God bless C-Span. Last weekend, the paparazzi of the smart-set broadcast the debate on religion between Sam Harris (The End of Faith) and Reza Aslan (No God But God) at a public library in Los Angeles. A debate on religion is always a quarrel, so I promptly hit record on the remote to watch it all in slo-mo later.
Unfortunately, the mediator, Jonathan Kirsch, a soft-spoken, bear-like dude with a no-nonsense legal letter-pad, kept the pugilists from making any sudden Tysonesque moves. Kirsch's the author of A History Of The End Of The World. After a book like that, I guess he can handle anything.
The score? Well, Harris won. Reza circled round and round a profoundly oft-misunderstood point about profound transcendent experiences that had profoundly to do with context and interpretation sensitive to people's transcendent experiences that profoundly need no validation external to the fact of it being a profound transcendent experience.
Okay, that's unfair. Reza's a smart guy. He's articulate to a fault. He was at his best when he dealt in facts. When Harris claimed the Israel-Palestine conflict was a religious one, it didn't take Reza long to demonstrate Harris didn't know what he was talking about.
For the most part, Reza tried to explain away the irrationality of religion via rational arguments. It's the kind of contortion that'd get even B. K. S. Iyengar's knickers in a twist.
As I see it, Reza's main argument was that most rational questions about religion were misconstrued. Religion wasn't about facts, the domain of science, but about "a sacred history." "Sacred history" was like ordinary history except that one didn't take the described events too seriously.
To ask whether Moses really parted the Red Sea or whether the world was really created in less than a week or whether Ganpati really has an elephant's head was to miss the point. The correct question was to ask what these stories mean for their believers. To keep harping on truth, evidence, and logic was to be unsophisticated. Profoundly unsophisticated.
I was reminded of a joke in The Recruit. It's part of a scene where Al Pacino is explaining — hoarse voice, bloodhound visage, leathery skin and all — to his protégée in the C.I.A. why he decided to betray another three letter agency, namely, the U.S.A:
"There's this parish priest, goes up to the pope, drops down on his knees, starts weeping, asking forgiveness. 'Holy Father, Holy Father, what am I to do? What am I to do? I do not believe in God anymore. What am I to do?' You know what the pope said? 'Fake it.' "
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Irene Mettler
I think these ”multi-layered veils of interpretation“ aren’t as ridiculous as you think. The key to understanding gods with elephant heads doesn’t lie in history or religion or science, but in art. When we look at an old painting, or statue, or a temple or cathedral, we see only the surface, but we don’t understand their meaning any more. With the invention of printing we by and by lost the language of iconography. Only art historians can decipher those paintings, and even they don’t understand everything.
Gods with elephant heads, the virgin Mary, heavenly ascensions, Moses and the Red Sea are images. We have forgotten to read those images, we don’t know their vocabulary any more.
And we have forgotten to think in many levels at the same time. When you study medieval history one of the first things you learn is that everything, even the most trivial everyday object, had several layers of meaning, and not only for philosophers and theologians, but for everybody. It sounds paradox and absurd, but not THEY were illiterate, but WE have become illiterate. WE don’t understand what they tell us.
When we see an archaeological excavating like Catal Huyuk or Knossos, we see patterns on bowls and scratched paintings, but we have no idea what they meant for the people who made them. Now, of course, we could say that they are nonsense, because we don’t understand their meaning, but that would be ignorant.
I think that it’s the same with the language of myths and, therefore, religion. Some people understand it or, at least, respect it, and some people don't.
2 - Anil Menon
Thanks for the comment, Irene.
Ref: "We have forgotten to read those images, we don't know their vocabulary any more." I'm not sure that's entirely true. There's no doubt that there's a lot of symbolism in *art*-- Christian or otherwise-- but much of the source material is meant to be taken literally. This is especially true of miracles. Miracles drive religions and need to have happened. Even today, Indian godmen and godwomen (like Satya Sai Baba, Kalki Bhagavan and innumerable others) acquire their followers based on the miracles they've supposedly performed. Actual miracles, not symbolic ones. The Catholic Church also has similar standards for sainthood. The it's-all-symbolism interpretation allows intelligent people to hold on to their religions as rational enterprises. But true believers don't see their holy texts as literary ventures. If they did, these texts would have the same status as, say, Shakespeare's works or Euripides' plays.
3 - Irene Mettler
Thank you very much for your reply.
