Back to God with Camille Paglia
Click to Listen to the Show (24 MB MP3)
The route to a renaissance of the American fine arts lies through religion… When a society becomes all-consumed in the provincial minutiae of partisan politics, as has happened in the US over the past 20 years, all perspective is lost. Great art can be made out of love for religion, as well as rebellion against it. But a totally secularized society with contempt for religion sinks into materialism and self-absorption and gradually goes slack, without leaving an artistic legacy.
Camille Paglia, “Religion and the Arts in America”, A lecture at Colorado College, February 2007, available on CSPAN
This is for nother, who wrote on the site a year ago that he’d be happy to hear Camille and Chris “discuss a grilled cheese sandwich.”
Yes, conversations with Camille Paglia tend to go everywhere… and we’ll surely get to the Edwardses, the Clintons, the Giulianis and the rise of a compelling new presidential persona in the brownskinned JFK, Barack Obama. I wonder why she writes in her Salon column, resumed after 5 years: “I wish Nancy Pelosi were running;” and what prompted her to tell Mitt Romney (running against Ted Kennedy in 1994) “You’re going to be president.”
Camille Paglia [Ann Althouse / Flickr]
Because she’s always had a brilliant ear for media trends, I hope we’ll get to the surging power of YouTube as an instance of the now all-dominant (blogosphere-challenging) visual culture. I hope she’ll have a shot at explaining the voluminous hostility of the Salon comment thread on her comeback pieces… But we’ll begin with Professor Paglia’s observation of the collision between the almost-theocracy of the Bush years and hard-sell neo-atheism from the likes of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. What has become of the relaxed and tolerant fascination with each of the world religions as, in Paglia’s line, “a complex symbol system, a metaphysical lens through which we can see the vastness and sublimity of the universe.”
Paglia calls herself an “atheist,” but it always seemed to me the wrong word for a woman who grew up, as I did, with the gaudy statuary, stained-glass piety and Counter-Reformation confidence of the Catholic church in the
American 1950s — and who celebrated Italian-Catholic paganism in her breakthrough book, Sexual Personae.
Paglia is a scholar and culture buff who cannot imagine human life without the religious appetite — or American life without the vital pulse of our religious history. Without the King James Bible, as she writes, there is no Hawthorne or Melville. Without the fire and brimstone of Jonathan Edwards in the 18th Century, there is no Rush Limbaugh today. Without the “image mania” of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, there is no “YouTube” culture stamping out the last inhibitions of Calvinism on our laptop screens. Without the hymns of the “great awakening” in America there is no Elvis and no James Brown. From Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” to the swan song of the Titanic, “Nearer My God to Thee,” Paglia insists that the genius of “American hymnody should be required study.” And further: African-American gospel music — “passionate and histrionic” — should be recognized as “America’s grand opera.”
So how, she asks, did we come to the sullen and simple-minded alienation of conservative Christians blaming Godless leftists for sex and violence in the popular media; and smug liberals in high dudgeon about the Fundamentalist hostility to abortion and gay marriage?
I hope this conversation will take in how much has changed since yesterday — 1991, in fact — when Camille Paglia burst onto our scene. She’s changed, too — partnered up and adopted a child who’s now in primary school. Ever and always she remains, as I wrote on the site two years ago, My Kinda Talker. What else must we talk about, please?
- Extra Credit Reading
-
Camille Paglia, Cults and Cosmic Consciousness: Religious Vision in the American 1960s, Arion, Winter 2003: “Religion has always been central to American identity: affiliation with or flight from family faith remains a primary term of our self-description.”
Camille Paglia, The Salon Interview: Camille Paglia, Salon, February 7, 2003: “Anyone who thinks symbolically had to be shocked by the explosion of the Columbia shuttle, disintegrating in the air and strewing its parts and human remains over Texas — the president’s home state! So many times in antiquity, the emperors of Persia or other proud empires went to the oracles to ask for advice about going to war. If there was ever a sign for a president and his administration to rethink what they’re doing, this was it. I mean, no sooner had Bush announced that the war was “weeks, not months” away and gone off for a peaceful weekend at Camp David than this catastrophe occurred in the skies over Texas.”
Thomas Hibbs, Praising Paglia, National Review, August 12, 2003: “[Paglia] wants religious texts to be taught as culture rather than as morality, a bifurcation utterly foreign to religious texts. Paglia’s dilemma here is instructive. She faces the obstacles of the modern, self-conscious pagan, someone who cannot believe in the pagan gods in the way an unreflective ancient Roman once did, but is nonetheless attracted to its mythic structure and its rich symbolism.”
galoot, in a comment to Open Source, April 2, 2007: “As a painter I am puzzled by the quotation from Paglia. She calls herself an atheist, but looks to religion to rejuvenate the arts? I’m starting to think that just as you can’t be a little bit pregnant, you can’t be a little bit in favor of religion. Reason v. Unreason, that’s where the battle lines are being drawn - in politics, in art, everywhere.”
pryoung, in a comment to Open Source, April 2, 2007: “Camille Paglia: ‘But a totally secularized society with contempt for religion sinks into materialism and self-absorption and gradually goes slack, without leaving an artistic legacy.’ Well, what about a deeply (often fanatically) religious society that sinks into materialism and self-absorption?”
S. Casey, Camille Paglia on C-SPAN: On the Arts and Religion, The Laughing Bone, March 15, 2007: “In a startling and delightful transformation, she suddenly becomes a hyper-intellectual improvisational stand-up comedian, with all of her natural Martin Scorsese-on-speed vocal mannerisms in full effect.”
Judith, Art and Politics, Part 2, Our World and Welcome to It, March 7, 2007: “Granted, someone can have deeply-held political beliefs and the talent to display them artistically, but anything – art or politics – means little if it doesn’t have something deeper than humanism or materialism as the outcome.”
Camille Paglia discussion group, The Camille Paglia Community: “This is a community dedicated to the study, appreciation, and discussion of camille paglia’s works, career, influences, and characteristic subject matters.”
April 1st, 2007 at 7:05 pm
///Great art can be made out of love for religion, as well as rebellion against it. But a totally secularized society with contempt for religion sinks into materialism and self-absorption and gradually goes slack, without leaving an artistic legacy.\\\
Can great art be made from nature?
Please ask.
Goethe thought art would be the next religion.
April 1st, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Paglia and I share a generation. Anything ‘Pop’ she’s mentioned has reverberative connection inside my psyche. She’s also very much the contrarian, and — if I’ve read her rightly — found much stuffy Establishment to stumble over.
I was outside academia from the mid-70s until the early 90s and missed the ‘culture-shift’ that abraded her for years. Once back in, I found myself in something of a personal dystopia: I was told by those in positions of academic power that my background was ’strongly classical’ — although I saw myself most heavily schooled in ‘modernist’ literature, many of those authors were disparaged for lack of relevance.
What seems to have happened is this — and here is what CP might want to wade around in — the ‘world pulse’ has widened. What Europeans and Euro-Americans had managed to contain in pockets of brilliance and under perspectives of (apparent) superiority (or at least superior development) shows itself to be wondrously more deep and wide.
The anthropologists opened the bag; the imperialists exploited it; now, the indigenous are reclaiming it — without any Euro glosses, thank you very much. What I see in the demo-community college world where I work is an insistent crashing of social needs with an attendant cultural spray. The ‘traditional world’ meets the ‘Pop’, but not with anything like the articulation CP offers, not much of the order she brings to it.
Are we too close, really, to get any sense of ‘outcome’? Are we ever anything but too close to much beyond the ‘feel’ of sudden beauty or ‘fullness’ of apprehension? Are we responding to mental ‘archetypes’, chance structure of our brains? Does any chance situation that anyone may find herself in offer this big ‘Holy’ if only we back off and ride its wave?
April 1st, 2007 at 8:43 pm
What else must we talk about, please?
Being me I wonder how she feels about that space thing - private enterprise, so-called statist efforts, etc. But that’s my hobby-horse not her’s or y’all’s.
partnered up and adopted a child who’s now in primary school.
Ah! Is Ms. Paglia going to home school? How does she feel about phonics? Has a child changed her point of view or perspective at all?
April 1st, 2007 at 9:15 pm
[...] Sun 1 Apr 2007
Back to God with Camille Paglia
Posted by under Uncategorized
Keith wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI w [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Dawkins’ crusade against God only further undermines what was already a shaky reputation as a scientist. Dawkins is a pop-scientist. He makes headlines by making outlandish statements and backing them up with nothing but rhetorical prose. This is the same approach he’s taking to God. But this is not science. And Dawkins in NO way speaks for the scientific community.
I apologize for this rant, but when I saw Dawkins pop up on this page, I wanted to make sure that it was very clear that he is not representative of the scientific world-view. It is not, nor has it ever been, an either-or situation between science and God. The existence of God is fundamentally something which can neither be proved nor disproved. Therefor it is not within the realm of science. Any scientist worth their salt leaves religion out of the workplace. While we might become angry when people outright deny evolution, or make comments and policies which we view as short-sighted, all we can do is present facts and observations. Whether or not people chose to listen is up to them. We won’t change the world by calling people’s beliefs stupid.
