Yr6 Week 21 - No Water Dear

As for,
Faith resides where belief dies
maybe "Faith resides where explanations die" ?

Good one Ken. The word seems like a great choice, for the reasons you gave, and it also seems to offer better possibilities for the singer. I was finding it hard to phrase the original without either stuttering on the word 'belief' or else having to pronounce it in away that sounded, well, not quite believable...

Thanks for the explanation about the 'ladies' too. I obviously wasn't paying attention there. :wink:

Cheers,

Chris

Hey Chris,

As an ex-Philosophy and Politics student, it's hardly surprising that I find all of this a fascinating topic to ponder! :lol: I must confess that I have only read parts of the God Delusion; I have heard him speak at Oxford a bunch of times, but even that was a few years ago.I hope none of this discussion gets banned, since I feel quite strongly that discussion the logic of philosophy and how it pertains to religion and religious philosophy can be carried out without entering into a debate about the merits of specific religions, and thus it should not cause offence to any believers or non-believers.

Unfortunately, since proof of god's existence is essentially a philosophic concern rather than a scientific one, I think Dawkins enters this debate ill-equipped to fully grasp the topic. Not that scientists are incapable of considering these matters fully, but that he fails to consider the key issues and constraints involved in this debate.

I clearly did misrepresent Dawkins somewhat in my earlier post; I hope you can attribute that to the post being a hurried explanation of the content of my song, rather than a measured evaluation of his work.

It is my understanding that the scientific method proposed by Dawkins is based upon the principles of logic, as is pretty much all scientific enquiry for that matter. And this is the problem I have with Dawkins and his style of pseudo-philosophizing. I doubt he has investigated the field well enough to comment productively to the debate.

Meh. More later, I have something important to say, but just got a really important phone call I gotta deal with.

Edit: I'm back now....

Okay, I fully agree with Bertie when he says " But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense" but in the case in hand (the orbiting teapot) there is, quite definitely an answer - either there is a teapot orbiting earth, or there isn't. Furthermore, although he carefully structures his example to avoid the notion of proof being obtainable, it is a case where the answer doesn't really matter. The existence or otherwise of the orbiting teapot has no bearing on how we live our lives, or what happens after our lives have ended. And belief or non-belief in this object similarly has little effect.

But religion clearly does affect how we live (as he later notes, although he is more concerned with it's negative effects than it's positive effects). As an object, religion is clearly more substantive than an orbiting teapot. And this is where the analogy starts to look fragile. Because epistemology has demonstrated that there truths for which no proof can be given (Godel famously proposed this in his Immpossibility Theorem, having being inspired, as Bertie was, by Frege). Michael Dummett also demonstrates the failings of truth-values as a philosophical concept when gave the example of Caesar crossing a bridge, and asks us "Did Caesar scratch his nose while walking across the bridge, or not?" In his example, there must be an answer, but there is no way of proving what the answer is; we cannot apply a truth-value to it. But Dummett, being a little more sophisticated in his philosophical investigations, also argues that, while there are undoubtedly propositions for which we can apply no truth-value, such propositions should not be summarily dismissed as invalid, or unworthy of our attention. Religion would, I argue, be a clear example of such a proposition.

Furthermore, I would argue that Kierkegaard was onto something when he said that being able to apply any truth-value to religion would necessarily undermine it, negate it even. Truth-values can only apply to propositions within the realm of logic and reason, but our beliefs about religion are substantively distinct from that realm, since proving the existence (or otherwise) of god would make the whole enterprise of religious "duty"* rather redundant.

Now, one could look at Bertie's orbiting teapot and Dummett's Caesar and say that William of Ockham was onto something with his razor. An ontology of the world should include only what is necessary to describe the world and no more. If a theory includes things that are superfluous, we should reject that theory. And often, Ockham's razor is a reasonable argument. Realists generally use Ockham's razor to reject theories with which they disagree. It doesn't prove anything, or settle anything, but it does give a strong philosophical justification for e.g. believing that there is no orbiting teapot, since an orbiting teapot would be superfluous in our ontology of the world (by world, I mean universe, everything in existence). But I couldn't classify religion as being in any way superfluous to an ontology of the world, and so I think a simple shaving here would be lazy philosophizing indeed. Religion and religious philosophy has a massive impact upon our lives, both negative and positive.

Without Ockham's razor, the only logical conclusion is to say "We cannot prove nor disprove the existence of god, therefore I shall not believe in either the existence or non-existence of god."** A somewhat agnostic position to take (I say somewhat since agnosticism itself is a wide label covering many varied positions).

