Mensa's Theists Still Don't Understand Atheists

Recent letters appearing in The Mensa Bulletin have garnered attention under the header: 'Atheists Come In Many Flavors'.   Indeed, and in one response I noted:

"Reading Scott Bowden’s letter  (‘Brainwaves’, September, p. 12), reminded me of  James Byrne’s arguments in his book, ‘GOD’ to do with the limits of humans' grasp of  such an entity. Byrne argued that all statements made by humans to do with God must be either incomplete or more often contradictory. Byrne thereby endorsed French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion’s ploy of  only writing  GOD. Thereby to indicate no one has the capacity to define, describe, prove, or  imagine  the underlying entity.

In effect, as Byrne observed (p.151)  “to think GOD as unthinkable is to reject the idolatry of the God of onto-theology.   Byrne’s thesis also introduced a problem for atheists. For if  this entity is de-conceptualized, then it can’t be debated, even by the most ardent, aggressive atheist. The latter ends up tilting at a windmill of the mind, like a modern Don Quixote.  I suspect the takeaway message is we need to look beyond facile word symbols and stop jousting at them if we’re to get a reasonable resolution.  The alternative is that debate will invariably prove futile since incomplete definitions and contradictions inevitably emerge, even in atheist claims and arguments."

This is actually a synthesis of arguments I also made in my book, Beyond Atheism,  Beyond God,  and in the relevant chapter I took pains to point out the "beyond" in the title  is a different thing from being “beyond knowledge” as the classic agnostic would define it. It is rather, beyond any capacity for human thought at all!  Thus, while the avowed agnostic may insist his position embraces impossibility of knowledge of God, this new category prohibits even naming the subject when expressing limitations of knowledge. It is more productive and practical, as Byrne avers, to regard God as a “regulative ideal”. Such an ideal for human use doesn’t necessarily preclude a transcendent Being, but it doesn’t require it either.

These observations became more relevant as the next blowback arrived in the October issue of the Bulletin with more theists putting in their 2 cents, including a padre. (Father John Oliver). For some reason Fr. Oliver wasn't limited to a mere 250 word letter but allocated an entire article headed: 'We Theists Come With Four Suggestions' directed at atheists and specified under what Oliver presumed to be four atheist categories.

His first broadside was directed at the "reluctant atheist" and he admonished:

"We theists encourage a reconsideration of agnosticism. Compared to atheism it is the more intellectually defensible position"

But is it really? And more to the point, does Fr. Oliver really know what agnosticism means? On parsing the context of Oliver's query it is clear to me he has no idea of agnosticism. I refer here to George Smith ('The Case Against God', p. 9):

Properly considered, agnosticism is not a third alternative to theism and atheism because it is concerned with a different aspect of religious belief. Theism and atheism  refer to the presence or absence of belief in a god; agnosticism refers to the impossibility of knowledge with regard to a god or supernatural being.

Note that this is a critical difference.  From a scientific and objective standpoint there is simply no way that any purported "supernatural" entity can be demonstrated or proven.  There are no existing scientific methodologies for such, nor any credible instruments, measuring techniques. The rejoinder that these things "can't be measured" merely reinforces the argument that they are unfit for scientific inquiry any more than the astrologer's claim of Mars' "malefic" influences on a birth. These more refined definitions are crucial, especially in honing people’s mental perspectives which in turn help to forge a coherent mental outlook. After all, if one cannot truly know anything supernatural, then how can one arrive at a supernaturally –based all powerful entity? One can't.

Because there is no way to approach a supernatural domain in any scientific or objective way, then by any reckonings it doesn't exist.  In this case, one need not even "deny" its existence because to all intents the supernatural entity becomes logically unnecessary, or redundant.  It doesn't  help us to make scientific predictions or explain natural phenomena. The point is, if any doubt is to be expressed in terms of the impossibility of knowledge then it must vastly multiplied for supernatural agents. 

As I noted in my ASTRONOMY magazine article:  ‘The God Factor’ (Astronomy Forum, March, 1990), science selectively excludes problems for which no practical method of inquiry exists. The supernatural, which is neither measurable or verifiable, falls into this category and that includes ‘God’ - if depicted as "causeless" and "supernatural". More to the point, we tend to regard such entities held by virtue of belief alone – as opposed to evidence - as evocative of superstition.  The latter encompasses such beliefs, especially when the supernatural realm is populated by invisible beings which can supposedly affect and interact with our world. To the empirical scientist this is the very epitome of superstition.

