<underfire> Atheism and Peace
John Arrington Woodward
jaw0871 at fsu.edu
Wed Nov 22 16:41:48 EST 2006
All,
I am glad this discussion of 'Atheism and Peace' (the sub discussion of
'Evangelical Internationalism') has taken a turn towards the analytical
and away from the rather superficial comparison of religious v. secular
Weltanschauungen. I would only like to work off of the list of three
discussions so well outlined by Melani in her last post: "1) what does
it mean to be an atheist? Is atheism a type of faith?
"2) what does it mean to be religious? Does it require a belief in God?
Does it have an inherent political content?
"3) what is the distinction, analytically, between secular and religious?"
Firstly, Melani does excellent work in turning this discussion towards
the analytical and back to its basic political roots by parsing out the
different micro-discussions that are taking place under this one
rubric--for which, I think, we are all grateful. I must, however, take
issue with her interpretation of the first of these issues. Afterwards,
I will appoach the second issue (to which Melani wrote first) and
finally very briefly the last (in what I hope will not be an
inordinately long post). 1) Melani McAlister interprets the discussion
over atheism and faith as being about "whether atheism is better than
belief in god." I think (and please correct me if I am wrong), this is
in an attempt to find the discursive roots of the argument somewhere in
her original posts about the efficacy of International Evangelism on
the political and social worldstage. However, I think her
interpretation is a bit hasty. I am not convinced that it is a question
of 'belief' as an aspect of the lifeworld, but rather the political /
social efficacy of religious 'belief' as opposed to atheistic
'non-belief.' I think what Michael Goldhaber and others have been
trying to communicate is the sort of age-old concept of 'bracketing
off' religious beliefs from political reasoning when entering the
public sphere. That is not to say that religious people cannot still
believe in 'God' (or what have you) while carrying on a rational
discussion, but that this belief should not be used 'analytically' so
to speak. This argument goes towards founding a basic structural
separation between the religious and the secular not only in society
but in reasoning itself, so that it can be reflected in society. As
long as these political ideals meet in the impermanent ground of
agreement, then most are happy to let deeper structural issues slide.
The problem arises in the face of those who feel a certain right to
express religious belief at the expense of 'rationality' in a manner
that is contrary to the 'liberal subjects' political / social position.
As to the distinction between atheistic 'non-belief' and religious
'belief', the topic that Melani does not address directly, there is
also a structural difference that applies to this situation. The
atheist non-belief is only applicable in these situations of coming to
agreements. In that it is analytical, subject to rational debate, and
not limited to a particular ideological framework. This is an ideal
personage (Platonically speaking) the shadow of which one comes across
far too inoften. As long as the parties of the discussion are not
locked into one particular ideological framework, then they represent
the idealized concept of the 'atheist.' This is the root, really, of
the 'atheistic' persepective in political debate. This leads me to the
latter part of 2): Belief in god is far too limited a concept (or
expansive) to parse in this manner. Rather, and in order to bring it
down to an analytical level, we have to question whether this very
belief is used analytically, as a basis for or limit to a reasoned
argument. In other words, the belief or non-belief is not the issue;
rather, whether or not this belief or non-belief comes into play in
making political / social decisions or limiting a coming-to-terms
within a socio-political framework. The qualifying 'in God' is what is
unnecessary, for the issue is 'belief' in general. Rationalism does not
'believe' in anything other than concepts that are, as Melani points
out, "subject to revision." This division works on a limited scale, of
course, but when the question becomes should we go to war or not, then
the discussion hinges on 'beliefs' and 'morality' to an inordinate
scale. Rationalism would suggest that war is not only proper and
needed, but *needs* to be against the weaker opponent in order to teach
lessons to the stronger ones (Machiavelli). Religion can find reasons
for going to war as well (St. Augustine's argument in 'City of God' for
example). But, because the ideological structure of religion is command
oriented (God says to do this...), the question of revision is limited
(within a specific religious community) by this inherently irrational
structure. Melani's pragmatic approach suggests that the religious
nature of a political ideology is consequential to the coming to an
agreement with others that this ideology allows. I completely agree
with her basic thesis (or what I assume is her basic thesis) that the
alientation of religious beliefs (and consequentially the believers
themselves) from the political realm is fundamentally unsound from a
political perspective and misconstrues certain social goods undertaken
by religious communities. However, the believers need to understand
that belief in something in and of itself is not a basis for political
or social discussion in a modern, rational lifeworld. It is also
necessary to recall that many 'good deeds' undertaken by religious
communities are oriented towards a certain religious-political economy
rather than the betterment of the world social order. Which brings me
to a brief statement on secularism and the religious. An analytical
distinction between secular and religious can only be based above
lived-experience, intersubjective exchange--i.e. as a structural
condition for this lived-experience. It can only be a forced
distinction, as well, with clearly demarcated borders. "Give up all
[belief], ye who enter here..." should be placed above the door.
