A review of "Christianity without God"

a review by Edd Doerr of  Christianity without God: Moving beyond the Dogmas and Retrieving the Epic Moral Narrative, by Daniel C. Maguire. SUNY Press, 2014, 226 pp, $24.95.

“In these pages,” Dan Maguire  writes as he begins this important book, “I argue against the existence of a personal god, the divinity of Jesus, and the belief that continued living is the sequel to death. I find no persuasive arguments for any of these hypotheses,” these assumed foundations of Christianity. “What would be refreshing,” he adds, “is a moratorium on god-talk so that together we could explore alternatives to earth’s current social, political, economic, and ecological distress.”

Maguire, Professor of Ethics at (Jesuit) Marquette University and a former priest, is a longtime supporter of women’s rights regarding contraception, abortion and overpopulation. (See my review of his book, Sacred Choices, in Voice of Reason No. 80 in 2002 at arlinc.org.) In this brisk new book, brimming with humor and common sense, Maguire eviscerates the myths and supernaturalism of the Bible and traditional Christian theology but says that there are gems of wisdom and ethics to be found in those sources, though, one cannot help but note, those gems are buried under mountains of muck that require a patient, careful geologist like Maguire to unearth. The book reminds one of the Jefferson Bible or Bernard Shaw’s quip that as his followers did not understand Jesus’ religion, they made him the religion.

Maguire pokes fun at the Vatican’s “pelvic zone orthodoxy” and highlights the importance of dealing with climate change and its concomitants: “deforestation and  habitat destruction, soil erosion and salinization, water management problems, overhunting, overfishing, foreign species affecting native species, human population growth, and increased per capita impact of people,” a litany similar to the one I have long been chanting.  He concludes: “No deity will come to save this gifted and generous earth. It’s a challenge for humans not for gods. . . . The hour is late; some damage is irremediable. But it is not too late to start reversals.”

Further: “We are a spoiled species that seems hell-bent on wrecking the earth that cradles us and we are well on in that demonic suicidal project. It is an alluring temptation for the likes of us to imagine a superbeing with parental passions who is both omnipotent and all merciful who will make everything right ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. Such delusions are typical of adolescence. And adolescent is what we are.”

Maguire’s humanism shines brightly through in this terrific book, though he does not use that term. And it bears out what I wrote in this haiku: “Labels may conceal / far more than they may reveal / they can mask what’s real.”

Going the Extra Mile to Visit Jane Addams

By Gary Berg-Cross

One of the many nice national “monuments” in DC is The Extra Mile. As the name suggests its a mile long “monument” bronze medallions installed in the sidewalks of downtown Washington D.C. The markers form a one-mile walking path through an area bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue, 15th Street, G Street, and 11th Street.  These “points of light” honorees are people described as ones:

"through their caring and personal sacrifice, reached out to others, building their dreams into movements that helped people across America and throughout the world".

Each honoree has a custom-made bronze medallion installed along the path. And there are lots of good folk who have a medallion:

• Harriet Tubman - Leader of Underground Railroad Effort to Free Slaves
• Booker T. Washington - Civil Rights Leader
• Susan B. Anthony - Suffragist

 I ran into a stretch of medallions on F Street NW between 14^th and 13^th streets and lo, luck afforded me a chance to step over a special one  – Jane Addams (1860 –1935).  That very afternoon I was to moderate a peace panel which included a small section on the Progressive era and the Women’s movement with Jane as a principle agent.  

Progressive women reformers like humanist  Jane Addams, were both venerated and vilified as they increasingly involved themselves in the peace movement and events like the. 1^st International Congress of  Women, held at The Hague.

In the spirit of an enlightened expanded beyond a Procrustean war-peace dimension many of us have heard Addams’ one-liner on a deeper idea of peace : 

“True peace is not merely the absence of war, it is the presence of justice.” 

Addams is, of course, more famous for the social justice she enabled with Hull House. It is interesting to note that she founded the first settlement house which led to a later era of Christian settlement houses that sought to stress a Christian social consciousness via the social gospel.  While Christians latre tried to popularize her Christian image Jane Addams might be better characterizes as a “ force of secular humanism”. 

According to Joslin (2004), “The new humanism, as [Adams] interprets it comes from a secular, and not a religious, pattern of belief.”  Fair enough that something that starts a bit more secular can inspire others to do the right thing.

Jane Addams’ pacifism, social activism and pursuit of justice earned her label and interesting label as, “the most dangerous woman in America.”
She was dangerous enough with progressive ideas that in 1931 she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is recognized as the founder of the social work profession in the United States.   

