Solving Ross Douthat's "Puzzles" Regarding The Irreligion Of The Nation's Intelligentisia

The NY Times evangelizing RC columnist Ross Douthat has a problem:   He is finding it difficult to grasp why so many of the intellectual class want no part of organized religion - or of supernatural creeds in general.  In other words, he is miffed that his religion and others are getting so little respect from the higher IQ segment of the populace.  As Douthat whines in his latest effort:

"As a Christian inhabitant of this world, I often try to imagine what it would take for the meritocracy to get religion.  Who do I mean?  The American intelligentsia — meaning not just would-be intellectuals but the wider elite-university-educated population, the meritocrats or “knowledge workers,” the “professional-managerial class.”

Adding:

"One problem is that whatever its internal divisions, the American educated class is deeply committed to a moral vision that regards emancipated, self-directed choice as essential to human freedom and the good life. The tension between this worldview and the thou-shalt-not, death-of-self commandments of biblical religion can be bridged only with difficulty."

Well, no shit, Sherlock!  Tell us something we don't know.  Given all that's gone awry with the moralistic, authoritarian mouthpieces - including the RC clergy sex abuse scandals- of course self -directed moral choice is the only rational option. Thus, Michael Sherman's book, The Science of Good and Evil.   

It affords a way out of the moral absolutism of the authoritarians and dogmatists. As he notes (p. 168):

"Provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground between absolute and moral relative systems. Provisional moral principles are applicable to most people, for most circumstances, for most of the time - yet flexible enough to account for the wide diversity of human behavior"

 Cheryl Mendelson's approach('The Good Life - The Moral Individual In An Antimoral World) is even more fundamental, noting the combined roles of reason, knowledge and conscience in what she refers to as Moral capacity.   The developed use of moral capacity enables moral individualism: the individual's capacity to think and act according to conscience.  This is contrasted with the premoral capacity or "premoralism" of most religionists and supernaturalists.  As she explains (p. 71):

"In the premoral mind, in place of moral individualism - there is mere egoism: the demand or wish, to be allowed to do and have what one wants. The premoral individual who confronts a moral culture must cope with social demands that he regards as illegitimate.

Because of his sense of entitlement, his greed and his demand for superiority feel right to him and are not internally moderated as they are in moral minds. Moral restraints may provoke him to outright rage and hatred."

This perverted condition then, leads to the perversion of morality, e.g. p. 157:

"The premoral mind confuses the disgusting with the wrong and retains an infantile fear of things sexual. Its rationality is overcome by emotion, fantasy, wish and projection. The belief that extracting a 10-week fetus from a woman's womb is murder rests to a large extent on the sense of disgust aroused by the thought of destruction of living tissue.

When fundamentalists insist on risking the life of the mother to deliver an anencephalic fetus they take this tendency to an extreme. People who think this way are unable to override disgust with rational appreciation of the objective characteristics of the fetus. The ability to do so is an indispensable trait of the moral mind."

In other words, the basis for a truly moral mind presumes the capacity for rationality to assess issues (like abortion) objectively - as opposed to emotively.  This is something I've written about a number of times before.   A point made in my Aug. 1, 2015 post was that no sane person in his or her right mind could possibly regard a "zygote" as a person, or a fetus as an "unborn child". There is simply no standard by which that passes even elemental laws or tests of logic, or science.  A child cannot be "unborn" because by definition it is already born!  Hence, an "unborn" (fetus) cannot be a "child".  

All Douthat's caterwauling aside, the college-educated intelligentsia are in a better position to recognize legitimate moral decisions and actions than he is - bound to dogmas, priestly dictates (and papal encyclicals)  and ancient credos.

Douthat continues:

"A second obstacle is the meritocracy’s anti-supernaturalism: The average Ivy League professor, management consultant or Google engineer is not necessarily a strict materialist, but they have all been trained in a kind of scientism, which regards strong religious belief as fundamentally anti-rational, miracles as superstition, the idea of a personal God as so much wishful thinking."

But this - again- should not puzzle his brain that much. Indeed, I already exposed the utter rubbish innate to supernaturalism in my letter published in Physics Today, e.g.

Readers' thoughts on science and religion: Physics Today: Vol 71, No 6

 Noting:

From a scientific and objective standpoint, there is simply no way that any purportedly supernatural entity or order can be demonstrated or proven. No scientific methodologies for such exist, nor any credible instruments or measuring techniques. The rejoinder that those things can't be measured merely reinforces the argument that they are no more fit for scientific inquiry than the astrologer’s claim of “malefic” influences of Mars at an infant’s birth.

