John G. Messerly's Blog, page 59

How far will Republicans go to destroy democracy? And can they still be stopped?

I’ve recently been avoiding political posts because the situation in the USA is so dire and depressing. Democracy and the rule of law are under assault as never before and the prospects for our becoming a truly authoritarian state are real, as I’ve discussed previously.

Many of these ideas were recently summarized by Aaron Belkin, a professor of political science at San Francisco State University in “How far will Republicans go to destroy democracy? And can they still be stopped?” Belkin argues that Republicans no longer value democracy or the rule of law. Here are some highlights and a few of my reflections.

Democracy

Belkin begins by noting that Supreme Court has now approved hyper-partisan gerrymandering and effectively allowed (whatever the final ruling) the addition of a citizenship question to the census. Such actions have caused constitutional scholars like University of Chicago law professor Aziz Huq to state “We don’t really know how committed the Republican Party is to the project of democracy.”  But, as Belkin puts it,

Unfortunately, the answer to Huq’s question is clear. The Republican Party is not at all committed to democracy, and GOP leaders and voters would happily tolerate alternative political arrangements … Republicans have abandoned any concerns they may have had for the integrity of our political system.

Unfortunately, the evidence for Belkin’s claim is overwhelming.

First is the GOP’s commitment to undermining free and fair elections. This includes tactics such as voter suppression, lying about voter fraud, gerrymandering, the Supreme Court’s evisceration of campaign finance law, the unlimited and unaccountable money flooding our politics, as well as the 50-year campaign that led to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act.

Second, “the GOP is structurally committed to lying.” In other words, they must lie. Consider that

One of the first things that Newt Gingrich’s Republican House majority did upon assuming power in 1995 was to undermine evidence-based policy by killing the Office of Technology Assessment and slashing the funding of the Congressional Research Service and Government Accountability Office.

Why? The reason is that Republicans must disavow factual evidence because to tell the truth would reveal their true motives. For example, the corporate wing of the party lies because it doesn’t want to admit that it cares only about tax cuts for the rich and corporate deregulation.

That’s why the 2002 handout to oil, gas and coal companies was called the “Clear Skies Initiative.” That’s why the 2009-2010 health care debate was framed in terms of “death panels,” as if private insurance does not ration care. That’s why the 2017 tax cut for corporations and elites was sold as a middle-class tax cut.

And the resentment wing of the party must lie to disguise its paranoia.

Gun enthusiasts cannot admit that they like firearms because they fear black people. “Pro-lifers” cannot admit that they oppose abortion because they are afraid of what would happen if women controlled their bodies. (If they truly supported life, after all, they would fight climate change). Anti-statists (of the Ruby Ridge or “Oregon standoff” variety) cannot admit that they oppose the public sector because they think government programs are for black people. Xenophobes cannot admit that they oppose immigration because they think brown people are dirty. (How often do you hear them oppose illegal immigration from Canada?) Religious extremists cannot admit that they oppose feminism and LGBTQ people because they are afraid of out-of-control sex.

The great danger here is that when a political party becomes structurally committed to lying, anything is possible as the Yale historian Timothy Snyder notes.

Third, the GOP is helping bring about the collapse of civilization due to climate change. In fact, some experts have concluded that we have already passed the point at which the civilzationaly collapse is inevitable. The GOP has done everything possible to bring about a result worse than genocide and they happily facilitate it. As Belkin puts it, “The collapse of civilization will be worse than genocide, yet the GOP is happy to enable it. If a political party is willing to facilitate an outcome worse than genocide, then why would it oppose authoritarianism? The answer is that it would not.”

The Rule of Law

While Trump and the GOP are obvious threats to the rule of law they are ultimately symptoms, not causes of the problem. (Aristotle long ago taught me the importance of the rule of (rational) law as opposed to rule by the irrational passions of people.) Instead, the real cause of ” Republican radicalism is the triangular relationship among capital (e.g., the Koch brothers), the right-wing media (e.g., Fox News), and resentment voters (whom Hillary Clinton accurately labeled “deplorables”), the latter being the roughly 40 percent of the public who still believe Trump is doing a good job.”

This implies that even without an unqualified, unfit, despicable figure like Trump in the oval office,

Fox News will continue to manufacture paranoia to motivate resentment voters to vote for capitalists who will head to Washington to lower taxes, deregulate the economy and undermine democracy. The GOP’s capital wing cares about tax cuts and deregulation and, thanks to Fox News, has an unlimited capacity to manufacture paranoia. Its resentment wing cares about making scapegoats suffer, and has an unlimited capacity for consuming paranoia. Neither wing cares about anything else. Not fairness. Not national interest. Not democracy. Not the rule of law.

