Religious belief and intellectual respectability

[Stunster]

I have to wonder at the fairly frequent comments from people on DU pronouncing that religious belief is obviously illogical, irrational, and lacking in intellectual respectability, etc.

One reason for my saying this is that just off the top of my head, I can think of two of the most important logicians of the 20th century who've been religious believers. That, of course, doesn't prove that religious belief is true or logical or rational, and of course there are other logicians (Quine is one) who don't have religious beliefs.

So this is not an argument from authority. Lots of people believe that we should defer to the scientific community--our deference doesn't prove that science is true, of course. And we don't personally carry out all scientific experiments ourselves, and not all scientists agree among themselves about everthing. But it's a mark of the intellectual respectability of a scientific belief that at least some leading scientists hold to it, and are prepared to argue for it. Their beliefs may be wrong, of course. But they're considered intellectually respectable, just for that reason.

Example: I don't really grasp the intricacies of string theory. But I think I know that string theory is intellectually respectable, because I know that at least some leading theoretical physicists believe in it. String theory might be completely wrong, for all I know. But it is, currently, intellectually respectable to talk about strings, and multiple spatial dimensions, and so on.

So how intellectually respectable is religious belief?

Godel is arguably the greatest logician of all time, and probably the most famous (given his celebrated Incompleteness Theorems). He was also a religious believer and thought that one could prove the existence of God by logical argument....

Kurt Gödel is best known to mathematicians and the general public for his celebrated incompleteness theorems. Physicists also know his famous cosmological model in which time-like lines close back on themselves so that the distance past and the distant future are one and the same. What is less well known is the fact that Gödel has sketched a revised version of Anselm's traditional ontological argument for the existence of God.

How does a mathematician get mixed up in the God-business? Gödel was a mystic, whose mathematical research exemplified a philosophical stance akin to the Neo-Platonics. In this respect, Gödel had as much in common with the medieval theologians and philosophers as the twentieth-century mathematicians who pioneered the theory of computation and modern computer science. However, a deeper reason for Gödel's contribution to the ontological argument is that the most sophisticated versions of the ontological argument are nowadays written in terms of modal logic, a branch of logic that was familiar to the medieval scholastics, and axiomatized by C. I. Lewis (not to be confused with C. S. Lewis, or C. Day Lewis for that matter). It turns out that modal logic is not only a useful language in which to discuss God, it is also a useful language for proof theory, the study of what can and cannot be proved in mathematical systems of deduction. Issues of completeness of mathematical systems, the independence of axioms from other axioms, and issue of the consistency of formal mathematical systems are all part of proof theory.

A lot more here.

Michael Dummett is a very eminent English philosopher and logician, and is especially well-known for his important work on German mathematician and logician Gottlob Frege, who himself can be regarded as the founder of modern logic. From 1979 to 1992 Dummett held the post of Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford, arguably the most prestigious professorial chair of logic in the world. Dummett is also known as a very devout and religiously conservative Roman Catholic, and a fierce opponent of racism.

...Although he was educated within the traditions of the Anglican Church at Winchester, by the age of 13 he regarded himself as an atheist. In 1944 however, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church, and he remains a practising Catholic.....

A lot more here.

A leading, and well-known religious believer who, prior to retirement, was a theoretical physicist at Cambridge is John Polkinghorne. More about him here.

I could go on to produce many leading lights in physics, chemistry, biology, philosophy, logic, mathematics, and other fields who are also religious believers.

What I conclude from this evidence is not that religious belief must be true, or even that it's rational, but simply that it's impossible to take seriously the claim that having religious beliefs is an obvious sign of the holder's intellectual deficiency or irrationality or illogicality. The same conclusion would hold with regard to atheists and atheism of course, for similar reasons. But that's the point---the conclusion holds for both cases. Theism and atheism are both intellectually respectable beliefs.