And, from here, there are two ways of developing one's thoughts about religion. One is to argue that we have investigated as far as we can, and leave it at that (a realist conclusion). The other is to assert that logic alone is not a sufficient toolbox with which to understand the world, and that there must be something further. This further thing would be, as Kiekergaard contended, faith. And faith would apply equally to the believer and the atheist for both have moved to positions beyond the realm of logic and thus have only faith to support their positions. Even the arch-Realist, Dummett, accepted the notion that in some areas, anti-realism (i.e. a rejection of the Ockham's Razor principle) would be the sensible move to make, and I am inclined to think he was referring to religion at least in part here (although, to the best of my knowledge, he never made this explicit).

Coming back to my lyrics briefly, that's why I wrote the line "Faith resides where belief dies" knowing that it would not be immediately clear to most people what I meant. But the qualitative difference between faith and belief is a crucial one, and understanding it would, imho, have a positively humbling effect on all who participate in religious debate. For beliefs are strictly within the realm of logic; we can only hold beliefs about things which could have a truth-value. It is argued that "to know x means to have a justified true belief about x". It isn't sufficient to simply believe x and for x to be true, we have to have justified reason for our assenting to x being true. And it isn't sufficient to have justified reasons for believing x, because x could be false. Both justification for the belief and the truth of the belief are required to know the thing we hold the belief about. Belief, knowledge, and truth-values are all part of logic. But faith is beyond logic, and as such beyond the components of logic. Therefore our tools of logical analysis will not serve us well when considering faith. Topics to which faith may pertain could include religion, love, other emotions (which logic has no answer or illumination for, since emotion is essentially arrational). But faith, by it's very definition does not submit to the scientific method. And I doubt Dawkins fully realises the importance of this, or he wouldn't have attempted a scientific method.

Bertie was a great philosopher, but very strongly analytical in his philosophy. Both he and Dawkins, when writing about religion, were/are writing from a primarily polemical and emotive position (both are rightly outraged by the atrocities committed in the name of religion), and as such both fail to address the debate on the grounds on which it should be held. I'm critical of both of them for this, partly because it is shoddy philosophy, and partly because I don't agree that this is method of argument against religion is the best way of dealing with the negative impact of religious faith. Acknowledging the different ground upon which religious faith is constructed is an inclusive form of discourse, since no one is excluded from participating (whereas the general vibe of both B and D tends to be "I can argue that your fundamental assumptions about the world are false - not a very good way to engage the people you're trying to engage - I too often feel the only people either really reach are those already converted to their position). Furthermore, it encourages those who participate in the debate to themselves be inclusive of others, and it humbles us by making us realising the inherent lack of strong justification for actions motivated by religious faith.

As for what tools might serve us better for our investigations into faith? I noted the shortcomings of Bertie's analytical method, and feel that a phenomenological method of enquiry might serve us better here. Continental philosophy has long been derided in primarily analytical institutions (such as Oxford) but has provided us with insights into matters such as personal identity, time, and ethics, that analytical philosophy took many more years to reach, as well as having many useful practical application (e.g. Louis Sass's work at Rutgers into the phenomenology of psychiatric illness). But a full discussion of phenomenology would no doubt be beyond the purview of a "response to Dawkins" so I'll save it for now.

And if this gets banned, I'd be pretty perplexed, since I have decidedly avoided mentioning any specific religion, have neither supported, nor undermined any religion, and have generally avoided all religious discussion entirely. Besides, if anything, this post is a meta-religious post, and not a religious post at all. :wink:

*My quotation marks there - by "duty" I mean the general pondering of matters such as morality, the reason for our existence, the reason for our emotions and how they should (or shouldn't inform our behaviour), and what happens after we die, and as such I hope to define "duty" in a manner which is equally relevant to both believers and non-believers. Interestingly, Kiekergaard (himself a strong Christian) also wrote that a Christian should never call themselves a Christian, since Christ was the definition of a perfect Christian and one could never achieve that level of perfection. Instead, he felt it more accurate to say one is "becoming a Christian" reflecting (and perhaps reminding oneself) of the continual nature of walking that path towards full enlightenment. The point being that the destination of perfection can never be reached. An idea which, I think, could hold for all religious positions.