A good neighbor to have in DC and her Medallion is worth visiting and her thoughts remembered.

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men.
                                      Jane Addams

Abelard's Early Humanist Reasoning

by Gary Berg-Cross

At a recent conference a lunchtime conversation turned to examples of sound reasoning and the scholar Peter Abelard was raised as an interesting example.  Abelard is better known to most of us as a tragic love story.  Abelard and Heloise remain one of the more a celebrated couples of all time, in part from their writing and in part from the classic tragic events that eventually separated them:

1.    two well-educated people, brought together by their passion they fell in love;

2.    Heloise became pregnant, so

3.    they married secretly in 1118.

4.    Her uncle Fulbert, a canon of Paris,  had Abelard castrated by thugs believing that he had abandoned Heloise,

5.    after which he became a monk and

6.    Sent to a convent by her uncle, Heloise later became a nun

In a letter to Abelard, Heloise reflected on her loss:

"You know, beloved, as the whole world knows, how much I have lost in you, how at one wretched stroke of fortune that supreme act of flagrant treachery robbed me of my very self in robbing me of you; and how my sorrow for my loss is nothing compared with what I feel for the manner in which I lost you."

This part of the history I knew a bit, but Peter Abelard (1079-1142) as an12th century medieval French philosopher, theologian, and logician I had heard less about.  After all these are the Middle Ages, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn the history and form of his thinking.

It goes something like this. A bright boy he rapidly jumped from school to school gaining an easy rise to fame. He wound up in a pre-University of Paris setting to study under William of Champeaux, head of the cathedral school and archdeacon of Notre Dame. Along the way his brilliant reasoning and debate were matched by a Chris-Hitchens-like arrogance. As with Hitch he generated many foes as wells as admirers. His mentor William, for example, was famous for a realist stance on the nature of universals, while pupil Peter took a nominalist and soundly won a series of debates. This success lead to a following, among students who provided a core for what was late to become the great University in Paris. Abélard's deep understanding of Aristotle's theory of knowledge surpassed anything widely available in 12^th century Europe, which he cultivated in his Paris students. His was an example of great teaching that came to live as a Liberal Arts curriculum and style of teaching when universities were formally founded.

One of his important contributions was a work on ethics which took as its title the Socratic admonition, "Know thyself." In this work Abelard veered from the established course of strict commandments to stress the importance of intention in evaluating the moral/immoral character of an action. This was a step towards more nuanced reasoning about moral action.

Some of his early persuasive arguments swayed leaders like Pope Innocent III, who accepted Abelard's Doctrine of Limbo – children are innocent before the age of reason. But reasoned debate about reason itself was his real forte and passion - outside of Heloise. A famous debate was with Bernard of Clairvaux over the conflicts of reason and religion.  This conflict that made him a hero of the Enlightenment.

In Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian Abelard plays a combination of a Socrates and Swift like character as he debated religious dogma. Abélard juxtaposes apparently contradictory quotations from the Church Fathers & the Bible on many of the traditional topics of Judeo-Christian theology (he was the first to use ‘theology’ in its modern sense) only to “discover(ed) the Jews to be stupid and the Christians insane.”  As you can imagine making common folks reasoning look foolish does get noticed. His teachings backed by sound reasoning were controversial, and he was repeatedly charged with heresy. His book on the Trinity was condemned to be burnt at Soissons in 1121.

One can see the controversy in one his works on Logic Reasoning "Sic et Non," an early scholastic teaching text whose title translates from Medieval Latin into a simple “Yes and No" dichotomy (for more on limitations of dichotomy see my article on Binary Thinking). As in his previous “Dialog” we see what happens when we apply reason to the teaching of revelation or at least questions that come out of revealed truths.

In the Prologue, Abélard outlines logical rules for reconciling contradictions but the core of the book is a list of 158 philosophical and theological questions.  The first five questions give a sense of these:

1. Must human faith be completed by reason, or not?
2. Does faith deal only with unseen things, or not?
3. Is there any knowledge of things unseen, or not?
4. May one believe only in God alone, or not?
5. Is God a single unitary being, or not?

Abelard laid down four basic principles of reasoning:

• Use systematic doubt and question everything
• Learn the difference between statements of rational proof and those merely of persuasion
• Be precise in use of words, and expect precision of others
• Watch for error, even in Holy Scripture (danger Will Robinson!!)

Wonderful advice even today.  Maybe especially today.

One can why Peter got in trouble as the rational arguments on the non-doctrinaire side seem as good as the Church’s position. And rational argument is still getting freethinkers in trouble.

