video of the week: hitchens, dennett, dawkins, harris, a discussion on religion and atheism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUg-1NCCowc
there are so many wonderful moments in this discussion. what i really like about the discussion these four have is that the intellectual approach each has is unique, and the discourse they share is deftly receptive, functionally progressive and formally intelligent. wonderful. i admit, i have a man-crush on sam harris. after the clip ended i immediately went to bookdepository.com to buy, "the end of faith" and, "god is not great". how couldn't i, really.
there is an underlying meta-issue in this discussion that intrigues me. paraphrasing, what dennett said, at about the 55 minute mark, was, "i ask myself seriously whether there is some truth in this world that if i knew, i would be better off keeping to myself. to just let the world go on without knowledge of this truth." the specific issue he had in mind at that point was, of all things, the possible environmental impact a criticism of free will could have. he went on, "i think that's a good question we all should ask." further on in the discussion, they considered the related questions, whether they wanted religion to end, whether they wished to see the churches empty on sunday, or alternatively, whether they would not rather leave room for the sacred in man's contemplations, in the form of a "benign" religion (generally, a tolerant, harmless, aesthetic-only religion). and they sort of wavered a little there. they had different answers: hitchens, slightly bemused, liked the idea of arguing against religion so much that he professed preference for religion not to end; dawkins rather preferred to clear the way for man's intellectualisation of the natural world; dennett suggested that a bit of the sacred might at the very least save man from triviality; and harris, agreeing (i guess) with dennett, segued into a discussion of religious inspiration for the aesthetics. i may have got the last two a bit mixed up, but that's more or less it. and later on they ask, is it better to have false consolations, or not?
so the basic question is ultimately this; are religious promises (i think it betrays a preference if the term "false consolations" is used) or a rationalist-centric worldview better?
there's a slightly condescending premise in this question, which i think you may well have to excuse me for. but it is, to follow dennett, an important question. and i think this is an opportune point to mention that i find dennett's intellectual humility extremely admirable. so to begin to answer the question, one must, at least, consider humanity sympathetically, pragmatically, discerningly. in other words, in situ. is it better for the common man (with all his plight, struggles and suffering) to be consoled, heartened and inspired by religious promises, or is it better to re-fashion man's worldview in truth, intellectual honesty and rationalism? put another way, are there allegories kind enough to be spared criticism? i may have to answer this at another time.
and there's another critical issue, viz, what to make of this cognitive dissonance that quite intellectual christians have, between the things they (rationally) examine from monday to friday, and the things they believe in on sunday. as hitchens fairly points out, we do each practice (and tolerate) a fair measure of cognitive dissonance in our daily lives, but the key question remains, what the tension is that this state of affairs causes to our perspectives.
personally, my answer to this is in the categorisation re-enumerated in luke 10:27, "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." i have considered this verse to be the path, my path: my soul believes that God exists, and with all my soul, i love him. therefore what remains is for me to find out how i can love the Lord with all my heart and with all my strength and with all my mind. i admit, i can't imagine how i could love the Lord with all my heart and strength. but my mind will try. it may have to brave the dark side a little, though, and not without a certain amount of relish.
