metapunk

More stupidity on Ye Olde Interwebbe.  I pretty much lost my shit with a guy on io9 this week. Not that I wanted to, but…  well, here’s a synopsis of the conversation:

At the risk of writing a minor rant, I wanted to discuss a comment someone made to me recently, which won’t rest until I write it down.

Recently, an atheist friend inquired as to my religious beliefs.  Because I was tired, and because I didn’t want to bore him with all the complicated details of my spirituality, I said I was agnostic.   I regretted it as soon as I said it, because his response was very predictable.

“Oh, I get that,” he said.  “As Richard Dawkins says, you’re just an atheist who hasn’t made up his mind yet.”

I’ve tried not to be annoyed by this because he’s not agnostic, and therefore he doesn’t realize how profoundly ignorant that statement is.  But at the same time: he doesn’t realize how profoundly ignorant that statement is. Like any of Dawkins’ fans, and Dawkins himself, he’s an intelligent guy who has utterly failed to apply his intelligence to the subject at hand.

Agnosticism does not mean sitting on the fence between strong positions of theism and atheism.  It’s not some kind of half-assed, waffling maybe.  It’s a strong position that the entire question of theism versus atheism is a stupid one—that the fence between these poles ought to be torn down (because, despite fears to the contrary, tearing down that fence won’t make those poles identical).  It is the firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs (or non-beliefs, as the case may be).  It is the understanding that the reality of these ideologies, and of the universe, is far more complex and nuanced than this simplistic, either/or debate will allow for.

Many atheists will argue that scientific understanding is impossible unless there’s a clear line separating the world of faith from the world of physical evidence.  But if you follow the evidence, particularly in psychology, it’s clear that:

1. Human rationality is deeply bounded by intractable and inherent limitations in perspective and processing power;
2. Assuming those limitations don’t exist is foolhardy;
3. Spiritual traditions are ultimately just frameworks for dealing with those limitations.

And maybe 4:  Scientific materialism, by itself, is not a viable substitute for such a framework.

Does that mean religions should be followed blindly, or that atheism is an invalid position?  Of course not.  But it does mean that religious traditions have insights to offer if you know where to look, and that a smart person won’t discount religious stories and practices out of hand, simply because he finds them distasteful, or primitive.

So, on the contrary: Agnostics aren’t just atheists who haven’t made up their minds.  They are people who refuse to be limited to a single set of possibilities, or to be told which ideas they can and cannot explore.

I look at people with fixed concepts of God or the lack thereof, and to me they are like people standing in cages arrayed around an open field.  I can move freely around the field and still find my way back home, while they are locked inside prisons of their own making.  They could walk out any time, but they don’t.

So, no thanks.  My intellectual freedom / sovereignty is non-negotiable, and this business of sorting each other into ideological camps and then making war on each other is not for me.

A couple of days ago I got my weekly YouTube update, which included a ForaTV link to “Dawkins: Did Religion Have an Evolutionary Value?”

You’ll note here that the use of the past-tense strongly implies that religion no longer has any value in evolutionary and social terms, and if you watch the talk you’ll see Dawkins imply that religion itself never actually did—that religion is just an unhealthy byproduct of healthy evolutionary imperatives. All of which is pure assumption / opinion on Dawkins’ part and nothing more.

But it got me to thinking I should write some more measured pieces about Atheism, considering my last one (the first post on metapunk written in anger, probably not the last, but hopefully one of only a few).

At the same time, Dawkins’ video led me to two far more intelligent discussions on the place of religion in the modern world. (continue reading…)

…Frakking fundamentalists, too!

Okay, so I know, I know. Arguing on the Internet is pretty much always a waste of time. Every time I do it, I feel like I just crawled through a sewer pipe, looking for the elusive source of the world’s bullshit. But sometimes you just sorta get sucked in, y’know?

Before I go on, I should point out that atheists are not the problem. If someone chooses to believe in God, Gods, the flying spaghetti monster, the bloody timecube, or nothing at all… well, hey, that’s cool. I respect that decision—follow your experience where it takes you, I say. Be empirical. But those Richard Dawkins wannabe, down-with-spirituality-in-every-form, capital “A,” Atheists—well, I’ve got no time for them, because every one I’ve met is an arrogant asshole.
(continue reading…)