Fr. Oliver goes on to insist, quoting Thomas Edison: "We don't know one millionth of one percent of anything". Which is true, but this pertains to the realm of natural phenomena. It can't pertain to the supernatural because that is by definition unknowable, so it's preposterous to assert we don't know "one millionth" of that. We don't know any! .  Present me with what you claim is a supernatural event or entity, and I will provide a natural explanation for it.  But whatever you do you cannot appeal to the argument from ignorance.

Some religionists claim, for example, that consciousness is impossible to understand apart from a supernatural concept or formulation. But this is the classical argument from ignorance.  It commits the fallacy of  ignotum per ignotius : postulating an unknown agent or cause to account for a not well understood process, e.g. consciousness or rational thought within it.

The same goes for "miracles" used as examples of such. The Fatima "miracle" is a case in point. The supernaturalists had actually claimed the Sun to have gyrated and moved back and forth before 70,000 devout observers.  This indeed would have been the most fantastic event in history, of science too. But alas, no telescopes anywhere in the world detected such motions.   The only conclusion? Rather than all the observatories around the world being "blind" or their solar telescopes defective,   the entire crowd experienced a mass hallucination.  From a strictly rationalist viewpoint, the former has to be deemed more miraculous, so that the latter – no matter how much one’s temperament may rebel – has to be accepted as closer to the explanation!

This is what we call applying the Hume test, so according to David Hume:

"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish. "

By the Hume test one always selects the more probable natural option from two or more choices.

Fr. Oliver then makes this facile argument:

"Consider an attack on theism by an atheist to be a bit like an attack on swimming by someone who has never leapt into the pool. God is not an abstraction but an experience and therefore understandably unfamiliar to any who have not had the experience."

But this is a false analogy. For one thing, swimming is a real, wholly physical exercise not just an "experience". After all, one must know the correct moves, muscles to use to get from point A to B in a pool. Is Oliver saying God is a physical experience? Then it is a false analogy because there is no such thing as a supernatural experience for the reasons already given.  Hence, Fr. Oliver ends up begging the question of God's existence by invoking a specious example with no bearing on any rational approach to ascertain it.

Fr. Oliver demands the atheist to "pursue honest debate" - but at this stage we must demand it more of the sophist theist. An excellent way out of the morass is to consider necessary and sufficient conditions.  Robert Baum, in his textbook, LOGIC, p. 469-70, correctly observes that n-s conditions are practical replacements (in logic) for causes. In other words, instead of saying or asserting "x caused y", one stipulates that a, b are necessary conditions for x to exist at all, and c, d are sufficient conditions for y to have been the sole effect of cause x.

A necessary condition is one which, if absent, the entity cannot exist. A sufficient condition is one which, if present, the entity must exist. For example, a sufficient condition for the existence of a hydrogen emission nebula in space would be proximity of the nebula to a radiating star. The necessary condition is the nebula exists in the first place.

 Baum’s reasoning is clear (ibid.): because “cause” (generic) can be interpreted as proximate or remote, or even as the “goal or aim of an action” and is therefore too open-ended, ambiguous and construed in too many different ways. Thus, “cause” is too embedded in most people’s minds with only one of several meanings, leaving most causality discussions unproductive and confused. If my “cause” and your ‘cause” in a given argument diverge, then we will not get very far. Also, if we confront a disjunctive plurality of causes, we may be at moot dead ends using a naïve causal paradigm.

Thus, if you are going to make an argument on how or why the universe came to be, you can’t just say “God did it” or “Because God is the uncaused cause” – you must deliver the necessary and sufficient conditions for God to exist first. We can THEN examine these conditions in terms of how the universe actually looks, behaves and determine if the conditions are consistent.

Fr. Oliver's "swimming" example, then, is merely a red herring which doesn't really get to the core of either the pro-theist argument, or even advancing an honest one. He is correct in saying one can search via "experiential depths". This is, indeed, something I have been doing the past 40 odd years, which formed the basis of my last book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God. But my conclusion - though I agreed modern physics offered a basis for a transcendent Being - is that one simply could not also identify it as being supernatural. It had to be a wholly physical-energy entity more in line with David Bohm's "Holomovement".

In Fr. Oliver's next paragraph, directed at the "activist atheist"  he insists:

"Surely you know more of classical theism than to accuse it of rejecting logic. Logos is of vital relevance to the theist, chiefly for its embodiment as a Person ("In the beginning was the logos and logos was with God") but also for its usefulness as a dialectic tool."

Several points to make here: First, if classical theism does indeed embrace logic, it ought to have done with specious false analogies like the swimming -experience one offered by Oliver earlier. Second, if theism doesn't reject logic it ought to have no problem applying Robert Baum's necessary and sufficient conditions to use to support existence of a deity. Third, while Fr. Oliver identifies "logos" with God it is more accepted by philosophers and biblical exegesis as referencing the dawning of consciousness in the brain.

When did this arise?   In his controversial 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes (a Princeton psychologist) argued that the brain activity of ancient people - those living roughly 3,500 years ago, prior to early evidence of consciousness  - would have resembled that of modern schizophrenics.  Jaynes maintained that, like schizophrenics, they'd have initiated conversations with unseen deities as well as inanimate objects and even been the beneficiaries of conversations from them! Only later, with the emergence of language, logic and quantitative empirical testing would actual human consciousness emerge. One can argue at this stage "logos" finally appeared.

In perhaps his most forthright appeal, Fr. Oliver directs attention at "militant atheists" imploring them thusly:

"When you attack theism, especially publicly, please deal with its non-caricatured expressions. Snake handlers and preachy politicians make easy targets but the hospitals, food banks and charity centers traceable to the conviction that God hides in the hungry, the poor, the suffering....are not easily refutable."

He is correct here that, too often,  the explicit atheists (which he calls "militant") go for the extremes, but is honest enough to acknowledge theists do likewise, invoking bloodthirsty totalitarian megalomaniacs like Stalin and Mao - who just happened to adopt atheism.

Alas, where he is dishonest is in conflating all branches of theism with Christianity. Hence, as much as he'd like us to invest incontrovertible power to his invocation of charitable works, these simply do not apply to all theisms. Below, for reference is a diagram that we can use to fix ideas on the breadth and scope of theism - which Fr. Oliver avoids:

So what he is referencing with his "hospitals, food banks" etc. is really a tiny domain with the small box on the left labeled  "monotheism".  It doesn't necessarily apply at all to the other boxes which feature other variants of  theism (e.g Hindu, Jain, Shinto, Buddhist etc.) that vastly outnumber the Christians  My point is that one cannot legitimately use the charity invocation if it doesn't apply to all parts of what you are defending which is THEISM, not Christianity alone.

Let's briefly cover some of the distinctions:

Polytheism refers to a belief in multiple deities each of which is worshipped or propitiated in turn. There is no formal injunction in any of these to be charitable.

Pantheism holds that nature and deity are bound up as one indistinguishable entity, most often as a single oneness or in terms of the regularities of natural laws. Thus, when one worships nature one is cognizant that an all encompassing power resides within it. While this form may lead to more compassion for other humans (as part of nature) it does not necessarily mandate any charitable works on their behalf.   A more subtle form is "natural law pantheism" which received attention after Einstein referred to it as "Spinoza's God". When pressed to explain himself, Einstein insisted he meant no personal God but rather "Spinoza's God, the order and harmony of all that exists."

Deism: Strictly speaking, deism treated in its orthodox and traditional manner is only one step removed from implicit atheism. In the Deist view an innominate, impersonal Intelligence created the cosmos - but then detached from it - so there's no further involvement.

The Deist God is analogous to an intelligent child who makes a toy with a gear wheel, and the toy has the ability to move after being wound up and released. Thus, the child makes the toy, winds it up, releases it down the sidewalk, then walks away never to glance at it or its final outcome, destination.

We know nearly all the Founders, the actual authors of the Constitution were hard core Deists, not  Christians.

 Fr. Oliver gets a gentleman's 'C' for his Bulletin effort, which at least doesn't go over the top in its portrayal of atheism like a letter writer (Dr. Barry Lamont) in the same issue. At least Oliver tries to keep his reasoning on an even keel though as I showed there are  number of places where it is full of holes.  Lamont, meanwhile, argued in his letter (p. 16):

"Atheists believe, with no possibility of proof, that God does not exist, nor can this basic premise of atheism be refuted by logic."

