the hindu religion

Given the right perspective, the hindu religion of india is, in contradistinction to the three monotheisms, much more:

• individualistic (as opposed to communal). When hindus go to the temple they  crowd up to the priest, get a bit of consecrated food, offer a prayer and quickly leave, elbowing their way through the crowd; otherwise, they will stop by one of the empty, local shrines on their way to the market, offer a prayer and some incense and leave without having met or talked to anyone. There is no ‘congregation of believers’.
• private. Whereas my parents would have us pray before meals, but performed all other religious functions in the public building of the church on sundays, ceremonies are, in india, mostly carried out in the home: the family (or at least the women) gather ’round the house’s shrine and perform the puja appropriate to that day. Worship is not displayed in public, usually.
• pluralistic, by which i mean that run of the mill hindus are not particularly concerned about the Truth of their religion and are, moreover, very willing to accept all other religions as compatible with or instances of their own. There is no felt need to stake out a better-than-thou position.

Not to belabor the obvious, but i will point out that all three of these features are, of course, fundamental virtues of liberal western societies, but not of their religions.

Malinowski on magic, science and religion

Bronislaw Malinowski, the great anthropologist, does exactly the right thing when explaining magic: he looks for the psychological causes that explain why people want magic. In  Magic, Science and Religion, 1925:

What does man do naturally under such conditions, setting aside all magic, belief and ritual? Forsaken by his knowledge, baffled by his past experience and by his technical skill, he realizes his impotence. Yet his desire grips him only the more strongly;his anxiety, his fears and hopes, induce a tension in his organism which drives him to some sort of activity. Whether he be savage or civilized, whether in possession of magic or entirely ignorant of its existence; passive inaction, the only thing dictated by reason, is the last thing in which he can acquiesce. His nervous system and his whole organism drive him to some substitute activity. Obsessed by the idea of the desired end, he sees it and feels it. His organism reproduces the acts suggested by the anticipations of hope, dictated by the emotion of passion so strongly felt.

This is what must be done for religion: for the ideas of god, salvation, grace, the afterlife etc. The explanation is so clearly and distinctly true, that we are compelled to believe him that this is the (only) reason we hanker after magical powers. Once we have understood this, we might still experience lingering wishes, but we shall never be able to seriously do magic. We have been, so to speak, exorcised by reason.

religion and suicide bombers

The Atheist Ethicist is still blogging the Beyond Belief 2006 conference (thanks!) and posted today about Scott Atran’s complaint that no one seems to be giving good scientific evidence for their claims that religion is at the base of (many) world’s ills. His example is suicide bombers who are more influenced by their close-knit group of ‘brothers’ than by their religion.

Alonzo Fyfe (the Atheist Ethicist) sides with Sam Harris, one of the panelists, countering that religious beliefs, simply because they do exist, must have effects and consequences. The point is obviously true, but also way to general to be of much use.

I doubt Scott Atran is trying to deny all causal effects of religion in the world. He is rather making the point that there might be more important causes behind suicide bombers than religion. Or he might only be making the point that religion is not the only cause. And such a point is true, but also valuable. Blaming Islam for suicide bombers is, in end effect, unconvincing because there are so many muslims who aren’t suicide bombers. There obviously are other causes at play and the one that turns a good muslim into a bad one can obviously not be the muslim religion itself.

Islam might have violent tendencies inscribed in its texts or its history. And it certainly seems to be writing that violent history at the moment. But the solution is obviously not to do away with the muslim (or any other) religion, but to rigorously figure out what specific elements, be they religious or not, are inducing violence – and counteracting them.

Moreover, it is not religious people who are being violent, but certain types of religious people. And in the case of suicide bombers, it seems evident that the best description of the suicide bomber will not only be a religious one but also a psychological one (likely also an economic and social one). Addressing any one of those reasons would help solve the problem. Concentrating on religion is using it as a scapegoat.

assorted links

An interview with Martha Nussbaum where she explains that Islam per se is not incompatible with womens’ rights or with democracy, citing India as her primary example.

A book(s) review by David Sloan Wilson about the latest evolution and morality books.

his best line:

Scientific progress does get made, but it is a messy process, like the making of laws and sausages.

more on naturalized salvation

The Maverick Philosopher does not like the idea of a ‘naturalized salvation’ because you loose too much when naturalizing it and foreclose any possibility of there being ‘real supernatural salvation’. Instead, William Vallicella wants the naturalizing theologian to simply admit that there are no such things as gods, sins, or effective prayers. You can then, i suppose, concentrate on real natural things like meditation.

At the Philosoblog, Jim Ryan believes that “salvation can be fully described in non-religious and non-theistic terms”. He does not want to follow the Maverick Philosopher in abandoning religious concepts, and thus talk of salvation. He wants to be able to accomplish what the religious do, but without the god-talk, which he believes to be superfluous.