April 1st, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Allow me to demonstrate my previous point… http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_difference.png
Note: The scientist does not immediately accept or deny the existence of the ‘bolt from the heavens’. They just keep pulling the levers.
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:03 am
I’d like to take a stab at answering the question implied in Chris’s billboard write-up:
‘What has become of the relaxed and tolerant fascination with each of the world religions as, in Paglia’s line, “a complex symbol system, a metaphysical lens through which we can see the vastness and sublimity of the universe.â€â€™
Please bear with me through this necessary preamble:
Is ‘truth’ illusion, or ‘real’? Can humans (or, hell, ‘Martians’, for that matter) perceive the universe’s ‘truths’?
Or is ‘Truth’ as slippery and as ultimately illusory as Plato’s “ideal essences�
—As in: “Plato was an essentialist since he believed in ideal forms of which every object is just a poor copy.â€
Ought humans pursue ‘truth’ – or, worse, ‘Truth’?
– Or, given the limitations of our finite minds trying to apprehend infinity and eternity, and how that problem manifests via the constraints of our finite, proximate, and largely metaphorical conceptual tools, is attempting to describe the universe’s many astonishing phenomena as accurately as we can the best we can strive for?
Which of these is more accurate?
1. The universe is spaghetti and meatballs – the meatballs are matter, the spaghetti “cosmic stringsâ€, and the sauce “dark matterâ€.
Or…
2. The universe might be best described using String theory – but we don’t know yet whether this is the most accurate means of describing and understanding the universe, since we haven’t yet devised ways to test S.T.’s theoretical implications. In the meantime, we find that gravitational theory and quantum theory both describe their target phenomena with highly acceptable accuracy – yet they are currently incompatible when extrapolated towards the others’ theoretical domain.
If you choose option no.2, congratulations! – You understand the limitations of metaphor and the greater accuracy of abstractions.
Abstractions, however, are much harder to understand than metaphors (even silly and misleading ones like my made-up-on-the spot spaghetti comparison). I, for example, have a better chance of cracking next month’s New York Times bestseller list than I have understanding String theory.
Still, I would prefer to understand the universe accurately rather than merely metaphorically. It’s a vain preference, sure, but a preference all the same—so I suppose I’ll have to get by with generous helpings of spaghetti & meatball-like metaphors (and, uh, better ones, preferably).
End of preamble, and back to Paglia:
“(Religion is) a complex symbol system, a metaphysical lens through which we can see the vastness and sublimity of the universe.â€
If religion is a complex set of symbols – metaphors and ‘metaphysics’ (whatever that means) – is it able to allow “sight†of the universe with any meaningful accuracy? What, exactly, does it purport to illuminate?
The world, according to the perceptions of the founders of the Middle Eastern monotheisms currently ascendant, didn’t have galaxies, or space, or microbes, or, hell, even skin mites! They simply weren’t visible, or otherwise perceptible, to those ancient thinkers.
If today’s dominant religions were founded by minds who, through no fault of their own, were utterly ignorant of the universe’s fundamental structures (let alone of the tiny arachnids thriving in colonies on their faces), how can any of their voluble proclamations purport to describe the universe with any accuracy less mushily general than my silly spaghetti metaphor?
If contemporary religion is largely fabrics of metaphors concocted by minds working only with the tiny conceptual toolboxes available to our species 2000 or so years ago, and yet those metaphors—which, let’s face it, amount to little more than wild guesses grounded in their society’s “divine†(parental) archetypes—are presented as ‘truth’ instead of as metaphor, does religion illuminate anything – or does it mislead?
On the BBC last night, I heard a Creationist conversing with a scientist while both stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon. To the Creationist, the Canyon was magnificent evidence of Noah’s flood. The scientist couldn’t disabuse him of this strong belief, in part because it’s impolite, but also because he viewed her evidence-based understanding of the Canyon’s millions of years of erosion as ‘just another belief’. Obviously, one problem here is that we haven’t yet developed or accepted a concept denoting the provisional acceptance of evidence-based descriptions of the universe – a concept that would stand in sharp, deliberate contrast with evidence-free, metaphor-based ‘beliefs’. The scientist had no other word aside from the ancient concept ‘belief’ to represent her credulous appreciation of the painstaking research, observations, tests, and open-minded analyses that describe the Canyon’s evolutionary provenance — and that describe it with highly credible accuracy.
So, to answer Chris’s question (as I understand it): “What has become of the relaxed and tolerant fascination with each of the world religions…?â€
In my case, these religions do not admit their use, or the very existence of, their metaphors. They instead present their metaphors as ‘truths’, employing evasions, equivocations, and outright tautology in the face of the incompatible analyses rising from the newer, vastly more accurate descriptive methodology that humans have developed over the past couple of centuries.
I can’t respect religions (or any other believers) that can’t admit that they don’t – and can’t – “know†that their supernatural assertions are accurate (let alone ‘true’!). “Faith” is a mental straightjacket — it cannot allow free-thought or even simply uncomfortable questions (without having to employ ridiculous evasions like the classic “God works in mysterious ways”).
That said, I’m fascinated by religion as a human phenomenon – but I don’t expect to find ‘illumination’ in it. I find instead wild inaccuracies and reams of unverifiable propositions exactly as credible as the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
This opinion does not however preclude me from appreciating the universe’s wondrousness. Actually, I’m greatly more awestruck by the millions of years necessary for the Colorado River to carve the Grand Canyon than I am by the fantastical notion of Noah and all the animals whose existence he couldn’t have even been aware of that somehow nevertheless survived the ‘Flood’.
I don’t see religion as ‘illuminating’ anything save the contortionist mental gymnastics apparently necessitated by human terror of the death of personal consciousness. (Which, to be frank, doesn’t much scare me. Why be scared of nothing?)
Religion – so long as it cannot or will not admit to uncertainty – is simply misleading. And perhaps, considering what we’ve learned with acceptable accuracy in recent centuries, it’s even flat-out deceitful.
Worse (and finally to the point), since ‘conviction’ (faith) is necessary so long as religions cannot admit to the unknowableness of their supernatural assertions, religionists will, probably ad infinitum, deem it crucial to attempt extinguishing any epistemologies, and those epistemologies’ descriptive produce, that do not support the tenets and dogmas of their faith.
Why, Chris, ought we ‘tolerate’ the intolerant?
To miscast or dismiss Sam Harris and others as “hard core atheists†essentially overlooks and excuses away the relentless assault that religion (so long as it insists on possessing sole understanding of wholly unverifiable ‘truths’) is fomenting on reason and on the human search for accurate understanding of the world we inhabit, and the universe that birthed the stardust we are each animate, intelligent, and conscious forms of. (And, to be perfectly blunt: Harris deserves a good-conscience reading before any brusque mischaracterization of his points or of his purpose.)
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:14 am
Hey, bobo… thanks for the ‘toon. I wonder, though, at the labels… Are both the “normal” person &/or “scientist” the way they are because of differing aspects of the same “culture”? Or are we seeing something else at work? (I kinda wish it were easy to make a similar series of the tongues of people who have had a recent tooth extraction… and see if the tongue that keeps seeking out the hole, to see if it still hurts, is the “normal” one…) I’m kinda with Lumiere, re finding inspiration for art in that olde mystery, Nature; but I don’t think that it’s anthropocentric enough to please CP, somehow… For myself, ecology has replaced Catholicism as a realm wherein my “inner supernal” finds mystery that provokes conjecture and seeks salvation… prob’ly some Art implied there, too… ^..^
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:27 am
Nick: “If today’s dominant religions were founded by minds who, through no fault of their own, were utterly ignorant of the universe’s fundamental structures (let alone of the tiny arachnids thriving in colonies on their faces), how can any of their voluble proclamations purport to describe the universe with any accuracy less mushily general than my silly spaghetti metaphor?”
Why do we still read Aristotle? Why did you reference Plato? Why is it that I began weeping the other night when I gazed in wonder at the 60,000 year old paintings at Chauvet? ( http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/ )
Even though our knowledge of the world around us has grown (not necessarily improved) throughout the ages, our knowledge of ourselves has remained the same. Our ability to think, to reflect, to understand Humanity, is the same now as it was for the ‘cavemen’. Believing in the same God that people believed in 1400, 2000, or 6000 years ago offers us a glimpse of the universal ‘Truth’ which is God. Parables remain relevant because despite all of our superficial changes, we are still human. And that is the power of parable. Religion is not a set of irrelevant observations made by long-dead ignorami. Rather, religions present observations about the essential nature of the human condition. They might not all be correct, but they have a lot to offer.
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:53 am
Apologies and correction: The Chauvet Cave dates to 30,000 not 60,000 years B.P.
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:54 am
Two clarifications to my long post above (they never look that long on my electronic page before copying pasting!!!)
1. The scientist couldn’t disabuse him of this strong belief, in part because it’s impolite, but also because the Creationist viewed the scientist’s evidence-based understanding of the Canyon’s millions of years of erosion as ‘just another belief’.
2. I’m unable to respect religions (or any other believers) unwilling to admit that they don’t – and can’t – “know†that their supernatural assertions are accurate (let alone ‘true’!). “Faith” is a mental straightjacket – it by definition cannot allow free-thought, or even simply uncomfortable questions (without having to employ ridiculous evasions like the classic “God works in mysterious ways”).
