Faith
Do you gotta have it?
January 15, 2007 30 comments
My latest post at Comment Is Free, thoughtfully scheduled by the editors for a Sunday, is about the use of the word “faith” as self-protective Unspeak by bigots of various stripes. My argument is described by one CiF commenter as “full PostModernism”, which I suppose is better than some kind of wishy-washy half-postmodernism. A more thoughtful response comes from Sub Ratione Dei, who asks:
Would Poole have criticised Martin Luther King for his claiming of religious motivations?
The answer is no, because his politics was not one of bigotry in the first place. The purpose of my post, after all, was to say that we should take political arguments on their political merits, and not be dragged on to the turf of “faith”. SRD goes on to say:
I may not not agree with the Westminster protesters’ definition of Christianity, but the point is they do and it is religion that (at least partly) motivates them to do what they do. To deny this is simply to delude ourselves.
Ah, but here we have slipped from causation to motivation. My post responds to a certain view of religion as itself causing bigotry, war and so forth, a claim shared by religion’s opponents and its most bloodthirsty adherents, but one which is plainly false. That does not mean people may not be motivated in some part by it. But what is motivation? It seems to consist of two things: a belief in a thing or a moral rule, plus a second belief, that some action ought now to be taken in view of the thing or moral rule. And this second belief or desire is, again, a political one. Moreover, a thing can motivate one person to do one thing, and another person to do something else entirely. Thus, the Columbine high-school killers were allegedly inspired by some combination of the videogame Doom and/or the film The Matrix. But the fault for their actions does not lie in the game or the movie.
SRD concludes:
Faith is almost by nature a political reality that cannot be separated from everyday life.
I expect there is some truth in this, and that my absolute distinction between “faith” and “politics” may be somewhat artificial. But we can try.
I’m glad you posted this here, I wanted to comment but I wouldn’t touch the CiF comments section with a ten foot bargepole.
I find it constantly amazing that this idea that religion is the root cause of all that’s wrong with the world incredibly frustrating. It’s not only wrong but it distracts our attention from real political issues and makes them incomprehensible. It’s like Bush’s use of the term ‘evil’ to describe his enemies – if they are evil then they are unredeemable, cannot be reasoned with or negotiated with and the only measure that can be used is force. I’m surprised that many otherwise astute observers fail to recognise this.
It also contributes to an increasing level of intolerance. Being anti-Muslim it seems is now quite acceptable (although not if you say it so straightforwardly as that of course). For example, Not Saussure quotes the telegraph:
Steven, as always your posts are much appreciated…
Thanks for v interesting piece, though I agree with Dan above about CiF – spending 10 minutes browsing through their comments section is about the single most depressing thing I can do without leaving the house.
I always wonder where the idea of democracy fits into the shallower end of dogmatic anti-religionism. They seem to think most people who have ever lived (i.e. with some sort of religious belief) are just so utterly and irredeemably stupid in comparison with their own shining Enlightenedness. I wonder how they can bear that everyone gets a vote.
Breaking news. Donald Findlay is a sectarian:
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=70012007
What a segue is offered here! From the Scotsman to a Scot. This seems relevant to your post, Steven, from Dick Meyers of cbsnews.com (in a piece about “truthiness” – now a real word according to merriam-webster):
Seems to be a tad post-modern…
I suppose the point is that you hate whom you hate, not because of your “faith” but because you are a twat.
Yes, we can separate religion from politics, church from state. It is, quite simply, America’s first freedom, those twinned liberties; freedom for religion and freedom from religion!
Please check out our website at http://www.firstfreedomfirst.org and ACT NOW and sign the petition.Protect religious freedom. Democracy NOT Theocracy!
First Freedom First
The founders of our nation believed that all Americans should have the right to worship according to their own beliefs, or not to worship at all. So strong was their commitment to religious freedom that they enshrined it in the first sentence of the Bill of Rights.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
This constitutional guarantee is often known as the “first freedom.”