At 茶代, S. does not think that Ryan has wide enough view of salvation, it being too psychological and not ethical enough.

I tend to agree with everyone. BUT, though i like how they are framing the problem, i don’t think they are getting at the right solutions. It is imperative that we go about reforming, indeed naturalizing, salvation. However, it will not work to either get rid of superannuated religious notions, nor to rephrase them in demythologized terms.

The solution is rather to rationalize salvation rather than naturalize it. This means that instead of trying to translate religious notions into scientifically acceptable terms, we need to scientifically explain why these notions were held in the first place. Reformulating religious idea about salvation doesn’t produce any new knowledge and is thus not very useful. Explaining why we felt a need to come up with notions of salvation and why we came up with the ones we did, would be informative. Further, once we explained why we need to conceive of salvation, then we could formulate natural kinds of salvation that would satisfy that need.  But trying to come up with a natural salvation before we know why we need one is shooting in dark.

The next step in religion is not to come up with a godless mirror image of what we have now, as that would be, at best, moving sideways and not really forwards (though it might indeed remove some of the dangers of religion, it doesn’t transform religion). The real leap in religion will only come about when religion learns to look inside itself and understand why it does what it does (it must become self-conscious or at least self-reflective). Then religion will be able to transform its fundamental notions, such as salvation, by giving a naturalized account of their purpose. Only then will we be in a position to formulate a ‘naturalized salvation’ that is not so much god-less as thoroughly reasoned.

Related posts:

Maverick Philosopher:
Can Religious Notions be Naturalized?
Jim Ryan on Salvation
Three Concepts of Salvation: Physical, Mystical, Religious

Philosoblog:
Salvation I
Salvation II

茶代:
A Philosopher on Salvation

farewell to india (part 1)

Have you ever met someone, say at a party or any other social gathering, whom you automatically didn’t like? Not because of how he was dressed, how she talked or because of any other means of pegging the person in a category you despised, nor because he was bad, evil or ugly, but simply because you instinctively knew your personalities would clash? As the french say, the person was antipathique to you.

This happens to me every so often. i just know i’m not going to like the person and i thus avoid her. It works fine; and as long as there was no social interaction to begin with, i don’t even feel guilty, because i’m not failing my duty to love all human beings (how’s that for an ungodly admixture of kant and jesus?), i’m just not getting to know all human beings – a very understandable position, physically speaking at least.

This runs into two complications:

First, there is that “no prior social interaction” clause. What if you have gotten to know the person and only subsequently decided you didn’t like them? (worse: What if the other person persists in liking you?) As the indians around here say: “What to do?”. You will feel guilty and you will hurt the other person’s feelings, unless you manage to take the enlightened road, deciding that all people are worth knowing and you’ll look for the good. But for humans without a special divine pedigree, that line of conduct is, at times, slightly more than difficult.

For reasons of personal history, i am dead set against the just-ignore-him strategy, though it seems to be socially acceptable behavior in india. i am more inclined to a gradual approach, waiting politely until the other person’s feelings are distant enough that they won’t get mauled. But if he should ask me: “Don’t you like me anymore?” i think i’d honestly reply: “i’m sorry, i really wish i did, but i don’t” (without adding the insulting “don’t take it personally” line) even if that is probably not quite What Jesus Would Do (since he naturally liked everyone, the lucky b@$7!^%).

The second complication is where i come to the point i’ve desperately been trying to avoid throughout this entire post: what if this person is not a person but, well, a country? i immediately apologize profusely to all my kind NRI and RI readers (if anyone is still reading this far into the post (btw, i also apologize for all the parenthetical comments)), but the truth must out: i don’t really like india (at least not the parts of it i’ve seen). It’s not because i don’t like indians, nor is india a particularly bad place, i just don’t understand it or them – at all.

Now this is in part due to the fact that i initially thought i would understand india and came with that great expectation; i’ve understood nothing and leave more bewildered than i’ve ever been. Too many things have struck me as increadibly foreign, incomprehensible, and indeed sometimes just plain wrong. I do apologize, but there is not much i can do about it: i just don’t really like india.

p.s. to the sorely offended: i know you will take this personally and that a few feathers will have been ruffled by now; but try, as much as possible, to take this with a good dose of indian philosophy: i’m just explaining the way the world is (as regards me); don’t let your atman be saddened. (And i promise you a “what i like about india” post ere i leave.)

lessons not learned from history

will we ever learn?

Eventually the giant palms that the Rapanui depended on dwindled. Many trees had been cut down to make room for agriculture; others had been burned for fire and used to transport statues across the island. The treeless terrain eroded nutrient-rich soil, and, with little wood to use for daily activities, the people turned to grass. “You have to be pretty desperate to take to burning grass,” says John Flenley, who with Paul Bahn co-authored The Enigmas of Easter Island. By the time Dutch explorers—the first Europeans to reach the remote island—arrived on Easter day in 1722, the land was nearly barren.

from here.

salvation belongs to … the philosophers

The maverik philosopher has a post on salvation, which itself referred me to this other post at philosoblog.