Can these trends be halted at the ballot box? Belkin is pessimistic. For the even after wave elections in 1992, 2006, 2008 and 2018 Republican Party became more radical. Why?

Even the most mild-mannered Republican … must govern, once in office, as a radical, no matter how sweet their smile or how gentle their manner. They are just as captured by the triangular relationship between capital, right-wing media and resentment as their more explicitly frothy colleagues. Brett Kavanaugh, after all, hails from the genteel, country club wing of the GOP, yet it took no time at all for him to unveil his radicalism, in both style and substance, at his confirmation hearing.

The implication of all this “is that if Democrats fail to take dramatic action in 2021, it will not matter if they occasionally win elections, because Republicans will continue to control the country, even when they are not in power.” Consider the following:

Thanks to gerrymandering, dark money and voter suppression, it will remain very difficult for Democrats to capture the levers of power. They will require wave elections to do so;
Thanks to the GOP’s unprecedented willingness to obstruct, it will remain almost impossible for Democrats to pass laws, even when they win elections;
Thanks to the theft of the Supreme Court, Justice Roberts and his colleagues will shred or sharply curtail the few laws that Democrats manage to pass. When a party has a tough time winning elections, even when it captures (far) more than 50% of the vote; when that party is not allowed to govern even when it wins at the ballot box; and when that party’s laws are shredded by stolen courts even when it manages to govern, that’s not democracy. That’s single-party rule.

Thus “If corrective action is not taken soon … democracy effectively will be dead. Under this scenario, the country could even experience a real or manufactured crisis, prompting lawless GOP leaders to suspend the Constitution. At that point, all bets will be off.”

What then must be done to save democracy from single-party authoritarian rule?

Thanks to demographic trends, it will soon be all but impossible for Democrats to win a majority in the U.S. Senate. There is, however, a reasonable remedy on the table, and one last chance to un-rig the system and restore democracy. If Democrats hold the House of Representatives in 2020 and manage to capture the White House and Senate, they can (according to the Brennan Center) add up to 50 million voters to the rolls if they enact an aggressive version of HR 1, the democratization bill that House Democrats passed as their first order of business upon returning to power this year.

The expanded version of HR 1 would need to mandate an automatic right to vote, automatic voter registration, election holidays and early voting; enfranchise ex-offenders; provide a quick path to citizenship for all law-abiding immigrants as well as statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico; and ban voter suppression, dark money and gerrymandering. In order to pass such a law, Democrats would need to kill the filibuster. In order to give the law a chance to endure, Democrats would need to expand the Supreme Court, because the current court will not let Congress restore democracy.

While “A growing chorus of leaders and voters recognize that democracy is dying” Belkin argues that unles  “the system can be un-rigged and the rule of law can be restored before it’s too late … we’re probably done as a democracy.”

Brief reflections

In previous posts I’ve made arguments similar to those above. There is no doubt that people seek power and the corporate wing of the GOP, using propaganda to control the resentment wing, desires all the wealth and power of society for themselves. Ironically, while this may serve their short-term self-interest, it will not serve their long-term interest, assuming they care about their descendants. Unfortunately, most of them don’t care about the future so in the end greed will likely destroy us. I hope I’m wrong, but fear I’m right.

(Here are some recent relevant books.)

Letter From A Former Student

[image error]The pansy, a symbol of freethought.

After my recent post, “Outgrowing Religion,” I received the following from Jason, a former student who I admittedly do not remember. (I”ve taught approximately 10,000 students over a 30 year career.) Let me say that I have seldom been so moved by a correspondence. We often think our efforts are futile and then, seemingly ex nihilo, we find that somewhere in the long-ago past we had a positive effect on someone.

That being said, I don’t mean this post as a paean to my efforts on behalf of Jason’s education, but rather as a tribute to his open mind. For it was simply fortuitous that I was privileged to play the role of Socratic midwife for him. Had I not been there, someone else would have played that role. The desire for knowledge came from him.

While moved by this correspondence it also stands as a carefully and conscientiously crafted statement of freethought—the testament of one who thinks independently or freely, forming their opinions on the basis of reason independently of authority. It touches on many of the themes found in the great freethinkers like Voltaire, Hume, Russell, and Ingersoll. Here then is the correspondence.

Doc,

Many years have passed since I was seated in your intro to philosophy class. I recall being somewhat apprehensive to the ideas discussed. Being a young father and very Catholic, you, and especially you, can imagine how upsetting it was to hear that most of what I had based my approach to child-rearing was nothing more than moonshine. I recall you mentioning that the indoctrination of children might just be the highest form of child abuse. As disturbing as it was, I found the idea to be self-evident soon thereafter. Beyond the course and a couple of Bertrand Russell, Daniel Dennett, and Kurt Vonnegut books later, the curtain was lifted and my Sunday’s were spent fishing instead of at mass. I can honestly say my enjoyment of Sundays became instantly immeasurable. The church crowd has its invisible deities, and my small family has a lifetime of great family memories and photos to boot.