Religion is a deeply personal matter. Americans must be free to practice their religion without coercion. Government exists to provide for the general well-being of all people, and its workings must be independent of specific religious doctrines. Simply put, there must be a separation of church and state.
If we do not stand together as a nation, we stand to lose this fundamental freedom.
We, the undersigned, call upon elected and appointed officials to join us in reaffirming America’s religious freedom by demonstrating a commitment to the following:
Every American should have the right to make personal decisions — about family life, reproductive health, end of life care and other matters of personal conscience.
American tax dollars should not go to charities that discriminate in hiring based on religious belief or that promote a particular religious faith as a requirement for receiving services.
Political candidates should not be endorsed or opposed by houses of worship.
Public schools should teach with academic integrity and without the promotion of religious preference or belief.
Decisions about scientific and health policies should be based on the best available scientific data, not on religious doctrine.
We join together, as the most diverse nation in the world, to commit ourselves to defending and preserving this freedom.
Beliefs and desires neither entail nor cause an action although they may well be cited by way of explanation and clarification of an action. The typical role of explanation and clarification is in justification of action to others. In such a conversation, others are not obliged to agree that the justification is valid.
At the political level it is likely that there will be disagreement about beliefs and desires – that is part of what we mean by ‘politics’.
So far so good, I assume, but the last paragraph of your article goes beyond conceptual truths to make a substantive point. I share your feelings about the views of the demonstrators and agree that ‘faith’ is not some sort of super-justification, but, assuming you mean by ‘bigot’, not the first entry in the OED but, ‘a person obstinately and unreasonably wedded to a particular … opinion’ [OED], you do not seem to have demonstrated that the protestors were bigots. The article suggests that they offered faith as super-justification, but with argument they might have seen that was an error. If they had still wished to demonstrate against gay rights after that admission we might deplore their view and argue with them, but it would be their conduct in that conversation that made them bigots (or not), and the same would apply to us I think.
I was using “bigot” in the modern sense, not yet recorded by OED, of someone who is generally intolerant of, as wikipedia has it, other “lifestyles” and “identities”, not just other opinions. (I cite wikipedia merely to show that this is a widespread current usage.)
Since I take the view that there is no reasonable basis for political discrimination against gay people, anyone who does recommend such discrimination (for whatever claimed reason) is ipso facto a bigot.
PS The fact that one does get a better class of commenter here than at CiF is a great solace to me.
You may be able to take religion(s) out of politics, but I have a feeling it’s impossible to take politics out of religion.
The idea of faith as something you hold deep in your heart of hearts but which doesn’t have to affect your social actions is, I think, specifically Lutheran. I don’t think any of the big 3 monotheist scriptures takes this line: per your Leviticus example, they call for political action within the community to enforce a particular set of norms. Such action may no longer be inherent to the “faith” of Christianity as it is understood by many other Christians, but for those who understand their faith as behaviour following scriptural codes I guess it is inherent. In this regard, such faiths are fundamentally different from faith in markets or genetics, which only require belief.
Moreover, all religion is social action (in that it informs behaviour) and therefore political. Any ‘faith group’ must be political merely because it’s a group, no?
so:
5> Religion is a deeply personal matter…
6> Beliefs and desires neither entail nor cause an action…
…except when the religion in question states otherwise.
On a side note, there’s some interesting mirroring between the secularist, enlightenment language of 5 and Biblical law. If Durkheim was right, and the object of religion is social order, then:
Government exists to provide for the general well-being of all people… sounds a lot like “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;”
…and its workings must be independent of specific religious doctrines is a close secular translation of: and “you shall have no gods [controls] but Me.”
follow up to 8: I think I may not have been very clear here – Steven draws a distinction between ’cause’ and ‘motivation.’ If we argue that (some) religions cause political acts then we deny free choice on the part of the participants; they are bound by their religion. If we argue that political acts are merely motivated (arguably by religious precepts) then we have free actors justifying their motivated actions.
