Argumentum ad Nauseam

Looking back over my posts here the past few years, I see I’ve devoted what some people might view as an inordinate amount of verbiage to what is popularly (and inaccurately) referred to as the “conflict between science and religion” (or vice versa).

One reason I’ve focused (or maybe obsessed) on this “debate” is because, as a student of Philosophy, I’m looking at the discussion from somewhere in the middle, seeing merits and demerits on both sides. Another is that from my perspective, the debate appears to be defined – in the popular media at least – by the extremists on both sides: Christian fundamentalists on the one hand and hard-core atheist-materialists on the other.

As is the case any time extremists get involved in a discussion, sober and rational examination of the issues gets shouted down by sophistry and propaganda and the basest kind of appeals to emotion. We are all invited to choose sides, but then we’re presented with loads of overheated rhetoric and logical fallacies as a basis for making that choice.

Much of the problem, as I’m sure I’ve said before, is that the current debate or conflict is not between Science as such and Religion as such but between certain narrow, and to some degree disingenuous, constructions of the two. The atheist-materialists represent that their worldview is synonymous with science, though it is not, and attack Fundamentalism as a straw-man proxy for all religion. And the fundamentalists are all too happy to concur that their own idiosyncratic approach to religion is, indeed, the only valid one.

It’s important to keep in mind when evaluating the claims of the self-styled advocates of Science that what they’re advocating is never science alone. Science is not, in itself, a comprehensive understanding of reality; it is simply a tool, a way of investigating reality, and nowadays of investigating only one aspect of reality, the physical/material. The claim that physical/material reality is the only reality is, of course, not a scientific statement, but a philosophical assumption. In other words, the promoters of Science over Religion are in fact promoting Science plus an unacknowledged and largely unargued philosophical stance.

Recognizing this, we ought really to regard the debate as not between science and religion but between naturalism and supernaturalism or between physicalism and metaphysicalism (if there is such a word). But of course that would put the debate into the realm of philosophy, and it’s blindingly obvious that the people who are participating the most energetically in the science-vs.-religion debate are woefully unequipped for a real philosophical discussion.

It’s all very unfortunate indeed, I think, because I’m convinced that a wholesale rejection of either science or religion is a serious mistake, with serious consequences not only for each individual but for society and the world at large.

In my day job as a journalist, I regularly see what I firmly believe are the destructive consequences in individual lives and in society of the absence of a middle ground on these issues. On the one hand, we have an ethical vacuum in which materialism encourages us to believe that physical security, well-being and especially pleasure are the only goods toward which we can realistically aspire. On the other hand, we have a chorus of doubtfully trustworthy men and women (but mostly men) hectoring us to believe that if we don’t adhere to an archaic and fossilized set of externally imposed laws, of which they are the sole reliable interpreters, we will be consigned to eternal torture.

As a result, I see people almost daily who have made astonishingly bad choices because on the one hand they are driven to satisfy their physical desires – whether for money, pleasure, command of other people, social success, adulation, etc. etc. etc. – and on the other, they affiliate with a form of religion that encourages them to make a verbal profession of faith without supplying them any means of making that faith a real part of their lives, or, indeed, of suggesting that they really need to.

To put it bluntly, every day of the week, “good Christians” are being put on trial for crimes of all sorts, not to exclude rape and murder. I’m not suggesting that they commit these crimes because they are Christians (even fundamentalist Christians) but rather that the readily available forms of Christianity in many communities don’t give them sufficient reason not to commit them.

And nor does the prevailing “intellectual” paradigm, as is evident from the ease with which, for example, the titans of Wall Street justify to themselves, and to our lawmakers, the plunder of their clients and the pillage of the national treasury. In fact, prevailing economic theories based on “rational agents seeking to maximize their personal good” are nothing more than a pretext for financial predators to excuse their predations.

It may be arguable whether the polarized and largely fraudulent debate over “science vs. religion” is a cause or an effect relative to our increasingly fragmented and angry society. But it certainly isn’t helping. A reframed, more realistic, more sincere discussion of these issues might draw us together as humans instead of dividing us, and help heal some of our social and personal ills. I won’t be holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

Illiteral

Having taken a broad swipe at the materialist-scientistic worldview last time, it seems only fair to balance that with a comment on the Christian fundamentalism that sets itself in opposition to science. Because I quoted Darwin in my previous posting, I was initially inclined to address the shortcomings of the literalist interpretation of the book of Genesis that underpins efforts either to ban the teaching of evolution or require the teaching of “creationism.” However, I think a more general comment may suffice.

So I’ll say simply that the fundamentalists’ claim that they interpret the Bible literally is false, or at least is only true some of the time – that is, when it suits them.

For example, we’ve all heard about TV evangelists’ use of the law of Moses to condemn homosexuality and anything else they don’t like. And anyone who belongs to a conservative Christian denomination is familiar with the use of the law to justify the practice of “tithing,” or donating one-tenth of one’s income to the church.

So how do those ministers justify those appeals to the ancient law of Israel if they take a literal view of these words from Paul’s letter to the Galatians (chapter 2, verses 16-21):

“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”

Or these from Paul’s letter to the Romans (chapter 7, verses 4-6):

“Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”

Returning to Galatians (chapter 5, verses 1-4), we find Paul issuing a specific warning to some early Christians who believed they needed to adhere to one particular point of the ancient law:

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.”

It seems to me that Paul’s warning can be applied in reverse to those who pick and choose among the laws of Moses to rationalize tithing or to condemn practices they disapprove of: You are under obligation to keep the whole law. So you need to start keeping kosher, and you need to make an appointment with your local mohel or mohelot.