This set me on a path to learn a new language, abandon racism, embrace the gay community, rebuke ethnocentricity, demand logic and reason, and hone a particular disdain for religions and willful ignorance. Today, I am still amazed when I explain that for a miracle to happen, the laws of physics have to be suspended on a whim, and all of science fails—well at least the scientific method does. And my Christian brethren agree and explain that their Lord works in mysterious ways. So it goes.

Instead of biblical teaching, I employed my education in philosophy and anthropology to educate my child. Her mother and I are often in amazement when we watch has easily our daughter absorbs new information when she doesn’t have to reconcile it with a religious indoctrination. She graduated with a 4.7, was a stellar athlete, heavily engaged in charity work, a non-apologetic atheist, and never any trouble. Already, at the age of eighteen, her ideological compass points towards altruism and she is off to study environmental science in college, taking with her a set of principles that will suit her well, and perhaps one day save her life.

We have watched our Christian neighbors live in a state of self-inflicted torment with many of their children, and they continually blame secular society. I live in Texas, it’s to be expected. As for me and mine, we will continue to embrace rationality, the physical world, and the whole of humanity.

I’ll end with a quote that goes out especially to Jason from a former teacher,

To all freethinkers, past and present, whose independence of mind isolates them from the sympathy and understanding of their community, but whose courageous and unwavering devotion to the scientific method has liberated their community from the dark ages.

~ David Mills

Avoiding the End of the World

Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham ( as Alhazen c. 965 – c. 1040) was an Arab mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age.

I received the following correspondence from a reader (a retired Ph.D. in theoretical physics) who goes by the name Alhazen. It was a response to my post “Reflections on the ‘Real Possibility’ of the End of the World.”

I do not believe the world will come to a catastrophic end due to man’s activities. It is still possible to change course now or later.

The world now is mostly governed by people whose minds are dominated by cleverness, desire for material pleasures, greed, hatred, violence and cognitive biases of all sorts. These people are driving the world into destruction. This is the racist mind which enabled our ancestors’ groups to fight nature’s scarcity and each other for survival and is taken to its extreme capability with the help of modern technology. Let’s call this sort of mind the mundane mind.

What we see in the world now is a result of such a mind which is dominating the world.

[For example in] the 19th century a British officer introduced some wild rabbits which were imported from England into Australia for the purpose of enjoying sport hunting. There were no natural predators for rabbits such as foxes in Australia. As a result, the rabbit population spread throughout Australia like wildfire destroying in its wake many farmlands and ecosystems until the rabbit was declared a pest and was fought openly by man. Thus, the man who was aware of the destructiveness of rabbits became the artificial predator that kept them in check.

The mundane mind armed with high technology has become the new animal on earth who had no natural predators. And it is only logical to expect that it would tip the natural balance in its own favor to the point of possibly destroying its habitat and itself if left unchecked. Thus, the need to create an artificial predator (i.e. has not arisen naturally by natural selection). Fortunately, this artificial predator has been in existence since a few thousand years but has not been encouraged and nurtured as the mundane mind. It is the mind, which is driven by rationality and wisdom, love, generosity, empathy the search for peace and is alert to its cognitive biases. This is the stoic and spiritual mind which strives for eudemonic wellbeing and not for power and material gains. Let’s call this mind the super-mundane mind.

There are many ways of dying. But broadly speaking we can say there are ways that take too short a time to do anything about it and those that are extended, slow and take time for something to be done about it.

Now, the super-mundane mind is weaker and not as widespread as the mundane mind because the negative effects arising from the domination of the mundane mind in the world is not impactful enough to awaken the super-mundane mind on a wide scale.

The way I see it is that the world will not collapse suddenly and die. The world will gradually get sicker and sicker over at least many decades. During this period, the folly of the mundane mind’s worldview will be seen for what it is. The efficacy of the super-mundane mind’s ways of thinking will be gradually appreciated and adopted by more and more people and the culture associated with it will spread more and more in communities, schools, universities, pressure groups, and political parties. Positive remedial actions will arise everywhere and at all levels in the world and thus enabling the planet’s health to gradually improve until complete recovery.

