It is beyond clear that in the United States, Jews have significant political influence. Many Jews occupy important levels of government, elected and appointed, and others are high profile opinion-influencers and policymakers in the media, in think tanks, and in academia. For the most part, insofar as a political response is feasible, Jews can receive one when they feel marginalized, hurt, or threatened.
Yet, though this is a tremendous privilege and something I’m extraordinarily grateful for, this is not the same thing as being empowered. Power, Carol Gilligan once wrote, means “you can opt not to listen. And you can do so with impunity.”1 Whatever else Jews are or are not in a position to do, we are certainly not in a position where we can afford not to listen with impunity. The power and influence we do have is at the sufferance of others. The minute that it ceases to be in the interests of the majority, it becomes very precarious indeed.
Far from signaling our full inclusion in American society, the political power Jews have amassed is currently serving as brute hedge against the default norm of Jewish exclusion which continues to be expressed through American law. My senior thesis, When Separation Doesn’t Work: The Religion Clause as an Anti-Subordination Principle,2 explored how the legal rights supposedly afforded to religious minorities, such as Jews, under the religion clause of the First Amendment have proven nearly entirely hollow. Here’s a statistic for you: In the entire history of the United States — from 1789 to 2009 — Jews have never once won a Free Exercise case before the Supreme Court. 3 In fact, there has been a grand total of one successful Supreme Court free exercise case in American history launched by a non-Christian group, and unsurprisingly, it represented perhaps the most flagrant breach of free exercise norms imaginable: a state city law specifically targeted at a minority religious practice, that was motivated entirely out of animus.4
This is not to say that Jews have had no protection for their religious or cultural practices. But the protection we’ve achieved is nearly entirely legislative. Jewish security in America is guaranteed by brute political force, but it is not yet recognized as a right. The mechanics that protect Jews from discrimination and unequal treatment are not considered as legal and moral imperatives — they are solely defined by what we can convince others to give us through the democratic process. There is a difference between a legal right and a legislative privilege, and it isn’t just that the former is more difficult to dislodge. I’ve already written about why I think rights are important beyond the technical protections they do and do not provide. There is considerable expressive power in being seen as a rights-holder. A person who is protected from unequal treatment merely because they currently hold the favor of the sovereign and her sword exists on a qualitatively different plane from the person whose protection stems from the fact that society — as per the strong moral norms expressed through the language of rights — considers such discrimination to be a grave normative wrong.
There are people who would say the distinction I’m drawing here is facile. The supposed moral appeal of rights is a chimera — whether through rights or other means, society only protects those who have the power to protect themselves. This was the observation of the Black Power writers at the tail end of the civil rights movement. Zionism, I think, stems from a very similar impulse: that there is no purchase in purely moral appeals — Jews will be protected only when they cease to depend on the magnanimity of others. Courts, and the rights-based arguments they represent, are a “hollow hope”5 . Political power is the alpha and omega of equal protection. If you don’t have it, you don’t have anything.
I am sympathetic to this view. I think that moral appeals and rights-based claims cannot stand against a determined majority dedicated to preserving existing inequalities. Because I don’t think the formal existence of rights protections itself grants anything, I am sympathetic to the idea that for all practical purposes self-empowerment is the best remedy. If others won’t protect you simply because it’s the right thing to do, get yourself in a position where it’s in their own material interests to assist. Or better yet, be in a position where your security isn’t in the hands of others at all.
But I still cannot adopt the idea whole-heartedly. The fact that rights often are a formalist facade does not, to my mind, mean they always are, or that they are meaningless. I think that possessing rights is a powerful social signal of full inclusion into the community. A protection by right is one that is normalized, a protection by special legislation is exceptional. I would much prefer to be in a position where I am protected because it is seen as wrong to hurt me, than to be protected simply because those who wish to hurt me are (currently) in no position to do so. The cynics would tell you that the former case does not exist. I refuse to believe that is true.
Assuming I am correct and political power is not the start and end of the discussion, I think it is very meaningful and troublesome that Jews have historically not been able to secure the protection of the courts, and have relied on their influence in the legislatures to protect them. It tells me that protecting Jews is external to the system — something that requires special effort, attention, influence and power. Left to its own devices, America too would allow for the same systematic discrimination against Jews we’ve seen throughout history. That Jews in America are in a position to block this outcome is a good thing, but the fact that it requires this constant vigilance is itself indicative of a problem.6
Last July, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decided Bloch v. Frischholz, a lawsuit by a Jewish condo owner against her condo association. The condo association had established a rule forbidding all residents from placing any objects outside their doorways, and interpreted it to prohibit Jewish residents from putting up a Mezuzah. In a 2-1 decision, the court held that this rule did not violate the Fair Housing Act.
No Mezuzot means no observant Jews, and in a biting dissent Judge Diane Wood (a potential Obama SCOTUS nominee and, more importantly, my Civil Procedure professor this spring) observed that the majority’s rule had the effect of allowing an absolute red-lining of Orthodox Jews from condo complexes. Moreover, there are serious indicators that the rule here was motivated by anti-Jewish hostility — the Condo Association went so far as to accuse the plaintiffs of seeking to “extract their pound of flesh” through litigation (a reference to Shylock in The Merchant of Venice). Finally, the majority proclaimed that the rule was neutral because it operated equally on the Chicago Bears fan who really wants to put out a pennant on his stoop. But of course it is facile to suggest that even the most ardent Bears fan is harmed in being barred from putting up a team pennant on his door the way that an Orthodox Jew is when she is prevented from putting up a Mezuzah. The refusal to view Jews as Jews — subsuming them within other categories — once again prevents moral actors from getting a true picture of our situation.
In the wake of the case, the Chicago city government quickly amended its own laws to prohibit this sort of behavior, and Congress may follow suit. Legislatures to the rescue.
In Board of Education of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994), the Supreme Court was asked to consider the constitutionality of a recently-established school district comprised solely of the village of Kiryas Joel. Kiryas Joel was an enclave of the Satmar Hasidim — an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect that generally wishes to separate itself from the outside world. They educated nearly all their children in private religious academies, however, some of their students with disabilities required additional resources that the community could not afford to provide. Luckily, the students were entitled to have these resources provided to them by federal statute, and for several years federal educators came onto the campuses of the KJ schools to provide (entirely secular) aid and assistance.
Unfortunately, this arrangement came to an end when the Supreme Court passed down two decisions, School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball and Aguilar v. Felton, which held such practices violated the Establishment Clause. The students then were sent to the neighboring public schools, but that experiment ended catastrophically, with the children experiencing “panic, fear, and trauma” and the parents immediately withdrawing them. So, the community of Kiryas Joel petitioned the New York state legislature to allow it to form its own secular school district, for the sole purpose of securing the educational benefits its disabled children were legally entitled to. The legislature passed the bill, and the Kiryas Joel school district was born.
And died, under an establishment clause challenge. The Supreme Court held that, simply because the village of Kiryas Joel was a Satmar Hasidic enclave, the establishment of a school district tracking its borders was automatically suspect. This was true even though, as Justice Scalia pointed out in dissent, there are quite a few towns and even counties in the United States that are nearly 100% Christian — something which would never be contemplated as constitutionally problematic. Worse, the court presumed that even though the district was officially secular, the Satmar character of the town would inevitably act to dominate the school district and convert it into an instrument for sectarian ends — again, a concern that never seems to manifest itself in the myriad of Christian dominated institutions in America.
