AW! Epistles
From Karl 11
Abstract
Monday, 18 July 2005
From the onset, I maintained that political power associated itself with religion and used it in order to gain authority over those who were already religious. When I argued that the problem is oppression and intolerance, rather than religion per se, and, hence, we can make a distinction between religiousness and religious fundamentalism, your response was to attack me for making a circular argument and suspending my critical faculties. Once again you chose to ignore the issue completely and simply respond with an insult and continue with your tirade against religion, accusing me of ignoring the evil deeds of religious fanatics, and sneering at my liberality as, in some unspecified way, supporting the acts of religious fanatics. Somehow, by adamantly stating that knowledge of the existence and nature of God is impossible, which includes knowledge of the inexistence and fictional nature of God, I am coming to the aid of missionaries who prey on the innocent and vulnerable. Yet, it is hard to see how a missionary could convert a genuine agnostic so I presume that the reason why it corrupts the young is that it councils against the acceptance of atheism as being based on knowledge. So, it seems that, according to you, by maintaining that religious questions cannot be answered on the basis of knowledge, I am somehow supporting the acceptance of religion without knowledge because I criticise atheism. It seems that I must be for religion because I am not against it. And it is me that has suspended critical faculties and has produced a circular argument, eh?
The circularity of the argument does not need any explication. You separated oppression from religion, and all I said was that religion has always been oppressive—that is its purpose, and it is plain enough in history, which is why I said you must be suspending your critical faculties. Far from demeaning your intellectual abilities in any way by this, I commented on your mastership of quantum electrodynamics as evidence that you could hardly overlook the role of religion throughout history. Nor was I ignoring the issue, I was bringing you back to reality from your idealistic separating out of a pure unadulterated religion from the real thing bloodied and blackedned by political powergrubbing. You are overreacting again. And then again you ignore what I was saying about evidence, that we have to base what we decide on the evidence we have, not on hypothetical evidence. For some reason, I am being unfair to mention that fascists do not need evidence either. Then again, I am not allowed to suggest that the agnostic position supports Christian missionaries by falsely equating two very unequal sides in terms of evidence. For you, knowledge of God is impossible, so we should sit on the fence and be agnostic. I have already said that it contradicts skepticism, not believing things without evidence, and it divorces knowledge from evidence. Knowledge is what we regard as true based on evidence, not something God only knows.
Of course, later, you claim that it is “superiority and hatred” that you condemn, rather than religiousness, but I do not think that this distinction squares with the views that you have expressed to others and me in the email exchanges evident in the e-pistles. It is quite clear that you have nothing but contempt for religious people. That, to my mind, is the opposite of respect for their right to free expression. You cannot claim to respect someone´s right to religious expression when you condemn his or her religion in the way that you do. Of course you can criticise people´s beliefs and articles of faith, whilst still respecting their rights to religious expression, but you cannot claim to respect their rights while you condemn them for exercising their rights.
I have a lot of contempt for false belief—belief based on no evidence—the characteristic of patriarchal religions particularly. I do not disdain Nature religions because Nature exists and we depend upon it so doing. I have said this repeatedly but you keep trying to regurgitate something that you find more acceptable to poke your muzzle into. You cannot seem to distinguish a right to believe from the belief. I accept that people believe in astrology, but why should I respect them for it? Some people think some children are witches. Should I respect them? The point is that religion requires its believers to accept a lot of beliefs and behaviours that are unacceptable to others. So long as they keep their beliefs to themselves, we can tolerate even the unacceptable beliefs. Religions that proselytize aim to spread their beliefs, and that is when religions get to be obnoxious. That is when the hatred and superiority comes into it, and that is what people should know, especially these days when Christianity has been fairly passive for several hundred years, held in its place by secularism and reason. The world is changing from that. If religions have the spiritual function claimed of them, in my view, they have a duty to be constructive, to help integrate and strengthen human relations, to conserve the world and diverify its habitats and species, and to teach truth and honesty. I do not know which one does any of this, but the patriarchal one do the opposite.
The fact that you consider all Jews to be on a par with Nazis (as well as Muslims and Christians), and you say so publicly, as being the supporters of “violent organisations and the institutions of murderers” demonstrates quite clearly the degree of respect that you have for their right to religious expression as being indistinguishable from political oppression in the name of ideology and religion. You basically allow them the right to confess to being criminals against humanity. Your view is one of pure condemnation, pure and simple, and does not respect the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths at all.