On the other hand, I'm struggling to think of any major intellectual figures in the sciences and humanities in the post-Darwinian era who have been Biblical fundamentalists. There may be some, but if there are, such cases are certainly not common. Far more common, however, are the cases of very eminent intellectually gifted people who are theists.

Of course, one doesn't decide the truth of a belief by conducting a poll of even intelligent people's attitudes to it. But I think that is, roughly, how we come to judgements about intellectual respectability---by seeing that among leading figures in fields that pertain to that belief, or at least in fields that have some potentially fairly important conceptual connections to the belief in question, it is fairly commonly held.

'Fairly commonly held' doesn't have to mean a majority. For example, I take it that 'hidden variables' interpretations of quantum mechanics, though not widely accepted within the physics community, are nonetheless intellectually respectable. (It's worth noting that 'hidden variables' interpretations are consistent with the data. It is extra-experimental considerations that persuade the majority of physicists not to accept them).

[More Than A Feeling]

1. Somebody say amen! ;-)

I will be very interested to see if those whom you are speaking of will post a response, and what basis they will use for arguing their position.

[Tux]

2. intellectual respectability

It comes from have done the work to gain the respect. As for religious belief, thanks to fundies, anyone of faith (any) are looked upon as illogical (by atheists in general) or godless heathens who deserve death (fundies and Evangelicals).

One must acknowledge that faith is personal. I'm a UU and we debated this last Sunday more or less at my church. What we agreed on was the evidence or lack of evidence that faith tries to fill or give meaning to.

While being religious doesn't prove a person is illogical but fundies have certainly help create that image with their rants. If a person can engage in intellectual debate with maturity, evidence, and scholarly work, they get respect despite their faith. If a person of faith quotes the Bible endlessly for evidence for everything, they lose respect.

In short, it's about playing nice with others, doing the work, and keeping from destroying society to fulfill a maniac's dream (Rapture).

[Stunster]

4. Fundies and fairies

I guess the point I'm making is that given the sheer number of very intellectually gifted people who've been or are theists, people like Godel, Dummett, Polkinghorne, people like Descartes, Leibniz, Pascal, Kant, Aquinas, Newton, etc (not to mention literally billions of ordinary sane individuals of normal and above normal intelligence), it seems bizarre to place theistic belief in the same category as belief in Santa Claus, fairies, pixies, invisible pink elephants, little green men from outer space, and so on---as if all these theists would be just as liable to hold the latter sort of belief as to believe in theism. This just seems to be a gross and rather childish failure, or wilful refusal, to see that theistic belief is clearly far more sophisticated than that.

Are we supposed to think of people like Nobel Prize winners in Physics, such Arthur Schawlow, B. D. Josephson and Charles Townes, or Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, Christian Anfinsen, or Princeton professors of Mathematics like Edward Nelson and John Erik Fornaess, or writers like C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, Tolkien, Dostoevsky, poets like Pope and Blake and Hopkins, that their theistic beliefs are just as obviously silly and foolish as a belief in the existence of invisible pink elephants?

Surely it's the notion that would place these believers on an intellectual par with a believer in pixies which is obviously silly and foolish, and obviously deserves scorn and ridicule!

If people are too intellectually lazy or dimwitted, or too irrational or too uninformed to see that being a theist does not commit one to Biblical fundamentalism, or to 'Mad Mullahism', or to being a freeping wingnut, or to any other obvious intellectual aberration, then it's the height of self-satisfied crass stupidity for these same people to pronounce on the supposed intellectual deficiency of others.

Would it be open to theists to post on a daily basis about the horrors that flow from atheism by pointing to the atheist human rights-abusing fuckwits running the governments of China or North Korea? Or the atheist human rights-abusing fuckwits of Sendero Luminoso in Peru, who slaughtered thousands of innocent people in recent years? Would it be ok if theists on DU said, "We must not let atheists take over America because then we'd end up like Albania, the first officially self-proclaimed atheist nation of the world?" That would all be criticized and denounced as illogical and silly, and quite rightly too.