Abelard was probably not the forerunner of modern atheism as some have argued. He seems more comfortably fit into a proud humanistic tradition–extending from Socrates. He takes a  bold Medieval step towards human centering in ethics by taking moral authority and responsibility away from gods and their servant. Intentions and reasoning make it our responsibility.  Bravo Peter A for your love of reason and balance along with the worthy Heloise.

Images

A & H : http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2012/04/sic-et-non-why-the-title.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_philosophy

A Dialogue of a Philosopher With a Jew, and a Christian: http://books.google.com/books/about/A_Dialogue_of_a_Philosopher_With_a_Jew_a.html?id=j6lLgt-bhBAC

 

Sic et Non: http://www.amazon.fr/Sic-Et-Non-Critical-Edition/dp/0226000664

 

The Golden Rule & Social Justice

by Gary Berg-Cross

We have all heard of the Golden Rule (Treat others as we would like others to treat us), which is accepted as a universal moral principle and perhaps THE starting principle of morality. Many religions and moral philosophies build on it. And many people aspire to live by it on an individual basis. That's all to the good, although one might expect that it should be broadened to include what others need as well as want. As historian Karl Popper said:

"The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever possible, as they want to be done by." (The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2)

But often the Golden Rule is equated to its individualistic Christian form without acknowledging its implied recognition of a broader, contextualized reciprocal responsibility. This implied impartiality leads logically to some notion of justice for all and the common good. This connection to a proto-Social Justice is what some conservative voices have objected to as a morality matured beyond the basic Golden Rule.

The notion at the core of any mature morality involves some idea of impartiality. In simple situations if you are asked to justify your actions, and you may just say,"Well I wanted to". This is just an expression of selfish desire and not ethics or impartiality. But a person might have a more complicated explanations guided by a rule like "It was my turn" or as when young siblings argue "He got one and this is my fair share". These are more like a nuanced moral, stance because they imply that it is reasonable that others in similar situations could or would have done the same. This is reasonable and is the sort of argument that could be convincing to a neutral observer and is at the foundation of standards of justice and law. The philosopher Peter Singer suggests that this notion of impartiality and reciprocity can be found in systems of morality, starting with the golden rule.

This basic ethic of neutral reciprocity itself was present in certain forms in the philosophies of ancient Babylon, Egypt, Persia, India, Greece, China and elsewhere, but it is worth considering some of the ideas implied in alternative formulations and variants that go beyond it to rules of other metals than Gold.

The Wikipedia section on Golden Rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule describes the maxim as an ethic of reciprocity. The core idea can essentially be stated in positive or negative terms about individual responsibility:

One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself (positive form)
One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated (negative/ prohibitive form)

The later form is also called the Silver Rule, but it is only one variant of many possible expressions. Statements that mirror the Golden Rule appear in Ancient Egypt in the story of The Eloquent Peasant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eloquent_Peasant. states that "the label 'golden' was applied by Confucius (551–479 B.C.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius , who wrote a version of the Silver The Christian form of it from Matthew [7:12] is probably the best known in the West that crowds out other formulations (and some subtle implications_:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

But there are many versions as various religions have their form of it as well as many schools of philosophy. Among the earlier statements that capture the idea of a Golden Rule are those appearing in an ancient Egyptian (Middle Kingdom, c. 2040–1650 BCE) the story called The Eloquent Peasant:

       "Now this is the command: Do to the doer to cause that he do thus to you"

According to many, the first know use of the phrase 'golden' was by Confucius (551–479 B.C.) and expressed the well-known principle, "Surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness: Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself", one of the earlier versions of the Golden Rule [Analects 15,23]. He also wrote a version of the Silver form.

These, along with the classic Greek versions found in Thales & Plato, predate Christianity and therefore could claim prior credit - if one was to look at this as Judeo-Christianity finding some newly found moral principal, which they did not. What we find in older version is the responsibility idea connected to other ideas or rationales.Thales version includes the idea of blame as a test of doing something wrong:

"Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing."

Plato's translated version is simpler:

"May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me."

The Wiccan formulation is perhaps the simplest and is similar to words in the Hippocratic Oath - "Do no harm." Some call this the Silver Rule as later championed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. as a way to compensate for the Golden Rule's shortcomings. To others the silver rule is the golden rule without the gold:

“What you do not wish done to you, do not do to others.”


The Golder Rule with is positive responsibility is sometimes contrasted with the "right of 'wild' reciprocal justice, such as seen the Jewish formulation in Exodus 21 of "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe".

