I offered a conclusion in yesterday’s post for why an acknowledgment of the existence of God, separated from any attendant theology is helpful.
I’m not abandoning that thought, but it kept gnawing at me until I realized the core reason why I want to think this way.
That reason has to do with hubris: extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance.
Humanity has a special talent for hubris. It is, I suppose, an important artifact of our evolution.
Hubris has a best friend named confirmation bias, i.e. I will give preference to evidence that supports my position and dismiss evidence that does not.
In the theistic position I have been grappling with, there are two main considerations.
One is the existence of God.
The other is the will of God, or theology.
Does God exist? Does God want something from me?
In an objective sense, the two possible answers for the first question are mutually exclusive. God either exists or he does not. In a slightly different way, the answers supplied by the various religions about God’s will are also mutually exclusive. If the Mormons are right, the Catholics are not. If the Muslims are right, the Christians and the Jews are not. I am aware of what I would call “universal apologists” that try to make some reconciliation and pretend that everyone can be right.
I am somewhat sympathetic to that attempt. I think it begins to represent the better part of our natures.
Unfortunately, however nice that thought is, it cannot be. The Mormon theology, as presented by its scriptures and confirmed leaders, is mutually exclusive to the others. This is essentially true around the table.
Back to hubris.
The insistence of any religious society (or atheistic society for that matter) that it has the Truth, and that all others are false is plain, arrogant hubris.Whatever evidence I can give for the truthfulness of Mormonism can be thrown back at me by any number of other faith traditions. The door swings both ways. I can only accept the exclusive validity of the evidence that I like by colossal arrogance. I am aware of no evidence that I can give for the truthfulness of Mormonism that does not depend equally on ignoring the corollary evidence in another faith.
Acknowledging this (and acknowledging that hubris is NOT to be desired), a strong case can be made for abandoning theology as a path of virtue. I shed the burden of theological hubris when I shed my Mormon doctrines.
Thus I dispatch the thorny problem of theology, or God’s will.
The problem of God’s existence presents a different quandary.
Let’s first acknowledge that we don’t KNOW either way. The theists have no more tangible evidence than the atheists, and as has been said, “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.”
I have posited that the knowledge of God can only be subjective. The best we can do to share our subjective experiences is share them in still more subjective ways: art, stories, music, etc. I would parenthetically argue (once again) that all that is contained in our subjective experience is what makes life beautiful, wonderful, strange, and fantastic. I shudder to denigrate my subjective experiences.
THE CRUX: If I take it upon myself to declare your subjective experience with God invalid, untrue, or delusional, I have willingly reacquired the burden of hubris that I just worked so hard to divest.
I have no proof that your experience with God is internal delusion. I have nothing to show but naked arrogance.
I have taken upon myself the burden of judgment, which burden I DO NOT WANT.
An interesting post, G. If I read you rightly here, you say that the evidence for each of many disparate religious perspectives is such that they effectively cancel one another out, and so the only way to maintain adherence to some particular religious perspective is by arbitrarily including evidence favorable to that perspective and excluding evidence that would instead favor other perspectives. This practice is, in your assessment, prideful. (Admittedly, I'm having a difficult time explicating that inference right there.)
ReplyDeleteAssuming that this is more or less the message you mean to convey, I do have a couple of objections/queries. First, why assume that all evidence cancels out? Could not the net effect of reviewing the total evidence be one that, on the whole, favors some perspective(s) more than others? Could it not be the case that, say, Religion X has points a, b, and c in its favor, while Religion Y has points d, e, and f in its favor, but points a-c are overturned/undermined by considerations g-i, while point f is overturned by consideration j, leaving two factors in favor of Y?
I mean, the reasoning you're using could be applied to any standing controversy. One could just as easily say that the evidence for various evolutionary models (the neo-Darwinian synthesis, punctuated equilibrium, etc.) cancel each other out, and that's easy to say, but the point of science is to evaluate that evidence carefully and see where it leads, without concern for being arrogant by drawing some particular conclusion to the exclusion of others. The same could be said for politics, economics, etc.; religion is not unique in having a diverse array of parties who contend on various grounds that they are more correct than the others. Given this, what sort of robust intellectual life can really be had by those who consistently refuse to 'take sides' in any such controversy with those conditions?
Furthermore, in what way is it arrogant to favor one religious group over another on the basis of perceived net evidence, but not arrogant to favor your assessment of the religious landscape over alternative assessments of the religious landscape, all on the basis of the perceived net evidence of competing religious claims and an initially apparent equity between their grounds?