Perhaps the following painting, “Rituals of Ecstasy” by the Jordanian artist Mohammad Awwad captures the final triumph of the super-mundane mind, as represented by the whirling Sufi dervishes, over the mundane mind as symbolized by factory chimneys and parched land;

https://emergeast.com/product/rituals-of-ecstasy/

Brief Reflections – I hope that the wise mind that Alzhazen describes will arise. Perhaps necessity really is “the mother of invention.” Maybe the shallowness of mindless materialism and consumption and the ecological destruction that follows from them will awaken us. But if humans can evolve to be a wiser, more gentle and intelligent species I’m all for it.

Yet I’m somewhat skeptical. I’d argue that in addition to low-tech solutions like education,  we need to high-tech solutions to transform our moral and intellectual faculties. We need to use genetic engineering, neural implants, and the like to become posthumans. I know this is risky and that we currently don’t have these capabilities, but at some point, we may have nothing more to lose. If we are going to destroy ourselves or be destroyed then we might as well use everything at our disposal to try to save planetary life.

At the moment we have either a terrible future or none at all unless we radically change humanity. None of our problems will be solved unless we transform ourselves. On this Alhazen and I agree.

________________________________________________________________________

Note – I have written about transhumanism in detail many times on the blog. Here are just a few entries:

A Philosopher’s Lifelong Search for Meaning – Part 5 – Transhumanism and Meaning

Transhumanism and Religion

Death Should Be Optional

Reflections on the (Real Possibility) of the End of the World

Combating the fire on the Deepwater Horizon.

Over the last few weeks I’ve discussed the recent UN report on the destruction of the ecosystem, and Jared Diamond’s and Bill McKibbon’s worries about whether the human race we will survive our current crisis. I began these discussions about the end of life on earth like this:

Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about the end of the world. No, not the “Jesus is coming back” end of the world—which is obviously nonsense—but the end of human life brought about human activity. Yes, we are living in the Anthropocene, “an epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change.” (Wikipedia)

I would now like to offer my own brief reflections on how we should respond to the ecological crisis. (For the moment I’ll ignore all the other existential risks that threaten the species—nuclear war, pandemics, asterioids, etc.) My initial response is “if the world is going to end, there is little I can do about it and if not’s going to end then I’m wasting my time worrying about it.” 

Of course, this assumes a (somewhat) fatalistic perspective. The earth and the life on it aren’t predetermined to end or not end. Its fate depends on the choices we make. So we can, collectively, do something about it. Will we? I don’t know. That depends largely on whether we can solve the problem of collective action. In the interim, I’m left where I began, doing what little I can to call attention to these issues while, at the same time, trying to enjoy my life and help those within my sphere of influence, primarily my family. 

I admit to having often wondered if, on balance, it would be better if we went extinct. (I’ve written on this topic many times.) An honest look at human history as well as the state of the world today reveals that it is regularly a terrible place. Yet there is something sad about it all just vanishing. After all, given long enough, maybe we can transform ourselves and bring about heaven on earth. But again I just don’t know. 

I often feel that I live like those musicians who played on as the Titanic sank. I eat, read, watch TV, play golf, enjoy my family all the while knowing that my life and perhaps all life will soon end. It just seems pointless to worry about things over which I have little control. There is little I can do about the fact that families are being separated at the US border and children placed in filthy camps; that radical economic inequality makes a mockery of what human life could be; that the environment and ecosystem are being destroyed, that tryants try to oppress, and so much more that make a mockery of what human life should be. 

In the meantime, what I try to love my family, stay healthy, enjoy the beauty that surrounds me, and do what little I can—like write this blog post. That may not be much, but for now, it’s the best I can do. Then again, maybe such acceptance and resignation is simply laziness or cowardice. In the end, I just don’t know the best way to live. 

And the meaning of life, if it has any, definitely remains beyond my comprehension. I wish I understood more, but I do not. I long ago resigned myself to my ignorance about the big questions, never wanting to claim to know what other ignorant people are so sure of. 

So here’s to hoping that we, or our posthuman ancestors, somehow survive … and flourish. 

(Below are two brief TED talks on the subject and then two longer detailed ones about the multitude of environmental and ecological catastrophes that seemingly await us.)

 

The Basics of Bill McKibben’s, “Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?”

In my last post, I discussed some of the key themes in Jared Diamond’s new book Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis[image error].  Today I’d like to do the same for Bill McKibben new book Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?[image error]

McKibbon worries, among other things, that: 1) the world’s oceans will warm sufficiently in the next 100 years to stop oxygen production and undermine the food chain resulting in mass human starvation; 2) melting permafrost will release microbes and viruses; 3) melting ice sheets melt will trigger earthquakes; 4) the added weight of seawater will bend the Earth’s crust; 5) rising carbon dioxide levels will affect human cognitive ability;  and more. Science provides evidence for all of these worries.

