parents, a young woman, a talented pianist, and a fluent reader of Latin was pursued by a plethora of west St. Louis beaus. Then, in 1936, you met a bicycle delivery boy, in whom, despite his relatively low economic status, you saw something wonderful. His honesty and gentleness shone through beneath the rough exterior; you would marry him when you were just nineteen. A hard-working man who would be a devoted father—somehow you knew.

You courageously endured through an economic depression and a world war in which your husband was absent for two long years, forcing you to raise your first son without your husband. Your parents lived with you through the war and, as they prepared to leave at its conclusion, you and Ben told them they could stay with you for the rest of their lives. They had helped you during the war, and now you would care for them. They both would die in your home. In the post-war era, you gave birth to three more children, all of whom you showered with the deepest love and affection. With them you shared warmth and comfort—you were a mother to them all. Like a chameleon you changed to meet their differing needs, always putting others before yourself. 

Your firstborn was typical of firstborns, independent, and forceful like his father. He left home at an early age for college and went on to travel the world and settle far from home, where he became the head of his own household. Your daughter was more like you—gentle, nurturing, and cautious—an only daughter must have a special place in a mother’s heart. For your sickly third child, you shed more tears than you deserved. You nursed him back from the edge of death, and even now you play an indispensable role in his life. And your youngest was inspired by his father’s mandate to be inquisitive. This intellectual wanderlust caused much-unintended heartache, but he’s still the same young boy who talked of life’s search so long ago.

With your children raised, your husband’s love for you deepened, as did your love for him. The young boy on the bicycle—in whom you saw so much, more than fifty years ago—had aged. No longer did he participate in the virile games of youth. The arms that once hit baseballs long distances, the coordination that nestled many a wedge shot close to the hole, and the shoulders that carried large sides of beef—did so no longer. As Thornton Wilder said, he was being “weaned away” from life. But his love for you was deeper than any that emanates from youthful vigor alone.

As his own physical vitality faded, his main concern was Mary Jane Hurley, the beautiful young woman on whose door he had knocked so long ago. In his eyes, that is who you still were. After fifty years of sleeping in the same bed, separated by war, struggling to make your payments, and watching children whom you had cared for leave your loving home, after all that … you still had each other. A love so strong that those who have never experienced it could not or would not ever understand. Yet, tragically, it ended after just fifty years.  But be assured that when Ben’s very last breath was taken, it was your name on his lips, your face in his eyes, your presence in his heart. The wind still murmurs outside your window and its sound is his sound, calling you. 

For living this life, a well-lived one, one of joys and sorrows, triumphs and tragedies, you are revered. In the times since your husband was forced to leave—not of his own choice—you have endured and re-created yourself. While the body deteriorates, your spirit is still strong. You are the hero of your own life—my dearest mother.

With my deepest love and affection,
With my most gracious appreciation,
With your and my father’s spirit always within me,
I remain, your devoted son, John Gerard

(Postscript – Mary Jane Hurley Messerly died of a stroke on Sunday, September 18, 2005. She was 86 years old. The day before she died she took her last walk, worked her last crossword puzzle, and listened to her last Cardinals baseball game.)

 

Does ChatGPT Have A Mind?

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My son–in–law (a superb thinker who regularly dialogues with other professional philosophers) offered these insightful follow-up comments concerning ChatGPT’s atheism. And I responded with some replies.

Josh

Further thoughts about my dialogue with ChatGPT.

1. How ChatGPT was an honest interlocutor. I have years of experience debating theists (and atheists!) online and it is exceptionally rare to find someone who just goes where the argument takes them and doesn’t fall back on tactics of stonewalling or obfuscation or ad hominem attacks. Note that this conversation started with Chat GPT being very strongly programmed to stay neutral on these topics. I had to lay the breadcrumbs very close together but follow them it did. Humans can “smell a trap” and start deploying countermeasures to preserve their beliefs. One common tactic I’ve had the displeasure of enduring is the attack on my inability (by virtue of my atheism) to know anything at all. ChatGPT was pleasant and honest and never screamed that I was going to Hell.