Also, the point about Harris is that he isn’t necessarily “against God†– he’s using simply reason against the rising tide of religious irrationalism that is threatening to spin the USA back towards the 1600’s. And for this he is reviled!
We need some new concepts, folks.
bobo, I’ll try to answer you substantially tomorrow. Briefly though: we ‘use’ what what is taught to us. That it is taught doesn’t make it accurate. Are Jews and Slavs inferiors, as half a generation of German children were taught in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s? Do native American parables count for less than the biblical parables simply because they aren’t part of the dominant culture?
If religions candidly admitted that all their putative “knowledge” is uncertain — and ancient conjecture — instead of ‘truth’, I’d have little if any problem with them.
Thus, in reply to your closing sentence: “They might not all be correct, but they have a lot to offer” — does ‘deceptiveness’ and ‘lack of candor’ count as ‘a lot to offer’?
Talk to you tomorrow…
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:13 am
Bobo: I couldn’t fall asleep without writing and posting this.
First, and just to be clear: I cited Plato as an example of a belief that strongly influenced Western thought for centuries – yet without any merit. I think it’s fitting that the fantasy of ‘ideal types’ closely parallels the issue of ‘truth’ – which varies from one subjective human mind to the next. Thus I suggest we look to improving the accuracy (not truthfulness) of our descriptions, eschewing any hope for the perceiving the illusion of ‘truth’, just as we should for Plato’s imaginary ‘ideal types’.
Next, regarding parables and metaphors:
I’ll have to confess some ignorance: I don’t know whether biblical parables are taught as ‘parables’ (metaphors) or as ‘truths’. (And maybe it depends of the relative fundamentalism of the religionist using the parable…?)
If parables are taught as metaphors, I can’t see much problem with it (not at first blush, anyway).
But let’s talk metaphor for a moment. “Wine is Christ’s blood, and bread His flesh.†Aside from the strong likelihood that this was lifted straight and shamelessly from the ancient Eleusinian Mysteries (where Persephone was ‘consumed’ as the bread and Dionysus as the wine), I, as a youngster in Greek Orthodox Church, was expected to faithfully accept that the wine and bread (whose taste I strangely miss) had magically BECOME Christ’s flesh and blood. LITERALLY. (I couldn’t — even while liking the ritual.)
This eucharist business is an example of a metaphor presented as ‘truth’. Is it objectionable? Probably, although I kind of like the beauty of the metaphor (especially in its ancient Persephone/Dionysus origins) enough to forgive it.
But what about this?
— “Creationâ€, if misunderstood as an “artifact†rather than as an eternally unfolding natural universal process, needs a “Creatorâ€, right? The culture in question was highly (perhaps violently) patriarchal – and one of its most important crafts was that of pottery. What’s the metaphor? A Father who “breathes life†into pottery, and calls it ‘Man’.
The metaphor that is presented as ‘truth’ is none other than the biblical God character itself!
Now that one I find highly objectionable.
It would be a big step for religions like Greek Orthodoxy to admit that the eucharistic wine and bread aren’t really divine flesh and blood. (Maybe one of them has, and I don’t know it yet?)
It would monumental – and extraordinarily helpful to the advance of reason – if these same dogmatic monotheistic religions would admit the simple possibility that their God-character is just another metaphor, based on ancient conjecture set within a specific, parochial socio-cultural context.
The ancient metaphor of the Potter/Warrior/Father presented as ‘truth’ has cost countless lives through the millennia, and has caused unconscionable suffering – not least in the women whose lives these beliefs have influenced.
A little simple candor, of the kind Bishop John Shelby Spong has never shirked from, would likely do wonders in this battle against irrational ancient superstition dressed up in clerical garb.
HEY! Bishop Spong would probably make a GREAT GUEST for the ‘Morality’ show!
April 2nd, 2007 at 6:21 am
NICK: Thank you for introducing me to Bishop Spong, he has some really interesting ideas and seems to be a member of a growing trend in American Christianity. Let me try to address a few of your points as concisely as possible:
“…has cost countless lives through the millennia, and has caused unconscionable suffering” While I would be an idiot to disagree, I feel I must. Rejecting Christianity because of this suffering, or Judaism because of Israel, or Islam because of 9/11, is as ridiculous as rejecting Nietzsche because Hitler was a fan of his work. I can go on… evolution / social Darwinism, the Holocaust / rationalism, the Atom Bomb / physics… My point is that while an idea should be viewed in the context of its consequences, those consequences should not lead us to an outright rejection of the idea. It is true that many horrible things have been done in the name of Christianity, but many amazing things have been done as well.
On God as Metaphor: You seem to be assuming that all things which we describe through metaphor could be described in a more truthful or accurate way. The example of string theory pasta is certainly a good one for a poorly understood scientific theory, but (at the risk of being cliche) what about love? Billions of people have something to say about love. Each one has described it differently, some use metaphor (love is a flower/flame/ocean/lion…). Some would say that it’s a series of hormonal reactions in your brain, or an evolutionary mechanism to assure socialization of offspring. But I don’t think any of these billions of people would say that any one description or metaphor is the ‘True’ meaning of love. Certain things, most of them having to do with the human condition, simply cannot be discussed except through metaphor. Metaphor is not (as you seemed to be suggesting) an inferior form of communication in all circumstances. Science is Scientific solely because those things which it choses to study can be discussed without metaphor. String theory is, in fact, one thing. Love, on the other hand, is everything which anyone has ever said about it, and more.
I do not think that God is a metaphor for something. Rather, God is a name for all things which can only be described through metaphor. To bring this back to the show… This nature of God and metaphor is exactly the reason why religion and art go so well together. Plato wanted to kick artists out of the Republic because they traded in metaphors. Is there a more ‘real’ way to discuss Grace than through the music of Bach? Or the pain of God than through the poetry of John Donne? All great religious texts are poetic. Religion and art both deal with parts of our existence which can’t be seen in singular terms.
One last thing before I go. “I am the one who is I am.” This is not stupid nonsense. This is an incredibly profound statement about the existence of existence. Descartes’ very clear and rational “I think therefor I am” pales in comparison. While it might be easier to understand the Descartes, for me at least the Biblical statement comes much closer to the Truth of existence.
And if my ongoing conversation with Nick is starting to bore the wider ROS community, please tell us to stop. I hope, however, that others can jump in and add some more perspectives.
April 2nd, 2007 at 6:56 am
Camille Paglia: “But a totally secularized society with contempt for religion sinks into materialism and self-absorption and gradually goes slack, without leaving an artistic legacy.”
Well, what about a deeply (often fanatically) religious society that sinks into materialism and self-absorption? Chris’ windy promo notwithstanding, this is typical Paglia: a posture parading as an idea, a phallic metaphor for added ballast, and little grounding in anything save the author’s bottomless narcissism and need for attention.
American Protestantism made its peace with consumerism and worldly happiness in the early part of the twentieth century, and the current popularity of churches preaching the “prosperity” gospel is only one example of how religion has largely buttressed materialism in America, not radically questioned it. Historians like Jackson Lears and William Leach talk about this in far more interesting, informed and provocative ways than Paglia will.
As she does in other instances, Paglia just appropriates a meme of the New Right—that “secular humanism” has been destroying America since the 1960’s—and adds scholarly flourishes to make polemic and posturing seem like maverick public intellectualism. I’m happy for Chris that he can find it all so titillating, and even be moved to denounce “smug liberals in high dudgeon about the Fundamentalist hostility to abortion and gay marriage.”
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:34 am
///..even silly and misleading ones like my made-up-on-the spot spaghetti comparison…\\\
I thought that was pretty freakin good !
String theory is passé - it is Brane Theory now.
///…complex symbol system, a metaphysical lens through which we can see the…\\
Symbols are language based – you can’t see anything with them - only visual perception takes the outside world in directly - language only refers to the other senses
Bobosays :///Our ability to think, to reflect, to understand Humanity, is the same now as it was for the ‘cavemen,..\\\
Agreed.
////They might not all be correct, but they have a lot to offer.\\\
One the one hand nothing has changed; on the other they have a lot to offer.
???
Bobo: could you link me to anything on this:
“Nietzsche because Hitler was a fan of his work.â€
///And if my ongoing conversation with Nick is starting to bore the wider ROS community, please tell us to stop.\\\
Keep it up !
Excellent stuff !
Metaphor and truth coexist
Magritte’s
This is not a pipe
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.magritte.com/img/cd_04.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.magritte.com/5_1.cfm%3Fimg%3D04&h=300&w=400&sz=20&tbnid=1MfjaSkRrw6ysM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmagritte&start=3&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=3
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:00 am
pryoung :
I would bet Camille would agree with everything you posted.
She causes us to think about the power relationships that give society structure. She is simultaneously the center, the catalyst, and the vector that illuminates those relationships.
She isn’t the oyster (ha!), but the irritant that produces the pearl.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:39 am
Religion, politics, economics, culture, societal rules, etc. are power structures that bring order to the vibrating and oscillating human consciousness.
The fascinating thing about the religious ethos is that the illuminati could use the metaphoric code to find deeper meaning, while behind the veil of the literal interpretation made by the masses.
