Sunday, July 18, 2010

Theism, atheism, and non-rational motivations

Victor wrote: "And none of us is intellectually pure, in that, emotional reasons are always going to be present no matter what we believe, so long as we care about what we believe."




Ken: I'm a sinner. I don't ever think that any other atheists have any huge advantage in the objectivity department. One can always cite some sources of bias for the opposition. This doesn't mean atheists can't have an edge in objectivity.



A case can be made that the emotional motivations of Christians are stronger than that of atheists and agnostics, so while there is no question about the lack of objectivity of both sides, there remains the question of the degree of which our respective beliefs are determined by our emotions.



On the non-theist side we have elitism, desire for a carefree, sinful lifestyle, and sometimes peer pressure, other times the desire to be different, with the latter conflicting influences depending on the circumstances (such as conforming to a nonconformist ingroup).



On the Christian side, the most obvious are the self-preservation imperative (cultural or personal), widespread indoctrination, desire for good fortune, moral security, moral certainty and conformity.



Of course the more particular motivations of non-theists may also account for their relative scarcity, assuming all other things being equal such as reasoning ability. But if we could distill the objective out of the subjective, we may find that atheism is the modestly more pure position as an initial, very simple assumption.

VR: I suppose we can start analyzing this by looking at non-truth-tracking causes for beliefs. Believing, religiously, what one is raised to believe, for example, doesn't appear to be truth-tracking, since clearly we people are raised to believe various things, and the likelihood of coming with falsehoods just picking your beliefs that way seems rather high. Believing what you wish to believe is in general not truth-tracking, your wishes and your fears come true, for the most parts, in equal proportions.

But how many people in our society have strong Christian upbringings? I don't think most people in America are raised by dedicated Christians. Sure, there are high polling numbers for theism on Gallup surveys, but most households, I think, do not provide anything like a strong indoctrination into Christianity. I grew up in a United Methodist church, but I also spent most of my academic career in atmospheres which were hostile to Christianity.

Also, when you start reflecting on your beliefs, your non-rational reasons for believing somethings start making you suspicious, as opposed to supporting your beliefs. Insofar as I felt myself wanting to believe that Christianity is true, it was a source of doubt rather than faith. I had, after all, read Russell, who told me it was "pusillanimous and sniveling" to give in to the will to believe.

And these non-rational factors are so variable from person to person. While many people fear extinction, C. S. Lewis claimed to have no such fear. He wrote:

"And it remains true that I have, almost all of my life, been quite unable to feel that horror of nonentity, of annhilation, which, say Dr. Johnson felt so strongly. I felt it for the first time only in 1947. But that was after I had long been reconverted and thus begun to know what life really is and what would be lost by missing it."
(Surprised by Joy, Harcourt Brace and Company, p. 117.)

Now, I suppose a skeptic could sit here and play Freud, and argue that this was a piece of disingenuous subtle propaganda to make us think he was really persuaded by argument to believe, when really he wished his way back to Christianity. But on what possible evidence? And couldn't we play that game with everyone, if we some particular theory of why people believe, or why people disbelieve? If I hold the thesis that everyone who rejects Christianity does so out of a desire to engage in sexual conduct that Christianity proscribes, surely I could follow Freud in finding sexual motivations where none appear to be on the face of things.

So, I think we have reason to be aware of the non-rational motivations that might be moving us toward belief or unbelief. But this probably is not going to give us much of an argument one way or another. If anything, I could make the case that the Christian philosophers I know tend to be more conscious of their own intellectual frailties, than most atheist philosophers I know.

7 comments:

Mike Erich the Mad Theologian said...

I am convinced that C. S. Lewis is right in saying that trying to prove anything one way or the other by psychoanalyzing your opponent or trying to show why he wants to believe the way he does is a game everyone can play all day long and proves nothing. One can make arguments all day long over whether the desire to embrace atheist is or is not as strong as the desire to embrace Christianity. I grew up an agnostic and wanted very badly to believe it and came to accept Christianity only with great reluctance. I am sure there are others who can witness to thing same experience in the opposite direction. As Lewis pointed out we need to start by figuring out what is true before we can begin analyzing motives as to why people do or do not believe it. Anything else is simply a subtle ad hominem fallacy.

David B. Ellis said...

What convinced you that Christianity was true?

Ken said...

