What do philosophy and religion have in
common? The main similarity between philosophy and
religion is that both seek knowledge of intangibles—meaning, purpose,
value, ultimate origins and destinies, and the like.
This contrasts with science, which is concerned with
knowledge of empirically verifiable and measurable phenomena—matter and energy in the
natural sciences, and human behavior in the social sciences—and
discovering and understanding the natural principles governing all of these.
The scope of science is strictly limited to what's observable,
either directly (as with light and motion) or indirectly (as
with gravity, magnetism, and x-rays). This is not a
shortcoming of science, but rather a strength, to acknowledge
the extent of its own domain and not to presume to comment on
what might lie beyond it. Consequently,
science doesn't lend itself to the study of the unobservable,
such as belief, purpose, spirit, value, and virtue. So, if we intend to
study such things, we must rely on some means other than
science. Both philosophy and religion offer ways to do
this, but their approaches are very different. Whereas
religion relies heavily on faith and belief in authoritarian
doctrine, philosophy relies primarily on critical inquiry
and methodical reasoning. Using a common listing for
discussions of these differing approaches to often similar
subjects would seem a fairly intuitive arrangement.
Why does an atheist have a Religion page? In one sense—the belief that gods do not
exist—atheism falls into the category of belief, if not in
divine entities, then at least about them. But in
another sense—absence of belief in the existence or
non-existence of gods—atheism expresses neither a thesis nor
an antithesis of religion, but rather intellectual
indifference to it. So, atheism, in the sense of active
disbelief, could be associated with the category of religion
(in the sense that the concept of "nothing" is associated with
the category of "all concepts"),
while in the sense of passive unbelief, atheism is not a religion
in any sense of the word. However, the inevitable link
in either case is that, whenever the word atheism comes up in
conversation, it is always in some relationship to religious
belief and believers; if the matter of religion is not at
issue, the topic of atheism simply never comes up. Yet
as an atheist, I can testify that it does come up now and
again—perhaps most often in the context of using public
(tax-supported) resources to promote one religion or another.
So that I needn't spend an inordinate portion of my time
responding to the same old harangues again and again, I have a
religion page to address the most common questions and
challenges, and also to draw attention to areas of common
interest between believers and non-believers.
Even today, it's probably still fair to say
that many, if not most, atheists are converts from one
religion or another, so they have some first-hand experience
of belief systems. In contrast, relatively few currently
religious people have had any first-hand experience as
genuine atheists. Consequently, their understanding of atheism
is very spotty, speculative, and riddled with misinformation
that typically goes unchallenged within their accustomed social
circles. Misinformation gives rise to misunderstanding,
which can give rise to fear, which can give rise to hatred,
at each stage reinforced by group misperceptions and
biases. The resulting social friction becomes a problem—a problem that could
be alleviated with simple reality checks, if only
folks can be persuaded to remove their ideological blinders
for a moment. The religion
portion of this section is intended to address this problem,
offering first-hand information about atheism from someone who's
actually been an atheist for most of his life, and who's
thus in a position to know something about it. Moreover,
this atheist is also a former Christian; so while he can't
claim to be unbiased, at least he enjoys the
advantage of having viewed the matter of religion from both sides of the
fence, so to speak.
So, what is the
Philosophy & Religion section all about? Like humanity itself, it's a work in progress.
I expect it will become somewhat different
from what it has been so far. When this website's
precursor, The Gent's Lounge, germinated back in 1998, the "Philosophy & Religion" section was shaped by these factors:
Though reared a mainstream Protestant,
in early adulthood I'd come to see Christianity's tenets as
untenable in light of:
its internal inconsistencies;
its lack of correspondence to
observable reality;
its failure to reconcile its Bronze-Age
morality and monarchic ideals with an Industrial- and
Information-Age
democratic environment; and
its inability to demonstrate itself
any more credible (or less incredible) than any other religious belief system.
The religious demographic in the United
States was over 70% mainstream Christian, about 20% fundamentalist
Christian, less than 5% non-Christian belief (mainly Judaism), and 5%
secularist (religious
disbelief and indifference).
Fundamentalist Christians had acquired a
measure of national political influence in the 1980s, and
consequently
idealism had begun to edge out realism in the public arena.
Finding myself in a minority, I couldn't
help noticing a widespread attitude among the Christian
majority, that they viewed themselves as entitled to say and do whatever they
liked—including enacting pro-Christian laws despite the
anti-establishment clause of the Constitution's First
Amendment—without regard for the legitimate rights and
sensibilities of non-Christians.
Though I'd been given to philosophical
thought since my mid teens, I'd had no formal
training in the field.
Under those conditions, philosophical input here was
minimal. Most of this section's content was intended to address the
mountains of misinformation propagated by the religion
industry, both about itself and about others. Under a
hail of such half-truth and utter nonsense—some well meaning, some vicious—this website
became my humble public shelter for sanity.