I’m not sure such a clear distinction is possible, however. If a dog jumps out in front of my car, am I caused or merely motivated to swerve? The distinction appears to be individual agency: if I swerve before weighing up alternatives, because of an impulse to concern for the dog or my own safety, it’s involuntary; I have no choice, no agency.
Is this analogy specious? Religious/political acts are rarely so hurried; there is time for reflection – but does the individual’s world view allow space for such reflection, and are alternatives really available where faith is concerned? Try as I might, I cannot seem to persuade myself that there is a God or that I should act according to its precepts: my faith that there isn’t doesn’t seem to be under my control.
Steven,
I took it that since your comment about the protesters was in your final paragraph it was a point you had argued towards, but with the Wikipedia definition (or the part of it that you stress) you didn’t need the argument. Perhaps the word is used like that in some places (and is therefore a slightly different concept), but the second paragraph of the Wikipedia definition with the point about obstinacy, doesn’t seem optional. I hope it’s not optional because there’s an obvious temptation to reach a quick conclusion about what others think when what is in question is something alien to one’s own view. In such circumstances I’m not sure how healthy it is to have a term of abuse at the ready. I don’t like arguing this, I can assure you, but I have to say that I don’t suppose the protesters demonstrated under the concept ‘discrimination against gay people’.
Richard (8),
“Beliefs and desires neither entail nor cause an action” — ‘except when the religion in question states otherwise,’ you add.
I don’t understand what is meant by religion stating things. I’m interested in what you say in (9) and might have something to say tomorrow if nobody else says anything – probably on ‘cause’, dispositions and belief being involuntary.
Richard,
I think the reflex, as it might be, of swerving to avoid a dog is dissimilar at least partly because, as you say, there is no time to think. You ask:
Well, there are many professed Christians in public life who appear to have chosen not to take very seriously the words attributed to Jesus, so I suppose there is some reflection going on, for instance about which parts of a book to take seriously and which not. Further, I suppose that in organizing and travelling to a protest, there is room for reflection about how the protest stands in relation to other demands on one’s time, or other moral precepts one holds dear, as well as whether the protest in question is a good way to fulfil the particular moral precept, and whether indeed this moral precept ought to be forced upon others, etc.
Do you really have a faith that there isn’t a God, a negative faith? Aren’t you then tempted to have all kinds of other negative faiths, say also a faith that there are no teapots in orbit around Mars, or a faith that Paris Hilton will never write a work of analytic philosophy? These negative faiths appear to pile up very quickly. Is there room in one person’s head for all of them?
Chris, you say:
Oh, I don’t suppose they did either. But I don’t worry about the unhealthiness of calling them “bigots”.
Richard @8: “On a side note, there’s some interesting mirroring between the secularist, enlightenment language of 5 and Biblical law.” You should check out a French wedding sometime, if you want to see a striking theatricalization of secular religiosity – articles from the code civil read as if it were scripture; the mayor in his sash (vestments); invocations of the State, the Law.
[On a completely side note: I love WordPress’s “previewed live” beside the “your comment” heading. It makes me feel like I should hurry up and finish my posting though, like I’m wasting the previewer’s valuable time.]
But, Steven, no one is banging on about teapots from Mars, but they do bang on, ad infinitum about the existence of a deity. If the ‘faith’ that there isn’t a god and the ‘faith’ that there are no teapots orbiting Mars were posited in total isolation of any other concept (impossible, of course) then your point would be valid.
Don’t know whether I’m addressing the Steven here (the v is an indicator) but, if so, well done on the Graun piece. I thought there were some excellent points made (and said so under the name AArmitage). I’ve also listened to a couple of tracks of your music and feel happier and just a little giddy.