But, of course, this is not a "basic premise" at all, it is Lamont's mental permutation of what he believes is a basic premise of atheism. This is the cartoon version of atheism.   What we atheists actually say is that the whole idea of God is redundant – logically unnecessary – because it doesn’t help us to model any physical systems or make verifiable, empirical predictions that pertain to the natural world.

In addition, Lamont poses the "premise" as if atheists initiate a rejection or preemptive denial. In fact, it is the theist who usually proposes whatever deity claim (given atheists can't know in advance what his definition of "God" is)  to which the atheist simply withholds intellectual investment. Since the atheist is only the recipient of the claim (not the originator) it behooves the god claimant to provide the evidence for it. This is the same as if I claimed that an invisible Gnome lurks around all Trump rallies causing the crowds to go batshit nuts.  This may play well in the anti-Trump enclaves but doesn't pass muster with the rationalist.

Not surprisingly, Lamont - like Fr. Oliver- also errs in his take on agnosticism, calling theism and atheism "two diametrically opposed views". Hence, one is entitled to doubt each.  But this is oversimplified, failing to grasp the root of how there are actually different agnosticisms, as pointed out by George Smith (op. cit.) . Thus, agnosticism predicated on the "impossibility of knowledge" can be either theistic or atheistic in manifestation. The agnostic theist believes in the existence of a god but maintains the nature of god is unknowable. The agnostic atheist maintains any supernatural realm is inherently unknowable by the human mind. And further - not only is the nature of any supernatural realm, (e.g. "Hell") unknowable, but the existence of any supernatural being is unknowable as well.

To summarize:

1) The pure agnostic disdains any belief in a deity based on an absolute impossiblity of knowledge.

2) The agnostic theist BELIEVES in the existence of God, but argues it's useless to attempt to elaborate any divine nature (e.g. all-powerful, all loving, all knowing etc.) because the knowledge basis isn't there to permit such assumptions.

3) The agnostic atheist asserts all transcendents are unknowable and hence their existence is as well, so belief is impossible since it requires a leap of faith not warranted by reason alone.

Never mind, it is almost a certainty that in future debates between theists and atheists, the putative "agnostics" who fancy themselves above the fray will still get it wrong.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/11/re-visiting-atheism-agnosticism.html

The "12 Worst Ideas Unleashed On the World By Religion" - How They Can Be Nullified (Part 1)

Heretics meet their tortured ends at the hands of the Inquisition.

Let us agree as a starting proposition that any form of intellectual enterprise or program predicated on fantasy worlds or what are deemed "beyond the natural" realm (i.e. supernatural) are bound to be rife with terrible ideas. The reason is simple: By ignoring natural world constraints and natural laws (e.g. 2nd law of thermodynamics) then "anything goes" and the casual violation of the laws becomes as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

This then can lead to a fictitious morality and sanctions that have no realistic bearing on what is humanly feasible or possible. These can then lead to arrogant overstepping of bounds and persecution of others simply because they don't share the same beliefs.

So we are clear where I am coming from, and as I pointed out in my recent book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God, religions ought to be accorded respect but only in so far as they agree they are really  espousing God-concepts - not any actual God. The reason is logical and simple: If there are 2,000 religions they cannot all be claiming  the same truths - or the same "God"- which is the same thing.  Hence,  the only conclusion must be their dogmas and sacred books are about God-concepts. These are fallible, artificial creations of the human mind which are inherently flawed and limited.

If  religions or religionists claim they are advancing the SAME God but in different ways, then the critical thinker must point out the redundancy and all but one are useful. Since they will never agree on whose God meets that standard, then we must come back to the notion of relative God concepts.

The use of the term God-concept then recognizes implicitly that the nearly universal allegiance to some God concept or other is separate from the issue of any factual existence of a deity. In other words, the widespread use and appeal of God concepts does not mean that there is a genuine correspondent in reality. In fact, humanity's penchant for creating Gods via God-concepts is full explainable by appeal to brain architecture and tendencies such as described by Michael Persinger in his monograph, The Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs, 1983.

All this is put forward before I examine each of the '12 worst ideas unleashed on the world by religion' discussed in a recent article  by Valeria Tarico on salon.com. Now, taking them in order - with the author's (edited) descriptions-  then my take:


1."Chosen People" –The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept, i.e. he New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones.

Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer.

Response: This is pretty well spot on, especially the last part. If then we were to replace "God" with God -concept most of the problems would vanish because mutual exclusion vanishes since all God-concepts are relative one to the other (i.e. none can be known absolutely) and hence none is superior to the others.  Effectively, God "competition" ceases and there can be no spoken idiocy such as one Gen. Jerry Boykin once uttered ("My God can beat your God!")

In the same way, if all are relative, none can promise special "eternal" rewards that the rest can't - because again, all are relative to each other, and subjective. Thus, their beliefs - such as concerning afterlives - must also be relative and subjective.  As I observed in Chapter 1 of my book:

 The implicit relativism acts as a restraint, backing the believer away from a militant absolutism. Ideally, this should dispose him or her to be more tolerant toward unbelievers, and tolerant toward those of different religions


2. Heretics – Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human.

Response: Again, spot on.  "Heresy" is merely a lingual confection and device to isolate a person or minority group if their beliefs do not coincide with the primary belief group's.  In thereby performing this lingual exercise the outcasts created  ("heretics") are rendered sub-humans and can thereby be tortured by the primary group at will - such as shown in the depiction of heretics tortured by the Inquisition.

But if all "Gods" are relative to each other, and also subjective - since as James Byrne observes ('God', Continuum Press, 2001, p. 151.):

"The idea of God as Being is the creation of the philosophical gaze, a result of the drive to objectification which is the hallmark of the history of metaphysics. It is the ‘God’ which is argued about in theism and atheism, and which can only be a projection of humans"

Then it's a wash. No one's God is truer than any other's so anything one person says pertaining to its nature is as good as any other description.  Hence, "heretic" becomes meaningless and superfluous because the original need for isolation is eliminated. This can be formulated as a kind of axiom: "In a world with only God-concepts, which are all relative, there can be no such thing as heresy or heretics."

3. Holy War – If war can be holy, anything goes. The medieval Roman Catholic Church conducted a twenty year campaign of extermination against heretical Cathar Christians in the south of France, promising their land and possessions to real Christians who signed on as crusaders. Sunni and Shia Muslims have slaughtered each other for centuries.

Response:  Given what has already been said in my response to "heretic" the application of the God-concept meme is even more cogent here. Indeed, since all God-concepts are relative and subjective it becomes a stupid waste of time to wage "holy war", crusades, or "jihad" - call it what you will.

Understand here the fundamental thrust of all holy wars is forced conversion of the invaded population to the religion or beliefs of the invaders. But if all Gods are relative, via God-concepts, then conversion emerges as asinine and useless. Conversion would only make sense if one could be absolutely certain his God was superior to all others, But he can't because his brain architecture is too limited to know that. Its capacity for absolute insight is foreclosed and since even the brains of the authors of the respective scriptures are limited, then one can't learn any more from those works either.


4. Blasphemy – Blasphemy is the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even questioning. By definition, criticism of these ideas is an outrage, and it is precisely this emotion–outrage–that the crime of blasphemy evokes in believers. The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers; the Quran does not.

Response: Again, if Gods are replaced by God-concepts, then blasphemy becomes redundant and irrational. It is no longer possible to rationally invoke it because one's deity is no better, no more advanced or "perfect" than another's. This is admittedly a difficult pill for the religious absolutist to swallow, but there it is! Also, let's be clear that severely limited god-concepts can themselves wreak havoc. (Since God-concepts are relative, it is possible to have inferior or puerile ones as well as more sophisticated advanced ones -depending on the level of culture and intellect of the people who created it).

To distinguish retrogressive deity concepts from the more advanced, I invoke "god-concepts"- with the common 'g' indicating a primitive version. In the case of the Biblical prescription of death for blasphemy cited above, let us note this comes from the Old Testament where the primitive concept of the demiurge  or demiurgos dominated. [1]


5. Glorified suffering – Picture secret societies of monks flogging their own backs. The image that comes to mind is probably from Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, but the idea isn’t one he made up. A core premise of Christianity is that righteous torture—if it’s just intense and prolonged enough–can somehow fix the damage done by evil, sinful behavior. Millions of crucifixes litter the world as testaments to this belief.