Better are other reciprocal responsibility that adds (or implies) the associated ideas of duty, goodness, rights, harm, desires etc which them interesting in their own right. The Baha'i Faith presents the rule in the context of burdens, avoiding unnecessary ones and lays out what outcomes an individual should want or desire.

“Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.”[Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, LXVI:8 ]

Buddhism has a similar ring using the stronger implication of harm, but still has a self centered notion of it:

"Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." [Udana-Varga 5,18] as does Hinduism with its:

"This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you." [Mahabharata 5,1517]

Islam sees the golden rule as affirming their belief:
"No man is a true believer unless he desireth for his brother that which he desireth for
himself." [Azizullah, Hadith 150]

One problem with many of these older formulations is that it is not clear what the scope of responsibility is. In some cases old commandments were to men and asymmetrical reflecting women as property. In others, it might be interpreted as just a rule applying within the community. It is better when we make it clear that we should apply the reciprocity ethic, not just only within one's community, but when dealing with persons of other religions, the other gender, other races, other sexual orientations, etc. This is we note always a welcome idea in an individualistic age where the idea of Ayn Rand and Glenn Beck are treated with religious conviction. Followers of such thinker are threatened when some non-religious philosophy expressed the rule more explicitly in a broader social context. I think that they err by claims that we exist only for our individual selves or only for some focused grouping of family, tribe or nation. The more we grow in ethical maturity, the wider has become the range of our moral concern. But cosmopolitanism is an old idea itself, which we see in the Greeks and other around 400 BCE. Mohism, for example, developed around the same time as Confusionism and expressed it golden rule not in terms of individuals but of families and neighbors:

" If people regarded other people's families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself."

The philosopher Mozi regarded the golden rule not a panacea in itself, but as a corollary supporting the cardinal virtue of broad impartiality. In secular terms, the 20th philosopher John Rawls developed a similar idea asking people to look at what is virtuous from a "veil of ignorance" perspective which gives others rights simply by virtue of because they are human. Within a neutral, impartial context a golden rule works to encourage egalitarianism and selflessness in relationships and thus promotes a civic and just society.


This gets much closer to W. A. Spooner (1844-1930) interpretation of the rule:

"The Maxim [of the Golden Rule] does not imply that we should always do to others exactly that which we should wish under our own present circumstances (which may be quite different from theirs) to be done to us. What the maxim implies is that we are, as far as possible, to put ourselves in the place of others; to consider what we would wish to be done to us, were we in their circumstances."

This has been formalized as a Platinum Rule,  which takes others desires into account and simple says:

           "Treat others the way they want to be treated."

Now we are accommodating the feelings of others. The focus of the relationships shifts from a self insight "this is what I want, so I'll give everyone something.The more we grow in ethical maturity, the wider has become the range of our moral concern. But cosmopolitanism is an old idea itself which we see in the Greeks and other around 400 BCE. Mohism, for example, developed around the same time as Confucianism and expressed it golden rule not in terms of individuals but of families and neighbors:

" If people regarded other people's families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself the same thing" to an insight about what others wants (and possibly needs). It's more cognitive and relies on connecting an understanding of what others want with some social responsibility to enabling them to have it. This is an insight that emerges within human societies made up of intelligent, deliberating and negotiating beings. Its value is that it can override more parochial impulses.

So its great power is that it is just a few small steps from this formulation to the idea of social justice with its implied broader social responsibility. We quickly come to a principle that asserts that society has an obligation to ensure all have a right to have basic needs met regardless of their level of wealth, social status or political power. We quickly come to a recognition of others needs for things like adequate nutrition, health care, shelter, education and others. These rights are based on a more social principle of the common good that contrasts with the pursuit of unbridled, leaden self-interest. It's an idea that people like Glenn Beck hate it. Among the things they had is the idea that social justice is a broad civic obligation. We need look no further than the preamble to the US Constitution whose rules exist to, among other things, "establish justice."

Boxing Ourselves In with Category Errors

by Gary Berg-Cross

In April I wrote about the “Binary Thinking” Habit. The habit is illustrated by the phenomena of asking seemingly simple questions framed so they evoke up or down/yes or no responses. Beyond yes or no this style of forcing answers into 2 possible responses is institutionalized in cultures through dichotomous language labels like “liberal” and “conservative”. But it also finds it way into philosophical discussions. A popular example of a binary framed question is- can machines/computers be conscious? Yes or no seems to be the positions. Speaking of positions, since American politics is organized around a 2 party political system we often get discussions with left-right orientations. These are collapsed into polar opposite positions and people are expected to line up on one side or the other.