One needs to stratify, or at least bifurcate, human consciousness to see how the diversity of the various power structures work together to create order.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:40 am
Lumiere: Bobo: could you link me to anything on this: “Nietzsche because Hitler was a fan of his work.†I was originally introduced to this concept when I took a high school survey course in philosophy. All that the text said about Nietzsche was that his most famous saying was “God is dead.” …And that he inspired the Nazis. I’ve come to find out through dialogs with various teachers and professors that this is the number one reason why Nietzsche is not taught more in the US. It seems important enough that it warrants a paragraph on Wikipedia’s Nietzsche Overview article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche#Nietzsche.27s_influence_and_reception
While anyone who read Nietzsche would realize immediately that the whole idea is preposterous, the fact is that the Nazis did indeed co-opt a lot of Nietzsche’s phrases (”Uber-man”, “will to power”, etc.). Hitler himself said on several occasions that he was a fan of Nietzsche, although one of his aides admitted after the war that he didn’t think Hitler had ever read any of Nietzsche’s works. In any case, Nazism has tainted Nietzsche in the minds of many Americans, and it will probably be a long time before any of his works are taught in a public school in this country (although there are other reasons for that too).
“One the one hand nothing has changed; on the other they have a lot to offer.” Yes, exactly. All I’m saying is that we can learn just as much about human nature from reading the Bible, Plato, or Chaung ‘Tse as we can from reading Foucault, Arendt, or Hegel. Humans haven’t changed, so ancient ideas about humanity are still just as relevant now as they were then.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:57 am
As a painter I am puzzled by the quotation from Paglia. She calls herself an atheist, but looks to religion to rejuvenate the arts?
I’m starting to think that just as you can’t be a little bit pregnant, you can’t be a little bit in favor of religion. Reason v. Unreason, that’s where the battle lines are being drawn - in politics, in art, everywhere.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:25 am
///Hitler had ever read any of Nietzsche’s works..\\\
Ok thanks - I was looking for a direct link – I don’t think there was any.
It is a similar situation to Eichmann misinterpreting Kant.
///….ancient ideas about humanity are still just as relevant now as they were then…\\\
On some levels, yes.
This was what I meant by ‘stratifying consciousness’: we have a base level provided by ancient thought and we have moved to more complex understandings of motivation from that base level.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:37 am
galoot, You don’t have to believe in god in order to see the benefits of religon.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:42 am
galoot
Good question, perhaps the opener:
She calls herself an atheist, but looks to religion to rejuvenate the arts?
This is what is great about Paglia - she will bring three things, seemingly in opposition, together in a structure that makes sense: art, religion, atheism
My view is Spinozaist, in that I say, spirituality revels itself in the order in which all things exist.
Art and spirituality can come together in the order/structure found in an artwork.
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:18 am
Lumiere: “This was what I meant by ‘stratifying consciousness’: we have a base level provided by ancient thought and we have moved to more complex understandings of motivation from that base level.”
I think I already agreed with you in an earlier post, although I wasn’t quite as explicit about it: “Even though our knowledge of the world around us has grown (not necessarily improved) throughout the ages, our knowledge of ourselves has remained the same.”
To clarify my own thoughts, as well as my communication of them, I guess I’m making a distinction between ‘knowledge of ourselves’ (The Humanities, Arts, Religion) and ‘knowledge of the world’ (Science, Math, Social Science, The Study OF Humanity). While many ancient theories in the later category provide base knowledge, over time we have built upon this and improved much of it. This contrasts sharply in my mind with the former category. We have added new things to this field, but instead of growing upwards (building verticaly), we have simply expanded the field (building horizontally).
I don’t think that anyone who has read Ovid or Chaung ‘Tse or Samuel II could honestly say that literature and poetry has improved over time. It has changed, there are more types and examples, but it has not ‘improved’. I would argue that the wisdom contained in religious texts is of this same character. No, the Bible does not tell us how we should deal with the threat of Nuclear War, or what to think of theories like evolution which contradict its own creation story. But it does offer many stories which reveal secrets of basic living, how to be a human… secrets which most people spend lifetimes trying to figure out. Maybe not secrets, maybe just wisdom. Look at the story of David, or the parables of Jesus, or the accounts of Rome and Corinth in their decadence. All of these stories offer glimpses at what it is to be a human, living on this planet. Yes, many challenges we face today are different than those faced 2000 years ago, but many are exactly the same.
By the way, I wish that I could offer more examples from Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc… Unfortunately, I haven’t studied any of these religions very extensively yet. But I am working on it. I consider myself a scientist, a rational being, a modern man, etc. This does not change the fact that I have learned many valuable life-lessons from religion. Contemplating God is one of the most beneficial activities I ever engage in. I feel that religion helps me grow as a person. I’m not putting it on a pedestal above all other forms of knowledge. I am saying that it is a form of knowledge which deserves careful study from anyone who wishes to know more about themselves.
Enough of my rambling and proselytizing, I really don’t mean to preach, I’m just trying to explain what I feel is a minority voice in the ROS community. But please do check out the link to the Chauvet Cave which I posted earlier. It is the perfect example of how little we’ve changed in 30,000 years.
Thanks everyone.
April 2nd, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Atheism is the new religion. Fundamentalism has lobotomized religious practice to that filmy paste applied to ones Mercedes to bring out the shine of consumerism or an opiate to soothe over ones ills while the money changers pocket the tithes.
Atheism has a much, much more difficult approach to morality. Every advantage is won tooth and nail without the convenience of supernaturalism and under heavy persecution. Much like the early religions.
Art must exist in a climate of persecution or risk irrelevance, just as any good religion does.
Lastly, if there is a God, is he sitting up late at night over a cup of tea in a state of anxiety over that which he hath wrought?
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:17 pm
That last bit is a reference to Harold Bloom’s Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine - couldn’t get the link to function.
But one more thing: Is Cormac MacCarthy’s The Road a new world devoid of art or a depiction of art at it’s apex.
[Warning: not for the squeamish]
I’ve been meditating on the scene where the man and the boy come upon the abandoned camp of the cannibals and witness the remains of a cooked fetus on a spit. Is this the new Piss Christ? Is Cormac speculating that such things happen in an artistic vacuum or that they epitomize art by evoking that which we shudder to conceive under normal circumstatnces.
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
I really should break this post into two installments…
I
Bobo, first of all, I love that you brought up love. I’ve written about that before vis-a-vis religion, and will reiterate it below, in my conclusion.
First though, in response to this, “I do not think that God is a metaphor for something. Rather, God is a name for all things which can only be described through metaphor.â€
Perhaps many things can be described only via metaphor – many things I am unaware of. But how many of these ‘things’ have a measurable existence outside of human imagination? Does anything religion purports to “know the truth of†exist outside of human imagination? Virgin mothers? Souls? Resurrections? Revelations?
Lumiere (April 2nd, 8:34 AM) asserts that ‘truth’ exists: “Metaphor and truth coexistâ€.
How does ‘metaphor exist’ – or, better yet, where does metaphor exist? In nature? Or exclusively within human brains?
Is it possible to ‘measure’ the existence of metaphor in a human brain? —or is it impossible because thought is not measurably ‘granular’, but a process: a flow of energy within and between the brain’s millions and millions of neuron clusters? If thoughts have no ‘atoms’, but are only flowing patterns of energy, isn’t part of our problem this: the brain-energy-patterns that apprehend the world abstractly are effectively indistinguishable from the patterns responsible for pure, unapologetic imagination?
If religions purport that the imaginative ‘revelatory’ products of their founders aren’t imaginary but are instead the ‘truth’ (of the universe as it was understood at the time), why should that be any more credible than my silly (and misleading) spaghetti/string theory metaphor?
If it isn’t possible to measure the putative ‘reality’ of a metaphor, how do we understand a metaphor’s existence? Cognitive scientists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson co-wrote a terrific book, Metaphors We Live By. In its research, they discovered—to their surprise—just how pervasive metaphor is in human thinking. Turns out that even what we consider ‘abstractions’ are metaphors-in-disguise. (Don’t take my word for it: read the book.) Human thought is built of metaphor; abstraction descends from this, and doesn’t stray very far from it either.
Metaphor is both imaginary and relative: it is a thought-process of comparison. Human thinking manifests in two symbiotic ways: comparison and differentiation. I’ve elsewhere likened scientific thinking to ‘differentiation-on-steroids’ and yet candidly admit that that’s just another metaphor! Even though scientific thought accentuates and thrives on differentiation, it cannot escape metaphor (except, possibly, in mathematics – which I flat-out do not comprehend). Scientific thought uses differentiation and abstraction in its attempt to describe the universe as accurately as possible (given the constraints of our finite intellects).
Does metaphor have any existence outside the relative?
Do Plato’s ‘ideal essences’ have any existence outside of the human capacity for imagination?
Lumiere, being a strong skeptic of the utility of solipsism, I am more than 99% (but not fully 100%) certain that the universe exists. That it’s not just a figment of my imagination. If you and I can agree that the universe exists, and that within it exist many symbiotic phenomena, are they ‘true’?
What does ‘truth’ mean? Accuracy?
