Atheism and Agnosticism: Religions-In A Sense (believe, reject, scrutiny, debate)

[RonPrice]

Since there are so many questions raised and issues discussed concerning people’s basic assumptions about life, about their philosophy, about their religious beliefs, indeed, about their very approach to reality and the way their society goes about organizing things, it seemed like a useful exercise, useful at least to me and hopefully to some others at this site, to say a few things about: My Position and Beliefs: My Religion. Religion, in the sense that I am using it here, is the set of values, beliefs and attitudes each of us has as we go about our daily life at a particular moment in time, in this case, at the time of my writing of this post on the internet and in the case of the person reading this post, at the time of the response of that reader. I hope this opening note of some 1700 words provides a general, a useful, a helpful context for any continuing discussion you and I may have. If the note I strike is too long, I advise readers to just click me off, a simple enough exercise of the hand and the mind.-Ron Price in Australia.
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Apologetics is a branch of systematic theology, although some experience its thrust in religious studies or philosophy of religion courses. Some encounter it on the internet for the first time in a more populist and usually much less academic form. As I see it, apologetics is primarily concerned with the protection of a position, the refutation of the issues raised by that position's assailants and, in the larger sense, the exploration of that position in the context of prevailing philosophies and standards in a secular society, a religious society, indeed, any society past or present. All of us defend our positions whatever these positions are: atheistic, theistic, agnostic, humanistic, skeptic, cynic, realist, pragmatist and any one of a multitude of religions, denominations, sects, cults, isms and wasms.

Apologetics, to put it slightly differently, is concerned with answering both general and critical inquiries from others. In the main, though, apologetics deals with criticism of a position and dealing with that criticism in as rational a manner as possible. Apologetics can help explore the teachings of a religion or of a philosophy in the context of the prevailing religions and philosophies of the day as well as in the context of the common laws and standards of a secular society. Although the capacity to engage in critical self-reflection on the fundamentals of some position is a prerequisite of the task of engaging in apologetics, apologetics derives much of its impetus from a commitment to a position.

Given the role of apologetics in religious and philosophical history and in the development of the texts and ideas that are part and parcel of that history, it is surprising that contemporary communities generally undervalue its importance and often are not even aware of the existence of this sub-discipline of philosophy. Authors, writers, editors of journals and leaders known for defending points in arguments, for engaging in conflicts or for taking up certain positions that receive great popular scrutiny and/or are minority views engage in what today are essentially forms of secular apologetics.

Naturally in life, we all take positions on all sorts of topics, subjects, religions and philosophies. Often that position is inarticulate and poorly thought out if given any thought at all. With that said, though, the apologetics I engage in here is a never-ending exercise with time out for the necessary and inevitable quotidian tasks of life: eating, sleeping, drinking and a wide range of leisure activities. The apologetics that concerns me is not so much Christian or Islamic apologetics or one of a variety of those secular apologetics I referred to above, but Baha'i apologetics.

There are many points of comparison and contrast between any form of apologetics which I won't go into here. Readers here might like to check out Wikipedia for a birds-eye-view of the subject. Christians and Muslims will have the opportunity to defend their respective religions by the use of apologetics; secular humanists can also argue their cases if they so desire here. I in turn will defend the Baha'i Faith by the use of apologetics. In the process each of us will, hopefully, learn something about our respective Faiths, our religions, our various and our multitudinous positions, some of which we hold to our hearts dearly and some of which are of little interest.

At the outset, then, in this my first posting, my intention is simply to make this start, to state what you might call "my apologetics position." This brief statement indicates, in broad outline, where I am coming from in the weeks and months ahead. -Ron Price with thanks to Udo Schaefer, "Baha'i Apologetics?" Baha'i Studies Review, Vol. 10, 2001/02.

[brightdoglover]

Ba-hais believe in a god. Atheists do not. Atheists don't need to analyze something that doesn't exist in their world or explain the lack of that something in their/our world.
I hope that I have constructively responded to the long post as I understood it. If I misunderstood, I hope for clarification.

[TRANSPONDER]

Doglover has it right. The essential difference is that religion believes in an unproven entity which can be approached through various means of unvalidated efficacy, from killing goats to to sitting cross-legged until your legs go numb in order to secure benefits.

Any belief system, moral code or social organization which doesn't do that is not a religion.

[Tricky D]

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

Doglover has it right. The essential difference is that religion believes in an unproven entity which can be approached through various means of unvalidated efficacy, from killing goats to to sitting cross-legged until your legs go numb in order to secure benefits.

Any belief system, moral code or social organization which doesn't do that is not a religion.

