Daily Excerpt: How to Argue with an Atheist (TL Brink) - Step #4. Develop a Priority of Your Values
Excerpt from How to Argue with an Atheist, by Professor TL Brink
STEP
#4: Develop a Priority of Your Values
STUDENT: Dr. Brink? I have been thinking about what you said about
the limits of science, that science cannot prove which values that we should
commit ourselves to.
BRINK: Would you wish to dispute that point?
STUDENT:
Not directly. I agree that values are one thing and facts another, and that
facts cannot be used to prove values, but I still like science.
BRINK: So do I.
STUDENT:
I mean I still choose science and choose its values.
BRINK: How so? If science does not prove which values we
should choose, what does it mean to choose the values of science?
STUDENT:
What I mean is that science is valuable because it achieves certain values. If
gives us technology that helps us attain important values, such as health and
comfort.
BRINK: Correct you are. That is why science is valuable and
why we should use it. It is valuable for me to get to class on time, so the
physical science that developed the technology of my automobile is valuable. It
is valuable for me to avoid another heart attack, so the pharmacological
science that developed the technology in the form of the heart medication I
take is valuable.
STUDENT: So, science is valuable?
BRINK: Definitely. But here is the distinction: the
knowledge given by science (technology) helps us attain certain values that we
have selected (e.g., comfort, convenience, health), but science cannot help us
decide which values are (most) worthy of our commitment.
STUDENT:
So, science has some role in values.
BRINK: Yes, but that of servant, not guide. Science is not a
guide to advise us on which values are worthy of our pursuit, but a mere
servant to go and fetch those things which fulfill the values to which we are
committed. Science helps me get an automobile, but does not tell me if it is
better for me to drive or walk.
STUDENT: Do you mean that there are different kinds of
values? Or just different alternative ways of attaining those values, different
means to a chosen end?
BRINK: Both. If we have decided on a value worthy of our
pursuit (e.g., that it is good for me not to have a heart attack), then science
has a definite role in selecting which means toward that end is superior.
Remember what we said in the psychology class: that experiments are the best
way to identify a cause and effect relationship? Well, when it comes to the
question of which medicine is the best (the most effective with the fewest side
effects) we have to use experiments.
STUDENT: So, science can tell us which medication is the
best.
BRINK: Right, but it cannot tell us it is best for society
to devote its resources to preserving the life of a man in his sixties or
whether we should use those same resources to develop better video games.
STUDENT: Can't we do both?
BRINK: Only to a certain degree. Resources are limited: only
so many workers, so much lab space, so much money. So, we have to make
decisions about values. We will go deeper into this question when we come to
the step about ethics. However, what I want to focus on today is that there are
different kinds of values, different levels, different priorities.
STUDENT: You are saying that some things are more
important than others.
BRINK: Not just some things, like saying that my house is
more important than my car, or my wife is more important than my house. What I
am saying is that certain values are more important than others.
STUDENT:
OK, but I hope you tie this back to religion.
BRINK: Of course. Religion deals with decisions about
relevance, values. Let's identify three levels of relevance and their
corresponding values, and the types of commitments they elicit.
|
FORM OF
RELEVANCE |
VALUES |
COMMITMENT |
|
Ultimate |
Intrinsic |
Absolute |
|
Utilitarian |
Instrumental |
Contingent |
|
Ulterior |
Inhibitory |
Rigid or Fluid |
Empirical meaning has relevance insofar as it facilitates
control over external reality. Without the effective pursuit of utilitarian
relevance, one cannot survive in this material world, and go on living. Without
the effective pursuit of ultimate relevance, one may not have a reason for
surviving.
STUDENT:
Religion probably deals with ultimate relevance, but what is utilitarian
relevance?
BRINK: You are correct about religion dealing with ultimate
relevance, intrinsic values and requiring absolute commitments. Utilitarian
relevance, on the other hand, is the kind that we have been discussing already
today: the values that science might assist us in attaining. These are values
of health and wealth, comfort and convenience.
STUDENT: And things that are relevant in a utilitarian
sense are those things providing these instrumental values?
BRINK: Exactly. Instrumental connotes a means-end
relationship. My medication (the means) is good because it helps to preserve my
health (the end). My computer (the means) is good because it is a tool I use to
earn money (the end). My shoes (the means) are good because they give me
greater walking comfort (the end).