Otherwise, the inclination is to rely on preconcieved notions (both
secular and religious) and that is inherently dangerous. Sincerely,
John
Quoting Melani McAlister <mmc at gwu.edu>:
>
> I’m responding here to Christopher Young’s comments, plus some of
> the general debates on religion, secular, atheism, etc.
>
> from Christopher:
> "Second, I am hoping that Melani can offer some thoughts
> around her statement "aren't we invited to do -many- things, from
> fighting wars to cleaning up the environment, "for the sake of our
> children."
> I am a bit concerned with this statement, as it implies that we
> (Evangelicals) are obligated by some theological rule to fight in
> wars....hmmm, I do not get a sense this is really the case- if one
> was to take a biblical standpoint. "
>
>
> I meant to argue something a bit different here. I was responding to
> Michael Goldhaber’s comments that atheists are less likely to go to
> war than religious people. My point was that “we” – not
> Evangelicals, but all of us – are hailed by ideologies that invite
> us to strong action. These ideologies are often secular in their
> language or concerns; for example, we are called to do various things
> “for the sake of our children,” or “for the future of the
> planet.” The political content of this commitment to the future may
> be variable: it might be to save the environment, or to support the
> “war on terror” so that our children are not endangered, or to
> oppose nuclear weapons, or to fight the Soviets to prevent the spread
> of communism. Similarly, belief in God is evoked across the political
> spectrum, from pro- to anti-war, from pro- to anti-environmentalism.
>
> I am personally an atheist (of which type, I’ll comment below), but
> I’m a bit shocked by the presumptions here that religious people
> who believe in God are more pro-war, more easily manipulated, etc. Do
> you really mean that? I think my religious friends are wrong on the
> question of God, but I can’t –imagine- arguing that pacifist
> Mennonite evangelicals, Sufi Muslims, liberal Jews, anti-Zionist
> orthodox Jews, liberation theology Catholics, or anti-war
> evangelicals etc. and etc. are, deep in their hearts, politically
> retrograde (not to mention, apparently, more likely to have children,
> despite a certain monastic tradition one might want to account for).
> And meanwhile, what about the lovely non-believers who in fact run
> the United States (do you –really- think Dick Cheney’s faith is
> the issue?), and who ran the Soviet Union, and who supported Saddam
> Hussein? They are what? Above ideology? Animated only by material
> interests?
>
> I think that, in these various related strands, we might be having
> (at least) three conversations. To simplify (sometimes brutally):
>
> 1) What does it mean to be an atheist? Is atheism a type of faith?
>
> 2) What does it mean to be religious? Does it require a belief in
> God? Does it have an inherent political content?
>
> 3) What is the distinction, analytically, between secular and religious?
>
> I just spoke to the second of these. I’ll make a comments on 1).
> (There is a lot more to be said on 3), too, but one has to have life
> outside of email…)
>
> The stakes in question 1) seem to be, basically, whether atheism is
> better than belief in god. As several people have said, it’s
> impossible to prove a negative, so you can’t prove there is no god,
> and almost every religious person I know would agree that you can’t
> prove there –is- one, at least not in the terms that would count as
> proof to non-believers. Believers might cite their own experiences as
> proof, but this isn’t a rationalist sort of proof. So belief in god
> does require faith – the acceptance of a particular explanation for
> whatever experience is at hand. (I prayed and I experienced God’s
> love. One explanation: there is a god; another explanation: prayer
> produces nice brain waves, as does mediation on a flame.)
>
> But neither belief nor non-belief has any given political effect. If
> we want to argue about the basis of our beliefs in the nature of the
> universe and the presence or lack thereof of God, then that’s
> great. If we want to argue about whether we need to go to war in
> Iraq, then let’s do that. If someone tells me they oppose war in
> Iraq because God calls us to turn the other cheek, I’m going to
> have to disagree with their rationale. But I’m happy to have them
> at my anti-war meeting, and I’m not going to argue theology with
> them -- unless we all go out to dinner and decide to do so.