As a matter of political strategy, I think it would be better if progressives in this country sought to make stronger alliances with religious believers, since the latter are a majority of voters. There is a religious left. It has played a noble part in many of the great progressive struggles of this country. Let's not alienate people of faith by constantly ridiculing the very idea of religious faith.

Religious faith is perfectly intellectually respectable and perfectly compatible with progressive politics. It's a political error of some magnitude that progressives have allowed the Right to capture and distort the concept of religion the same way that it has captured and distorted the concept of freedom, the concept of security, the concept of patriotism, the concept of justice, and the concept of responsibility.

Until all progressives, whether personally holding religious beliefs or not, learn to stop painting themselves into the corners the Right wants them to be in, then they'll continue to suffer political defeat in this country.

One of the reasons the Right has scored so many victories in the past 25 years is precisely because they take religion seriously enough to misuse it. Progressives handicap themselves tremendously if their primary attitude to religion is one of disdain. The Abolitionists and Civil Rights activists didn't have that attitude. On the contrary. The peace movement doesn't either. I think there's a lesson to be learned from that.

[Tux]

8. Er

If people are too intellectually lazy or dimwitted, or too irrational or too uninformed to see that being a theist does not commit one to Biblical fundamentalism, or to 'Mad Mullahism', or to being a freeping wingnut, or to any other obvious intellectual aberration, then it's the height of self-satisfied crass stupidity for these same people to pronounce on the supposed intellectual deficiency of others.

Theists that are fundies are creating the image of theists as madmen. It's that simple. I could care less about the religious views of Nobel Prize winners, scientists, etc since it has no bearing on their contributions.

I guess the point I'm making is that given the sheer number of very intellectually gifted people who've been or are theists, people like Godel, Dummett, Polkinghorne, people like Descartes, Leibniz, Pascal, Kant, Aquinas, Newton, etc (not to mention literally billions of ordinary sane individuals of normal and above normal intelligence), it seems bizarre to place theistic belief in the same category as belief in Santa Claus, fairies, pixies, invisible pink elephants, little green men from outer space, and so on---as if all these theists would be just as liable to hold the latter sort of belief as to believe in theism.

Again, your lack of information shows. For the past several decades, fundie Christians have created the image of Christians burning pagans at the stake or forcing their weak beliefs onto others so they can feel comfortable again. To say a man was god when there is no evidence outside of the Bible to support that claim is believing in a fairy tale. I'm a Buddhist yet I don't believe the world cried when Buddha died or flowers blossomed when he laid down to die.

Your point seems to show that you are concerned about the image Christians have as theocratic nuts out to destroy society. Well, that is the image and if you are so concerned, don't make non-Christians appear to persecute Christians just for being non-Christian. My point is simple: If Christians would stop letting the far right define Christianity, this "persecution" would end.

I hate how the last election brought out the persecution freaks.

[Stunster]

9. Why did you bother quoting me?

Nothing you write addresses the passages of mine you quote.

[Tux]

11. Simple

To show that being rational and religious aren't related. Besides, it helped make my point. You have your beliefs yet are rational so you answered your own question: you can be a rational CHristian since you are one.

[Selwynn]

3. Both belief and non-belief CAN BE intellectually respectable.

Both belief and non-belief CAN BE framed in intellectually respectable ways, and anyone who says others wise on either side has an intellectually irrespectable axe to grind or chip on their shoulder.

[Igel]

5. Even in a language program, religious belief was looked down

upon with nearly religious fervor.

The only exception I've known personally: A literature scholar who became Russian Orthodox. Everybody could assume that he did it so to better understand the culture and literature, so they did so. He never said why he did it. He'd listen to their speculations, and simply smile. He knew if he did it out of belief, his choice wouldn't be respected.

I've heard of various people in Arabic or Islamic studies programs converting to Islam. That's usually seen as a good thing, regardless of why it happened.