Since that time, the situation has evolved:
America's religious demographic has
shifted. According to a study by the Roman Catholic
Church, fundamentalist Christianity has grown slightly to
about 25% of the U.S. population, and non-Christian beliefs (Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism, Wicca, etc.) have made marginal gains. The
big changes since the 1980s have involved two groups: secularists, whose numbers have more
than trebled to between 15 and 20% of Americans; and mainstream
Christians, whose ranks have declined to about 50%.
The public
shift (evidenced in government) from realism to idealism has
accelerated, now reflecting not only extreme religious
views, but also crackpot political and economic dogmas
having little if anything to do with observed reality.
As a result, the U.S. now lags other developed countries in
science and industry, and seems on the verge of economic
regression to a do-over of the 19th-century plutocratic era of "robber barons"
living off the toil of underpaid millions.
I'm still in a minority, but now at
least in a steadily growing and increasingly respected one
(outside the Bible Belt), as it already is in Europe.
However, I find it disturbing that religious extremism is
expanding at the expense of mainstream belief, thus giving
rise to a pathologically polarized and anti-intellectual
climate that interferes with our collective ability to address serious
problems realistically.
I've earned a
baccalaureate in philosophy, focusing on critical thinking
and ethics, but with a broad curriculum in natural and
social sciences, history, economics, .
In my post-retirement education, I've
invested the time and effort to expand upon the standard liberal arts
curriculum to include a more than cursory acquaintance with
math and statistics, natural and social sciences, micro- and
macro-economics, world history, comparative religion,
languages, and fine arts. The aim of this cover-the-map approach
to learning has
been to become passably knowledgeable in an unusually broad
spectrum of major disciplines, using a quasi-scientific approach to
philosophy as a means to distinguish the probably true from
the impossibly nonsensical, and to integrate the former into a
comprehensive (and hopefully coherent) worldview from which to
ponder the world's problems. That is, to understand the
important specialties of the world, perhaps not well enough to
be expert in any of them, but well enough to be able to see
the key interrelationships among them, and thus to envision
how difficulties could be resolved, the whole of civilization
better harmonized, and general well-being thus enhanced.
It's certainly not how the average college youngster would prepare for
a specialized career! But it's how this eccentric
oldster prepares to organize, integrate, distill, and present
his insights for whatever value they might have to those who
lack the time and opportunity to become
comprehensively educated themselves. As a result, it's expected that the focus and
tone of the Philosophy & Religion section will gradually
change.
What are the prospects?
With respect to religion, it isn't my mission to convert
people to my own way of thinking; I don't need the belief of
others to justify my own viewpoint. What I do consider
my mission here is to challenge the misinformation machinery of fundamentalist
factions of all stripes, to point out peculiarities of
religion, to expose outrages and absurdities uttered by some
of its
leaders, and to hold out an encouraging hand to those who've
opted for non-belief on their own terms and initiative.
I anticipate this will continue, with some refinements but
less output, on topics already addressed. Over time, I
expect to make some revisions and deletions of content here,
with the intent of softening the tone, where it might be
somewhat confrontational, to a more informational and
explanatory mode of
expression.
As to philosophy, I intend to emphasize it
more, with the aim of demonstrating the practical merits
of critical thinking. My ultimate objectives are (1) to
stimulate in average people an interest in the practical
aspects of this field too long confined to the
ivied towers of academia, and (2) to persuade educators to
incorporate the teaching of basic methodical reasoning, as such,
into the standard high school curriculum. It's my hope that
Americans might once again come to value and develop intellect as an indispensable tool, rather than
treat it as
an out-of-style embarrassment, and that our nation
might someday regain its former status as a well informed and
rationally progressive and innovative leader of modern civilization.
Do I need to know
anything about philosophy to understand the material?
No. Most material here is written in a style intended to
be accessible to high-school-educated adults. While
readers
should have the general vocabulary of a literate adult and be
prepared to exercise their brains, they needn't have any
formal background in philosophy. The focus here is not the
speculative musings of past ages, but rather some practical
ideas that can be applied to advantage by ordinary thinking
people in the twenty-first century. So, if you're
looking for yet another scholarly critique of Plato or Kant
or Sartre written for philosophy wonks, you're out of luck
here! But if you're seeking ways to make your thinking
more coherent and better organized, with the aim of becoming more effective
as a decision-maker and less susceptible to the
rhetorical wiles of advertisers and politicians, then read on.
In 2010, I introduced a free, self-paced
course in practical reasoning techniques at a new
4thR.org website. The
philosophical portion of the Philosophy & Religion section of this site will
deal with issues directly involving aspects of philosophy,
while much of the rest of the website will serve as a
showcase and demonstration area for assorted applications of
valuable critical thinking skills that can be applied to both
ordinary and extraordinary problems, not just in philosophy
itself, but in any field that stands to benefit from earnest
inquiry and methodical reasoning—which is to say, any field in
which investigating reality and pursuing truth are important.
=SAJ=