Ichthus has indulged us with a chapter by chapter book discussion of an apologist’s text. I find that just as adequate we need to have a Devil’s Advocate also discussed in this forum.
I, for the most part, am a theist, though I yield such conclusion from taste rather than reason. However many here prefer a reason-based faith, an oxymoron if you ask me, than a simple and pure choice. This book is for them to address, not me, though I shall offer my view on matters at certain points of the discussion, if one even develops…I have a knack for still-born threads.
So let’s begin with Chapter 1 “Putting it Mildly”.
There if first and foremost a distasteful aspect about religion that he tackles. He says:
“Why, if god was the creator of all things, were we supposed to “praise” him so incenssantly for doing what came to him naturally? This seemed servile, apart from anything else. If Jesus could heal a blind person, then why not heal blindness? What was so wounderful about his casting out devils, so that the devils would enter a herd of pigs instead?”
Three questions. The first one is even addressed by Marcus Borg (“The Heart of Christianity”), page 83, “If we think that his wisdom, compassion, courage and healing powers were the result of his divinity, then they are in a sense “not much”. Even the most spectacular events attributed to him- walking on water, stilling a storm, feeding a multitude, raising the dead- are not much more than parlor tricks for someone who has the power of God.” Or as I may add “God Himself”. The second and third questions are problematic in relation to the assumptions of the first: Why just this or that miracle? Why, so to speak, a revolt rather than a revolution, or why just win the battle when you can win the war, the war against sickness, blindness, hunger and every other affliction of our species? Which just brings us back to Epicurus and his logical destruction of God as conceived by priests in a world besset by a variety of ills and evils of all sorts, natural and man-made.
But a bit later, page 4, he addresses the four main objections to be treated in his book:
1- “that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos”
2- “that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism”
3- “that it is both the result and cause of dangerous sexual repression”
4- “and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking.”
How well he addresses all of these is questionable. One ought to enumerate some facts about the author. He is a former Marxist, which he now sees as another religion. In fact he also sees nationalism as a form of religion as well, along with anything that breathes totalitarianism. He is not above innocent belief, but he is a man of principle who calls it like he sees it and his life informs his opinions, not just any dogma blindly accepted. He judges the tree by the fruits it bears and his motives for leaving Marxim behind helps us begin to understand the objections to anything he sees that is similar to it. A book trying to answer him (like Keller) asks just how this author, Hitchens, reached the heights from which to judge all religions and all of the faithful. I hope to answer for Hitchens as well as for any other critic in the world. The critic of religion brings us the consequences of variety. Hitchens life has been colored by the encounter with the other and saw in the similarities of what was found the humanity we share rather than the common God. In our differences he found human selfishness rather than one true path among a sea of errors. He saw that all were errors because all pandered to the same ungodly brutality of tribalism and group mechanisms. He saw, like Paul, that none was righteous. Like all of us he praises some, but he qualifies it as a praise for their humanism, rather against their religions than in the fulfillment of them.
So, I hope you join me in this discussion, hopefully not just to praise this book or to merely condemn it but to understand it.
Guess you’re done learning how to build airplane engines.
Took a break after passing the powerplants written test (only airframes to go and then the oral/practical).
Well done. Keep us posted.
I’ve always disagreed with the idea that religious belief stems from a fear of death. If that were true, you’d expect old religions to have a fully developed afterlife – but you don’t see that. Pretty much only relatively new religions have a well developed afterlife, whereas in old religions it is either undefined or very poorly defined (and usually not terribly comforting either!). Now, I do think people like that aspect of religion and enjoy it (while I have problems with memetic theory, I think it offers a useful model and we can agree that the afterlife meme is very successful and adds a lot to the appeal of religions).
Likewise, I think his conception of history is mistaken and manifests a blind creedism (I’ll be arguing against it by proxy in the debate section in a little bit – assuming Dorky is still interested) so I’ll leave that for now.