The Court further held that the motivation in establishing the district was to provide a religious benefit to the Satmar — even though the event which prompted the Satmar parents to seek this remedy was the most secular one imaginable: shielding their children from previously experienced trauma. Justice O’Connor’s concurrence worried that other similarly situated groups might not be able to get the legislature to pass a bill of this sort. This, of course, applies Jewish political power against them — unlike “normal” groups, Jews only should be allowed to have the rights that other marginal groups are likewise able to get for themselves. As far as the O’Connor was concerned, the natural state of the Jews was subordination, thus, it is to other subordinated groups that they must be compared. The privileges of the majority, of course, escape notice.
Ultimately, some judges were sympathetic (Justice Kennedy lamented that the Satmar were in a predicament “we put them in”), and some judges were not (Justice Stevens argued that the effect of the school district was to allow the Satmar to more effectively indoctrinate their children). But at the end of the day, it was another case where the language of legal rights acted to diminish, rather than enhance, Jewish autonomy in America. And once again, the Jewish parties were able to petition the New York legislature to pass yet another law that was tailored to meet the court’s concerns while protecting their children.
These cases are not exceptions. I was raised as a Church/State zealot with almost blind faith in the power of the judiciary to protect me and establish me as an equal member of the polity. It was stunning for me to discover that by and large, courts have not been friends of the Jews or minority religious groups more generally. Again and again, we are forced to petition the legislature for assistance where courts refuse to step in, or play defense where courts show marked hostility to the legislative victories we do manage to achieve. Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503 (1986), upholding a ban on Jewish servicemembers wearing Kippot, overturned by statute in 1989. Commack Self-Service Kosher Mart v. Rubin, 106 F. Supp. 2d 445 (E.D.N.Y. 2000), striking down a New York law forbidding fraudulently marketing food as Kosher.7 The message is clear: If the courts represent our nation’s arbitration on what claims persons have as a matter of right, then Jews possess very little.
It is, of course, better to be able to run to the legislature (at least sometimes) for aid than for that door to be closed, and to be sure, many marginalized groups in America do not have that option. Nonetheless, it is very meaningful that protecting Jews is something that occurs outside the standard operating procedures. It is an indicator that equality for Jews is still something that is abnormal — it requires us to keep writing in exceptions to the “neutral” rules. It is not yet the case that Jewish equality is itself neutral. The persistent strangeness of Jewish equality means that sometimes our political power is worthless because courts strike down our efforts as unconstitutional (as in Kiryas Joel and Commack). And of course, to skeptics of Jews, the fact that nearly all of our rights are legislative buttresses the idea that we are seeking “special rights” — more than we deserve or are accorded to everyone else.
More importantly, depending on political clout to protect you means you are helpless when that power isn’t there. Jews were fortunate that in neither Bloch nor Kiryas Joel there was a significant interest group outwardly hostile to them (a fact which certainly distinguishes them from many other marginalized groups, who have groups who are inherently hostile to them no matter what they are doing). But that isn’t always the case, and where it isn’t, Jews are rendered helpless.
Finally, political power can never be entirely divorced from issues of moral and legal rights, if for no other reason than the construction of the rules which dictate how one comes to obtain power are heavily tied up with legal doctrine. In United Jewish Organizations v. Carey, 430 U.S. 144 (1977), the Supreme Court found no legal wrong when a Hasidic Jewish district was “cracked” to create other majority-minority districts in the New York legislature, eliminating Hasidic representation. As law professor Michael W. McConnell noted, this case is cruel irony when read in conjunction with Kiryas Joel. As far as the legal rights world is concerned, Jews are a scary and dangerous group when the law grants us political power (Kiryas), and an irrelevant, insignificant entity when the law destroys our political power (Carey).8 When our political power can be stripped so easily, it becomes a dangerous pillar indeed to rely upon.
The status of Jews in America is simply not evidence that liberal democratic norms foster full inclusion of marginalized minority groups. Much the opposite. America shows that brute political force in a democratic system can act as a check against a norm of otherness which otherwise would act to exclude. That’s better than not possessing that power, but it is not the same thing as being recognized as full and equal members of society. And when that power is exercised by a small minority, it lasts only as long as it does not conflict with the interests of more powerful actors — the persons who really can refuse to listen with impunity. The difference between America and many other places around the world (the EU, South Africa, Venezuela) is not that America has a stronger moral ethos which demands Jews be seen as equal. The difference is simply that Jews in America, for the moment at least, possess the political wherewithal to overcome the presumption of Jewish otherization. If we lose that power, the default we’ll return to will not be one of equal respect and dignity. Not even close.
Israel, to a large extent, is simply taking this observation to its logical conclusion. Both Jews in American and Jews in Israel have concluded the moralisms will not protect them — the only shield is power. The difference is that American Jews rely on political power, and exercise that power at the sufferance of others. Israeli Jews, by contrast, rely on sovereign power (including but not limited to military power) and are extremely jealous about trying to rely on as few outsiders as possible (I do not doubt for a moment that the degree to which Israel depends on America — though they would outwardly deny that they actually “need” us and would point to the Independence and ’56 wars as proof — is something they feel extremely vulnerable about).
If one only has protections because one devotes every spare vote, dollar, resource and minute to secure them, one can hardly be said to be an equal. Equality comes when equality is normal — so normal, that you don’ t have to be perpetually on your guard to defend it. So normal that it wouldn’t occur to anyone to try and take it away.
- Feminist Discourse, Moral Values, and the Law – A Conversation: The 1984 James McCormick Mitchell Lecture, 34 Buff. L. Rev. 11, 62 (1985) (Isabel Marcus and Paul J. Spiegelman, moderators; Ellen C. DuBois, Marx C. Dunlap, Carol J. Gilligan, Catherine A. MacKinnon, and Carrie Menkel-Meadow, participants) [↩]
- 5 Dartmouth L.J. 145 (2007) [↩]
- Stephen M. Feldman, Religious Minorities and the First Amendment: The History, the Doctrine, and the Future, 6 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 222, 251 (2003). [↩]
- Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 501 U.S. 520 (1993). The Santaria religion at issue in that case was itself a “fusion” religion that incorporated elements of Christianity in it. [↩]
- Gerald Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Progressive Legal Change? (University of Chicago Press, 2008) [↩]
- If for no other reason than it means we need to expend nearly the totality of our political resources defending ourselves, and have nothing left to devote to positive expressions of Jewish agency, to say nothing of whatever else Jews might want to advocate on that isn’t directly tied to maintaining our standing as equals. [↩]
- Particularly noteworthy because the same statute had previously been upheld by the Supreme Court. Hygrade Provision Co., Inc. et al. v. Sherman, 266 U.S. 497 (1925). Though that case was litigated on different grounds, it is extremely rare for a district court to take it upon itself to strike down legislation previously upheld under constitutional challenge and that has maintained itself unmolested for 75 years. [↩]
- Michael W. McConnell, The Church-State Game: A Symposium on Kiryas Joel, First Things, Nov. 1994, at 41. “It is the old story of the double standard…. When the legislature deliberately chops up a district dominated by a religious minority, there is no problem: the Hasidim are just “white.” But when it draws boundaries in their favor, the Hasidim become a distinct and dangerous group, and…stern warnings against “segregation” along religious lines [are issued]….”). [↩]
So we are posting back to back. This post and the Superseded Jew post are among the strongest things you’ve written, David, in my opinion anyway. It would have been interesting to see how the guest posts at Feministe would have gone had you started with these ideas.
