Atheistic Metheny

While I applaud Methny's apparent interest in intellectual things I was a bit saddened today to find him recommending books like 'The God Delusion' by Dawkins and 'The End to Faith' by Sam Harris. Music that to me is almost divine in its beauty and longing for meaning and poetic expression is made by someone who holds a worldview that radically opposes mine.

I won't like Pat's music less for it. I deeply respect his talent and artistry and still find myself caught up in the other worldly imagery of his beautiful music. Yet I deeply believe it is this very materialistic worldview which opposes any notion of God that holds nothing absolutely nothing for us to hope and strive for. It is the elimination of meaning and beauty.

God have mercy!

Government funding for meaning?

Just the other day there was a news item that reported on the Dutch Scientific Commision on Government Policy (Wetenschappelijk Raad voor Regeringsbeleid). The commission has done research into religiosity among the Dutch population. Their findings? The Dutch are still quite religious in spite of the secularization of the past 50 years. The Commission found a group of about 18% that could be characterized as suspicious of and totally unaffiliated to any conviction. Interestingly the Commission recommends goverment funding in order to prevent this 18% to 'slide into lawlessness'.

How about that? Government funding as the answer to lawlessness and meaningfulness. How much would meaning beyond death cost? How much for meaning that would be satisfying in spite of being false? Isn't true meaningfulness priceless? I've always held to the idea that meaning is the result of a quest for truth not a bottle of pills with a price tag.

Also note the fallacy of the irrelevance of a belief system's content. Apparently not the contents of the various belief systems matter, but not having a belief system. What about belief systems that are not coherent? Don't they eventually lead to meaninglessness and lawlessness? Just to mention a few... humanism, postmodernism, materialism. Are not these very belief systems the cause of the loss of meaning in our culture? As Francis Schaeffer has pointed out, it is both the elite and the lower eschelons of society that tend to display early on the consequences of belief systems.

Maybe this is what the Scientific Commision on Government Policy should start thinking about.

Is faith as evil as smallpox?

This is an interesting exchange of views that took place in blogworld:

Today I read pc.blogspot.com where the statement was made that Faith is as evil as smallpox. I responded by saying that:

"Funny enough Richard Dawkins is a believer too. He believes in naturalism. And you really need quite a big faith to believe that the material reality that we experience is all there is. The very statement that 'faith is evil' requires a set of presuppositions that can't be proven themselves and thus require belief."

The response I got was the following:

'Yossman, to apprehend this world all you have to do is look around. But to try and explain what we do know, ie., all this that we see and experience, by means of something we neither see nor experience requires a leap in the dark. Literally, a leap of faith. The difference is clear enough.'

I gave the following response:

No, I don't agree.

First. We do not know for sure that what our senses perceive is really true. If there is anything out there at all. In order to prove it rationally we have to use our logical thinking, the effectiveness - or rather truthfullness - of which we can only prove by using the very logic we try to prove, thus creating circular reasoning. (This is rather Kantian I suppose.) What I am trying to say is that we have to believe our senses and logic in order to interact with the world and interpret the world. By giving a rational/material explanation of all that is, we are already taking huge steps of faith. Believing in a God might be just a higher form of believing than believing the senses.

Secondly looking around doens't explain for a lot we see and experience. For instance our morality, or the big bang, or the apparent mind-boggling design on both macro and micor levels, or consciousness, or beauty and our ability to perceive it. It might actually be a very logical thing to postulate the existence of a powerful Being that has brought everything about.

Thirdly, the material worldview runs aground trying to build a lasting basis for morality for instance. How on earth can we derive an 'ought' from the 'descriptive' fact of zillions of atoms that are out there?

Truly, saying that faith is an evil thing is an illogical thing to say. The statement itself is based on faith as it can't be proven. It's a self-refuting claim.

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I got a lot of feedback on that post and gave the following reply. I'll leave it at that.

Apparently you don't seems to understand that to interpret data is so much as to impose a mental (ie. invisible) mental structure upon those data. To arrive at any origin from a given amount of perceivable states you have to take a leap of faith. Postmodernism has shown us that much.

My point is to argue not in favor for a leap of faith, however, but to show that any position that interprets the world takes certain steps of faith. To believe in God is therefore not less rational than not to believe in Him. My interpretation of the facts at hand has led me to believe there is a God (in fact just by looking around me).

Furthermore I would like to point out that 'faith' as such (whatever it really means) can neither be wrong or good. It is rather the content of faith - and very often the way in which it has been working out in people's actions - that has led to destructive consequences. As has the content of non-religious 'isms'.

Islam for instance holds to the idea that unbelievers have to be converted by force. Although it needs to be said that most muslims would not advocate this at the present.

I know that many self-proclaimed Christians have done horrible things even in the name of their religion (slavery, crusades, imperialism, etc.)

As far as naturalism goes, here is an 'ought' derived from evolutionary naturalism that is not very nice either:

Nazism cannot be condemned by means of a naturalistic morality. The nazis were trying to advance their race and were doing the logical thing in order to diseminate their genes as widely as possible.

The death of democracy

The congressional elections in the US are finished. The Dutch parliamentary elections are coming up. Time for some thoughts on the matter. I often feel uncomfortable with democracy. The way I've seen it in operation it often seems to work against Christianity. Having said that I also admit to feeling a bit uneasy with this uncomfortableness. It's politically incorrect to have qualms about democracy. So I did some thinking on it and here is my analysis, or rather, here I offer my musings.

There are basically two kinds of democray in the West historically speaking. When democracy was first conceptualized it was embedded in a framework of absolute morals. There was a foundational belief in a transcendental moral good. This democracy operated with fixed moral guidelines that were not to be altered. The subject matter of democracy concerned itself with the practical gouvernance of the state with the means of these moral principles. The application or consequential structuring of society by these principles was what democracy was all about instead of relying on the whims and fancies of a potentially immoral monarch. Democracy had as its aim to bring morality back at the center.

The other kind of democracy which has developed during the first half of the 20th century has made morality subject to the democratic process. It is a form of democracy which ultimately has its roots in naturalism or a materialistic view of the universe in which morality is relative and situational. In the first one there is no discussion whatsoever about truth, morality, the intrinsic value of the human being andsoforth as they are seen as fixed by a transcedental source. In the second basically everything is up for grabs as soon as the majority of the public is ready for it.

The second form of democracy has become a platform for the naturalistic ideology and thus has transformed itself into a battleground for opposing worldviews: the theistic Judeo-Christian worldview versus a relativistic worldview.

It needs to be said that the reason why the 2nd form of democracy could come into existence lies in the fact that the first one already lived on borrowed capital. I.e. its foundational principles were based on an optimistic epistemology that characterized much of the Enlightenment. The epistemological despair so central to post-modernism has introduced moral relativism in the political arena.

Now given this fundamental change from the first form of democracy to the second, from working within the parameters of a fixed moral framework to an extension of the democratic process to the realm of ethics and morality, one would expect a considerable amount of discussion going on about the difference beween worldviews. That is a discussion between a worldview of moral absolutes and one that holds to moral relativism. What we see instead is a tremendous degree of confusion and hardly any discussion if at all on this all important topic. Rather we find pro lifers pitched against pro choicers, environmentalists against those who oppose environmental measures. Politicians reiterate their points of view in a cloud of unknowing.

What are the consequences of this shift in democracy? First of all politics has become utterly boring if not trivial. Most political statements are merely statements in mid-air and are not part of a thought system built from the ground up. They talk well, these politicians, but they are blind guiding the blind. Moreover most of the political views expounded, however different they may seem to be from each other, are often part and parcel of the same underlying worldview based on moral relativism. I haven't met a politician willing to think through the consequences of his naturalistic worldview, or consciously basing his political agenda on such a worldview.

Secondly democracy is bound to collapse sooner or later. If not by the insurmountable worldwide threats like terrorism or environmental hazard then by the increased corruption and moral decay in the West. In any case with morality being made subject to the democratic process it is the majority in our nations that will decide on the ethical course that we take. The majority as of old will only want 'bread and games'. To be entertained is the higest good. Democracy thus becomes descriptive of a civilization's moral decay. Eventually these democracies will lead to annihilation or turn into dicatorships. Democracy has turned on itself.

De NVD - hoe fout is fout.

Nu even over de NVD.

Opnieuw wordt de discussie over morele normen en waarden actueel. Wanneer christenen moord en brand schreeuwen over euthanasie en abortus legt men ze in Nederland het liefst het zwijgen op. Nu het over (potentiële) legalisering van pedofilie gaat lijken wij Nederlanders allen (op de NVD na) in hetzelfde kamp te zitten.

