Tag Archives: atheism

Do atheists own rationality?

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I was told yesterday that someone follows my blog (thank you, we all have some narcissism!). I was told that he was amazed that anyone with intelligence could believe in God. He apparently describes himself as an atheist.

I’ve been pondering this.

It seems to me that at the heart of this view is the sense of superiority that atheists can have, that they “own” intelligence. Allied to that is their view that somehow intelligence “disproves God”. I assume here that they mean rationality, as opposed to emotional intelligence.

This argument is close to me because as an evolutionary biologist at Cambridge I had this argument flow past me in waves. Indeed I spent a large part of life summoning up the courage to confront the possibility of there being nothing, no purpose, no God. I concluded after several years of living in this space that in fact it is atheism that is illogical. Having got that out of the way – but not until my 40’s – I have finally been able to relax into the rich world of the living purposeful connection that is meaningful life.

Here’s why I don’t believe in no-God.

First, let us remove rationality from the frame. Nothing can be proved. There is no external premise or starting point from which a logic chain can reach any kind of “proof”. It seems rather (read “Godel Escher Bach” or “The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake) that the universe and time comprise an infinity of nested loops. Don’t believe me, rather refer to Heisenberg (Uncertainty Principle) and Godel (Incompleteness Theorum).

Ok. So in any case logic and rationality takes you nowhere certain. You can’t either prove or disprove God or no-God. If you find a Richard Dawkins or anyone else try to convince you otherwise – simply refer to Heisenberg and Godel – and tell them they are acting as evangelists not scientists, so they should preface all their statements with “I believe”.

So, then my personal beliefs. Well, firstly I get as far, logically, as saying there is “being”, or rather there is “something”. I wouldn’t go as far as “my” being – ie cogito ergo sum, because I think that presumes what “I” am. It does seem axiomatic to me that existence exists though. I used to run the argument that time is also axiomatic and that therefore you could define God as that which began being – one of those beautiful iterative proofs you get in mathematics (inductive reasoning). On that basis I used to “prove” God. This then turned the argument about God – into one of semantics. On that basis I would say that atheism is less logical that theism – because a theist “believes” in his/her version of God, whereas for atheism to work they would have to disprove every version of God.

Anyway, I’m not so convinced about time anymore – except as an illusion that frames what we perceive as reality. I do think, though, that God and existence tie together logically. Believe in existence and God is there. Our disagreements should be fought on definitions – “God sitting on a cloud”, “God as personalised”, “God as the numbers like speed of light that define existence”, “God as relatedness, connection”.

For me then, personally, which is the richer way to live? Surely enriched and joyful reality lies in our connectedness, in the shared smile, in the sharing of sorrow. That’s certainly becoming my deepening experience.

In any event – I can state definitely that I do NOT believe that atheism has rationality or intelligence on it’s side…

Mystical Ellipticism

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Why are all the great thinkers difficult to understand, at least with our mind? Perhaps because reality is so difficult for us to perceive – as through a glass darkly. That wouldn’t be surprising I guess. Our brain is evolved to help our bodies survive in jungles. We don’t see polarised light as bees do. The point is – it’s not some kind of perfect instrument designed to understand the outer reaches and meaning of creation. Neither does it have complete sensory input.

At least for me, those who have most changed my life all point to reality in relation. That is to say – reality existing in the magnetism between two points. As opposed to reality in the points themselves,

Carl Jung, for instance, in his search for integration between opposites “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed”. Martin Buber sets out his form of existentialism entirely against a backdrop of relationship – his “philosophy of dialogue” with it’s primary words I-Thou and I-It. Teilhard de Chardin saw the process of evolution (powered by love) toward a shared consciousness. Alfred North Whitehead saw the whole of reality as process.

All of these elliptical thinkers seem to expose facets of the same underlying truth. It’s connection that matters, not matter that connects.

And yet..

For the Dawkins of this world it’s so simple. Matter. Of Fact. Simple(s). Nothing there but things. Science, thought and our brains have solutions. Death comes and there is nothing beyond. Love, kindness, a shared smile – all just twitchings of the material – set in the one-way street of time.(It’s not what science shows, but there you are .. better read Rupert Sheldrake on the subject.)

The writings of Buddha, the parables of Christ, the music of Bach. Complex – difficult. Mystical. Elliptical.

Conversion or conversation?

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I have a set of beliefs. So do you. Nothing can be proven, so who is right? Beliefs that oppose can not be settled with logic, never mind violence. Perhaps they can be integrated, but that’s another matter.