First off, i want to say that i heartily welcome philosophers delving into the murky waters of ‘religious’ concepts of salvation. Actually, i hope that the concept will soon be lifted from religion and, via philosophy, be given a much more thorough and rigorous treatment. Religions are fond of saying: “This is what salvation is, listen and learn – or be dammed.” without backing up their claims with more than a mystic experience or two.

It is high time that the idea of salvation be saved from irrelevance at the hands of preachers and be redeemed by critical thinkers. We need an open and reasoned study of salvation that doesn’t take any answers or framings of the question for granted, but, in good philosophical manner, keeps on asking Why? until we hit some solid ground (which is when the scientists usually show up).

So now to contribute my own salvific musings to the conversation. Here is the philosoblog again, to get me started:

There are various sorts of sublime transformations of one’s psychology, I suppose. The sort I have in mind involves three things:

1. The redirection of one’s attention from the flow of thoughts (reasoning, desires and emotions) that usually fill the mind as it occupies itself with its countless concerns.

2. The resulting recognition that until now one has been inadvertently subject to that flow of thoughts such that the perspective of complete immersion in it has kept one from noticing that this world and one’s existence in it are vastly better than nothingness.

3. The resulting beginning of deep and genuine patience: the recognition that upon re-immersion of the mind into the flow of mundane thoughts, one need not be subject to the frustration, resentment and anger that they so often inflict but may instead rest assured by one’s allegiance to the values one cherishes.

I’d like to develop the idea that these together describe salvation. [...] This is not a merely cognitive change. It is a psychological reorganization in which the disposition to react to adversity with resentment is all but eradicated.

This is obviously a buddhist/hindu concept of salvation. The monotheist resurrection into a new body is left out, but the author is aware of this fact and will probably deal with this in his next installment.

What i like about the philosoblog’s approach is that this is a worldly salvation that is not materialistic. We don’t have any heaven, valhalla, etc. nor any escape from reincarnations, rebirths, etc. What we do have, however, is a transformation. After salvation, people are not the same as before. This is obviously a very important aspect of any salvation.

However, i am not so sure that this “psychological reorganization” is the only type of salvation we want. One of the primary faults of (almost) all previous religion’s concepts of salvation is that salvation is always a personal, individual matter: i can save myself – and let my parents, my friends and the world perish! This is not healthy.

The jewish religion is the only one i know of that didn’t (at first, at least) have this individualistic component to it. It was the whole of Israel that was to be saved. Upgrading this to the 21st century, i think that an important aspect of any salvation will have to lie in its communal being: for starters, saving the planet needs obviously to figure prominently in any ‘philosophical’ account of salvation.

the war against human rights

From cnsnews.com (via digg):

The head of an international human rights group Friday [Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International] charged that the war against terror had transformed itself into a war against human rights.

This is true, of course. It is also a potentially very effective way of phrasing the matter. Perhaps playing a war of words with this belligerent and fumbling government is the best way of getting them to actually do something right (talking reason obviously will get you nowhere).

scientific doomsday scenarios!

There is a lot of talk and writing going around about a very, say, difficult future just around the corner. Of course, there is the in the process of being finalized Report on Climate Change (actually: Global Warming!!). And now i have just read over at 3QD that a bunch of people are publishing books about diverse impending dooms, be they ecological, economic or cultural (good bye, Western Civilization).

The Climate Change Report is of utmost importance. I am a bit more wary of the other forecasted futures, which i have not read. However, what interests me is that our scientists have suddenly replaced our theologians as our preferred purveyors of terrible future scenarios – that is, the scientists are writing our eschatologies and Books of Revelation. Of course, the new apocalypses were not written by an old man stranded upon a lonely greek island but by very sizable and credible committees of very knowledgeable people.

This obviously means two things:

(1) old-time soothsayers have hard times ahead;

(2) one more important feature of traditional religion (The Future) is passing into the hands of science;

(2.5) science is that much closer to telling us what we ought to do (this is a conditional, and thus not quite a moral, ought since the number crunchers do humbly add: “if you want to stay alive” to their suggestions);

(2.9) science is sounding more and more like our only hope (now, who got us into this over-heated mess in the first place…?)

(2.99) perhaps religion will wake up, one-up the scientists, and start preaching:

“Happy are those who lower their energy consumption;
the future belongs to them!
Happy are those who mourn the forests;
clean air will comfort them!
Happy are those whose greatest desire is to recycle;
with little they will be fully satisfied!
Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what reason requires;
they will not overheat!”