Because a supernatural domain cannot be approached in any scientific or objective way, then by my reckoning it doesn't exist. One need not even deny its existence because to all intents the supernatural entity becomes logically unnecessary or redundant. It doesn't help us make scientific predictions or explain natural phenomena—say, coronal mass ejections or auroral substorms

Let me again underscore here for the record that the preceding applies to any religion that enlists supernatural agents to support its basis. It was not intended to be a blanket statement that modern science could find no commonality with any religion. For example, according to the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism there exist a multitude of universes and none of these harbors supernatural agents such as demons, or "Satan".  Many of them, however, may well harbor other intelligent life forms.  This view in its most rudimentary form comports with the multiverse speculations of modern physics. 

Douthat,  back to being troubled:

"I am more puzzled by secular-minded people who think the rationality of religion has, under modern conditions, somehow been disproved.

Yes, science has undercut some religious ideas once held with certainty. But our supposedly “disenchanted” world remains the kind of world that inspired religious belief in the first place: a miraculously ordered and lawbound system that generates conscious beings who can mysteriously unlock its secrets, who display godlike powers in miniature and also a strong demonic streak, and whose lives are constantly buffeted by hard-to-explain encounters and intimations of transcendence. To be dropped into such a world and not be persistently open to religious possibilities seems much more like prejudice than rationality."

Well, first things first.  We in the secular world do not so much think the rationality of religion is "disproved" as to contend it is inconsistent.    If religion's rationality is inconsistent then how can it be trusted to provide coherent, rational solutions or answers?   

   Consider Christian author C.S. Lewis.  Recall Lewis’ "rational" justification for Inquisitional tortures in his book Mere Christianity.  The claim is mind-boggling in itself  and effectively renders whatever morality he espouses as useless, and indeed dangerous!  In this case, , he pardons the witch burners of the middle ages for making  “mistakes of fact”, i.e. in believing women described as witches were evil incarnate.  To quote one Lewis critic[1]:

If Lewis is willing to accept that witches do not exist, and that, while believing in them, it was right to put them to death, what other "ungodly" transgressions can we forgive as mere "mistakes of fact”?

Interestingly, Lewis’  "rational" pseudo-morality could easily have been incorporated into the Third Reich’s justifications for genocide. I mean, the Nazis really believed the Jews were “vermin” – as so much of their propaganda portrayed- so by Lewis’ standards they’d be excused for making a “mistake of fact”.  

Lewis might well reply here that the Nazis really knew better than that so their actions were inexcusable abominations. But how do we know there were also not more percipient Inquisitors who also knew better than to believe more than a quarter million women burned as witches did not really embody evil or have pacts with “Satan”? It amounts to mere question begging.

In Douthat's second paragraph, he is correct to write that the cosmos is a lawbound system.  Also that it's given rise (via evolution) to conscious beings who can "unlock its secrets".  But let's be real, the powers of these beings - namely humans- are neither "godlike" (even in miniature) or "demonic".  Here again, is where Douthat's own brand of inconsistent rationality creeps in.   Yes, there can be "intimations pf transcendence"  and I explained how these can arise in my book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God.   As I spelled it out:

"The key to transcending limited human nature then amounts to expanding one’s sense of identity to the level this emergent or nonlocal SELF. In other words, to escape the psychological confines of the ego-bound self. This means necessarily extending one’s consciousness beyond the limits of human standards, expectations."

That in turn implies adopting the outlook compatible with the "implicate order"  expressed so eloquently by David Bohm in his book, Wholeness and the Implicate Order,  e.g. here is a pdf version of this monumental  work:

Wholeness and the Implicate Order

The salient point here is that transcendence is placed in a purely physical context, as opposed to supernatural. Thus, all Bohm's elaborations, from the holomovement to his theory of hidden variables are predicated on physics concepts.  Unlike Douthat's amazement that one "can be dropped into such a world and not be persistently open to religious possibilities" we (secularists) see it differently.  That is, we see the vast potential for transcendence but predicated on natural laws peculiar to the natural world.  Hence, there is no need to interject religion or religious beliefs, dogmas etc.   Given this we have made a choice to be consistent in our use of reason, unlike Douthat and his Christian comrades who engage in inconsistent rationality.   

Finally, Douthat gives one more puzzling parting shot:

"And my anthropological understanding of my secular neighbors particularly fails when it comes to the indifference with which some of them respond to religious possibilities, or for that matter to mystical experiences they themselves have had."

Again,  all (or most) of Douthat's puzzlement could be resolved - or at least relieved- if he were to expand his consciousness enough to reckon in the notions of physics-based transcendence and even a degree of physics -oriented "mystical"  experience.  To appreciate that last aspect he might want to read Fritjof Capra's The Tao Of Physics - oh, and do so with an open mind!

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[1] Inniss: The Secular Humanist Newsletter, (Spring, 1998), 1