Consider just the food supply; we all need to eat after all. The grains which supply most of the world’s calories—rice, corn, wheat—are all under stress from heat and drought. As the planet warms the pressure on these basic crops will intensify. And, needless to say, food shortages are connected to chaos and violence. Moreover, even if food remains plentiful, transportation of that food is also susceptible to threats from climate change, like flooding and drought. Furthermore, there are concerns about the nutritional value of crops grown in high carbon dioxide environments. And while bees die, pests are thriving on our hotter planet. (McKibbon backs up all these claims with scientific evidence.)

Consider too that rising ocean levels will lead to an unimaginable refugee crisis as various areas of earth become uninhabitable. The median estimate, from the International Organization for Migration, is that we may see two hundred million climate refugees by 2050. And, in the not too distant future, New York, Boston, and Miami will feel the effects of climate change too. Moreover, a team of economists predicted a 12 percent risk that global warming could reduce global economic output by 50 percent by 2100. So the climate crisis will eventually affect us all.

I will reflect on our catastrophic global problems in my next post.

The Basics of Jared Diamond’s, “Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis”.

Jared Diamond

[This post continues the discussion from the previous one.]

In the Intelligencer David Wallace-Wells interviewed Jared Diamond about his new book Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis[image error]. Diamond’s book, “addresses itself to a world very obviously in crisis, and tries to lift some lessons for what to do about it from the distant past.”

[For the uninitiated, Diamond’s works include: The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal[image error] (1991), a work of evolutionary psychology; Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies[image error] (1997), which offered a three-word explanation for how the West rose to the status of global empire; Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition[image error] (2005), a series of case studies about how environmental challenge led ancient civilizations to fall into disarray; The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?[image error] (2012), which asked what we can learn from traditional societies; and now Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis[image error] (2019), where he highlights what we can learn from societies that have faced upheaval but still endured.]

While Diamond tries to show us a path through our current crisis he is not pollyannish. In answer to the question “How likely do you think that … the whole network of civilization would collapse?” Diamond replies:

I would estimate the chances are about 49 percent that the world as we know it will collapse by about 2050. I’ll be dead by then but my kids will be, what? Sixty-three years old in 2050. So this is a subject of much practical interest to me. At the rate we’re going now, resources that are essential for complex societies are being managed unsustainably. Fisheries around the world, most fisheries are being managed unsustainably, and they’re getting depleted. Farms around the world, most farms are being managed unsustainably. Soil, topsoil around the world. Fresh water around the world is being managed unsustainably. With all these things, at the rate we’re going now, we can carry on with our present unsustainable use for a few decades, and by around 2050 we won’t be able to continue it any longer. Which means that by 2050 either we’ve figured out a sustainable course, or it’ll be too late.

As for a sustainable course through our current crisis, Diamond states that we must: 1) acknowledge the crisis; 2) accept responsibility for the crisis; and 3) deal with the crisis through a combination of individual, corporate, and governmental action.

Now there are many threats to humanity but Diamond doesn’t believe in ranking them. It’s like a marriage in which you have to get many things right for a successful marriage—money, children, sex, in-laws, etc. So we can’t prioritize:

We have to avoid a nuclear holocaust. If we have a nuclear holocaust, we’re finished, even if we solve climate change. We have to solve climate change because if we don’t solve climate change but we deal with a nuclear holocaust, we’re finished. If we solve climate change and don’t have a nuclear holocaust but we continue with unsustainable resource use, we’re finished. And if we deal with the nuclear problem and climate change and sustainable use, but we maintain or increase inequality around the world, we’re finished. So, we can’t prioritize … We got to solve all four of those problems.

A particular problem for the United States in this regard is its misguided belief in its own exceptionalism. This precludes it learning from other countries how to better deal with, for example, health care, education, or climate change. Yet Diamond states unequivocally that “the idea that the United States is exceptional … is nonsense.” Diamond concludes that while it will take international cooperation to solve our most pressing problems he is unsure of whether or not we’ll succeed.

I will continue my discussion of catastrophic global problems in my next post.

Are We Heading Toward Environmental Catastrophe?

The fire on the Deepwater Horizon.

Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about the end of the world. No, not the “Jesus is coming back” end of the world—which is obviously nonsense—but the end of human life brought about human activity. Yes, we are living in the Anthropocene, “an epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change.” (Wikipedia)

Let me begin with a brief summary of a recent article on this topic. In a Washington Post op-ed, “Nothing in today’s headlines compares to the coming catastrophe,” the conservative columnist Kathleen Parker notes that

A new United Nations report projecting the extinction of one-eighth of all animal and plant species should rattle the cages of any remaining skeptics regarding climate change and the central role humans have played in Earth’s accelerating destruction … 
Finding out that 1 million species face extinction without radical corrective changes in human behavior is akin to finding out you have a fatal disease. One day you have a thousand problems; the next, you have just one. Nothing in today’s headlines compares to the catastrophic potential posed by climate change and the decimating effects of careless consumerism around the globe.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse — generally considered to be conquest, war, famine and death — weren’t far off the mark. Today, we might revise the New Testament version to include plastics, emissions, deforestation and Homo sapiens.