I like your implication that true believers can’t be intelligent ;-))
But seriously - Shakespeare's works and Euripides’ plays are dramas, not myths. Both poets used myths, though.
Lear, for example, is a very old myth that you will find in many forms in northern Europe. Or Romeo and Juliet " you can find the basis of this story in Greek mythology and German folk songs and anywhere between. To say nothing of Medea, Elektra and The Bacchae. The Bacchae are especially interesting, since some theories say that the Dionysos myth was one of the main influences of the Christian myth. Anyway, those myths are so old that we have no idea where they come from.
What I talk about isn’t symbolism. The ancient layers of reality were real. The Dream Time of Indigenous Australians is real and it exists simultaneously to “our” world.
Anselm of Canterbury says somewhere in his work that if you can imagine an island, then this island is real. I asked my history professor how such an intelligent man could talk such nonsense, and he explained that between us and Anselm there is Immanuel Kant who completely changed our view of reality. However, that doesn’t mean that we are right and everybody before Kant was wrong. Kant’s philosophy just meant the end of magical thinking for most of the Western world. We just lost a dimension of reality.
Now, “true believers”, as you said, may not know this background, but they live it. I, for example, have no problem connecting my knowledge of the fact that the Christian myth is just the youngest of many resurrection myths with my belief in God.
This doesn't mean, of course, that there aren't intolerant, fundamentalist, stupid or outright crazy people out there.
4 - Baronius
The relative importance of literalism - wow, that's a broad issue. It varies by religion. Specifics about the Buddha's life aren't taken literally, but (as in your quote from 1 Corinthians) specifics about Jesus's are. It also varies by denomination: witness the Southern Baptist controversies.
Literalism doesn't necessarily contradict symbolism, though. I like the way Jewish scholars put it. There are four levels of understanding of a passage in the Torah: the literal, the allegorical, the exegetical, and the mystical. This allows for a belief in the surface truth of a story and for discerning meaning behind a story.
I hope that wasn't too far off-topic.
5 - Anil Menon
OK, now I see what you mean. Perhaps these parallel worlds exist, and perhaps the ancients had an access to them we don't. I know my parents lived their religion in the sense you describe. It didn't matter to them whether what they believed was true or not. They got a great deal of comfort from the tradition.
However, the way I see it is that in the last 500 years, we've grown in our understanding of the divine. But that understanding has come with a price; truth now trumps comfort. I'd liken it to those elaborate mythical stories of why the eclipses occur; once found in every culture, highly meaningful to the ancients, and rich in half-truths. But now the weather channel has no need of mythologists to talk about eclipses. Ditto for morality, meaningfulness of the universe, and other supposed tasks of religion. I don't deny that the divine, if it exists, would be interesting to study. But I'd want to study it the same way we now study eclipses or neuroscience. We don't lose anything except the desire to fix the answers in advance.
6 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Anil,
Baronius has hit the nail on the head here. Jewish scholars posit these four levels of understanding because they claim that the Torah is the blueprint for the universe.
They argue that the entire universe is either one sixteenth or one sixty-fourth of the Torah.
What is the implication here? At the p'shat, the literal level, the Torah says the universe was created in six days. But at the very first word of the Torah, we run into a problem. The word b'reshit does not mean "in the beginning" as it is commonly translated. It means "with a first cause." In short, the proper reading of the Torah should be "With a first cause G-d created the heavens and the earth." What is that first cause? According to the rabbis, this is found in Proverbs, Chapter 8. There we see, after looking some, that "wisdom" is the "first cause".
So why waste your time with this? If you look at how any physicist looks at the big bang, he sees a process that begins with E - energy, but before the energy, he has nothing. This is the whole point of the big bang theory. Something comes from nothing. If one posits "wisdom" before the energy, one has a first cause as the Hebrew Bible describes it.
Is this true? That is the essential question here. Looking at Dr. Gerald Schroeder's website one sees Dr. Schroeder draw out this concept in better detail, introducing the idea that the universe appears to be more mind than matter.
If an increasing number of scientists from various disciplines are coming to this conclusion, they are recognizing "Wisdom." Does this prove G-d? Of course not. But there is a book that is pretty old that says that "With wisdom as a first cause, G-d created the heavens and the earth."
This is not proof at all. But you do have an approach to a working hypothesis.
You just got the synopsis of a future article, by the way...
Note that this is not Biblical 'literalism' at all. From one point of view, you can have "six days" of creation. That is the surface text. From another point of view you can have fifteen billion years, divided into six stages - the d'rash or exegisis (from The Science of G-d, Dr. Gerald Schroeder). Both will be true.