[Modem Butterfly]

6. Smart people can and do believe dumb things

My partner and I have a friend who is, quite literally, a rocket scientist. He's a smart man, who grew up with my partner. They're both the sons of college professors (in our friend's case, both of his parents). Yet he believes in an imaginary friend in the sky with whom he has a personal relationship.

Wha-fu?

Yep, our friend, who helps design and build the weapons of the future, believes in an invisible man who is both omniscient and omnipotent and who is extremely interested in the personal lives of every human being that has ever, currently, or will ever exist.

Oh yeah, and he thinks my mother's a nut for believing in reincarnation.

Our friend is a nice guy. A smart guy. He's kind of inarticulate, sort of the "clueless engineer" stereotype, but when you take the time to really engage him in conversation, he's quite well-versed on a number of subjects. Including his invisible friend.

I don't know what to say. He's a smart person who believes something dumb. None of us in his circle of friends share his weird belief, but none of us deride him for it, either. Partly out of respect for him, and, I suspect, partly out of embarassment.

Here's a neat article from Scientific American where I stole my title:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0002F4E6-8CF7-1D49-90FB809EC5880000&chanID=sa008

[Stunster]

10. Some dumb people believe that some true beliefs are dumb (n/t)

[Selwynn]

12. And some smart people believe that some true beliefs are dumb

It is equally possible to be an atheists and think some true things are dumb as it is possible to be religious and think some true things are dumb. Religious belief or lack thereof has absolutely no necessary connection to intellect. Further, both a religious belief and an irreligious belief can and in fact regularly are framed and articulated in intellectually defensible ways.

...and the sooner we could all just accept that, the better of the entire planet would be.

[Modem Butterfly]

13. What do you mean by "true belief"?

[Stunster]

14. One that accurately represents reality (n/t)

[Modem Butterfly]

15. So my friend's belief in Santa accurately represents reality?

[Stunster]

16. WTF are you talking about?

Where did you get that idea from?

You asked me for the meaning of 'true belief'. A belief in Santa isn't true because it doesn't accurately represent reality.

[Modem Butterfly]

17. Says you.

My friend happens to believe very strongly in his invisible, omniscient friend, Santa Claus. And my friend will tell you that Santa wants a personal relationship with you, if you'll just open your heart to him.

[Stunster]

20. See reply #19 (n/t)

[Az]

18. Some would say a belief in god doesn't represent reality

So obviously belief in god can't be a true belief.

We don't get to proclaim which beliefs are true beliefs and which aren't. We have to muddle through the evidence and see if we can figure things out. And even if one finds a train of thought that convinces them of their position it may not seem valid to another. So proclaiming True Belief becomes a rather sticky proposition.

[Stunster]

19. You and Modem are making an elementary error

You're both confusing something BEING a true belief with how we can KNOW which beliefs are true.

Suppose I believe that there is in reality an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent consciousness. Suppose that there IS such a reality.
Then I have a true belief because my belief accurately represents reality.

It's a further question as to whether I KNOW that my belief is true.

And even if I know that my belief is true, it's a further question as to whether I can PROVE that it's true.

And even if I can prove that it's true, it's a further question as to whether anyone else will GRASP the proof.

But even if I don't know that my belief is true, or know it but can't prove it, the belief ALL THE WHILE REMAINS TRUE.

Now let's say I have a false belief, one that doesn't accurately represent reality. Let's suppose that you believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy and let's suppose that Oswald was framed by right wing Cuban extremists and rogue US intelligence elements, and that the actual shooting was done by persons unknown. Well, then, your belief that LHO shot Kennedy is false. Does it follow that anyone alive knows it's false? Or even if I know it's false (let's say I was in on the plot), does it follow that I can prove it? And even if I can prove it, does it follow that everyone will grasp the proof, should I ever choose to present it? Indeed, does it follow that anyone else will grasp the proof? Let's say the proof involves some highly technical forensic test that because of a nationwide trend against science teaching in school, only one person can now understand (namely, me).