VR wrote: Now, I suppose a skeptic could sit here and play Freud, and argue that this was a piece of disingenuous subtle propaganda to make us think he was really persuaded by argument to believe, when really he wished his way back to Christianity. But on what possible evidence? And couldn't we play that game with everyone, if we some particular theory of why people believe, or why people disbelieve? If I hold the thesis that everyone who rejects Christianity does so out of a desire to engage in sexual conduct that Christianity proscribes, surely I could follow Freud in finding sexual motivations where none appear to be on the face of things.

Victor:
I agree that it is not easy to discern who is motivated by what, but just because it is difficult does not mean that it is unworthy of further debate. Lewis aside, it doesn't take psychoanalysis to realize that survival of consciousness is a popular theme in religion and Christianity in particular. Same goes for a consistent pattern of religious enculturation, if not indoctrination. That people believe and disbelieve for emotional reasons is apparent enough and it should be dispassionately discussed.

Why? I think that a naturalistic explanation of beliefs is an absolutely necessary part of the atheist's argumentation if we want to present a positive case. And in arguing a negative position, we have few positive argument tools available.

It's true that Christian theists may make a similar counterclaim about the motivations of atheists, but from my atheist perspective it's absolutely essential only for the atheist to account for widespread beliefs by intelligent and well-educated people.

To theists, there surely is a non-rational motivation explanation for atheism, but it isn't necessary in arguing it since denial of God does not represent any entailing god-phenomena in the theist's worldview. They have every right to use that kind of argumentation, especially since atheists use it, but it's not essential for them to do so. In fact, atheists should openly admit that we are all subject to emotional predispositions, which only strengthens the assertion, in that such assertions are being used to globally explain rather than to aggressively discredit the other.

Put another way, atheists define God as imaginary or a supposed real God without evidence, and so the idea of God must manifest itself as a mistaken belief (or delusion). As full an explanation as possible of that psychological phenomena is necessary for atheists to present their case since they claim that God is purely a psychological phenomenon and does not objectively exist.

But for the theist, the phenomenon of God is a real God and that in no way directly entails the existence of mistaken/ delusional atheists. If God exists, it simply happens (or it makes it possible) that there are mistaken god-deniers, but in fact those deniers do not further map out the theist's description of a real God.

Stated yet another way:
Emotional theists are precisely a manifestation of the atheist positive idea of an imaginary God. Emotional atheists are in no way a direct manifestation of a real God.

Mike Erich the Mad Theologian said...

"What convinced you that Christianity was true?"

A number of different things:
1. The inability of the purely secular outlook to answer the real issues of life. Questions such as what is life all about and does it have any real purpose. We can write off the whole universe as absurd but if we do we have ask why we ever had this anomalous desire for meaning?
2. It I am just the result of a mindless mechanical process then how can my thinking be anything more than the product of my environment and how can I know anything about anything?
3. Why does the idea of morality exist and do even those who most vehemently deny it, turn around and act as if it was real. And why do we fall so short of our ideals in this area?
4. Why does something rather than nothing exist and why does it at least seem to be governed by orderly laws?
5. How could I explain Jesus Christ, who He was and what was claimed about Him in way that made sense?
I could add more to this but it is dealing with questions like this this that ultimately convinced me that out of the various options Christianity made the most sense.

Gregory said...

What about Bruce Sheiman's "An Atheist Defends Religion"? I wonder what his motivations are? I wonder if it's "reason" or "emotion"?

Also, I wonder how people will respond to Peter Hitchens, the brother of media atheist Christopher Hitchens, and his new book "The Rage Against God" (2010 Continuum)? I wonder how Chris Hitchens, himself, will respond to the book? And I wonder how he will respond to the way in which atheists respond to Peter?

Is blood thicker than water?

Gregory said...

Find out what happens when two titans clash in the next exciting installment of "Esau's Fables"....or "MOM ALWAYS LIKED YOU BEST!!!"

Gregory said...

"The wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void. Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in Tibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvana. They are both helpless — one because he must not grasp anything, and the other because he must not let go of anything. The Tolstoyan's will is frozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil. But the Nietzscheite's will is quite equally frozen by his view that all special actions are good; for if all special actions are good, none of them are special. They stand at the crossroads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads. The result is — well, some things are not hard to calculate. They stand at the cross-roads."

--from "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton