Atheism 101 and Jainism

Here's an interesting series of videos:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Doubter5

In case you don't want to watch them, they form a half-hour explanation of why the webmaster of digitalfreethought.com is atheist. I have no problem with his conclusion about Christianity, but also think his reasoning is rather different than mine would be, in interesting ways.

Firstly, the scientific method. Whereas i believe that scientific theory is useful and that the method can be a good way of refuting outmoded beliefs, i'm not sure about the contrast with magical thinking, because i see that as a precursor to the scientific method. For instance, both identify correlation as an element of causation, and there is cause for scepticism about causation in any case. Moreover, some people regard what they see as science or technology as the result of science in magical terms. They don't actually have a firm idea of how things work necessarily. For instance, my son knows that some electrical things work better when you turn them off and on again, but tried it with a lava lamp, which doesn't work. This is an example of magical thinking.

Concerning a hostile priesthood, this is where a difference between North America and Europe emerges. The priesthood are not always hostile. Certainly in the case of Pentecostalists, the Brethren and cell churches, there may be an abuse of power, but what of such movements as the Sufis, Quakers, Buddhists and in particular the Jains? This last group are particularly relevant to me because i live in Leicester, where Jainism is unusually prevalent, and i think it indicates a problem with identifying a particular, admittedly influential, branch of Christianity with religion generally. This is not to say there are not problems with all established religion, but Jainism is not like fundamentalist Christianity or Islam in many ways, which are actually analogous to less theistic ancient Greek philosophical perspectives, in particular Epicureanism.

The video quotes Epicurus, specifically his argument about God's omnipotence. The argument goes thus:

P=God is willing to prevent evil.
Q=God is able to prevent evil.
=> implies
v and/or (actually in this case XOR would work just as well but would be harder to type)
~ not
& and


P&~Q=>God is not omnipotent.
~P&Q=>God is malevolent.
P&Q=>The existence of evil is hard to explain.
~P&~Q=>This being is not omnipotent and therefore not God.

There are a couple of issues with this argument. One is that Stoics hold that evil is an illusion caused by failure to see the big picture or blessings in disguise, and they do believe in God. This argument also fails to rule out the possibility of supernatural beings with limited power, and Epicureanism and Jainism hold that these exist. However, their relevance to human life is quite limited in both. For Epicureanism, the gods seem to be good moral examples for humans, although in fact they may be included to avoid heresy-like charges from the authorities. Concerning Jainism, the gods are not to be worshipped or seen as examples, but it is possible to be reincarnated as a god, which is a dangerous position because of the corruption of absolute power. In these ways, Jain and Epicurean gods are relevant but not seen as omnipotent or worthy of actual worship or prayer. They are not considered important in the same way as the God of the Abrahamic religions is.

I would also take issue with the idea that people of different religions see themselves as worshipping different gods. The Abrahamic religions understand themselves as worshipping the same deity, and other theistic spiritual traditions frequently see the Abrahamic God as equivalent to their own high god or see their own lesser deities as manifestations of an ultimately single God. Therefore i can't accept this argument.

The question of human dignity is also problematic. It is an article of faith rather than something which is rationally argued for, and it may even be impossible to argue for it rationally. The behaviourist B F Skinner wrote a book called "Beyond Freedom and Dignity", where he argued that the notion of dignity, which he equated to moral agency (an arguable point) impaired the use of rational measures to improve society. Nevertheless, Skinner was undoubtedly a rationalist and an atheist. Similarly, the British philosopher John N Gray, also undoubtedly an atheist, sees human nature as an impediment. Freethinkers need to recognise this as an article of faith and also a perspective which is not shared by all people with a secular perspective. I personally believe in the possibility of a constructed human ecological niche and that although there is a human nature, it probably isn't relevant. Humans can be good or evil, depending on circumstances and background.

In the light of this optimistic view of human dignity, there follows a surprisingly pessimistic view of individual human capacity, in the statement "We have long since passed the point where the layman [sic] can scratch the surface of many of these fields", concerning such areas as Philosophy, biology, palaeontology and the like. The question of human ability to grasp the significant points of these disciplines is more an issue of time, learned helplessness, discomfort with social roles and the like rather than intelligence. People can in fact generally grasp what they need to in these fields, and at this point i should probably reveal that i home educate my children, which has led me to the conclusion that schooling is an inefficient form of helping children to learn which creates the long term impression that people's capacity for learning is much less than it potentially is.

I was pleased to see the mention of Giordano Bruno, who is the origin of my user name, but whereas he is commonly seen as a hero of freethought, it should be borne in mind that he was also quite influenced by Neoplatonism.

Concerning Buddhism, the interesting thing about this is that it doesn't have to be seen as requiring belief in reincarnation. Siddhartha Gautama himself analysed human essence into various components, none of which survived death except for the consequences of one's actions. I think it's a mistake to see Buddhism as necessarily believing in survival after death. It can be seen more as a psychological technology for achieving happiness. Even so, many versions of Buddhism have greater metaphysical overheads than just this.

Then we come to the question of religion and psychosis. I have flippantly defined religion and psychosis recursively thus: religion is collective psychosis and psychosis is individual religion. However, the problem with the label "psychosis" is that it denies the validity of phenomenology and hermeneutics. I'll have to go into this elsewhere, but it's a problem. Mental events defined as psychotic by others often have huge hermeneutic significance which is usually ignored, and the same may be true of religion.

It is also not the case that all religions make claims to truth, again because of Jainism. This religion includes the concept of anekantavada, which is the claim that no viewpoint has the complete truth except that of an unlimited mind, which does not mean humans. Therefore, Jainism effectively claims that it is itself not true.

Then we come to the issue of resurrection. Whereas it is an outlandish claim, it is not the case that it is unattested outside Christianity because of the first century Jewish scholar Josephus, who says of Jesus that "he appeared to them alive again the third day". There are arguments about the authenticity of this text, but the claim that there are no non-Christian contemporary sources is dubious. We need to be very clear of our sources and the justification for them before we make such claims, because otherwise Christians can exploit our errors in debate. Resurrection is also not clearly defined. Whereas Jesus coming back to life after three days seems to violate the laws of thermodynamics as we know them, the data available to observers with the technology of first century Judaea would lead to differences in the perception of whether someone was dead or alive.

Towards the end of the video, the statement was made that religion is divisive. This is again more true of the Abrahamic tradition than of some others. In fact, concerning Baha'i in even that tradition there is an attempt to bring different spiritual traditions together. In fact, the Chinese have often seen themselves as belonging to more than one religion at once. On the issue of subduing the "creation", again this applies more to Abrahamic religion than some others, but it has to be admitted that all traditions tend to place humans at the centre. I would also say, though, that humanism does the same.

Just a couple more comments. The notion of an apocalypse can only apply if time is viewed linearly. It does not make sense if, again as in Jainism but also in Stoicism, which is interesting because of its influence on Christianity, time is viewed cyclically. Many spiritual traditions do this and this undermines eschatology considerably.

Having said all that, there is certainly a teleological element in most spiritual traditions which is dubious and the problem of traditional, inflexible values remains.