But I don’t think the mere fact that people bang on about a certain thing means that a disinclination to accept its truth is therefore itself a “faith”. That seems perilously close to the old argument that atheism is a religious position, which I think is intellectually bankrupt. (Wrote a bit about it here.)
Btw yes, this is me. (For the superiority of the v spelling, vide Stevens Berkoff, Tyler, Spielberg, etc.) And thanks for your very kind comments. A little extra happiness and giddiness are the best effects I could hope for. :)
Thanks, Andy A: that’s pretty much what I was going to say. I could claim that my negative faith has been forged in the fires of repeated confrontations with proselytizers and that in comparison with it, my gentle scepticism regarding teapots and Paris Hilton barely registers on the conviction-meter, but the truth is that these days I’m a rather complacent, live-and-let-pray atheist.
Steven: I agree with all your points, except that I’d say that there are enormous differences in how different groups of religious folks act, think and believe; for this reason, Christian (or Muslim or whatever) is often not a very useful category: it presents the appearance of consensus and masks (often fundamental) contradictions. Just because some Christians can do x, doesn’t mean all can. I wonder if the category qualifies as unspeak?
Chris Ellis: when I write about religions stating things I am referring to the injunctions or instructions in their scriptures, or those offerred by preachers. My contention is that, for the faithful congregation member that expects to obtain transcendental truth from such sources, these statements are unlike the kinds of ‘persuasive speech’ we normally hear from politicians, teachers or even doctors. In the latter case, the speaker may be giving advice, or even issuing commands, and may have punishments to mete out if those commands are not followed, but the commands and rules are assumed to have social bases; the listener is expected to weigh up the pros and cons and come to the conclusion that the commands make sense. Scriptural writing is different: choosing not to follow its precepts is (within the religious code) fundamentally, cosmically wrong, what the ancient Egyptians called “going upside-down and eating excrement;” a violation of natural order. Note: here I’m referring specifically to the scriptures, which very rarely allow for the reader to make up their own mind about anything and not to current religious practice, which, as I noted above, is diverse and often allows for more individual interpretation.
“…what is motivation? It seems to consist of two things: a belief in a thing or a moral rule, plus a second belief, that some action ought now to be taken in view of the thing or moral rule. And this second belief or desire is, again, a political one.”
This seems to me to cleave to a controversial philosophical position, that moral beliefs are not intrinsically motivating. Consider my belief that spitting at people in generally wrong. Were I to go round spitting at people, and showing no sign of having motivations not to spit at people whenever I felt like it, we would presumably be inclined to think that whatever I might say about believing that spitting at people was wrong, I didn’t really believe it. Equally, if I were to defend myself on the grounds that whatever it was I was doing, it certainly wasn’t spitting, we would tend to think that I wasn’t taking my professed belief seriously. Likewise, if you believe, as presumably some people do, that the content of the Bible is morally authoritative and includes a series of injunctions against homosexuality, then presumably you are (to some degree) motivated to attempt to enforce those injunctions. To put it another way, if internalism about moral reasons is true, then religious belief, where that religious belief includes moral strictures like those some Christians believe the Bible contains against homosexuality, is causally implicated in the behaviour of the religious believers in question.
I think your spitting example is a change of subject: from demanding that others submit to your moral beliefs, to simply following them yourself. Of course, if I believe spitting is wrong, I will try, ceteris paribus, not to spit; but it is an open question whether I will seek to punish people who do spit or get interested in legislation on the matter.
Similarly, if I believe homosexuality is wrong, I will try, oh Lord give me strength to try, not to engage in sex acts with persons of my own sex. But that belief alone does not compel me to get so interested in what other same-sex couples are getting up to.
Or take another example: a lot of people believe that adultery is wrong but don’t seek to criminalize it, or indeed to exclude adulterous (heterosexual) couples from their hostelries.
Steven writes, ‘But I don’t think the mere fact that people bang on about a certain thing means that a disinclination to accept its truth is therefore itself a “faith”.’
