05.24
Being a Chomsky nerd, I just have to share this (which I found at Common Sense Atheism):
It isn’t often that Noam Chomsky comments on religion; he is most prolific where it concerns linguistics, political philosophy, and international affairs.
Chomsky is an atheist, though he is reticent to adopt that label. When asked in an interview whether he was an atheist, he responded: “I would first want an explanation of what it is that I’m supposed to not believe in, and I’ve never seen an explanation.” On several issues, Chomsky agrees with the New Atheists. He has called religious belief “irrational” and generally regards it to be “a dangerous phenomenon.” He disagrees, however, with many New Atheists (like Hitchens and Harris) about the nature of Islamic fundamentalism. Chomsky famously debated Hitchens on the subject in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, and there is currently an online campaign to get him to debate Harris.
Oh, and the most important thing you need to know about Chomsky: I have an email from him.* 
*That sounds cooler than it actually is. Chomsky makes an effort to respond to all of his fan mail. Still, seeing an email from him in my inbox made me giddier than a 12-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert.
Dr. Kleiner, you may be interested to know that Chomsky has written favorably of the Catholic Church in Latin America:
“I think religion has often played a very positive role. Take western civilization, the Catholic Church has played an honorable role in helping those in need. In contrast, the US carried out a virtual war against the church in central America in the 1980′s primarily because prime elements in the church were working with great courage and honor to help those in need. And to organize them to help themselves. It is more than symbolic that the decade opened with the assassination of an archbishop and ended with the murder of 6 Jesuit intellectuals, in both cases by military forces armed and trained by the US government.”
As a linguist, an atheist, a social anarchist, and an all-around huge fan of Noam Chomsky, I’d be at least as giddy as a 12-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert were I to get e-mail from him.
I’d not heard that quote from him before. It’s a good one. When you look objectively at the actions of the god of the Tanakh, you see the most monstrous being ever thought of, worse than any human. The god of the New Testament is only marginally better. At best, the Abrahamic god is a schizophrenic, manic-depressive, genocidal madman.
My comments under my other e-mail seem to be being flagged as spam.
Fixed it.
At best, the Abrahamic god is a schizophrenic, manic-depressive, genocidal madman.
Some people aren’t worth saving. I prefer a god with standards than one just forgives people. Human peace and happiness (in the pleasant sense, I know how philosophically loaded that term is) is secondary to universal beauty. Complaining about my gods being warlike or occasionally unkind to humans seems a bit selfish. In a twisty way, the killer from Seven is kind of right (though waaaay over the top):
Killer “Don’t ask me to pity those people, detective, any more than the thousands at Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Detective: “Are you saying then that what you’re doing is the Lord’s good work?”
Killer: “The lord works in mysterious ways….”
Abraham tried, because he believed in justice and rightfully so, but in the end it wasn’t truly his decision, and the city was better off gone. Its probably worth noting regarding the flood that it was more a sad loss for all the animals that weren’t saved than the people. The world was fucked up, civilization had collapsed, and that’s the way it usually ends up. Noah was hardly a great man, getting drunk and naked and then enslaving your grandchildren (because its clearly THEIR fault ) wasn’t godly, but we cannot choose who our parents are, we can only work to better ourselves.
Regarding the chosen people bit, First Things posted an interesting article on it some time ago, which I’d love to link to but it now requires a subscription. Its called Why are the Jews Chosen.
I don’t buy the “merciful because he didn’t kill us all” routine but I’ve long outgrown the condemnation for no compassion mentality.
I understand all of your criticisms and there are many passages in the Jewish history that presents a religious interpretation of the event that makes G-d out to be a jerk. I capitulate on many levels here. Here is one question to try and identify that your critique itself may be over the top.
Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed and the religious history places their evil behaviour as the cause of the overthrown. Isaiah says they mistreated strangers, Ezekiel focuses on their mistreatment of the poor, Jeremiah identifies their adultery. All were concerned about the lack of justice and used S&G as an example in their critique of their own nation. The story of S&G itself reads more like this: Let’s say that the inhabitants of Garden City started stopping cars and cyclists and dragging the occupants to the city park to gang rape them — men, women, and children visitors to Bear Lake. Let’s say you had evidence that nearly every citizen of the city was participating in this behaviour, they have been doing for months, and they had a cache of weapons to resist law enforcement attempts to arrest individuals. At what point do you say justice requires sending in tanks?
Whether you believe that a god destroyed S & G or not, any statement that we should not bring just judgement on the residents of such city is itself ludicrous. Would you criticize the government official that ordered the tanks into their city as a judgemental monster?
Be reasonable in your critiques. The Bible is not a dark pit of immorality from beginning to end. There are most certainly advances in social and personal morality to be found.