The universe is far greater than our puny imaginations. We humans have, in the past 500 years, figured out a lot of the obvious mechanics of the universe. We are just beginning to approach the stage where the guys in the lab coats start to prove the Bible right - even though they have no desire to at all.
By the way, Anil. They will not only be proving the Bible right. They will be proving large parts of the Vedic wisdom right as well...
Just fon't ask me which parts... ;-)
7 - Anil Menon
Ruvy: Appreciate your comments.
I don't think the issue is about the creation of the universe. If we're interested in that question, the Bible, Vedas and other holy texts are now quite irrelevant (as the coursework of any astrophysics program will demonstrate). At best, these tests are like that student who always gets the answer right after someone else has provided it. It puzzles me that people want to see current scientific ideas anticipated in these texts. It's like looking for General relativity in Shakespeare or Dante's Inferno.
Besides, there are many recommendations and injunctions in these holy texts that are utterly unacceptable to modern notions of morality. To cite but one example from hundreds, the Manu-smriti, one of the basic law books of the Hindus, recommends that boiling lead be poured in the ears of a sudra were he/she caught trying to learn the Vedas. And the much-cherished Gita strongly endorses the caste system. Today, we've to do considerable contortions to square these texts with modern sensibilities. Anyway, Harris has already made most of these points, so I'll cease and desist.
8 - Chenowski
Chenowski's Paradox of Learning
It's naive to cast the apparent antagonism between reason and religion as a Super Bowl showdown of logic, science, and reason versus faith, belief, and mythology.
Have you ever thought a thing to be true, been convinced of the concrete truth of an idea with absolute certainty, only to find out later that you were wrong? That's Chenowski's paradox of learning. We learn a "fact", accept a proof, but down the road we learn something new that puts in doubt the truth of what we had previously learned and felt was true beyond question.
This is the history both science and reason. Of course the world is flat, of course the sun revolves around the flat earth, here are elegant and convincing logical arguments and scientific proofs that demonstrate the truth of the propositions. Consensus that the world was flat was based on the belief and faith in the value of reason, logic, and what was then scientific method. It was a scientific fact of the time and remained so until "better" scientific facts came along.
But, if a thing is a fact, how are "better" facts possible? The paradox of learning means that what we think is scientifically, logically, or reasonably true and beyond dispute at the moment is subject to change without notice. We often confuse hypothesis and probability with certainty. Many a certainty has flown out the window thanks to new "certainties". Show me THE philosophy. THE physics.
It's a cheap shot at religion to condemn it's use of myth, story, and parable to explain mystery. Those who speak about scientific ideas use the modern day equivalent of myth, story, and parable all the time through metaphor and simile. Do you think the "stuff" of string theory is really tiny "vibrating strings"? We don't know what the ultimate stuff really is, so we describe it as a quickly vibrating string. That's what's it's like, not what it is. Imagine how Einstein would have explained relativity to a café waitress. Einstein probably lost as much sleep over unified field theory as Anselm did for God.
Reason versus religion debates end up in the mud because of the assumptions made as to what the two terms represent. Those who take the side of reason won't admit that they believe in the certainty of reason with religious fervor.
9 - Larry
My wife and I watched the debate, which was really two supernaturalists against one rationalist.
Harris, the rationalist, made his usual important points while the gate-keeping supernaturalists essentially defended and protected their jobs as writers of the unbelievable.
We could feel Reza's pain as we killed a bottle of Pepto Bismol (for nausea) and wanted to share it with Reza for his diarrhea of the mouth. Aslan tried hopelessly to represent Harris's view of religion as "unsophisticated" meanwhile coming of as agitated and sophomoric himself.
We were turned off by Jonathan Kirsch's gushing over Reza's "mind-opening" writing while dissing Sam for his mean-spiritedness.
Unfortunately it was an hour-and-a-half of the same-old, same-old with Harris calmly making the conversation endurable.
10 - Anil Menon
Chenowksi: I agree with most of your comments. Facts are not simple entities. I don't have any mystical attachment to facts. I'm not claiming science is about generating facts.
If I understood you correctly, you're saying that these books are attempts to explain complex truths in a simple way. Some of it, yes. But not all of it. Many parts in these texts are very specific on how they want people to live; many of these injunctions are untenable in modern times. Nevertheless, I don't expect corrections to be made to Deuteronomy, the Gita or Koran any time soon. Apologists will justify the hideous passages therein as artifacts of history or metaphor or an age, but almost never do we hear that the text itself should be abandoned. The embarrassing parts are never God's handiwork, but the acceptable parts are divinely inspired. If we can tell which is which, then why do we need these texts in the first place?