“I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.” — Edna Mode
Besides — when I was posting on Feministe, I wasn’t trying to distract myself from my law school finals. It does have a way of focusing the mind. On other things.
Yeah, I know, and I’m guessing you’re being a little bit tongue in cheek, but there is also learning form history, and what you wanted to do at Feministe was truly worthwhile, and so it’s worth thinking about.
This really surprised me (and not in a good way). One more situation where what I thought I knew about this country turns out to be pretty far off. But I don’t think I’m the only one who has the idea that the courts are there holding the line.
i’m unconvinced. i think this country affords us extraordinary basic freedoms, even in comparison to canada and europe (think french hijab school ban), that we end up arguing around the edges…like in the peyote case for example.
i’m sympathetic to the condo case but even that doesn’t even involve a constitutional right to freedom practice of religion, since govt suppression is not involved. at worst, its an equal protection problem. in fact, the condo owners property and contract rights are at stake, so i can see how the courts would practice some restraint.
with Kiryas we have govt $$ involved, so the presumption for most liberal jurists will be an establishment clause violation. since american constituional law doesn’t recognize power theories of racism/discrimination, i can’t help but thinking the real target of this ruling was Christians, who could then invent various ways to get govt to finance their religion.
i agree with thomas and scalia that the establishment clause has been overly-used to the point that it violates the free exercise clause, but the vast majority of cases (voluntary school prayer, school choice, teaching ID, after school bible studies) involves Christians, not religious minorities.
“The difference between America and many other places around the world (the EU, South Africa, Venezuela)…”
“i think this country affords us extraordinary basic freedoms, even in comparison to canada and europe (think french hijab school ban)”
I don’t want to go off at a tangent here, but the EU and Europe are not monolithic. The EU is made up of a large number of individual member states, which have different histories, laws, etc. Since France has been given as an example, it’s perhaps important to recognise that the French have a long tradition of insisting on the separation of Church and State. In the UK, on the other hand, the Queen is both the Head of State and also has the title of “Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England.” The Chief Rabbi has
David, I’d be curious to know how you see this issue affecting less observant/more assimilated Jews, by which I don’t mean just secular or unaffiliated Jews, but just the large majority of American Jews who don’t necessarily feel bound by strict interpretation of halakha. It’s not that I don’t think that free exercise of religion, even for people like the Satmar Hasidim, is important. What I’m getting at is that, obviously, the more observant you are, the more difficult it can be to live in American society, but I’m wondering what you see as the broader implication here.
For the most part, Jews suffer insofar as they are differentiated from secular/Christian norms. When we don’t diverge from the norm, we’re usually covered by generally applicable laws and norms. The more assimilated a Jew is, by definition the less differentiated s/he is from the Christian norm (at least along a Jewish axis), so the less likely they will be to be affected.*
That being said, I think the cases I lay out cover a pretty broad spectrum of American Jewish observance. Most Jews of any level of observance put a mezuzah outside their door — Bloch thus affects most Jews (even if I don’t think it absolutely obligatory to put out a Mezuzah, if a condo association was willing to litigate to stop me from doing it, I’d take that as a pretty clear “you are not welcome” sign). A goodly chunk of American Jews keep at least some form of Kosher (fewer than I think put out a Mezuzah) — again, though I don’t keep Kosher all the time, I do enough that I’d like to know that I can count on food labeled as kosher actually being kosher (Commack). Goldman applies to still fewer Jews, as most of us don’t wear kippot regularly.
Kiryas Joel, by contrast, involves the most observant Jews — but also, the most secular request: a secular school district teaching secular subjects (because the alternative was failing the children for wholly secular reasons), that was ruled unconstitutional solely because its beneficiaries would predominantly be Jewish.
* There are, in other words, very few status-based restrictions on Jews in America. A rare exception came when the prosecutor in the AgriProcessors case tried to revoke bail on the grounds that the owner — being Jewish — was an automatic flight risk due to the law of return in Israel.
I was unsympathetic about your discussion of Kiryas Joel until you described Carey. The claim that a secular school would not evolve into a religious one when the school district was explicitly drawn on religious grounds seems highly suspicious to me. The point about so many school districts being “100% Christian” was problematic for two reasons: First, it would only be a direct analogy if the district was drawn specifically to be Christian: Are there odd squiggles in the border that indicates that it was drawn for the purpose of keeping out non-Christians? Second, I doubt how many of them really are non-Christian. Atheists, agnostics, pagans, and other non-Christian people in the U.S. are often assumed to be Christian. Carving out special districts in which some religious minorities can be “safe” would seem to enable an idea that other non-Christians should just go away to form their own districts, and that there should be nothing wrong with having explicitly Christian payers and teachings in most public schools, since non-Christians could just move away together and form their own school districts. I would much rather fight to keep all public schools secular and safe for any religious minority that happens to live in the school district’s area. Carey is troubling, especially in light of Kiryas Joel, and I would be tempted to see the bad unintended effects of Carey as an example as to why Kiryas Joel was correct: I do not know what non-Jewish, or non- Satmar Hasidic Jewish people living in the area of the proposed school district would feel unsafe as a result, or what non Satmar Hasidic Jewish people might be dissuaded from moving to that area.
I do think you are absolutely correct about Bloch and Goldman.
Regarding Kosher Mart: Does the idea of the government defining what is or is not “Kosher” bother you? It does me, although I admit I am also disturbed by the result of the case, which would seem to legalize fraud in commercial transactions of a religious nature. (“Yes, I know you ordered a thousand “Holy Bibles” for your Baptist Church, but who is the government to say that the “correct” “Holy Bible” is the one about Jesus and Israel, rather than this new Holy Bible I wrote myself about Elvis?”)
What was the result of the prosecutor’s request in AgriProcessors? I assume that because you only referred to the prosecutor’s request that it was denied, although I would also be interested to know if the prosecutor received some sort of sanction, which should have been the case.
Decnavda: On Kiryas, I think your worries better counsel a “wait and see” approach than a facial challenge. If it turns out the the BoE in Kiryas Joel starts smuggling in religious content, by all means take them to court. But saying that it should be facially suspect because it’s Jewish-dominated is a different matter.
The point that the Christian-dominated districts were not “intended” to be that way doesn’t persuade me, for two reasons: 1) One of the perks of being a majority is precisely that one doesn’t have to intend to keep them that way — it’s just the normal thing that happens without anybody thinking about it. That being the case, I’m not sure why the intentions of the state legislature will have any effect at the relative propensity of a locality to impose its religious preferences into law. If anything, the relative invisibility of majority religious dominance makes it less likely they’ll be checked by higher authority, whereas I doubt that if KJ stepped too far into theocracy, they’d be ignored by the state. 2) I’m not convinced the “intent” in creating the district was religious. That’s one way to describe it, but another way is simply “this town, which (through totally legal means) happens to be Jewish-dominated, has a problem with the local school districts. So let’s give them a school district of their own”. Particularly since the district followed the borders of a pre-existing incorporated town, I think the religious intent interpretation is uncharitable.