[For more see: “Trump’s latest regulatory rollback should horrify you” and “One million species face extinction, U.N. report says. And humans will suffer as a result.”]

Describing the UN report, which was the result of a three-year study by hundreds of scientists from around the world, Robert Watson, a British chemist who served as chair of the panel, wrote in a statement that “the health of ecosystems on which we and all species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
 

As Parker highlights 

The report makes the essential connection to human wellness, as opposed to merely caring about the horrors endured by sea creatures dying with their stomachs packed with plastic or Arctic animals starving to death as the ground melts beneath their feet. If something hurts economies and schoolchildren, we eventually get around to paying attention. 

I will continue my discussion of catastrophic global problems in my next post. 

Should We Accept Religious Beliefs?

[image error]The head shaman of the religious community Altan Serge in Buryatia.

In my last post on outgrowing my childhood religious beliefs, I said this:

Some ideas are mostly self-evident and others just aren’t available to you…. So I believe the earth rotates around the sun…and that biological evolution is true, but I can’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead…or that Allah dictated the Koran to Mohammed. And it’s not like I have to try to believe the former two things and not believe the latter two.

This claim elicited the following slightly edited comment from Professor Darrell Arnold.  

This issue of trying to believe things is interesting. We have all kind of beliefs. I can look outside and see that it is raining and then believe what my eyes tell me. I can feel hungry and believe that I’m hungry. These are two examples of beliefs that are even more self-evident than those you mention. (Professor Arnold is right about this.)

Other beliefs, like the belief in atomic particles or evolutionary theory, require an education. Yet because the evidence is quite straightforward, they generate consensus once someone has learned the methods of research in these areas and how correctly examine the evidence.

Then there are the metaphysical beliefs such as those you mention (as well as beliefs about ethics or aesthetics.) When it comes to metaphysics it’s difficult to know what counts as good evidence.

But what is apparent is the degree to which people rationalize their religious beliefs. To really believe in God, the father almighty, that a man walked on water or rose from the dead or that the spirit of the universe is contained in a wafer — that takes some hard-core suspension of disbelief and (a lot of) rationalization. It’s both frightening and fascinating that we are so ready to do this for views that we have been told are sacrosanct.

As evidence for such far-fetched beliefs, people often appeal to “inner experience” as evidence. Yet there is no clear analysis of what type of inner experience would be adequate for forming a belief in miracles, the resurrection of the dead or that some god is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing. Clearly, as Hume pointed out, there is always a more plausible account for a miracle than that the miracle actually happened. And it’s easy to argue that finite beings can’t experience the infinite. 

Yet there is no argument or evidence that would suffice, for the adamant believers, to falsify their beliefs. They believe because they want to and the evidence presented for these beliefs is disingenuous—usually, it is based on religious experience. Those who have had such experiences then accept, normally whole cloth, the group of beliefs that their particular religion are supposed to believe. The religious experience, of course, doesn’t justify those beliefs.

One of the most interesting things about religious views is the set of social conventions and institutions set up to try to guarantee their unquestioning acceptance. Another is the certainty many believers claim to have despite a clear lack of evidence for their views.

Those in religious institutions, of course, have material interests in maintaining those institutions. But much of the rationale behind the dogmatist’s effort to ensure they never doubt is the deep insecurity of the dogmatists themselves. When the reasons for belief are so poor, believers take comfort knowing that others remain convinced of the ideas.

In any case, fear and intimidation are cornerstones of religious education. In standard Christian and Muslim traditions, children are taught they will be eternally punished if they have false beliefs, and that they should never question tradition and the authority of their religious institutions. So not only must believers engage in difficult mental gymnastics to try to sound rational to themselves but those who oversee the institutions must work hard to try to ensure that believer never begin to doubt. 

To reiterate, some ideas are self-evident. We don’t have to work hard to believe that it’s raining when it’s raining or that we’re hungry when we’re hungry. Other ideas require hard work and continual suspension of disbelief.

The paradox is that the more difficult religious ideas are often held with the greatest certainty. But believing in them requires continual effort which raises questions about what existential and social functions such ideas play. Why are they thought so important that billions of people suspend rational thinking and accept them? And why do institutions work so diligently to try to ensure that believers don’t dare question them?

Should We Accept Religoius Beliefs?

The above is a perfect allegory for throwing off religious crutches.