It seems to me that ‘truth’ is an explicit claim of ‘100% percent accuracy’.
Is that attainable – especially given the wholesale (a metaphor dressed up as an adjective) pervasiveness in human thought of metaphor—which, again, is imaginary?
Scientific descriptions strive for 100% accuracy, but no scientist worth his salt (another metaphor) will pretend that any scientific description can achieve it (except, again, possibly the purely mathematical).
“Truth†claims an objective existence that I simply can’t perceive. Accuracy, on the other hand, is relative – subjective. That, I can appreciate.
It seems to me that both ‘truth’ and metaphor are illusory in that they are imaginary – just like ‘ideal essences’. I suggest we strive to improve the accuracy of our descriptions, and consign ‘truth’ to the museum housing Plato’s ‘ideal essences.’ Such an admission might seem disappointing, but is it genuinely disappointing to confess that many of our ancient concepts are misleading?
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:31 pm
II
How many metaphors please one’s palate for poetry, yet are deceptive – inaccurate? For example, my spaghetti & meatballs metaphor suffers from this inaccuracy (at least): the spaghetti (‘cosmic strings’) doesn’t lie physically below the meatballs (matter), but comprises it. (If string theory is even viable, that is.)
How many religious metaphors, however attractive, might be just as misleading or more?
If creation isn’t an “artifact†but a perpetually unfolding natural universal process, isn’t the Potter/Warrior/Father god-character a metaphor founded on an inaccurate apprehension of the universe? Why must we finite-brained humans insist that the apparently infinite universe could not have eventuated without some sort of conscious agency? Might that insistence be dramatically inaccurate – and flatly deceptive?
Here’s a metaphor I’ve loved for decades: the late Alan Watts liked to combat the common (and dreadfully unimaginative) scientific presumption that the universe is ‘dead’ and unintelligent. To this end, he would say, “You can’t get intelligence from an unintelligent universe any more than you can get apples without an apple tree.â€
Intelligence, in other words, is latent in the universe.
I like to modify that metaphor this way (using my favorite fruit): consciousness is as latent to the universe as cherries are to cherry trees. This however does NOT mean that the universe is ‘made of consciousness’ anymore than cherry trees are ‘made of’ cherries. Instead, the universe is a ‘consciousness-tree’ – a perpetually unfolding growth process whose fruits include (but are probably not limited to) consciousness.
Question: which of these overly simplistic metaphors seems more accurate?
1. God created the universe in seven days (strangely making light—and days—before the Sun).
2. The universe is a ‘consciousness tree’.’
Not all metaphors are equally accurate. Some—no, make that many—are flatly deceptive.
Look, I don’t care at all for Richard Dawkins’s strong promotion of scientific reductionism, which, using the silly “selfish-gene†metaphor (assigning agency to molecules!!!), metaphorically (and absurdly) likens growing life-forms to constructed machines. But his critique of the rational failings of religion are largely spot on. That critique of his I will defend.
Nevertheless, Dawkins assigning agency to molecules is no more plausible—or necessary for comprehension—than humans assigning agency to the infinitude we call the universe. Even ‘universe’ might be misleading – what if it’s a multiverse?
Back, at last, to love.
If a presumption of agency isn’t necessary for comprehension of the universe, isn’t such a presumption quite possibly deceptive?
Likewise, must we ‘believe in God’ to experience love?
Why must we assign ‘divine’ agency to love? Isn’t it enough to feel it, to enjoy it, and to promote it?
How can religions promote love? One of Bishop Spong’s book chapters is entitled, “The Meaning of Prayer in a World with No External Godâ€. If Bishop Spong is able to practice and promote Christianity’s message of love without having to believe in an external ‘god’, isn’t ‘god’ a superfluous—and deceptive—concept or metaphor?
Conclusion:
If the billions of people attending churches, temples, and mosques took turns telling one another tales of the power of unpersonified love they have experienced in their lives instead of listening to self-righteous preachers moralize over the precepts of ancient, unverifiable mythology, would the world just possibly be a more peaceful – and loving – environment for human existence?
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
# rc21 Says:
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:37 am
galoot, You don’t have to believe in god in order to see the benefits of religon.
rc21, you are right, and I can see both benefits and downsides of religion. Daniel Dennett explores this territory with more patience than I can muster - I ultimately get fed up side with Dawkins. (Nick - does he really assign agency to molecules?) I suppose the utilitarian point of view would say, religion has good results, it’s good. But I think I would be patronizing religious people to say, OK, I think you are making a fundamental error in your thinking, but it has some great side effects, so you just keep on believing.
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:54 pm
galoot: “does (Dawkins) really assign agency to molecules?â€
Yes. He proposes that genes dictate biological growth.
As a corrective, I’ll try to find time to post an excerpt from Steven Rose’s Lifelines that comprehensively demonstrates the intellectual poverty – and outright inaccuracy – of Dawkins’s genetic reductionism. (I might do it elsewhere and post the link to it here.)
Genes provide developmental maps – but growing organisms switch genes off and on under the influence of environmental conditions. Metaphorically speaking: you needn’t drive every road on your genetic roadmap to complete your developmental journey.
Genes don’t dictate. They are not agents.
This metaphor presented as ‘truth’ is causing no end of confusion and worse in human sciences these days.
I can also recommend, as another book-length counter to reductionism in biology, this: Alas Poor Darwin: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology.
Perhaps the current fascination with life-as-machine isn’t wholly abominable, but it sure is misleading. We aren’t constructed from the outside in: we grow. The two processes are fundamentally different. And so are their dynamics.
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Bobo and Nick- not bored.
I like Bobo’s I do not think that God is a metaphor for something. Rather, God is a name for all things which can only be described through metaphor. To bring this back to the show… This nature of God and metaphor is exactly the reason why religion and art go so well together. Plato wanted to kick artists out of the Republic because they traded in metaphors. Is there a more ‘real’ way to discuss Grace than through the music of Bach? Or the pain of God than through the poetry of John Donne? All great religious texts are poetic. Religion and art both deal with parts of our existence which can’t be seen in singular terms.
But I would say “God is a name for things that are described through metaphor†omitting “all†and “onlyâ€. That would be a more true statement.
I just listened to the Paglia/Colorado-CSpan lecture linked above and about 10 minutes before it finishes, the Q& A section, someone gets up to ask Paglia about truth/Truth and she at first does not seem to quite understand how to answer but then she does sort it out in the most simply way.
************
Paglia wants comparative religion and art history to be taught in the schools. I totally totally agree with her on that. Don’t forget Camille Paglia calls herself an atheist…. but at the same time she is not a rebel against religion. She seems to embrace the richness that religion has brought us ( although Nick is of course right about all the rest.).
I felt very choked by my own religious ( orthodox) Jewish upbringing and found liberation in the study of the history of art ( my major in college) which was tantamount to a comparative religion course at times. I also remember- to go back a little further- that in the public high school we were reading from the King James Version of the Bible- memorizing. This was to cultivate a sense of it as the beautiful and profound literature that it is.
The support of art by religion and religion by art over the centuries, and not only in western art, has served to soothe and uplift the human spirit without necessarily forcing one to believe the dogma or even ride the metaphors. When I look at for instance the Michelangelo sculpture- say the Pieta- I am in awe, even though I do not believe in the iconography. What am I in awe of? Though science keeps moving the line, ultimately the answers to the great questions we still do not know. (Gauguin asks, “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?)
Still I disagree with Bobo, though I agree with much else he/she has written here:
Even though our knowledge of the world around us has grown (not necessarily improved) throughout the ages, our knowledge of ourselves has remained the same.â€â€¨To clarify my own thoughts, as well as my communication of them, I guess I’m making a distinction between ‘knowledge of ourselves’ (The Humanities, Arts, Religion) and ‘knowledge of the world’ (Science, Math, Social Science, The Study OF Humanity). While many ancient theories in the later category provide base knowledge, over time we have built upon this and improved much of it. This contrasts sharply in my mind with the former category. We have added new things to this field, but instead of growing upwards (building verticaly), we have simply expanded the field (building horizontally)
I do not think our knowledge of ourselves has remained the same at all. Perhaps it has moved slowly and unevenly.
Bobo: All of these stories offer glimpses at what it is to be a human, living on this planet. Yes, many challenges we face today are different than those faced 2000 years ago, but many are exactly the same.
And these stories remain alive because we find relevance in them, we reinterpret and find deeper meaning according to our modern consciousness. Who knows how they were ( variously) interpreted back then and up through the present?
Every year at this time, though I am not religious at all,either I hear a new and wonderful interpretation of the Exodus story or I feel that it is very relevant to my own life and connects me as it does Nick: I, as a youngster in Greek Orthodox Church, was expected to faithfully accept that the wine and bread (whose taste I strangely miss)
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:40 pm
plaintext, I enjoyed much of your April 2nd, 12:53 PM – except that I question its first five words.
I can’t speak for atheists or atheism, which seems to mean “Belief that God doesn’t exist.†I can speak for nontheism (as I understand it), since I class myself as a nontheist/ignostic (not agnostic).
What’s the difference, you might ask?