You keep trying to make me respect these monstrous beliefs, but I shall not. And since you are keen on accusing others of misrepresentation, what about this of yours. I wrote, “nor can I respect violent organisations and the institutions of murderers whether they are called Nazis, Christians, Jews or Moslems”. I could have added others too, but I wanted to highlight those who had the worst murderous traditions or were proud of them because they have them written up as being acts and commandments of God. The three religions here have had many centuries to change the odious prescriptions they believe in and that they claim are God given. If Christianity is a religion of love, then why does it still prescribe hatred in its so-called Holy Bible, and from its pulpits? Why is it not teaching practical love and the love of Nature. It takes Pagans and even witches to do that, so what does it say about the patriarchal religions? I am involved in a polemic with them on the e-pistle pages, so should I be patting them on the back and saying, “well done”? They brag in their sacred texts and they hide their true history. The are hypocrites, and if they have a criminal past, as they have, then people should know about it, and not just fed lying pap.
For your education, I have taken the liberty to include Article 18 of the 1948 Declaration of Universal Human Rights:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
Do you imagine I object to it? I agree with it, the only hesitation I have being on teaching. They should teach only those old enough to know what they are doing, and letting themselves in for. Not children. They should not be allowed to solicit for business, and they should certainly not be allowed to teach hatred and elitism, as patriarchal religions do.
It also seems to me that my agnosticism and your tolerance for religions that are not patriarchal—including pagan religions—have considerable commonality and, hence, these insults and misrepresentations are not necessary. After all, I have explicitly left the conception of God open, allowing every possibility, and, especially given that I have told you repeatedly that I am not persuaded by Christianity and that it remains a possibility that the Christian conception of God could be at odds with the reality of God, then I really do not understand why you keep accusing my of supporting the Christian conception of God. It is one conception among thousands. Given that you now claim not to have any objection to the concept of God (you now claim to only object to patriarchal religions) then your insults regarding my agnosticism seem to be a little misplaced, to say the least.
I agree fully with your first sentence, and your outburst is odd since you have not forgotten this. It should have warned you that I am not attacking you personally on this religious stuff, and I have not forgotten myself that on many issues we are close. All the more surprising why you have reacted so temperamentally. Nor was I aware that I have accused you of defending the Christian concept of God per se, but merely that your agnostic attitude gives credence to a position that is not seriously credible. It implies there is a fence and it can be sat upon, as if you could sit on the edge of the world with one foot in and one foot out, equally you can sit with one foot on the God side and one foot on the atheistic side of belief. If you can, then the God side is like one of the shrunken dimensions of string theory. You cannot fit a foot into it!
I have maintained a pretty constant position that I am prepared to accept evidence and be persuaded by arguments, after all I stated several times that I found myself persuaded by your arguments about the origins of Christianity, but I was careful to state that evidence and good reasons for belief are not knowledge. Thus there was room for some doubt and an open mind. To which, you completely misrepresented my position as being one which prevents us from coming to any conclusions—even though I have repeatedly stated that of course we can come to conclusions, but we must also be aware that they might be wrong—and thus, according to you, if we were to accept the possibility that we could be wrong, then we would become paralysed. Thus, once again, you stated that I am holding a position that supports and helps fascists—even though it is an obvious implication of my position that the rhetoric of fascists would completely fail to persuade anyone who held my view because their assertions would simply be revealed as assertions.
Look! As soon as you say that beliefs, though based on evidence, are not knowledge, you are relegating them to the category of not-proven as opposed to the category of those things you say are proven truths and so are knowledge. I am not saying that the knowledge based on evidence is indubitably right, and I have said so repeatedly. The evidence itself is malleable and hypotheses that are the basis of our “knowledge” are models and can be changed. There is no need to go over it all again. There is plenty of reason for doubt and an open mind in my, conventional, definition of knowledge, but not in yours. What is in doubt for you, is by definition, not knowledge, and that is why I say you cannot come to any conclusions with it. If it is not knowledge there is no “might” about it being wrong. It is not in the category of “true” that constitutes knowledge, so it is wrong. What you seem to be saying in practice, at the usual risk of being accused of misrepresentation, is that this non-knowledge that you can nevertheless offer arguments for and support with better or lesser evidence is just the sort of knowledge that I call knowledge. But it is in your account not knowledge, and it is in your account that I say we would be paralysed, for although I accept what you say about the lesser “knowledge”, I am arguing that others less scrupulous would put their emphasis on it not being knowledge at all, and therefore that it is dispensible. Therein is the danger I spoke of. You seem not to have grasped that I spoke about how your view could be used, not how you mean it to be used. Perhaps that is why you are so touchy.