STUDENT: Now, how does that relate back to science?
BRINK: Science is the systematic study of cause and effect
relationships using the empirical method. It is this knowledge of science that
enables us to develop technological means for the pursuit of our ends. Here is
the link: means-ends relations are just applied cause and effect. The means is
the cause that we manipulate in order to attain the end as an effect.
STUDENT: So, science is valuable because it yields more
efficient and effective technological means for attaining our ends.
BRINK: Yes, but efficiency is not an intrinsic value; it has
no ultimate relevance. Consider the fields of art, sport, and yes, religion. In
these areas, efficiency is not, nor should it be, a major consideration.
Cathedrals were not constructed in the most rapid fashion using the cheapest
materials. They were not constructed in days, but to last for centuries. On the
golf course, are we to imagine that the most efficient way to get the ball in
the hole is to use clubs, and place all those trees and sand traps in the way?
Similarly, in religion, the most efficient prayer may use a word processor to
select and copy/paste the prayer in a text message to heaven, but efficiency is
not the most appropriate goal or even the most effective means.
STUDENT: At least science has instrumental value,
utilitarian relevance.
BRINK: Yes, but none of the purposes of science
(understanding, prediction, or control) has ultimate relevance. Control has
utilitarian relevance insofar as it is used as a means to a proper end.
Prediction has utilitarian relevance only insofar as it leads to better control
over the phenomenon described by the theory or when it can be used to plan the
attainment of some end. Understanding has utilitarian relevance only insofar as
it facilitates prediction or control over phenomena impacting humans.
STUDENT: That makes sense. Why do you say that the
commitment is contingent?
BRINK: Because things having only instrumental value are not
ends in themselves, but only means. We should be committed to their attainment
only insofar as they remain effective and appropriate means to those higher
ends. How long should I remain committed to these shoes? When they wear out I
shall throw them away and buy another pair. How long should I remain committed
to this computer? When a newer model comes out with more useful features, I
shall purchase the newer one and recycle the older one. How long should I
remain committed to this medication I take? I would stop taking it today if my
physician said that I no longer needed it, or that a better treatment was now
available.
STUDENT: I see. Under utilitarian relevance, things are
relevant because they are useful, have utility. When the means no longer
attains the end (or when there is a better alternative available) the means is
no longer relevant. But how does religion fit into the picture?
BRINK: Religion is in the sphere of ultimate relevance. It
provides people with the greatest motivation.
STUDENT:
Is that because God is some great final end to which all other things lead as a
mere means?
BRINK: No. Just think about the implications of what that
would mean. If God were an end, that would make Him an effect to be produced by
some haphazard causal relationship. Ultimate relevance is not the product of
causes, but the actualization of potential. It is this process which is
intrinsically valuable. Since all values are created, only the creative process
is intrinsically valuable. Some of the specific products of this process also
have instrumental value.
STUDENT: Is life the intrinsic value?
BRINK: Not life in this material world. Life is too
contingent. The duration of life is but a finite between two infinites. Life is
but a temporary, contingent phenomenon which death ends. The basic message of
the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ is that spiritual values are greater
than physical existence.
STUDENT:
Don’t many people act with an absolute commitment to life, as if it had
intrinsic value?
BRINK: Yes, many people do make their own lives an ultimate
concern, but I find this misplaced. To be fixated on life is as serious a problem
as being fixated on death. Life is not ultimately relevant. Ultimate relevance
is not an event or state which can be produced through the manipulation of
causes. It is not contingent upon physical events. Life is contingent and can
only be produced and sustained by certain specific causes. Life's relevance is
utilitarian (and perhaps for many people, ulterior as well). We are committed
to life (as an instrumental value) because it enables us to commit our lives to
more noble causes. Life is a most useful means, but not an end in itself. Human
life is not necessary for ultimate relevance. God existed before man's
creation. The physical death of man involves the loss of utilitarian and
ulterior relevance, but not of ultimate relevance, and may actually be the
attainment of ultimate relevance.
STUDENT:
In the form of an afterlife, perhaps. Should hope of an afterlife be our
ultimate concern?
BRINK: No. I think that perverts religion into selfishness.
STUDENT: Do all Christians understand this role of God?
BRINK: I suspect that some Christians have vulgarized God by
making Him a mere means to the selfish end of personal salvation. Salvation
should be recognized as the personal experience of ultimate relevance.