In my last post on outgrowing my childhood religious beliefs, I said this:

Some ideas are mostly self-evident and others just aren’t available to you…. So I believe the earth rotates around the sun…and that biological evolution is true, but I can’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead…or that Allah dictated the Koran to Mohammed. And it’s not like I have to try to believe the former two things and not believe the latter two.

This claim elicited the following slightly edited comment from Professor Darrell Arnold.  

This issue of trying to believe things is interesting. We have all kind of beliefs. I can look outside and see that it is raining and then believe what my eyes tell me. I can feel hungry and believe that I’m hungry. These are two examples of beliefs that are even more self-evident than those you mention. (Professor Arnold is right about this.)

Other beliefs, like the belief in atomic particles or evolutionary theory, require an education. Yet because the evidence is quite straightforward, they generate consensus once someone has learned the methods of research in these areas and how correctly examine the evidence.

Then there are the metaphysical beliefs such as those you mention (as well as beliefs about ethics or aesthetics.) When it comes to metaphysics it’s difficult to know what counts as good evidence.

But what is apparent is the degree to which people rationalize their religious beliefs. To really believe in God, the father almighty, that a man walked on water or rose from the dead or that the spirit of the universe is contained in a wafer — that takes some hard-core suspension of disbelief and (a lot of) rationalization. It’s both frightening and fascinating that we are so ready to do this for views that we have been told are sacrosanct.

As evidence for such far-fetched beliefs, people often appeal to “inner experience” as evidence. Yet there is no clear analysis of what type of inner experience would be adequate for forming a belief in miracles, the resurrection of the dead or that some god is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing. Clearly, as Hume pointed out, there is always a more plausible account for a miracle than that the miracle actually happened. And it’s easy to argue that finite beings can’t experience the infinite. 

Yet there is no argument or evidence that would suffice, for the adamant believers, to falsify their beliefs. They believe because they want to and the evidence presented for these beliefs is disingenuous—usually, it is based on religious experience. Those who have had such experiences then accept, normally whole cloth, the group of beliefs that their particular religion are supposed to believe. The religious experience, of course, doesn’t justify those beliefs.

One of the most interesting things about religious views is the set of social conventions and institutions set up to try to guarantee their unquestioning acceptance. Another is the certainty many believers claim to have despite a clear lack of evidence for their views.

Those in religious institutions, of course, have material interests in maintaining those institutions. But much of the rationale behind the dogmatist’s effort to ensure they never doubt is the deep insecurity of the dogmatists themselves. When the reasons for belief are so poor, believers take comfort knowing that others remain convinced of the ideas.

In any case, fear and intimidation are cornerstones of religious education. In standard Christian and Muslim traditions, children are taught they will be eternally punished if they have false beliefs, and that they should never question tradition and the authority of their religious institutions. So not only must believers engage in difficult mental gymnastics to try to sound rational to themselves but those who oversee the institutions must work hard to try to ensure that believer never begin to doubt. 

To reiterate, some ideas are self-evident. We don’t have to work hard to believe that it’s raining when it’s raining or that we’re hungry when we’re hungry. Other ideas require hard work and continual suspension of disbelief.

The paradox is that the more difficult religious ideas are often held with the greatest certainty. But believing in them requires continual effort which raises questions about what existential and social functions such ideas play. Why are they thought so important that billions of people suspend rational thinking and accept them? And why do institutions work so diligently to try to ensure that believers don’t dare question them?

Outgrowing Religion

The above is a perfect allegory for throwing off religious crutches.

My last post reviewed Lewis Vaughn’s autobiographical, Star Map: A Journey of Faith, Doubt, and Meaning[image error]. Vaughn’s book describes his severe Southern Baptist upbringing, the doubts about religion that subsequently set in, and how his introduction to philosophy helped him find meaning in life without the gods.

Naturally, this led me to recall escaping my own religious indoctrination. For those interested, here briefly is that story.

I was born in 1955 to a very Catholic family. Needless to say, I was baptized, received communion and confirmation, went to confession, was an altar boy, etc. (Talking about this is bizarre. Not only because those actions themselves were bizarre but because ordinarily I never think about any of this.) I went to St. Ann’s Catholic school in Normandy MO, just outside the city limits of St. Louis, from first thru eighth grade. I more or less assumed that everybody was Catholic; I was aware there were some Protestant people in the neighborhood, but I assumed there was something quite different about (or maybe wrong with) them. And I never played with the non-Catholic boys.

In addition to going to Catholic school every day, I accompanied my father to our church every evening. He spent most of his free time on the church grounds. The parish had a large auditorium which was used for weddings and dances and an athletic field with a concession stand. My dad was basically in charge of all activities related to the auditorium and concession stand; he had an unpaid part-time job. There were books to keep, soda, candy, snacks and liquor to be ordered and served (yes, they had a liquor license.) Accompanying him every evening, I spent an inordinate amount of time around the church. My father would be in a Catholic hall of fame if there were one.