Why can't we just treat these monstrous, lovely, hideous, marvelous old texts as ancient literature, and nothing but literature? Conceived, written, imagined and interpreted by monstrous, lovely, hideous, marvelous human beings.
11 - Anil Menon
Larry: :-) Reza did go on and on. It really annoyed me in the Q&A session. The questions were intelligent; if the bugger had talked less, we could have heard a few more. As for Harris, I'm sure he warmed his Creator's metaphorical heart.
12 - duane
Excellent discussion Anil and others.
Chenowski (#8) is quite right about the use of everyday analogies, such as strings, to convey abstract mathematical descriptions of nature. This is especially true and unavoidable at the subatomic level, a realm that is not directly accessible to human observers.
Physicists use mathematical 'models' to describe nature, and any physicist who would claim that a particular model is 'truth' is exaggerating. There are 'facts' that are virtually indisputable -- the speed of light, the mass of an electron, the fine structure constant, etc. -- based on measurements down to the limits of modern technology (there is always some uncertainty in the last decimal place).
Then there are 'theories' that attempt to assign equations to the behavior of light and matter. Theories are always disputable when you get down to details. Newton never believed that his so-called 'law' of gravitation was the final word. It was a mathematical model (F=GMm/r^2) that was capable of adequately describing the motion of planetary bodies to the accuracy available at that time. General relativity (the elegantly stated G_uv = 8 *pi * T_uv) replaced Newton's formulation. It is more accurate. Does anyone believe that Einstein has discovered a 'truth'? Not if you talk to a string theorist or a cosmologist. It is simply the best model available at the present time.
It's not surprising that Nature can behave in ways far more subtle than what can be expressed by one line of mathematical symbols. It is surprising, and I think one of the monuments to civilization, that a string of symbols can describe Nature so accurately (think of planetary flybys, lasers, electron microscopy, etc.). But it is now acknowledged that physicists are always dealing with approximate descriptions of Nature.
Where I disagree with Chenowski is in his appraisal of the notions of a flat Earth and the implication that the modern scientific community is still saddled with the naivete of antiquity:
Consensus that the world was flat was based on the belief and faith in the value of reason, logic, and what was then scientific method. It was a scientific fact of the time and remained so until "better" scientific facts came along.
That's not a valid analogy to modern science. We are not living in the days of Aristotelian science, when it was presumed that the riddles of Nature could be answered by deep thinking alone. The scientific method lay far in the future. The flat Earth was a commonly held belief ("just step outisde your hut"), but it is not fair to say that it was a 'scientific fact.' Besides, Eratosthenes, in the 3rd century BC, had already determined that Earth is spherical and derived a value for its circumference that was surprisingly accurate.
13 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"Reason versus religion debates end up in the mud because of the assumptions made as to what the two terms represent. Those who take the side of reason won't admit that they believe in the certainty of reason with religious fervor."
Excellent point!!
14 - D'oh
One thought here.
In many instances, those motivated by Reason can indeed change their minds when presented with facts and logic showing why they are wrong...they seek the provable and unprovable and navigate our world reconciling old theories disproven with new ones that are more accurate.
Please to show where religion has this kind of flexibility? It is based around unquestioning belief in unproven and the unprovable, to question or doubt the dogma is heresy...and rather than being refined by observations and experimentations...the only evolution comes from authoritarian pronouncements emanating from the authoritarian structure.
Just sharing.
15 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"Please to show where religion has this kind of flexibility? It is based around unquestioning belief in unproven and the unprovable, to question or doubt the dogma is heresy...and rather than being refined by observations and experimentations...the only evolution comes from authoritarian pronouncements emanating from the authoritarian structure."
Sounds like a fellow raised a a Catholic talking, D'oh. Jews have lots of little tyrannical rabbis, with lots of views. They all think they're THE POPE and that everybody else is wrong. While it is not democratic, the multiplicity of the tyrannies (and multiplicity of views) leaves one choices as to which one to follow, and has the effect of creating a "democracy" of sorts...
Will these guys listen to reason? Well, that's why G-d invented the two-by-four...