Salvation is a wonderful gift He has given us, but we are saved because we love
Him; we should not say that we love Him just in order to get saved. That is
like pretending to love your parents just so they will give you an inheritance.
STUDENT: So, what then is the role of the afterlife?
BRINK: Heaven is full attainment of ultimate relevance.
Since life on earth involves the pursuit of relevance in all three spheres, the
commitment to ultimate relevance is never total, and its attainment is never
complete. Some people approaching death claim to see their entire lives pass
before their eyes. Having to witness one's entire life, re-run as a movie would
be a great reward for those who have lived well, and a fitting punishment for
those who have not. Perhaps this is heaven and hell.
STUDENT: So, how does one get to heaven?
BRINK: Not just by saying, "Jesus I believe you."
What is required is more than intellectual assent, but the complete trust in
and commitment to.
STUDENT:
What about the view of the afterlife as an apocalyptic millennial kingdom on
this earth?
BRINK: Some Christian denominations portray it in this way.
That is the doctrine of the Jehovah's Witnesses. I view all portrayals of the
afterlife symbolically. I do not hope for streets paved with gold in heaven. To
say that the things of this world will pass away in an apocalypse is just
another way to symbolize that we should not take this world or these times too
seriously. Through the doctrine of the apocalypse or life eternal in heaven we
are liberated from the confines of time and material existence.
STUDENT: So, you do not take heaven or the apocalypse
literally?
BRINK: As a scientist, I cannot empirically verify either.
There is no telescope that has found heaven. I accept the doctrine because it
is vindicable: it offers a perspective from which I see the proper, limited
values of my present physical life. Neither do I have any empirical proof for
the rejection of heaven or the apocalypse. If either of these comes to pass,
and personal consciousness survives in resurrected form, I shall continue my
commitment to serve God in heaven or on the new earth or wherever He sees fit
to deploy me.
STUDENT:
What about Hindu and Buddhist doctrines of the afterlife: reincarnation,
Nirvana, etc.
BRINK: They serve a similar symbolic function. Whether we
subscribe to Nirvana, Heaven, Reincarnation or Resurrection, the message is the
same: do not take this mortal life too seriously, for it should not be your
ultimate concern.
STUDENT:
But why do we need this ultimate dimension? Why isn't the utilitarian
sufficient?
BRINK: Utilitarian relevance involves wealth and health,
comfort and convenience, pleasure and play. Are you saying that should be
sufficient?
STUDENT: Why not?
BRINK: The idea that the pursuit of pleasure (and the
avoidance of pain) are and should be the priority of man is known as hedonism.
Philosophers who advocated this approach go back before the time of Christ:
Yang Zhu in China, the Cyrenaics in Greece, later there were the Epicureans in
Rome. Hedonism has its modern formulation with Francis Edgeworth of the 18th
century who depicted every man as a pleasure machine. I say that hedonism errs
in that it mistakes instrumental values for intrinsic value.
How can we be released from the
ball and chain of suffering? Material possessions and power lengthen the chain,
but increase the weight of the ball. Materialism has made the march of progress
a mad dash for the satisfaction of pseudo-necessities and makeshift luxuries.
Consider that many young couples, especially girls, have become so enamored of
the large, expensive wedding that they end up agreeing to live with the
boyfriend for now just because they cannot afford a fancy wedding. The wedding
event has become more important than the marriage relationship.
STUDENT:
Maybe everybody does not pursue pleasure in the form of sex and hamburgers, but
everybody pursues pleasure. Dr. Brink, you take pleasure in your teaching, and
writing, and even in these discussions, so in that sense, you are a hedonist.
BRINK: I admit that I take pleasure in the things you
mentioned, but I have two responses to your conclusion that everyone is a
hedonist. My first response is that if you are now defining hedonism very
broadly.
Once in the Lincoln-Douglas
debates, the Little Giant attempted to set up a hypothetical point.
"Mr. Lincoln, how many legs
does a cow have?"
"Four" was Abe's answer.
"Supposing that we call the
tail a leg. Now, how many legs would a cow have?"
Lincoln paused and responded,
"Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg." Defending the hedonist
position by saying that all acts can be seen as pursuing pleasure requires that
we redefine pleasure so broadly that it includes acts of altruism, heroism,
self-sacrifice and martyrdom. Mother Theresa was a hedonist because she got so
much pleasure devoting her life to others. That becomes a hedonism that most
hedonists do not recognize let alone pursue.