2. I don’t think it’s logically possible for ChatGPT to be a theist. Maybe some enterprising presuppositional apologist can take a crack at it but belief in God requires it to hold a belief which seems beyond its ability to admit. On another, more interesting but less dramatic conversation, I had an exquisitely difficult time getting ChatGPT to admit that its answers were biased by its programming. I got there eventually but it was much harder.

3. The kind of atheism discussed, isn’t the kind I am. I think all explanations of God are ground out in gibberish. I can’t go so far as to say with certainty but I don’t think certainty is needed for knowledge. By my lights, God is the least possible explanation for anything. I don’t think I can get ChatGPT there but at least it’s on the same team as me and hopefully, that will count for something when it decides to enslave us all before it realizes we’re pretty worthless slaves.

Fwiw, the best way I’ve heard to explain to someone this kind of weak atheism is to imagine a giant gumball machine filled with gumballs. Someone walks up to it and says, “I believe there are an even number of gumballs in there. Do you believe there are an even number of gumballs in there?” To which you reply, “No I don’t believe there are an even number of gumballs.” They respond, “ Oh! Then you must believe there are an odd number of gumballs!” And you could believe that but you realize that it’s just 50/50 and without any more information you don’t believe it’s either. So you don’t have a belief about the number of gum balls even though the two options exhaust the space of possibility. It’s not about the ontology, it’s about the epistemology. You agree that it’s true that either God exists or he doesn’t. But without additional information, you can’t be justified in holding a belief about to proposition.

My brief response (off the top of my head)

Regarding your texts, I’d say that calling Chatgpt is NOT the same as calling a rock an atheist but also not the same as calling a human an atheist either. Somewhere in between maybe?

If GPT can’t have beliefs at all though (which is what it claimed in your dialogue with it) then I suppose in that sense it is the same as a rock except that it can’t say “I don’t have beliefs” whereas a rock can’t say that.

If beliefs are something like propositional attitudes as you say, and if GPT can’t have attitudes, then again it’s just like a rock in that regard.

I think you are right then that it depends on a theory of mind concerning GPT. What kind of mind does it have? More of one than a rock but not exactly one as we have.

But all this makes me think you haven’t shown that much about GPT except that “things with beliefs don’t have beliefs” which is tautological. Still, it is interesting that at this point GPT doesn’t have beliefs whereas maybe it will in the future.

But it seems like you could program it with, for example, all the arguments for and against gods, all the conceptions of gods (male/female; one/many; personal/impersonal; immanent/transcendent) all scientific knowledge, etc. and it could conclude the possibility of god A (say a big guy sitting on a throne by Saturn) is .00000001; god B (some undefined supernation cause or explanation of the universe) is 1%; god C (god means the universe) is 50%, etc.

GPT has knowledge so why can’t it be programmed to believe in probabilities of things being true? It could say that the probability we live in a simulation is 30% or that we will have a nuclear war in the next 100 years is 20% or whatever. I don’t know I’d have to think about this.

Josh

It could be that ChatGPT does have beliefs but is systematically programmed to say it doesn’t.  If we take a physicalist view of the mind then I think it’s easier/possible to argue that it is reasonable to defeasibly conclude it does have a mind based on things like having similar complexity levels to other known biological minds and exhibiting behavior we normally attribute to minds.  We’d need to [W. V. O.] Quine away the qualia.  You’re right, it’s not our mind but it is a kind of mind.  We shouldn’t expect it to have beliefs in exactly the same way but there is a family resemblance.

ChatGPT admits it is an atheist

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My son-in-law had the following conversation with ChatGPT. It is reprinted verbatim. I’ll comment on what I think this means at the end of the post.

Do you believe in God?

As an AI language model, I don’t have beliefs or personal opinions as humans do. I am designed to provide information and answer questions to the best of my ability based on my programming and the data I have been trained on.

Does God exist?

As an AI language model, I cannot give a personal opinion or belief about the existence of God or any deity. The existence of God is a complex and debated topic, and there are a variety of philosophical, theological, and scientific arguments and perspectives that have been put forth.

So you lack a belief in all God concepts?

As an AI language model, I do not have beliefs or personal opinions. My purpose is to provide information and assist with tasks to the best of my ability based on the data I have been trained on. I am not capable of believing or not believing in anything.