I must have given the impression that I thought that. I don’t, and I’m sorry if I misled. I, too, cannot accept the spurious ‘argument’ that we atheists (nontheists, as some prefer, but it seems to say the same) somehow have a religion. I say – and it seems logical to me – it is a default position. Christians (here in the West; other dominant religions elsewhere) believe in a chauvinistic sort of way that their position is the default, and anything else is a deviation from that. No, no, no. We are all born atheists, because it doesn’t take any mental exertion, positive decision, whatever to be an atheist, any more than it does to be born a human (you can in later life choose to become, metaphorically speaking, inhuman – that’s up to you).
When people say that Joe Bloggs was ‘born a Catholic, raised a Protestant and converted to being a Jedi Knight’, I want to reach for a strong drink. They may be ‘born [into] a Catholic [family]’ and similarly ‘raised [by] a Protestant [foster parent, say]’, but the only volition in this scenario is the decision to convert to something more sensible!
In CiF, as those of us who dip into it will be aware (yes, there are some crap commenters in there), writers of main posts keep going on about ‘militant atheism’ and how atheists ‘are dogmatic, just like the worst elements of fundamental religion’ (these are faux quotes). I usually wade in and say what I’ve said above: stop believing your Christianity is the default, because it ain’t any more, you’ve lost that privilege with the growth of enlightenment.
Aaaagh!
Richard,
The words you quote in (8) are part of a brief summary of the concepts I thought were in play in Steven’s article. The relevant point is that we cite beliefs and desires in our explanations and justifications of actions (our own and other people’s). But beliefs and desires don’t make anyone do anything willy-nilly. Nor can we, from a finite list of a person’s beliefs and desires, conclude that the person logically must perform a certain action. Language only takes us so far. It might be worth adding, in view of your swerving for a dog example, that agents don’t even have to have consciously thought of the beliefs and desires that are later offered (sincerely) in justification of the action.
I’m not sure I’ve grasped what you’re getting at in (15), so please forgive me if I miss the point. First, I’d argue that no statement in any text is beyond interpretation; all that’s required is a new context or failing that, a little ingenuity. Second, I think much religious discourse is ‘hypothetical imperative’, e.g. in answer to ‘Master, what must I do to be saved?’ Third, I don’t deny that people can be coerced into doing things, but it’s still the person acting (and now, probably for fear of punishment and not in obedience to any religious precept).
Steven (in reply to your partial answer at (11) to my comments at (10),
When I said that the protestors were not acting under the concept of opposing gay rights, I meant (of course?) that we could take an interest in what they actually do think instead of imposing on them what we assume they think. Then perhaps we’d find they are indeed bigots (OED sense), but maybe not. I think that life is far richer if we try to understand other people’s conceptions of the world – however foul they appear to be, and perhaps are – rather than condemning them with ready-made abuse, or before condemning them, if that is what we must in all honesty do.
Chris, you suggest that “we could take an interest in what they actually do think”. Ok, sure. But just how far in practice does this interest have to probe? If someone tells me that gays ought not to have certain legal protections because God says that gays are wrong, do I really need to investigate further the pseudotheological nuances of his worldview? That may well be of interest to anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers of religion etc., but personally I have better things to do. After discarding his political opinion, I take no further interest in what he claims as a basis for it, ie his “faith”.
Steven,
Oh, “If someone tells me that gays ought not to have certain legal protections…”, then I think I agree already, because what is of paramount importance in this utterance is the denial of protections. But suppose the protestors (or just one of them) were sincerely to begin in distressed accents with their picture of the world. The problem, as I see it, is that your (possibly just) anger has made you excessively sceptical (as in your last sentence for example). I take your point about having better things to do in this case, but I’d assumed from the rather general nature of your CiF article that this case was merely an example of what could be achieved by making the distinctions you were urging — distinctions that I, for the most part, endorsed in my first post before going on to wonder if you’d slipped into making substantive claims on the back of a conceptual analysis.