Maar wat is de grond om het een af te keuren en het andere toe te staan? Hoe komt het dat er een diversiteit aan morele standaarden is? is er wel zoiets als een obsolute standaard voor goed en fout? Als de NVD ter sprake komt is bijna iedereen het erover eens dat dit absoluut fout is. Men maakt intuïtief aanspraak op een universele wetmatigheid die dit afwijst. Waarom?

Laten we eens twee wereldbeelden toetsen m.b.t. dit verschijnsel van een innerlijke wet waarop we universeel aanspraak kunnen maken. Ten eerste het in Nederland meest wijdverbreide wereldbeeld: humanisme. Humanisme leert dat de mens van binnen goed is, dat hij zelf de norm van zijn gedrag bepaalt, dat mensen samen een maatschappij kunnen vormen die werkt, d.m.v. onderlinge afspraken. Humanisme gaat onvermijdelijk gepaard met naturalisme. Naturalisme leert ons dat alleen wat empirisch waarneembaar is daadwerkelijk is. Materie is de enige werkelijkheid, de ultieme werkelijkheid. Het atoom is god. Dit is onlosmakelijk verbonden met het evolutionistisch denken: Alles wat is, is door toeval en spontane mutatie ontstaan, middels het mechanisme van 'survival of the fittest'.

Wat heeft dit alles over moraal te zeggen. Volgens het evolutionaire denken is moraal eveneens het product van een evolutionaire ontwikkeling. Het is een middel om samenlevingen in stand te houden en te structureren. Moraal is daarmee 'situational', d.w.z. wat op een gegeven moment werkt om het evolutionaire proces in stand te houden. Dit houdt tevens in dat moraal kan veranderen. Gisteren vonden we iets slecht, maar in de toekomst gaan we het misschien goed vinden. Niets staat absoluut vast.

Maar het gaat verder. Als we naturalistisch denken consequent doorvoeren, is moraal niet meer dan een ingewikkeld, maar random, gevolg van atomaire constellaties. Niets is daadwerkelijk goed of fout, want atomen zijn niet goed of fout - ze zijn gewoon - en aan hun existentie kan geen morele verontwaardiging of goedkeuring ontleend worden.

Consequent doorgeredeneerd betekent dat de NVD met haar verlangen om kinderporno uit het strafrecht te halen niet fout zit. Fout bestaat niet, want 'ethics is situational'. Misschien zijn we aan een volgende episode in onze evolutionaire ontwikkeling gekomen waarin het voor de ontwikkeling van de mensheid nuttig is om pedofilie te bedrijven. Misschien is de NVP een voorhoede van een geëvolueerde mensensoort. Vanuit het naturalitische gedachtengoed kan ('mag niet' kun je niet zeggen, maar wel 'kan niet', want het is logisch onjuist) de NVD niet veroordeeld worden. Het gaat immers maar om brainstates en atomaire constructies. Dus waar praten we over?

Deze redenering moet serieus genomen worden. Dit IS namelijk wat er gebeurt. Niemand wil de consequenties aanvaarden van het atheïstische-humanistische gedachtengoed waar het Westen zich sinds de eerste helft van de 20-ste eeuw aan overgeleverd heeft. De NVD is echter zo'n consequentie, net als nazisme, marxisme, euthanasie, abortus, kapitalisme, etc.

Wat is het alternatief? Het alternatief is het tweede wereldbeeld dat ik wil bespreken. Als het naturalisme niet leefbaar is, duidt dat er mogelijk op dat materie niet de enige realiteit is. De universele morele verwerpeljkheid die we ervaren (behalve een klein pervers groepje mensen) t.a.v. pedofilie en kinderporno verwijst naar een transcedente morele wet die het universum regeert en in ons wezen gegrift is. Ik bedoel dat God bestaat en ons gemaakt heeft en in ons hart kennis van zijn morele karakter heeft gelegd.

Vanuit de postulatie van een transcedent Wezen in wiens karakter wij de absolute grond van moraal vinden en daarmee het onderscheid tussen goed en kwaad is het mogelijk de uispraak te doen: de NVD is fout. Zonder dat uitgangspunt is zo'n uitspraak NIET mogelijk.

Dit is slechts een van de vele redenen waarom ik in God geloof.