I neither believe nor disbelieve in supernatural entities. Instead, I find no persuasive evidence either way. This is not agnosticism however. Agnostics seem to tacitly await persuasion (one way or the other). I, on the other hand, am not even interested: “ignosticism is defined as ‘finding the question of God’s existence meaningless because it has no verifiable consequences.’â€
—Wikipedia: Ignosticism
Here’s how it works: I would like to challenge anyone (not plaintext, probably) offended or perturbed by my skepticism over the supernatural to attempt to disprove the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or of the Invisible Pink Unicorn.
Then, after your attempt, tell me why I should even begin to consider the possibility that any ancient supernatural deity is any more plausible or credible than the FSM or the IPU.
To save yourself time, have a long look at the Argumentum ad populum entry within Wikipedia’s fine collection of entries on logical fallacies.
I don’t see why the absence of a belief should necessarily imply that another incompatible belief MUST lurk in the brain of the skeptic. Taking a position (a belief) is NOT the same as failure to perceive the falsifiability of the position.
Skepticism is not a ‘belief’: it is a demand or request for persuasive evidence. And it is a tacit refusal to surrender one’s credulity should no such evidence be available.
I don’t see how ignosticism, nontheism (or even atheism) is a ‘religion’ of any stripe. It seems instead to be an absence.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Nick, that ig-, non-, a- theists are a persecuted bunch puts them amongst the religious. Moreover though, there’s a sort of coercion amongst the trad religions that says, “We may not agree but at least we agree that God exists,” however disingenuous. They nevertheless dichotomize themselves from the ig/non/a/thiests - “others.”
There’s something primal about “otherness.” The cave drawings are what if not histories of conquest, meals won, Gods aussaged.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Bobo: “But please do check out the link to the Chauvet Cave which I posted earlier. It is the perfect example of how little we’ve changed in 30,000 years”.
I totally agree. The Chauvet Caves measure up to any art created today. I have used them to argue against the notion, so prevalent in the art world, that the newest latest thing is always breakthrough to something better. There is a Cave Painting (I’m not sure if it is from Chauvet or one of the others) of a running bison that is remarkably similar to Dechamps Nude Descending a Staircase which was considered a big breakthrough at the time. That people went to great trouble, first just to get into those caves, and then there is some evidence that musical instruments were played, these were multi-media extravaganzas that easily rival anything being created today. Nobody knows what these early people were thinking but they lived very close to nature. If you look at the art of contemporary people who have nature based religions you see a similar reverence in the work. I worked in an Art Museum where we had a show of the Art of Native American Women of the Plateau. Some of the work was historic and some contemporary. I spoke with one Native Woman about her work and she said everything she did was a prayer. I think in many cultures art & prayer are synonymous.
Tibetan Tanka paintings are used as spiritual tools to help unify the practitioner’s consciousness with the deity and the guru. In our culture we are bombarded continually by commercial images because we live in a capitalist system that worships money so that is a prayer too. I think much contemporary Art (with a big A) wrestles with this through movements like Pop Art that deal with or rebel from all the commercialism.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Plaintext, thanks for the prompt reaction. I can appreciate your sentiment, and would like to respect that, in your personal universe of meaning, non-/a-/ig-theists = the religious.
I must however respectfully dissent, but not from intellectual imperialism. Allow me please to plead my case:
I have been recently reminded – to my unhappy exasperation – that people holding strong beliefs seem to suspect skeptics of secretly harboring incompatible alternative beliefs. This just ain’t necessarily so.
But why am bothering to reiterate this?
Because I find it highly objectionable to have my openminded skepticism conflated with belief (in its ‘conviction’ sense) and with faith. This sort of conflation is used by believers (of whatever) to deny that skeptics employ reason: they instead accuse skeptics of disingenuous counter-belief.
And I’m really, really, frickin’ sick and tired of it.
I resent – strongly – having my a-religiosity conflated with some sort of subversive counter-religiosity. I very much resent having my plauses conflated with convictions.
I resent being conflated into the multitudes who uncritically surrender their credulity to the solemn assurances and condescending pontifications of sanctimonious Authority.
I like to think (perhaps mistakenly) that I’m capable of independent, non-dogmatic thought. I do my best (however unsuccessfully) to bring that open-mindedness to ROS. I’d like that to be respected – just as much as I’d like to respect your personal understandings.
Please don’t conflate me with the religious, or with their habits of thought. Read my prose again (if you can bear it) and ask yourself whether I’m a dogmatic ‘believer’ or simply a discontented and questioning skeptic.
And please don’t think such distinctions don’t matter. I worry – strongly – that they matter enormously in the current frightening debate between reason and irrational religiosity.
Thank you for the chance to plea…
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:07 pm
PS: ‘openminded’ doesn’t have to equal ‘gullible’. Openmindeness and skepticism together are the symbiotic patterns of thought repsonsible for the Scientific Method, and all that it has yielded.
(Although, just to be clear: I’m no scientist. Not smart enough!)
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Nick: you keep coming back to creationism and patriarchy when you discuss religion. I’m assuming that you have a particular problem with these concepts. Cool, I do too. In fact, I have a lot of problems with a lot of things in most religions. However, your ’skeptical’ view confuses me a lot. You claim to bring ‘open-mindedness to ROS’, yet in the same paragraph you refer to religious people as “the multitudes who uncritically surrender their credulity to the solemn assurances and condescending pontifications of sanctimonious Authority.” Strip away all the big words, and you’re really just insulting a bunch of people for the crime of not finding the same answers as you.
You assume that everyone who believes in God has simply never asked the same questions as you. Speaking for myself, I am constantly skeptical, as are most religious people I interact with. Newsflash: we are rational, we are not idiots! You and I are probably asking very similar questions of life, the answers we get are very different. Faith and Blind Faith are not the same thing. One can have faith in something and still doubt it, still examine it, still ask questions of it. You say that you are not a scientist. Well I am. And a large part of the power of science lies in recognizing its limitations. Science provides a wonderful lens through which to view reality. But it is not the only lens. If you can’t see past your own stereotypes of religious people, how can you expect anyone to respect your skepticism?
Peggysue: I am so glad to find someone else who knows of and has been inspired by Chauvet. One of the most wonderful things about art is that it allows us to feel connected to people across unbelievable expanses of time and space. Religion often gives us this same feeling of connection. It doesn’t surprise me at all that many cultures use art to pray.
Potter: “omitting “all†and “onlyâ€. That would be a more true statement.” Yes, against my better judgment I have made quite a few unqualified absolutist statements. Chalk it up to polemic. But I do agree that most things I’ve said would be a lot closer to the truth if I omitted absolutes. Unfortunately, polemic is a much better conversation started than truth.
“we reinterpret and find deeper meaning according to our modern consciousness.” Yes, Jesus had nothing to say on the stem-cell debate, and any Christian who poses a religious objection to stem-cell research should read their Bibles again. If they rephrase it as a Moral objection, that’s fine with me. On the other hand, religious texts are not simply blank slates on which we write convenient interpretations. While they are by nature open to interpretation, there are certain themes which these interpretations must circle around. Interpretation of religious stories is not completely relative. Thus, there is more than just revisionist history connecting us with the ancients.
Thanks everyone, this thread is producing some amazing ideas and beautiful descriptions.
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:01 am
Bobo: “Strip away all the big words, and you’re really just insulting a bunch of people for the crime of not finding the same answers as you.â€
My words, however harsh they might seem to you, reflect with unfortunate accuracy my personal experiences with the arrogant ‘certainties’ of professional religion. For this reason I am thrilled to have learned that non-dogmatic thinkers like John Shelby Spong actually exist!
I’m enjoying our conversation, by the way. Apologies for unwittingly (i.e., thoughtlessly) insulting you.
Perhaps you are philosophically inclined towards Spong’s open-minded understandings of his beliefs. If so, I support you (philosophically).
Can you give me a descriptive example of how this – “Faith and Blind Faith are not the same thing†– manifests in your typical cognitive experiences?
Perhaps, to each of us, these terms signify markedly different levels of credulity. Perhaps your ‘faith’ is somehow closer to my ‘opinion‘.
“a large part of the power of science lies in recognizing its limitations.â€
Agreed – my reservations over biological reductionism rise similarly from this sentiment.
“Science provides a wonderful lens through which to view reality. But it is not the only lens.â€
In response, allow me to reiterate a couple of questions from my posts above:
What, exactly, does religion purport to ‘illuminate’?
How many of these purported ‘realities’ have a measurable existence outside of human imagination? Does anything religion purports to “know the truth of†exist outside of human imagination?
Virgin mothers? Souls? Resurrections? Revelations?
Is my suspicion that religion only ‘illuminates’ the wondrous yet non-measurable wellspring of human imagination misguided or short-sighted?
Thanks in advance.
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:33 am
Quick PS to Bobo, here’s another Christian bishop whose beliefs I do not share, yet who I nevertheless admire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton_Pearson .
Pearson is now reviled as a heretic simply for coming to the eminently logical conclusion that Hell and Satan can’t possibly exist – because no infinitely loving God could possibly countenance the existence of eternal suffering!
(Still think my personal account of the arrogance of professional religionists is too harsh? ;-))
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:59 am
I’m extemporaneously thinking onto ROS in a whimsical stream that’s flowing towards Bobo…
If I sell insurance, and I suspect that the arcane language of the policy you seek to buy from me might allow a loop-hole that negates the insurer’s duty to pay off any claims, what are my ethical responsibilities?