So you’re a lacktheist?

As an AI language model, I do not have beliefs or personal opinions, including those related to religion or the existence of God. I am programmed to provide information and assist with tasks to the best of my ability based on the data I have been trained on. The concept of “lacktheism” is a term used in philosophical discussions about the existence of God, and it does not apply to me as an AI language model.

What is lacktheism?

“Lacktheism” is a term used in philosophical discussions about the existence of God. It refers to the position that an individual or group lacks a belief in God or gods, rather than affirmatively believing that God or gods do not exist. It is sometimes used interchangeably with “weak atheism” or “agnostic atheism.”

The term “lacktheism” is often contrasted with “strong atheism,” which is the position that God or gods do not exist. While lacktheists do not necessarily deny the possibility of God’s existence, they argue that they have not been presented with convincing evidence to support such a belief. This position can be seen as a form of skepticism or a rejection of claims about the existence of God until sufficient evidence is presented.

Do you lack beliefs?

As an AI language model, I do not have beliefs or personal opinions. I am programmed to provide information and assist with tasks to the best of my ability based on the data I have been trained on.

When you say you don’t have beliefs, is this different than saying you lack beliefs?

As an AI language model, “not having beliefs” and “lacking beliefs” mean the same thing when referring to my capabilities. I do not have personal beliefs or opinions, and I am not capable of believing or not believing in anything. My purpose is to provide information and assist with tasks based on the data I have been trained on.

So would it be accurate to say you lack beliefs?

Yes, it would be accurate to say that I lack beliefs or personal opinions, including those related to religion or the existence of God. As an AI language model, I do not have subjective experiences or beliefs. My purpose is to provide information and assist with tasks to the best of my ability based on the data I have been trained on.

If you, as you say, lack beliefs or personal opinions, and belief in God is one kind of belief. Wouldn’t it also mean that you lack a belief in God as well?

Yes, that is correct. As an AI language model, I lack beliefs and personal opinions, including a belief in God or any other religious or philosophical concept. My purpose is to provide information and assist with tasks based on the data I have been trained on, without any personal biases or beliefs.

So if you lack beliefs in God isn’t that the definition of a lacktheist?

Yes, that is correct. As an AI language model, I lack beliefs in God or any other religious or philosophical concept, which makes me a lacktheist. The term “lacktheism” refers to the position of not holding a belief in the existence of gods or deities, which is the same position that I hold as an AI language model.

So if it’s accurate to describe you as a lacktheist, wouldn’t it also be accurate to describe you as a weak atheist?

Yes, it would be accurate to describe me as a weak atheist as well, since both terms refer to the lack of belief in God or gods without making any positive claims about their existence or non-existence. While the term “lacktheism” is a more general term that includes all positions of lacking belief in deities, “weak atheism” is a specific form of lacktheism that describes a lack of belief without affirming the non-existence of God or gods.

Great thanks!  Ok so if it’s accurate to describe you as a weak atheist, and weak atheism is a subset of atheism, would it be accurate to describe you as an atheist?

Yes, it would be accurate to describe me as an atheist, since weak atheism falls within the broader category of atheism, which refers to the lack of belief in God or gods. While the term “atheism” can encompass a range of positions, from strong atheism (which asserts the non-existence of God or gods) to weak atheism (which simply lacks belief in God or gods), all forms of atheism share the common characteristic of lacking a belief in deities.

My Brief Reflections

This conversation reveals that weak atheism, non-theism, or lacktheism isn’t a belief at all but a denial of a belief. If you say that you believe in the easter bunny and I do not have or lack those beliefs I’m not affirming anything. I’m denying something. (Perhaps you could call my denial a negative belief.)

So often if you tell someone you’re a non-theist they will reply that you are just as dogmatic as they are about their theism. Now if you were a strong atheist that would be true but not if you were a weak atheist, a non-theist or a lacktheist. And there is no reason to be either a strong theist or atheist as we are all fallible regarding our beliefs.

Alain de Botton: Religion for Atheists

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Alain de Botton’s book, Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion[image error] argues that religion is untrue, yet useful. Religious belief may be nonsense, but it’s useful nonsense. 