STUDENT:
Are you saying that even if all people, or at least a majority, pursue a
certain value, then that value can still be wrong?
BRINK: Yes. There is a name for it when people pursue the
wrong goals: it is called sin. If sinners form a majority, and vote for sin
that just makes it legal, not right. The majority can go together in a
collective pursuit of something evil. Let's take the example of the Holocaust.
I do not think that a majority of the population of Germany was really aware of
the extent of what was taking place in the death camps. Even if they had been,
and if they had endorsed it in a proposition on a national ballot, would that
have made it right?
STUDENT:
Of course not, it would still have been evil.
BRINK: Or to take examples from American history. A majority
of Americans in the southern states accepted slavery, and fought a war to
preserve it. In the 18th century, a majority of Americans advocated western
expansion, even at the expense of the Indians.
STUDENT:
I accept the point. A majority vote cannot transform something immoral into
something moral.
BRINK: We will get back to the question of morality when we
cover the step of ethics. For now, I just want to make the point that hedonism
is limited, that it is not an adequate perspective. If hedonism were the
ultimate purpose of life, we should be content to develop a system of
electrodes directly stimulating the pleasure centers of the limbic system.
There is real and enduring satisfaction only in fulfillment. There is
fulfillment only in actualizing potential, and that implies ultimate relevance.
STUDENT: Are you saying that pleasure is evil?
BRINK: No. Step two pointed out the limits of reason, but
did not say that reason should be rejected. Step three pointed out the limits
of science, but did not say that science should be rejected. On this step, we
can say that pleasure is good, it has instrumental value, but it is not enough.
Pleasure becomes a problem only if it distracts us from the higher values,
those that are intrinsic.
All sin and all theological error
are based upon misdirected worship, absolute commitment to something which does
not merit it: pleasure, wealth, power, or the narrowness of our own wants and
desires, even to beloved persons or for noble causes. Absolute commitment to
God alone, the infinite, properly limits our commitments to these unworthy ends
(or objects of our affection).
STUDENT:
Doesn't Buddha see desire for wealth and other things as leading to suffering
in life?
BRINK: Yes, and if desire distracts us from the spiritual,
it compounds our suffering, but I disagree with Buddha in one sense. Desires do
not make one imperfect, imperfections make one desire. Where we both agree is
that if one then dwells on the desires rather than overcoming imperfections,
one remains spiritually stunted.
STUDENT: So what is the key to the full life?
BRINK: The abundant life does not consist in the possessions
you acquire, but in the creative talents you develop. That does not mean that
you will acquire everything your heart desires, but if your priorities are
straight, you will pursue the most important values.
STUDENT: But how do we know that there is even an
ultimate sphere to relevance? Maybe we find utilitarian unfulfilling, but that
is all there is?
BRINK: Are you an advocate of the space program?
STUDENT: Oh yes. That seems like the greatest adventure
for any scientist. When I was little, I dreamed about becoming an astronaut.
BRINK: But how do you know that there is anything there in
outer space? What was on the moon: rocks, dust, what else? What do you think we
will find on Mars?
STUDENT: We won't know until we get there. Besides, look
at all the great by-products of space exploration, all the technology that was
developed.
BRINK: Right. We don't know if anything is there, but it
might be worth exploring. Similarly, even if we were to say that we do not know
if there is a sphere of ultimate relevance, it might be worth exploring.
STUDENT: So, we should embark upon the quest for
perfection spiritually, even if there is nothing for us to find there?
BRINK: I would argue that maybe our whole notion of
perfection is a vindication for the existence of God. Remember the ontological
argument of Descartes and Anselm?
STUDENT:
Because God is a perfect being, and perfection entails existence, He must
necessarily exist.
BRINK: Correct. But instead of the ontological argument
reasoning backwards from the definition of perfection to the existence of a
perfect being, it would be more appropriate to say that our attempt to
understand the nature of God led us to contemplate the concept of perfection.
STUDENT:
But what then about this notion of ulterior relevance and its inhibitory
values? What exactly are they? Where do they come from?
BRINK: Here I am going to put on my clinician's hat and try
to explain this level from what we used to call a neurotic level (at least in
the days before DSM-III retired that term from the psychiatric lexicon). Think
of what we mean by a phobia.
