[Buddha-l] it's not about belief

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Mon, 2006-01-02 at 21:31 +0100, Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:

> I never felt any sympathy for the idea of divinity and never could
> understand why people bothered to count it

I'm the same way. According to Paul Bloom, you and I may be among the
10% of the human population that did not inherit the random genetic
mutation that enables people to hold beliefs in the absence of evidence.
(In my case, this makes some genetic sense; my father and his father
also enjoyed freedom from that genetic mistake.)

What I find fascinating is how a proposition will seem obviously true to
some people and its contradiction will seem obviously true to other
people. Not long ago I saw an article about people taking tours of the
Grand Canyon. The leader of one tour was showing all the geological
features and saying it was obvious that this whole structure was created
by God and that some features showed evidence of the great flood (you
know, the one in which Noah got two of every species of animal on earth
into a boat the size of a yacht). Another tour leader was telling his
crowd the features of the Grand Canyon were obvious evidence that the
earth is billions of years old. Two incompatible propositions supported
by the same "obvious" evidence.

If I were to wind up on a tour led by someone telling people the Grand
Canyon is proof positive the earth was created by God a few thousand
years ago, I would be tempted to throw him over the edge of the canyon
and then fall to my knees to pray that God would catch him before he got
hurt. But then I grew up in family whose patriarch was a practicing
geologist and an unrepentant atheist who drives around in a car that has
on the bumper a fish symbol inside which is written the word "Darwin".
Given my formative years, it would be as difficult for me to see
anything as evidence of the existence of God (or karma) as it would be
for some of my Catholic friends to see anything as evidence that
homosexuals have a right to get married.

> I call this the theosophic fallacy: rising in your judgement above all
> religions, saying that you're impartial and have taken the essence out
> of all and turning this into a new religion.

That is indeed a fallacy, but the Zoroastrians, Muslims, Vedantins,
Sikhs and authors of the Lotus Sutra were using it far before the
Theosophists. Indeed, some of the Campellites (whom I mentioned earlier)
were doing pretty much the same thing in the USA in the early 19th
century. They set out to unify Christianity by discarding all divisive
creeds and practices and ended up forming a denomination that everyone
else rejected. They then became extraordinarily isolationistic, lest
their unifying purity be contaminated by divisive sectarianism. This
sect thrived in the American South. I think they may have been the
inspiration behind George W. Bush saying of himself "I'm a uniter, not a
divider."

> There is a tendency to religion in most cultures, but this may be due
> to the definition of religion. Dürkheim came close in my view to see
> religion as a kind of hidden tribalism. If we want to live and if we
> want our grandchildren to live, we should overcome that.

The chances of overcoming it are close to nil, I think. The disease
infects 90% of human beings. It is so pervasive that even systems of
thought that strive to eliminate religion end up becoming
indistinguishable from religions themselves. Marxism and Maoism, which I
used to believe were the only hope for the human race, became every bit
as prone to irrational beliefs as Judaism, Catholicism and Mormonism
ever were. I don't know how things are in Europe, but here in North
America, leftists are every bit as prone to mindless and uncritical
repetition of mantras and other gibberish as the most unsophisticated
villager in medieval Tibet. There is no evidence whatsoever that I can
see that would support the belief that there is any hope for the human
race. Go kiss your grandchildren now. The chances that they will grow up
to have children of their own are very poor indeed.

> In fact it's not very difficult: we can maintain all religions, but we
> have to let go of truth. Believe anything you want, but accept that
> it's not the truth. 

Nice joke. The problem is, if I may take your joke a little too
seriously, that it is in the very nature of belief that one practicing
it thinks the content of a sincerely held belief is the truth. So what
we really need to let go of is belief. I'm all for that. Indeed, no
schools of ancient philosophy appeal to me more than the various forms
of skepticism. The managed to incorporate the best of the Cynics and the
Stoics, or so it seems to me. In India the carvakas and the Madhyamaka
Buddhists came close to achieving the same lofty heights.

> Leave this idea of one and only eternal unchanging truth behind. 

I think you might have better luck convincing people to give up sex and
food. Most people, as the evidence of polls indicates, would rather die
than give up their beliefs. And even more would rather kill than die. So
I think it is pretty likely that we will all die in a bloodbath in which
90% of the human race will be able to justify every last drop of spilled
blood as necessary to defend the God-fearing from infidels.

> Let religion be your lifestyle, but place ethics above religion, so
> that nobody hinders anybody in his or her lifestyle.

Alas, this formula has been tried. What it led to in the United States
is the return of a more robust species of fundamentalism.

> Four hundred years ago our ancestors burned each other singing at the
> stake because of the one and only truth. Nowadays young men in the
> Middle East do something similar. I think it's just a bad idea and I
> hope many people will reflect on this in 2006.

The only people likely to reflect on this are those of us who already
agree with what you are saying. The others are busy either plotting our
death or cheering on those who are preparing to led us to the gallows,
the guillotine, the stake or the mass unmarked graves. Do you remember
Cambodia? That is most likely the future of all humankind. Think about
THAT in 2006.

-- 
Richard Hayes
***
"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything
upon insufficient evidence."  -- William Clifford