Eagleton has three arresting arguments. The first is that the greatest human traditions are those that contain their own best critique too. Take Plato. We keep reading him, not just because he raised fascinating questions, and proposed answers, but because he also showed why his philosophy could fail. “Tell the truth but tell it slant, Success in circuit lies,” wrote Emily Dickinson, charting the route by which flawed humans may nonetheless find wisdom.
Or consider Christianity. Christians in history have undoubtedly perpetrated many crimes. But their most fearsome judge is the very individual they claim to follow, the man who blessed peacemakers, tended lepers and loved enemies. Religion can be monstrous, like love – though like love, it also longs for the best. As the philosopher Bernard Williams realised:
That religion can be a nasty business (with its evil admitting God) is a fact built into any religion worth worrying about, and that is one reason why it has seemed to so many people the only adequate response to the nasty business that everything is.
Eagleton’s second point follows from this thought. He believes that the problem with the liberal humanism that the new atheists follow is its woeful underestimation of the horrors of which humans are capable. The defect in liberalism, he says, is that whilst it champions noble ideals, it has little to draw on when it comes to their “unsavoury incarnation” beyond the assertion of bland platitudes like the harm principle (do what you like, just don’t damage others.)
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This is intriguing. One of the problems I have with many of the atheists I know, is that they have made it into a new religion which incorporates many of the negative traits they hate Christianity for. The intolerance of other ideas, a sense that they want to control people’s thoughts, the drive to convert, even preaching. These are both their reasons for hating all organized religion, and yet these are their actions.
Seems like this book is important for these people to read especially. If Atheism continues down the path it seems to be treading, we may well see some of the same atrocities carried out in the name of No God.
All well and good, but the central principal underlying any religion is a belief in the existence of a god or gods. Whether followers of a religion are better or worse people than followers of another god or non-believers is irrelevant to the question of whether a believer’s god exists.
The fact that believers are as equally likely to be as good or bad as others if anything proves that their belief in their god has no bearing on their actions, and may also prove that their god has no influence either directly or indirectly on their actions. As such this argument “Atheists are bad too” seems meaningless to me.
So, prove to me with indisputable evidence your god exists and I’ll believe you. Otherwise, back off with the tambourine and let me finish my shopping.
As someone who flip flops between agnostic and aetheism I can say without a doubt I have not in any way “woeful underestimation of the horrors of which humans are capable”. If anything I am more “woeful” because if one of those horrors were to visit me I know that I am very likly not going to go to some fluffy white place in the sky where everyone plays stringed insturments and wears togas.
The second point seems totally ass backwards to me. Its that tired argument that I cant possibly have a set of morals if I dont have god in my life, oh but which god? Cause they all think they are the one true church.
aww crap! now I have gone and started my day out grumpy.
Whatever…
The question is…Do you question yourself, your values and your beliefs enough, to be valid?….Believer and non-believer alike.
isse simple
and to be valid means….´can honestly live with it.´
I think I’m missing something here… the book’s author is David Bentley Hart and you’re refering to Terry Eagleton. So who are we talking about again? I’m confused!
I can barely keep up with the book recommendations on this blog, goddamit. I only just started reading the last one. I keep diving to get hold of whatever is posted, though, because you’re yet to recommend something I haven’t liked.
I think I should read this, because sometimes I worry that I’m an atheist and I hang out with atheists and it’s all a big circlejerk, especially after reading this:
http://derrenbrownart.com/blog/?p=1966
Does anyone else worry about that?
I have religious friends, but it’s a hard subject to discuss without someone getting offended. I find it really hard to criticise a belief without a holder of it feeling personally attacked, although that’s not what I mean to do at all, but if you don’t discuss it with people there’s no dialogue, right?
I do think atheists can caricature beliefs in order to get a point across, and that doesn’t help anyone. It makes people feel insulted, and you end up arguing a strawman. I like Daniel Dennett for not doing this.
“He believes that the problem with the liberal humanism that the new atheists follow is its woeful underestimation of the horrors of which humans are capable. The defect in liberalism, he says, is that whilst it champions noble ideals, it has little to draw on when it comes to their “unsavoury incarnation” beyond the assertion of bland platitudes like the harm principle (do what you like, just don’t damage others.)”
Nonsense. In my experience, atheists are “woefully aware” of the horrors to which humans are capable. In many cases, that’s partially why they became atheists in the first place.
And religious people have as little to draw on as atheists do in times of trouble. Unless you consider “he’s with God now” anything more than a “bland platitude”.
I think there is some element of truth in saying that some atheists are gathering under a sort of a ‘new religion’ banner (broadly speaking), because as humans we seem to have a need to belong to a group, but atheism cannot externalise responsibility in the way that religion can.
Like anything else there is a danger in a type of ‘organised new atheism’ (for want of a better phrase) where people take ideas offered to them (by Dawkins or anyone else) and make them their own without understanding or thinking for themselves – and I say all of this as someone who would identify as an (sometimes quite vocal) atheist…
I’m with hansen on the whole “woeful underestimation of the horrors of which humans are capable”, liberal humanistic atheist or no, I can appriciate man and his capabilities, including his capability for horrific behaviour.
I’m an atheist and used to be a fairly contented moral relativist. ‘Don’t harm others’ is a fine maxim, simple and very complex at the same time. Also it seemed to make more sense than moral absolutes: who sets those, if ‘moral’ actions are those that contribute to the greater good of society?