STUDENT: An irrational
fear so intense that it becomes disabling, like someone who won’t fly on a
business trip because he is afraid that the plane might crash, even though it
is the safest mode for travel.
BRINK: Exactly. His
irrational fear has made him ignore the empirical data and reject a useful
technology. Similar examples would be those afraid to use bridges, elevators or
subways. There are even some people who will not take classes at this college because
of rare sightings of rattlesnakes on campus.
STUDENT:
But clinically significant phobias are rare, what is it … about 5% of the
population?
BRINK: That is about right, but the phobia is just an
extreme example of a delusion of danger inhibiting effective coping. Another
clinical example would be obsessive-compulsive disorder: an individual becomes
obsessed with certain thoughts and then compulsively enacts certain
dysfunctional behaviors over and over again.
STUDENT:
Like someone who is obsessed about dirt and germs might compulsively wash his
hands dozens of times a day and miss out on going to job interviews.
BRINK: Yes, and then there are the compulsive checkers who
take hours to leave their homes for any errand because they have to go back so
many times and check that every door and window has been locked. And then there
are the clutterers whose homes become so filled with trash that they cannot
move around or find anything.
STUDENT: What is their motive or fear leading to that
behavior?
BRINK: As you can tell by my office, I have a little bit of
the clutterer in me. It is the fear of `throwing out something valuable, and
decide later that I need it.
STUDENT:
But isn't clinically significant obsessive-compulsive disorder pretty rare,
maybe in the 5% range also.
BRINK: If that, but all of us have delusions, phobias,
obsessions, and compulsions in the form of irrational commitments to things not
instrumentally or intrinsically valuable. Yet these commitments distort our
values, take up the limited time and space and money of our lives. Worse yet,
they distract our efforts from grander purposes. In this sense, these are
inhibitory values.
STUDENT: Why do you use the term "ulterior"
relevance?
BRINK: When someone has an ulterior motive, that is one that
is private, not brought to the surface for the rest of us to see. We often look
at other people's priorities and think how distorted they are.
STUDENT:
No, I don't think I am so judgmental.
BRINK: Most people are. Have you ever been in a supermarket
checkout line and thought to yourself, "How can people waste money on that
stuff?"
STUDENT:
Like cigarettes and junk food? Now, I get it.
BRINK: Good examples, cigarettes and fattening foods,
especially because they are compulsive, addictive. But it goes beyond that: we
might judge others' priorities as ulterior just because we do not share their
values. Like someone might observe you buying dog food and think "What a
waste when so many people around the world are starving."
STUDENT:
But don’t you find those kinds of misplaced priorities even in religion?
BRINK: Definitely. The first thing that would come to my
mind would be human sacrifice.
STUDENT: Like with the Aztecs?
BRINK: They are the best example of where human sacrifice
reached a compulsive scale. The Aztecs fought wars so they could get more
captives to sacrifice, and before every war, they would sacrifice victims in
order to ensure a successful military campaign. However, the Aztecs were not
unique in this; human sacrifice could be found in many ancient civilizations
and tribes.
STUDENT:
Couldn't it be said that all religion contains some of these inhibitory values,
in one form or another, to some extent.
BRINK: I would rather portray the history of religion as the
progressive rejection of ulterior relevance and achievement of a better focus
on the ultimate. Christianity, for example, clearly rejects human and animal
sacrifice, arguing that the death of Jesus on the cross is the final atonement
of God by God for man.
STUDENT:
But what I mean is doesn't all religion require some form of sacrifice or
inhibition of our other goals?
BRINK: This will be taken up later on the step of ethics,
but the quick answer is that religion helps us by giving us guidance and
setting priorities: we end up focusing less on the short term, more on the long
term, less on self, more on others, less on pleasure, more on bigger purposes.
Religion has the capacity to liberate us from these ulterior and utilitarian
values by breaking their hold, pointing us toward something more valuable.
People today have a problem in
their area of guidance on values. The decline of religion has led to a
fragmentation of values, too much emphasis on the self, the immediate, the
superfluous. It is religion that provides the focus on ultimate relevance. When
we have multiple purposes without prioritization, we do not know for which goal
to strive. Our purposes become competitive rather than complementary.
STUDENT:
How would you categorize claims about the paranormal: ESP, channeling, etc.?
BRINK: Those are the claims of pseudo-science, not religion.