God did more than send in the tanks though, Vince. He effectively used the nuclear option, with a heavy collateral cost. Instead of only killing those inhabitants of Garden City (to use your example) who would gang rape visitors to Bear Lake, God instead alt+ctrl=deletes all of Garden City–the innocent and guilty, young and old alike.
So the criticism of God’s “judgment” against S & G was never that he exacted judgment, but how. It’s just curious that an omnipotent being would ever need to do something as drastic and sloppy and utterly destroying an entire people, and indeed the whole world (as was the case with the flood story).
Yet another instance of God acting in a manner completely consistent with human total war response in that period. Odd, isn’t it, how God always seems to act in a manner consistent with his non-existence.
I am fairly post-modern in my religious approach to the bible so I do not defend the literalist. Instead I rail against the fundamentalist-literalist as a danger who do damage to humanity, the earth, and god character.
Instead I see Erza the Priest collecting, reorganizing, and editing the works of moses (probably minimal and disjoint) and the histories of the king to reestablish his vision of a Jewish religious nation. This is the typical story presented by Spinoza and later thinkers. The religious interpretation of events of losses, victories, tragedies, etc were written to emphasize a moral god over all. The Prophets before Erza used this religious moralizing frequently. “Babylon is coming to destroy Jerusalem because its leaders are corrupt … blah blah.”
I view this as taking an old ethos (cultural context) of an event and lifting it into a heavenly logos (Plato’s logos) to create a moral archtype and finally bringing a new post-modern story (mythos) back into the new current ethos to help humanity make better decisions. Humanity iterates on this process with better and better results. I would place the judgment of S&G by YHWH in mythos, but there may have been an actual S&G destruction in some natural event.
Do I believe or disbelieve that YHWH pushed the button on the nuclear option for S&G, I shrug. However, I think there can be a proper use of the ethos-logos-mythos-ethos process to provide meaning and guidance to humans in their ethos. The rabbinical use of the Tulmad filters the Torah in this way. The Orthodox fundamentalist Jew will insist on the literal occurrence, but even they use the Tulmad filter.
The problem is the fundamentalist of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. They believe they hold god’s words in their hands. They believe they bring the Logos to earth to smash their opponents. I believe this is what Nietzsche fights against successfully — Logos on earth. Kierkegaard said the same thing but still held Socrates as a hero because he knew he did not know — Logos on earth. The will to Truth can only remain in humility or it becomes an earthly despot. The will to power has to fight against a despotic narcissism that trample on other humans.
In my view, I see the humble godly atheist and the humble godly theist in identical positions before G-d. Is there Logos (in heaven) or only logos (in earth)? (shrug) Do I live as best I can and cry out for mercy before the G-d of Abraham and/or the G-d of Derrida? Yes. Yes.
At best I can only see a hint of proof within the physical world that there is a god behind all and that is through the 5th proof by Aquinas (governance proof of the god of philosophers). Beyond that proofs are all in the context of an existential meeting the god of Abraham by a Pascal or John of the Cross. I have yet to have such an experience so they provide no knowledge to me. So the deconstructed prays with tears to the g-d of Derrida seems entirely justified for a godly life before the G-d of all.
What’s a “humble godly atheist”?
Derrida. Paul Kurtz. See Paul Kurtz’s invented word: Eupraxsophy. To me ‘godly’ atheist means – an atheist who tries to live well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kurtz#Eupraxsophy
Vince, agreed on every front. Well said. I don’t agree with those who claim S and G were just homophobic lines or something, the cities were clearly insane. Linear reading is a bad method for understanding deep literature.
Please, name some.
When found, they’ve inevitably been cherry-picked the hell out of, because as a whole, the morality of the Bible is brutal, misogynistic to the extreme, and should in no way inform our morality today except as an example of what not to do.
Bible morality = if you get raped, you get sold to your rapist. If you pick up sticks on Saturday you get murdered. If you happen to live in a land that these genocidal maniacs want, you, your whole family, your children, your wife your animals get raped and murdered just for living in the wrong spot. Slavery is a great moral institution. If you’re male god’ll stop your dad from sacrificing you, but not if you’re a woman, then he doesn’t apparently care. If you make fun of some guy because he’s bald, he’ll send bears to not only eat you, but all of your friends. Gay sex? Death. Eating shrimp? Death. If your slave disobeys you, beat him. If your father commits petty theft, the whole family including the livestock gets murdered. Mass murder of children for no other reason than their parents worshipped the “wrong” god.
And if you’re going to cherry-pick and ignore all the (apparently moral) genocide, what makes the cherry-picked parts right? Why should we believe anything in the Bible at all? If most of the moral lessons the Bible teaches are now immoral, what authority can it have?
Sure, Jesus might have said some nifty things (never opposed slavery), but does that really make up for all that, and the thousands of other examples of insane barbarism?
