To be sure, many of the "professional atheist" writing claque of the past decade have come across as smug, even insulting at times. Worse yet, from a purely forensic point of view, it's counterproductive. Assuming one's goal is to persuade, rather than merely browbeat, telling people of faith how hopelessly deluded they are is not going to produce many converts. One would like to see more than (ironically) choir-preaching.
So it's fine that Sam Harris is apparently going the extra yard to match up the religious impulse with a universal secular one -- the acknowledgement that there are forces that are, at least for now, beyond our reckoning or comprehension. It's intellectually honest, without lending undue credence to "invisible sky buddy" dogma.
And a decade of literary smugness certainly does not, obviously, come anywhere close to offsetting thousands of years of insufferable behavior on the part of substantial segments of believers. The more routine approach is the unquestioning assertions one might find on, say, the Facebook pages of one's friends, unthinking log-rolling done mostly with cheesy graphics and (literally) "amen" comments and responses.
Certainly this is not true of all believers, as there are plenty of essays, past and present, that elucidate the primal urge to believe with at least enough passion and conviction to merit some consideration, if only as to the presentation of the argument rather than its veracity. But it seems to be true of the overwhelming majority of believers, who are unable to argue their points with any clarity or precision. There don't seem to be any C.S. Lewis types out there anymore, just Dinesh D'Souza, Sarah Palin, and millions of lemming-like followers who communicate through selfies and grunts and Will Ferrell meme generators.
It seems that Bruni would like to believe that Harris provides a context for a more contemplative spirituality. I would suggest that not only do most people not possess that capacity in any meaningful or consistent amount, but that when it comes to their religious beliefs, they actively eschew such activities, precisely because they're secretly afraid that, if they were to read or think about too many contrasting or opposing ideas, they would lose faith, and sooner rather than later.
It's easier to just believe that all our deceased relatives and friends are waiting for us on the other side of the rainbow bridge, feeding all our deceased pets and hanging out with, I dunno, Abraham Lincoln and Leonardo DaVinci. That's certainly a tempting prospect, but there are countless examples of vapid, venal, and vile things perpetrated by humans, frequently for no goddamned reason at all, or merely the usual ones of greed and stupidity, that should make just about anyone seriously question their faith if they really thought about it closely enough.
Reconsidering faith doesn't at all, contra popular assumptions, decontextualize or invalidate the ethical construct for "right" or "moral" behavior; one doesn't become a louche moral relativist or a feckless hedonistic sybarite simply because one decides to refute for themselves the dogma popular and political culture cynically -- or worse yet, sincerely -- embraces. That's probably the biggest lie of all. Ultimately, the more important question is not whether there is or is not a celestial being supervising our deeds and transgressions, but what each of us chooses to do with our belief or non-belief in such a being.
So it's fine that Sam Harris is apparently going the extra yard to match up the religious impulse with a universal secular one -- the acknowledgement that there are forces that are, at least for now, beyond our reckoning or comprehension. It's intellectually honest, without lending undue credence to "invisible sky buddy" dogma.
And a decade of literary smugness certainly does not, obviously, come anywhere close to offsetting thousands of years of insufferable behavior on the part of substantial segments of believers. The more routine approach is the unquestioning assertions one might find on, say, the Facebook pages of one's friends, unthinking log-rolling done mostly with cheesy graphics and (literally) "amen" comments and responses.
Certainly this is not true of all believers, as there are plenty of essays, past and present, that elucidate the primal urge to believe with at least enough passion and conviction to merit some consideration, if only as to the presentation of the argument rather than its veracity. But it seems to be true of the overwhelming majority of believers, who are unable to argue their points with any clarity or precision. There don't seem to be any C.S. Lewis types out there anymore, just Dinesh D'Souza, Sarah Palin, and millions of lemming-like followers who communicate through selfies and grunts and Will Ferrell meme generators.
It seems that Bruni would like to believe that Harris provides a context for a more contemplative spirituality. I would suggest that not only do most people not possess that capacity in any meaningful or consistent amount, but that when it comes to their religious beliefs, they actively eschew such activities, precisely because they're secretly afraid that, if they were to read or think about too many contrasting or opposing ideas, they would lose faith, and sooner rather than later.
It's easier to just believe that all our deceased relatives and friends are waiting for us on the other side of the rainbow bridge, feeding all our deceased pets and hanging out with, I dunno, Abraham Lincoln and Leonardo DaVinci. That's certainly a tempting prospect, but there are countless examples of vapid, venal, and vile things perpetrated by humans, frequently for no goddamned reason at all, or merely the usual ones of greed and stupidity, that should make just about anyone seriously question their faith if they really thought about it closely enough.
Reconsidering faith doesn't at all, contra popular assumptions, decontextualize or invalidate the ethical construct for "right" or "moral" behavior; one doesn't become a louche moral relativist or a feckless hedonistic sybarite simply because one decides to refute for themselves the dogma popular and political culture cynically -- or worse yet, sincerely -- embraces. That's probably the biggest lie of all. Ultimately, the more important question is not whether there is or is not a celestial being supervising our deeds and transgressions, but what each of us chooses to do with our belief or non-belief in such a being.
No comments:
Post a Comment