The advance of human spiritual consciousness has nothing to do with astrology,
fortune telling, telepathy, levitation, ESP, or conversing with the dead. Any
such claims must be subjected to (and may be rejected by) empirical
verification. My purposes here are confined to ultimate relevance: man's
awareness of God, more perfectability, and creative potential.
|
EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE |
DESCRIPTIVE
SCIENCE |
PSEUDO-SCIENCE |
|
Physics |
Astronomy |
Astrology |
|
Chemistry |
Geology |
Alchemy |
|
Biology |
Anatomy |
Palmistry |
STUDENT:
But so many people really believe such things.
BRINK: They do. About a third of all American adults accept
astrology. Various superstitions are also popular. Seeking to discover one's
identity in astrology stems from the refusal accept the challenge of creating
one's identity via the interaction with both the physical environment of this
world and the spiritual dimension offered by God. The relevance behind
superstition, fetishism, magic, and sorcery is not utilitarian, because their
efficacy as a means cannot be demonstrated scientifically. Neither is there any
ultimate relevance for these claims, for they do not stem from or lead to
contact with absolute values or God. Therefore, their relevance is ulterior and
comparable to that of defense mechanisms. Indeed, such activities are nothing
more than the acting out of defense mechanisms. Ulterior relevance employs
superstition and magic in order to protect one's self-esteem from the
realization that one is not omnipotent or omniscient.
STUDENT:
But some of these advocates of psychic phenomena refer to it as spiritualism.
BRINK: Obviously they and I differ over what is constituted
by the spiritual realm. They often also confuse their studies with science. The
purpose of philosophy and science (including psychology) is to counteract
superstition.
STUDENT:
Don't some religious fanatics confuse the two realms of ultimate and ulterior?
BRINK: Most definitely. There is one organization known as
the Church of Signs Following that takes literally the passage in the Gospel of
Mark about the followers of Jesus being able to take up poisonous serpents.
Part of their ritual is to handle snakes.
STUDENT: Does anyone ever get bit and die?
BRINK: Yes, but when that occurs, it is said that the person
was "lacking in faith." Here is the core of their confusion: they
have confused “faith” in the form of being committed to Christ with “belief”
that they do not have to worry about snakebite.
God wants us to function within the
realm of utilitarian relevance. He wants us to grow our own food, not just pray
for manna from Heaven. He wants us to develop medical technology, not just pray
for miraculous healing. He wants us to work for a living by being gainfully
employed, not just pray for gold to magically appear.
Here is a story I heard a priest
use in a sermon. Once upon a time there was a heavy rainfall in a small,
isolated valley. A representative of federal emergency services came by with
his four wheel drive vehicle to tell all the people to evacuate, but one old
man was very religious, and he said, "I have faith, God will help
me."
Then the flood waters began to
rise. The old man had to go up to his second story. Then a neighbor came by in
a boat, telling the old man to get in, but he said, "I have faith, God
will help me."
Finally, the waters got so high
that he had to climb up on the roof, and then to a tree by his house. He went
up from one branch to another as the waters rose. Finally, he was on the top of
the tree with the water around his neck, and there was a helicopter above,
lowering a basket for him to jump into, but again he refused. "I have
faith, God will help me."
The helicopter had to fly away, and
the old man drowned. When he stood outside the gates of Heaven, he told of his
experience and asked God, "Why did you not help me?"
Then God said "Help you? I
sent the guy in the 4-wheel drive, the one in the boat, the one in the
helicopter."
The point is that we have to use
the technology to solve our problems in the material world, instead of always
pushing God for a miraculous intervention. Our "faith" must be
understood as our commitment to Him, not a belief that He is obligated to bail
us out of our own foolish actions.
STUDENT:
At least, atheism can be said to stand for the rejection of ulterior relevance.
BRINK: Some atheists declare that they are solely committed
to pursue life within the realm of the utilitarian, but doesn't their flat out
rejection of the spiritual inhibit their quest for ultimate relevance?
STUDENT: Where does the real challenge to pseudo-science
come from?
BRINK: The real challenge to psychic claims and other forms
of pseudo-science comes form both genuine religion and genuine empirical
science.
STUDENT: Like the science of psychology?
BRINK: Exactly. Not only do laboratory based, carefully
controlled experiments cast doubt on psychic claims, but the clinical branch of
psychology often attacks ulterior relevance directly.