On the point that it would be preferable that Jews simply be safe and secure in the “broader” public school system, yes, ideally I agree. But that clearly isn’t the world as is, and a big point of this post was that we ought to be suspicious of requiring minority groups to depend on other folks “doing the right thing”. I don’t like the idea of giving up on integration for separatism, but it’s not my right to demand folks buy into a failing integrationist model on the unenforceable promise that it might eventually start working. Kiryas was a case of Jews saying moralisms don’t work, so we’re going to fall back on raw political power (in this case, through separatism). Getting rid of the latter option doesn’t mean that moralism is any more likely to be successful — it just doubles down on the vulnerability.
On the Kosher laws: Yes, that worries me too. I think Commack is a genuinely difficult case for precisely that reason. The example you gave about the Holy Bible is similar to the one the state made defending its law (they used the example of falsely claiming something is “endorsed by the Vatican” — which could be a religious claim). In the Hygrade case, the Supreme Court found that “Kosher” had a well-enough defined meaning that it could be enforced at law in fraud actions. One way the state tried to duck out of these problems was by saying there was a good-faith exception to the statute which would presumably encompass variant good-faith interpretations on what “kosher” means. In general, all religion clause jurisprudence is going to run into this problem, though, because to say something falls within the purview of these clauses first means tagging it as “religious”, and doing that necessarily involves making religious judgments.
The AgriProcessor guy was, in fact, denied bail at trial (partially but not solely due to the law of return), a ruling from which he is appealing. I’m not sure if his appeal has been resolved.
Reading the link you provided, I am not particularly concerned that Rubashkin was denied bail on the alternate grounds of finding packed bags and lots of cash at his home. I still think the prosecutor should have been sanctioned for arguing against bail on grounds that could apply to all Jews and only Jews. It is possible for the judge to have done both, and he should have.
Particularly since the district followed the borders of a pre-existing incorporated town, I think the religious intent interpretation is uncharitable.
The point about providing a safe place in reality and not just theory might be an acceptable reason for an exception to a general rule that would preclude an intent to draw a district with a minority-majority population. I am still worried about religious creep into the school system, and potential negative consequences to any other minorities in the drawn district, such as happened in Carey. Also whatever the intent, I still want a secular basis for how the district is drawn. The point I quoted above is something I did not realize, and is convincing.
Just in case it’s not clear, I absolutely am not disputing this. I may not feel “commanded” in the way an Orthodox Jew would to put up a mezuzah, but if they made a stink about it, I would find that pretty offensive.
I think you’ve mentioned this before, but I think this is one reason it’s hard to talk about these things in progressive circles that don’t look very favorably on religion, particularly the more traditional strains of it.
I believe we talked about this on the Feministe thread – I’m generally not overly sympathetic to separatist religious communities. I think they absolutely have the right to organize their communities that way, but I tend to be pretty skeptical about them wanting public services on their own terms. Like Manju said, I suspect the court had in mind how it would handle cases involving Christian groups, but like Decnavda, I find the differences in how Kiryas Joel and Carey were handled pretty important to the point you’re making.
With Kiryas Joel, I can’t help but think of a case rather closer to home for me geographically, which is the FLDS community at Colorado City. Basically the entire town – including the city council and the school board – was set up by and controlled by the FLDS church there. At some point, it shifted from being a town made up entirely of people of a particular religious community who nonetheless ran their government in the standard way to being the personal fiefdom of Warren Jeffs, with all government functions under his control and used to keep himself in power and punish dissenters. The whole thing has been broken up now, and the school district taken over by an outside body (federal, I think, but I’m not sure).
I’m not really in a good position to compare the legal issues there. The intervention occurred because the government is treating the FLDS like a criminal enterprise, not so much because of more conventional establishment clause issues. But it seems to me there’s the potential for similar cases to arise with other, non-Jewish religious groups, including Christian sects. Which isn’t to say that the work-around developed for Kiryas Joel was necessarily wrong or that the court ruling was necessarily right, just that I’m conflicted on the whole issue and I can see why the courts would be conflicted.
As a black woman, I am befuddled by the excessive focus on Jewish issues at Alas this past month.
Given that it was black people who built America as slaves, black people who had to fight for desegregation and civil rights less than 50 years ago, black people who continue to face hardships in housing/education/worklife, etc, given all of that, why is there no focus on black issues at Alas?
I am not saying as a Jewish person, you do not experience discrimination; I am saying that as a Jewish person who is more likely to pass as white than as any other racial background, you have it much easier than a black woman like myself who struggles each day because of the color of my skin.
UPDATE: I’ve responded to Destinee on a new thread.
Destinee, I don’t want to digress this discussion, so I’ll respond to you in a new post shortly.
If everyone else could hold off on responding to Destinee until I have the new post up, I’d appreciate it.
Thanks.
Decnavda- I appreciate that your comment about non-Christians frequently being assumed to be Christians. I’m from Catholic families on both sides. However, my parents are not religious. They were married in a secular ceremony. My husband and I are not religious and were married in a secular ceremony. Excluding weddings and funerals, I can count to number of times I’ve been to a church service on my fingers. I don’t believe in God. I wasn’t baptized, let alone confirmed. The Catholic church would certainly not consider me Catholic, and I don’t have a connection to any other Christian sect.
When I was a kid, it made me feel uncomfortable and excluded when god was mentioned in school, particularly in a specific Christian context (and the only other way was in a generic, pan-religious context). But, because I have the cultural background, people often assume I’m Christian. In fact, a friend of mine who’s Jewish said that she thinks of me as a Christian, because she views religion as being defined culturally as well as by faith. I actually find that a bit frustrating.
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DeeM.
But, because I have the cultural background, people often assume I’m Christian. In fact, a friend of mine who’s Jewish said that she thinks of me as a Christian, because she views religion as being defined culturally as well as by faith. I actually find that a bit frustrating.
That does sound more than a bit frustrating to have people incorrectly label you with a term you consider a religious one, because they perceive it as also a cultural one. However, like your Jewish friend, I also tend to see my own family’s religious tradition as a cultural one as well; I’m not a practicing or believing Hindu (being agnostic), but I feel culturally Hindu in that being raised in Hinduism has affected my understanding of the world.
Perhaps like your Jewish friend, I also feel that it’s important as a citizen of a country where my family’s faith is very much in the minority to maintain a relationship with the culture even if I don’t believe in the gods. That’s not as much an issue for someone who’s Catholic in most of the U.S., because there are so many Catholics here and people of that faith are pretty well organized and politically active. Although on the other hand, I could see how someone who’s Latina, in the area where I grew up (East Texas), would want to maintain the Catholic tradition despite a lack of strong personal faith, because in that area the religion has a strong cultural aspect and is bound up in being part of that ethnic minority.
On the schools issue: in Utah, a whole lot of public high schools have LDS seminaries right next door, built at the same time as the school, and the kids have religious release time when all the Mormon kids (which, in many towns, is all the kids) go to the seminary for religious instruction. I’ve heard of religious release time in other places, but that’s the only one I’ve ever heard of where the religious schools are commonly built with the public schools.
DeeM: do you have family dinners on Dec 24 or 25, for instance? That’s an example of what it means to be culturally Christian (in some locations, not all). I’ve used the term — or something similar, never having found a term that agrees with me — for people whose families are or were Christian, and who have no *other* religion. (Ie, if you grew up Christianish and converted to Islam, it’s not about you.) Atheism isn’t a religion. Being culturally Christian gives you some — but not all — aspects of Christian privilege. (More than being, say, culturally Jewish does.) One of those aspects is, of course, a blindness to the privilege.