>
> People who don’t believe in god –mostly- hold that conviction on
> rationalist grounds; that is, given the lack of evidence in favor of
> god, and given a commitment to (some version of) empiricism, we are
> not convinced. (There are people who are non-believers based on their
> experience; that is, they feel bereft by a personal loss and believe
> this proves there is no God, but I don’t consider these to be
> morally serious persons: you believed in God when millions of people
> were dying of hunger and war, but not when your wife was killed in a
> car accident?)
>
> I don’t believe in God, with a capital G, for the same reason I
> don’t believe in the Greek gods or in the presence of aliens.
> It’s not that I could not, under any circumstances, be convinced.
> If the aliens show up, I’m going to be pretty damn shocked, but I
> will believe those things which are observable, repeatable (in other
> words, I’m not the only one who sees them; if I were, other
> explanations will have to be pursued: like that I’m crazy), and
> possible to study, even if not to fully understand.
>
> There are multiple and valuable critiques of Enlightenment
> rationalism and its assumptions, as well as its products. I accept
> many of those critiques, including that this rationalism requires and
> operates from certain assumptions and premises, including the
> scientific method itself, which is a myth of pure process, but which
> in fact requires theories of how the world is ordered in order to
> proceed. But the assumptions and models themselves are subject to
> revision -- Kuhn's paradigm shifts. And we all depend on this model
> of rationalism and its dependability SO frequently, from studies of
> how disease operates to making planes fly, it simply doesn't make
> sense to me to dismiss it when it comes to the question of God. For
> that reason, and others, I don’t think it makes sense at all to
> call atheism or rationalism a faith or a religion. (This is why
> Durkheim’s model is in fact quite problematic.)
>
> Finally, and briefly, I think people often feel negatively about
> atheism, as opposed to just disagreeing with it, because 1) atheists
> can act like real jerks toward religious people; the reverse is also
> true, and probably has a lot to do with anti-religious feelings; or
> 2) they think that atheists have no experience of awe. I’ve
> actually talked to –very- educated people who said they would not
> call themselves atheists because they had feelings of awe in face of
> nature -- they are moved to wordlessly by a sunset. I suggested that
> reading more poetry might help them with that; feeling emotional
> richness or Kantian sublime is not limited to religious people. But I
> think this is where the spiritual-but-not-religious junk comes from;
> people want to find a way to claim their experience of the ineffable.
>
> Sorry, I know this is terribly long.
> MM
>
>
>
> Melani McAlister
> Associate Professor of American Studies
> and International Affairs
> George Washington Univ.
> mmc at gwu.edu
>
> Mailing address: Office location:
> 2108 G. St. NW 609 22nd St. NW
> Washington, DC 20052 Room 203
> Main office: 202-994-6070 Direct: 994-6073
> fax: 202-994-8651
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: christopher.w.young at thomson.com
> Date: Monday, November 20, 2006 7:46 pm
> Subject: Re: <underfire> Atheism and Peace
> To: underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
>
>
>> Mary, Michael and Melani,
>>
>> Thank you for sharing your views and opinions of things so important to
>> so many.
>>
>> First, can someone define 'absolute value'?
>>
>> Second, I am hoping that Melani can offer some thoughts around her
>> statement "aren't we invited to do -many- things, from fighting wars to
>> cleaning up the environment, "for the sake of our children."
>>
>> I am a bit concerned with this statement, as it implies that we
>> (Evangelicals) are obligated by some theological rule to fight in
>> wars....hmmm, I do not get a sense this is really the case- if one was
>> to take a biblical standpoint. When I hear such things, it actually
>> makes me fall back on another representation you made- "that poor people
>> are being ideologically manipulated by a retrograde state". Although
>> I
>> am not articulating that poor people are being ideologically manipulated
>> by a state, I am arguing that theological texts have been historically
>> manipulated by the elites, who have changed the inherent meaning of the
>> doctrine to fit their own agenda.
>>
>> So, when I see Evangelicals praying in supposedly charismatic tongues
>> and worshipping a god, who encourages his followers to fight an illegal
>> war - I am definately taking the position that this group of believers
>> has been manipulated and perhaps their position in society is not
>> physically poor, just spiritually sick.
>>
>> We are coming to a place in society, where all religions will be
>> resounded to the same position as atheism - a position where meaning is
>> obsolete and belief in a deity is all but gone from history - an
>> "McIntyrean" world....
>>
>> CY
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: underfire-bounces at underfire.eyebeam.org
>> [ On Behalf Of Michael H
>> Goldhaber
>> Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 4:06 PM
>> To: underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
>> Subject: <underfire> Atheism and Peace
>>
>>
>>
>> Mary, et al.,
>>
>> Mary Keller wrote:
>>
>> From this perspective the a-theist is signifying the
>> significance of their
>> location in the world. When someone tells me, as you did, that
>> they are an atheist I hear "I don't need God. I don't count on
>> transcendentals. I am happy to become worm food. I'm not looking for
>> wings." From my perspective the atheist and the theist are both
>> exercising the cognitive desire to map out the significance of their
>> location in the world.
>>
>> Mary, I mistook your original position, it would seem, but here you
>> mistake mine, and that of many atheists. [FOOTNOTE: Taken literally, a
>> disbelief in god does not necessitate a disbelief in an afterlife (e.g.,
>> the original Buddhism, in which to be released from the cycle of
>> reincarnation was a major goal) nor vice versa (Torah Judaism has "G-d"
>> but no mention of an afterlife; on the holiest day of Yom Kippur, one
>> prays only "to be inscribed in the book of life for another year," i.e.
>> not to die within the year.) But ignore these subtleties.]
>> Atheists believe there is no god. This has nothing to do with what they
>> would like. Further, as an atheist, along with many others, I would not
>> be happy to become worm food, in two ways. First, "I" will not exist
>> after death (except in the minds of others). My dead body will not
>> contain not myself; the self will have ceased.
>>
>> Second, the prospect of death does not make me happy, but, no matter
>> what I might want, heaven does not seem to be available as an
>> alternative. Many atheists wish to avoid death simply by remaining
>> alive. Some, such as Ray Kurzweil, think that we have reached, or
>> shortly will reach, a time, when, at least for a fortunate few, life
>> expectancy increases by more than a year every year, due primarily to
>> medical advances, so living "forever" may become a scientific
>> possibility.
>> Thus, for many atheists, life, at least their own, can become an
>> "ultimate value." Like other ultimate values, if taken alone, this can
>> be dangerous. Some people may ruthlessly harvest others' organs, for
>> example. However, most recognize that acting to prevent murder and
>> against violence can be mutually beneficial. Thus, I think it is no
>> accident that where religion has most waned, in Western Europe, we also
>> find, on the whole, quite little support for war, in comparison with the
>> past.
>> The commonplace proverb "there are no atheists in a foxhole," can be
>> taken two ways. The common one, of course, is that being in foxhole
>> under fire leads to prayer. The other is this: Without religious
>> feeling, why give up your life, the most precious thing you have?
>>
>> The fact is that much of western Europe's long history of war and
>> conquest was quite explicitly religious: the "reconquista" of the
>> Iberian peninsula, the various crusades, the eastward expansion of the
>> Teutonic knights, the thirty-years' war, much of the move into Mexico,
>> Cnetral and South America, the Puritans in New England, the American
>> Civil War, etc. Perhaps later the religion of "the nation" (the
>> "Motherland" or the "Fatherland") or the pseudo-religions of Nazism
>> or
>> Marxism (both of which imposed belief) to some degree held sway. Now
>> with social democracy, and no imposed religion, nor imposed atheism,
>> Western Europeans seem to have become much more peace-loving.
>>
>>
>> Here in the United States, most military recruits and support for the
>> current war come from areas where religion is also strong - chiefly the
>> South and Midwestern and other rural areas. But, implicitly, even Bush
>> recognized, for all his rhetoric that "we are at war," that ordinary
>> Americans are sufficiently atheistic in reality that they do not want
>> to
>> make any personal sacrifices whatsoever in this war.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Under Fire
>> 16 October - 10 December 2006
>> International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville
>> all writings copyright individual authors
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>
> _______________________________________________
> Under Fire http://underfire.eyebeam.org
> 16 October - 10 December 2006
> International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville
> all writings copyright individual authors
> no commercial use without permission
> to post a message, send an email to:
> underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
> to unsubscribe, send an email to:
> underfire-leave at underfire.eyebeam.org
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John Arrington Woodward
Florida State University
Tallahassee, Florida
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