I have two questions about prosyletisation – the attempt actively to convert someone to one’s belief.

Firstly, does prosyletisation or evangelism work? Does anyone who is preached at truly change their beliefs because of that preaching?  Certainly it doesn’t work for me – either when I’m preaching or when I’m being preached down to. (I say preached down to, because it seems to me that there is an arrogance implied in attempted conversion).

It seems to me that much “conversion” works by attracting vulnerable people into a new “group”, with a new identity – be it Christian, Humanist, Atheist, Buddhist or Muslim. I’m not convinced that this is the same as a true change in beliefs.

Personally, what influences me are example and dialogue. I often wonder about the motivations about those who seek actively to convert. (What, for instance, underlies the aggression of  Dawkins’ missionary work?)

My second question is this. Is it right to prosylatise? Returning to my opening statement. I have a set of beliefs. So do you. Mine add up to a system of living that generally brings me joy. Is it not a responsibility to share these with others. Indeed is it not a form of cowardice to hide one’s beliefs in the name of respect for the opinion of others? On the other hand, what gives me the right to prioritise my beliefs over yours? Dialogue and example yes, but I wonder whether an active directed attempt to convert YOU to MY beliefs is really ethical?

To convert or converse – that is the question.

 

After Linear Time: Anthropological Ruminations on the Afterlife

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A review of “After Linear Time: Anthropological Ruminations on the Afterlife” an article by Phoebe Cottam UCL

At heart this essay questions the basis and nature of anthropology. This academic discipline is apparently caught up with a desire to be seen as a formal science – however “that anthropology is a science is a significant point of contention within the discipline”. Certainly within UCL there appears to a striving to prove anthropology’s objectivity. This is reflected in the seminar on discussion on “afterlife” which prompts this essay response. The seminar appears to have commenced with a demand to disavow any belief in afterlife and to consign any non-materialist beliefs to the “observed” and presumably inferior races and civilisations.

Cottam asserts that anthropology is a science – “firstly for its positioning within an ontology I call scientific, secondly for its commitment to objectivism”. The first half of this statement appears to be a statement of an axiom and the second to anchor the study of humans within objectivity.

The essay quotes Wallach and Schmidt (Repairing Plato’s Life Boat with Okham’s Razor) with their definition of scientific worldview comprising:

– The atomist hypothesis
– The mechanistic hypothesis
– The materialist hypothesis
– The time irreversibility hypothesis

The rest of the article questions the earlier assertion that anthropology is a science, essentially by attacking the latter time irreversibility hypothesis, which is a fundamental assumption of both mechanism and materialism. Anthropologists find many societies have a concept of co-existing linear and non-linear time , for instance “the two forms the Maya imposed on their past, historical time and cosmic time”. Essentially if existence transcends linear time then a fundamental tenet of the ontology of science is undermined. This leads to the essays’ eventual conclusion that there is a belief system operating within anthropology that wishes to suppress other beliefs – “we cannot presume an anthropological discussion of the afterlife to be apolitical”.

The essay might equally have made a significant evidence based challenge to each of the three other pillars of the scientific-materialist paradigm. However at heart it is pure logic that undermines any claim by anthropology to be a science. A study of man by man must always involve the subject with the object, and it has been proved within mathematics (Godel’s incompleteness theorem) and science (Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle) that because of an infinity of self-referential feedback loops that all “knowledge” is unprovable and can ultimately be traced back to an original axiom or belief.

As Douglas Hofstadter puts it (Godel Escher Bach) “By the way, in passing, it is interesting to note that all results essentially dependent on the fusion of subject and object have been limitative results. In addition to the limitative Theorums [eg Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorum], there is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which says that measuring one quantity renders impossible the simultaneous measurement of a related quantity. I don’t know why all these results are limitative. Make of it what you will.”

Faith is at the core of all, and we would do well to step outside the edifice of thought that it gives birth to, and openly acknowledge our intrinsic beliefs. Atheist materialists simply start from that as an axiom (see above for the 4 hypotheses underlying the scientific worldview). Their dishonesty is to pretend that the resultant logic chain somehow proves the initial premise. Other great religions at least simply state their belief as just that – belief.

Humanism and Copernicus

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Tuesday (19th February) is the 540th anniversary of Copernicus’ birth. He was, of course, the mathematician who posited that we are centred around the Sun and not the Earth. It brought him into conflict with the Church. It is our EGO’s natural assumption that WE are critically important and that all meaning revolves around us; ridiculous when contemplating celestial orbits and the expanding universe. Surely equally naive when addressing the meaning of existence – (that we humans are the centre of everything).