[part I]
ReplyDeleteJB,
Yes, I think you read me correctly, and I appreciate your pushing back. I’m not sure if I have the answers to your questions, but let’s give it a shot.
One quick disclaimer: I have to talk about these things from my experience, which is Mormon. Feel free to help me understand how that weighs against your experience.
I’m not totally clear if you are taking issue with my assertion that allowing confirmation bias to run its course is prideful. However, here are a few thoughts for good measure.
I think the dismissal of evidence against one’s position is anything but arbitrary. It’s extremely clear why certain evidences are dismissed and other evidences embraced. It is only arbitrary if viewed without context. One of the difficulties I have is that I don’t see how anyone can be disinterested in the answers to the questions that religion purports to address.
I claim that it is prideful because the confirmation bias that fuels the filtering process gives extra weight to the position that you favor. (I suppose it could be countered that people are usually not aware of their confirmation bias, and thus aren’t accountable when it trips them up. However, that position doesn’t do any favors to the idea of free will, which is absolutely essential to the functionality of Mormon doctrines.)
I have, at this point, been called prideful because I don’t any longer accept that the Mormon Church teaches the truth. I think I’m going with the best evidence I can find, trying mightily to detach myself from preference to the outcome.
(In the Mormon world, at least) Pride is the opposite of humility, and in moments of clarity, Mormons teach that humility is being teachable. (In moments of less clarity, they teach that pride is pitting yourself against God’s will, which can be practically translated as disagreeing with the leadership of the Church.)
Teachable is willing to learn and apply new knowledge, which has to imply a willingness to change your position.
[part II]
ReplyDeleteOk, the real objections:
Why assume that all evidence cancels out?
I don’t assume that all evidence cancels out. I do assume (coming from my Mormom background) that theological systems are presented as a packaged deal. That doesn’t mean we have to study them that way, but I am generally opposed to the idea that in evaluating them for ultimate truthiness they can be evaluated piecemeal. The primary reason for my opposition to a segmented analysis is that the owners of those systems, to whom, ultimately the check gets written, are themselves, opposed to the analysis of the theology by parts. Mormon prophetic types have repeatedly taught me that there is no middle ground. The Church is either all true or all false; the kingdom of God on the Earth or a terrible fraud. I presume that they are allowed to make this type of qualifier in asking me to evaluate their divine investiture of authority, but they must live with the consequences as well.
My concern is not then whether points a, b, or c taken separately have merit, but whether the whole package is completely true, i.e. the logical proof requires ALL the components to be true or the overall result is false.
I am completely aware that this ends up being an impossible requirement for any religion to fulfill. That is not my problem. The claim of divine authority is an enormous presumption; the stakes are unbelievably high; I don’t want to quibble over the fact that you can’t produce the goods to back your outrageous claims.
Parenthetically, one of my “99 theses” is that the Mormon Church needs to let go of its stranglehold on exclusive truth claims.
Am I suggesting taking a neutral stance on any standing controversy?
No. There is an added element to the religious discussion that changes it. Theologies bring rigid requirements for behavior and promises of divine consequence. The point of science is to dispassionately evaluate evidence and see where it leads.
Religion, as I understand it, does not fall under this kind of rigorous scrutiny. Instead, some man comes to my door and tells me how I need to behave and to send him a lot of money. He claims that I should do this because God wants it that way, and when I ask for some validation of the claim, I am presented with circular reasoning and fear tactics.
Further, there is no discussion. My open disagreement with the Mormon leadership on the functional value of behavioral teachings doesn’t invite an examination of the evidence, it will invite me into a Church court to be excommunicated.
The comparison is not appropriate to the practical reality.
Why is my assessment of the religious landscape less arrogant than other assessments of the religious landscape? Why is my assertion acceptable, but competing specific religious assertions aren’t?
The assumption of authority is the root of the arrogance. If you disagree with me on any of these points, I am not claiming authority to declare the eternal punishing outcome of our difference of opinion. I don’t claim to have divine authority for the world. I don’t want to tell you how to live your life.
This entire discussion must be viewed in light of the practical objectives of religion, not the academic study of it. I’m more than mildly interested in the academic study of religion, but that has NOTHING to do with what religion wants from people. Religion wants power, money, and obedience.
Help me see what I am missing here.