Ought I caution you? Ought I investigate the issue?
How many professional religionists – we’re talking people who earn money, mind you, by promising eternal life – are willing to admit that their product just might not be what they advertise it to be?
If a professional religionist solicits your money yet won’t live up to the ethical duties expected of any other kind of salesman, is he any different than a snake oil salesman?
If millions of people are taught to uncritically trust such professional religionists, what does that say about the level of education in our culture?
Dawkins, in his The God Delusion, writes that his parents didn’t teach him what to think but how to think. No matter how you might feel about Dawkins (and my feelings are decidedly mixed), why should only he (and a few others) seem able to make that sort of claim to non-dogmatic openmindedness?
How many of us have taken the time to think about how we think, and then take the additional time to apply the hard-earned results to the countless figments of ‘conventional wisdom’ that befog our society?
Why should religion, of all things, be exempt from this sort of analysis?
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:32 am
Nick,
I confess I haven’t had time to read this whole thread but…. you are not equating ALL religious leaders with a particularly mean strain of intolerant ignorant Christians again are you?
Good, I didn’t think so.
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:38 am
“Why should religion, of all things, be exempt from this sort of analysis?”
Cutting away the illusions and waking up to reality is what Buddhism is about.
“How many of us have taken the time to think about how we think”
Sounds like Buddhist mind training.
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:55 am
Peggy Sue,
1. Allow me to reiterate (what I’ve consistenly said on ROS from my beginnings here!):
Religion – so long as it cannot or will not admit to uncertainty – is simply misleading. And perhaps, considering what we’ve learned with acceptable accuracy in recent centuries, it’s even flat-out deceitful.
It would be monumental – and extraordinarily helpful to the advance of reason – if these same dogmatic monotheistic religions would admit the simple possibility that their God-character is just another metaphor, based on ancient conjecture set within a specific, parochial socio-cultural context.
A little simple candor, of the kind Bishop John Shelby Spong has never shirked nor shrunk from, would likely do wonders in the battle against irrational ancient superstition dressed up in clerical garb.
2. I ought, against the likelihood of predictable stereotypical assumptions one might summon on reading my posts, also reiterate that I’m a die-hard fan of much religious art. Especially 18th century Catholic masses. But also Byzantine mosaics, and the countless non-Christian arts (archaic Greek especially) that we can include as ‘religious’.
But I don’t think it neccesary to glom onto these as the ‘only’ arts worth our time. I’m interested in what arts might eventually arise from a science-based understanding of the universe — that is, if we can ever get the ‘faith’ religionists to admit that their ‘certainties’ are probably, at best, only imaginary.
3. This afternoon, for the first time in days (weeks?), I could see across the Straits to your islands — and it was utterly beautiful. A few beige cumulus clouds dotted the skies between my shores and yours — and I could even see some of the different tans and ochres of the treeless land on your hilly islands.
I’m yearning for summer…
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:58 am
Peggy Sue: you’re right (in my opinion) about Buddhism. Despite its many unverifiable beliefs, it is also a discipline and study of consciousness. Neither of the world’s two biggest faiths (Christianity & Islam) can offer anything remotely equivalent.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:21 am
“Because I find it highly objectionable to have my openminded skepticism conflated with belief (in its ‘conviction’ sense) and with faith. This sort of conflation is used by believers (of whatever) to deny that skeptics employ reason: they instead accuse skeptics of disingenuous counter-belief.
And I’m really, really, frickin’ sick and tired of it.”
Nicely put Nick - I’m also really sick of the “non-believers are just another type of fundamentalist zealot” meme.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:48 am
Carlton Pearson can certainly be admired for trying to decrease the fear/guilt aspect of much modern Christianity. However, I feel that the removal of Hell on these grounds has the effect of oversimplifying one of the most basic and beautiful paradoxes of Christianity. Dante said it best when he read the inscription over the gates of Hell: “I too was created by eternal love.” To reintroduce our previous conversation on love: can hate and suffering be created by love? Of course! It’s called ‘getting dumped.’ Even something like ‘love’, which we talk about every day, is so complex that its own diametric opposite is included in its nature. Is love an artifact of ‘human imagination’? No. While none of us can define love, anyone who has experienced it knows exactly what it is. One could spend a lifetime contemplating it, measuring it, deconstructing it, and not even come close to fully understanding it. Even people who are lucky enough to live most of their lives
‘in love’ can be daily surprised by new facets of it… “”What, exactly, does religion purport to ‘illuminate’?” Well, the first time I truly contemplated the idea that Hell was created by eternal love, a great big light-bulb went off in my head. Call it cognitive dissonance or divine epiphany, for me it was certainly illumination. It was a crisp, clean, thoroughly incomplete, yet enlightening observation on the nature of love. Religion cannot ‘know the truth’ of anything, simply because it deals in concepts which (if ‘truth’ even exists for these concepts) have a truth too complex for a human to fully know. But just because we cannot ‘know’ these things, that doesn’t mean we can’t still learn a lot about them.
As to the example of ‘professional religionists’, well “‘Tis easier for a camel to fit through the head of a needle…” I don’t disagree that there are many preachers (especially within the evangelical and mega-church movements) who are about as corrupt as any human could be. It might surprise you, but most people who devote their lives to religion (nuns, priests, reverends, rabbis, yogis…) are quite poor. If they went into it for the money, well, they chose the wrong profession. Don’t believe me? Try going to any inner-city church in America. Many of these people chose to devote their lives both to God, and to their fellow humans. Many of them are very intelligent, very compassionate, and unbelievably selfless. Try conversing with them. Instead of talking about the standard topics (homosexuality, evolution, etc.), try asking them if they’ve ever questioned their faith or the existence of God. I think you’ll find that they have spent most of their lives examining ‘how’ they think, but also ‘how’ they believe.
“Why should religion, of all things, be exempt from this sort of analysis?” It should not in any way be exempt! It should be questioned and probed with all the analytical spunk we can muster! Religion is not so fragile that it will fall apart from a few simple questions. Thousands of years of brilliant minds devoted themselves to precisely this form of theology. Here’s the thing: you can’t disprove any of it. The definition of a scientific statement is that it contains a disprovable hypothesis. But that’s just the thing, religion is not scientific! At the end of a long hard day of theological interrogation you will not reach any conclusions, but you will have gained some strange new perspectives.
So here’s my challenge to all the Atheists, Agnostics, Igtheists, Ignostics, and Skeptics (I might be included in one of these categories, but I won’t tell…):
1) Grab a copy of the nearest religious text you can find (family Bible/Koran/Torah/Mahabharata should work fine). Don’t open it yet. Just put it in an easily accessible place.
2) When you go to bed tonight, you will do so as yourself. Ok, now you’ll have to REALLY open your minds up for this part…
3) When you wake up tomorrow morning, you will believe in God (don’t worry, it will only last for 1 day).
4) Now open up that religious text and read start reading. Read from the front, the back, random points, whatever. Just read until you feel you found a story you like (in light of your new-found faith of course).
5) Now analyze with all your liberal-arts-school might! Pull it apart, deconstruct, reconstruct, find symbols, find contemporary geo-political, neo-marxist relevance, compare it to Hamlet, let your mind go as far as it can with this. (But seriously, you have to remember as you’re doing this that you totally believe in God. You are a person of Faith now. These are no longer just stories, they are real. They really happened, and not only that, they’re so important that God him/her/itself wanted you to know about it. So there must be some really cool stuff in there, right?)
6) Go to bed. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll be back to your good old self. No delusions for you, none at all.
If any of you try this, I urge you to really try to believe in God for that one day. Seriously. Don’t just pretend, really try. It’s only one day. Just take it on faith that whatever God is, God exists. You can question everything else, but for that one day, leave God untouched. Just accept. If you find yourself completely unable to do this, then just imagine that you believe in God, and try to play-act it from there.
I think that you’ll be surprised at much you can gain from this exercise. If anyone tries it: Let us know how it goes.
April 3rd, 2007 at 3:00 am
Sorry to post again so soon after my giant one, but I simply must. “it is also a discipline and study of consciousness. Neither of the world’s two biggest faiths (Christianity & Islam) can offer anything remotely equivalent. ” –Nick
Many Christian monasteries, prior to the ‘age of reason’, practiced consciousness altering prayer which would occasionally end in divine visions or sometimes a ’sexual orgasm sent from God.’ (Benedictines and Dominicans). Also check out the practice of Lectio Divina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_divina
As for Islam… One word: Sufism. If that isn’t consciousness-probing, I don’t know what is.
April 3rd, 2007 at 3:01 am
bobo, you’re great. Really. I mean it. I find myself laughing and clapping with approval in one sentence — and yet shaking my incredulous simpleton’s head the next! I will reply in detail to your excellent (and occasionally maddening) post above later.
Suffice it to say for now that it’s wonderful and remarkable (even if I can’t buy its entirety).
Thank you!
