A highly intelligent friend called yesterday, and in the conversation happened to mention a close relative who had apparently led a somewhat troubled life, but who had recently become very religious, and who seemed transformed into becoming a much happier, more contented person.
My friend had found it difficult to have her relative explain the process of how this transformation had taken place, and could she validate it by a process of applying reason to the facts of reality? We agreed that in such a case, its probably better not to try.
It's one thing to discuss such questions with someone who likes to deal in the realm of ideas. In such a case it might be productive in helping someone you hold as a high value in your life to "see the light." But in the words of the old saying, where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.
Any attempt to switch someone from faith to reason, when happiness for that person hangs in the balance, is probably an unkindness. For happiness is the proper condition for mankind right here on earth, in this one, precious life he or she has to live. Why screw it up?
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Please. You posture as a champion of reason, yet you fail to recognize your own logical lacunae. It's a common failing among persons excessively proud of their intellects, smug about having found some truth lesser minds haven't yet reached. I know it well; I've shared it lifelong.
I don't insist that you accept my religious convictions, nor do I claim to be able to prove them. They are neither provable nor disprovable. But then, they're not a position in a debate; I don't argue for them, here or elsewhere. They're merely my convictions, formed by interior processes that don't qualify as objective evidence of anything. Notice? I freely admit that I can't prove my convictions to you. But then, I have no desire to do that. If it's your choice to be faithless, then faithless you will be, and no word nor deed of mine will alter it.
I'll assume, for the sake of amity, that you feel no need to prove your position to me. A good thing, as your atheism is quite as much an article of faith as mine. A negative proposition is next to impossible to prove or disprove. Not to mention that, given the attributes Christians ascribe to God, it would be beyond Man's powers to verify or falsify the divinity of God Himself; we simply don't have the horsepower to test Him!
One particularly ironic aspect of militant atheists in action is their tendency to psychologize religious persons, as you did in this comment:
"Regarding Catholicism or any other faith, a deeply religous person holds ideas picked up through a sensory/perceptive process of induction that began long before reaching the age of reason. Thus these beliefs are held at a pre-conceptual level of cognition. It takes much analytical thought and some considerable courage to re-examine these ideas that have been held as automatic, emotional, irrational, cognitive implants."
The implications of these assertions are very flattering to an atheist, but they're entirely unsubstantiable. How does your thesis square with the conversion to Christianity of a mature, highly educated adult such as myself? (I became a Catholic at age 52.) Does it bestow upon you any power of prediction? If you've had any education in the sciences, you're aware that one can only claim to possess knowledge if it can be verified by prediction. What of yours? What can you predict from your psychological premise?
But all of this is to the side. What I've been trying to tell you, and what you seem unwilling to confront, is that atheist libertarians' attitude of disdain and disrespect for persons of faith is costing the liberty movement a great deal of support and good will. I was once NY State's Libertarian Party Chairman and the Chairman of my county's Society for Individual Liberty. I published SIL's regional newsletter at my own expense and was probably the most active of all its members. A great part of the reason I'm no longer affiliated with the Party or with SIL, and that I avoid most self-styled libertarians, is their contempt for religion and religious people.
We don't ask for respect or special regard. We simply don't want to be belittled or vilified. Yet arrogant atheists persist in mixing their religious faith into unrelated matters of politics and social dealing. Can you see yourself in this picture?
If political freedom is really important to you, you might want to moderate your statements about the irrationality of religious belief. Of course, it might be more important to you to maintain your air of superiority, but that's for you to decide.
A mature man recognizes his failings and the limits of his rational powers. You're up against yours. Take stock of yourself, before you do the liberty movement even more harm.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto | February 24, 2008 at 09:44 AM
When one holds a positive position e.g. "there is a god," the onus is on that person to offer evidence. It is not up to anyone to disprove it. For example, if I told you there was a heard of wild buffalo playing poker 1000 miles below the surface of the earth, and asked you to prove it isn't so, you would be hard put to make your case. So be it with "God." I can't prove he is not there, but you can't prove he is.
Posted by: Stuart Daw | February 24, 2008 at 08:50 AM
You persist in your self-defending rationale for dismissing persons of faith as somehow non-rational. Faith is part of the domain of convictions that can neither be proved nor disproved; your notion that it is somehow opposed to reason is thus an arrogation of a status your own irreligiosity cannot justly claim. In shorter words: you can no more prove that my religious convictions are wrong than I can prove that they're right. Yet you deign to sneer at them. The technical term for this is arrogance.
Libertarianism that promulgates such an attitude will never get to first base in a country as passionately Christian as America. It will offend far more people than it will persuade. Persons of faith will reject it on the basis of its arrogance, without stopping to consider its virtues. You do your political convictions -- and mine -- no good service.
Study Marshall Fritz. Learn how to persuade without lording it over persons with whom you disagree on unconnected matters. Or resign yourself to wandering forever in the political wilderness.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto | February 23, 2008 at 05:51 PM
My site does not have much in common with the large 'L' Libertarian party. In fact, Libertarians would be the last political party to reeive my vote.
Regarding Catholicism or any other faith, a deeply religous person holds ideas picked up through a sensory/perceptive process of induction that began long before reaching the age of reason. Thus these beliefs are held at a pre-conceptual level of cognition. It takes much analytical thought and some considerable courage to re-examine these ideas that have been held as automatic, emotional, irrational, cognitive implants.
Posted by: stuartdaw | February 16, 2008 at 11:11 PM
It is self-exalting and contemptuous to dismiss religious feeling as somehow beneath "one who deals in the realm of ideas."
I hold a doctorate in Physics and am regarded as the foremost practitioner of my trade -- real-time engineering -- and I am a devout Catholic. Moreover, I became a Catholic as an adult. I find my Christian convictions to be entirely consistent with my attachment to freedom. However, my religion has proved utterly unacceptable to other libertarians, such that I have found it necessary to distance myself from them. I'm much more comfortable around conservatives, who don't treat my Christianity like a social disease.
There's a moral in that for libertarians, especially Party libertarians. They've developed a reputation for being quite as humorlessly intolerant as any statist. Yet they appear clueless about why the great majority of Americans deem them unacceptable.
None so blind as those who will not see, none so deaf as those who will not hear...
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto | February 16, 2008 at 05:51 PM