STUDENT:
Like in psychotherapy and behavioral mod for phobias and obsessive-compulsive
disorders.
BRINK: Yes, and not only does psychological treatment
liberate the individual from the hold of ulterior relevance, it also can open
him up to the real spiritual realm of ultimate relevance. Psychotherapy can
remove a commitment to ulterior relevance and thereby open up a commitment to
ultimate relevance.
STUDENT:
But atheists would also say that religion has other social functions, like
keeping the people passive and obedient
or
keeping the economy going.
BRINK: That is the view of Marx, that religion is merely the
opiate of the people, a way to distract the oppressed by offering them a pie in
the sky hereafter so that they do not rebel against their earthly oppressors. I
agree that religion has a powerful social impact. It is the great enforcer of
habit and role. It made people do the dangerous and the tedious, but I reject
Marx's ideas for a number of reasons. Marx oversimplified the past,
misunderstood his present, and failed to correctly predict the future. I do not
think that his insights into the spiritual fare any better.
The opiate aspect of religion is
important in many cases, and it has been used as a tool for the maintenance of
oppressive social orders, but that does not describe its primary role, its
intended function, or the limits of its potential. Erich Fromm, and other
post-Marxists, have pointed out that religion can be used as a force for social
change and progress, for liberation instead of oppression.
But I do not see religion as the
greatest distraction or opiate operating in our society today. Sports, soap
operas, even "reality" TV shows provide the masses with something
superfluous to care about. These kinds of distractions have an even more
powerful role than assuaging the pain of exploitation: these distractions
become the very chains of exploitation. It is because the workers are the
greatest potential marketplace, and capitalism needs willing customers more
than it needs willing workers, that the workers are inspired to buy because of
these distractions. Professional sports, television, movies, video games, and
theme parks become irresistible and addictive wants that keep the majority of
the population involved as consumers, workers, and investors. Remember, it is
religion that is trying to break the chains to material addictions.
STUDENT: But going deeper on this theme, could it be said
that religion gets us stuck in ulterior relevance by even suggesting that a
spiritual realm exists? Perhaps man created religion just to assuage his
suffering in the utilitarian realm.
BRINK: That goes back to the assumption that life has no
spiritual dimension, and that man should stay entirely focused on the
utilitarian realm, hedonism, being a well-fed, comfortable animal is the
highest goal.
STUDENT:Perhaps
religion is nothing more that a big defense mechanism, a sort of denial of the
hopelessness of life.
BRINK: The test of any
religion is whether it functions to inhibit our quest for values, both
instrumental and intrinsic, or whether it liberates us to properly prioritize
those values. God serves as a focus point of absolute value. We must choose
between the hopelessness of atheism or the hope of the cross. Which offers the
best formula for human happiness? I do not contend that religion alone is the
best formula, because adding science and technology is a superior approach
toward the attainment of utilitarian relevance.
STUDENT:
Isn't there a certain childish naivete in religion? Like when I was little, my
parents told me about the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny. How can
we know that God is any more real than these or pink unicorns? Shouldn't a sign
of our maturity be outgrowing the fantasies of our childhood?
BRINK: The essence of responsible adult life is free and
responsible decision making. We can choose a life that includes a deepening
relationship with God, or one that rejects such a relationship. The essence of
life is commitment. Which commitment could be preferable to that of a
commitment to God? The only reasonable question for me is how I should be
committed to God, not whether.
True, we must grow up and leave
behind infantile conceptions of the Deity that would equate Him with the Tooth
Fairy. Some people cannot come to that point, because their spiritual lives
have been overdetermined by the experiences of their childhood. They think of
God as an old man in the sky, with a long beard who gets angry every time
anyone has too much fun. If you cannot reframe your image of God, then you are
not ready for the pursuit of ultimate relevance, for you will only associate
religion with ulterior inhibitions.
Now, I have a challenge for
atheism. What does it proclaim as the ultimate purpose of life? Which values
does it herald above all others?
STUDENT: Well, I don't have an answer for that, but
before I go, I do have one more question. Suppose when I came in today I said
that I had no values, no priority worth pursuing: not God, not pleasure, not
even evil.
BRINK: Then you would not be motivated to be here and pursue
this dialog with me.
STUDENT: Next week?
BRINK: Next week!
USING THE CODE FF25.
Read more posts by and about TL Brink HERE.
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