16 - troll
oh I dunno D'oh...seems to me that the Fathers entertain many proposals that question dogma as as evidenced by the following petition presented to the Church by my friend and mentor in things Catholic...(now deceased and reportedly burning in hell)
the d'oh of taos
17 - Randy Kirk
I have just spent the last 4 years of Tuesday nights and consirable time prior to each Tuesday night leading a study of the Bible from cover-to-cover. In the course of that study we have had to deal with the wars, strange rules, amazing miracles, and thoroughgoing cruelty that turn some away from this book. Many above question the historic aspects, and wonder why we don't throw the whole thing out because of the odd things we can't get our arms around.
Every single week for 4 years those passages have brought meaning into the lives of the folks in that study group. I am now, and have throughout my entire life, been a reader of every kind and type of literature. This is my 9th time through this text, and it never ceases to amaze me with the depth of its material.
I would suggest that one view this Book from the standpoint of what it says as a whole, what it means as a whole, and how it has influenced as a whole. It is too easy to take pot shots at details and miss the greater truth.
For those of you who would like to catagorize me as a close-minded fundamentalist, just visit the the blog and you'll hopefully see otherwise.
18 - D'oh
We've seen you here before, "Horny Church", and some of us remember.
Tell me, was all this study as part of your anti-porn career, or manufacturing water bottles for bicycles?
It has been proven you can't even keep your own story straight, much less be trusted as any kind of interperter of allegory and myth.
Still, interesting to see you back at BC after last time, could be interesting.
the Tao of D'oh
19 - Anil Menon
Randy: I think I understand what you mean. These are amazing texts. There's a saying in India about the Ramayana (one such text), namely, that no Hindu ever hears the Ramayana for the first time. This story's been told and re-told, heard and re-heard so many times, it's sometimes difficult to know where the words end and flesh begins. I suspect such a sentiment would be equally true of the Bible or the Koran or the Dhamma or the Talmud. Nevertheless, there's no reason to invoke divine authorship. Given enough time and a suitable prophet, something like The Lord of The Rings could easily acquire a similar resonance in the psyche.
20 - Randy Kirk
Tao,
Nice to be remembered. And in such detail. I suppose it is easier to defame the messenger than to debate the points of the comment. Sigh.
Anil:
Read the Lord of the Rings. Loved it. Never felt compelled to go back line by line. That isn't to say that there aren't many fine books, movies, etc. that don't deserve great respect. Only that there just isn't anything else that comes close to the Bible in its richness, application to life 1000's of years later, and the way it can move individuals or multitudes. You are correct to say that this doesn't prove divinity or God, but it is one piece of evidence that can't be summarily dismissed.
21 - Randy Kirk
Blogcritics = superior writers. I just looked back at my last effort. Hope my meaning comes through the lovely double negative.
22 - D'oh
Easy enough to stick to the subject matter, I mentioned history to give background, that's all..I don't need to defame, track records do that well enough.
As for the "book" you speak of...I am guessing we are talking the King James New Testament here, yes?
Off the top of my head, I seem to remember what...27 "books" within the work, 21 of which are LETTERS from men, to men. Yet many desire this book to be viewed as the "literal word of god".
That's my problem with it, NOT the lessons that can be gleaned from studying myth and allegory, but the assertions that these words of men are somehow "holy"..and should not be questioned.
You've trotted out Leviticus in the past, and I have a clip on this topic for folks like you.
Might be a bit *gonzo* for you, but food for thought.
23 - Baronius
a bit of trivia - Tolkien set out to imitate the Bible's rythym, with the Lord of the Rings referring back to the 'old testament' Silmarillion.
Randy, I gather that you've been here before, and didn't straightforwardly disclose personal information online. Seems wise to me.
Ruvy, we Catholics approach Biblical text in the same way, seeking to understand the literal and the symbolic. It's been just long enough that I can't remember what we call the method. I like the way you guys describe it.
There's a sense in which the Ramayana (if I remember correctly) doesn't take itself literally; it's all about the meaning behind the story. I was alluding to this earlier. Some religious texts claim factuality; some claim inner meaning; some, both.
24 - D'oh
And I don't think anyone can be found who has any kind of problem with the "inner meanings" of such texts, Baronius.
Lot of good stuff, and a lot of pure Wisdom can be found that Way.
As I said, it's when you start getting into the "literal word of god" stuff that issues arise.
25 - Bliffle
If 'religion' chooses to fight with 'reason' it will find itself in constant retreat until it just disappears, as we see from history. Religion has a goal it must reach, but reason doesn't care about goals.