** A more interesting development of this position is that taken by Wittgenstein in On Certainty and his Tractatus, where he says (paraphrase/remembered quote) "About that which we cannot speak/have no words, let us be silent." This does not necessarily mean we should ignore such matters completely, but certainly means we should restrict our thoughts to the purely private domain. Wittgenstein and Kiekergaard have a fair bit in common in their approaches, although (again, to the best of my knowledge) Ludwig was not particularly familiar with the Old Dane.

So, where's my award for GN's longest post ever? Nick? David? NICK? :lol:

Excellent! :mrgreen:

I've just copied that off the screen, so that I can read through it again in a less eye-boggling form than the forum layout. Great to hear Oxford mentioned (I was born in that city - I expect you saw the plaque... :roll: ) and to see so many fascinating characters squeezed into one post.

I'll try and get back to it later, but a quick reaction was that I think we both agree that Dawkins spends a great deal of time pointing out the short-comings of various religions (quoting many examples that are hard to disagree with) but very little on acknowledging all the social, personal and ethical positives that are also part of their basic fabric and underlying aims.

I also think that if you wish to counter any strongly held belief - whether it's a scientific or religious one, the only way to fully succeed is to present a stronger candidate to replace it with. Rival religions routinely do this with each other's territory, but followers of secular paths seem to have been less successful in marketing a complete package. There seems to be more of a drift away from specific religions, rather than a deliberate journey towards an attractively presented non-deity-based alternative. I guess that buddhists would say that they have done so, and perhaps scientologists might too, but I confess that I really don't know anything about the latter, and not enough as I'd like about the former either.

I attended somewhere between 4 and 5 thousand compulsory religious services as a child, and my Dad - who was a farmer - studied for the priesthood and became a minister late in life. So I've had a chance to get a good look from more than one angle. It's a profoundly interesting subject. :)

Anyway, gotta go....

Cheers,

Chris

PS Perhaps we ought to continue the debate entirely in song. Now there's a project... :wink:

My rhyming dictionary offers no matches for Søren Kiekergåard...

My rhyming dictionary offers no matches for Søren Kiekergåard...
Upon consulting Dr. Seuss's rhyming dictionary I found
Borin' tub of lard
Scorin' is so hard
Pourin' really hard
Foreign credit card
Roarin' jet canard
Snorin' French retard . . .
. . . but that's Dr. Seuss for ya.

I'll read all that when I get back from my trip . . . see y'all in about a week . . .

and yeh, that definitely qualifies for longest post . . . you did your screen name justice.

So, where's my award for GN's longest post ever? Nick? David? NICK? :lol:

Did I hear someone mention brevity?

:D :D :D

Vic

Oh yeah - Sara, nice to see you're still working on old songs, as well as trying to write something new. That's the sign of a good song, it just won't give up and go away.

re: religion and faith - I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, sort of fell away from the church about 30 years or so ago, and found myself thinking lately, there's something missing lately from my life. I'm a little lost, a little in limbo if you like - do I believe, don't I believe? What exactly do I believe in?

I'm still trying to decide that for myself. I'll let you know if I ever figure it out.

I did get a song out of that very dilemma once - about halfway through year six - but I'm not even sure if I still believe what I wrote back then. Or even if I believed it at the time....

Confused? You bet I am!

:D :D :D

Vic

My rhyming dictionary offers no matches for Søren Kiekergåard...

Best I can do in 10 minutes..

Descartes, Russell, Kierkegaard..
Philosophy's too bloody hard
If Ockam, Wittgenstein and Godel
Cause the mental soup to curdle
Try Plato, Aristotle, Kant
Then stand well back and let ‘em rant

But why not pick a god instead
To run your life and rule your head?
Find a guru, pick a saint
To tell you all about what is and ain't
If the weighty thinkers fried you
Relax, and let the spirits guide you

But gods can be a jealous lot
And banish us to places hot...
So I've thought it briefly through
And this might work for me, or you
Let music be our light and hope
And follow Waits instead of Pope...

(That would be Tom, and either Alexander the Poet/philosopher or one of the other kinds of pope...) :wink:

Cheers,

Chris

tempted to be drawn in to philosophical debate... but since I know I'm right there's no need. just kidding, of course. the song to me seems to be about a searching... and you're searching for a tune. It may be hardest to get that first Dylan song out of your head, but just pick up your guitar and experiment with different chord progressions. Hum along (don't try to fit the words in quite yet) until you've got something that feels like the mood you want. Try to put words in. Tweak the tune. Tweak the lyrics. Make it your own.

Jeremy