But what do you consider proven?
I mean if we take art as an example is art a belief system or a religion?
Is it possible to prove that a piece of art is actually art?
Or is it only possible to prove that some people consider it art?

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Tricky D

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA But what do you consider proven?
I mean if we take art as an example is art a belief system or a religion?
Is it possible to prove that a piece of art is actually art?
Or is it only possible to prove that some people consider it art?

Good questions. Art is a human convention, based (probably) on evolved instincts to leave identifying marks but after that developed along similar lines, like music and poetry. Recognizably the same process but all with different takes. Perhaps religion is like that. I take the view that people's view on what is art, music or religion is rather personal and I won't quarrel with another person's preferences, provided that they don't quarrel with mine.

The sciences are a different matter. They are based on realities, not on human preferences. Some can be proven hands on. Others can be 'proven' in clever ways designed to test questions to see how they pan out. Again and again, checked and tested and that is what we'd call proven.

So if someone comes along with something called 'science' which is not properly based on those tests and results and even in defiance of them, then I cannot be so tolerant. It is not a matter of personal preference or belief or opinion. If they can produce sound evidence for their views and make it stick under check and test, then the body of data will be changed accordingly and congratulations to them.

If they cannot, then they have no case.

Does that clarify the distinction, or do you wish to probe further?

[Tricky D]

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

Does that clarify the distinction, or do you wish to probe further?

Nah, I consider religion & science both philosophies, yet acknowledge that not every philosophy is a religion.

The sciences are a different matter. They are based on realities, not on human preferences. Some can be proven hands on. Others can be 'proven' in clever ways designed to test questions to see how they pan out. Again and again, checked and tested and that is what we'd call proven.

But what about Phytagoras who treats mathematics more like religion than science (which mathematics actually is).

[PoppySead]

My religion is atheism, now what? Everyone keeps up with this debate. So, what if it is? Wooaaw, I'm religious with my atheism.
I mean, it's not like when you are religious you can't still think and say that everyone else's is wrong and crazy. Won't make any difference if we did say it was a religion, I'd still think all the others were nutty, dog, bat sheets crazy. Who cares?

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Tricky D

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA Nah, I consider religion & science both philosophies, yet acknowledge that not every philosophy is a religion.

Yes, (don't fall into the equivocation fallacy ) philosophy (in the broadest sense pursuit of knowledge) can cover the sciences, the philosophies and religions (and indeed cults) too, though that doesn't make science and philosophy the same - let alone either being religions.

But what about Phytagoras who treats mathematics more like religion than science (which mathematics actually is).

In the days before Darwin... 'God (or the Gods) dunnit' was the only explanation for the way things were. Pythagoras saw mathematics as a wondrous mechanism designed by the gods or at least the philosophers' god that made everything. Galilaeo and lNewton both believed that they were using science to show how God has designed and made everything work.

These methods eventually began to show that there was every reason to think that they worked perfectly well on their own without a god having to push them along and, by the 18th century, Deism - the idea that, sure, a god made everything, but then left it to run by itself and didn't intervene in natural affairs; and that the claims of organized religion were so much nonsense - was the view called 'the enlghtenment' and that explains the apparent dichotomy between the founding fathers' apparent mix of belief in God and rejection of Christianity. They were deists.

While I have often said that the evolution debate is actually irrelevant, I have to see that Darwinism must have been a watershed in finally suggesting that God might NOT have made it all and thus was there any reason to be even deist?

Einstein believed in an ordered universe -a very pantheist 'God' and more like a natural computer which ran the universe. He had no time for personal gods or for organized religions. His religion was something very different - a reverence for the amazing workings of nature:

"Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious."
- Albert Einstein, Response to atheist, Alfred Kerr (1927), quoted in The Diary of a Cosmopolitan (1971)

- a fascination approaching reverence which I share, and my act of worship is to learn and understand it as much as I can. And in that respect, my reverence and that of Pythagoras for learning and knowledge seems to me to be pretty much the same.

[Asheville Native]

Then if atheism is a religion, so is the knowledge that if you step off the edge of a building you will fall.

I know that if I step off the edge of a building I will fall.
I know that there are no gods.

If you want to call knowledge, religion, then I can only shake my head and walk away.