However, I’ve recently come to question the value of this fuzzy, intuitive approach to Right and Wrong. I work with young children (religions various and irrelevant) and – just by coincidence – a very Christian adult. She is a total absolutist about Right & Wrong – and I have surprised myself by coming round to this. I think it’s really valuable in a classroom, or society at large, to have ideals like “Dishonesty is *always* wrong”. Sure, individuals are always more important than ideals but I reckon both are necessary.
So, now I have to figure out how to nick ideals from religion and bring them into my atheism. Becoming a deist isn’t an option; atheism is my alternative to religion; but I also need some of the moral structures and philosophies that religion has been working on for thousands of years.
But Marie, I don’t think it can be simple because both believer and non-believer can’t be right. Both believers and non-believers do question themselves and their standpoints – and they come to completely different conclusions. Both are doing the best they can according to their own access to information and their own experiences, right? So questioning yourself can’t be enough. I think you need to question other people, and be questioned by them, or you’ll just reinforce your own possibly circular arguments.
I became an atheist through thinking for myself, by challenging what I had been taught from birth and by studying the contradictions in the world around me. I find it amazing that there are some in society who are seemingly scared by people who have thought about things rather than blindly accepted a faith. Surely those who contemplate life and the world we live in without being blinkered by a religious outlook are exactly the sort of people who are going to value and make the best of this one life we have.
I can appreciate what you mean about becoming an atheist after questioning things, but implying that religious people are all blinkered and scared is part of the problem that both sides have with communication. I’ve heard religious people say that atheists are close-minded and blind, and I find it really upsetting and insulting. It’s also unfair to say that they’re scared of people who have “thought about things rather than blindly accepted,” because I don’t think a religious person necessarily HAS blindly accepted everything without thinking. I think they thought wrongly, obviously, or I wouldn’t be disagreeing with them, but it’s not fair to imply that they haven’t thought at all.
Plato … never read him and will not read him. Your own brain can come up with all the same things all by yourself .. if only you would take time to ponder upon things. Taking it in from someone else is not the same. It will not become yours down there … although you might remember once .. what you read and what you sort of did not get completely … you finally see it … via own experience down there … There\’s two in us who learn and read things … one is a bit slower … but that\’s the one that is the most important … that\’s you … the other one is the one that is quite often the intermediair with the outside world.
@SGC…yes, i think youre absolutely right there…and frankly, that (questioning others and yourself to compare it with your own values) is what i meant with ´do you question yourself enough´…as i think questioning: is a continuing proces of comparing and fitting…and being able to live with it yourself…respecting other views
so in that sense it stays quite simple…
It becomes a problem when other views start to influence your personal/sphere too much…or become a threat even…that´s when a clash of will occures …and on larger scale war…That risk, i am afraid, will never ever entirely leave us all…or you would have to find the answer to: `how can we get the entire human race on the same concious level´…not going to happen?
I llike that Phillis pointed out that Jesus asks us to strive for the best, for love, forgiveness,helping those in need. and yet in history Christianity and well as other religions have been known for perpetrating appalling crimes.
I truly think that the people that were responsible for those crimes were pursing thier own political agendas, in the name of religion. When it was really a matter of power and influence, and corruption of the human heart.
There are some, dare I say, really evil people out there. People who wouldn’t think twice at raping a 1 yr old child, or murdering a complete family for the sake of it. It’s something that disturbs me.
What is it in the human heart that allows for such corruption and desolation?
Dawkins has some very valid and interesting points. Fascinating to listen to.
Diana:
http://www.lucifereffect.com
Hmmm, seems I threw the cat among the pigeons. We are all coloured by our own experiences and I apologise if my earlier comment offended. My personal experience is one of growing up in a household where I was expected to blindly accept the religion I was brought up in. When I hit teenage years and started to question what I was being taught I was met with an attitude of no discussion allowed – it was right, I was wrong. It took me a long time and a lot of courage to escape and stand up for what I think to be correct. An example of how much this affected me is the fact that my first child was baptised to avoid parental disapproval whereas my second is not. I was advised in no uncertain terms that my choice was wrong.
Having said all that I do recognise that most of the morals that I live by are seen as being Christian. Whether they originated from Christianity is debatable as outlined by Dawkins in The God Delusion. The morals of society undergo continuous evolution and this is demonstrated by the fact that, in the UK at least, it is no longer the norm to get married before you have children. Senior religious figures would no doubt put that down to loss of faith.
Here is a great example of someone who did not question the religious beliefs they were brought up with and then one day the blinkers slipped to reveal a different view of the world: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/athletics/article1991114.ece
“All well and good, but the central principal underlying any religion is a belief in the existence of a god or gods.”
Except, of course, Buddhism.
There are also a few entirely on ancestor worship too – especially in Africa, Papua New Guinea and Native America.
I respect athiesm as a personal belief founded on all kinds of sources (not just Mr Science 2009
– Dawkins – but all the way back to Diagoras of Melos and Epicurus). Yet I find some of the vociferous anti-religiousness to be just as tiresome and self-important as pro-religion. But then I hate being told how to think by anyone.
Fortunately, I have very good personal experiences with both religion and athiesm so sometimes it is difficult to reconcile the entirely negative view some people have of either. I guess we are all personally influenced in these matters. It’s an emotive debate.
I don’t mind Eagleton but I find him a bit dry and some of his once-Marxist ideals don’t fit with my world view. Still maybe I’ll check it out once I’ve done with this Jilly Cooper here LOL.
epynephrin, check out a marlon brando movie (really!) called “burn!”, which does a good job of illustrating this phenom.