However, you insist that, if we were to accept that our cherished and educated conclusions were opinions then there would be no point to research. Somehow, according to you, being aware of our fallibility means that there is no point to studying anything at all.
No, accepting your definition of knowledge means there is no point in doing research at all, because we are fiddling with stuff that is not true, and I cannot see how any amount of research among all this non-knowledge ever would make it into knowledge. You might say you can see in all this non-knowledge that some things are better supported than others, but the reaction of the new skeptic—the one who believes in the Rodgers definition of knowledge—is that it is all non-knowledge, and so scientific findings are no different from religious fairy tales. None of it matters because none of it is knowledge.
For some reason, you seem to hold that, if you were to accept the possibility that you were wrong about Christianity then you would be a liar, rather than simply fallible. This is a hysterical response. Moreover, without any reason, you assert that, if we are, at bottom, doing no more than expressing opinions about the (in)existence or nature of God, then there is no basis for criticising anyone who claims to know what God´s word is. This is also quite hysterical. Furthermore, despite everything that I have said to the contrary, you continually assert that I claim that all opinions are equal and therefore I have no basis for being persuaded by one rather than the other. I have repeatedly stated that we can criticise the consistency, quality, coherence, and reasoning of the opinions of others. It seems quite evident to me that it is you who is making a “straw dog” out of my critical theory of knowledge in order to avoid engaging with me in forthright debate about some of its real and very problematical implications, but, of course, I accept that I might well be wrong about your intentions and that you have simply over-reacted.
You use the word “hysterical” like the man in Dad’s Army uses the word “panic”. He is panicking and yelling out, “don’t panic”. I am quite happy to accept I could be wrong about everything, but I shall have to be shown it. Meanwhile, I shall continue to believe I am right on the evidence I have found. I should be a liar to deny the evidence I have found, and that is what I am saying in your latest asseveration of my misdeeds. I have said over an over again that I am not a god, and so I am fallible. I really do not think it needs saying unless there were some possibility that we are gods, perhaps another fence you might want to sit on, but I certainly do not entertain it, illiberal though it might be. As for the second example of my hysteria, we are back to the subject of the last paragraph. What is not knowledge is opinion, and those who believe something with no evidence like to hear it, because their opinion based on no evidence is thereby just as good as someone else’s based on lots of evidence. Christians say that evolution is opinion despite its ability to unite a vast assembly of data about the natural world, so it is no better than, indeed should only be taught alongside, biblical creation, another opinion. I do not see why I should have to labour this because you insist on unrealistic definitions of knowledge, but my point is that your definitions help obscurantists.
You claim that I am somehow a puritan fundamentalist and elitist because I am critical of the idea that we can obtain knowledge from historical analysis—How did you put it? “In your pursuit of some exaggerated purity of knowledge you sound like a philosophical mullah acting as a spokesman for a philosophical Taliban. Thus, it is an error to think we can get knowledge from history because it is ´interpretation and critical analysis all the way down´…” Of course I aim at tight definitions—that is crucial for analysis—but they are revisable and I am open to counter-argument. But I do not appreciate insults and the superficial reading of my arguments that you seem to like to base your criticisms on. For example, despite several lengthy explanations of the many different kinds of knowledge that I maintain are available to us, that I have supplied in these emails, which you simply choose to ignore, you repeatedly claim that I deny all knowledge. As you put it, “In your purity of understanding knowledge, you are accepting either unfounded belief or well-founded belief as being equal because both do not meet your celestial standard, and so are not knowledge. It might feel superior up there, but most of us live here on earth where we have to live practical lives with practical standards.” So, whilst ignoring all the lengthy explanations that I made about different kinds of knowledge and how we can choose good arguments from bad, you seem to, again feel it necessary to imply that I am an elitist who accepts all beliefs as equally valid simply because I state that beliefs are not knowledge. You repeatedly accuse me of adopting some highbrow philosopher´s stance on knowledge, whilst sneering about its “exacting and unequalled standards” being in some stratosphere above the human condition, yet, as far as I was concerned, I simply said that you could not know whether God existed or not. Moreover, according to you, this somehow commits me to believing in centaurs, Peter Pan, and whatever, whilst supporting white racists and the Bush administration (as well as nazis and fascism in general, of course). You then accuse me of being hypocritical and unable to achieve my own standards of proof, as well as other random insults and utterances, simply because I base my critique of physics upon an historical analysis. Yet I did not make any knowledge claim, but rather presented an argument (based on research into primary, as well as secondary and tertiary sources, I may hasten to add) for the critical scrutiny of the reader.