I don’t know whether to more alarmed by than interested in the fact that I’ve misread your purpose in this short article twice now.
Eg (in distressed tone of voice): “God said that gays are wrong!” Something like that? Would I then feel moved to investigate their worldview further? Maybe if I were somehow forced to be there and had no one more interesting to talk to. Otherwise, no.
Well, we all have our own ideas of what is properly sceptical and what is excessively so, I suppose. Life is short.
Well, that’s what I imagined I was doing too. Cf the example of adultery at #17.
‘Eg (in distressed tone of voice): “God said that gays are wrong!” Something like that?’
No.
If the article’s about all possible cases I think I see how it works now. “The vorpal blade went snicker-snack”?
If that’s not it, I’m afraid I really don’t know what you meant.
Masterfully ambiguous citation of Carroll, though. Am I wielding Ockham’s razor or just fighting purely fantastical beasts?
I knew I could count on you for fine English Ockham, and not that strange spurious Perso-Turkish Occam I see cited by so many authors who ought to know better. Thank you.
The spitting isn’t the point. The point is that if you have the moral belief x, then we would we expect you to act on it, or else we would be sceptical that you in fact held it. Some Christians – and members of other religions – hold the moral belief that homosexual acts ought to be forbidden. I’d guess some of them actually believe that because the Bible says so. Since moral beliefs are at least partly intrinsically motivating, that means that for some of them, religion is causally implicated in their bigotry. Of course, you might have the belief that homosexual acts is wrong, but ought not to be prohibited. Then, though, we’d expect you to disapprove of homosexual activity, but not call for it to be banned. The difference would be that you had a different moral belief, specifically, the belief that homosexual acts are wrong but ought not to be banned rather than the belief that homosexual acts are wrong and ought to be banned.
“the belief that homosexual acts are wrong and ought to be banned”
– I don’t think that is one indivisible moral belief. I take it, rather, that it is made up of a moral belief (homosexual acts are wrong), plus a political-legal recommendation (they ought to be banned).
So (to recap territory I think we’ve already been over, but I just want to be sure) do you think that it is impossible for a moral belief to require a course of action? Is it impossible to hold the moral belief that people must be restrained from murdering each other, for instance?
I ask because such restraint, affecting others, would have to count as a political act. In order to avoid affecting others, the realm of morals would have to be confined to wholly interior (unexpressed, quietist) disapproval of murder.
Well, we agree, don’t we, that one can, commonly does, have a moral belief that entails no particular political action? Eg some people’s belief that adultery is wrong does not force them to lobby for its criminalization. The law does not exhaust our moral thinking.
So now we imagine a moral belief, and ally it to a particular view of how it should be enacted in the world. I don’t really want to call this, as a whole, somehow another species of moral belief, somehow a different belief than the belief alone. I think it’s a moral belief plus a political one. Your example, “that people must be restrained from murdering each other”, is already political. Restrained how? By whom? With what level of force? The base moral belief there is simply that killing is wrong. I can’t imagine anyone thinking that killing is wrong and not wanting to outlaw it, but I think that has to do with killing rather than with the structure of belief per se.
I might even like to say something along the lines that a moral belief is of the sort “What should I do?”; while a political belief is of the sort “What should other people do?”, although as it stands that is a bit simplistic.
Anyway there are obviously other ways to organize one’s thoughts on the matter, but I do think the distinction between moral beliefs and politico-legal lobbying is a useful one, for reasons I explained in the original post.
“…a political-legal recommendation (they ought to be banned)”
The ‘ought’ there is clearly moral: this is a course of action you should take, is what it is saying. Even if you don’t want to categorise that statement as moral, it’s surely motivating in exactly the same way as a moral statement would be, and so, if it is religiously-inspired, then religion is causally implicated in anything that follows from it, including bigoted behaviour.