That would not ever happen. The Bible is not an accurate indicator of human behaviour, nor is even close to being historically accurate. It’s sensationalised rantings of tribal goat-herders who had a massive case of god-envy and wanted to make-believe their god was the biggest and baddest and most genocidal of all the local Canaanite gods.
And even if S & G were real and “clearly insane”, is mass murder and genocide the only arsenal a god has at his command? Is there no better way to solve problems? Drowning every person in the world (including children) except 8 because they wouldn’t follow god’s insane rules is a good idea, how now?
I think I’m being way to generous in my critiques.
apparently, html tags don’t work.
Generous in your attacks perhaps. Have you spend anytime reading more thoughtful approaches that don’t demand literalism. The Bible is religious mythos overlaid on a reasonable history of a small nation. Some items are not history and probably never meant to be (Gen 1-3, Job, Jonah, etc).
As to having improved filters for cherry-picking, that is a matter for each community. Try reading “Swimming in the Sea of Tulmad” for a conservative Jewish approach to the cherry picking.
Most post-modern Protestant theologians recognized the fallibility and errancy of the bible. They propose humility submission to the bible only in the context of community insight. They say ‘to bring Logos into ethos properly one must be in relationship with the bible, the spirit, and the community of believers (which includes past Christians). Kleiner would correctly say to these theologians — come home to the Catholic community for the best cherry picking.
Yup, it is cherry picking but there are very good ‘elders’ or rabbi’s that improve the quality of the fruit. We just do the best we can.
Craig,
I fully agree with you when the religious person operates with complete certainty without recognizing their complete absurdity. We probably stand shoulder to shoulder in opposition to the fundamentalist religionist. I can give a wide birth to the moderate religionist where perhaps you cannot. That is fine. I walk along the edges of theism where atheism is within sight, so I am beginning to accommodate ethical athiests as inside my circle or better, my community. I invite you to consider a few theists who might be reasonable voices even for the athiest … thinkers like Wendell Berry, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul Tilliach, Emmanuel Levinas, etc, … role models like Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., or Henri Nouwen.
The problem I have with moderate & liberal religionists are two-fold. 1) Their religious beliefs, while demonstrably less harmful to society than fundamentalists/orthodox are just as unsupportable by reality and 2) Therefore, the whole idea of faith (belief in things without any supporting evidence, or despite it) being a virtue is perpetuated. And faith is one of humanity’s worst vices.
If we can’t criticise moderate religionists for their faith-beliefs, then how can we criticise the extremists for their faith-beliefs? If you attack only the effect, it’ll never go away. Opposing the murder of girls for being raped is really important, but until you attack the root of the problem (faith in a religion shaped by outdated cultural mores), it’ll keep happening.
I can respect the positive accomplishments of religious people while still decrying their religiosity.
No matter how liberally or allegorically it is treated, the Bible is still nonsense – dangerous nonsense. Until there is no faith associated with it or any of its teachings, until it is seen as nothing more than the interesting collection of myths which are in no way historically accurate, until it can be seen the same way we look at other culture’s religious texts, then it has to be opposed.
I do put atheists in my community. Like Karl Barth, “I am not a universalist, but I hope for it”. (In other words, a universalist in every sense except permission for G-d to be G-d since I am not judge. We can all come to the table for the discussion about human society and world care; Traditional Navajo, Buddhist, Jew, Skeptic, Free-Thinker, Christian, Atheist, Rationalist, Post-modernist. Some use logic (logos) in the discussion — some use examples of experience (ethos) — some use stories of wisdom (mythos).
I generally assess fundamentalist atheists to be among ‘the fundamentalists’. It is very difficult to be at the same table with fundamentalists.
Craig, I am just requesting that you consider a softer line, but that is up to you.
I’ve considered it, and I reject it. I was once an orthodox believer, and know first-hand how dangerous religion can become, and I simply don’t see any good argument to why moderate religion should get a pass. What good does a softer line bring, and at what cost?
Simply put, I refuse to give religion a pass because religion perpetuates massive pain, suffering, delusion, lies, false hope, and generally, evil. What good religion can be said to do is not at all unique to religion, but is a shared human trait. The best thing for humanity is to get rid of the superstitions and prejudice preserving power of religion. Without religion we’d be just as good and moral, and far less judgemental, prejudiced, and hateful.
Oh, and there’s no such thing as a fundamentalist atheist – it’s a tactic used to dismiss our arguments instead of considering their merit. Atheism is one single issue – the lack of belief in gods. That’s it. Just because I’m as vociferous in my denunciation of religion as fundamentalist religionists are in their denunciation of science and atheism doesn’t put me in the same category. I have reason and evidence on my side. They do not, that’s the difference. Simply holding strong beliefs doesn’t make someone a fundamentalist, not when they’re evidenced and reasoned out. It does make someone a fundamentalist when they hold those beliefs despite overwhelming contradictory evidence or utter lack of any evidence at all (i.e. those who have faith).