The rest of my family was and is very Catholic. My mother was devoted to the church till the end of her life and died in a Catholic retirement home. My oldest brother studied almost 8 years for the priesthood and though he wasn’t ordained he is still a practicing ultra-conservative Catholic. My sister worked primarily for the church and her husband is a deacon. Their son, my nephew, is the chancellor of a diocese. And my other brother finds his only comfort from believing he will be reunited with lost loved ones in heaven. I came from a really Catholic family.

After grade school, I attended and graduated from a private Catholic high school. I really didn’t doubt religion much until right after high school. As I put it in my biography:

… it was the summer before college that marked the true beginning of my intellectual voyage. A good friend was a philosophy major and discussions with him awoken me, as Kant said of encountering Hume, from my dogmatic slumber. I now realized that there was a world of ideas to explore. It was as if a dam had broken within me, exposing the parochialism of my youthful indoctrination. I was determined to explore this mindscape and die with as large a mind as possible.

Then during

My first semester of college, I eagerly enrolled in a class called, “Major Questions in Philosophy.” There I was introduced to Descartes’ epistemological skepticism, Hume’s critique of religion, and Lenin’s criticism of the state. Wow! Knowledge, the gods, and the state all undermined in 16 weeks. I am not sure why I was open to new ideas, whereas so many cling to the first ideas they are exposed to, but I was hooked.

Severing the chord of religious indoctrination was, for me, quick, painless, natural and liberating. It all happened in a few weeks. After that, I was done with Catholicism and have never for a moment reconsidered.

In fact, it’s not even a matter of reconsidering. Some ideas are mostly self-evident and others just aren’t available to you after being sufficiently educated. So I believe the earth rotates around the sun, that everything is made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, and that biological evolution is true, but I can’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead, that Joseph Smith was led by an angel to discover gold plates, or that Allah dictated the Koran to Mohammed. And it’s not like I have to try to believe the former two things and not believe the latter two. The heliocentric solar system, atomic theory, and biological evolution just follow naturally from knowing something about how the world works, whereas the other notions are self-evidently absurd.

From the outside, religious beliefs are so, well, weird. To watch people eat a little wafer at a church—which I’ve done exactly twice in the last 30 years, both times at my parent’s funerals—is like entering the twilight zone. From the outside, you just wonder “what are they doing?” Once you have seen it all from the outside … you never want to go back inside. After escaping the cult, you don’t want to rejoin. If only believers could see their beliefs from the outside, like they see the religions they don’t belong too.

At this point, I’m so removed from the beliefs of my childhood that they never come to the surface unless I make a conscious effort. It is like trying to remember believing in Santa or the Easter Bunny. You can sort of do it, but not really.

However, I would add a caveat. For some, the comfort of the religious drug may be worth it. Perhaps they can’t or don’t want to live without it. If it provides that much comfort to some persons, who am I to try to take it away from them. But for those capable of breaking the bonds of their childhood indoctrination, I can say that a lot of things won’t change after you discard religion. You’ll still be able to live, love, work and care for your children, just without the burden of believing in imaginary gods. And you’ll be less likely to want to impose your views on others—a defining characteristic of most religions.

As for me, I’m so glad I long ago left all that behind. I long for the day when reason and knowledge finally banish ignorance and superstition forever. I want to know not just believe. And I do think that religion as we know it will go extinct, especially if humans evolve into posthumans. And if we don’t evolve, we’ll probably go extinct anyway. And for those who worry about the meaning of life after losing their religious beliefs, I have addressed the topic in some detail here.

(Disclaimer, I received my Ph.D. from a Catholic Jesuit School. Here’s why. For a number of reasons, I had to attend graduate school in St. Louis. But when I was ready to apply to my preferred school, Washington University, the deadline had passed. I then accepted a fellowship to St. Louis University intending to soon switch schools. However, doing so was problematic mostly because of the difficulty of moving my young family. And, at some point, it was just quicker to finish where I had started. But though my choice of schools has haunted me, I did receive an excellent, non-religious education in St. Louis University’s philosophy department for which I am grateful.)

Well, that’s my story. It almost 50 years ago since I lost my childhood crutches. I’m glad I did. I now dwell, not in what Carl Sagan called the demon-haunted world of religion, but in one lit by science and reason. As Heinrich Heine said:

In the Dark Ages people found their surest guide in religion—just as a blind man is the best guide on a pitch-black night. He knows the way better than the seeing. But it is folly to use the blind old man as a guide after day-break.