Our ancestors lived in a world in which pain came unbidden, and people had very little power to control it. An aspirin or heating pad would have been a miracle to the writers of the Bible, Quran, or Gita. Faced with uncontrollable suffering, the best advice religion could offer was to lean in or make meaning of it.

Response: This grotesque idea was at the heart of many of the critics' responses to Brittany Maynard, i.e. to just "offer your pain and suffering up to God".   But what if Brittany didn't believe in God, or in the "God" of these fanatics? Then again, the notion of God-concepts comes to the fore. If Brittany adhered to a more subtle or nuanced God-concept, i.e. that rejected unnecessary pain, then her first duty would be to eliminate the possibility of reaching that stage, e.g. of a pain-wracked vegetable with no cognition who could only experience agony and lacked bowel, urinary control.

Others may insist that THEIR God declares this to be "suicide" and a "mortal sin" or whatever, but since all God-concepts are relative, it doesn't matter. Brittany's choices (even if she adheres to NO God-concept) are as good and as justified as those who accept a more stringent or punitive God-concept.


6. Genital mutilation – Primitive people have used scarification and other body modifications to define tribal membership for as long as history records. But genital mutilation allowed our ancestors several additional perks—if you want to call them that. Infant circumcision in Judaism serves as a sign of tribal membership, but circumcision also serves to test the commitment of adult converts.

Response:  All true, which is exactly why,  as I noted in a previous blog post, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/12/cdc-trying-to-get-male-teens.html

that all forms of such mutilation, including male circumcision, amount to an antiquated religious practice that has no place in the modern world. Neither does it have any place in any objective religious world where all "Gods" are really God-concepts, and "covenants" are derived from these and also subjective and relative.


[1] See, for example, Elaine Pagels’ explanation in her book, The Gnostic Gospels, p. 37, wherein demiurgos is a lesser divine being who gives the law and metes out judgments to those who violate it. Obviously, demiurgos is a primitiv concept for a preliterate people or culture.

(To Be Continued)

Pope Francis is A-OK: Conservative Catholics Need to Grow Up, Get A Life

How could any normal person with humanity's interests at stake and a yearning for peace possibly come down on Pope Francis I? It beggars the mind and imagination (the worst recesses) to think there are actually Catholics who deplore his actions and words and wonder if he is some kind of a "heretic" out to subvert Church teachings. I mean, hell, even atheists love this pope! Probably because he evinced a truly enlightened tolerance for them 5 months ago, when on delivering a homily at the Chapel of the Domus Santa Marta he said:  

"The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class. We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all. And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: We need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don't believe, Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: We will meet one another there."

But according to a Sunday New York Times piece ('Some Catholics Feel Left Out of Pope's Embrace' ) this exhibition of tolerance has evidently pissed off conservative Catholics (you know, the ones who think 'Opus Dei' is just grand, and yearn for old Latin masses and more saints). In this sense they're like a certain self-professed fundie who has roundly proclaimed he "ain't sharin' no afterlife with any atheists".  Seems the afterlife cosmos is just too damned small for these close-minded folks to allow "heathens" and  "believers" i.e. those who think they know what's up there (really) to co-exist in the same post-space-time continuum.

The part of Francis' address that really got to them was not generally published in the U.S. media - but was re-published in the NY Times article (p. 27):

"Everyone has his own idea of good and evil".

Which is, of course, true. A starving child or parent of that child will, for example, regard evil as the gross systemic inequality in a supposedly rich nation that permits such a travesty to occur. Yeshua, when he was alive, regarded evil as turning from one's fellow man and employing "rule-based" theology to exclude or demonize others. This is why he upbraided the Pharisees as "whited sepulchres."  They were so obsessed with their petty rules, laws and rule-making that they lost sight of the total spiritual vision, i.e. that a true God would embrace all humans, irrespective of beliefs, or unbelief.

As the Times piece observes: "The Pope has won affection worldwide for his humility and common touch."

But not among these regressive Catholics. The Times cites one conservative Catholic blogger named Steve Skojec - "the Vice President of a real estate firm in Virginia who has written for several conservative Catholic websites".

Skojec, according to the Times (ibid.) asks if Francis' statements are "explicitly heretical" - deciding they aren't ....quite, at least not yet. But he responds in an afterthought:

"Are they dangerously close? Absolutely! What kind of Christian tells an atheist he has no intention to convert him? That should disturb Catholics everywhere!"