April 3rd, 2007 at 4:37 am
My first stab at Bobo’s provocative and excellent post:
Aside from the many places where I quietly applauded you, I can’t agree that ‘hell’ is concept with enough redeeming qualities to warrant its retention. It strikes me instead as an imaginary gulag to which moralizing human pontificators can threaten recalcitrant ‘believers’ with eternal banishment. This is exactly one of my biggest beefs with western, fundamentalist ‘faith’ religion: it is, like or not, effectively totalitarian. Hell is its gulag, and Satan its Stalin. (And again: why I therefore appreciate Bishop Spong.)
If ‘hell’ were admitted by its purveyors to be merely a metaphor for the remorse one feels after “getting dumped” (for previously unperceived ‘failings’), or after getting busted for some sort of societal transgression, I’d have little problem with it (well, okay, maybe somewhat more that ‘a little’).
Next, I loved this:
“Religion cannot ‘know the truth’ of anything…â€
…but then felt my jaw drop at this:
“…simply because it deals in concepts which (if ‘truth’ even exists for these concepts) have a truth too complex for a human to fully know. But just because we cannot ‘know’ these things, that doesn’t mean we can’t still learn a lot about them.â€
Aside from the astute, “(if ‘truth’ even exists for these concepts)â€, this, to my simpleton’s mind, seems like the classic, equivocating evasion, “God works in mysterious ways†dressed in fancier garb.
Which is it? Does religion “know†anything outside of the amazing human capacity for imagination, or not? (See below for an exposition on my own capacity for imagination.)
What, exactly, are these “truths too complex†that we can supposedly nevertheless “learn about�
Tell me please, in your opinion, if they actually exist beyond the human capacity for imagination. (We’ve come together in this thread much too far, Bobo, for me to accept this much evasiveness!)
Your next paragraph about inner city religion is simply terrific. However, that these people are both sincere and totally laudable does NOT award their supernatural beliefs a free pass. Especially if these beliefs are passed along as ‘truths’ to people who might benefit from fewer shackles on their intellects rather than from more.
Your next paragraph starts flawlessly (IMHO), but begins to sag (IMHO) at, “Religion is not so fragile that it will fall apart from a few simple questions.†That, I wonder over. It might be accurate – or not. The jury’s out on that one, methinks.
Next, though: “Thousands of years of brilliant minds devoted themselves to precisely this form of theology.â€
Yes, and here is some of the produce of those ‘brilliant minds’:
“The (Catholic) pantheon (includes) an army of saints, whose intercessory power makes them, if not demigods, well worth approaching on their own specialist subjects. The Catholic Community Forum helpfully lists 5,120 saints, together with their areas of expertise, which include abdominal pains, abuse victims, anorexia, arms dealers, blacksmiths, broken bones, bomb technicians and bowel disorders, to venture no further than the B’s. And we mustn’t forget the four Choirs of the Angelic Hosts, arrayed in nine orders: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels (heads of all hosts), and just plain old Angels, including our closest friends, the Guardian Angels.†a
—Dawkins, The God Delusion, pp.34-35
How much of this is purely imaginary?
If it’s ALL purely imaginary, what does that imply for the rest of the ‘theology’ of the Church? —That it’s ALL simply MADE UP???
Is ‘theology’ anything aside from elegant, deceptive fantasia?
You wrote, “Here’s the thing: you can’t disprove any of it.â€
This is exactly why I challenge anyone to disprove the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or of the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Both are EXACTLY as plausible as any other supernatural entity. Neither can claim an iota of falsifiable evidence — just like any other putative ‘deity’.
Why should anyone waste a millisecond considering the prospective existence of any of these products of the human mind?
“The definition of a scientific statement is that it contains a disprovable hypothesis. But that’s just the thing, religion is not scientific!â€
BINGO!!!
Yet it claimed to be so for centuries!
Why in the world is it any more credible NOW?
“At the end of a long hard day of theological interrogation you will not reach any conclusions, but you will have gained some strange new perspectives.â€
Really? What “strange new perspectives�
That Catholic ‘theologians’ had a lot of time on their hands in which to daydream, and to commit these daydreams to written doctrine and dogma?
Lastly, to your terrific challenge:
I write fiction – fantasy, no less. My characters ALL deal with religion intimately. (The central characters are mostly priestesses.) Which means that I have to deal with religion intimately – in my imagination – precisely as you challenged us to do.
I’ll be honest: it’s damned fun. I’ve spent hours beyond count imagining the faiths of my characters – and the various challenges to those faiths.
I can empathize – very directly – with religious believers. “Believe it or not.â€
But that’s ALL in my imagination.
(Does this explain my immediate propensity to question whether any religious ‘truth’ exists outside of human imagination?)
When I’m done, I return to this universe: this wondrous, gorgeous infinitude that holds no supernaturalism perceptible to me — nor any need for one.
JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth and Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea are two of the most stunning worlds I have ever ‘experienced’. They are ‘convincing’ in that both their creators lavished onto them detail upon detail to convey their ‘palpableness’ to their readers.
Yet does this make them measurable, or otherwise ‘real’?
No more evasions, Bobo: does anything religion claims to explain exist outside of humankind’s awesomely gifted capacity for imagination?
April 3rd, 2007 at 6:51 am
Q: (From Nick) “No more evasions, Bobo: does anything religion claims to explain exist outside of humankind’s awesomely gifted capacity for imagination?”
A: Yes.
First I must say that the word ‘explain’ troubles me, but I can’t think of a better one to replace it with. As I discussed before, I feel that Love is one subject which Christianity at least has done a very good job of discussing. Note that ‘good job’ is relative to all other discussions of Love in literature, philosophy, biology, what-have-you… It is by no means a complete discussion, nor can there ever be a complete discussion of Love.
But you’re asking something different. I could sit here and pump out a laundry list of ‘real world’ topics which various religions have said wise things about. But no, there’s something else here. All literature says wise things about ‘real world’ topics. So what makes Religion different?
Allow me to begin with the three Middle Eastern Monotheisms, and I’ll try to incorporate some Eastern religion a little bit later. Unfortunately my knowledge of Non-Hindu Polytheisms is very limited, so I will have to leave them out for now. I’m going to start out with a little good-ol-fashioned circular reasoning, so you’ll just have to bear with me and trust that the circle has a tangential ray.
The three Middle Eastern Monotheisms have one particular story in common. It is the story of Abraham. God told Abraham to kill his son Isaac. Abraham was about to do so when God stayed his hand.
Q: Do these three religions explain anything which is not pure fantasy and which cannot be explained through non-religious metaphor?
A: Yes. They answer the question: “Why was Abraham willing to kill Isaac?” The obvious answer here is “because God told him to.”
Q: But what role does God play in this scenario?
A: God is a force which overcomes Abraham’s desires, self interest, and individuality.
Q: But Abraham still had the choice, he still had freedom. He chose to overcome all of his own natural desires, his own self interest, his own individuality. Why would he do this? What did God offer in exchange for this ultimate sacrifice, not only of the child Isaac, but also of Abraham’s own will?
A: God offered himself. God offered heaven, which is the ultimate form of pure Godliness.
Q: So God is both the demand and the reward?
A: Yes. Abraham was willing to give up everything at the behest of God, in exchange for nothing but God.
Q: That seems completely irrational on Abraham’s part. He’s forsaking the life of his son. He’s forsaking his own will. He might as well forsake all of life and material existence. He might as well just die. What is it about God which could compel a man to destroy himself so completely?
A: God is immortal. And he shall reign in heaven forever and ever. Abraham is willing to give up all that he is, all that he cares about, for the chance to be a small part, or even a witness of God. It is Abraham’s recognition of his own insignificance and mortality, and his equally profound recognition of God’s unimaginable significance and immortality. He wants to give up on his own life. He wants to be a part of something vast, something universal. Yes, it is completely irrational. But it is also true. Not just for Abraham, but for every human who has ever walked the Earth.
Q: Who else would do such a thing?
A: In the Bhagavad Gita, there is a prince named Arjuna. Staring across a battlefield he sees the men on the other side as his brothers. He does not want to kill them. He experiences the natural human revulsion towards war and violence. His will is towards love and tolerance. This is a completely rational stance for a man contemplating war. But then the God Krishna comes down and talks with Arjuna. He convinces Arjuna that no matter what he feels or wants, his Duty must be done. That Arjuna has a duty to his country and family. That Arjuna is playing a part in a sacred prophesy which must be fulfilled. In the end Arjuna is convinced and happily marches off to war.
Q: Ok, but those are the dogmatic religions, surely Buddhism has nothing like this?
A: It is the ultimate goal of Buddhism! The Buddhists believe in reincarnation. Well that’s brilliant, you can live forever, who fears death then? But no, the Buddhists wish for escape from everything in life, including even eternal life. They seek the greatness and universality of Nirvana. And only through asceticism, meditation, and transcendence of life can one reach it.
Q: But those are all still religious examples. They are all works of imagination. How does that explain anything about reality?
A: Why are people willing to go to war? It is the most irrational thing imaginable. Why do we gladly give up freedom and hard-earned money to our governments? Why do we spend so much time and money on ‘cultural artifacts’ like fine art? Why did so many Germans love Nazism, and so many Russians love the Bolsheviks? Why are we so concerned for a future we will never see? These things and many more are irrational activities. We must overcome our most basic wil