So you see, beliefs can be true or false, independently of anyone's knowledge, independently of their being provably so, and independently of people's capacity for grasping any available proofs.

So Modem's friend's belief in Santa Clause may fall into the false category without anyone knowing or proving anything about that belief, or understanding any proof about it.

[Modem Butterfly]

21. This directly contadicts your definition of "True Belief"

Which was "One that accurate represents reality"

[Stunster]

23. It doesn't contradict it

in any way.:eyes:

[Modem Butterfly]

25. It contradicts it in every way

A "true belief" is one that accurately represents reality. You and my friend share a belief in an invisible friend who is omnipotent and omniscient. You call it "god" and say that it's a true belief because it accurately represents reality. My friend calls it Santa and you say it's a false belief because it does not accurately represent reality. Yet you both lack any evidence or proof, in fact, you both lack anything at all except for your beliefs, one you personally deem to be an accurate representation of reality and one you don't.

My friend also believes that one belief is an accurate representation of reality and one is not. The trouble is, it's a different belief.

Your claim that a true belief is an accurate representation of reality is contradicted by the fact that, with the belief in your invisible friend, one can never know whether or not such a belief is an accurate representation of reality or not. You claim that your belief in your invisible friend is an accurate representation of reality regardless of what I think and will remain so. But if it is an inaccurate representation of reality, it will remain so regardless of what you think.

Therefore, a belief in the unknowable and unproveable cannot be an accurate representation of reality since there is, by definition, no way of comparison.

I have no prolem with my friend's invisible friend. I have no problem with yours. But I do have a problem when, given an almost identical description, you declare your belief in an invisible friend to be an accurate representation of reality and my friend's belief in an invisible friend to be an innacurate representation of reality.

In the absence of any evidence, it's all just opinion, conjecture, and point of view.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Az]

22. The problem

Is that someone that has a belief cannot recognise if it is a true belief or a false belief. All subjective beliefs are seen to be true beliefs. Otherwise the individual would not have them. It is only from another's perspective and differing knowledge base that the notion of a false belief can be seen. And their beliefs may in fact be false beliefs as well.

Belief on its own tells us nothing other than the fact that someone believes something.

[Stunster]

24. Huh?

Is that someone that has a belief cannot recognise if it is a true belief or a false belief.

How does this follow from anything I said?

Let's suppose A believes that p. Let's suppose that p is true. Let's suppose that A can, and does, prove that p is true. Let's suppose that everyone grasps the proof and hence knows that p is true.

What's the problem?

There is no problem.

It doesn't follow that all beliefs must be provably true. Godel, in fact, proved that some propositions in mathematics are true but not provably so. Does it follow from Godel's Incompleteness Theorems that all beliefs are subjective, or that nobody can ever know whether a particular belief is true or not?

You're making an issue out of a non-issue, and in a rather confused way.

Now, if you want to have a serious discussion about epistemological skepticism, fine. But classically, skepticism about whether we can have knowledge has focused on things like being able to know that there are other minds, being able to know that there is a world external to my own consciousness, being able to know that we are not just brains in a vat of chemicals, being able to know that everything did not just pop into existence 5 minutes ago, being able to know that you've never been to the Moon, being able to know that you are not being systematically deceived by an evil demon, and so on, and so forth. Beliefs about Santa Claus and beliefs about God are the least of one's worries if one is worried by epistemological skepticism. You have to worry about things like whether you really have a hand.

[Az]

26. I don't know how you did it

But when I agreed with you, you completely twisted it around.

To restate. Each person believes their beliefs to be a true belief. There may be a real truth out there but we do not have the means to simply rip it from the cosmos. Each of us gather our own share of knowledge and from this knowledge we form our beliefs. They are the result of what we believe to be true.