But I am very interested in this book discussion. Let’s roll! Can’t wait for chapter 2.
I’m interested too…although I may be in the minority as I’ve actually read the book.
Hello Xun:
Can it truly be? Have we got a pulse going again? I had already ordered a cap stone for this door nail, but I am glad that some are interested. Let’s discuss:
— I’ve always disagreed with the idea that religious belief stems from a fear of death. If that were true, you’d expect old religions to have a fully developed afterlife – but you don’t see that.
O- I would only question here what do you take as ancient or “old”. Egyptian religion, for one, would qualify, I think, as old. The complexity of an afterlife need not be a consideration. What is developed is not the quality of life, which would be equal to “the good life”, in the afterlife but the quality of suffering, which is, I believe, derived from the fear of death which is the great unknown. Hell, in all it’s myriad forms is the most developed aspect of any afterlife. The fear of death is the fear of not-being-there or not having someone there anymore. Most people fear the absense caused by death and find in religion the language (including mannerisms) needed to express that longing. It might be understood as a make-believe game where the intent is to act as if the departed are just there behind apparent reality.
— Pretty much only relatively new religions have a well developed afterlife
O- Not really. Much more imaginative are the visions of hell than those of heaven because the fact of the matter is that life itself provide us with plenty of inspirating for suffering, a thousand phobias and ways to feel pain or discomfort; whereas heavens are pretty unimaginative and basically enjoins the concept of what is opposite of hell and sex, wealth and anything else we have lacked in life. Life being the medium, Heaven and Hell, where found, become pornographic presentations of human life.
— whereas in old religions it is either undefined or very poorly defined (and usually not terribly comforting either!).
O- How old are talking about here? I know that Buddhism and Hinduism see the life to afterlife in a cycle which they will teach you how to escape and reach Oneness with God or Nirvana, the moment where the flame is spent. There is no fear of non-being but fear of being eternally! But then, Xun, I would not say that Hinduism developed from the indifference or love of death. There is a bit of heroism in such an idea and that is why I am skeptical about it. The fear of death being discussed here is certainly not overtly demonstrated nor subject to awareness. The first hope that is fulfilled is that the soul does not perish in death-- this is considered by some the defining aspect of our humanity- that moment when we place a deceased loved one in a grave and hold on tight to his clothes or armour or whatever we consider the embodiment of his soul, and it is this that is derivative of the fear of death. Now, once the soul comes into existence in the human imagination it is free to be interpreted by the imagination. And it is here that adventures are provided to it’s existence. I advance this idea however: The adventures are substitutes to a richer existence. It is in the waining of belief in the afterlife that we feel the need to explain it. Originally the life of the soul was self-evident to loved ones. What happened to the soul after death was that it became invisible. The idea of ghosts, thus, is older than religion. Religions develop in the spirit of communal cohesion and the narrations become richer to be able to apply to familial/tribe traditions. Then it is not enough for the soul to sorta hang around the hearth. It’s existence is qualified as good or not good. The possibility of suffering in the afterlife itself develop creating fresh fears in the human consciousness in need of relief. So now a heaven must be invented and the afterlife of the soul must be attended to in this life. In the older religions, the afterlife becomes much like the life of man, a suffering that should end and relieved. Heaven/Nirvana becomes non-being or Oneness… and Hell is being or separateness and eternal separation even more so.
— Likewise, I think his conception of history is mistaken and manifests a blind creedism
O- “Creedism”? Explain…
Yeah, the Ancient Egyptian religion is the outlier in the sample of older religions. But look at most others. At best, you’ve got an ancestor cult going on. But where those ancestors are and what they are doing is pretty undefined. If you don’t tend to them, they’re gonna get you, but other than that it is a mystery. Other versions are simply poorly defined (the Jewish afterlife would be a good example here) or unpleasant (Greco-Roman). In Hinduism there isn’t an afterlife either, not really. Just life. And even that is a later addition to Hinduism, the oldest Vedic elements we have deal with rituals for appeasing gods and interacting with nature, not with the afterlife. If fear of death were the defining element of religious belief, you’d think it would play a bigger role!
If i may inject myself into the discussion… I think maybe religion’s original appeal was that it provided means for which people could control their own destiny. In a world where rain and plagues and other natural phenomena were the primary cause of your success or failure in life it’s very appealing to think that by saying a prayer or doing a dance that you can influence these events and somehow have a say in what your future will be. However as the times have changed, I think we’re far past those concerns. In todays world people look to religion to tell them that they are personally important… that they are not lost in the sea of humans that roam any given society. You are recognized as an individual soul and you have value as such. it used to be your skills and craft had value to society and you were identified and valued by your work, which no one else or very few others could porform… but now, everyone is replacable… no one person is essential to society… in religion they are given value for their souls… and just by existing they have a purpose and function to porform in the greater scheme of things… even if that purpose and function remain hidden… it’s good enough to know it’s there…
What i’m basically trying to say is that, I think today religion is more about giving meaning to your life, and allowing people to have value for something other than their work and skills. Either in this life or the next…
I don’t know if I expressed good enough. Let me try another angle. Religion is about control or the maintenance of the illusion of control over what is out of our control in life. It can be that death is not the primary preocupation but it is not because of the age of the beliefs but the social milieu under which such faith developed. Ancestor worship is probably more common in hunter societies, while God or gods that judge what we do in our life and decide the quality of our afterlife probably develop in more sophisticated societies such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. As Hitchens would put it this just goes to show the man-made aspect of religion. What I do say is that religion is NOT indifferent to death. Jewish religion is vague about Sheol, but this was a reaction, perhaps, against Egyptian religion by those who wrote the Torah. The farther they are separated from Egypt, jewish thinkers once again return to questions about what happens when we die.
What role do you expect death to play? Or ought to play if it was the primary concern? To me death plays A role regardless. We bury our dead, we dress them up, place them alongside their horses, their wealth etc. Even in India they are not indifferent to death and if death is explained as a return to nature again it is not without some assistance which is given in a religious procedure or burial rites such as placing the bodies in the river where they may be eaten by spiritual agents or burnt or even consumed, as in some parts of the world. What we do with human carcassess cannot be explain apart from religion.
I agree with the first part of what you said but I don’t think that religion necessarly compensates for our skill short-commings. It has too-broad appeal to be explained that way. Religion also requires the abasement of very talented people, but they are still appealed by it. But I think, like you, that religion is about control and this is why it appeals to the successful as well because it takes away the arbitrariness of success, making it their destiny, the will of God rather than a lucky conjunction of circumstances. But Hitchens does criticise the believer as a wild solipticist, fantasizing that God would suspend Creation for YOUR sake. But here you say something that really is important and that is “meaning”. Meaning is different for everybody, but most do not find it in what they do or in their skills. Today a mechanic just changed oils in various cars…who reallly cares. Today a surgeon saved a life…that will die tomorrow. As Ecclessiastes put it “all is meaningless” because all is cyclical and “chasing after the wind”. Religion may not have originally dealt centrally with meaning but it became about meaning and this happen because meaning is also tied with our idea of control. Meaning, it is hoped, will be given by God and it is why the Problem of Evil is so important to all religions, because in the final analysis it is really the Problem of Meaninglessness, the lackness of a proper definition, of a conscise narration of a final arbitrarer, of an intelligible chain of cause and effect…in short: Control.
The value of your soul is a means to an end not an end in itself. We value our life sometimes even if we don’t have many skills and then there are those who despise their lives even though they possess unique skills. But if there was just God, that by itself, does not impart value to a soul. It is heaven and hell, or the judgment of anOther that imparts value. The value of our soul is the means used to “buy” and bargain for favoral treatment, which is the end.