In June Edd Doerr followed up on this by further “ruminating” on the topic of binary (i.e. two-valued, either/or, black/white) thinking. He noted that the real world is far more complicated than is allowed for in religious frames, but also for some freethinkers' frames which contrast "god-believer" as dumb while "god-unbeliever" are smart or "bright". We all have to avoid pigeon holing things into binary bins.

I had some drive by examples of conservative framing of the abortion issue in life and death terms, government vs. public funded schools and the label of Obamacare in my Framing Arguments: You say Flaming Atheists and I Say Non-Confrontational Humanist. This evoked some Anonymous conservative comments on the complexity of the issue. which in turn stirred a bit of a debate. A bottom line on this issue is that the majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal, but handled delicately and not in a binary, adversarial fashion. Beyond that I wanted to respond to a portion of this debate.

First, I find that vocal parts of the anti-abortion side ignore grey-area nuances in their debate. They wish the issue to be debated as an absolutist, true-false way. They frame the act as immoral and not subject to nuanced decisions by the family. These allow a range of considered options, including the right to decide on an abortion. This is not the flexibility of an emotion-targeted moralist position which sees the act as immoral and therefore illegal (by the law of God). Details of this type of argument framing are discussed by clinical psychologist Drew Westen in his book Political Brain. He notes:

The political brain is an emotional brain,” he said. “It prefers conclusions that are emotionally satisfying rather than conclusions that match the data.”

Westen discusses how Frank Luntz-style wordsmithing of negative ads and talking points about abortion has stirred deeply felt passions that immobilize reasoning about the topic. An issue like abortion cannot simply be treated in the blank/white terms. It is more a nuanced issue that involves at least two complex issues:

1. The competing rights between the mother's rights to bodily integrity (and in the extreme the right to her life) and the fetus's right not to be killed.

2. At what point (or beyond this point) does the fetus become entitled to become a person and have rights ascribed to it?

Both issues come with nuance and many degrees of graduation on concepts like rights, personhood and tradeoffs. The first involves the issue of whether the mother/family decides the tradeoffs with medical advice or whether the state and religion has a say in rights and decision. That is there is conceptual analysis required rather than absolute assertions such as the idea that a soul (élan vital?) enters fetal cells at conception – an un-testable hypothesis. And you see where we can get into trouble if we involve God in the decision making. The hypothesized God is an omnipotent creation, while humans are not. We have 2 different category of beings with two completely different knowledge and decision making abilities. God is also given rule the giving and taking of life while the individual is not. This is all part of a conceptual analysis.

In Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics the philosopher Simon Blackburn addressed the 2nd issue this way, "...the biological fact is that foetal development is gradual. The one cell starting point is a different kettle of fish from the baby about to be born. The complexity arrives gradually, hour by hour, day by day".


I think that complex topics like this not only suffer from binary thinking that excludes a range of positions, it also shows examples of what logicians call category errors or category mistakes. Simply stated a category mistake/error, is a semantic or ontological error in which a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property. A category error occurs when you think about what in the real world is close to a continuum/ spectrum as if it were clearly broken out into a small series of discrete, boxlike categories. A classic case involves color labels. You and I may disagree about whether to call something like a flower blue or purple. It is better to think of blue and purple are occupying nearby area on a continuous spectrum of colors. So if we disagree about whether something is blue or purple, we can both be right or wrong. There may be a convention to guide us about the fuzzy boundary where purple shades into blue. As with binary bins, category errors are often built into the very structure of our language. Our category words feel like boxes with hard (non-fuzzy) edges: blue, purple, short, intelligent. But like colors, most of terms really point to directions or suggest someone’s idea of vague zones on a continuous spectrum. This side of culture there’s no objective foundation for saying “Warren is short,” unless we just mean “Warren is shorten than most people I see, know or hear about.” “Short” as a concept is not such a rigid box; as much as a convention for range or direction on a spectrum of possible heights. We sort of learn this growing up and don’t call a 3 year old short when they are the tallest in pre-school. Simple ideas like color, height or position rarely causes trouble, but the more complex and social concepts of “fat” or “smart” do. These involve emotions and so does a decision like abortion.

We see the possibility of a category error as discussed earlier by Blackburn on gradual cell development. Anti-abortionists place a fertilized human cell in the category of person, but there is no fuzzy boundary for them. There is a more complex boundary for other camps and having the women/family decide is a way to handle the complexity with advice from medical specialists. That is just more nuanced than what I hear from the soul-based moralist. Any activity to abort the fetal clump of fertilized cells is labeled murder. They are drawing rigid boxes where some degree of uncertainly exists.