Humanism derives all meaning in us, we, humans and our fulfilment. In this philosophy we are the equivalent of the Earth; but it appears to me that our species on this planet with our narrow senses are only a part of something bigger. With it’s nucleus elsewhere. Effectively, for me, meaning is centred around a philosophical “Sun” rather than on our “Earth”.

Indeed, rather than emphasising the importance of ego – what happens if we accept its insignificance?

One description of life’s journey is the progress from the baby’s unboundaried “I am everything”, to the realisation of our separated triviality. The rich compensation can be the revelation of the depth and infinity of love that we are in our entangled whole.

Nirvana? The truth shall set you free. Let us be spiritual Copernicans.

Hypocrisy and Political Correctness

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Political Correctness. What a distasteful phrase.

What is it ? A system of morals – no more no less; but what underlies and underpins it? A belief in God, the sanctity of the individual, a humanist philosophy ? Who knows. Strange then that western society is increasingly bound by its repellant ways. Yes, repellant because it stifles freedom of speech and it makes an outcast of the eccentric. And it does this without having a stated core set of principles that can be rebutted or engaged.

So where is its well-spring? I have a hunch that it flows from socialist atheist cognoscenti. The archetype would be gathered in the Hamstead Borough of Gemuetlichkeit.

I have no problem with many of the apparent mores. I support fairness, equality, loving-kindness. But I can’t abide the dead hand it lays over debate. To be honest I also suspect a hypocrisy at the centre. Socialism espoused by those living in multimillion pound houses, atheism standing on the shoulders of a society won by believers, cognoscenti who perhaps don’t know what they don’t know.

There are good old fashioned systems of morals with well stated values.

Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism to name a few…..

Century of the Self: Freud as Devil’s Advocate ?

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Curtis’ documentary series from 2002 told the story of the establishment’s use of psychoanalysis to manipulate the common man. The deliberate conversion of citizen to consumer, the introduction of greed as materialist solvent to wash away community.

Materialism through desire – opiate of the masses.

All this flowed from Freud and his offspring. They discovered and disseminated the mechanics of manipulation through exploitation of the unconscious.

What a pity that the world followed Freud not Jung – who after all insisted on spiritual balancing material.

However perhaps it’s no coincidence.

He who would want to control his fellow man for selfish material ends – must after all have an atrophied or suppressed spiritual life. Such a person would surely choose an atheist psychoanalist as a tool? After all that allows efficient use of emotional control without the inconvenience of guilt.

So – Freudians as devils advocates ?

Were Sigmund Freud , Anna Freud, Bernays and the like conscious of their role in the process toward Thatcherism and Reaganomics?

Sigmund Freud and Narcissism

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Freud’s psychological edifice was constructed from a study of pathology, rather than the working out of the development of healthy psyches. This led him to a place of despair in assuming that psyche is fundamentally pathological.

He resisted any challenge to his father-figure authority, preferring to “break” with “children” rather than be forced by them to modify and develop his views. This included great thinkers such as Adler, Jung and Klein. The consequence was that the field fractured, which has hindered integrated development

His thinking appears to be exceptionally ego-centrric. The suspicion is that, for example, his early focus on pathologies of sexual drive  was in fact a working-out of his own issues and problems. That would be acceptable if he admitted a personal journey. As it is this has in fact coloured much of the development of the entire field – to the detriment of countless clients treated by his disciples. (Yes, disciples). He resisted the call for psychoanalysts to be analysed by others.

His rejection of religion was irrational. God as father-figure, Freud as Oedipus ? To be rejected like other challenges to the authority of his ego? The only logical place that a solely rational approach to religion can lead to is – agnosticism. All sequences of logic trace back to original assumptions. There is no provable base assumption. The only sustainable and honest approach is therefore a simple statement of belief. When rationalists claim that their pretty logic progressions prove anything else they are caught up in the beauty of their own ego’s creation. This is intellectual narcissism. The passion with which Freud attempts to tear down any belief in an alternative to his own ego is as suspicious psychologically as that of an unthinking evangelist prosyletisng any other religion. However, as a man of intellect he should know better. He shares this narcissism  with many other evangelical atheists caught up with admiration of their intellectual reflection – Dawkins and the like.

“It was a great mistake on Freud’s part to turn his back on philosophy. Not once does he criticise his premises or even the assumptions that underlie his personal outlook” Karl Jung.