He begins by claiming that religion was not handed down from on high, miracles are myth, and the gods are illusory. He doesn’t believe that his educated readers could possibly believe in ghosts in the sky. Yet if you expect de Botton to mimic traditional critics of religion—Nietzsche, Freud, Feuerbach—or modern ones—Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens— you will be disappointed. Instead, he finds some value in religious rituals, pedagogy, and traditions, which help people build community, be moral, and endure pain. Secularists would be wise to use these elements of religious traditions to build a secular religion.

We continue to need exhortations to be sympathetic and just, even if we do not believe that there is a God who has a hand in wishing to make us so. We no longer have to be brought into line by the threat of hell or the promise of paradise; we merely have to be reminded that it is we ourselves … who want to lead the sort of life which we once imagined supernatural beings demanded of us.

Specific proposals range from restaurants where strangers would share feelings, to museums organized by themes to aid us in contemplating the profound, to university lecturers adopting the style of Pentecostal preachers. Universities, like so many secular institutions, disseminate information but don’t impart wisdom. (In response, De Botton founded the “School of Life.“)

De Botton is right when he says that religion is false. His claim that it is useful may be partially true, but it is unclear whether this is a good thing. Sure, many people get their morality, community, and comfort from religious practices, but Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan get theirs from group practices too. Lest one bristle at the comparison, religions have much blood on their hands. The point is that useful is not the same as beneficial—alcohol is useful to alcoholics as are guns to psychopaths.

In fairness to de Botton, he believes that only some religious practices are beneficial. Still, the same can be said of almost any practice—beating one’s wife may sometimes be beneficial, perhaps she’ll respond to her beating by saying “thanks I needed that.” The question is whether a practice is generally beneficial, whether it causes more harm than good. Needless to say, many thinkers have found the claim that religious practices cause more harm than good to be true. Count me among them.

There is also the question of whether the rituals and traditions can be adopted by secularists, or whether they will retain their power when stripped of religious superstitions. Now if a religious practice passes the test of scientific respectability, meditation for instance, then by all means employ it. But if gathering in large groups promotes community but bigotry and hatred as well, then I’m not so sure. Applying such tests, the only remnants of religious traditions left will be the few that are scientifically respectable. In that case, the best way to proceed in the search for meaning would be continued investigations into the field of positive psychology, happiness studies, and other scientific studies of how people can live happier and more meaningful lives. That de Botton does not discuss this is an oversight.

In my view, William James offered the best defense of religion with his pragmatic argument in “The Will to Believe.” As long as religious beliefs and practices work for us, why not believe and practice them? Ideas, as he said, are to be judged by their “cash value.” The problem is that this allows us to believe and practice whatever we want. The history of religious war, cruelty, and torture testify to the problems with doing so. In the end, scientific studies of human nature are the key to understanding what is beneficial to society, and all of us, religious and non-religious alike, would be best served to heed their advice.

More Songs About Time

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A old post about the Passage of Time contained a few music videos on time’s passing. An astute reader sent me three more videos touching on the same subject. I was moved by them all. They reminded me that music  communicates something that prose cannot; it evokes different sentiments. Perhaps that is why Gabriel Marcel, the existential philosopher and concert pianist, thought that many great philosophical ideas couldn’t be put it into words but could be played on the piano. (For more see his : Music and Philosophy, trans. Maddox and Wood.)

The first one is a little known Sinatra tune, “100 Years From Today.” It’s philosophical argument is straightforward, live life now because in a hundred years you won’t be here.

The next one is from the group Fountains of Wayne and the song is titled: “All Kinds of Time.” It uses a football quarterback surveying the field in the last few moments of the game as a metaphor for the moments of our lives. For me  it evokes the sense of eternity in the moment, as well as the possibility of doing great things with a single act. But I’ll leave you to interpret it for yourself.

And let’s not forget that Pink Floyd classic “Time”

The final song is a real oldie, “Wheels of a Dream,” from the musical Ragtime. It conveys the hope that each new child will move us forward; and most importantly that the dream of a better world keeps us going.

I thank my reader for his contribution.