As soon as the Amish aren’t given special religious dispensations for schooling, and most Christians aren’t given their holidays off as federal holidays, I will worry about the Jews getting (possibly) gerrymandered districts.
I could see how someone who’s Latina, in the area where I grew up (East Texas), would want to maintain the Catholic tradition despite a lack of strong personal faith, because in that area the religion has a strong cultural aspect and is bound up in being part of that ethnic minority.
My wife is Mexican, and calls herself a “cultural Catholic” for that very reason, despite basically not believing any of the stories in the Bible are necessarily true.
Protestant Christian culture and beliefs are so overwhelming focused on the need for actual belief in the divinity and resurection of Christ that considering oneself as non-believing “cultural Protestant” seems basically impossible. (One BIG exception to this is celebrating Christmas. Here on the West Coast, the public celebrations of Christmas have had virtually all elements of Christianity removed, and most of us atheists and agnostics from a Christian background are fine with celebrating. Most atheists and agnostics who do object that I have heard seem to live on the East Coast, where the religious meaning of Christmas is still very public.)
@22: Nine bazillion points for The Westing Game reference (right?).
I grew up in a small town in the rural Midwest. The town just down the road is 99.9% German Catholic. It has a total population of about 3000.
The public school has a statue of the Virgin in front of it.
The school building itself belongs to the Catholic church (which is next door). The church leases the building to the school district in a manner that at 9 am, Monday through Friday, it becomes the property of the school district. Then, at 3 pm, it reverts to the ownership of the church.
Schoolchildren are bussed in for school starting at 8 am. From 8 to 9, the students are sent to religious instruction, led by the Sisters, that ends in a Mass. This is optional, and the students can opt-out and go to what is essentially a study hall. One teacher is assigned to monitor this study hall while the rest go to the Mass. This is referred to a “heathen duty.” Few students go to the study hall, as peer pressure obligates them to attend the religious instruction and Mass. On a typical morning, the students in the study hall are the 4 or 5 non-Catholic students in the school. The teacher watching them is the one non-Catholic on the faculty, who, incidentally, is the father of most of the students in the study hall.
The teacher in question is also a sports coach. He is one of the top-rated coaches in the state, with a very impressive record.
People in the town have said, quite frankly, that if he wasn’t that good a coach and didn’t lead the team to so many victories, than a way would be found of getting rid of him. There are no non-Christians in the town, and this is seen as a Good Thing.
If I had to guess, I would say that it is not the only town of the type.
@24: The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), and those who don’t can google it, just like the residents of Sunset Towers can now google their clues, making the puzzle less fun. (Though perhaps more fun for us non-USians, who might have a fighting chance to solve it.)
The Westing Game might just be one of the best kids books of all time. I read it in Elementary School, then bought a copy in college, and still absolutely adore it.
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DeeM: do you have family dinners on Dec 24 or 25, for instance? That’s an example of what it means to be culturally Christian (in some locations, not all). I’ve used the term — or something similar, never having found a term that agrees with me — for people whose families are or were Christian, and who have no *other* religion. (Ie, if you grew up Christianish and converted to Islam, it’s not about you.) Atheism isn’t a religion. Being culturally Christian gives you some — but not all — aspects of Christian privilege.
Turtle Wexler, I understand what it means to be culturally Christian. I also understand what you mean when you talk about the privilege associated with that – I’m not as oblivious as you imply. However, I felt like a hypocrite every time I was expected to repeat something about god in school, or to participate in a non-denominational prayer. I expect that the religious Jews and the Muslims in my school weren’t made uncomfortable by those things. Shall we call that “believer privilege?”
Believe me, most Americans would prefer to (for example) vote for someone who professes a religion different from their own than for an atheist. I’m a second generation atheist. Rejecting religion was an active and deliberate choice for my parents – a choice that went against their families’ wishes – and it’s a choice I agree with wholeheartedly. When you’re a member of the dominant religious culture and you reject it, then you’re forced actively resist it; to explain yourself to people. You have to be ready to stand up for your beliefs even while respecting other’s, knowing that they’re going to see you as someone who’s rejected a fundamental part of their world view. In some ways, I’d imagine that it’s easier to just be “other.”
Atheism isn’t a religion.
Sure it is. Believing there is no God is still a belief. That’s why I’m an agnostic.
“Atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak, speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them – and then they leap.” — Life of Pi.
However, I felt like a hypocrite every time I was expected to repeat something about god in school, or to participate in a non-denominational prayer. I expect that the religious Jews and the Muslims in my school weren’t made uncomfortable by those things.
I was always uncomfortable by “non-denominational” prayers in public settings. Ditto with “secular” moments of silence. Aside from the fact that “non-denominational” usually means “generically Christian”, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the prayers are a smuggled in version of Christianity because they can’t get away with the more explicit stuff. Nobody is a fool here — we know the motives.
Well, I can’t speak for all the religious Jews and Muslims, obviously, but “non-denominational” prayers always made me uncomfortable, because, even when they didn’t explicitly mention Jesus, they were still obviously Christian. At Girl Scout camp in fourth or fifth grade, there were about 5 different troops at the camp that week, and at each meal, a different troop was asked to pick a few girls to say grace before the meal. It was just about always some variation of the “We thank thee for these, thy gifts, which we are about to receive…” My troop had several Jewish girls, and we were really uncomfortable with these prayers. When it was our troop’s turn, the bunch of us Jewish girls asked if we could say the prayer, and the prayer we wanted to say was, “Ha’motzi lechem min ha’aretz, we give thanks to G-d for bread. Our voices rise in song together, as our prayer is humbly said. Amen.” We were told that the prayers had to be “non-denominational,” and that prayer was obviously Jewish. We argued that the other prayers were obviously Christian, but we lost.
Er, yes. Believing that there is no God is a belief. So is believing that cauliflower in cheese sauce is disgusting. That’s not a religion, either. Neither is atheism. (for a longer article on this, consider reading http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/ath/blathm_rel_religion.htm or http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutatheism/p/AtheismReligion.htm)
How are you defining what it means to be a religion?
belief: “confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof.”
“Cauliflower in cheese is disgusting” is an opinion, not a fact; it has nothing to do with proof, because it is a matter of taste. Beliefs about facts constitute an ideology (e.g., the belief that the proletariat will rise up and the revolution will come is the Marxist ideology; the belief that every economic problem can be solved by lowering taxes and shrinking government is the Norquistian ideology). When the ideology relates to the existence and/or nature of god(s) and other non-materialist things, such an ideology generally is called a religion.
Generally, perhaps, but the general rule does not reach the correct conclusion for the particular case of atheism. Unless, that is, you use a very odd definition of “religion” which either is designed to shoehorn atheism in as a religion and/or which includes pretty much everything in it (are you of the “unicorns don’t exist” religion?)
Did you read those articles? I can summarize them here, but it would make more sense if you would read them.
I would also note that the application of standard thought process that are accepted throughout the world will eventually, for most logical and rational thinkers, result in a conclusion that god does not exist. It’s the same process by which one generally concludes that unicorns and dragon and merpeople don’t exist, though the former two could easily be hiding somewhere in some forest and the last one could well be living in the briny depths. Or, to paraphrase a nice example I heard once, “There could well be a 1997 Chevrolet Camaro orbiting Alpha Centauri, and there could well be an omnipotent god; the evidence for both is roughly equivalent and there is little sense in concluding that one is not the case while maintaining that the other is probable.”
Classifying atheism as a religion is an attempt by religious folks to drag atheism down to their level, where it is considered “just another belief,” and so that it will appeal less to intellectuals. But it doesn’t work well.
And now my ride is here, so we will have to continue this fascinating argument tomorrow.
Although I am an atheist, I have Jewish & Muslim friends who are not, and those “non-denominational” prayers (from what I was told, mostly but not exclusively from Jews) made lots of believers uncomfortable. Mostly people just didn’t say them.
I get to explain both why I’m not a theist and why I’m not a Christian; Jews who are theists have to defend themselves against not understanding that Jesus really truly fulfilled prophecies, etc.
I agree that there are two parts of Christian privilege — which I am calling cultural and religious for lack of a better term — but (other than weekends being Sat/Sun — though there is still extra privileging of Sunday around), Jews don’t get the religious half of Christian privilege just because they’re also religious. It’s not “religious” privilege. (Indeed, asserting that “all religions are the same” is generally considered part of Christian privilege, though that’s oversimplifying things.)
Sailorman,
I read the About.com articles, and I found them unconvincing; the first because it was dealing with such a weak opponent, and the second about the same in its listing of “these are what religion is, and atheism hasn’t any of them, thus, not religion!” (why assumed necessary rather than merely sufficient?) The second article in particular claims that atheism isn’t even an ideology, which seems an attempt to prove too much.
PG-
I am an agnostic, but I agree with Sailorman about atheism. Religion has to be seen not only interms of WHAT you believe, but also HOW you believe. Most (although not all) atheists arrive at their position through reasoning based on available evidence. This is exactly the same as my lack of belief in unicorns. I have no positive evidence of the non-existence of unicorns, but the absence of any evidence supporting their existence makes their non-existence the most likely truth by a HUGE margin. There is no FAITH involved. Thus, atheism is usually a conclusion about the universe, not a religious belief.
Now, it so happens that atheists have not convinced me with their reasoning: I believe that there is at least SOME reason to believe that a God or devine force is possible. (Basically, the First Cause issue, which is best described throught the question, Why is there anything contingent rather than nothing contingent?) However, the fact that I do not AGREE with the reasoning of atheists does not mean that their beliefs were not arrived at through reasoning.
Decnavda,
Sure, but many atheists never believed in God and simply defaulted to believing there is no God (particularly in Communist countries where belief in God is disfavored). You also can find Christians, particularly those who were once atheists and agnostics, who say they came to their beliefs through reasoning as well. See, e.g., C.S. Lewis and his apologia, most prominently Mere Christianity (which I personally thought a decent argument for the existence of a supernatural being, but not as good an argument for Christianity’s having the right of it on the nature of said being).
Sailorman,
I would also note that the application of standard thought process that are accepted throughout the world will eventually, for most logical and rational thinkers, result in a conclusion that god does not exist.
Do you have any evidence to support this?
I’m assuming that by “most logical and rational thinkers” you meant “most people capable of rational thought (i.e. most adults),” and not some much smaller group. So, I interpreted your comment as saying it’s safe to assume most people would be atheists if they only thought hard enough (logically enough) about it. On what basis can we make that assumption? I’m not arguing one way or the other whether atheism is a rational conclusion, only whether we can assume that most people will eventually be persuaded by logic to reach it.
For some reason this turn in the thread is reminding me of a conversation my husband had with his mother. She was saying she thought atheists were “taking the easy way out.” He said, “If that were true, don’t you think more people would be atheists?”
Under your standards, PG, I think a “default atheist” would be less religious than the type of atheist *I* described. A default atheist would simply have never considered the question carefully and would therefor have *NO* beliefs of a religious nature.
As for the regilious who believe they have come by religion rationally, I would have to disagree with what they themselves believe about how they arrived at their beliefs. I do not believe it is possible to accept the tenants of (almost) any religion without a leap of faith that goes beyond what I would be willing to concede is reason, even incorrect reason. Your praise and criticism of Mere Christianity illustates this point wonderfully. I can accept that there are *deists* who have reached their beliefs through the (incorrect, imo) application of reason without resort to faith. I cannot accept that of theistic religion. There is far more evidence for Bigfoot than there is for devine intervention in, or even attention to, the affairs of humans. They may not believe they have made a leap of faith, but they have, in way that atheists and deists have not (necessarily). (This btw is something that irritates me about atheists’ insistance of focusing on the (non-)existence of God when debating religious people. The best arguments in the world for God only get you to Deism. Let’s make them defend their belief that god gave tablets to Moses, or the Jesus rose from the dead, or that angels dictated the Koran to Mohammad. I suspect most atheists would be MUCH happier in a world filled with deists than they are in the current world.)
Daisy,
I do not think that most people will be persuaded by logic to become atheists, because i think that generally speaking people are difficult to persuade by logic.
But the examples I used are reasonably applicable ones: those who have reached a conclusion about the existence of unicorns, mermen, dragons, or star-orbiting Camaros would (if they applied the same reasoning) reach a similar conclusion regarding god.
Since we generally assume that most people who apply observation, logic, and rational thinking will conclude that fantasy creatures do not exist, we can therefore also assume that most people would conclude that god does not exist. Obviously both instances are a “best data” scenario: there is no way to conclusively prove the nonexistence of something, be it mermen or god. The question merely lies in whether one will maintain a position based on lesser data or procedures.
Sailorman,
You are ignoring the possibility of individualized data; that is, the possibility that some people will have knowledge and experiences that cannot be exhibited for others to peer review, but that are nonetheless true. If someone experiences what she describes as the presence of God (and if you hang out with evangelicals* in particular, you’ll find many people who have had such experiences), being a believer does spring from observation, logic and rational thinking, unless you define rational thinking as inherently excluding the possibility of gods. Because gods are not material, their existence isn’t comparable to the existence of unicorns etc.
* I find this sort of paradoxical, because if it took a personal experience of God’s presence for you to become a Christian, why do you bother evangelizing (trying to persuade other people that they ought to believe as you do) despite their not having had such an experience? It’s not like when I’d stand outside the Ben & Jerry’s evangelizing for the Festivus flavor, because then people could get a sample and judge for themselves once I had convinced them to give it a chance; God doesn’t seem to do the free sample thing.
God doesn’t seem to do the free sample thing.
You just need to open your heart.
In seriousness, this was a weird thing for me to get my head around when I first started associating with evangelicals – the way you could go to church twice a week your entire life but somehow still not be good enough because you hadn’t had that personal experience. In my husband’s family, he and his sister are baptized and his brother and other sister never were, and it was extra weird to me because the two that weren’t baptized – by the time I knew them – were more conventionally religious than the two who were. He now thinks that he didn’t really have a personal experience of God – that he just wanted to believe so badly that he convinced himself he did. I think it’s pretty hard to remember what was going on in your head when you were 13, what was “real” and what was a pose.
Sailorman,
I do not think that most people will be persuaded by logic to become atheists, because i think that generally speaking people are difficult to persuade by logic.
Ah, okay. This is what I was trying to get at with my sentence about about what you meant by “logical and rational thinkers” — whether just “people capable of rational thought,” or some smaller group.
Of course, I’m not sure I agree even that most people who’ve used rational thought to conclude their are no unicorns will eventually conclude there are no gods. Most adults have no emotional or cultural attachment to unicorns, and lack of belief in unicorns doesn’t have any major impact on one’s worldview and way of life, especially given most people never actually believed in unicorns in the first place. A more accurate analogy would be belief in something of similar significance to believes as God/gods, but the only examples I can think of are related religious ideas (i.e. the afterlife).
Daisy: the connection of what you wish was true to what you conclude is true is the issue I was referring to in my post. Whether you have an emotional or cultural attachment to something, or whether you want it to be true, has piss-all to do (in my view) with whether it is true or not. This is IMO one of the basic underpinnings of rationalism and logic. But many people do not, unfortunately, understand that.
Not really. The treatment of people who claim to have had personal interactions with God is the same as the treatment of people who claims to have had personal interactions with aliens, giant talking squids, or unicorns.
There is really very little functional difference between saying “I was in my boat all by myself and a mermaid appeared, chatted with me for an hour, and slipped under the waves” or “I watched a tree fall and it didn’t make any noise!” or “aliens came to visit me last night” and saying “I was on my knees praying and God spoke to me in my head.” That we have a tendency to believe the person praying is a function of what we want to believe, not what makes sense to believe.
So, judging from the definition of rationalism that you appear to be using in your argument, do you define rational thinking as including the belief in the existence of mermen, unicorns, dragons, alien abductions, and talking squid?
I don’t.
Part of that is that rational thinking includes some obligation to process your personal experiences through a frame of reality and physical understanding, i.e. “maybe those thunderclouds have something to do with it” verus “that lightning is a sign from God.”
And because gods are imaginary, their existence (or lack thereof) is perfectly comparable to the existence of unicorns, etc. Multiple intersections and all that.
Once you start talking about a god which actually interacts with the known universe (be it through miracles, holy insemination, visions, earthquakes, or what have you) then the “not material” part becomes moot and god can be evaluated in the same manner as anything else.
If you want to postulate the existence of a god who does nothing but exist without influencing anything, much as the orbiting Camaro would have zero influence on us, go nuts.
Once you start talking about a god which actually interacts with the known universe (be it through miracles, holy insemination, visions, earthquakes, or what have you) then the “not material” part becomes moot and god can be evaluated in the same manner as anything else.
Visions aren’t material. You can show another person the miracle, holy insemination, earthquake etc.; you can’t show another person your vision or God’s speaking to you in your head. In contrast, you CAN show another person a unicorn or orbiting Camaro if it exists. I’m not sure why this isn’t an obvious distinction between the material and non-material.
Sailorman-
The difference between god and a unicorn is that there is no real, observable phenomenon that is plausibly explained by the existence of a unicorn. In the case of god, that phenomenon is the existence of the universe itself – why is there something rather than nothing? The fact that all natural phenomena require a cause (are contingent on the existence of other phenomena) implies that there is a First Cause that does not require a cause, and is therefor by definition supernatural.
Admittedly there is huge definition problem here: What exactly do we mean by “god”? There is no reason to believe that such a First Cause is in any form similar to any god or gods imagined by humans, or that it even has awareness. Still, as any such First Cause would be supernatural, whatever it might be could be reasonably described as “divine”, if it exists.
And, at the very least, even if you are not persuaded by my logic here, can you honestly say that my argument rises to a level of unreason equal to arguing for the existence of unicorns?
Decnavada,
I would say that the god you are describing is a god which is quite different from that envisioned by 99.9999% of people who “believe in God.” If you want to postulate the existence of a creator of the universe who otherwise doesn’t do anything, I have no data, therefore no objection. I don’t see that, personally, as any more or less likely than the other options, of which two examples are “spontaneously sprung into existence” and “has always been in existence.”
But of course, that’s not the sort of god that people are generally arguing about when they argue the existence of god.
Moreover, it is somewhat telling if people push the “universe created by god” thing. It’s one of a variety of options (two are listed above) and for all I know the options are infinite in number. Of the various options, all seem to be equally likely (based on our essentially zero knowledge, we have to assume they’re all the same) and only a few seem to involve a godlike creator. On a statistical level it seems more likely that it wasn’t created by god than that it was.
Well, visions are material insofar as thought is a serious of neuronal connections. We can theoretically do a live MRI and watch people’s heads when God speaks to them.
But in any case, I’m not really disputing materialism. I’m merely noting that there are other better ways of looking at it, including ‘imaginary status.’ I might also note that your argument, if I didn’t know better, almost seems to be asking the disbelievers to prove a negative, which is (of course) impossible to do.
Part of the material aspect and the evaluative function of which I speak is what you DO with those visions. Even if visions aren’t themselves testable, it tends to be that those with visions like to tell people about them, and generally claim other purportedly-testable interactions with god. When we look at what god tells people to do, and how often god is apparently wrong, that would ordinarily lead us to distrust the visions.
Well, visions are material insofar as thought is a serious of neuronal connections. We can theoretically do a live MRI and watch people’s heads when God speaks to them.
And what do you think the MRI of a person who is experiencing God’s presence would look like?
I’m not saying disbelievers are obligated to prove a negative. I’m pointing out that your claim that one cannot believe in God based on observation, logic and rational thinking is based on your own limited set of experiences. It is perfectly rational for someone who never has experienced God’s presence to think that there is no God. By the same token, it is rational for someone who has had that experience to think there is a God. Not having had the experience, I don’t think there’s a God, but I’m not as certain as you are that people who have had the experience actually were delusional in a psycho-medical sense. Hence, agnosticism: so far as I know, in applying my logic, observation and rational thinking, there’s no God. But not atheism, which would require believing that there’s no possibility that God exists and is observable by some.
Ten prove it. If it exists, prove it. Prove it in a way that the rest of us can observe. The scientific method isn’t an impossible standard. It’s demanding an absolute minimum of rigor.
Until then: nope. You’ve got absolutely no cigars.
Mandolin,
Could you prove for me that there is such a thing as the emotion of love (as opposed to sexual attraction and self-interest)? The fact that you can’t observe a lover’s or believer’s experiences, or may not have them yourself, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Again: It is perfectly rational for someone who never has experienced God’s presence to think that there is no God. By the same token, it is rational for someone who has had that experience to think there is a God.
PG, I do not think you are using the proper definition of atheism when you say: “Hence, agnosticism: so far as I know, in applying my logic, observation and rational thinking, there’s no God. But not atheism, which would require believing that there’s no possibility that God exists and is observable by some.”
Agnosticism would be “we don’t really know one way or the other, and both probabilities seem equally likely.” Atheism would be “from what we know, it is reasonable to conclude that god does not exist.” Generally speaking, atheists do not believe that there is no possibility god exists, because that is a bit too close to proving a negative.
I am an atheist. I believe that there is a possibility that God exists. It’s the same possibility, in my mind, as a mermaid or an orbiting Camaro. But I live in a world which is not mathematically perfect and we use language which is “close enough.” So I (like pretty much everyone) call that “concluding it doesn’t exist” because it would get tiring to qualify everything, just it would get tiring to constantly be turning around to see if the wall color had changed in my room (which it could! Randomly through quantum action! or God could have done it!)
What your post really amounts to is asking me to accept that “observable by some” (i.e. unverifiable claims) should weigh equally with, or outweigh, the other facts and lack of facts discussing god. Why should they? they don’t for anything else.
There are plenty o things that we assume are true without the scientific method. Just off the top of my head, the Axiom of Choice comes to mind. And mathematicians generally assume it’s true because it seems true, and lots of other things work better when we make that assumption. (The Conservapedia, by the way, used to have a page all about why the Axiom of Choice is a liberal conspiracy, essentially. And there are plenty of things in modern mathematics that a lot of Christian schools won’t teach, precisely because they feel that those things require the sort of faith that should be reserved for religion.)
Er… we don’t assume that the Axiom of Choice is true, exactly, so much as we agree to use a language of mathematics which accepts it as true. Or, to quote from a random Vanderbilt page, “this means we are agreeing to the convention that we shall permit ourselves to use a hypothetical choice function f in proofs, as though it “exists” in some sense, even in cases where we cannot give an explicit example of it or an explicit algorithm for it.”
In the context of mathematics this makes perfect sense. The important thing is to speak the same language–see, e.g., the differences in conclusions and traits between Euclidean and non-Euclidian geometry. It’s not a conspiracy about whether parallel lines meet, it’s simply a mode of communication. In that respect, an agreement to proceed as if the AOC is true is not especially dissimilar from the use of other mathematical terms for which no real world analogue exists, such as i (the square root of -1).
You mean this article? You’re summarizing it wrong. The article is not saying that AOC is a liberal conspiracy by its very existence, it’s lamenting the fact that AOC is (in the author’s opinion) improperly presented and that the issues behind accepting the AOC as true aren’t addressed at a lower level of study.
If true, that is insane, and seems like another black mark against theism.
Agnosticism would be “we don’t really know one way or the other, and both probabilities seem equally likely.” Atheism would be “from what we know, it is reasonable to conclude that god does not exist.”
You are right about atheism, wrong about agnosticism. First, the probabilities do not have to be *equally* likely. If I thought there were a one in a million chance that god existed, I would call myself an atheist. But if I thought there were a one in four chance that god exists, I would use the term agnostic. More importantly, there are multiple ways to get to “I don’t know.” For my part, the assertion that god exists seems absurd to me. However, the assertion that god, or some divine force does not exist *also* seems absurd to me. But presumably, one and only one of those assertions must be true. So, I don’t know. Agnosticism.
I would say that the god you are describing is a god which is quite different from that envisioned by 99.9999% of people who “believe in God.”
Um, no, actually not. If you had even said, “95%” I would have admitted you were probably right, but you go too far. Deism has a long history among Western intellectuals, and still has some adherents. I suspect that vast majority of people who call themselves agnostic (about 2% of the U.S. population) would agree with my definition about what we consider a possibility, as opposed to “Hey, maybe Jesus or Odin or Ganesha do exist, how should I know?” I also suspect my definition of god would also be considered viable by at least a couple of sects of Buddhists.
Huh. That Conservapedia page has been edited since the last time I looked at it, I think. What’s now the “controversy” section used to be much longer and was basically the entire article.
From the A Beka curriculum page, not saying anything about the Axiom of Choice, but with the same sort of railing against “modern math” that I’ve seen from other Christian math books:
I believe in G-d. However, I disagree as much with stuff like that as I do with people trying to say that science proves that there’s no G-d. (I’m a mathematician.)
(There was a page I saw a few years ago, a homeschooling advocate talking about why the math taught in public schools would lead kids away from Christianity, that was amazing in both because the author did seem to have a pretty good understanding of set theory and abstract algebra and because he seemed to be going out of his way to explain it all wrong. I really couldn’t think of any explanation for his assertions other than deliberate misdirection. And now I can’t find that page, after several google searches.)
PG’s line of argument seems to be following very strongly off of William James, in which case I would suggest that just as we accept the axiom of choice provisionally in order to speak a language of mathematics, believers accept some form of divinity in order to speak a language of theology. Both provisionally accept an unprovable entity as “true” in order to proceed.
James would say that for atheists, believing in God is not a “live option”, which is fine, but says nothing about the experiences of those of us for whom it is a live knowledge.
My religious beliefs might be strange in that I think that God is a social construct and that this is sufficient for me to “believe”, because social construction isn’t a dirty word (phrase) and because what relationship I have with God is intersubjectively determined by the avenues through which I access spirituality (which are heavily steeped in Jewish religious tradition). But the way I conceptualize God is less as a physical actor in the world, and more as a concept (in which case “believing” in God is closer to “believing” in a concept of justice, e.g., slavery is wrong, that we can’t prove in any objective sense than it is in believing in a Chevy orbiting a star).
(I don’t really have the same views as Gordon Kaufman, but he lays out a similar type of argument as to the constitution of God in In the Beginning…Creativity, which argues that God “is” serendipitous creativity).
Obviously you have to accept certain things in order to have certain discussions–i.e., discussing “what god intends” may require a prior assumption that god exists. But it is pointless to raise that argument in the context of discussing whether god exists, hmm?
The analogy to AOC isn’t really workable. You can have a mathematical conversation with almost any set of postulates, the most simple example being, say, Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, which work off of different principles. Any mathematical conversation you have is going to have to include, if taken to its extreme, some assumptions which can’t be proved (thanks, Godel.)
so when you say
That’s wrong in a sense: we don’t NEED to accept AOC; we can just speak a different language in which it is, say, assumed to be false. And if we do assume it, it is categorized differently than if we prove it.
So the comparison fails:
The crucial difference is that theology assumes divinity; that sort of circular reasoning is like proving the AOC is true by assuming it is true. You can’t get there from here.
Taking your comparison at face value: The conclusions of theologists based on an assumption of god’s existence may hold true if god exists. But they don’t say a damn thing about whether god exists or not. The conclusions of mathematicians based on an assumption of AOC would * hold true if AOC were true, but don’t say a damn thing about whether AOC is true.
The problem lies in the fact that any mathematician who understands AOC would admit that it’s an assumption and explain why it’s a convenience, while those who believe in god generally consider it neither an assumption or convenience, but reality. And that’s where the comparison falls apart.
*the may-would difference is the result of a the fact that math is based on formal logic.
I definitely wouldn’t consider my belief in G-d as “reality” in that sense. I believe because it works for me. Other people don’t believe because it doesn’t work for them.
Which is basically a William James style view, and one I agree with. I don’t think you can really hold any normative belief with metaphysically-true objective strength (though many people, wrongly, do on a lot of things) — God is no different.
Sailorman,
I think I’m following fairly standard definitions of atheism:
Random House – 1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God; 2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Heritage – Denial that there is a God. (Compare agnosticism.)
Atheism goes much further than “it is reasonable to conclude that god does not exist.” When there’s mixed evidence, “it is reasonable to conclude” a whole bunch of things, like the belief that Saddam Hussein had a viable WMD program — or the belief that Saddam Hussein didn’t have a viable WMD program. Atheism, as you’ve presented it, stakes out the position that there is no more reason to believe in God than in any material thing (unicorns, orbiting Camaros) that cannot be seen or touched.
David,
In this discussion, I’m not going with James’s view because I’m not trying to discuss theology or moral philosophy; I’m talking about how certain experience are truly known only to the people who have them, and the experience of love or of the presence of God seem to me to be those sorts of experiences. “Works for me” is a much larger category, into which “have experienced God’s presence and therefore believe in God through observation and logic” is a subset.