[RonPrice]

Thanks, folks, for an interesting discussion. Having studied and taught both philosophy and religion for many years, I found the responses quite typical of those I experienced as a teacher and lecturer. I'll continue my rambling and look forward to the continued comments in the months ahead.-Ron Price, Australia
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The last paragraph in my first posting in this thread went like this:

At the outset, then, in this my first posting, my intention is simply to make this start, to state what you might call "my apologetics position." This brief statement indicates, in broad outline, where I am coming from in the weeks and months ahead. -Ron Price with thanks to Udo Schaefer, "Baha'i Apologetics?" Baha'i Studies Review, Vol. 10, 2001/02.
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I'll add the following to keep the thread on topic.-Ron
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Part 8:

I want in this second part of my first posting to finish outlining, as best I can, my basic orientation to Baha’i apologetics. To save me reinventing the wheel so to speak, may I suggest--as I did earlier--that readers here google the official Bahá'í site at bahai.org so that they have some idea what the Bahá'í faith is, what are its teachings and its history. Then these same readers can post a reply to this post with specific questions and critiques. Critical scholarly contributions or criticism raised in public or private discussions, an obvious part of apologetics, should not necessarily be equated with hostility. Questions are perfectly legitimate, indeed, necessary aspects of a person's search for an answer to an intellectual conundrum. Paul Tillich, that great Protestant theologian of the 20th century, once expressed the view that apologetics was an "answering theology."-Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, U. of Chicago, 1967, Vol.1, p6.

Part 9:

I have always been attracted to the founder of the Baha'i Faith's exhortations in discussion to "speak with words as mild as milk," with "the utmost lenience and forbearance." This form of dialogue, its obvious etiquette of expression and the acute exercise of judgement involved, is difficult for most people when their position is under attack from people who are more articulate, better read and better at arguing both their own position and the position of those engaged in the written criticism than they are. I am also aware that, in cases of rude or hostile attack, rebuttal with a harsher tone, the punitive rebuttal, may well be justified, although I prefer humour, irony and even gentle sarcasm rather than hostile written attack in any form. Still, it does not help an apologist to belong to those "watchmen" whom the prophet Isaiah calls "dumb dogs that cannot bark."(Isaiah, 56:10)

In its essence apologetics is a kind of confrontation, an act of revealing one's true colours, of hoisting the flag, of demonstrating the essential characteristics of one's faith, of one's thought, of one's emotional and intellectual stance in life. “Dialogue does not mean self-denial,” wrote Hans Kung, arguably the greatest of Catholic apologists. The standard of public discussion of controversial topics should be sensitive to what is said and how; it should be sensitive to manner, mode, style, tone and volume. Tact is also essential. Not everything that we know should always be disclosed; not everything that can be disclosed it timely or suited to the ears of the hearer. To put this another way, we don't want all our dirty laundry out on our front lawn for all to see or our secrets blasted over the radio and TV. Perhaps a moderate confessionalism is best here, if confession is required at all—and in today’s print and electronic media it seems unavoidable.

Part 10:

I want to thank Udo Schaefer, "Baha'i Apologetics," Baha'i Studies Review, Vol.10--2001/2, for some of what I write here. Schaefer, a prominent Baha’i writer, scholar, lawyer and man of many intellectual seasons, emphasizes that one's views, one's faith, should not be opportunistically streamlined, adapting to current trends, thus concealing the real features of these views, features that could provoke rejection in order to be acceptable for dialogue. To do this, to be opportunistic and saying what others want to hear often puts one in the danger of losing one's identity, if not one’s honesty and integrity.

It is almost impossible, though, to carry the torch of truth, partial truth, of one’s convictions, indeed, of any set of words in any colour, through a crowd without getting someone's beard singed. If one has no beard one’s emotions can be equally fried and hung out to dry in the process of verbal or written exchange. In the weeks and months that follow, my postings quite possibly may wind up singing the beards of some readers and, perhaps, my own. Emotions, if not fried when exposed, are often behind barricades of self-defence and that is natural because what is being considered is at the centre of a person’s life. Such are the perils of dialogue, of apologetics.

Much of Baha'i apologetics derives from the experience Baha'is have of a fundamental discrepancy between much secular thought and the Baha'i teachings on the other. In some ways, the gulf is unbridgeable but so, too, is this the case between the secular and much thought in the Christian or Islamic religion or, for that matter, between variants of Christianity or even within what are often the muddy and pluralistic waters of secular thought itself.

Part 11:

Anyway, that's all for now. It's back to the winter winds of Tasmania, about 3 kms from the Bass Straight on the Tamar River. The geography of place is so much simpler than that of the philosophical and religious geography that the readers at this site are concerned with, although even physical geography has its complexities as those who take a serious interest in the topic of climate change are fast finding out. Whom the gods would destroy they first make simple and simpler and simpler. I look forward to a dialogue with someone, anyone who is inclined to respond to what I’m sure for some is this overly long post. Here in far-off Tasmania--the last stop before Antarctica, if one wants to get there by some other route than off the end of South America--your response will be gratefully received.-Ron Price, Tasmania, Australia.