Actually, no. Only seriously deluded Catholics would be so disturbed. Catholics who really think they have a lock on ultimate truth and know "God" to a tee. But as I noted in my recent book Beyond Atheism, Beyond God, the most people with limited brains and neural capacity can do is formulate relative, subjective God concepts. This means apart from not being any of their damned business to meddle in others' lives,  they lack the epistemological certainty to be able to justify trying to  "convert" anyone. This is because their god beliefs are as relative, limited and subjective as any other believer's and their neural capacity is no greater than an unbeliever's!

This further supports the contention of philosopher Joseph Campbell[1] to the effect that:  

‘God’ is an ambiguous word in our language because it appears to refer to something that is known..

The problem is people bandy the symbol about as if they have intimate knowledge of what it means, or the real entity behind it. But all they have, ultimately, is a symbol reflecting their own personal predilections, acquired beliefs, interpretations of dogmas and experience. But it was for precisely this reason that French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion’s advised of only writing “God”  with a strikethrough, e.g. GOD. Thereby to indicate no one has the capacity to describe, grasp, conceptualize or manipulate the underlying entity. In effect, as author James Byrne observes:  “to think GOD as unthinkable is to reject the idolatry of the God of onto-theology. “

 If  this entity is de-conceptualized, then it can’t be debated, even by the most ardent or determined atheist.  Similarly, no one possesses the knowledge, spiritual advantage or superior moral position to “convert” any other person to what he accepts or thinks is a "one true"  God concept. Because there is no "one true God" precisely because you're only dealing with a limited concept, not the actual entity.

 

My point here is that no one, of ANY religion, is in such a superior epistemological position that he can assert his religion is the “one true one”.  This also means he’s in no position to “convert” anyone to his religion.  Is there any advantage to be gained by acknowledging that a God-concept is what people are really talking about when they use the noun “God”? I think there is.  For one thing, the acknowledged use of the term God-concept reinforces an attitude of cautious forbearance.  The implicit relativism acts as a restraint, backing the believer away from a militant stance of absolutism. Ideally, this should dispose him or her to be more tolerant - tolerant toward unbelievers and tolerant toward those of different religions.

 

What is the alternative, after all? It is that each monotheistic religion, whether Islam, or Evangelical Protestantism or Catholicism will be spurred to condemn those not numbered in its fold. Each then prescribes "hellfire" for the outliers or unbelievers, and sows the seeds for incessant strife in this world as well as spiritual apartheid in the next.

 

 

But will a guy like Stevie Skojec be able to process all of this? Probably not. Because his absolutist stance admits of no questioning, or any smidgeon of tolerance for others'. In other words, like the most extreme Islamist extremists, he won't be satisfied until all "unbelievers" are "converted" or....if we carry his reasoning forward and extrapolate it to its brutal conclusion: put to the sword. Because, there is no other way, and none of us (atheists) are going to convert willingly nor are we going to listen to any authoritarian yap from the likes of his ilk.

 

 

All of which reinforces the point that when people use the word G-o-d they’re not talking or writing about an actual entity but a limited construct or approximate mental ideation configured as a noun, which we call a God concept. Further, because it’s limited by content and comprehension, i.e. by finite minds with finite intelligence which can’t grasp all aspects, then all such concepts must be relative and subjective. This means that the Jewish concept of Yahweh, the Muslim concept of Allah, the Hindu concept of Brahmin and the Christian concept of the Trinity all stand in the same epistemological relation.  From an informational point of view, none can be selected as “true” to the exclusion of the others.

 

 

If indeed Catholics, including the conservative faction, yearn for a better world, there is only one way and that's to allow for inevitable differences in epistemological,  belief (or unbelief) approaches that reflect human cultural, geographical and experiential differences. TO presume instead that there is only one "right" way and by god you are going to demand it, is to offer a prescription for endless war, endless strife and endless hate.

 

 

You really, really want that? Didn't think so! 
 

Everyone with a grain of sense, including conservative Catholics like Steve Skojec, ought to be applauding Francis' open statements of tolerance, instead of denigrating them as one step removed from what they believe is "heretical".

 

 

 

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[1] Campbell.: The Power of Myth, 56