[Stunster]

28. I did nothing of the kind

You, on the other hand, tried to twist what I said into universal subjectivism, when that is not what I said, not implied or entailed by what I said, and you know, this is such an elementary set of ideas that I really can't be bothered wasting my time arguing you or Modem out of your obvious confusions around the subject.

[Az]

29. Good grief

There are obvious conclusions. But I suspect it may be the result of a subjective point of view. Mote/Plank Check.

[Modem Butterfly]

30. Well, someone's confused

But I don't think it's Az or myself.

I think what it comes down to is that you have a belief that is unproveable. You're welcome to that belief. But others who have unproveable beliefs that are different from yours are also welcome to those beliefs. They are no less likely to be "true beliefs" than yours.

[Stunster]

31. No, it is, honestly

You've changed from talking about truth to provability.

My belief in God could be true, and maybe Kurt Godel's ontological proof of God's existence proves it. But even if it doesn't, my belief could still be true, and your friend's belief in Santa could still be false. If there's a God, then my belief that there is, is true. If there's no Santa, then your friend's belief that there is, is false. Both of those statements could be true independently of anyone's knowledge, independently of proof, and independently of anyone grasping a proof.

Godel, incidentally, famously proved that there are some propositions in mathematics which are true but can't be proved to be so. Do a google search on "Incompleteness Theorems".

Also, it may be true that you have a mind. Whether you can prove it to anyone but yourself is another matter. Your consciousness is, after all, invisible. Nobody can see inside your conscious mind. It's called the mind-body problem. If you've solved it, let me know where you intend to publish your solution.

[Modem Butterfly]

32. Actually, you were the one who brought up provability

You said that "true beliefs" are ones that reflect reality. Then you went on to say, "A belief in Santa isn't true because it doesn't accurately represent reality." But the fact is, we do not know what reality is or isn't in this case, or in the case of your own invisible friend.

When reality is unknown, the definition of a true belief is simply opinion and conjecture. Both you and my friend may be correct, both of you may be incorrect, one may be more correct than the other. But to weight one as true belief and one as false belief is simple hubris.

[Stunster]

33. Whatever

:eyes:

A belief accurately representing reality is one thing.

Being able to show that it accurately represents reality is another thing.

Only the first of these is required for it to be a true belief.

Let's say I believe that the number of atoms in the universe is even. Let's say you believe the number is odd. Let's say the true number of atoms in the universe is exactly 10 to the 80th power. That entails that my belief is true and yours is false, independently of either of us being able to prove anything. Its not being provable, however, doesn't make the number of atoms in the universe being odd or even a matter of opinion. It's a matter of fact--a fact which we might not have any way of knowing, or proving.

Not all facts can easily be shown to be facts. It may be a fact that George Washington sneezed early in the morning of February 24th, 1779. But it might turn out that there's no way to know if that's a fact, or to show that it's a fact. But that doesn't mean it's not a fact. If it happened, it happened.

It might be a fact that you have free will. You might believe you have it. You might not. But whether you have free will isn't a matter of opinion. It's a matter of whether there is in reality any such thing as free will, and whether in reality you in particular have it.

[Modem Butterfly]

34. Then your assertation about my friend's belief is just that:

An assertation. Nothing more than conjecture and opinion. End of story.

[Az]

7. This has been an issue for far too long for it to be easily dismissed

There are a great many minds on both sides of the argument. To suppose that by raw intelligence alone it could be resolved is perhaps underestimating the problem.

I suspect that the more we come to understand the nature of the mind and the brain the more we will realise the inner workings of this matter. My bet is on god being a creation of the mind. I well understand that others are going to be otherwise.

I think the problem can be summed up in a joke from Emo Phillips. I used to think my brain was my favorite organ but then I realised what organ was telling me that.

Suffice to say that I have found that Atheists that assume a person is intellectually weak just because they believe are making a grave mistake. And believers should be wary about assuming things about nonbelievers as well.