I suppose it is a pasticcio of what I have said partially and in places, but it is misrepresentation for all that. If I confine a rat to a narrow channel, it certainly would not be able to raid my pantry. When I am confined to moving north and east, I might find it difficult to travel a winding path heading in some other general direction. What I am saying is that, while I understand your determination to stick to tight definitions, supposedly for precision, you are actually forcing your reader to crawl through obstacles you have made, and the reader might not care to, especially if it all seems artificial and divorced from experience. Your understanding of knowledge might be precise but it does not seem to me to be at all sensible. That is all right, apparently because they are revisable, until someone suggests you revise them. Anyway, I am not going to pick out the bits of separate arguments you have stuck together in this montage pasted up for some childish purpose. The whole argument would be more productive if you ceased accusing me of misrepresentation, if you presented a correction of it instead of labelling me as dishonest. I find plain ordinary physics hard enough, but you are the expert on metaphysics, and it is up to you to make yourself clear.
Whilst I do defend everyone´s right to believe whatever they want, I am also quite capable of trying to persuade them to believe what I hold to be true, whilst offering them the chance to do likewise. There is not a contradiction in this. I am not trying to persuade you to stop trying to persuade people that religion is bunk. I am simply saying that your atheism and historical analysis are not based on knowledge, but are opinions. It does not follow from this that you have to accept all beliefs as equally valid or true. I didn´t say that you did and it is not an implication of my position. You have misrepresented what I am saying. For the record, it is not the case that you have to have some deep understanding of technical philosophical vocabulary in order to understand the points that I am making. I also welcome criticism. It is simply the case that you have to have sufficient manners and honesty to base your criticisms on a careful reading of my emails and my book before implying that I am a charlatan, a fool, or an elitist.
My “atheism and historical analysis are not based on knowledge but on opinions”, in your opinion! In my opinion, they are based on knowledge, but I do not have an idealistic view of knowledge, unless the objective knowledge that science aspires to is it, but a practical view of knowledge as an accumulation of observations and the hypotheses to explain them. And I repeat that, while you, in a sense hold both views of knowledge, what I am suggesting is that various types of kooks, mainly religious, will claim that they have the purest knowledge, ideal knowledge, God’s knowledge, when they have no knowledge at all, and the knowledge that actually tells us something, however imperfect, will be discarded as opinion. I will add again, that I am not saying this is your argument, I am and have been arguing that it is all too easy to misrepresent your position but I am not the one doing it! That is the sense in which you are succouring people that you abhor like fascists, as well as people that you respect, but I do not, like Christian theologians. As for manners, I personally do not make a habit of pushing old ladies out of the way to get on to buses, but cannot see any advantage in perpetually saying, “after you, old chap”, in discussions. But, if I have not been a paragon of politeness, you have been no better despite your own self-image of being gentlemanly.
Your ranting remarks about me hating physicists and blaming them for all the world´s ills are totally banal and reactionary. I don´t hate physicists, nor have I ever claimed (to you or anyone else) to hate them or blame them for all the world´s ills (I only blame them for some of them, such as the atomic bomb). You plucked that out of thin air. I have many friends who are working physicists and I have spent a huge amount of time talking with them about science and everything else under the sun. You are merely saying that because I said that you obviously hate religions and have nothing but contempt for religious people. At first your email response reminded me of the Monty Python sketch in which Michael Palin goes into the Ministry of Arguments, looking for a £5 argument, but only receives abuse and contradiction. But that was funny and I do not intend to pay £5, so the analogy is poor. Instead, you remind me of the kid in the schoolyard who would hurl my taunts back at me as if they were his own, with his fingers in his ears, rather than come up with anything new. It is like your tactic of calling me hysterical every five sentences because I said that your extreme responses to my claims about knowledge were hysterical.
I quite agree that one of us is hysterical. In an earlier bout of hysteria, scientists were undifferentiated as “irresponsible bastards”, “arrogant”, “a menace”, and you concluded in an evident rage, “quite frankly I’m sick of them”. Now before you get on your high horse again, I agree with what you say, but I direct it at a few irresponsible ones, and think you are indeed hysterical to get enraged about them generally. Now, you say they are among your best friends, and I would have thought it very odd indeed if some were not, but I did not pluck what I said from the air.
And, as for you comments about me defending Bush and Blair, as well as sounding like an elitist Straussist, are ludicrous, simply because I do not accept that your opinions about religion are based on knowledge. At no point did I ever say that knowledge was something that only philosophers had. You just made that up, rather than think about and comment upon what I actually said. What I said was that you do not have knowledge about the fundamental nature of God. On the basis of my position of knowledge and rationality, Bush and Blair would be standing in the unemployment line or facing impeachment charges for misleading the electorate. It is you who is acting like the elitist and, given that you think that ninety percent of the world´s population are stupid, ignorant, naïve sheep, because they do not think as you do, then it seems to me that it is you who considers himself to be superior to the majority of mankind. If only we saw the world as you do, eh? Well, we don´t. Thank God.
In your impeccably well mannered way you had actually been impugning my honesty and accusing me of writing bullshit and using shoddy rhetoric, as well as being some sort of robotic weapon of Bush and Blair motivated by a loathing of Islam. I was simply pointing out that you were actually supporting them at their basic level of belief by your ambiguous stance on God. I was justifiably retorting to your fatuous comment about the Bush and Blair propaganda machine. The point about knowledge being something only philosophers have reflects your philosophic habit of using words with special meanings, not merely jargon, which I understand has a function, but even ordinary words redefined in peculiar ways until only philosophers know what they mean. It is a reason why people no longer study philosophy, and why philosophers sneer at those among their number who try to explain it in understandable English. So, again, I did not just make it up. Indeed, there has not been an instance when your accusation that I was lying or misrepresenting you has held up to scrutiny. I agree with what you say here about Bush and Blair but you end up with a final little bout of hysterics. I do not think that ninety percent of the world’s population are stupid because the world is not yet entirely Christians, or Moslems or pious Jews. More than half of Jews are probably secular Jews who are entirely sensible, indeed more sensible than most philosophers.
I think you are right that you were the first to use the word hysterical about me in this discussion, but, at the risk of getting more of it, you really are are now sounding hysterical. I am sorry it is getting to you like this because I thought it was your own style to be blunt, and that you welcomed frank exchanges, and that is what mine have been, but not insulting if you mean that I am intending to be offensive to you. Let me reassure you that, contrary to the opinion you evidently have formed, I am not trying to hurt you or offend you, and I am not trying to misrepresent you either. If I do indeed misrepresent you, I do it honestly from not understanding you, because you think on a different and doubtless higher plain than me, so that when I speak of celestial thinking, I mean it, while hoping to highlight your own intolerance of those who cannot aspire to such heights. For all that, you sometimes get carried away by emotion, as you illustrate here, and then sound peevish and spiteful, and, when I have picked these instances up, you seem to just get angrier. Calm down and try to accept that I am as sincere as you are, and just as irritated by insults.
Anyway, perhaps we can pick up on the discussion, but you will have to accept that I am not a philosopher and even my closest reading of your text is liable to be misconstrued. If so you will have to be patient, and explain things with patience. And if I respond by saying you sound like the Taliban or a Straussist, remember that I am refering to what you said and not casting doubt on your own character. If I overstep the mark then say so there and then, and I shall try to explain myself or apologise, if I have done. I am not exceptionally intelligent but you are, and that is why the burden of explanation is with you. My contribution on your own theses is as a sounding board and a student trying to learn. On our general discussion of religion, science and culture I have something to say, and can comment on my judgement of your responses to me and the validity of your outlook in general. Since these things are often hasty, choices and corrigible, there is no need to assume they are imputations of bad character. The only thing I would say about it is that you seem to think it fine to be rude to me but object to what you interpret as rudeness by me. You will have to learn that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
